From HerbMentor.com. This is Herb Mentor Radio.
You're listening to Herb Mentor Radio on HerbMentor.com. I'm John Gallagher.
My guest today is 7Song. 7Song is an herbalist, naturalist and director of the Northeast school of botanical medicine in Ithaca, New York. He is known throughout the herbal community as someone who's passionate about meeting new plants, someone who loves to help people wherever he travels and as the herbal first aid guy. Seven song is a herbal practitioner at the director of holistic medicine at the Ithaca free clinic, and his website is 7Song.
That's the number seven song. So seven song. I'm really thankful that you're spending some time with us today. Thank you, John.
And, you know, it was a bit of a challenge for me to write your intro there since I found that you kind of transcend introductions. You know, there's seem to be many things to many people, so I'm going to keep it. So I thought, I just keep it basic. So, you know, the reason why I love doing these interviews is not so much, you know, just to learn herbal tips and all.
But, you know, but really to connect with herbalists, to learn about their approach, their stories, how they connect with plants and how they help people with plants. So I'm just going to meander down the forest path here, if you will, with some various questions. So I want to start with something that I know you're very passionate about, and we were talking a few weeks ago, and that's your work at the Ithaca free clinic because, you know, everyone listening is going to wish they had one in their own towns. Probably and maybe someone listening will be inspired to start once.
So what? What is the clinic and you mind talking about your role there? No, not at all, John. It's it seems a simple question, of course, right?
But it's more complex. So the ethic of free clinic is an outgrowth of another group called the Ithaca Health Alliance and. So in the free clinic, part of it, we treat people, which I love doing. But another part of it is speaking to keeping community services oriented towards the community, having local people being a part of the community.
So there's a whole other aspect to the ethic of free clinic and its parent organization as far as trying to alter the way people view medical care and insurance companies in our society. Mm-hmm OK and so go ahead. So the effect free clinic where a combination some people say we're an integrative clinic. My goal, our goal is often is someday be truly integrative.
But what we are now is at least a mixed modality clinic. So there are doctors there. So every time that we're open, we're open right now on Mondays and Thursdays for four hours each day. So I open a total of eight hours a week to see.
People will probably see about 24 people for everybody per day that we're open. The doctor sees the lion's share of the folks. Most people come there to see a doctor. He or she will have the least amount of time, of course, just because it's four hours and they might see eight people.
We also have chiropractors. There are some days acupuncturists, nutritionist and then myself as a Western clinical herbalist. I see people for about 45 minutes, and then it takes about 15 to 20 minutes to write up their case notes so that all of us can see what each other is doing when working with somebody. At this point, it's definitely happening that some people will come to see one of us and then go to see another.
More commonly, they'll come to see a doctor hear about that. We have an acupuncturist or an herbalist and then come to see one of us. So, you know, our goal is very simple. It's just to treat people and, you know, to help allay the burden that exists in our society without having basic coverage for lots of folks.
But one of the parts of our doctors try to just see people who don't have any insurance at all are very under-insured. The holistic practitioners that would be myself, acupuncturist, et cetera, we'll see anybody since there's no insurance that covers herbal medicine or acupuncture in general. And so we don't ask about, you know, what coverage they have. If they have money, they're welcome to donate it.
None of us take money for our services. But you know, we're a free clinic and we don't have 501(c)(3 nonprofit status, so we're happy to take donations, whatever people want to offer them. But it's not. I don't think anybody ever even mentions it.
It's just the kind of thing after I see somebody that might say, you know, you have some money and I'd like to pay and then we'll go, OK, here's the person to give the money to. Mm-hmm OK, so go ahead and then just a little bit more. And so as far as the herbal medicines, most of them are donated as well. And so having myself having connections in the larger herbal community just head up as many organizations often to see if they can donate tinctures or teas, herbs or.
I also make a lot of my own medicines and contribute them, and sometimes there's actually some reimbursement for them as well. Oh OK, so so you take. So anyone who's listening to this, who had medicines that they make, could they donate them to the clinic? Yes, they could.
I mean, I would honestly, a lot of herbalists make their own medicines, and I would want to know them just to make sure. So if there are larger companies probably pretty safe that they have the right plant and do it in a good manner? Good point. So I mean, I'm also a botanist, and so I just have seen people gather the wrong plant and, you know, at least the wrong species sometimes.
And so I don't want to be discouraging, but I do want to be honest and say, you know, when I know the person, I could just ask them a few questions and just make sure the plant that I'm giving the patient is the plant. Mm-hmm OK so so you know, it's interesting because a lot, a lot of people, let's, you know, listening to this or people that I work with, I, I seem to meet them. A lot of folks in the beginning of their learning journey with plants, you know, like like, hey, I want to learn to make some home remedies and we'll learn some things. But there's, you know, there's a big, you know, gap between starting to harvest some of your own plants and make some things in your kitchen to nourish and feed your and to treat your family.
And, you know, being an herbalist in a clinic. So know, I'm curious about your story on how you, you you did that were, you know, obviously you started learning at some point and now you're doing what you're doing. How did that, you know, how did that kind of fall into place for you? Because people's stories really how people kind of see what's possible for themselves?
Well, I started studying herbs in 1981, herbal medicine, I've always been naturalistic. It was nice to hear when you gave the interview or whatever the intro to me and you said herbalist and naturalist because it doesn't. People don't say that much. I've never gone to any formal schooling, but reality is, is when I'm out looking at plants, pretty happy.
If I can see some new salamanders, I'm watching the birds in the sky. I mean, just somebody who's interested in the natural world in general. And also, I mean, I study economics and politics in a very light like I have a subscription to the economist kind of way. Right?
so which is not quite, I mean, not sure that's the natural world or not. So let's see, so I started studying it, and I just took it pretty intensely. One of the things that makes it easier for me to work in this clinic is that I tend to study and I teach physiology, pathophysiology, anatomy, and I'm interested in a lot of modern medical systems, so or not systems, but the drugs, the pharmacokinetics. And so when I talk to the doctors, they're often thinking that herbalists may be well-intentioned, but kind of light on their studies.
And so just, you know, when they say something, well, how do you know this? Does this and go, well, how do you know this does this? I mean, not as just antagonistic, but it's just a reality that they still question why, you know, the ssri, the serotonin reuptake inhibitors, even their major effects. So they worked.
And so for me, it's just even if I don't say something out loud, I always question things. And so for me, when the doctors talk to me and they ask me questions instead of being defensive about it and say, oh, they just work because they've been used for thousands of years, I don't buy that. I don't buy that just because something has withstood the test of time that it's effective. War has withstood the test of time, meaning this with so many things.
I've been around a long time and I don't know if they're to the betterment. Perhaps they are so. But for me, you know, they'll ask me a question and I just sit there. I'm not really sure how this works, but these are the physiological systems that we see at work in, or it's an anti-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory, and it looks like it works more on a prostaglandin inhibiting kind of way.
And so part of that is that dialogue. I mean, not every herbalist needs to speak this language, but it is a language that I speak, that I don't study for them. I study it for me. And so that allows me in the door.
But the other thing is, I've just been reliable. I started working with the free clinic about a year before the door is opened, went to a lot of meetings. So the other part of it is I'm and this is what I'd really recommend to anybody. Interested is be part of the, you know, initial force.
If you're a part of the system as it's getting set up, you have so much more say than just saying, ho, there's a free clinic I'd like to join and maybe it's still good, right? It's better than nothing. But if you're a part of the whole initiation process of the clinic, then you're helping guide it and people, you know, all the people around me, most of them who work in our local hospital just see that, you know, I have a stake in it. I'm interested in a much bigger way than just, you know, you know, supporting herbal medicine, you know, as a viable medical option.
I mean, I believe that, but I also just think we all have to work together to really just serve our community. And it's how do we serve our community, not how do I just give herbs that answer any of it? Yes, I totally does. So it's kind of that approach.
It's just like, you know, it's your it's you're always questioning, it's you're following your passion and your leads of the things that you want to in that side of things as far as learning. But at the same time, it's that passion to help your community and having that raw material, it seems like, will lead you in a direction. Yes, initially so herbalists, we're the only non-licensed people working in the free clinic are Ebola. So just to be incredibly clear, I am just against herbalists getting licensing.
I just feel like it'll breed mediocrity like it does to everything else. And once you go for licensing, you always test and then, you know, if you are aveda, then the pit is always win because the people who test the best, there are the people who will always be part of it. Whereas, you know, maybe you're, you know, you are people that are a little more spontaneous and not as good memorization. They just might fall out of the cracks there, and I just want lots of people to practice.
But to the doctors and the nurse practitioners and other people where we're starting it, you know, they were like, well, how do we validate that? You know something? And I said, well, there's a couple of ways you can ask us a few herbalists at the time. You can ask us questions, which they did.
And then we just gave ourselves a certain amount of period was three months for anybody to evaluate it. Of course, nobody really had good evaluation tools because they're not herbalists. But I think what they were just looking for is that we didn't do anything incredibly silly, but none of us. All of us are trained better than that who work in the clinic right now.
I'm the only Western clinical herbalist there, so I think I'm finished with that thought. Yeah you. Another thing. I think the first thing I learned about you, I think I took a class with you years ago, which struck me as really cool is that you run through, well, your school kind of does it as a regular, as a part of its training, like your six month or your apprenticeship program.
I saw actually about the working first date at the rainbow gatherings. And this is just so folks don't know that it's a week long gathering happens every July at a different place, right? Yeah, it's a huge gathering. It's kind of leftover from the heydays of happiness.
1972 going and about between 8 and 15,000 people are there at any one time, and it's a little bit deep in the woods, meaning that even if people want immediate medical care, we still would have to carry them out to an ambulance, which means, you know, those people there are still going to work. It's an extraordinary experience. I mean, the rainbow gathering itself is very mixed for lots of reasons that are a whole other discussion, right? But we all go there and we just see the kinds of mishaps that happen to large groups of people when they're gathered deep in the woods.
So by large groups, it's, you know, 10,000 people. And so there's all kinds of food poisoning and water poisonings and people getting poked in the eye by sticks walking around at night and diarrhea of assorted types, all kinds of anxiety and stress and depression and constipation and diarrhea. And so it's phenomenal. I mean, I feel like I'm kind of made for that kind of work.
I my specialty. I mean, I just said, I love to work. I like to work with people in first day circumstances. It's also really nice for a critical thinking mind because in chronic health care, somebody has really bad rashes and you're treating them and they're tired all the time.
And so you start giving them herbs. And over the course of many months, they often they might get better, right? They can get a lot better. But there's always the question of did my herbs work?
On the other hand, somebody falls down, twist their body in a weird shape and you help them with herbs and you help reduce the pain. You can see it immediately if they start to go, they get stung by something that's just really painful, and you figure out how to take this thing right? If that's what's in them and how to relieve the pain locally, it's that kind of immediacy is fun for me. Right, right.
I understand that. That's so yeah, because, you know, I was thinking, that's what a great way to learn just to put yourself in the trenches like that. You know, that's one of those really appealing things that your school has like. Oh, if I lived on the East coast, I mean, that would be like, you know, putting yourself and learn it and learning by just throwing yourself in the fire.
You know, putting yourself in the woods with 10,000 people in a bigger fire is a couple of years ago. I don't think I'll ever I don't think I'll ever do this with a class again. But we went to the Republican National Convention when it was in New York City. Wow, I live about 5 and 5 hours North of New York City.
And so we, you know, all the students that wanted to go, I think 14 out of about 18 that year came, and that was even trickier because, you know, it's an urban setting with, you know, the police on guard and. You know, a lot of you know, all the crazy things that happen when a lot of protesters get together, and so that but that's something that I like to do personally is just to go to what's called street protests or street medicine and helping out whenever there's groups of people gathering in order to make their point heard. Personally, I'll help anybody. I don't, you know, I mean, I have my opinions and what I'd like to see happen in the world.
But as far as who I treat, I treat anybody. I remember going to the inauguration. There was a protest for George Bush the first time the second George Bush and this woman wearing mink. And I don't really know if it was fake fur or not, but start having an asthma attack.
And, you know, so I went up to her and I'm kind of surprised he let me treat her. But I gave her some lobelia, which just helped her asthma pretty much immediately. And I was like, all right, you know, but I would have treated, I treat anybody. Wow so that's interesting stories, too.
I mean, that that's amazing, you know, just going anywhere and. And is there any stories that kind of really, really stand out like any, you know, in situations like that you can think of? Now they're suburbs that are just quick acting that I tend to bring like lobelia can really help asthma a lot, especially anxiety or stress induced asthma, which is common in situations where you have protests or even, you know, things go wrong for people. And one of the things that happens just because of how their body reacts is, you know, their bronchi start to close a bit.
And so, you know, I've lots of times where I've seen I've given small amounts of lobelia or another, usually lobelia and just, you know, the people are just amazed that they start to breathe better quicker. But I think there's just lots of them where people are just feeling really terrible. And then there are some herbs that are just quite potent in small doses where you can really alleviate symptoms in the people like, I can't believe the Arabs did that. And you know, I'm thinking the same thing really every time, 25 years, and I definitely still think they're like, whoa, look at them breathing again.
So, and, you know, treating wounds and helping, you know, like, I've seen some really nasty dog bites. I was just getting that were pretty infected, just a couple of applications. You know, when I say just a couple of applications, I mean, with knowledge, it's not. We have to have integrity here.
So it's not you could just give herbs and that it's over with. So if somebody is a bad dog bad, it's getting infected. One has to know the signs of one. Do I need to bring them for more, you know, intensive treatment when they need conventional medicine?
But that said, you know, a lot of times, I mean, there's just a very long history of herbs with wounds and injuries because human beings have had them ever since. We've looked a little bit like the way we have. And before that. Mm-hmm So, so you, you like, of course, people can learn about herbs and all what other things for people starting out interested in first aid.
Like, should folks like think about going the red cross, taking a first aid class or CPR class, you know, getting started there to. Is that? Yeah, it always helps. I mean, there's two parts to herbal medicine.
And the first part, which is some people get pretty good, which is understanding plants. So for me to be a good herbalist, you have to be able to properly identify plants. I mean, just knowing some basic botany skills and be able to use a floral key to identify it, then figure out getting, you know, ethically how to gather that plant so you don't hurt the population of plants nearby. How to prepare it well into medicine, whatever form you use.
And then with time understanding the properties. And for me, the properties of herbs are the categories often. So is it more of an anti-inflammatory? Is it more of an antihistamine like herb?
Is it more of a nerve on sedative? You know, so for me, there's I think about category because it frees you up. So there is that part of it? Then the other part that I think the herbalist can often benefit a lot is diagnosis and the patient part.
And for me, there's two aspects there. So you're asking is it good to go to red cross? It's good to go to any class where people teach you basic diagnostics, so you know when things are over your head, and that's what everybody I mean, who practices medicine needs to know. At one point, things are out of control and you have to go somewhere else.
If that's at all possible, it's not always possible. I mean, sometimes you do first aid, sometimes you're in the street and you're the only one, and then you've got to do whatever you can. At least you have to stabilize until he can get help. So I would say Red Cross is useful.
I would say any kind of first responder course is very useful and under, you know, just hanging out with doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses and learning basic diagnosis. Just, what they're seeing when they make these calls. It's not that Airbus should be all diagnosing, but we should understand what these diagnosis means. It's helpful to know a little bit about how drugs that other drugs, the conventional drugs, plus the herbal drugs work in people's bodies.
So there's just, you know, it's endless, but it's really helpful to know the person side. And so for me, it's a double option is two ways of looking at it. So one of them is pathophysiology. So if somebody has pneumonia and it's viral pneumonia, having a little bit of a sense of how a virus replicates in the lungs and the kind of downstream effect you would see and then also having a constitutional overlay in a Constitution overlay would say, OK, if they just have pneumonia once it's really just a matter of killing the virus and restoring their health.
But if they get pneumonia every winter, it could be that, you know, something's wrong with their immune system. It's under functioning. And so as opposed to just giving them immune herbs, you know what kind of body types. So I tend to use our elevator and look at vata and pitta and kapha body types.
But for me, there's so here's the pathophysiological thing they have a viral pneumonia. Now The other part is they get this often how do we shore up their body? What herbs does make them stronger? And that's what modern medicine usually has its biggest drawbacks.
There's a lot of great things about modern medicine. One of the things that I think that doctors appreciate from me at the free clinic is that I'm just not anti modern medicine. I like modern medicine. The arrogance that's often accompanying it, the assurance schemes which are horrible in this country, those things are deficits.
Often the doctors are just really well-meaning people with their sets of skills. But what modern medicine rarely does is really help nurture people. And that's where herbal medicine we also can help kill microorganisms. But there's a whole part of what we do that is just based on making the person stronger to resist getting sick.
So something like chronic fatigue syndrome that just poorly treated with modern medicines, unless there's a really there's a vector that you can kill for us, we just think what's going on? What part of the nervous system is affected or the immune system? Or is there adrenal related and then thinking, how do we shore this up? And I that's where herbal medicine really shines?
Oh, great. You know, I'm glad you started going into that a bit about the categories because I wanted to mention first that on your website at seven salon.com, you have the handout section. So what I'm referring to right here for those cooking kind of follow along at home while we're talking is there's a particular one that I downloaded printed out called herbs for first aid, trauma and wound care.
Because first aid is so huge, it's can, as you do, you teach entire courses, intensive courses on it, but something that I a basic thing that we can. I think we can take away from. This simple call that was powerful was what you started to get into a second ago. Was that looking into looking at things as in categories like, for example, something that was really a helpful thing when one category might be astringent, which?
Contracts, tissue and reduces discharges and something that you said is like, well, what, you're. When you're looking for an astringent. You know, you can use any Woody plant because they all have tannins. You don't have to think like, oh, I don't have this plant.
I can't get the action that I'm looking for. So that was really powerful. I think it's just a good way is when we free ourselves from just thinking, herb does this and start thinking categorically so astringent or antispasmodic things that help us smooth muscles or skeletal muscle relaxants? So you're thinking, OK, this person has GI spasms, they just ate something that's disagreeing and they're vomiting and diarrhea and vomiting first.
I mean, you need anti-nausea ins to get any herbs in them and then you think, OK, you know, I can try to clear and kill whatever in there. But what kind of muscle is in the, you know, the gi? You're like, OK, it's smooth muscle. So you know, then, you know, antispasmodic are a whole group.
And then there's many of them and some of them you can find here and there. So but I do want to say that. Well, most Woody plants have a stringent. The trick is that some Woody plants have other constituents that you don't want in the person, and so the trick is with astringent like oak.
Right? like the oak trees don't have many resins, they don't have alkaloids. They don't have any other ingredients to really interfere. So, you know, when you're giving it to them, the majority of the effect will be the astringent effect.
OK, so then and then what? I was wondering if we could do here kind of looking at your handout is you have on here, I'm talking about the categories and looking at the wound protocol because that's something you know, everyone will. Trip or have kids a trip and get a scrape or a bump or bruise, or maybe they're going to get something worse. So using that protocol that you have?
So could we maybe make up a little case study, if you will, about how we would think insofar far as these categories? Like, you know, such as using an anti-inflammatory or an antiseptic or that sort of thing, and then maybe a couple examples as they're going, you know? Well well, the first thing to say, John, is that, I mean, all these are free on my website. The only thing my website, I guess sells is the herb school, but you can just avoid that and just search around anywhere on there.
So if one's going to do this, there are the same basic considerations. So I won't go into them in detail and they'll just say where you can find them on the handout. Exactly but the same basic considerations are important, and for me, it's just easy to get. If somebody has blood leaking from them, they have any kind of wound that they just shouldn't be touching their open wound.
And so, you know, every first aid kit, there's no difference between standard conventional Red Cross first aid kit and herbal first aid kit. The thing that you need are disposable gloves so that you don't contract any disease, nor do you give any disease if you're bleeding. I'm working with somebody, so everybody who's listening to this? Make sure that you start off by reading the beginning that it's practical and safety considerations, or just learning from the Red Cross.
Learn to how to treat people without inflicting more harm or hurting yourself. It doesn't help anybody. And so do you have an example in mind? Let's see.
I'm thinking, let's see my, you know, something that's something where someone's getting a wound. It's inflamed. It's bleeding. How about how about a dog bite?
A dog bite? Sure there you go. Does that work? Yeah, that works great. OK, so the reason that a dog bite is a useful illustration is that the first thing that happens is that when many people get bit by dogs, one of the first things they need is a trauma aid getting bit by dog.
Most people don't get bit by dogs regularly, and one of the things that happens when they get bit is that whatever emotion that they run to, when things get bad, it's often very apparent. So some people get really angry, some people break down and cry. Some people get morose. So even as you're starting to treat them, you're also just treating the person's emotional impact from getting bit by a dog.
I mean, there's just wide range. And so there's a bunch of herbs that I would call say trauma aids, and by trauma aids, they just alter the person's, you know, they're not really nervous and it's not really trying to sedate the person. They're just herbs that seem to help ground people and have things like thalamus and anemone that they just help people be a little more focused. You don't want to be too focused, right?
Because you know, there's pain involved. You know, somebody's got bit hard on the hand. I mean, you know, you don't need them to be entirely grounded. You just need to be kind of present with you as you work with them.
So that's part of the first thing. And as I say this, one of the things that any person who works in any branch of medicine it's important to learn is just, you know, bedside manner or good counseling skills. It's a lot of herbalists. Just jump from that topic.
And when you practice with people, how you approach people, learning to read people and learning to make them feel better by just watching their body language, listen to their voice and offering yourself is important. So, you know, because if I'm sitting there and I'm all nervous and crazy and I'm just saying, Oh yeah, that dog, that's just going to make the situation worse. So it's just all these things, these counseling skills are just vital, and you see it when you practice, you see it if you know how to relate to people in a certain manner for the individual. And also, of course, how your own personality.
I use humor a lot because it's just it flows out of me pretty easy. So that's a big part. So before, you know, as you're learning medicine counseling skills often called bedside manner. Mm-hmm So then what I'll do is I'll give a very small amount of one of the more grounding verbs that the person wants.
That just if that's needs to be addressed, sometimes it doesn't, especially if they got picked by their own dog, then sometimes it's just like a night after dog for biting them. So the next thing you want to do is you might want to either treat pain and then start working on the wound. So with a dog bite, they tend to get infected. I don't know the number of 50% you see it often and with a dog bite, it's just note it's important to understand what happens.
Often people get bit they don't do anything, and it's about a day to a day and a half later, and that's when the infection starts. So you want to start treating immediately, even though the person's hand aud has some holes in it. But you have to think about what are the many things that dogs eat, right? Those are in their teeth and their gums.
So when you get bit, you're getting, you know, that dog happened to be chomping on some tasty feces that day. You just got that in your skin as well. So, so sometimes it's treating the pain. And for anybody who does first aid you, it's really.
Wanting to know about 10 different pain remedies because they work a little bit different, like wild lettuce is more just kind of stops pain without affecting the emotions. As much skullcap as a good skeletal muscle relaxant also reduces pain and often makes people feel a little calmer. Valerian is better one if you're in larger doses to put people to sleep. So there's just there's lots of different remedies associated with the nervous system, and knowing the differences is very helpful, so that might be something I would start with.
And then I'm going to pretty much immediately want to get there. Let's say a bit on the head, and I think obviously the most common place that people get bathed in the sea, sometimes on their side. But when I was a kid, so we had some fun with you, there could be a little bit of it. Oh, they have sharp teeth because then we have to make it sit staff to soak your button.
Sorry so the next thing is, it's a funny memory, is it? Not really. It's evoking something here, John. So what you want to do is you want to clean it out.
And so one of the easiest ways to clean it is just make a really hot teen not hot enough to burn their skin. That's just bad for them. And just if you have a really hot teen not hot enough to burn their skin, that's just bad for them. And just if you have the arrow and the beauty of the arrow just grows all over the United States.
I mean, it's north, it's in the south, it's not everywhere, it's not in the desert, but it does grow in a lot of different environments. Once you learn to recognize the arrow, you make a really strong team. You just start soaking the person's body in whatever part in that, or it could actually be another dog. Same thing.
I mean, you are is just CSIRO is anti-inflammatory and an anti-infective, because when you get fit, you have two aspects you have infection and inflammation. The inflammation is important. You don't want to stifle it entirely, but a little bit just helps reduce pain and then also having them drink some of the arrow and soak that. And then after you're finished with soaking it for however long you do it then activated charcoal, which is more processed form of charcoal and have, you know, start making pulp, implying that topically to pull out any residue of any toxin or any bacteria, really, because dogs are not toxic on their skin.
And so and then you start giving them strong medicines to just kill any infections. So you might go with Osha or echinacea. Echinacea is particularly important for fights and wounds because echinacea is an innate immune stimulant. And you know, whenever you have injury, you're the first aspect of your body's immune system is your innate immunity and the neutrophils cleaning stuff up.
