From HerbMentor.com, this is Herb Mentor Radio.
You are listening to Herb Mentor Radio and HerbMentor.com. I'm John Gallagher. My guest today is Phyllis Light. Phyllis is a fourth generation herbalist and healer and has worked with herbs and in natural health for over thirty years.
Her studies began in the woods of Northern Alabama, and now Phyllis lectures in herb schools, universities, medical schools, hospitals, and health conferences. She is also a practitioner consultant to business and physicians, a professional member of the American Herbalist Guild, director of herbal studies at Clayton College, and is working on a new book titled The Geography of Health, Southern Appalachian Folk Medicine, which explores the medicine that is at the heart of her personal herbal traditions. And you can visit Phyllis and learn about her herbal studies programs and and her services at phyllis d light dot com that's P H Y L L I S D L I G H T dot com.
Welcome, Phyllis.
Hi.
It's just wonderful to to have you on. I It was just a pleasure to meet you at the Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference in New Mexico. And I know we didn't have much time to talk there. We kinda met towards the end there, and and that's why I was so excited to have you on the show.
Well, thank you.
It was a great conference too, by the way. Tradition and Western Herbalism Conference. I highly recommend it.
Yes. Likewise. And I'll be there next year too.
Me too.
Alright. Well, we'll get a chance to hang out then for sure. So anyone listening to this show who is not an dot com member, I wanna say that members often have an opportunity to ask the questions. And the questions are so good and thorough this time around that I'm pretty much using every everything I ask is coming directly from our members.
And usually, I have to fill in the gaps, but in this case, folks, we're so excited to have you with us, Phyllis, that, they were just great questions. So I wanna start with, a lot of people really curious about where you come from and your background. And you're a fourth generation herbalist. So tell us about your family background and the land that you learned in.
Sure. And it's it's probably more than four generations.
I just don't know how many generations it is, actually. There's been an herbalist in my family that we know of all the way back to the civil war and which is probably more than four genera I know it's more than four generations. Wow. But, and there could have been before that.
We just don't have the paper trail on it. Mhmm. But, what was in the family, we weren't called herbalists. I mean, the term herbalist is quite, I think, a new term, a new vocabulary word Mhmm.
In this area anyway. I still people say I'm an herbalist when I'm meeting people, and they go, what's that?
Because it's not really it's a very modern word.
Here, we were called herb doctors up until in her herbologist up until really probably the nineteen nineties.
So there's been an Herb Doctor or a mid probably the nineteen nineties. So there's been an Herb Doctor or a midwife who were still called herb doctors in our area, up until, you know, to the civil war that I know of. And I really kinda like the name Herb Doctor, but, unfortunately, the medical system has rights to that word, so we can't use it. Mhmm. Can't use the word doctor.
So my training, my grandmother was, this is on my dad's side of the family.
So my lineage of herbal training and herbalism comes through my paternal side of the family.
My dad's, mother, my grandmother, Rosie, she was, three quarters Creek Indian and, about a quarter Cherokee.
And then on my mom's side and then there was a little Scots Irish and Jewish and Korean and this bit and that bit thrown in, you know, there, here, and there. And on my mom's side, my mom is, with Scotch Irish and Cherokee on her side of the family.
So what I received initially was a very Native American approach to herbalism, and it's Native AmericanAppalachian because at this point in time of when my grandmother was growing up even and when she was learning, you know, the the white folks had been or the dominant culture had been in the area so long that a lot of the customs you didn't know whose custom it was. You know, everything had just became so mingled. And also the African influence into Southern Appalachian folk medicine is very dominant too in my area. Not as dominant up in the Smoky Mountains, but I'm in the foothills of the Smoky.
And, right probably an hour south of me in Alabama, we come into the coastal plains where all the plantations were.
And so, you know, this was a heavy African American population and still is. So I'm kind of like in the area where the Southern Appalachians met the the, Deep South.
And so it's just this combination of influences. So you you really, you know, at this point in time, don't know where one left off and the other began because they've so become intermingled, and now they just are the culture, is the the southern culture.
So my training initially was pretty much along Native American lines, but maybe not using all Native American herbs.
You know, I certainly learned about chickweed and cleavers Mhmm.
Which are naturalized plants. But I also learned about sweet gum and black walnut and, you know, native plants too.
But, I guess my training was a little bit different from, a lot of other herbalist training because it was all oral tradition.
And, I started when I was ten, studying with my grandmother and grandfather, and and it was all, you know, oral. It was all teaching. It was all doing, and it was all walking through the woods. And this is what you use this for, and this is how you prepare this.
But I had to study, ginseng for seven years.
Wow. What? Yeah.
Which is a long time. It seems like even longer when you're a kid. Oh, god. Seven years.
You know, it's like waiting for Christmas to come, you know, when you're little. It just seems to take forever. Mhmm.
You know, when I was first told that I would need to study that plant for seven years, I thought, boy, I'll be, like, old and really old by the time I Who who told you you needed to do that?
Like, how was that involved in the training? Like, what was that mentoring like? What was the intention behind you know, was there a system in the mentoring?
Do you know what I mean?
You know, my, my grandparents were micro, were simplers.
And, it was understanding and knowing how to use a few herbs really, really well and knowing every single thing they could do as opposed to knowing a hundred and fifty herbs and knowing only one thing they do.
Oh, like I hear that now as often as a way to people talk about that and a way to learn learn about to keep it simple for people, but I never really realized that that was a tradition, simply.
That is a tradition. Wow. Absolutely. That is a Native American tradition.
It was much more important to know how to use five or six herbs. I I'm not sure my grandmother ever used over, like, seven or eight herbs, in her whole life of of doing that.
My dad only ever used ginseng and he used it for everything, but he knew how to use it. I mean, he knew how to cook it for a cold, how to take it for vitality, how to use you know, he just used it for everything.
And, when I've told this story before, but it it's just really true. When, he got into his sixties, my uncle BJ, his brother, moved to Florida and sent him a gallon of aloe vera juice.
Mhmm.
Which was like the only other herb he ever used.
So and he thought, well, you know, this aloe vera does exactly the things that ginseng can't do. What what do you need anything else for?
That's great. So, like, it was like, Phyllis, you have to spend all this time with ginseng. What would what would your what would he have you do?
Oh, I carried it around. I had to learn how to dig it. I mean, I still have, in my medicine bag the first ginseng root I ever dug when I was, like, seventeen or that I dug by myself, not with the family.
You know, because my they made their money every year was to go out and gather the herbs that they do was to go out and gather the herbs that they then dried and then then sold to, herb companies for their cash. Right? So, you know, it was, learn how to identify it in any stage of its life.
You know, we dug it and we we broke off the main root and put the the little leg and the and the stem leaves back in the ground and reburied that.
How to to be go good stewards of the forest. Mhmm.
I sleep with it by my bed. I still sleep with it by my bed and my medicine bag kinda hanging hanging off my headboard. But I had to to sleep with it by my bed. I had to to drink tea out of, you know, at least two or three times a week. I had to have a little ginseng, had to learn how to to eat it raw and when was appropriate. So it just became me like, I you know, the I think the the more modern term would be your ally.
Mhmm.
Here's here's your plant ally.
So I can certainly see that concept from from my studies, but it was really kind of a teaching of how do you know everything a plant can do if you don't spend time with it and if you don't spend a lot of time with it. I mean, just because you often own have a cup of Yara tea, and you use it to stop bleeding, oh, and, yeah, somebody else said it's good for fibroids and, oh, well, maybe it can decongest the liver.
But how do you know that unless you spend time with it? And how do you know?
I mean, really know every single thing that Yara can do unless you spend two or three years understanding what it can do.
Did you find it has to get to the point where it has to literally come into your dreams because you're around it so much?
Oh, it definitely does that.
Definitely comes into your dreams. Comes into your waking life. And then it becomes like the gateway into all the other plants.
And ginseng here is the king of all plants. So if if ginseng is your ally, all the rest of them have to, like, mind mind the the king and open their doors for you. You know? So there was that there was that concept too that if you could master ginseng, then you've you've mastered all the herbs.
Wow.
It's king of the forest.
Now now is that something you were first told about and then later experienced and went, like, when you were older and, like, it dawned on you one day? Like, that silly thing your grandparents told you about?
In a way. But, you know, when I was little, it was something I absolutely believed wholehearted.
Right.
I had no doubt because my, you know, I thought my grandparents were just like God and Santa Claus and berries rolled in together. You know how we think of our grandparents.
You know, they're the best amazing people in the world, so I absolutely believe them. And, when I became, young adult in my, say, you know, late teens, early twenties, I was like, oh, god. That was a fairy tale.
Blah blah blah. I'm gonna go off and do sex drugs and rock and roll blah blah blah. You know? Those that sort of time period in our life. But then, you know, when I put that aside and came back to the ERVs, it's like, boy, did they know what they were talking about. You know, no doubt at all. They know what they were talking about.
Wow.
And and, some people are asking about, since we're talking about this, is, probably fits in here. They're you know, when they when they hear, oh, you know, you you know, you have a a connection with, Native American uses of verbs. A lot of things people often immediately think about are, like, spiritual aspects.
And is this what you mean by that or is this what you would mean by that? You know what I mean? Like, because I find that sometimes it always seems like, oh, this like, oh, it's a native American spiritual use of the but really often are really just grounded and really, you know, practical and real things that come from experience of of being around a plant a lot.
Well, that that's that's absolutely what it is and using a plant because it was necessary or because there wasn't any other plant around.
Mhmm. You know, I have to remember in the time period, like like my grandmother was taught by her mother and her grandmother who had, you know, who had been basically been taught back during the civil war days. Mhmm.
So you used what you had and did you how many plants could you store Mhmm. If you were poor and didn't have, you know, in your you lived in a cabin and the floor was dirt Mhmm.
And you used glass jars or whatever. You know, and the critters came in and and lived in the house with you.
And the bugs and the the mice and everything, it was just a different world that my grandmother, grew up in here in Alabama than what we would even consider. It's a different world my mother grew up in. My mother lived in a large cabin with dirt floors and no glass in the window.
You know, it was just a different world. So you used what you had and you made use of everything you had. Nothing was wasted. And including the plants and if you you might we might we don't even think about this concept today because what do we do? We run down to the health store or we order off the Internet if we don't have it.
Mhmm.
But they were in the position of, well, the ideal herb might be, I don't know, let's say something like, sweet gum. I need some green sweet gum balls which would be perfect for whooping cough, but you know what? It's the the fall. There's no green sweet gum balls.
What am I gonna use instead? So a lot of it was making use knowing your plants and making use of what you had because it was not an easy task to be gathering massive amount of herbs for use because you had to spend most of your time gathering food to eat or planting. Right? I mean, food was much more important than gathering herbs in those days.
Right.
You know, that was the priority.
Okay. Okay. So then so then then then a person had to be really experienced with knowing how a using their senses to learn about the plants that go around them. So they might get an inkling. Oh, I think this will help me with the whooping cough because this has a similar action to this sweet gum.
Right. Or here's the signature on this plant. You know, when my grandmother went to see people, she didn't take a bag of herbs with her, because she didn't have one. She would, you know, she kept a she had a few dried herbs that that she had up. And, other than that, she had to, make use of what was available in people's yards.
Wow.
And that's what she did.
That's like a whole another level of it. I mean That's amazing.
Yeah. It you know? But that's just the reality during that time. So even though, you know, I grew up in, you know, a better time period, from the poverty that the area existed, we're a little more affluent area by the time I grew up. It wasn't a whole lot different.
And that's what she still taught me because that's what she knew.
So when she would go see somebody, and she she would go there and she would make her assessment, And then she would go out in the yard and say, well, what's growing here that we can use?
