by Jade Alicandro Mace

Cleansing in the spring is a familiar and popular subject. But what about the concept of harmonizing with the spring? Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and especially Chinese 5-Element Theory, provides us with a beautiful framework for understanding the spring and its energetics.  When we’re attuned with the natural influences of this season, we can more easily tap into the rich gifts it has to offer.

First, a little background.

In TCM each season corresponds with an Element and an Organ System.  The spring is associated with the Wood Element and the Chinese Liver-Gallbladder organ system (different from our anatomical liver and gallbladder!) and meridians. Understanding this organ/element pair and its associations is a great place to start when it comes to harmonizing with the spring.  

Keywords and phrases for the Liver-Gallbladder/Wood Element/Spring: 

Upwards moving energy, yang, growth, clear vision and purpose, decisiveness and decision-making, ambition, hopefulness, starting new projects, productivity

Sounds just about right, doesn’t it?

In today's interview, we speak with local herbalist, Madelon Hope, who is also the director of the Boston School of Herbal Studies. Madelon has over 20 years of experience working with herbs and has trained budding herbalists since 2002 through her apprenticeship program. The Boston School has been a part of Herbstalk since our first event and we are pleased to share more of Madelon's work with you!


How did you first get interested in plants or herbalism? What inspired you to learn about herbalism?

As a child growing up in New York City, I found a haven among the plants and trees at a local park. Much later, when experiencing a serious back problem, plants were critical to my healing. I will always be grateful to Solomon’s seal for helping me regain flexibility in my joints, ligaments and tendons and St. John's Wort oil for relief from pain. They were my allies and companions on my healing journey. I found wonderful teachers on this path – Rosemary Gladstar, Matthew Wood, Phyllis Light, William LeSassier and a bit later, Paul Bergner, among many others.  

Soon, I began to incorporate herbs and flower essences in my therapy practice. As the therapy field became more medication oriented, I became more attracted to plants. Over a period of several years, it became clear to me that my path was among the plants and that I was primarily an herbalist. Their magic and power to heal and transform lives have inspired me ever since. 

by Juliette Abigail Carr

It seems like folks have a hard time making a really good milky oats tincture.  When I teach advanced tincture making, we always discuss past “failures” or at least tinctures that didn’t turn out how students expected, since there is more space to learn from our mistakes than from easy successes.  Milky Oats is one that comes up often, so I’m going to explain the little tricks to growing it and making medicine.

Oat (Avena sativa) is beloved as a restoring, nutritive nervine tonic (medicine whose effects build slowly over time).  In women’s health we cherish oat for its properties as a mineral rejuvenator and protector against adrenal exhaustion -- goodbye postpartum depression!  Hello restful sleep, coping skills, and an end to feeling stretched too thin, exhausted, and sapped of vitality.  As an antidepressant nervine it has a grounding, moistening effect for folks who feel burnt out, dried up, and frazzled.  It is a nurturing rejuvenator to the nervous system and adrenal glands, kidney and liver function, and it restores the minerals your body needs for your heart, muscles, bones, and nerve transmission to work well. It bestows a feeling of general well-being to those of us lucky enough to bask in its welcoming green glow.  As is common, the tea is a gentler, more long-term builder known for its mineral-related actions, while the tincture is stronger and more known for antidepressant and nervine actions. 

by Patrice Green, Green Aromatics


You may have seen this unique plant in your wanderings and wondered about it. Indian Pipe, also called Ghost Plant, (Monotropa uniflora) is a shamanic plant that offers spiritual and medicinal properties. 

Indian Pipe steals its carbon stores from a mycorrhizal fungus living in the root zone of the forest. Mycorrhizal fungi are beneficial (symbiotic) organisms that vastly expand the absorptive surface area of a tree’s root system and aid in the uptake of specific nutrients such as phosphorus. In exchange for scavenging for nutrients the tree reciprocates by providing carbohydrates for the fungus.  

Germinating seedlings of Indian Pipe chemically mimic the tree’s root system causing the mycorrhizal fungi to attach to the roots of the imposter in a kind of biological identity theft. The tree sends its sugars produced in photosynthesis to the fungus mycelium which in turn passes some along to the thieving Indian pipe. This arrangement is called epiparasitism.  Indian pipe is only able to feed on one group of mycorrhizal fungi, the Russula. These beneficial fungi are able to attach to a wide variety of tree species including oaks and beech. Cool, moist and shaded conditions favoring the accumulation of thick deposits of leaf litter favor the development of the mycorrhizal fungus and mark the kind of location where Indian pipe is likely to grow. 

Because it can only feed on Russula, Indian Pipe is an extremely rare plant and cannot be transplanted.  This plant should be harvested sparingly, only when large colonies are found, and with profound respect for the plant spirit.  I cannot stress this enough.

Today we are honored to share an interview that took place at last year's Herbstalk event in June 2014. North Carolina herbalist Juliet Blankespoor filmed Vermont herbalist Larken Bunce talking about her herbal path. We thank both of these inspiring teachers & leaders for sharing this wonderful footage with us. To learn more about their work please visit their websites:

Juliet Blankespoor: 
Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine
Blog Castanea

Larken Bunce:
www.larkenbunce.com
Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism