From HerbMentor.com, this is Herb Mentor Radio.
You are listening to Herb Mentor Radio on HerbMentor.com. I'm John Gallagher.
My guest today is Charles Garcia.
Charles is a third generation curandero and practicing herbalist. He is founder and director of the California School of Traditional Hispanic Herbalism.
Charles has worked in law enforcement, special special education, lectured at many schools, and was a contributing author to the book Wilderness Emergency Care.
He teaches first, herbal first aid to the Red Cross and also volunteers many hours helping the homeless population of his hometown. And you can visit Charles online at HispanicHerbs.com.
How's it going, doc?
Doing great.
Alright. So, you know, so Chuck, for those of you who don't know, I mentioned the word curandero in your introduction. What is a curandero?
Well, that that word itself is rather controversial, because technically it just means one who cures or one who heals.
But in a wider sense, it is a healer who also uses ritual, prayer, for lack of a better term, magic, as well as herbal medicines and such.
Now I should say that ninety five percent of my practice is just herbal medicine.
Now other Hispanic nations, a curandero or a curandera may have a more mystical background in, I believe, Chile, they are considered fortune tellers.
In Puerto Rico, they are feared because they practice the occult.
So there is no one defined definition for it.
So that's the best second time.
Okay. Now were you taught, and you were taught by your mother. Right?
Right. Yes.
And and how how did she, you know, mentor mentor you or mentor you?
Well, you know, I had no idea that this was happening. Mhmm.
I was probably about four or five.
And, people would come to our home, and mom would say, that man is sick or that baby is sick. Go pick that plant over there.
And I'd go get it, bring it back, and I'd get a nickel and that was big money in those days. Mhmm. And you could buy a lot of candy.
And so by the time I was about eight, it was that man has a fever or that what? He has cramps.
Go get that plant over there or that plant there. And now I get tends to a lot of money.
So by the time I was in my I'd say my really early teens or even a tad younger, I could look at a person coming in and I would know pretty much what that person needed. I'd go out. I'd get the plant.
Also, by this time, I had seen how my mom used it. Mhmm.
And so I was being trained all this time.
So it was it was an invisible school.
It was invisible.
Wow.
I had no idea. And, we have a belief that, one person in each generation is the one to carry it on.
Now I had a older brother, and it's usually tradition that the older child, has this gift.
But in my case, that was wrong. It was me.
Wow. And it just kind of happened that way, didn't it?
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It did. Now I am fourteen years younger than my brother. So, it was a long wait.
And and he seemed just not interested?
Or you know, to his dying day, literally, John was never really interested.
He knew all about plaster, but it just never sparked him.
Never sparked him. And and and your your ancestors are actually California natives. Correct? You were saying?
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
And and that's and that's, that's a whole different thing.
So it's a Right.
Kind of a native American. Native American.
You know, like a native American Hispanic or or how does that I I don't understand some of the California ethnography.
The native part of the family came to about ten thousand BCE give or take a month or two and the European part came in around seventeen ninety two. And my wife has just walked in the door with a new footpad for me. Thank you, my darling. I have been told I need better arch support.
So bless her heart, she ran out in this cold weather, and she braved to wind and she brought me talk to Scholes.
Oh, nice. Alright.
So this is how the, the California Creditismo started. It was not from Mexico.
It was a combination native European combining of herbs, herbal knowledge, even concepts of health.
There's this, belief that the Indians were dirty.
Well, they had this strange concept called bathing.
Maybe maybe even once or twice a day. Oh my god.
And they were naked.
Men and women naked together. You know, you know, the Spanish wouldn't have that.
Horrible, horrible.
But, despite that, all of the native traditions in healing survived.
And and and it was sort of passed on, at what point did it because because you were mentioning how with your mother and your mother's generation, how they had she had to really hide what she did. Now, Oh, yeah.
Now, but but was this was this That's the time.
Most most most people most most horrible healers did and it was not just minorities. At that time, so called modern medicine was squeezing out the last of the of the, of the eclectic physicians who were college trained herbalists of that age.
Mhmm.
And, they also began to prosecute, people who saw sick people Mhmm.
Just because they saw them.
So being a minority, this was hit.
Okay. You never mentioned that you were seeing, an herbalist or a bone setter or a midwife.
It simply was not done.
Interesting.
Now another thing that kind of almost killed this was in the 50s and 60s, the availability of health insurance.
Mhmm.
So everybody want to go to a doctor, to a good modern doctor who used medicines and x rays and surgery and chemotherapy and such.
Why this has turned around?
There's a lot of discussion. No one knows for sure.
But, I lean towards the fact that sometimes modern medicine fails Right.
Right.
And fails spectacularly.
Well, yeah, and that And people are starting to come back.
Right, right, right. To a more gentle way, to a way that is sometimes more effective, not always, but sometimes.
Also, we get to talk to our patients, our clients, actually. We spend the time getting to know them.
A modern doctor can't do that, either can't or won't.
And and people and people aren't, these days, health insurance, as you said, may may brought some people into modern medicine. But as we all know now, health insurance is leading people out of modern medicine.
And so, I would love, Chuck, if you could kind of tie that in and go into the stuff that you were talking about. That wonderful class that I I took gorilla herbalism and your work with, homeless.
Like, connect somehow connect all that in there.
Oh, well.
Because because I because I see that as like, you know, wow, you know, you're you're there and you realize that people need help. Yeah. And then you're taking you're you're you're going into your on your on yourself and saying, you know, I wanna help these people and you're finding a way to do it.
Well, I I started to help the homeless just by sheer accident, I guess. Mhmm.
I at this point, I couldn't even tell you the first person I helped. I really can't.
And eventually, I found that they were afraid.
They were afraid of, of, straight people. And and I don't mean that in a such terrible term.
Great people are people who live normal, quote, normal lives and don't understand what their life is. Mhmm. Mhmm. And some people choose to be homeless, not very many.
And some people are trapped in that cycle, and some will always be trapped.
And there's not a lot of health care that is available to them unless they're already in the system before they became homeless.
Okay. Even then, if you don't have a permanent address, it's hard to get home.
I heard stories about people losing their homes because they had to have procedures that weren't covered by health insurance.
And they lost everything.
And after a time being on the street, and I absolutely believe this, you fall into a type of mental illness.
It's almost like battle fatigue.
Right.
Or or as they said back in World War I, shell shock.
Okay.
The human body can only take combat, sustained combat for about fifteen weeks.
After that, it breaks down and becomes an effect that you cannot keep going on. Okay?
Being homeless for years at a time does the same thing.
And you cannot readjust automatically, if by some miracle you are taken off the streets, have in a small apartment, you have a job, you often cannot adjust.
So what do I do?
They try to make their day or their hour a little better.
And I did this by becoming a part of them for a time.
I did not drive up. I walked in.
I wore old clothes.
I hadn't shaved or showered.
For lack of a better term, I basically infiltrated and I brought along my little tiny, canvas bag of herbs or a tea or a thermos.
Now you can't help everyone.
You can't.
You'll go crazy.
But you can help certain people.
And, I would give herbal syrups or bronchitis. I would bring some broth or soup or some tea or God knows tons of salve over the years for horrible skin conditions or just some Flintstone vitamins because I saw scurvy.
Wow.
No one sees scurvy anymore.
Oh, oh, as cases curfew, I can think of Long John Silver on Treasure Island.
So I became rather billeted about it because you know, it's not always legal to go out as one person to help those in need.
You can be breaking house laws or a state law or a local law.
Okay.
If I give a sandwich to one person, no one is going to care. If I drive a truck out there and start to give out sandwiches, someone is going to notice and complain, and then authorities step in.
Well, I'm not giving out food. I'm doing something even more radical. I'm trying to make people healthy, at least for that hour or that day. Or God knows maybe that week.
And the powers that we are not comfortable with that.
At the same time, being on the street for about five years, I didn't see anybody else out there, just one crackpot or a blast here.