What's here that's available? Which, you know, you know, one of the concepts of simpling is that the herb you need is growing outside your door, and you don't have to go look for it or it's not coming from across the ocean. It's right out back in your backyard or maybe in the field next to your house, but you don't have to wander far for it.
Right. Right. You know, it's interesting when you say about the ginseng being the king of the plants around here and I and and and and, where where I live here in the northwest, the, from what I know from native people who have told me around here, that plant will be devil's club, which is a type of ginseng as well.
Cool.
So so, it was called the, most sacred power, I think, and it was often, the shamanic plant. And and now you can see how someone who was called to be a herb doctor, right, would maybe Right. Work with Devil's Club from a young age and use it so many ways that it would have that special connection.
Right. Because then you would know every single thing it would do, and you would know every single thing you could use it for.
And So the shaman, like, the shamans and all those kinds of folks are the people that would, you know, the healers of a tribe or group of Native Americans, first people, they, you know, they would it seems like they would just, it was nothing really supernatural.
It was just like the more you use your senses, the more peaked they get and the more gateways and doorways open up in within your mind.
Exactly.
So and it's using all your senses.
It's like, you know, being Sherlock Holmes. He was just so good at observation that he almost appeared psychic and, you know, and amazing, but it was really just being super, observation and great deduction skills.
Right. Right.
Right. Same thing.
When you're working with students, do you, really stress that?
Yes.
Yes. You know, I pretty much teach what I was taught. I've just formalized it and written it down. Mhmm. But it's still pretty much the same thing.
Okay. And I was reading on your website how you, spent time or was mentored by, it's it's Tommy Bass. Right?
That's how you Tommy Bass.
Yeah. And then I I saw some things about him a long time ago online. Maybe someone had a little video or something. I just thought he was so fascinating. What what what did you take away working with him? What was that like?
Well, he was a he was a lot different from my earlier training with my grandparents because he was not Native American. Mhmm.
He was of, English descent Mhmm.
And and, lived on, a mountain close to Center Alabama up on Sandrock Mountain. Mhmm. And, Tommy was taught by the African American midwife in the community.
Oh.
So which and he started, I think, when he was five.
Wow.
And and her name was aunt aunt.
Oh, boy. My southern accent was coming out there. I started to say ain't. Her name was aunt Molly Kirby.
And, she was, the African American midwife for the community for for black and white folks. And Tommy was five years old and aunt Molly had gotten she was probably in her eighties at that time period, late seventies anyway. She was getting on up there and she was having trouble going out and digging the plants.
She just physically couldn't walk up and down the the mountains anymore. And Tommy lived about, an hour northeast of me, and this is if you went there, you've and would began walking through the weeds and you had been to Asheville, it wouldn't look any different. I mean, it's truly kind of like the Appalachians here. And, so she had trouble walking up and down, the mountainside.
So she hired Tommy when he was five to go out and start to dig the plants. And she taught him what they look like and what they were, and then she'd see people and then send him out, and that's how he got started. And so he worked for her, I don't know, until she died. And then he just and then by the time oh, he was ten or eleven, he was digging and selling.
He was making his, living from digging plants and selling them to, herb companies.
Now in Alabama at that time, you didn't sell it to the herb company necessarily. You might have sold it to a fur trapper.
Because in Alabama, fur trappers were the people who had license to buy and sell things from the wild.
Mhmm. Oh, I get it.
Right? Mhmm. Right. So it could be furs, rocks, metal, herbs.
And as a matter of fact, when my grand when we dug for my grandparents, we We're having a little techy difficulty right there.
Are you there?
Yeah. I'm here.
Okay. Can I was wondering if maybe you could, let's see, just back up, like, maybe about ten seconds on that, about what you were talking about? It just kinda disappeared.
Okay. Yeah. I was talking about how, you know, in the state of Alabama when I was a young person and when Tommy was a young person, we could sell straight to the herb companies. Mhmm. But we could also sell to fur trappers who were the who were the middleman between, herb gatherers and wildcrafters and herb companies. So they would buy it for a certain price and then sell it on to the herb companies. So by the time Tommy was like, I don't know, ten or eleven, maybe twelve, he had a a big business gathering plants from the wild and trapping animals, and he would sell furs, and he sold plants.
Oh, okay. Wow.
Okay. Okay. And that's how he made his living. And then when he got a and and then in the and then in the spring and the fall spring, he chopped cotton.
In the fall, he picked cotton. As when I was growing up, that's what we did too. So that's between wild crafting and chopping cotton or picking cotton. That's just how you made your living.
That's where you got your cash money.
So, Tommy then started I guess when he was in his twenties, he started actually seeing people. He combined because his mother had been an herbalist in England because he was of English descent and he was like his parents actually still had English accents.
But his mother had been taught some herbalism in England and, so then he learned the local appellation from aunt Molly Kirby.
And so he kinda combined those Wow.
Into the herbalism that he did.
And so it was a little bit different from, studying with my grandparents.
Tommy was a very devout Christian and he just did not get into kind of the spiritual, what we were talking earlier, the spiritual aspects of herbs. But he certainly believed in the Bible aspects of herbs and could quote you three or four or ten different Bible verses on why herbs why God said we should use herbs.
And, so that was it was just a little bit different contrast, but a lot of this or the herb uses were kinda the same.
So, you know, one of the things that, you know, Tommy would say is that, you know, the Bible says that we're made of the clay of the earth.
And you go, yeah. And he says, so to get your healing, you have to dig the plants whose roots go into the clay of the earth. Because without the minerals from the clay, we don't heal.
That's what we're missing.
So there's this whole other aspect then. This is the other aspect of Southern Appalachian folk medicine is that, you do have to go to the clay of the earth. And the plants that go to the clay of the earth, and the clay is just that deep soil, you know, it's not your top soil, it's that deep soil, are the plants with tap roots or trees?
Mhmm. Mhmm.
