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 Gail Faith Edwards. Gail is an herbal educator with more than thirty years experience as a community herbalist.
She runs Blessed Maine Herb Farm where she has many herbal programs as well as handcrafted, beautiful handcrafted herbal goods from teas to tinctures to body products and so much more. You can visit Gail at w w w dot blessed main herbs dot com. And that's main as in the state. Blessed main herbs dot com.
Gail wrote traversing the Wild Terrain of Menopause Herbal Allies for Midlife Women and Men. And Gail's book, Opening Our Wild Hearts to the Healing Herbs is one of Kimberly and and mine's favorite herbal books, and it's always one of the top three books that we grab when we wanna look something up. And, that's why it's an incredible honor to have you on our mentor radio today. Good morning, Gail. How are you doing?
Good morning, John. I'm doing very well. How about yourself?
Awesome. And you know what? I was so excited to find out that, yes, yet I'm interviewing yet another Jerseyite here.
I mean, I I I let last last for in in last month's episode, we interviewed Linda Runyon again, you know, and she's in Jersey doing their wild foods, and it's I wonder what it's wonder what's about Jersey that that that that that that that's a spin season, and a great herbalist.
It is the Garden State. It's always been known as the Garden State.
I did grow up in Hoboken, which was not very garden like, but actually, my grandparents were Italian and they had a beautiful well tended garden out behind their brownstone.
So although Hoboken, New Jersey doesn't seem like a place where an herbalist would get her start, in fact, that's what I did. I used to love to hang out back there with my grandparents and they would tend their plants and I would just play and I absorbed their love for the for the plants and for the gardening.
So it was kind of a magical, beginning there.
You know, that's interesting because, you know, my my my great grandfather, was from Italy. And, my grandmother though my grandmother herself, she I would call her more the the queen of suburbia. She was really striving for, that kind of, you know, she was actually actually, I say that because she actually bought the very first Levitt home in outside of Philadelphia in Levittown.
But her dad, she said her dad would go out in the park and, and and and pick and and pick the dandelion leaves and and would cook with them. And and so I just really Yeah.
So I I say it maybe it skips two generations or three generations somehow.
Never gets lost for very long. No. It does. It's like it's in our blood. You know?
It really is. It really is.
Yep. Mhmm.
So, you know, so you're saying that you you you learn from your you you're inspired by your grandparents and and and but when it came time to learn more about the herbs, do do you find that there was the the plants that taught you or do you have mentors that taught taught you?
Well, I'll tell you. When I was about twenty years old, I was hanging out in up state New York quite a lot in the Catskill Mountains.
And at that time, all of nature was kind of really coming alive for me. And someone handed me a book, Stalking the Wild, Asparagus by Yule Gibbon. And that book just kind of changed my life and suddenly I was just going all around and looking at the plants individually. They were kind of, you know, peeking out at me. And from that point on, I I just, you know, became deeper and deeper and deeper in love with the with the plants.
And, from there it's been a lifelong work, you know, that was back in the early seventies.
And so when I moved to Maine shortly thereafter, I used to walk all around the roadsides and through the woods and the fields Just identifying plants, gathering plants, drying them, and little by little experimenting with the ones that really appealed to me. And, at the same time starting to garden and starting medicinal herb plants.
And I will say I've studied with, you know, many wonderful, wonderful herbal teachers and read voraciously for the past thirty or forty years every book I could possibly get my hands on about herbs, herbal medicine, energy healing, you name it. But really, it's been on my knees in my garden that I have really connected on the deepest level with the plants.
And I will say that, my greatest teachers have really been the plants themselves.
So, I believe very, very strongly in following the Herbal Ally method of learning about plants. And in fact, that's really what I did. I would choose one plant every year that I focused great, you know, majority of my attention on learning about and experimenting with, growing it, harvesting it or finding it in the wild. And I think year by year doing that and really connecting slowly with the plants one by one at really in the way of taking them on as friends and energetic entities that I would rely on and trust.
And my trust over the years grew, you know, in increments as I started having children.
I lived off the grid, back in the woods and you know, very, very simple, very, very close to nature, lifestyle, No electricity.
After a while, we got solar power, but at first carrying our water, building our house little by little, having the children all born at home. And I took great responsibility for the healthcare of my children and my family. So, that was, you know, one of the great inspirations, that carried me along really on the herbal path was, wanting to learn all I could to nourish my family and to heal my family.