And the inflammatory chemicals getting released. And so that's a good one to work with. And then you wrap it off you check them daily, and if it gets worse, you start soaking it more often. You might want to increase the internal use of the anti-infective, maybe anti-inflammatories, maybe sedatives, if the pain's real bad.
I think that's a pretty rational way to go. OK and you said you said the activated charcoal was something that is not what you said, like one of the, you know, main things you wouldn't have without in your kit or something like that. And like, yeah, it's funny. Last night, yesterday was our last day of classes here for the year.
And you know, the question is always, what do I use when I travel? Because I always travel heavy, because I always have botany books I prefer. I want to go. I want to know the plants, but actually the medicine gets pretty small.
So if I'm going to some other country and I have a line of backpackers I can with the botany books in botany tools, I always have propolis and activated charcoal, and the activated charcoal is internal or external use. Wherever I think I need to draw something out. That's what activated charcoal does and then propel us to just seal up any wounds and have an anti-microbial wound seal. So yes, so those are the two things they travel with all the time, ok?
And you know, something that was really inspirational at the talk that I saw was seeing your first aid kit. I think I posted on my blog like just took a little photo of it, you know, said, like one of the sections I said, there's like three or four sections like this, you know, put it up there just showing people like an example of the ultimate herbal first aid kit. But but you have, I think, a handout on there too of people get download as well with some key things to have in your first aid kit. Unfortunately, it's not the key thing.
It's a first aid checklist. There is a key. There is a key one as well, right? But there's the first day checklist that probably has like 120 remedies that you might carry with you.
And then I have something that's called, I think, the street medicine checklist or something like that. And that tends to be more of like, maybe they're 10 or 15 things that people might want to bring with them. You have to have on have on their persons at all. There's a couple of things.
It depends where you are, you know, where I am. A lot of things I see are going to be food and water poisoning just from large groups. It's not that it's not particularly a hippie thing at the rainbow gathering that so many people get sick. It's just when you have that many people, it just takes one person not washing their hands after pooping to start spreading some kind of infectious organism through.
There are a couple of people drinking water, people using unclean water. So, I mean, large groups, it's just easy to have this spread. I mean, happen in the Syracuse North of here, the County fair some years ago where E coli was spread in the water. So it's.
OK, so let's see here then. Is there any other things as far as first-aid or anything that you would want to have people keep in mind because I know there's things on there that, you know, like in your kit, there's a lot of these things in your checklist that aren't herbs and things like, you know, that are really important practical things to have along, like you said before gloves and things like that. Maybe there's just some general things that people just kind of forget about, you know, when, when, when working on that. The first is a couple of pairs of disposable gloves.
Any kind of respiratory mask. So if you're looking down people's throats so you can actually wear a bandana? I tend to have a bandanna with me to cover my own mouth because it goes both ways. You can cough in their mouth, they can cough in your mouth what you're looking in there and just a respiratory mask will work as well.
Just any kind of mouth covering and a flashlight is just very important because one of the most common times people hurt themselves is at night. And so if you don't have any kind of small leak, just one of those mag lights or any kind of small flashlight, it could be very helpful. Also, if you have to go running, find somebody. Alcohol pads are quite good, very inexpensive.
Let's see. You know, I always carry an epinephrine needle what's called an EpiPen in case somebody goes into shock. So I do have one of those. They're pretty expensive.
But there's a point when anaphylaxis is happening, where there's nothing else to do but hope that somebody has epinephrine on them. So that's one of the few medical devices I have with me all the time. OK all right, great. And I think if there was just another little area I just wanted to check in with you about is like some other great handouts I saw in there were like you had the 12 steps for botanical identification and some information about learning about plant families.
That's something that often is a block for people. When I see them starting to learn and we do take it, say, for example, an urban center like, you know, an herb of the month and we planted it time, which is a very simple way of doing it. You start to use a plant, start to get introduced, but then there's that point where it's like you start going outside and wondering what this is and what that is. That can be wilderness awareness school anyway, years there.
We always call it the wall of green. You know, you're walking outside and it's just like, oh, I see is green, you know, before you start to actually kind of identify individuals, you know, out there. So when you're teaching, what is your way of helping people start to break, you know, start to see the plants as individuals and not as just one big wall of green, if you will. It's funny because I'm not really sure it's not really that funny.
I'm not really sure how people identify plants without technical identification skills. So in a previous era, if we didn't, travel was pretty easy. So you lived in some small town in France and then your mom or your dad would show you the plants that grew around you. And so you didn't really need any technical skills because they can show you all the plants that were there.
Now that kind of aspect has been severed. And so now you probably travel around a few times in your life. And so when you get someplace? How do you know?
So you move from New York to iowa? And how do you know what the Iowa plants are? So there's two ways to answer the question so how do I break down the wall of green? And what do I?
How do I really think people need to learn to identify plants? And for me, the only way to really learn to identify plants is to spend the discipline and know-how and learn how to use what's called the technical key or a flora, you know, because if you use a simple book like newcomers and some people use Michael Moore's, the problem with that is that they don't list all the plants in an area. So if you're saying, look, that looks like arnica, it matches the description. But what if it's one of the 15 plants not in that book?