Right? So these plants were really important to him and and to aunt Molly too.
And because of this, you know, there there is the, African American system of HOODOO, that's h o o d o o Mhmm. Which is based which is also called root doctoring.
Oh, that's okay.
Yeah. And that's why it's called root doctoring. It's because you have to use the plants with the roots.
I see.
You see? Now that doesn't mean you can't use something like cleavers or chickweed or or shepherd's purse because those plants can be useful too. But when you need a real serious deep healing, you've gotta use a plant with deep roots because we're just like a tree. Mhmm.
And we we need nourishment outside ourselves just like a tree does.
Right. Right.
Right? And so, you know, in the, the springtime, just like a tree, our blood rises.
Just like the sap rises, our blood rises.
Right.
And in the wintertime, starting in the fall, just like a tree, our blood starts falling just like the sap falls. But what happens is our blood pulls into the core of our body. Mhmm. And, because because it's got to protect our vital organs from the cold.
So it pulls in.
Alright. Right? Right. Exactly.
And in the spring, it diffuses out just like the the the sap in the tree does because and it the blood moves into our peripheral then because it's gotta cool us off, and that's how our blood cools us off.
Right. Right. You know, it's funny if you say that. I I was the I'm an acupuncturist and someone was asking me what they can do for their health or whatever.
And I even told them, I said, well, just look at the trees. Because right now what what are the trees doing? They're they're rooting or going within and they're they're letting go of their leaves. So it's a good time to let clean out stuff and let go of things and take care of grievances with people and cut all the, you know, clean out the year and go within.
And that's what you can do. But if you're ever curious on what to do, just look at the tree.
That's it. That's it. That's exactly and that is just like that's exactly what Southern Appalachian folk medicine is. Oh. You know, especially what Tommy taught because Tommy taught everything around the tree, which may be somewhat African, but I think it's probably more English.
That would be my guess.
Well, what yours seems like you're seeing is, like, the similarities of the world traditions of herbalism because you lived in you grew up and live in this melting pot of cultures. You had the European.
You had European, you had Europe, Africa, and, and Native American.
America and and the folks who blended all that together in that big melting pot of, or should I say big, decoction?
Right. Big decoction. Yeah. It's a big formula. Yeah. Truly.
Have you have you found that as you're, going out and you do consulting and as I said earlier to folks that you do some consulting in the, you know, maybe teach at medical schools or consult physicians. How has how has that been for you, for for bridging the gap between, folk medicine and and speaking to the modern medical system?
Well, one of the things that I point out to my students is that when my grandmother taught me and when Tommy taught me, it was easy to be an herbalist because people did not take medications during that time period. Mhmm. I mean, there there it was pre pharmacy days.
Mhmm.
Nobody if somebody took medicine, it was very short term and it was for an acute situation and then they didn't take it anymore. Nobody took blood pressure medicine. That was like number one, nobody had health insurance And number two, big farm hadn't really kind of like clicked into the culture yet.
And number three, nobody could afford it. Mhmm.
So my the my teachers never had to worry about the interaction of drugs and herbs. It wasn't even on their radar.
Didn't exist yet.
So one of the things that I have to look to and worry, and teach about and take into account on my consultation is that people may be on three or four different medications and no sign of getting off of them.
Yeah.
Right?
Right.
And so we do have to be, as herbalists, have to be conscious of that. And I, you know, I've spent a lot of time studying it. It's one of the things that I've taught at medical schools and to nurses is, you know, and by far and large, herbs are quite safe and there are very few interactions.
But occasionally, there are and we just need to be conscious of those and know what to what the potential is.
You don't wanna mix, you know, a diuretic herbal formula with someone who's taking Lasix.
Just just, for example, is is an average, unless there is some dire need to for that, you know, etcetera, etcetera. It's it's, it's just something we have to be cautious of. So that's kind of where I have Bridge.
Mhmm.
And it's not been hard to do. I mean, I truly love the herbs and I'm comfortable with what I know about them, and I'm confident of what I know about them. And I don't know everything there is to know about prescription medication.
Mhmm.
And it's and and that being said, nine times out of ten, I don't even even think about herb drug interactions as being something likely to happen. But that it's that one out of ten that we have to be conscious of.
Mhmm. And I worry more about the drugs interfering with what I want the herbs to do.
Mhmm.
Right?
Yeah. I have that experience too with the effect of acupuncture too.
Exactly. Like, if they're on some really strong, strong thing or pain thing, it's nothing works.
Right. Right.
So it's like, well, gotta get you off that first.
You know, like the morphe. I remember when I'm talking like, like the, oh, the, you know, like the really strong narcotic types of of of painkillers and stuff like that.
So yeah. So, you know, I really liked on your website when you, when you you say that, Phyllis believes in preventative health practices in they include the maintenance of healthy weight, a diet high in fruits, vegetables, and lean, organic meats, regular exercise, stress reduction, use of botanical compounds, clean water, addict with sleep, refraining from excessive drinking, and never smoking. I mean, you know, and and and that says it. And also, you know, I love that, you know, you can stay here believing that our health is tied to the health of the planet because, gosh, I always seems that way too.
The more we, you know, destroy the the planet, the sicker we all get as a culture. And it seems no matter how how how much sleep we get or don't smoke or whatever, you know, it's like, we're all I know. It's that's the the sad part is not realizing that we're all you know, I mean, it's empowering, but at the same time, it's it's frightening to know that all this stuff is, you know, you you can't be out there going, well, I take care of myself and therefore, I'm immune from all your other people's sicknesses.
No. I mean, you absolutely can't. I mean, there's so much about our our health that are out of our control these days.
Yeah.
Totally out of our control. And I want even when I was growing up or when my grandparents were teaching me, so much more of our health was under our control.
Mhmm.
We we truly did during those days. If you ate well and healthily and you got enough sleep and you didn't have a lot of stress, which totally different stress time period. As a matter of fact, my grandmother didn't the word she used because stress had not become a big word yet in the culture, She called it worriation.
Wow. Worriation. I like that.
Worriation.
She'd say so and so has got worriation. We gotta help them with their worriation.
And it's what it was. You just worried yourself to death. And but it was generally not job related. It was more personal relationship related. Mhmm. So that's that's a big difference now. You know, nowadays, people's stress tends to come from their position in society or what's going on at work.
And then maybe personal relationships then become an issue. So, you know, a lot has changed about, you you know, how we interact with society too. So there's and then there's herbicides, pesticides, bad water, bad air. This just too much out of our control these days.
Exactly.
And then and then too much we've given control over too.
Right.
You know?
Right. So it's like you just do the best you can, I guess? And that's why your statement there about what you believe for preventative health is is a must and and and, you know, seems pretty simple, you know, in a way.
It it does in a way.
To people like you and I who take care of themselves, but to people who don't, I guess it doesn't.
Oh, I just think about how many people don't know how to cook anymore.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's true.
That's true. I mean, and how can you be healthy if you don't cook what you eat?
Right. Right. Exactly. Well, it's a it's a good point. Like, because otherwise, how would you use all the local plants and eat locally if you don't cook it?
If you don't cook it. But there is just a huge number of people in our society who don't know how to cook. I mean, I I think we're kind of fortunate in in that some of the the circles we were both connected when people are cooking or they know how to cook or they're learning how to cook, but the majority of Americans don't know how to cook.
Wow.
I've actually asked, you know, I used to ask my clients, how often do you eat at home?
You know, in one week, how often do you eat at home? And what I meant was, how often do you cook at home? Right?
You know? But what I was it what I was getting back was, oh, we eat at home every night. But my question should have been how often do you cook at home? Because they were counting going through the drive thru window and picking up food and bringing it home and eating it at home is eating at home.
Or or microwaving frozen meals.
Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly.
Exactly. So yeah. So, what I wanna get is since we're getting on the topic, it's just from different health stuff and people's health is that people did, email some good questions in here to you. So so let's see what we got here.
Let's see. There's so many and, Well, yeah, we'll just, get to there's there's a bunch here. We maybe can just briefly answer what you know from with each one. Brenda here, she's just learning how to, learning how to do tinctures and things with herbs, and she's fascinated with how many vitamins and minerals are in herbs and how healthy they can be for us.
She goes, maybe it's a silly question. There's no silly questions. But I'm wondering if there would be any benefit in creating vitamin mineral program using herbs in a tincture that is tailored to my needs. Can this be done?
Well, I know that there are some herb companies who which do make, some good vitamin, mineral, or nutritional type tinctures.
Mhmm.
In Southern folk medicine, we really don't tincture. Everything has been with teas.
Mhmm.
So if I if I come from my tradition, we're just gonna leave out the tincture part.
Mhmm.
So coming from my tradition, you could make a nice herbal blend, nutritive blend as a tea. And up in the northeast, they use the cold infusion method, which is useful, for tea if you want to conserve and save your your heat soluble vitamins and mineral vitamins.
Mhmm.
Like your c and some of your b's, then you can do a cold infusion, which is leave it for, like, I think, twelve hours over overnight. If you're looking for the minerals out of an herbal tea, you really need to simmer it up for a few minutes because the agitation of the plant material releases more of the mineral. Minerals. So you'll get a stronger mix if you decock that rather than infuse it. So, I really do like nutritive teas, but I'll lean more toward if you're eating fairly healthy, what we tend to miss more than the vitamins is the minerals. Most people don't get enough minerals.
Okay.
We really do need that the minerals from the clay and the earth.
Some of our vitamins we make from our food, like some of our b vitamins, and if we have enough amino acids going in, we're gonna make those. So we need c and we need e and a and d. We need we need vitamin c and our fat soluble vitamins, in a from our food.
And then we have to have our minerals because we can't make any of those at all. Those all have to come out from outside our body just like that tree puts its roots down, it's gotta have all the minerals and the water from the earth, and that's exactly what we need. So I'm a big believer in, decocting herbal teas for mineral.
Mhmm. Okay. Like, oatstraw or nettles, that sort of thing?
Yeah. Cleavers, chickweed, horsetail.
Mhmm. Yeah.
Yeah. Good one. Yeah.
So, Brenda, you can look on, HerbMentor too under the nourishing herbal infusion area, and there's a lot there to come up with a regimen of what might work for you.
Let's see. We have, oh, here's a quick question.
Amanda was was on an herb walk with you at Thai Sofia.
Yeah.
And, you mentioned Queen Anne's lace, as a benefit to the thyroid and and she wanted a little more on that or what you knew about that.
Okay. Well, that is a tummy bath remedy for low thyroid. And, here in the Southern Appalachians, we are far from the ocean. Mhmm.
And so, fish is not our primary source. Our kelp is not our primary source of iodine. What we do have here in the Southern Appalachians are, salt mines, which because this whole area used to be under the ocean. Mhmm.
As a matter of fact, there's a cave not too far from my house with a shark's tooth in the roof of it.
So we do have some salt mines and caves here, and this is what Native Americans in the area used. Dig some of that salt for the iodine. But when you can't get that, or when you don't have good access to a good quality salt, you can also use black walnut and make a black walnut. Highly suggest this one in capsules because it just tastes so bad.
Black walnut and, chickweed and queen ancillase together is a well rounded protocol for low thyroid.
And black walnut has iodine.
The chickweed has your other minerals that your thyroid needs like selenium and the manganese and the zinc and, trace minerals. And then either good quality salt. And then Queen Anne's Lace added the hormonal activity that kind of helped get you over the hump because queen ancillace is really hormonally active. Now I I think it's Robin Rose Bennett has done, quite a bit of study on using Queen Anne's Lace as birth control, not because it's hormonally active if I'm remembering our discussions correctly, but because it's a uterine irritant.
But here in the south, we use Queen Anne's Lace because it's considered hormonally active. Not as hormonally active as a black cohosh or false unicorn would be.
And false unicorns and black cohosh are probably the two most hormonally active plants I can think of. Blue cohosh maybe. But then we come back to queen anvilac is quick and easy together. We get two crops a year.
It dries up really easy. Use anything above the ground.
And it doesn't have to go to seed.
It just has to be flowering.
And it has a progesterone type activity and, which supports the thyroid. So the combination of Queen Anne's Lace, black coho black walnut, and chickweed is just a really good thyroid combination. And I've used it over and over and over over the years with really good success. And I think it's especially helpful against kind of more the autoimmune Mhmm.
Thyroid disorders.
But it would works well with gorder because gorder was, you know, what my grandmother had to deal with because there were a lot of women.
First baby, you were okay. Second baby, you got a gorder.
Mhmm. Just pretty common, just because of of lack of iodine in an overstressed thyroid from having babies too close together.
Wow.
Yeah.
I would say that's so that's, so and then and then I'm imagining we're talking about, like you said, we're involved in minerals here, so we're, like, decocting and a tea.
Yes.
Yes. Okay. So that's because I'm sure people's heads are going, wait. How do you take it?
It is it is a tea decoction and, depending on what you wanna you see, the oil in queen ancillase is not an essential oil. It's really heavy. So if you boil it, it doesn't go away.
So you can simmer that. It's very delicate. The flowers are very delicate, but simmer it up for about ten minutes. You will be amazed at what strong medicine you get out of that.
Wow. I've had it up in the northeast where they, like, infuse it for several hours just in warm water, or cold water. But it's just cooking it, you know, decocking it in the, Native American fashion is you just get really, really, really strong medicine out of it. It's totally different.
I would I if I use dry chickweed and dry cleavers, which a lot of herbalists don't use because they'll go. There's not any good medicine left in that. But this is what I was taught to use and I dry that chickweed up and, dry the cleavers up and then when I go to use it, I'll blow it. I'll simmer it at a high simmer for twenty minutes.
You will be amazed what strong medicine is still in there.
Wow.
Yeah.
It's really Well, it makes sense.
I mean, you know, it's it's just the water that evaporates.
Exactly.
Everything else should still be there.
Technically.
That's really interesting.
That's, you know, that that's great. And and that leads into, Heather from Tennessee, which is not too far from Alabama. Right?
I mean No.
No. I'm just a couple hours from Tennessee.
Close closer than Washington.
Yeah. Closer than Washington.
So, she's interested in hearing about your approach for female issues, such as she has in quotes, such as endometriosis and fertility, excessive pain and blood loss, monthly anemia. Gosh, that's a lot. She understands it's a big topic. She says she says I understand it's a big topic, but if you could just touch on it, she would be grateful.
And Well you know, she's Okay.
Heard you speak before and she loves your perspective. Just letting you know.
Okay.
Kind of a a quick, you know, female reproductive orders, we can put them in really two broad these are very broad categories. One of them is structurally, structural categories or, you know, functional categories, based on structure of is there fibroids, is there polyps, is everything working the way it's supposed to be working. And the other is gonna be hormonal which is the endocrine. What is the what's happening in the endocrine system? And I really look at a woman's monthly cycle as the barometer of what is going on in the endocrine system.
Because it is a system, if there's something off in the pancreas, it's gonna show up in the whole system, including the reproductive system. If something's off in the thyroid, it's gonna show up in the whole system.
So we have to we have to look at those two different things. Now, and because all the tissues in the reproductive system, respond to the hormones, we can't discount the hormones even in structural problems. Mhmm. Because you're still that's those tissues are still hormonally active.
So so if a person has endometriosis or infertile infertility, gosh. Is it infertility because of hormone deficiency? Is it infertility because of structural abnormalities? Is it in deficiency because of problems in the endocrine system?
Is it infertility because somebody is totally stressed out?
You know, it's amazing what stress will do to the reproductive system Exactly.
And and fertility level. So there's no easy short answer on all this. We have to look at constitutions. We have to to you know, I go in and say, you know, I'll spend this an hour asking questions when somebody has infertility because there are so many different influences.
If someone is adrenal ly deficient or has adrenal exhaustion, there's gonna be problems in the reproductive system. Mhmm. Remember, it is a system. Mhmm.
The endocrine system and they're all connected and they all work off a feedback loop and one hormonal one level of hormones let me see how to say this. Hormonal levels from one indifferent gland affect the hormonal output of the other glands.
Of course.
Right. So a problem in the reproductive system it may be a problem in the reproductive system, but it could be a problem in the adrenal system and with the adrenal feedback. Or the you know? See what I'm saying?
So and unless we look at the individual, we don't really know. There's not one herb I can tell you for infertility.
We just have to look at everybody totally, uniquely separate, constitutionally on that.
Excessive pain and blood loss monthly, you know, I'm gonna ask questions about fibroids.
Mhmm. Mhmm. Or I'm gonna ask questions about ovarian cyst at that point.
And then they're gonna be involved questions to try to suss out what's going on. Anemia, of course, if you got excessive blood loss monthly, you're gonna have anemia.
Right. Right. Right.
Because they have blood issues and and well Right.
So anemia, you know, one thing you can do, I love sumac for improving anemia.
Sumac tea made from the berries.
Just boil it up, sweeten it if you want. Don't sweeten it. It tastes fine by itself. That's really good. And of course the yellow dot and nettles and some of the minerally dense herbs can be very good there. But I wanna know why is there excessive blood loss monthly, and I don't know that unless I can ask questions.
So You know, I I I get, you know, we have a lot of new folks who come in on on the site and a lot of folks are new to learning about herbs and using them in their life.
And, it often starts with that when people come in on a forum and ask some advice and, you know, because of new ad and not sure, I'd Be like, well, what t what t can I take for, you know, x? It could be for, like, you know, some big condition. And I like what you said and I I wanted to ask you that question because I I if I have to keep stressing the point over and over again, I'm I I will and I'm sure I will in the years to come, which is that somebody has to get to know you.
Right? I mean, like, you know, the the herb doctor or the herbalist, the herbologist, you know, needs to come over and, whoever it is you're seeing has to has to see you as an individual. And and there's it's more to the picture, you know.
And and Right.
Right.
You have to have somebody you're working with. So, I mean, how do you find that you work with people locally? I'm sure come to you. Uh-huh. Do you work with people long distance too?
I do. I definitely I do. Well, we can do telephone really easy.
So people can get in touch with you on your website at phyllis deload dot com.
They can email me or call me. Phone number is on there, and then we set up an appointment time.
And I'll be glad to work with anybody.
Because that's it. Because, like, you know, there's a questioning that you're talking about. And there's another question here too that that had you know, that was kind of, was asked to us. This, member says that two of her five children have autism and love her.
Touch on the subject of healing a damaged neurological system and gut. What herb to use and why? And, and she's beginning she's starting out and and that's once again. Like, it's a little more right?
It's a little more to the I mean, you might have an idea, but at the same time, you probably would need to speak with this person and ask some more questions.
I would. But, you know, I I could say some general things about that. Okay. Great.
I for a if you haven't investigated already, I would suggest you get on the, Internet and look up the specific carbohydrate diet, which is called the SCD diet. Mhmm. It's been around for about, I don't know how many years, quite a number of kind of clinical studies supporting its use in in autism and healing the gut. And they've had some really good successes using that diet.
So I recommend that diet for at least it takes three to six months to tell a difference, but I've had more success with that diet than not that diet.
And along with that, you know, essential fatty acids are going to be really important in this situation.
Find out if there's any food sensitivities, going along with that. And the SCD diet will help you do that. It will help you to find out if there's any food sensitivities. And it will help heal the gut. I use the same diet for gut issues too. And again, it's you have to look at it even though it's down there in black and white or blue and white, it's on the computer.
Keep in mind that there's some your child or you are individuals and every single thing on the diet may not apply to you. Some of it still might be too much for you or not enough and you still and it says that on the diet, don't take this as one hundred percent accurate for every single person.
You still have to play with it a little bit and find out what works for you or your child in that process.
And I would say that about any diet no matter what you're using.
So those are kind of some general things that I recommend and this kind of specific situation of autism neurological disorders in the gut. But then, you know, I might recommend some herbs or I would recommend some herbs, but the herbs then becomes more of on the individual. Let me ask you some questions and let's get at what's really going on and, you know, I just need more indicators than that.
Okay.
Yeah.
Before we get can I ask before I ask you about, you know, some of your programs and things and people can get in touch and that sort of thing, one one last question, which kind of is an amalgam of some various questions and maybe you can purchase how you want? But, folks always like to know, and you probably answered a lot of it earlier, but was, you know, some of your couple of your your your favorite herbs. And, obviously, one of those is is ginseng. So maybe a couple of herbs and maybe, one of your favorite preparations or a way you use them, whether it's ginseng or one or two others.
Okay. You know, ginseng is my aloe verbi herb, but my favorite herb kinda comes and go with different seasons.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and different stages of life.
But right now I'm really liking Mullen and Skullcap, and there's not a lot I haven't been able to do with Mullen and Skullcap together. And I'll tweak it around and add other things to it depending on what I want to do. If I I'm using it for a digestive complaint, so I might add some spearmint or peppermint and a little chickweed to it. If I wanna use it for lymphatics, then I might add some cleavers, on chickweed or red root, or some no lymphatic herbs to it. But right now my favorite base combination is Mullen and Skullcap and it's just pretty amazing together so I kind of encourage folks to give that an opportunity, play with that a little bit.
Throw in some red raspberry leaf and mullein and skullcap and, oh, maybe a little cleaver.
It's got an amazing pain killer that just works so well for aches and pains, works good for digestion, opens the sinuses, decongests the lungs, good for allergies. So it's just a great little formula I've been playing with.
Is it are you using a mullein leaves and skullcap leaves? Are you using the mullein flowers or root?
Or I'm using, the leaves.
Mhmm. A mullein leaves and a skull cap, anything above the ground. Mhmm.
So use a lot you use a you so it's interesting. You use a lot of things above the ground, but, you know, you also have been mentored in in the roots as well and then the church.
Right.
So I Well, you know, the roots are are bringing you up into that deep healing, but sometimes, you know, we just need, like I said earlier, it's not that you don't need the other or the other is not useful. It's just what's appropriate at the time. And if I'm wanting to to move decongested sinuses, I don't need a really deep action.
Mhmm. Mhmm.
That's that's true. Yeah. I can see that. It's kinda like when I always equate to acupuncture, but we've got really powerful points that I rarely ever use because it's kinda like these deep ones. Because most of the time, these other, you know, basic ones do the job.
Exactly. So you you don't pull out your big guns until you absolutely have to use it.
Yeah. Right? Exactly.
That's it. That's it.
So Mullen Skullcap, wow, and they grow all and and that's great because these grow all over, you know, in red raspberry That's right.
Red raspberry leaf and chickweed or cleavers.
Mhmm.
You can just about anybody can find those can.
And and skullcap is super easy to grow in a garden. Like, we're not gonna find it in the wild where I live, but we're, but I have it in the garden. Mullein, it's even too wet for mullein to to grow in healthy places to gather where I live, so I have to grow that in the garden.
Oh, wow.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you see it in, like, highway strip meridians and, you know Yeah.
It it loves the highway strip meridians too.
But out in the you know, you have to go to the other side of the cascade mountains here to to find it in quantity enough off south the road to get it. Okay. But cleavers, we have plenty of in our moist forest. It loves growing with the nettles and the and the and the and the, deep moist under the maple trees. So you find a big big stand of big leaf maples on a hillside in the springtime, and you're bound to find tons of nettles and cleavers running together.
Oh, there you go. And just dry it.
And dry it.
It's really good. Yeah. Easy to dry. See, where I live, we don't have nettles.
Oh. I thought there was everywhere.
No. They're not in the south.
Wow.
It's too hot and sunny here.
Oh, of course. Wow.
I always thought there was a bit of moisture though and humidity in the air for There is lots of moisture and humidity.
Just not their thing.
But the sun it's not no. So I have seen it growing, like, on the edges of creek banks under trees, but he cannot handle the full sun here.
Wow. You know?
Shriveled it up. Yeah.
And it's just like poison ivy can't handle our rain. So we have moist, but we have no poison ivy.
Oh, we have that in a bungee.
Oh, I know you do.
Anytime. Our poison ivy here can look like shrubs and trees.
I'm from New Jersey, so I remember the Jersey East Coast forests were by hard enough and then you know?
Oh, I bet. Yeah.
That's something. You know, we were just talking about, Phyllis, about people getting in touch with you. We're consulting.
And what about teaching? Do you teach just locally or can people learn long distance?
Or Oh, I do a little of both.
Well, I have an herb school here in ARAB, Appalachian Center for Herbal Studies. Mhmm. And it's on my website.
And, I have a three year program, which is broken down into, you know, nine months, over three years. Mhmm. And so and these are three different levels. So some people only want level one or some people like one and two, and some people go into three.
Three is practitioner level to take all of it. We meet one weekend a month. Mhmm. Also do, intensives throughout the year.
My next intensive in Southern Appalachian folk medicine is gonna be in two thousand eleven, and that's gonna be February the seventh through February the eleventh, Monday through Friday for a week.
Wow.
And, so I offer different things, you know, throughout the year and just check with my website. It'll it'll be posted on there if there's something special coming up.
And that's in Alabama?
The intent It's in Alabama.
And February February in Alabama is the iffy month. It might be really cold. Probably might be gathering in Chickweed too.
Yeah.
You know, we just never know.
Wow.
It could be eighty degrees or it could be ten degrees.
And is it real hands on? You're out there and you're showing some of the things that you learned from your mentor?
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
Lots of hands on stuff, and we spend a lot of times outdoors walking through the woods and looking at the plants. There's classroom time, and if anybody is interested in that, they can just give me a call. And starting in April of next year, I'm going to be doing an online course. So if anybody's interested in online, they can get in touch with me, and I'll add their name to the list.
Pretty much everyone listening to this is because they only found this through being online.
Yeah. There you go.
Yes. Actually, there's a lot of people. Very common for someone to join our site. And our site's kinda neat, Herb Mentor, because you can use it as a simple basic, home study kind of thing, especially for beginners.
And there's some, you know, but it also is an excellent supplement and supporter of programs. And so all the time people are coming on and, you know, joining up, oh, I heard your interview on so and so and I'm taking their course or heard interview on so and so and taking their course. So I hope that people will go and join your course and report back and see how that was going. I'm sure be wonderful.
That's great. And make sure you get in contact with me too because if you need any, you know, help, wondering how to put something like that together, you can give me a call.
There's some new things I've been learning. I might help you out.
So Sounds great.
And and and and I mentioned earlier a book you were working on. And so when's that coming out?
Okay. Well, you know, I've been working on this book for years.
Uh-huh.
Happens is like kids happen. Mhmm. And family happens and sick parents happen, and it's just been hard to get it all together.
And there's people's been asking me about it for, like, four years now. When's your book coming out? I promise y'all it's coming out next year. I have just finally got most of my kids out of the house simply because they've grown up and gone away. You know?
It's it's hard to be, you know, teacher, mother, not necessarily in that order, you know, but, to do all the things that that you feel called to do in your life and write a book. So but I it's coming out this year.
We'll do another show with you here to promote the book when it comes out.
Oh, thank you.
Speaking of kids, is there a at least in recorded history, will they be will there be a fifth generation herbalist in your family?
Are your kids interested at all?
You know, so far, I have five children.
Mhmm.
And, so far, one of them, Alan, who's now eighteen, he's really lacking growing the herbs. Mhmm. Doesn't know if he wants to learn how to use them, and they all come in and out of the herb classes I have.
Mhmm.
Every weekend. I have one daughter who's twenty nine, Jessica, who has worked her way through college doing consultations and working in a health food source, she's really good, but she doesn't wanna be an herbalist when she grows up.
Oh, she will. She will.
She will. I know. I know when I'm waiting.
You're right.
Just don't about thirty something.
It'll hit her.
Just don't push it, and they'll come back to it.
Yeah. That's what I'm thinking.
You know, my oldest son, who's thirty, he's he lives in Houston, and, he's really set on his career, and he doesn't see he really uses herbs and believes in herbs, but not into studying about them. But the, then I have the twenty twenty year old who he was interested in the energetics of herbalism. Mhmm.
And who knows what the thirteen year old's gonna do?
So they're all right. You it's it's so so, the jury's out.
The jury's out. I mean, they've they've grown up with it.
Not not as intensely as I did, but they've certainly had their home exposure.
Well, that's so neat that that that home exposure is connecting them with something that their great grandparents and great great grandparents did. And how rare that is. Like, I I, you know, I I I, I think I've I think my my kids will have passed on maybe a couple of, you know, chicken recipes from their grandparents. But I think that's about it.
They they have two two different sides of the family. They actually have chicken Italian chicken recipes from two different tasting recipes from two different complete sides of the family, but they're they both come from their great grandparents across the country.
So, you know, Phyllis, it was It's funny.
Yeah. So it was so fun hanging out with you today.
Well, thank you.
It was fun.
And and and everyone, again, phyllis d lite dot com. And if you're listening to, this right on the Herb Mentor site, or where you downloaded this, there's a link right below this player you can click to, and it'll open up right in a new window.
And, thanks so much for spending time with us today. It was just fabulous.
Oh, thank you for having me.
Okay. See you again.
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