And then that kind of little by little spread out to my neighbors and my community.
And after, you know, years of growing plants and making simple medicines and sharing them with my friends and community, I began to, hear people refer to me as the herbalist.
I see.
And, that was really when I felt, that I had found my, path in life. Before that, I really didn't have any, you know, I wasn't really focused on becoming an herbalist. I was really focused on learning all I could about the plants and about the medicinal herbs and as that related to the healthcare of my family and then my friends. So this, you know, thirty years, thirty five years later, here I am kind of still doing the very same thing, but my children are grown and, my neighborhood and my community has expanded by the hundred fold.
You know, statewide. And then, because I have a lot of, herbalists come, to study with me from other places around the country and even now around the world.
So my community and my sense of community has really expanded.
You know, I do the herbal correspondence courses and Uh-huh.
So, students take that from everywhere. I have students in Australia and South Africa and all over Europe.
And I've been invited to go to India to give, for ten days. I taught, herbal medicine making community health to the doctors and community health workers in Bhopal, at a free clinic there.
So that was an excellent opportunity to use my herbal medicine skills and my community, skills in a completely different environment, you know, which I just loved. It was such an honor and such a great experience to be invited there. And then also I spend my winters in Italy. So I have, over the last five years kind of developed a beautiful community. Also, they are my original village in Italy where my grandmother is from and all my grandmothers before her.
What part of it?
So, we're from Southern Italy, a little tiny village called Monte San Giagomo, a remote little village way up in the Apennine mountains.
It's a village that was built over a thousand years ago back in the eighth century.
And, it's just the most magical incredible place. It's, there's an ancient, it's called the valley of Diana, which is a huge ancient, very, very fertile valley.
It used to be a lake many, many millions of years ago. It all drained out through the limestone and left a very fertile plain. So there's thirteen original neolithic villages, that surround this huge, fertile valley. And our village is one of them. It's a very, very exquisite place. And then, next village over, we have an ancient Asclepian dream temple.
Back in the ancient days in Italy and in Greece, they would erect healing temples to the god Asclepius and priestesses would be there and they would live in the temple with snakes and the snakes would, speak to them and and give them prophecy and whisper secrets about healing.
And, so several times now I've gone to this healing temple, which over the centuries turned into a Catholic church and now is a beautiful very, very small museum.
But it's incredible when you go in there and you see the art collection from way back when and you feel the vibrations and of course it's the original tile floor from thousands of years ago. Oh, wow.
BC period, you know, when they would be praying and healing and sleeping in here. And right next door to this beautiful temple of kind of right around the corner is the herbal museum And in there are all the herbs from all over Southern, Italy and all of the, actual history of the herbal use there in Italy. How the, indigenous people use the plants and also not just plants, but animal parts also, were in jars and all kinds of interesting things. So this is all very, very new to to me. This whole Italian, of course, I grew up in Italian culture. But it was only five years ago that I actually returned to my, original homeland, you know, and to those now.
To do that sometime. I I know all I know is, my my great grandfather is from, like, Aguila or the in in that part of Italy, wherever that I think it's in the middle north of Rome or something like that. I don't know.
Avila? Avila?
Avila?
Like Oh, Aquila.
Aquila. Like oh, okay. Yeah. Your grandfather is from Aquila?
Great grandfather.
That's south of your great grandfather.
Ah, and and he is he your only Italian ancestor?
Well, well, my my I don't have any living, but my because his my, but yeah. The as far as as far as ancestors that I know for sure that came right from Europe, he's the well, they all came from, but, you know, that that that I met or know for sure.
Right. He's the only one that we know for sure, because, on the Irish side, it's all, like, nobody kept records, all famine, you know, related.
Right. And it's Mhmm.
But Italy. But he stowed away on a boat.
I think the story goes he, blew up a bridge or something, and he was running from the police and stowed away on a boat.
Oh my.
And and ended up in Philadelphia.
Oh, okay.
And and and actually ended up inventing the little mints with the jelly inside of it that you find in the restaurants with the little safari.
No kidding. That was a fake mouthful. That's Wow. Claim to save.
I know.
Yeah. The wonderful thing about going back to Italy is that, they keep such, impeccable family records.
Right.
And, many of the older people, even though they they may not even read or write, they know all of the family histories, and all of the family relationships by blood and by marriage. So much so that even though it had been ninety nine years almost to the day when we returned to the village after my grandmother had left, but we were still welcomed as San as San Jagwemese people. We were recognized and they knew who our family was.
Oh, wow.
So they accepted us immediately and I still had cousins and extended family there in the village.
So anyone who would return who has roots such as you do and knows the village, I would just, oh my God, it's like, you know, it's like such an important part of existence is really connecting with your roots, you know, and with your original place.
And, that was very, very, very real for me. Very deep.
When I went back to when I went to County Donegal in Ireland, where, like, literally Gallagher is like, Smith or Jones there, Like, every other person there is Gallagher. So it's not quite the same. It's like, oh, yep. Another one.
Uh-huh. Yeah.
This guy.
Here, sit down beside the rest of us.
Yeah.
There's a whole pub full of Gallaher's here.
That must have been fun. So you have kind of, gone in and recontacted on your Irish side.
I have. I have.
I spent a year I spent a year there in ninety four just kinda traveling around and soaking it all in and seeing where, you know, where it all where it all started and trying to get in touch with them.
And it was a really powerful experience.
It was really you know And I bet the the connect excuse me.
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to speak over you. But it's very, powerful how the landscape affects us. Did you feel, instant relationship with the landscape there?
I did, Gail. And, you know, I, you know, it it it it connected me to the music there. I realized that Irish music is really about the landscape. You can just about two counties south of where the Gallaher's are originally from. And, and I went away for a little while for a summer, part of the summer, then I went back to work there in the fall. And, I've never felt a sense of being home ever in my life than being in that spot right there. I know that it's, you know, I knew that, like, because it's in the DNA.
And and and and and it there's a must be a resonance there.
Absolutely.
Because when I was there, I actually felt like I belong.
The people in the village, they welcome me. That was part I was teaching their kids guitar. They welcome me in their homes. They they, you know, the and it was just and and and I never even felt that in New Jersey where I grew up.
You know, I don't feel that where I am. I don't feel anywhere in America. When I was there, I actually felt a homecoming. Like, it was really it was deep.
And, so when I when I turned forty, next June, I'm bringing my family there for a couple of weeks. Oh, that's that's wonderful. Yes. That's very, very important.
That's That's great.
So it was Yeah. I understand what you're saying. It's a very deep sense of place.
And and I think that's why the herbs too, you know, I the herbs herbs that I can seem to connect with the most.
Also, all herbs that are are there.
Mhmm. You know, when I when I use nettles and and and and and herbs like that, I I I know I met them all there too. You know? I Right.
And and they're the ones that seem so it's, interesting as acupuncturist. I was never usually, what do you call it, attracted to go work with, like, Chinese herbs because I I just feel like the herbs of place have been more powerful for me. Mhmm. You know?
So Interesting.
Yeah. Mhmm.
So, I mean and that's all seems like a a a story or narrative that that you and I in our lives have developed with the plants. So I'd like you to speak about that because, you know, people what what people call an herb mentor and they're they're some have have some experience and others are but many, many are are are ran new at it and looking at it wide eyed and and and, you know, know, looking for a little direction. And and I think what would help people if you'd speak to that as far as finding your own story with the herbs? Like, so how what would advice do you give people that are that you're teaching? Because you you teach a lot.
You know, that's a really good question. And, actually, I had a really, you know, it's a very interesting question and that is something like thinking back and thinking even if you wanted to do it on that genetic or DNA level.
For instance speaking from my own experience as a woman of Italian descent.
What did my ancestors use for herbs and plants? What were the plants that grew wildly, abundantly, commonly in the area that my blood comes from. You know, what did my grandmothers use for cooking and for eating and to nourish their families and for healing. And that's the kind of research that I've really been doing.
And then also, there's stories from your own family. You know, I remember as a young, very young child, my grandmother would always make chamomile tea.
And just the smell of chamomile, even now that I'm sixty years old, instantly relaxes me and makes me feel like I'm at the kitchen table with my grandmother and she's taking care of me. You know? Right. It's a very very, beautiful connection.
So I think, an herb like chamomile came through my grandmother's family line. In Italy, chamomile is just on every shelf in every home, in every pharmacy, in every little grocery store, you'll find chamomile flowers because that's what people use for tea.
Matricat Matricaria literally means dear mother.
