jim mcdonald: There's not really a coffee substitute. Like if John was supposed to come visit me and John couldn't make it and someone else came and visited me, it would be weird if I referred to that person as a John substitute, rather than just referring to them by their name as they are. So I don't want to do that with plants either.
John Gallagher: I've been referring to all of my visitors since you last left my house as a jim substitute.
Tara Ruth: That's why you were calling me jim when I visited.
John Gallagher: And Thomas Easley was tired of me calling me jim every time we were hanging out.
jim mcdonald: You were like, "jim, your beard's gotten so long."
John Gallagher: You are listening to HerbMentor Radio by LearningHerbs. I'm John Gallagher
Tara Ruth: And I'm Tara Ruth. Today, jim mcdonald returns to HerbMentor Radio. jim is a mostly self-taught herbalist from Southeast Michigan and is one of the herbal community's most beloved teachers. jim blends traditional folk influences and mixes it up with a bit of 19th century eclectic and physio medical vitalism. He teaches Foundational Herbcraft, a 10 part series on HerbMentor and also teaches many in person and online classes and plant walks. You can read a ton of amazing articles and learn about everything jim offers at herbcraft.org.
John Gallagher: jim, welcome back.
Tara Ruth: Welcome.
jim mcdonald: It's good to be here. It's been a long time both talking virtually and being in person.
John Gallagher: I know. It used to be that every year, once or twice maybe, I would see you at an herb conference. You'd be doing an herb walk, teaching classes. We'd hang out. I'd pull my video camera out and record you and so many of those of course videos are there on HerbMentor. But yeah, it's been a really long time.
jim mcdonald: It's almost as if something in the world has interrupted the last couple years.
John Gallagher: Yeah. I wonder what that was. But also jim, it wasn't long before that, the pandemic, that you had a big health scare. You describe it as a whole opening up and the septum of your heart and that led to a lot of blood without oxygen pumping around your body and your organs stopped working well. And many HerbMentor members have reached out and thanked you for your generous work. When we said, "Hey, we're going to be interviewing jim. You have any questions?" And many people, the top question was jim, tell us how you're doing. Tell us about how it's been, your recovery. So I was just wondering if you just wanted to go right into that, because that's sort of last where we left off. Because I stopped podcasting for a while and then that happened, the pandemic happened, and we're back. So catch everybody up.
jim mcdonald: Yeah. Well I'm mostly okay. I'm not all okay. I'm mostly okay. Yeah. I go back and think about it. There was a more than phone book size pile of papers that was like the charts and everything. So trying to go back and figure out exactly what happened is difficult. And the different doctors had ... They all told me different stuff about what happened. But what seems pretty clear is that you have septum separating your two ventricles. It's not supposed to have a hole in it. And then a hole opened up in mine and so rather than blood going into my lungs and getting oxygen, a lot of it went over to the other side and got pumped around my body. And over the course of a few days, I basically started dying. Which I mean, everyone's going to do, but I recommend not rushing it.
jim mcdonald: And the whole experience was ... Honestly, if you think it was pretty terrible, I'm right with you. It was really pretty terrible. In terms of how I'm doing now, I mean, I can go out and bike six miles around the curvy, hilly, bumpy dirt roads or I can hike all day and do all of that. But there's still some lingering stuff. I never quite got all of the feeling back into my feet, because there's some nerve damage from just being in the coma that they put me in while they were keeping me alive. That's a bummer. It's not totally numb, but it's not like it was before and I kind of miss feeling my toes. I sometimes have some mild aphasia and some glitchy, cognitive processing, which is not something that I'm very fond of. And so, just heads up, I may say a wrong word here and there. I know that a couple years ago, I really confused my students when they asked me if I could just address something and I told them, "Oh, don't worry. We'll get to that yesterday."
jim mcdonald: At least that was a funny thing. Right? I was like, "Okay, that was funny." And there's no shortage of medical trauma going on. But overall, all things considered, I think I'm doing okay. I'm still walking around. I'm able to keep teaching. I'm around for Stephanie and the kids and the dog and the cats and the ferrets. So yeah, life is pretty good to still be in.
John Gallagher: And have you found that this journey has been ... That you've been learning ... Have herbs helped you? A lot of people are like, "What herbs have you used?" But I mean, I imagine this is a lot about just slow healing. But in supporting the body and all, what's been most helpful to you?
jim mcdonald: Well, because my particular episode of nearly being on the other side of the ground involved my heart, it's been a lot of cardiovascular trophorestoratives. So Hawthorne, I'm sure everyone would guess, has been something that I've been on top of. Also cactus grandiflorus or selenicereus grandiflorus is the current name. That's another cardiovascular trophorestorative. And stone root and Linden. I like mistletoe. And it's just basically things to ... More so than medicinal stuff, just nourishing tonics that really help heal tissue or improve functioning. And mostly focusing on that. As well as doubling down on some important nutrients that I was using before, but with more regularity of omega-3 essential fatty acids, either in the way of good fish or fish oil. Or if I was vegan, I could do algae oil. Vitamin D vitamin K2, CoQ10. Really into taurine lately.
jim mcdonald: So just trying to make sure ... I think that it's the foundation to anything that any herbalist should be doing is you have to make sure that all of the nutritional bases are covered because they are the raw materials that your body uses to do all the stuff that it needs to do. And although I certainly love plants more than I love isolated taurine, there's situations where you've got to make sure that you're thinking that you have the nutrients before you use herbs that are compensating for a lack of certain nutrients. Or maybe an increased need for certain nutrients while you're healing or recovering from something.
Tara Ruth: That makes sense. Yeah. You mentioned mistletoe. I'm curious. I've never worked with mistletoe. How do you work with that plant?
jim mcdonald: Mistletoe is just a super cool plant. I mean, there's so much storied history around it.
Tara Ruth: Yeah.
jim mcdonald: And I've just liked the plant because it's ... I guess it's a parasite and if you're a treated mistletoe's growing on, you might not think is the greatest thing in the world. But I've had just this attraction to it. It has a really unique and interesting flavor that I find compelling. And there's a guy that runs a company called Galen's Way.
John Gallagher: Oh yeah.
jim mcdonald: And unfortunately Galen's Way is a practitioner only herb company. But it is a place that you can get fresh mistletoe extract because they're located in Northern California, which is the only place that European mistletoe is naturalized in. So I feel really good about that because ... Not that it doesn't work as a dried herb, but if you think about with dried herbs, one of the questions is how long has it been dried? We all know from basil that if you have freshly dried basil, it's great. If you have eight year old basil, it's maybe not so great. So the fact that he's able to collect that mistletoe from the area that they're around and extract it while it's still fresh is pretty cool. And all of their stuff is phenomenal.
Tara Ruth: Very cool. Yeah. I grew up in Northern California and there is mistletoe all over my favorite parks and I remember seeing it and then I was like, "Oh, I didn't realize that was a medicinal herb," when I started getting into herbs. So very cool.
John Gallagher: I'm learning something new here. I've never used mistletoe before. Very cool.
jim mcdonald: Yeah. I used to have a friend ... I mean, I still have a friend. A friend that I have in the UK would occasionally send me mistletoe and they would be like, "Here's mistletoe that was growing on apple and here's mistletoe that was growing on oak and here's mistletoe that was growing on Hawthorne.
Tara Ruth: Oh my gosh.
jim mcdonald: And I was like, "Ooh, mistletoe that was growing on Hawthorne. That's pretty awesome."
Tara Ruth: Whoa.
jim mcdonald: So that's the added benefit. If you can get it right from the person who collects it, you can get a sense of what it was growing on.
John Gallagher: Yeah. jim, this gets into what I appreciate about you so much as an herbalist is that you look at things on that level. It's like, whoa, a missile toe that's growing on Hawthorne. And people might be wondering as they're starting learning about herbs or on their herbal journey, is just like, how did you go in that direction of herbalism? Just how does one get that so intimately connected that you're like, "Oh, I want the mistletoe growing on the Hawthorne over the apple."?
jim mcdonald: When I was ... I guess it would've been the mid '90s. I don't entirely know what year. I think like maybe '94 or '96 or one of those. Probably '94. I was in college. I lived on this old overgrown farm with 30 acres. And my roommate left out a book on herbs and I started reading it. And at the same time that I started reading through this book, I was passing by the Michigan state botanical gardens every day. And I would see like, "Oh, there's the plant that grows next to the ... There's the other plant that grows next to the barn. Oh, there's the plant that's growing in the woods." And there were nice little signs that said what they were. And so it's like, oh, burdock, nettles. Is that nettles for sure? Oh, it's stung me. It must be nettles."
jim mcdonald: And so the first thing that I started doing, I mean, really the first herbs that I was using were things that I picked out of the land that I was living on. And at that time, not that herbalism was not popular, but it was certainly a lot less popular. And if you went into a health food store, they had these nice little white boxes of Alvita tea that you could get and they might have Herb Farm or Nature's Answer tinctures or herbal extracts and a few other things. I know that Traditional Medicinals was around then, but they weren't in all the grocery stores like they are now. But that idea of going to a store and buying stuff out of a box or a bottle didn't appeal to me as much as like, "Oh, here's this plant that's growing all over. I'm going to dig it up and pour some boiling water on it and then drink it. I'm going to collect a bunch of stuff and throw it my bathtub and then soak in the bathtub for a while. I'm going to start making this and that."
jim mcdonald: So really right from the get go, I was interested in being engaged with the plants that were growing around me. And prior to finding that book, I was not particularly interested in health or wellness. I was interested in being outside and nature and spending the day hiking around the park. And it was more of an outgrowth out of that kind of connection to place than it was out of I'm going to use natural stuff because natural is better. It was more like, "Oh, wow. This is something that connect me more to the place that I'm at."
jim mcdonald: And although I do not live in a place where mistletoe is, what I've tried to do as often as possible, and I certainly can't do this with all the herbs I use, but what I try to do as often as possible is to have some kind of connection to stuff. Because I feel like sometimes people will say buy local, but I think that buying local regionally is a great idea. But if you're getting stuff that grows outside of your region, buy things that you're connected to. So I can say, "Oh, I get certain herbs from Andrea and Mathias at Healing Spirits Herb Farm, or I've gotten certain herbs from Sean Croke out in the Pacific Northwest or James Jungwirth out in the Pacific Northwest." And I know those people. I've talked with them, I've interacted with them. And so I can feel really good that even if something isn't necessarily geographically close to me, I know the people that it's coming from and I have a relationship with them and I have a trusted faith in their ethics and their medicine making. And that to me is maybe sometimes more important than just saying I bought this within a 25 mile radius of where I live.
Tara Ruth: Yeah, absolutely. It makes me think about ... You talking about the beginning of your journey with the herbs. There are some HerbMentor members who are asking if you had the opportunity to go back to this time when you were just getting into herbal medicine, what bits of wisdom or tricks of the trade would you give as advice to this younger self who was getting outside and exploring with the nettles and all the herbs growing around you?
jim mcdonald: I think that one of the things that I really strive to do now, as much as I can, and I recommend to people who study with me, is that we ... And I say we as in a lot of the people, not everybody, because I know people come from different cultures and have different backgrounds and people listening to this may not have had this experience. But in the mainstream American society, North American society, we have this idea, maybe because of the way we've been educated, to think there is some kind of right thing. And if you study correctly, you will learn the right thing and not the wrong thing. And then once you know it, then you've learned something and it's something that you know. And I definitely, while I was learning, I tried to learn things so I would know things.
jim mcdonald: And now there's been so many times over the two plus decades that I've been doing this that there was something that I knew and then I learned something new and I had to rethink it and let go of what I knew to open up to something different or a more nuanced to refined understanding of that. And so what I teach now is less about stuff that I "know" and more where I'm at in my wondering and exploration of plants. And I view that as like I've gotten better at this. "Knowing" less stuff and more open-endedly wondering about things with a very open mind that is always ready to change my thinking if the situation arises, I think is a way better way to approach plants because I think a lot of people feel like it's a race or a contest to know the most stuff as fast as you can. You know?
Tara Ruth: Mm-hmm.
jim mcdonald: And there are things that I learned over the course of years and years and years that maybe someone could have taught me in ... Well, I don't know. I could teach someone in 20 minutes. That I could go back and say, "Oh, I wasted all that time." But actually the fact that I went on this path or this journey or this path of inquiry about something and learned it the way I did, helped me. And I think that that's been useful to me to not think, "Oh, my goal is that I want to waste as little time as possible and I want to know all the right stuff right away."
jim mcdonald: And maybe one of the ways that I see this happen a lot is when people are talking about medicine making and they're like, "I want to figure out the best way to make this thing. Someone tell me what the best way to make this is." And what I always tell everyone ... Actually, I just taught an herbal medicine making class at the Great Lakes Foragers gathering, which was really cool. And I said, "Well, this is the way that I do it. But the reason I do it this way is because I've made tinctures or oils or salves or different kinds of preparations. I've made them in four, five, 10, 12 different ways and this is the way that I decided that I liked best. However, I know other people who make them different ways and they like that best. But it's not based on, oh, I make it this way because this is the right way. It's like, I make it this way and this is the way of all the ways that I try that I like best and I find to be the most effective. And if someone else finds something else to be more effective, then that's awesome for them, but this is what I'm doing. And it's based on experience. It's based on practice rather than because this is the right way."
John Gallagher: And do you find your classes ... When you're teaching students, like the apprenticeship, do you start with new class notes every year just because you're just like, "Well, this is what I think now."?
jim mcdonald: I try to go through my class notes every year and fix stuff that either is wrong or I've found better ways to understand. Okay. Certain people will understand this. I don't think that you will because you don't live in a place with really intense winters. Last year I went through and start to finish reread all my class notes and fixed them. Although every year before that, or every year or two, I should say, to be fair, there were some years that I slacked off, I would go through and I'd be like, "Oh, I need to fix this and I need to fix that." Where this relates to winters and roads is that in Michigan, we have really terrible roads because we have winters that freeze everything. And every year people will come by and they'll patch all the potholes.
jim mcdonald: And then after you patch all the potholes for a bunch of years, you end up with a really bumpy road, not because there's potholes all over it but because there's patched potholes all over it. And what I had to do last year was, "Oh, I need to redo the whole road." And in some cases really rewrite a lot of the class and change major sections of it so that it could be up to snuff with my teaching. And also every once in a while someone will contact me. Or I guess it's been a while since I have been spending physical time with a lot of people at conference and stuff, but people will say, "Oh, I learned from you that ..." Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, "Well, you didn't learn that from me. I don't think that."
jim mcdonald: And then I'll go back and find, on my own website, a page that I haven't updated in a while that says something that I thought but no longer think. And I think that it's great that that's happening because to me, what would be much more tragic than realizing, "Ugh, my website has wrong stuff on it that I have to fix again," would be like, "Wow, I wrote something eight or 12 years ago and I haven't learned anything new to add or refine to it." And to me, that's one of the things that keeps my scatter brain engaged with herbalism is that it's just infinitely expansive and there's so much stuff to learn and to learn better and to understand with more nuance. And so that keeps me engaged. It keeps me from getting bored.
John Gallagher: Well, it's sort of why on HerbMentor and other LearningHerbs courses, but mainly HerbMentor, I've never offered a certification in anything. Because I always feel like the certification is in knowing inside of you that, "Oh yeah, I'm never going to know everything there is to know and my knowledge is going to keep growing. And my curiosity and my questions are going to keep growing." And when you get to that point where you just feel great steeped in the not knowing and that there's always more to learn, then you're like, "I've made it."
jim mcdonald: I was trying to get an herb from a place. It's like a low dose botanical and not a lot ... It's something you can go to the store and buy. And I contacted one of the places that someone told me stocked it, and they said, "Well, we need your license or your certification." And I'm like, "Well, there's no license or certification for herbalists anywhere in the US. It's binding." And they said, "Well, we just need something that says that you have completed a course of study." And I was like, "Well, I don't really have that." But I said, "I've taught for the American Herbalist Guild and the International Herb Symposium and I've been running a school and I've been in practice for this long." And they're like, "No, no. None of that is good enough. None of that is good. You have to show us that you completed some course of study." And I said, "So wait, my students could get an account with you, but I can't get an account with you?" And they kind of grudgingly said, "Well, yeah. You don't meet the requirements to be a practitioner."
John Gallagher: Don't you have a printer? jim, you could just the print out your own certificate.
jim mcdonald: It was an issue of me being idealistic and being like, "You know what, you don't want to sell it to me, I'll just find somewhere else to get it from." And I eventually did. And that worked out okay. Actually the person I eventually got it from was cooler and I knew them. So I was able to make that connection rather than getting it through a wholesaler.
John Gallagher: People might wonder because I think it's ... How many of the herbal medicines that you use, when you say most of them are ones either you make yourself or you get through connections like that, like beat versus ... Because it's so cool when you can like get things that no one else would think of that someone you know have made or that you've made.
jim mcdonald: I think that like if I had to guess, probably 80-ish percent of the stuff that I use is stuff that I have collected or gotten from people recently. And then maybe another ... How about this? Let's say 75%, either I've collected or I've gotten from people regionally like local herb farmers in the area within my bio region. And then another 10% is maybe, or 10 to 15% is stuff I've gotten out of my region but I have some kind of connection to the people I'm getting to. And then the rest of it is the commercial or trade. I don't have a way to get star anise from someone that I know. I don't have a way to get chocolate from someone that I know. And I'm not going to stop ... I meet some people sometimes and they're like, "I decided I'm not going to use any herbs that don't grow in my bio region." I'm like, "Chocolate? Coffee? I like those enough that I'm not going to stop using them."
John Gallagher: Exactly.
Tara Ruth: Totally.
jim mcdonald: Someone once said to me, "You can roast cleaver seeds and they have caffeine in them and they're related to coffee. They're like coffee."
John Gallagher: Oh, that sounds hard.
jim mcdonald: And I'm like, "Cleaver seeds are small and seasonal. That doesn't sound like ... I can pull them off of my cat, but then I'm going to get cat hair in all my stuff."
Tara Ruth: Mm. Delicious.
jim mcdonald: It's not a bad idea and everyone should make cleaver seed coffee and try it out. But when you do that, you'll be like, "Wow, this might be hard to maintain throughout the year."
John Gallagher: Right.
Tara Ruth: I've never made it. Does it give you that stimulation?
jim mcdonald: It's not the same. I think it's not fair to call anything a coffee or a chocolate substitute. Like I've always felt really bad for carob that no one just thinks about carob as carob. They're like, "Carob is what we'll give you if for some reason you can't enjoy chocolate." That's not really fair.
John Gallagher: Right. Right. Or perhaps chicory with coffee or something like that.
jim mcdonald: Right. Also, there's not really a coffee substitute. Like if John was supposed to come visit me and John couldn't make it and someone else came and visited me, it would be weird if I referred to that person as a John substitute rather than just referring to them by their name as they are. So I don't want to do that with plants either.
John Gallagher: I've been referring to all of my visitors since you last left my house as a jim substitute.
Tara Ruth: That's why you were calling me jim.
John Gallagher: And Thomas Easley was tired of me calling him jim every time we were hanging out.
jim mcdonald: Your were like, "jim, your beard's gotten so long."
John Gallagher: Hey Tara.
Tara Ruth: Hi, John.
John Gallagher: One of my favorite parts about this part of the show here's, it's a little break for us and the guest can't follow us here.
Tara Ruth: Oh thank God.
jim mcdonald: I'm still here.
John Gallagher: Oh, he's still here. Wait a minute.
jim mcdonald: Oops. I didn't hang up. Oh, I should have waited. You were probably going to say something about it.
John Gallagher: This is where we talk about HerbMentor after hours.
jim mcdonald: Still thinking that's a great idea.
John Gallagher: I know, I know. What do you think a first episode, maybe something on some brews that jim makes that we might not be able to talk about on regular HerbMentor. And yeah, we've been talking about HerbMentor after hours for a while. But actually, jim, years ago you came to my town here and we recorded a great course that's on HerbMentor. It's 10 parts called Foundational Herbcraft. And why don't you tell everybody about it rather than me tell everybody, since you made it.
jim mcdonald: Well, yeah. I'm really into what herbalists call energetics and depending on where you live, that can mean different things. It could mean like, ooh, the energy of the plant, it's spiritual like this and that's awesome. But what I'm talking about is these patterns that present in people and in plants of a person or their condition being hotter or colder, which means more overactive or less active or damp or dryer or there being tension and laxity within the systems. And how herbs that may be aerobatic or stringent or demulcent or stimulating or relaxing or bitter help to balance out those patterns. And I call it Foundational Herbcraft because to me, learning these actions is not beginner herbalism, it's foundational herbalism. Everything builds up and off of that. So the most complicated and "advanced" stuff we do often has its roots and foundation in these principles that keep popping up and that underlie all of the approaches that we use when we're thinking about how to help people using plants. And this course is where I go into that and spend, I don't know, roughly an hour talking about each topic so that we can have a good understanding of something to come back to. And who doesn't want to hear about demulcents for an hour?
John Gallagher: Yeah. I know I do.
jim mcdonald: Because slime is the herbalist's superpower, right?
John Gallagher: Yes. And you even do some little demo videos in my kitchens. It's very cool. 10 parts. And it's something you can listen to. It's a little podcasty style, but jim, you can also watch him on it because I actually recorded. It was last minute. We were just going to do audio and I was like, "I should get the video camera and record you talking too." And that's what we did. And so Tara, how can folks find out about HerbMentor and maybe get a little, maybe a discount?
Tara Ruth: Oh, a little discount. Yeah. They can visit us at herbmentorradio.com.
John Gallagher: I think, Tara, could you work on security in these little commercials? We can't let be letting these folks in so easily.
Tara Ruth: Yeah. Totally. Sure thing, boss.
Tara Ruth: Well jim, you were talking a little bit ago about medicine making and how people often ask what's the best way to make X, Y, or Z. And it makes me think about a question that we got from an HerbMentor member. They're asking more of a general question, but they're wondering what good tasting herbs you would recommend to use in making syrups or teas with very bitter and pungent roots or barks like valerian, cramp bark, and elecampane? I know there's no best way, but in your opinion, what kind of other herbs would you recommend to use in those medicines?
jim mcdonald: Well, let's think of the ones that were mentioned and then I can try to maybe think of a couple others. So valerian is probably modified, but not made awesome by like anise or fennel. So one thing that I make is if someone has a really terrible cough and because of that really terrible cough, they're not getting sleep, what I might do ... Even though I'm not generally a fan of trying to suppress cough, because we want to facilitate a lot of things. If someone can't sleep, then that is its own problem. Is I might make some wild cherry syrup with a cold infusion or a cold water percolation of wild cherry bark and some honey or if everything is great in the world, some maple sugar. And then into that, I will add too many squirts of valerian and that makes the wild cherry syrup taste worse. And then I will add a few squirts of anise, which makes the wild cherry syrup taste less worse.
jim mcdonald: I can't say that it ends up being delicious, but the anise really ... As far as things I know to take valerian out of just too stinky, it's probably my favorite thing to use for that. For cramp bark, I don't know that I really think of cramp bark as being awful tasting. Although cramp bark does have valerianic acid in it, so it's got a little bit of stink. But I find it to be pretty okay. Again, you could mix some anise into it if that works for you. I've often mixed cramp bark together with angelica and find that that's pretty good. Unless people don't like angelica, because it's a little bit bitter too. Some people think it's really bitter, but of course we herbalists have tasted the most bitter stuff and in comparison, angelica is not really bitter. It's just kind of bitter. And elecampane, I remember one of my old students, god, from so long ago, maybe from the first year I started teaching my Lindera course, they made an elecampane tincture and they said, "It kind of feels like I tinctured an incense stick." The way that things that smell good don't always taste good. And I don't entirely know a good way to make elecampane not taste challenging. Right?
John Gallagher: Well, we in our house, a simple way that our mentors taught us was just honey. Just take a half a jar of elecampane or a quarter jar and just pour honey over it and few days later you can eat the honey. And then if you want to chew on the little roots, kind of like having a cough drop or something.
jim mcdonald: Yeah. Like a candied something. There's also a lot to be said for chasers. Chasers aren't only for kids or cocktails. Right?
John Gallagher: Chasers.
jim mcdonald: You can be like-
John Gallagher: I've never given my ... Oh, I guess I have given my kids chasers for tinctures. I'm thinking for [inaudible 00:32:51].
jim mcdonald: There have been times when my kids have been sick and I'm like, "Okay. I'm not going to tell you this isn't bad. You're not going to like this at all. It's just a little bit of water. What you need to do is just down this and immediately drink this." But you have to be mindful what your chaser is because some chasers make stuff taste worse. Like if I were to do elecampane, I don't think I would go from elecampane to citrus or orange juice or something. But I think that would make the orange juice taste really bad. Maybe some kind of berry juice or cranberry with other kinds of berries in it would be better.
John Gallagher: Milk.
jim mcdonald: Yeah. There are some things that don't mix well with citrus. I do encourage everyone to sit with flavors. But that doesn't mean punishing yourself with flavors. If you decide that like, "Wow, I really just don't like this," there's a couple options. One of the options might be could there be another herb that could work better for me that I don't like detest? Because there are things that I don't like the flavor of and so I don't use. I know a lot of people love it, but I don't like cilantro at all.
John Gallagher: Oh, me neither.
Tara Ruth: What?
jim mcdonald: Oh, cilantro to me ... Everyone says, "Oh, you think it tastes like soap?" And I'm like, "No, I think it tastes like if your cat peed somewhere, just what it smells like, if your cat peed somewhere and someone's like, 'Oh the cat peed here. I'm going to spray some deet on it.'"
John Gallagher: Yeah. Thank you.
jim mcdonald: Some insect repellent deet on it.
John Gallagher: Kimberly and I are the same way.
jim mcdonald: It's really harsh and acrid to my nose and-
Tara Ruth: What?
jim mcdonald: Yeah. It's not a draw for me. And so I don't eat cilantro. There's other things. There's other plants that I like. I don't have to love all of them.
Tara Ruth: Wild. I eat it as a salad green, because I like it so much.
John Gallagher: And people stick it in everything.
jim mcdonald: I used to teach out in Portland, which is an interesting place because you go into all the restaurants and sometimes the wait staff will ask you proactively, "Do you have any food allergies we should know about?" And I would mention cilantro and they're like, "Cilantro's a food allergy?" And I was like, "Oh, yeah. More and more people were actually allergic to cilantro." And blah blah. And the host that I had, Chris Mako, would be like, "jim, stop it. Don't tell them that. You're going to start a whole thing here." And I'm like, "Yeah, I know. I'm trying to. That sounds fun to me."
Tara Ruth: As someone who did work at a restaurant in Portland, there are many cilantro allergies.
John Gallagher: It's worked, jim.
Tara Ruth: Well done.
John Gallagher: Good job.
jim mcdonald: Yeah. Good. I'm glad that they caught on.
Tara Ruth: Your campaign worked.
John Gallagher: I'm going to ask a question from Selena, who is asking, "I'm wondering about the difference between calendula and plantain used externally. Both are similar, but still so different. What would be the main differences?" And I know, jim, that I have sat at plant walks in my life for many hours listening to you talk about plantain. So I know you can do that. So yeah.
jim mcdonald: Many hours just on plantain. Well, I guess energetically a difference I would make is I would consider ... Plantain is probably kind of neutral to slightly cooling and super green. And then calendula is maybe a little bit warming. It's certainly not a hot herb, but I would say it's a more warming herb. So energetically, they have that difference to them. And then for topical application, I guess it depends on what kind of topic application. Like if I was choosing something to chew up and apply as a poultice, I would want to chew a plantain. And I don't know that I really want to a calendula. I don't think calendula tastes bad, but it's sticky. The flavor is not terrible, but I don't really love it. It's not just a neutral green flavor like a plantain is and the pedals are going to get stuck in my teeth and stuck on the back of my uvula.
jim mcdonald: And so in terms of doing a poultice, I would definitely prefer to use a plantain. If we're thinking about adding things to a soak or infusing stuff in oil and using that oil to make salves, I think that both of them have a lot of overlapping qualities. And I don't know that for topical use the fact that one is more cooling and one is more warming is really necessarily as significant in terms of its use. I think that maybe ... Let me think of something that will make some people a bit squeamish. Like if you had-
Tara Ruth: Can't wait.
jim mcdonald: Like you've got this itch in your inguinal crease. If you don't know where you're inguinal crease is, it's your crotch. I might actually prefer calendula there. I think that calendula might be maybe a little bit more antifungal. And I remember learning from Matt Wood many years ago that he always talked about calendula. He would say it's for places where the sun doesn't shine. So you have some kind of rash or eruption where the sun doesn't shine. And he meant there. Calendula was the thing that he would think of. And not that you couldn't use plantain, but I would maybe go in that direction. Calendula's probably more lymphatically oriented than plantain. So if it was a swollen gland issue, I would probably go with calendula for topical application. For example, maybe if someone has fibrocystic breasts and they know that they have fibrocystic breasts, if there's ever a lump in your breast tissue, you should definitely go get that checked out to be sure what you're dealing with. But if you know there's fibrocystic breasts, I would probably choose calendula over plantain in that situation because of its lymphatic activity.
Tara Ruth: Great. Thank you. We have a few other questions too, from some HerbMentor members. Jaya and also Gail Brown were asking about Solomon's seal. And Jaya was wondering about Solomon's seal for folks with joint hypermobility issues. And Gail was wondering about Solomon's seal for a prolapsed bladder. And I'm curious if you have any experience around Solomon's seal with either of these health challenges and yeah, just any general info about Solomon's seal.
John Gallagher: I think you were the first person, jim, to give me a Solomon's seal tincture. I was like, "Really?"
jim mcdonald: Oh yeah.
John Gallagher: And I think when I first went on our early herb walks when I could hardly walk and my back was out and I was dragging myself along with the camera, trying to keep it steady as I-
jim mcdonald: It was a spectacular remedy for a lot of joint issues and tight connected tissue issues. Or tight or loose connected issues. I initially learned about Solomon's seal from Matthew Wood, which more props to him. He was one of my early teachers, not in the way that I studied formally with him, but I had met him maybe when I was three years into studying herbalism. I drove down to the United Plant Savers Botanical Sanctuary and I met Matt and Rosemary Gladstar and I kept in touch with both of them. And both of them were exceedingly kind and supportive to me. I mean, over the years and still to this day, I really cherish for how wonderful they've been to me and the work that I do. But Matt read about Solomon's seal in his Book of Herbal Wisdom. He expanded, I believe on information from Gerard and his herbal. And Gerard of course stole a lot of that from other people.
jim mcdonald: It's a lot of plagiarism back then. But he made use of that. And one of the things that he said about it was that Solomon's seal was good for connective tissues that were either too tight or too loose. And I learned that from him and I thought about it a long time. And there's a phrase that people in herbalism will learn at some point maybe and it's that herb is amphoteric. A-M-P-H-O-R-E-T-I-C. Amphoteric. And what that means is that it adjusts according to need. And there are herbs that are amphoteric, but I don't actually think that's the best word to understand Solomon's seal. I think that Solomon's seal, what it does is it restores moisture to connective tissues. And in doing that, it restores pliancy to those tissues so that if your tendons or ligaments or fascia or connective tissues are dried out and they're stretched, then they want to stay stretched and then loose.
jim mcdonald: Or if they're dried out and tight, they want to stay tight and constricted. And that by restoring moisture to it, you restore their pliancy and it can go back to the state that it wants to be in. And so that's the way that I've come to understand. It has a normalizing acture, but it's not by adjusting it to what's needed, it's by just restoring moisture and making the tissues pliant like they're supposed to be. So it's not tightening or loosening, it's restoring normal function. In addition to that, there's probably other things that we could think about. I have, I guess, a student and a friend and a client who has been using Solomon's seal but also started using Oak bark as an astringent to help to tighten those tissues. I have no idea personally, how astringents work on connective tissues, but I also don't know how astringents work on bladder tissues or upper respiratory tissues because the tannins don't actually get there.
jim mcdonald: I don't know quite what's happening there, but it seems to be helping. Of course, pelvic floor issues is also something that if people are using Solomon's seal, that's a good idea, but doing pelvic floor strengthening exercises makes sense when we're getting into that idea of being a bladder tonic or helping with bladder prolapse. I have used Solomon's seal for both bladder and rectal prolapse, but I'll use that along with saying like, "Oh, do pelvic floor strengthening exercises." And I'm also a huge fan of pelvic floor physical therapy, which is something that exists but not a lot of people know about. But pretty much everyone that I know who's had it done said that helped a lot. So Solomon's seal is certainly very useful for a lot of connective tissue issues and not just the structural stuff, but also the connective tissues that are supporting your organs. And I've become, over the last probably decade, a huge fascia nerd where the more that I learn about-
John Gallagher: Fashion or fascia?
jim mcdonald: Fashion. I'm a huge fashion nerd. You can tell that by my-
John Gallagher: I need to have to have a fascia show.
jim mcdonald: My outfits whenever I go places. Fascia.
John Gallagher: jim's fascia show. [inaudible 00:44:01].
jim mcdonald: Well, you can think about-
John Gallagher: Sorry. Go ahead. I didn't want to interrupt. I just was-
jim mcdonald: Oh, that's okay. I'm all through the puns. I think about Gil Hedley, he's my fascia icon. Or Tom Meyers also. Both of them have really good information on fascia and structural integration and alignment and how fascia is really ... It permeates and surrounds all of our muscular tissue and our organs and it's like our body is just one big piece of fascia. There's not separate pieces to fascia. It's all connected. And so Solomon's seal, when I first learned about it, I learned about it for tendons and ligaments. But now I really think about it as affecting fascia, tendons, ligaments, and other types of connective tissues. It's not really so selective to just tendons and ligaments. But we also want to think about the strengthening exercises and then potentially the body work that are affecting those tissues too.
jim mcdonald: Because, again, holistic doesn't just mean we're using natural stuff or using herbs. It means we're using a whole bunch of stuff together all at once. And that includes herbs and nutrition and body work and exercise. Actually, going back to the EDS or the Ehlers-Danlos. I never know quite what order the Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome comes in, but-
John Gallagher: Oh, right, right, right.
jim mcdonald: The EDS. I've been making this joke for such a long time when I'm teaching energetics about heat generally relaxes tissues and cold is generally tightening to tissues. And if you think about if your muscles are all tight, you can use a heating pad or something or hot rice pack. And if someone comes in after shoveling the snowy driveway and they're all freezing cold and they sneak up behind you and they put they're hands on your skin, you don't go, "Ah," and relax.
jim mcdonald: You go ... And you tighten up. And then the joke was and that's why there's hot stone massage and no one's really doing cold stone massage. And then finally, and this is also an example of learning something new, even if it means I have to give up one of my favorite jokes. Someone in this year's class, it's like, "Oh, wait, no. I do cold stone massage. Cold stone massage by tightening tissues is really good for hypermobility because of loose connective tissue." And I was like, "Well, you just destroyed my joke that I really like, that's gotten me laughed for the last 10 plus years."
John Gallagher: And she was since expelled.
jim mcdonald: But I'm glad now that I know that because I hadn't thought about that. It hadn't been my experience. But a lot of people with those looser connective tissues do cold applications in order to constrict those tissues and hold everything into place.
John Gallagher: Right. Did you find Solomon's seal helpful for you? Is that helpful for heart muscles too? Like when you were trying to-
jim mcdonald: I don't know specifically that it helped. I got less because of any of the cardiovascular stuff and more, because I was drugged into paralysis and my body didn't move for almost two months. And then by the end of that almost two months, because I hadn't moved for two months, I couldn't move. There's been a lot of structural issues that I needed to address. And so, one of the things that definitely happened is that I felt like all of my fascia and connective tissues tightened up. They dried up and tightened up. And so, yeah, I initially used a lot of Solomon's seal to be able to loosen stuff as I can. But additionally did different kinds of myofascial release. And then just very recently, I finished the 10 session roll thing series, which is pretty spectacular, except they do stick your fingers into your nose and do work in there. Which was weird. I found out I had a deviated septum that I never knew about.
John Gallagher: Wow.
jim mcdonald: And now I feel like I need to find a deviated septum support group, even though it's never caused me any kind of troubles or problems.
John Gallagher: So, gosh jim, there were enough questions here, I think for about 10 podcasts. So you might have to do a 10 podcast series with all of these questions. And I don't even know. I feel like if I ask any of these, we'll go another half hour, which probably wouldn't be such a bad thing.
jim mcdonald: Don't I have a history of making you go over your allotted timeframe on these things?
John Gallagher: Yeah. And it's not really an allotted timeframe because we're just making it all up. No one's telling us. We don't have a broadcast network. But I guess this is your opportunity if you have anything you want to say about, oh, I don't know, Howie or seven song or Thomas or Rosalie. This is your chance.
jim mcdonald: Boy.
John Gallagher: Giving you a platform.
jim mcdonald: I always think when I'm going to extol one of the people that I have learned a lot from and who I love and admire dearly-
John Gallagher: This is that time.
jim mcdonald: That that means I'm always leaving out other people. Right? But if I thought about the people you just mentioned and ... Let's see I haven't seen-
John Gallagher: But these are people that we spend a lot of time around together at herb conferences and become friends with over the years.
jim mcdonald: One of the things that I admire about all of them is that they aren't just knowledgeable about herbs and plants and health and wellness, but they also model how to be a good herbalist. Again, not just in terms of knowledge but in terms of ... I always felt incredibly fortunate that the people ... I've mentioned Rosemary Gladstar and Matthew Wood. I could also add Christopher Hedley into this group, an herbalist in London who passed away a few years ago. I've had this really wonderful fortune of having met people who, when they met me or over the course of knowing me or to other people that I have seen them interact with, their inspiration is to be kind and supportive to those people. Be like, "Oh, wow. You're into plants. That's really awesome." I would like to do things and make things available to you that supports your learning and supports your growing and if you are someone who's choosing to go into this is more of like a calling or an evocation ... I struggle with the word profession. But if this is what you're going to invest any energy into, I or they want to be people who are generally supportive and encouraging.
jim mcdonald: And I would love to think that's where everybody's coming from, but it's really not. Not everyone feels like that. I know that some people have more of a competitive than a cooperative mindset when it comes to that. But none of these people do. And I feel so grateful that when I met people, either who I was learning alongside of, or that I was learning from and through because they'd just been doing it longer than me, the general interaction that I had was one of encouragement and support, because that just makes more sense.
jim mcdonald: That's just a kinder way to be. And when I think about my life goals and things I strive for, one of them is to continue to be open minded with my learning and to interact with the world around me with a state of wonder. And I love the word wonder because it both means to be in a state of inquiry and also in a state of awe, which that sounds so much better to me than knowing stuff. We talked about knowing earlier. Inquiry and awe is what I want to spend most of my time engaging with. But the other thing is kindness. I mean, kindness is just huge to me. And when I think about the power of that and the potential of that to really change lives and make amazing things happen, that's something that I want to have because I've experienced people being so incredibly kind to me, and it's been so important in my life that why wouldn't I want to pass that on and also spend time with people who seem to value that in the same way.
John Gallagher: Well, jim, you're also one of the biggest hearted and generous teachers and people that I know. I mean, we've been friends for 15 years, at least. Because that's how long HerbMentor is and you've been-
jim mcdonald: We've been friends for a long time. Yeah.
John Gallagher: And really value your friendship and also seeing over the years how much you have given to the herbal community and why it's such an honor and great to reconnect and have you back. And I feel like it's a new era where ... I don't know, Tara. I just feel people really need all of us right now. Because all the stuff going on, it's like the plants are there for us and to work with them for-
Tara Ruth: Absolutely.