Yeah. Uh-huh.
I I texted UC Berkeley at the time to the joint medical program that they share with UC San Francisco.
And you'd be surprised a number of young idealist doctors, wonderful young people who work so hard who are going to go to name your favorite third world country to help the poor. Right.
Well, I said, look, if you wanna save some money, you come to Richmond.
Okay. Just just a few miles down the road and I'll show you the poor. If you have to go to Botswana to find poor people, you're not looking too hard.
True.
And and I know what they meant. They wanted the adventure. And that's okay. Okay. That's fine as long as you say, well, I'm going to help the poor because I want the adventure of a foreign country and and, crocodiles and big snakes, tropical diseases.
You know? There are people like that. That's great. Okay. But don't say I'm gonna do it for the poor.
No. You're not.
Right. And I tell my own stat, don't tell me that you're going to go to South America and start a free clinic. Actually, some have, bless their hearts.
Just for the poor. Well, I'll show you the poor.
Right. Right. Right in our own backyard, everywhere.
In our own backyard. Right.
And we turn a blind eye. Mhmm.
And don't like to see that part of America.
And and if you wouldn't mind talking about just, like, that this is, you know, this is a tough thing you don't recommend for everyone, you know. Like, this is not something that we're saying, hey, everyone go out and, you know, grab a bag of salves and cut out to the streets. You know?
Like, so some some of that wisdom would be nice to If you plan to do that, you come to me first.
I'll train you.
Yeah.
Exactly. But Really.
Yeah. So yeah. So and yeah. Because, so then, you're you're you're out there. And and I just wanna reiterate again, like, something that really that you said are a little bit, like, kinda glossed you touched on a little bit in in what you're talking about is when you're going when you're working with folks, you even said you'll just sometimes have a a brown paper bag crumpled up with a few things in it, like, just to blend in and to not and to not, you know, be an outsider.
Right. Yeah. So Yeah. That's and and so, let's let's talk about that brown paper bag for a second. And so, you have your canvas bag or your brown paper bag. And what really struck me, not just this amazing story and work that you do when I when I sat in on your class, but also the minimalism and the herbs you use and how you use them and how simple you're able to powerfully help people with the simplest things. And so, what's in Doc's you know, what what are some of Doc's favorite remedies?
Oh, you know, often I try to grab stuff off of the street literally.
Locally you can find, Fennel growing everywhere.
Okay?
It's a weed out here. And I love fennel because it's great for coughs, upset stomach, as a as a wash.
It's quite soothing.
We have a plant here which depending on what book you read may or may not be part of the chamomile family. It's called pineapple Mhmm.
Certainly is, actually.
And it yeah. And it grows from from New York to Santa Monica.
Now that is a very gentle stomach sedatives.
Well, I will grab that.
We have rosemary bushes everywhere. We have juniper.
I will grab that.
We have a lot of wild mint out here, so I'll grab some of that. And with these plants, especially rosemary, you can do quite a bit.
And if you find a person out there who is stable enough, you can teach them how to use it too.
Wow.
And all you need is some fire, a pot, and some water.
And that's about it.
And and so and so, you know, so you mentioned rosemary, fennel, pineapple weed, wild man. And, you know, there are gonna be plants, different plants, maybe even different bioregions where people live.
But Exactly.
But learning what grows around you and then what you could use similarly. But these are also common ones that you could carry around dried or, you know, prepared in a ten years.
Yarrow. How could I forget yarrow?
Yeah.
I mean, these Wonderful plant.
So yeah. Those weeds that you kill every year Mhmm. Are are lifesavers at times.
So, you know, it's really just some a lot of first aid you're doing.
In a sense. Yeah. There's a lot of that, but it can go long term too because, most of injuries there will heal very, very slowly. Right. So you have to come back.
I would guess that eighty percent of the homeless have some sort of immune compromised position.
Usually, it is because of poor diet. Mhmm.
Often, it is because of long term bronchial issues, Mhmm.
Dental problems of any nature.
Right. Right.
And that just beats down the immune system year after year.
Oh, wow. And have you ever found that somebody that you helped out got interested in this and learned a few tricks and helped other folks out?
Actually, yes.
Yeah.
I'll I'll have to clean this story up a little bit.
First line is gonna sound bad.
I picked up a prostitute good morning.
Yeah.
And I, I declined her offer, but I bought her breakfast out at McDonald's.
And when she found out who I was, she screamed.
And I said, what's wrong? And She said, my god. You're real. I said, yeah. I'm real. And it had turned out that I had become f g roll because you're some kind of semi mythical creature on this street.
What did they call you?
I was called the plant man.
Oh, wow.
The plant man. My wife is laughing right now.
And the plant man was, well, that's a story for another time.
But I took her to the Greater Richmond interface program, which, helps the homeless.
And she eventually started to learn about herbs on her own.
And the last I heard of her, about a year ago, I guess, she had gotten her GED, had done at least a year of college, and was making plant medicines locally. Mhmm.
She had moved to Oakland and was helping people out there.
So that's one story.
That's amazing.
I I had another Compass client, who who remained homeless.
But she learned about einochological herbs that she just she could use for the homeless women Mhmm. At this, at this homeless camp.
And so until she died, she helped out there.
So, yeah, it happens.
That's Yeah. Just that's what a thank you for sharing that, the work you're doing there because that that when I took that class with you, I I just like, oh, people have to hear about this because I was just amazed, you know, because I thought, you know, I'm always just it's so incredibly interesting to me to hear all different people in different areas and how they use herbs and how they help people with them.
And when I heard your class, I'm like, oh, that's something I haven't heard before.
You know? And it's, it is sad Yeah. By the way. Because Yeah. There are so many really great herbalists out there.
People that haven't written books or articles, but they are excellent at what they do.
And they should be on the street right now.
Maybe they are now. Right? Mhmm. Hopefully.
Yeah. Like and so it's like, you know, you were trained in this invisible school and then you have gone ahead and and at least on the streets, created a bit of an invisible school.
Yeah. But of course then you have your real school. Your your visible school Right. Which is so I was wondering about your visible school. And when you say, when when you on your in your school there when I was mentioning folks, the California School of Traditional Hispanic Herbalism.
What what makes like, I'm curious is like, what what what draws people in to your school? Like, what draws them in? And what uniquely makes it a school of Hispanic herbalism? What what are some of those things that you mentioned perhaps way earlier when you said there's some different approaches to looking at health and things like that. So what is the flavor of of of what you teach and how you use herbs in that sense?
Well, it is, minimalist.
Okay.
I try to break them of having to have perfect knowledge of how much of this, how much of that. Mhmm.
Okay. You have to be able to gauge by sight, smell, and touch.
You don't need, a scale. It helps. It's great.
But what if you don't have it?
Right.
Okay. That is one thing.
You have to eyeball the plant. What does the plant look like? Okay. Alright.
It's green.
It's long. Okay. But what does it look like in the morning, in the afternoon, at night? What time do you wanna pick it for what condition?
Okay. Is it has it been dried? How old is it? Was it dried properly? Probably, but let's smell it.
Let's taste it. Let's look at the color.
There's a lot of tasting, hands on feeling the plant.
Okay. A lot of smelling the plants.
And you have to taste and drink what you make in my school.
Okay? And a lot of it's pretty vile.
Vile.
And my wife is here smiling.
So you know what you're putting your clients through.
Number two, is and I know it sounds new agey and it's really not.
But it's looking at a plant and trying to see, trying to feel if the plant is ready to be harvested and if the plant wants to be harvested.
And I've and, I've had people turn their eyes up and, oh my god. He's one of those.
On the other hand, once they start making their own meds, and they notice that the person who was respectful towards a plant makes a good man and maybe theirs isn't so good. Maybe it doesn't work at all. And they've picked it from the same plant.
Now, scientifically, it should work.
It should work for them, and it doesn't.
What's the difference?
One person showed respect, the other didn't. And I've done this myself.
I've been in a hurry, ran out, grabbed some plants, made some medicine, and it was crap.
Right.
I go I've had that same experience.
I've had that same. Yeah.
And I will go out again. I'll take my time. I'll apologize first.
And I'll ask, are you ready? Mhmm. And at times, the plant will say no but Look at him over there and I'll go. Oh yeah. Why didn't I think of that? That other plant would work maybe even better.
You listen to the plants. You feel and this is how healers did this a thousand years ago, two thousand, three thousand, maybe ten thousand years ago.
They had to feel the plant.
Now I don't always go by these feelings because I have great guidebooks.
But a lot of times I do, especially in my own backyard.
Respect the plant. And that is what I try to teach also.
That if you have to buy the plant, I understand the limitations.
If you can grow some plants, then understand their limitations.
It's a living thing.
So I get a lot of criticism about that from, from more fine typical schools as you can imagine.
Well, yeah. But, I mean, it seems like you're just doing something so entirely different. I mean, I I you you know, Susan Weed who often will say, you know, for one of the first thing she always says is, herbal medicine is the people's medicine and you really bring it to the people and really connect people with plants to like, you could it seems like you have the gift. And what you do is, like, say, anyone can absolutely do this even if you're not all that interested in it. And it's really easy.
You can do it if you want to.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Like any like anyone Well, I mean, every year everyone would have the interest of it for their health. That's what I mean. I guess, that's what I meant. It's like, everyone, like even if you're not a plant geek, you you know. You you can you can pick some fennel off the street and just know that you can boil that up if you have a stomachache and you're like, oh, that's easy.
Right. Yeah.
I have a friend who is arguably the greatest herbalist on the coast, Adam Siller.
And I would look extra at his school.
And I'd say a good herbalist knows about one hundred plants, a great herbalist only needs about ten.
And after about three years, Adam got tired of this and said, okay, wise ass, prove it.
And I thought, uh-oh, busted.
So I started to teach a class, called ten herbs.
And, I I will pick ten herbs that, that season, and I'll just teach on one herb a night.
And and and of these herbs, you know, you can do a lot.
Now Let's go into let's go into a few of them.
Let's let's give give me let's talk about three that you your top three.
Okay. Well, last night, actually, was our class and we covered Maru, which you know as Horhounds.
Horhounds. Okay.
Horhounds. Yeah. Now if Erybilis knows that it's a bitter plant and the British make a candy out of it.
Okay?
Now what most people or most Herbalists don't even know is that it is a multi use plant and it was used extensively as a tea in the pre Christian times.
And it was used to improve digestion as a bitter.
It will break fevers. It's a diuretic.
It's a laxative.
It's for mild asthma, colds, cough, moderate patients of bronchitis, for a sore throat, you can gargle it.
If you have stomach parasites, worms, you can drink it and they'll come screaming out of your body.
It's, fairly decent it's spectrums.
You'd have to drink a lot of it. So it's kind of better as a steam.
Mhmm.
It is an aid to mens situation.
Early California Hispanic women gave it to their daughters to help bring on first menses.
It's a mild appetite stimulant, and it's great for topical skin irritations.
The great Greek physician diphtherides considered it a primary herb for tuberculosis and asthma.
Nicholas Culpepper, who I love reading his book because it is in such a old style English. Mhmm.
He was one of the first to use it in a syrup for children.
Now the Hispanic Indian dealers kind of began to use it for diabetes in the late is being huggers.
That's just one plant. That's that's four out.
Right. Right. Right.
Now another plant is called Red Root, and you can find various species of it throughout the U. S. I believe in California up to your area.
The type is, stenosis stenosis, I believe.
Yeah. Yeah. You can find it in our state in Washington on the east side of the mountains.
Oh, okay.
Now this is a great tough to tough to process. Okay. Tough to process. But for almost all lymphatic issues, it is the number one herb. Including tonsillitis, okay. Mono, hydrocephalus, beyond that it is a carrier.
You could combine this with herbs and it will go straight into the lymph system.
Why is this good? Cancer therapy.
Cancer herbs.
And lastly, it allows whatever lung tissue is left in you to absorb more oxygen directly into the blood system.
Now that's a great herb if you only have one lung as my mom did Or if you're having pleurisy or or any other breathing issue Mhmm.
It helps the lungs work more efficiently.
It brings the oxygen into the lungs. But a great plant. So there are two right there.
Multipurpose herbs.
Great. That's great. And I and I love that because often, you know, a horror hound, red root aren't some of the ones you just automatically, you know, teach about right away. And so I love I love getting, some perspectives from people who use a plant so frequently for things that are kind of a little off that beaten path.
So people kinda shows them that there are a lot of other plants besides the, you know, top most often one used which and there may be one growing in your backyard that you didn't even know about.
Right.
And that's, so, check clients. I was reading on your website. You see you see folks. Right?
And you said something about you not always charge them or I don't like I never charge them.
Tell us about that.
My mom never charged. Her dad never charged.
I don't mind other herbalists charging if that is their life, if that is what they do. Yes. They should charge a fair amount.
But in our family, we will not charge those who are sick or in need. And everyone who comes through my door are sick or in need.
Right. So I I will not profit from that. I can't do it. I just can't do it.
So you don't get rich doing this. Now in the old days, people would leave something for my grandfather or mom. Okay?
But this wasn't how they made their money.
My grandfather, he did construction as a young man. He was a cowboy, a laborer.
K. My mom was a migrant at times.
She was a housewife.
She worked at the Tri Valley Cannery for many years.
In short, you don't quit your day job to do this. Mhmm.
You'll starve.
What are you I gotta tell you something.
I have to interject because I know you're a big Bruce Springsteen fan and I'm I'm a big Bruce Springsteen.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
But that that is the the one time I met Bruce Springsteen.
Well, because I grew up near him. We went Christmas caroling at his house And we sang, oh, come all ye faithful or something like that, like my group of high school buddies.
And then he's he was married to his first wife and he's in this big mansion there and and, and and then he just kinda like we finished and he looks at us and he goes, yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Don't quit your day jobs.
It made me think of that.
So I Oh, yeah.
Oh, yes. Yeah.
So it's true. Don't quit your day job.
Yeah. Don't quit your day job.
Now I am able to do this because I teach and I write and I not sure. And that allows me to get the stuff I can't either, grow, beg, borrow, or steal.
So my practice doesn't require me to charge or to even ask for a donation.
So no one is ever charged.
Unfortunately because of this people believe it's a scam and there has to be some sort of hidden charge somewhere.
Mhmm.
You know? And I I tried to explain that, no, it's it's completely free. It's a free clinic. Come on in.
Yeah. That's that's great. I mean, I I just, admirable and and and and, you know, you don't see that a lot these, you know, these days and all. So, it's, wow.
So, I was looking at some of the and and I encourage folks to head on to hispanic herbs dot com because I'm just looking at some of these these class titles and they're just so you know, they're just real practical like what people like once again, like, you know, there's people who can get really into this stuff, want to learn everything there is to know and they would just deep a hobby you know in a way a deep long exploration, lifelong exploration. It's just a passion. And then, there's kind of just stuff you think just everyone should know. And Right.
And I look at your classes and I'm just like, no. This is all just stuff everyone should know. It should just be like school. This should be like, you know, the entire eighth grade curriculum or something, you know, or high school curriculum.
And and I teach how to make soup.
You know, you'd be surprised the number of people who can't make food from scratch.
I couldn't when I left the house when I was going to college.
Like, my mom never let me cook.
I guess I could've just thrown the can in there. But Yeah.
That's what I'm that's what I'm looking at. I'm like, this is like basic canning and food preservation, emergency first aid, urban, herb walk, you know, and you go on and on and on.
So did I also see on your site are you are you keeping the school going the way it is? Are you changing it up?
Are you, You know, I was going to close the school at the end of twenty twelve, because I'm tired.
I'm tired and life's been rough.
But a certain lady I met at the conference Mhmm.
Asked me not to do it.
And I respect her so much that I have decided to somehow find the energy, to keep the school going.
But I have not changed that yet on my website.
Well, I encourage you to keep it going too. And, you know, there's a lot of things you can do. Like, you can just have a a couple of of of close apprentices, and and and the best way to learn is to teach, and they can take over some of the basic stuff that they teach for you.
Exactly. Yes. I'm going to haul in their butts a lot more next year, because teaching four classes a night, seeing clients almost five to six days a week.
It just wears on you.
I I think I think the model of the classes that you're teaching and the kind of classes that you're teaching and how you've assembled them here.
I mean, that needs to be this needs to be, you know, taught and then replicated in every city.
Right.
You know, the way you're doing it here. I'm like, oh, this is this is what people need to know. I mean, this is what everyone needs to know. And then there's people like us that might wanna learn more elsewhere and whatnot. Great. But I'm talking about everyone.
If a person, stays at my school for two years, okay, if they take two years courses, including some of the short term specialty classes.
Mhmm.
And they'll come out as pretty decent herbalists. Now after two years, if I see a spark in a person, then I will offer very advanced classes for free.
Wow.
If you're willing to spend the time, k, I will teach you some really difficult stuff for free No charge You show up, I'll teach Wow. And those classes are not listed.
Right.
Those are very private.
Wow.
Well, that's And it means that that you become part of this family.
Okay? You are out with me mucking in the garden.
Okay, walking my dog, okay, walking through my neighborhood and you better start looking around you and telling me what you see.
Because in a four block radius, there are so many plants that you can use and foods.
And if you can see that, if you can open your eyes to the wider world, then you're going to be an excellent herbalist.
Not a good one, an excellent one. I All you have to do is put in the time.
I I encourage anyone who listens to the Greater Bay Area to to take advantage to to get on that and and and start studying with you because, you know, this is the real deal and this is the stuff people need to know and especially if you have a passion in wanting to help others and and, you know, wondering how you fit into the greater thing, you know, the greater picture in herbalism and helping other people. I mean, that's an amazing opportunity.
So And I'll teach really esoteric things like how to steal plants out of your neighbor's yard at night.
And they'll never notice it.
That that would not be part of the regular Herb Mentor curriculum, but trust you go for it.
I had a group, in the early days of my practice and my school, and I called them Herbal Amanda's, because I taught them pretty much how to scavenge urbanly.
And their last test was to go out at the dead of night and bring me three plants each, you know, picked in the dark from someone's yard or backyard, God knows, and bring it back to me and not get shot or busted.
And they all passed.
Alright.
And they said that that was the scariest experience they had ever had.
Wow. Wow. Wow.
So my classes are not always dull. They can be pretty excited.
Oh, that's great. And I, so, will you be at the traditions in Western conference next year, I hope?
Yes. I shall be.
Yay. And I will too. So we'll get to hang out again. Excellent. I encourage everyone, who does not know about the traditions in western herbalism conference to go to traditions in western herbalism dot o r g. Learning herbs dot com.
It was an amazing amazing event.
And learning herbs dot com along with mountain rose herbs are the two major sponsors and learning herbs dot com will once again be the major sponsor with mountain rose, because we love it so much.
You certainly do.
And now and now after this interview, I'm sure folks know why. You just never know who you're gonna meet and learn.
We have a lot of fun. I'll tell you.
So and once again, hispanic herbs dot com is where you can, and and I even find the frequently asked questions on your website very entertaining.
Oh, good. Thank you. That was my wife's idea. Okay. Just to save a long time.
So, you know, I I just wanted to, say that, yeah, you're definitely the the most inspirational herbalist heart.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it. Definitely a man after my own heart and, it's been just a awesome honor to have you on today and, and I encourage you. Thank you and I encourage everyone to see us at the the conference next year. And if you live in the Bay Area, you get to Chuck's classes. Charles Garcia, we are so thankful for your time and sharing your story with us.
John, thank you very much.
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Thanks so much for listening.