And it's an herb that was traditionally associated with not the blessed mother but her mother, Saint Anna, the grandmother of Jesus, the dear mother. And so as a, it just so happens that Saint Anna or Saint Anne as she's known in America is the patron saint of our village. And so chamomile as a plant associated with Santa Ana is very much the herb of choice, especially in our village, but all throughout Italy. So I think it's things like that. And also, living here in Maine, what are the herbs that grow naturally and abundantly right here, right around me, right around my house and on my farm. And that would be plants very, very similar actually to the plants that grow wildly in, Southern Italy and also probably, a lot of them would grow in North and Europe like in, Ireland.
So plants like nettles, plants like red clover, like chickweed. Mhmm. These are wild abundant plants. Dandelion, yellow dock, burdock. Wherever you go in in, you know, northern or temperate, zones, you're gonna find these same plants. And so these plants are readily available.
They grow all over the world and they resonate with most of us. You know genetically from way back Our ancestors were nourished on these very same plants, you know. So that kind of is still ringing in ourselves. And when we sit with the plant like nettles or we sit with the plant like red clover, You know, we can connect at that very very deep level.
Using I'm well, I really like to meditate with plants. I really, have conceived of connecting with the plants through the heart.
My first book was called Opening Our Wild Hearts. I believe very much in this concept of the wild heart within each one of us and I feel that it's this wild heart that each one of us possesses that resonates and rings true and clear and pure with the wild part of the earth and therefore with the plants. You know we're made of all the very same substances that the plants are made of molecule for molecule. We're exactly the same.
We give them the carbon dioxide beautiful, expressive exchange all through evolution or whatever. Yeah. And here we are still with these very same plants. As I'm speaking to you, I'm looking out the window at one of my very favorite trees.
It's an oak tree. Mhmm. And I love the oak. I love the presence of the oak.
I love the strength and the endurance and the spiritual, depth of the oak. It has such a strong presence and it tends to give that energy to those who relate with it or live around it. And it's this kind of energy that I think people pick up on and, connect with when they're learning about plants. These are the unspoken connections.
This is the kind of stuff you don't really read about in a book. It's the kind of intimate knowledge that you gain just by being with the plants.
Mhmm.
By, working with the plants and by observing and then using the plants. So I think the energetic, quality of the plants, the person personality level, the vibrational level is very, very important to pay attention to when you're learning about plants.
So That's, you know, I it's it it I always have these moment that this is great because I because I I I kind of feeling that the more I I would do herb walks with people and I you know, when you do herb walks with people, there's, you know, your tea you want everyone to know about dandelion and plantain and chickweed and red clover and these herbs and nettles.
And and, and it's always just amazing that, to just see the that to feel that light bulb going off in people. And it's almost like it's that reintroduction.
It's like they've had the connection all along, but you're just helping them acknowledge it a little bit and kind of nudging it along or Absolutely.
Absolutely. You're helping them remember. It's like shaking loose long deeply encoded information and just the process of being in the presence of the plant, smelling the plants, looking at them, tasting them, touching them, all that comes through the senses is helping to reawaken.
You know, and as a teacher when you're giving the actual information that you know about the plant, that too is resonating with the students and they're remembering what kind of they know intuitively about the plants or what they've heard. And I love, when I'm teaching or leaving a walk or having a class, I love hearing what all the other students know about these different plants that we're meeting, you know. Right. Some are meeting them for the first time but others, there's a huge body of knowledge and everyone seems to have pieces of it, you know.
And it's so much fun when you get together with a small group or with a bigger group and everyone kind of puts into the pot, you know. And you can learn so much as a teacher. I know that I learn so much from my students. I get so much energy and inspiration from them.
Right. That kinda keeps me going, you know? So it's such a wonderful exchange. I I I, I love it.
Yeah. I love what you said about me, you know, meditating with the plants because and and and and what you just said as well about people teaching you because, you know, this sometimes when I I get a group of students with a with a college program at wilderness awareness school and I'll send them out for like, like an hour to sit with a plant and when they come back and we get in a circle, there's usually twenty people or so. And by the time we get around the whole circle and then they want me to tell them, like, what's in the book. And I'm like, you just said it.
You just between the group mind. Yeah.
They actually I really trust that.
Yeah.
They use their senses. And then these are people that are trained all year to to connect with nature and and and high have heightened senses in nature and and all. And and then and then when they use those skills and then they bring it back to me, so they they usually say, oh, yeah. This is what I'm feeling from this plan and this is like, yep. That's pretty much it.
Mhmm.
Yeah. Mhmm.
You know, I I, I recently as I we've we've had to postpone this, talk a couple of times because, because of my my back going out. And and then I I I reach for one of my, favorite books, this, all that this little one, opening our wild hearts to the healing herbs I have on my my bookshelf. I don't know if you've heard of it.
Thank you.
But I but but you you're right in there.
You know, for example, you you wrote you wrote in there, when my foot hurts, I I don't take an aspirin to go back to work. The wise woman tradition has taught me to take the time to soak my foot and rub it with some healing oil and you then then you and then you go on about giving it attention. And so I just, you know, wanted you to talk a little bit about that because I when I was like thinking, okay, then it backs out and I and I was, you know, wanting to go about it in a in a way, and and so, so, anyway, with the wise woman tradition in in all of this, can you speak about this a little bit?
Or Yeah.
You know, I love that wise woman tradition, and that was such a beautiful philosophy. Of course, Susan Reed has pretty much coined the phrase and kind of popularized it. But there's three basic, principles as I understand the wise woman tradition. And these principles, the more I focus on them, the more they become guiding, guiding principles for living life in general.
So, the first principle of the wise woman tradition would be the focus on common abundant nourishing herbs.
It's not the trendy ones. It's not the, you know, real popular ones everyone's talking about. It's the ones we've kind of been discussing, the ones that are everywhere growing around us. So this, idea that it's the common, abundant and nourishing. The key word is our nourishment.
And then it's also this focus on opening the heart and developing compassion and love and, connecting as I speak about, opening the wild heart and connecting with that wild heart of nature. So this heart part, the part about the heart and developing empathy and compassion and love, The higher senses of our human abilities.
This is another very, very important concept in the wise women tradition and therefore offering that compassion and that love to all other life forms, you know. And then the third principle is the cultivation of simple, ceremony and ritual in daily life because it's this cultivation and the focus on the simple daily rituals of every life of everyday life. And we all have them. Just the way you wake up in the morning and you make your cup of tea or your cup of coffee or the way you say a prayer before you eat your dinner or the way you kiss your children or have a little ceremony of going to sleep at night. These are the beautiful, deep, precious ceremonies and rituals of daily life. And when we perform these with consciousness and with attention, they bring our awareness to the sacredness of everyday life of the simplicity of life. So these three basic principles of the wise women tradition have kind of really, settled down into my bones.
And the middle one, the one about the love and cultivating compassion and acceptance.
This kind of relates to the way we treat our own body because we must love ourselves. We must discover self love and self healing before we can ever move into a space of sharing love with others and not only other people, but all other creatures, including the plants and the earth. So, you know, in the wise women tradition, when we have an illness, instead of as is very common in our culture, something is wrong like your foot is hurting.
All you really want to do is end the pain and get back to what you were doing.
You really you kind of want to just numb it and and forget about it.
But in the wise woman tradition, we were taught to have the perspective, oh, now what's going on here? To bring our attention. Pain is a, is a, a calling. Put your attention here. Something's going on. So why ignore that if your body's talking to you? It only makes sense to pay attention.
And so you look and you see see what can I do here to nourish myself? What can I do here to help this foot feel better? This is extending love to my foot, to my own body. You know, if I can't do that, I will not be very good at handing you any any type of assistance, love or healing, you know, or, or most important hope because as we all know as herbalists and people who work with, transforming plant energies into medicine, that will hopefully nourish and heal.
We're really, we're really cultivating hope. We're really trying to hand some hope to a person who comes to us for some kind of help. And I always tell my students along with the medicine that you give someone or the advice or the information, the herbal knowledge and education, you give the person a great deal of hope. And if that person doesn't turn around to you as they are leaving and say something that sounds like, oh, thank you so much.
I feel so much better now.
You you have failed. You haven't really done your job as a healer. So, you know, these, these concepts reverberate on many different levels of life and certainly this wild part, this cultivation of compassion, empathy and love is very, very, very key to working with the plants, you know, and to making all of the, connections from the plants to the humans.
So I see it.
And and and and it's that approach and that feeling you get from your book that is the reason why Kimberly and I, like, why my copy is completely, you know, worn out practically with the cover all ring you know, because, because here I am, you know, with the with the back on out and and and, and and through that lens of healing, the way you're approaching it, that resonates in the plant monograph. So for example, the the Saint John's wort oil and tincture I've been using to help with the pain part, but also in the inner nourishment, horsetail, and and comfrey infusions, for example, for the inner strength.