So using the Peterson medicinal plant field guide, you have no idea. You just know that it's kind of like the one when you have a technical flaw, they tend to have almost all the plants and you can say, OK, it's not. This one is not. This one is not.
This one. OK this is probably the one that it is. So that's the technical aspect is knowing how to keep plants out and how to just have to know how to count statement and styles and to look to see if it's a Mastercard credit card and all those basic parts to break down the wall of green is you sit down with a group of people and you say, point out all the plants in front of us. You sit-in a circle, maybe you know, 10 people.
You sit down, you go point out all the plants. And initially people are like, well, there's this one and this one you have about what else just looks different. And what happens is people, once you start looking like, oh, look, this has a different stem and this has a different leaf, and these two grasses look differently even if they don't know the grasses. So you just sit down and you just allow observational skills, you know, which for me is really the same medically, because when somebody sits down and starts to talk to me about their health, I'm observing them as well, and I'm trying to figure out the nuances of the quality of their voice, the quality of what they look like.
mean, it's all detective work in the end. So when people are like, oh, there's just too many plants, how do you know them all? You don't have to know them all, but you just want to learn how to distinguish one from the other. And the best way is to sit down anywhere different places and just start saying and start saying, oh, this is different than this and this is different than this, and you don't have to know what they are yet, but that, as you call it, the wall I've created, all of a sudden, you start seeing individual members.
For me, it's like that classic kind of weird thing that people say, you know, like all Caucasians look alike or something, you know, it's like when you start looking, you know, the differences become reasonably obvious. Exactly, exactly. And it and it and it is something to because once you start to really use that art of questioning in yourself and looking closely, you start to see all these subtle differences in things. And then and then, of course.
And then there's I find that going through the plant family often is helpful. If I'm going from place to place, like now, I go back East. mean, I first learned about some plants in the Northeast and then I move quickly to the Northwest. Learn stuff here.
Now I go back to where I grew up and I'm like, oh, it's that, you know? But at least I can also go, hey, I think that it's definitely a mint. And that's definitely one of the best ways to do it. I mean, it's once you know your plant families, it just stops a lot of the confusion.
And in North America, right? And no, that's not North America. Let's go to the United States. In Canada, there's only like maybe 15 or 20 plant families, maybe 25 that are very common.
That's not that many families to memorize the basic characteristics, and it's due. I mean, I teach it every year. Some people just never really get that part. Well, I have to say they get frustrated and using the small magnifying lenses and all the specific terminology basically probably drives them away from herbal medicine forever.
But for many others, at least, they know what they don't know is that classic aspect. You know where it's like, maybe they're not great I identification, but they know that they have to do a little bit of legwork and I work and brain work in order to identify plants. So, you know, you need some basic tools. I mean, you know, 15 bucks will get you everything you need to identify a plant as far as just magnifying lenses, scissors, razor blades, rulers and that kind of thing.
Hacking go to use bookstore or an Amazon used and get some local guides. Yeah, if you live like for us, if you live in the Northeast, you would start with newcomers. If where you're from in the Northwest, you would start with podger. J.r. lots of areas in the United States have this basic books, and then you have to kick it up in order to really know what plant to look at.
Yahoo Even even in the West Coast wilderness awareness, when designing the commando program, the naturalist training program that I was part of designing that and you know, there is just nothing like out here like, I don't know why, you know, someone didn't pick up on the Newcomb legacy and make a West Coast one because we still recommend people because there's a lot of things. Even though it's East of the Mississippi, there's a lot of things in there that you can find out here. But the way of how it trains your eye is unparalleled, even if you don't keep using newcomers. I mean, that's what I started using is someone recommended that years ago, but I never stopped that, that brain patterning of the first thing I do, I look.
And I'm like, all right, is this distinguishable? Not distinguishable? that regular? Is it not irregular?
Does it have any pedals? Does it have what's the shape of, you know, what's the branching pattern? And it just taught me how to question so that every time I look at a plan, I don't even have to draw it. I don't have to take a piece of it.
I can just use my observation skills and memorize that pattern or even write down that in a journal or something. Go back and then usually find it even in another plant book. That's not newcomers. You know, that's true.
You know, so I don't know, just something I realized I wish, but I will make a West Coast one. It doesn't. Well, the same. I mean, it's the same thing.
So whether you use Gleason and Hitchcock or, you know, Gleason and conquest out here or a Hitchcockian conquest out in the Northwest, it's always look for the same things. And I'll say that handout that you mentioned that I have is called it's the botanical 12-step program is because once you start, there's basically the same things or looked at is in a motto or as a die card. Is it a regular or regular? Are the is it all the petals attacks or all the petals separate?
Then once you start getting an eye for that, it doesn't always make it easy because it's, you know, plants hybridize. It's tricky, but you start once you get the skills. It's also once again like treating people is the same kind of thing. So you start listening.
They say, I have a headache and you think what kind of headache? And they're like, you know, a headache, you know, like, you know, without sounding patronizing, like, I'm not I'm not really sure what kind of headache you have. You know, when the front of your head hurts in the morning and they're like, oh, that kind of headache? And what else happens?