John Gallagher: Yeah. For healing. And I just am so grateful jim, that you're back and you're here with this and you're teaching and ... Yeah.
jim mcdonald: It certainly feels good to teach. I think that there were ... Okay, so there's no getting around how hard the last couple years, or going on few years with the pandemic, has been. And I know that it's touched a lot of people in really tough ways. And I have a lot of empathy for that. For me personally, 2018 was harder because that's when I was dying. But both after that, when I got home and, again, during the pandemic, it was like the time spent that ... Making the time to be outside in nature when there's upheaval in your life and people's lives can have all different kinds of shades and flavors and degrees of upheaval, I don't know that I've got ever better advice than see if you can take yourself to a place where you can walk into a natural area, however big it is, however small it is, and be there and look around and see just the magic that makes all of these plants grow and all of the mushrooms grow and the mycelium that's connecting everything and the insects and the animals that are all living in this profound interdependent harmony. And that goes back to this idea of even though a lot of people have been taught, oh, survival of the fittest, competition, natural selection and everything, when I go outside, there's some of that, but most of what I see is cooperation and interdependence.
jim mcdonald: And it's reassuring to me when other things in my life or in the world at large seem so fraught. So my recommendation is, although I can always think of good teas and syrups and tinctures and roots to chew on that you might use to help you address certain kinds of stresses or trials and tribulation in your life, one of the most powerful things we can do is to go out and be in nature and realize that not only is there this thing that is cooperative and interdependent and awe inspiring, but also that we are a part of that. We're not separate. We might occasionally feel disconnected from it, but we're never separate from it.
Tara Ruth: Absolutely. And jim, this makes me think about, as we talk about encouraging people to get more connected and just be with their surroundings and get more excited about the herbs, you have a lot of amazing online classes that you're teaching that can really foster and cultivate people's connections. And one of them looks really cool. It's called Foundations of Holistic Immunity, Herbal Strategies for Infectious Unpleasantries. And you even have a cool PDF ebook that I think would be really helpful for some folks who are taking Foundational Herbcraft, that course on HerbMentor. So all of that's on herbcraft.org. And I'm wondering too, are you back to teaching in person and do you have an apprenticeship?
jim mcdonald: Oh yeah. I've got our course through my school. I just call it Lindera. Lindera is the genus name for spice bush, which is one of my favorite teas to drink ever and a beautiful plant. And I learned from Jodi Noey. This was really the clincher. I remember ages and ages and ages ago, I was in a pickup truck with Harry Brownstein and Steven Yager and we were driving back from the Cascades where I'd been teaching all week and Steven said something like, "So you have this course, which is kind of like your school, but it's not a school because you don't have a name." I was like, "Yeah, I haven't thought of a name that I like yet." And he said, "Well, I mean, couldn't you just go the Great Lakes School of Herbal Medicine or something like that?" And I was like, "That's just too many words. I don't want to write that all the time."
John Gallagher: Bad acronym.
jim mcdonald: I want to think of something that's concise, it can just be one word and then people don't have to shorten it down. Because people who studied with Howie, and at that time, Steven, they wouldn't say, "I studied at Columbine School of Botanical Medicine." They would just say Columbines. And so why add all the other words that I then have to type out all the time?
jim mcdonald: So I thought about things for a long time and I came up with Lindera. There was a whole bunch of other ideas that I had that other people had already found. It's really hard to find a plant name that herbalists aren't already using. Nobody seemed to be using Lindera. I like the sound of it. It has a good ring to it. Then I learned from Jodi Noey that it in her tradition, I believe Cherokee tradition that when you wanted to encourage or acknowledge or start a friendship with people, you would give them spice bush. And I was like, "Well, that just works for me." That was the extra special clenching it. And yes, that's what we're going to do. So I've been doing the Lindera course online, even in 2020. We did the first, I think two weekends we had to do online.
jim mcdonald: And then after that, we were able to do the course in person outside. And so since then, I've been running the course and doing classes outside. It's become easier to do more classes. I don't think I've done any indoor classes since the pandemic started. It's been more complicating. But we rented an open air pavilion at a state park to do the classroom days for the in person classes. And then we spent, I guess, the year before last year recording all of the content as an online course. So basically the same content in my in person course is in the online course. And it's just presented a little bit differently. But both things are happening and I'm really happy to be able to teach in front of people and see everyone's facial expressions, but I'm also very happy to be able to teach to people who it's just not practical for them to be able to drive out to Michigan once a month.
John Gallagher: Well, I was excited to see your online class offerings. I'm like, "Great. He's finally doing it. He's online teaching."
jim mcdonald: Yeah. Well, most of the credit for that, although I do most of the talking, comes to my wife, Stephanie, who has been amazing at figuring out all of the technical stuff and also putting up with me when I'm trying to teach the material and I say something wrong and I get frustrated and swear. Because I think one of the hard things about doing online stuff when people aren't necessarily there with you is you say, "Oh wait, no. I don't like the way that I said this. I need to start over." And then I know that John has some experience with me because we did the Foundational Herbcraft course is that okay, where do you want to pick up? Where's a natural place to pick up? And as you may be able to tell from just this, I kind of in a constant ramble of a run on sentence with not really enough space between sentences to make a quick edit.
John Gallagher: That's right.
jim mcdonald: Way back and start over. And then I go way back and start over and then take it in a different direction and say something else. So she was able to navigate all that and put it together in a way that worked and was patient with me most of the time. Yeah. It's just been amazing, because that would've been something that would've been really hard for me to figure out on my own.
John Gallagher: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and everyone you could again go to herbcraft.org. You can see all of jim's ... Yeah. He has a lot of articles, writings, connections to all the courses and everything he is up to. So jim mcdonald, you'll be back because we have all these questions. And it's been awesome to have you here today and thanks so much for joining us. And yeah, like I said, you'll be back.
Tara Ruth: Yes. Thank you.
jim mcdonald: It is always a pleasure, John and Tara.
John Gallagher: HerbMentor Radio is written and produced by John Gallagher and Tara Ruth. Sound engineering by Zack Frank. Visit herbmentorradio.com to subscribe on your favorite podcast app and for information on how to be part of HerbMentor, your home for herbal education. HerbMentor Radio is a production of LearningHerbs.com, LLC all rights reserved. Thank you so much for listening.