And so it's it's it it always, like, it helps me just, you know, connect and just, you know, discover these to go deeper with with the plants. And because every time I learn more and more about it's what we study a different we have an herb of the month every month on on on herb mentor dot com and we're St. John's word is is is is the June one. And, and just ironic that I've been using so much of it.
Right on time.
Just gives you a little description of paragraph four here is perfect, and I was just like, yep. That's me.
You couldn't have planned that any better.
Well, I see. I'm not planning. I've just gone on with the flow of life here, and I've just I'm just it just seems to life seems to kinda plan itself. But but I wanna get onto a few questions from some members because hey. Enough about me. You know? Okay.
Yeah. Bye bye.
And and, thank you. This this is great. So besides a a myriad of compliments and and praise, that that came in from different members like, oh, I love it. I love it. I love that book.
Deb Deborah wanted to know, what was the the best way to harvest roots? Because she has an angelica plant and a marshmallow, and she would like to harvest it this fall. So what's a best way how would she harvest those roots?
Okay. Well, Angelica, is not very very different from the root ball that's gonna be found underneath the marshmallow. They both have big kind of rhizomes that have other, snake like roots kind of going off of them. So I I usually wait when I'm gonna dig roots until I've had a few of frost or two at least because the frost will give the plant the, hint.
Winter's coming. Time to store all your nourishment inside so that you can grow again, in the spring. So the, after a frost or two, I usually will dig my roots and I have a special root digging shovel. I don't know what the official name for it is, but it's not a curved shovel.
It's a very straight blade and it's a little bit longer on the longer side. And this type of shovel is perfect for digging roots because it doesn't cut the roots as you're going down into the soil with the shovel. So I usually dig straight down a few inches away from the crown of the plant, you know, depending on how large the plant looks. And then I just make a circle with the straight bladed shovel all the way around that plant.
So that I'm not going to put the shovel blade underneath and possibly break some of the root off.
And then I lift that up as best I can with the help of the shovel or with my hands and some hand tools and then shake off all the soil from the, from the roots. Leave it right there because soil is the gardener's gold and you don't want to remove too much of your precious soil. It takes so many hundreds and hundreds of years to build a little inch of topsoil. So you shake all your soil and you leave it right there in the bed and carry the roots to the house.
With the both Angelica and marshmallow.
Well, for marshmallow, those leaves and flowers are all wonderful medicine.
Be either newspaper or a screen overnight so that they just, the dirt that's on them can just dry off. And then the next morning I'll take a stiff brush and I just brush all the parts of the roots, off.
Alternately, I might take it in, from the garden and rinse it very, very quickly.
A lot of times I don't like to, do too much rinsing because a lot of what's, on the plant material, the roots is very water soluble vitamins and minerals. And I don't want to do too much running water and soaking of those roots because I don't want to lose a lot of that good nourishment. So whatever I do washing or leaving it, I do it briskly and I process quickly. So if I was going to tincture, if your student Debbie is planning to tincture those roots, She would bring them in and chop them up immediately and put them in the jar and cover them with her alcohol.
And if she's going to dry them, she could cut segments of those roots and, tie string around them and dry them in the air. That's one way. She could slice them into narrow slices and lay them on screens to dry.
You know, those are two basic ways of doing it. I usually like air drying. I don't usually use an oven for drying. But of course you could put an oven on the lowest possible heat and then put your plant material in the oven with the oven door open a little bit. And speed the drying along that way. But if you have some nice dry weather, even beautiful roots do not take all that long of the time to dry.
You know, and then if you're not drying them, you're tincturing them. That's just done immediately. Okay. The the soonest you bring it in from the garden or from the earth and into the menstruum, the better.
Okay.
The less time that goes by.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, Bonita from Missouri, wants to know, like, she gets a little confused about the, using the she has, quote, unquote, original plant for medicinal purposes or a new type. So she means like yarrow. She, reads that you should use one of the white flower, not the colored ones, or even with mullein, you use the, you know, the, I guess, the verb the verbascan fabscess, or can you use some of the other ones so you're more colorful, breed. So what do you recommend as far as for using medicine?
Okay. Well, I recommend sticking with the official plant medicines. So we need to know the genus and the species of the official plant medicine. For instance, St. John's wort is Hypericum perforatum.