Well, I don't, you know, you know, the kind of headache you go to sleep with, you don't have it and you wake up and you just start. There's a sense of questioning and patterns that we can learn to invoke in order to get, you know, another set of responses that leads to another set of questions. And I mean, it's much easier to identify plant than it is to identify people's health issues generally because, you know, a very complex biologically, whereas, you know, a plant generally can get pretty close to the species within a certain amount of time. Yes, exactly.
But that's yeah, that's great. That's really helpful because, you know, then like I like, like your 12 step, it's like, well, know, the first step of getting over, be a botanist is admitting that you're one. Some people might find that a little offensive. Well, I mean, of all people has never been my strong suit.
I know, and especially when you, you know and you know, you get to a certain state when you find yourself like, you know, stomping on the side of the road. Every time, like you see a different plant family and ripping out your field guide, you just can't pass the plant without knowing what it is. That would be true. I pretty one of my goals is to know as many plants as possible.
mean, I would like to know them all, but I'm still terrible at lots of grasses, hedges. I'm hopeless, and the flowering plants are easier. Yes, yes, that's true. You know, and also the books doesn't realize that it takes some time to I mean, being that a lot of the keying is done by looking at flowers that you know, it's OK that if it takes you a season or two of recognizing when something flowers that they identify, I mean, you've got a long life, right?
I mean, you know, just and if you don't, it doesn't matter. Good point. Exactly so, you know, sometimes do you mind if I kind of finished up with a plug-in your school for you? Sure I'm curious how you would plug my school.
I'm ready. I do want to I do want to say to folks that that, you know, you can visit seven songs school, Northeast school botanical medicine at seven. And you do a six month intensive program. And then you just use, is that the one you just finished up?
You said you just finished one up last night, yesterday. Oh, so that's it must be tough seeing people go after me. Yeah, it's I don't like most people, pretty much. Out of the 17 students, more than 2/3 moved to Ithaca.
So they're just, you know, going to leave and go back, maybe to sunnier, sunnier climes at this point. On the other hand, it's fun to have time to sit-in a warm bath and read novels. So it must be a lot of great herbalists. I mean, Ithaca area by now, huh?
Yeah, I know a lot of them leave them for me. And the tricky thing with herbalists everywhere is that it's not that easy to make a livelihood. And so I mean, I do it, you know, the free clinic, of course, I don't get paid. And so my livelihood is as a teacher.
And, you know, to be an herbal teacher, either you go to a school, you have to have strong entrepreneurial skills. It's just like a musician in that sense, you know, I mean, you could be really good at what you do, but trying to make a livelihood usually means you have to know how to cut out your own path. And so but some of the students, some of the students do, a lot of them really are come to the school. I mean, six months is not a lot of time to learn medicine.
It's a very, very short time to learn that because that's what you know, it's not just herbs, it's about how to treat people. And so then the next step is where to go from here. So, yeah, so my program is there's a six month program that's three days a week plus 3 long field trips, two of them for one week, one of them for 2 and 1/2 weeks. And then there's also a one weekend a month program from May to November, with no classes in July.
I also have an apprenticeship and a lot of people. I'm laughing because a lot of people call it, but I only take three apprentices a year and it tends to fill up. The apprentices are basically people that work with me on a very daily basis, it really has to click. I mean, it's good to click and all that counts, but you know, they're in my house and working with me.
And so next year, there's already two out of the three apprentices pick. So often people call me up about it, but it's good to be open to just being a student. Also, there's just a lot to learn. Apprentices have less time to study than regular students.
Some people do it because the apprenticeship is free. But if you figure out the school is 100 bucks for the year and you can't have a job, if you're an apprentice, it gets you have, you know, sometimes in a way it's cheaper to be a student. And let me just say this and even clearer, please don't ever call me up through the apprenticeship to save money. That's not why I have an apprenticeship, right?
Exactly, exactly. So and also remember to you also if you live locally, if anyone listeners who live in more locally, you do some weekend classes. That's one weekend a month. And people come from as far away as Pittsburgh, which is about 7 and 1/2 hours from here in New York City and Washington, DC but there might be other Arab schools that are closer.
Oh Yeah. The reason they probably come to this school is more first aid and botany. And you like snarky, sarcastic, critical thinking, herbal medicine. I like that.
That should be your byline slogan on it is I change it. Sometimes it's glib and flippant. Days have a little more, you say. Like the word snarky.
You got it. So folks said, you know, you do travel a lot to different, different gatherings and herbal medical conferences like I saw you at a couple of weeks ago. So and I'll be teaching for a week in Florida and Gainesville in February. I'm teaching for a week or two in the Bay Area in April, so I do that kind of thing too.
I don't really ever post it because usually I'm teaching more. I want to go down. I'll go down to the Bay Area in April. Really nice.
Yeah, I'm there at the California School verbal studies. Oh, my Alma mater, by the way. Oh, OK. Maybe you have to be in that program, then I can't just show up.
I don't. I think I'm not sure you go to their website. We'll find out. I'll go there.
So 7Song I want to thank you so much for hanging out with us today and more than anything. Thanks for all the wonderful work you do in the world, and maybe we can have you back some time.
Thanks, John.
Thanks have a great day.
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