Now there's other Hyperacums, but they're different varieties. They're the same genus, Hypericum, but they're not the perforatum.
So it's the perforatum that you, you know, will want to be verbascum dapsis.
There's other ornamental mullein and I doubt if they would have the same type of medicinal, you know, action as the official plant. So this is why we have the classifications and the Latin names of the plants. So there's no mistaking.
With chickweed, it's the Stellarium Medea. You know, there's other cute little, chickweeds, but that one is the official plant. So we need to know the genus, the species and then look for that particular plant. The ornamental species may have some medicinal qualities and they may not. There's, you know, broad range of possibilities there. So we stick to the the varieties that are known to be the the medicinal variety.
And and Bonita, just so you know too, I, that's all I was seeing was these other kind of mulins.
And and so I actually ordered seeds of the official verbaskin fapsis and start starting them right now in my windowsill to put in my new herb garden for that very reason knowing that I Right.
Yeah. So With the I I you often tell my students this too. You know, it's wonderful to go out wild gathering. But then with so many of us out there wild gathering, there's there's the danger that we could be starting to over harvest, you know. And so with a lot of these usually wild plants, if you do have a little bit of space and it doesn't take much, a lot of these very beautiful medicinal plants even grow well in big pots, you know, that you could put on a porch or a windowsill.
So just like you said with planting the mullein, I think that's a fabulous idea. And then those mullein are very, very likely to just go wild all around your place in in subsequent years. You know? So then you're assured of what you have.
That'd be great. See, where I where I live, like, Mullen, St. John's Ward, Burdock, whereas where you live will be in all, you know, various places and fields. It's so wet here. The only places where we see those are often in these well drained, like, highway mediums and not actually out in fields. So I have to intentionally create environments in my wet northwest that Roland's gonna like.
I see. Okay. It's not like New Jersey when you're going down that highway. I forgot what name it is, but it's nothing but Mullen sticking out of all of the rocks and the cliffs on the Exactly. On the Exactly. Oh, okay. So you have to make some sandy and gravelly.
Exactly. Very, very dry areas.
I made an herb garden in my backyard with just sandy, not great soil to plant all of my my favorite medicinals that I can't get anywhere else, and I'm not watering it. I'm just gonna let you know.
Yeah.
Pay pay It's a lot of fun, isn't it?
I know.
Plant lover. There's just nothing but experiment after experiment.
And you said it right there. Great. But that's a little first. A lot of folks starting out, you know, I I try my best to get some people to have some early successes, but as they get a little further along to really just get comfortable with two things. It's one big experiment, and number two, you ain't never gonna know it all.
So get comfortable with it.
That's right. Exactly.
Well, you know, one good thing is thinking of the Native American tradition, I often tell my students that most of the, you know, the highest renowned medicine people really only had a pharmacopeia that they were working with of maybe five to seven plants.
That was it. They knew the plants so thoroughly and we know that every plant has many, many uses and possibilities for use. So I think the point is to really go with the limitation of a small circle of very intimate, allies that you know very, very well and you can use for just about everything that comes up in your life or in your circle rather than try to spread yourself so thin and try to accumulate knowledge of a hundred different plants, that knowledge is going to be a lot more superficial than the very deep knowledge that would come from, imposing a limitation on yourself, you know, and doing that accumulation much more slowly.
So yeah, it can be very overwhelming because there's so much information. But just look, where what you said you're going to be forty, I'm sixty. We've been spending our whole life learning about plants and yet we're very honest to say we are very, very far and short from knowing everything there is to know about plants. Gosh, I'm so humbled.
Every time a new student comes to work with me, she already has knowledge that I haven't heard yet. You know, it's constantly changing and more is is being known. So I think it's beautiful to admit all that you have no clue about and just be like a child, you know, open and ready to learn, learn, learn, you know, however it comes to us.
So I know. It's a For for me, it's a my advice.
Jersey, You know, I you know, Jersey, it was kinda, you know, considered the land of Camelon since, out here in the northwest, there's less people who use, spray their lawns because of of there's awareness in this area of salmon habitat. Yeah.
Of course.
And it was that faithful day spraying spraying spraying on the on on on a landscape job I had that a friend said, you know what we're spraying there that's called chickweed and you can eat it. And then this is a good crack in my psyche.
And that was the day that, like, I think I, my my my but my heart my heart started to open to the possibility that maybe I shouldn't be spraying this chickweed.
No kidding. So that was your actual job way back when?
Yeah. Yeah. Late teens, you know. And I had a friend of mine at the wilderness awareness club in high school, and he knew that information and told me. And that just kinda stuck with me.
And then when I hung up with John Young so many years later at Wilderness Awareness, I, you know, that was kind of the thing that, like, piqued my interest, you know.
Mhmm.
And, speaking of chickweed, which is one of my favorite, salves that I make, Peggy in Michigan wanted I Oh, boy.
The best medicinal salve I've ever made. Well, you know what? I have this one salve that I make. I call it the all purpose healing salve. And I'm gonna say that's got to be the best one I've ever made because it's really the one I keep making.
And that has four different herbs in it. It has the comfrey free and plantain, Saint John's wort, and calendula. Mhmm. And those four herbs are very, very, you know, they cover a lot of bases. They're wonderful healing plants especially for the skin or any types of afflictions that, come on the skin. So I like that combination.
Of course a salve made from any one of those herbs would be fabulous also.
And then you mentioned you'd love to make a chickweed salve and you know, I agree that's another wonderful salve. So it's really endless. But I guess I'd have to say that comfrey plantain, St. John's wort and calendula in pretty much equal parts is one of my very favorite. And then I add just a few drops of essential oil of lavender because I love the scent of essential oil of lavender and also because it accelerates the, healing of skin cells also.
So Anyone listening who's done the herbal medicine making, kitten, I didn't talk to Gal first before I designed it. That's the same exact recipe.
What you're reading.
Same recipe that you're talking. Yeah. It's great. I'm I'm Exactly. Going I'm patting myself on the back here going, good. Alright.
Alright. Well, that's so funny. That's wonderful. Yeah. That's my favorite and, I've been making that for many, many years now. And I haul that out for just about everything, you know, that I I have a need for a salve for.
So We are blessed here in the northwest with the overabundance of cottonwood, of cottonwood, the, the balsam type.
And, we just love making, just that simple salve as well out of just just that oil and making it because you don't have to add any essential oils.
It's got a wonderful scent on its own and it's That's nice.
Yes. Student of mine was just telling me she made a cottonwood oil and I was thinking, that sounds so wonderful. Yeah.
Yeah.
How What's your favorite?
What's your favorite salve that you've made?
I would have to say that, though though I I I love the same exact recipe you were talking and we do make that and and I have that and keep that in the fridge. I think I reach most for the cottonwood.
I think because I'm just kind of in that place where I'm really, you know, as a learner as a lifelong learner, we're always learning.
Always like striving to keep it as simple as possible. And I find that the cottonwood, the balm, the has so many healing properties from anti inflammatory to skin healing and everything. Just doing it in one plant. I just saying, what can I do with just one plant?
And and and and though I love combining things and and formulating and that's fun too. I guess I always try to stay in that space because also as a teacher and you probably find this as well is this like, they I I I feel like there's so many people out there and you find this too, trying to make it complicated.
Right. Yes. Yes. Yes.
And I'm always trying to pull it over to the other side.
Yeah. Well, I totally agree. And I think you're you're you're on to a very, very, very critically important point. And that is when students are just learning, the only way to really learn about the action of a plant is to use that plant alone.
When you're learning about herbs, you need to drink some red clover infusions for a few weeks or a month with nothing else. So you could see what does red clover do to my body. You know, stay with a month of oat oatstraw as a balancer and giving stability and you know helping to restore balance to mood swings. But you don't know yourself what that does until you experience it and you can speak from that experience.
So, I totally agree that in the early years and that's going to be pretty much for the first ten years of really seriously learning about herbs. It's really best to rely on the simple and to build that body of knowledge slowly, you know, and then little by little combining a plant with another based on your reading, your experience, your observations, seeing what grows well together and all of those types of things. And then slowly making combinations that work and, and taking it from there. But absolutely, I think the wise woman tradition is really very, very strongly focused on the use of simple.
Also for safety.
Simple and safe is always, you know, that's a very, very, good way to proceed.
Always, with safety first and that would and speaking of safety, you know, Mike wanted to was had a question about correctly identifying, plants in his backyard.
And and and I'm just gonna point Mike to the honor mentor. There's a how to learn about plants section where you can take a look at that. But, but what one thing you could do, and I'm sure if you agree, Gail, is that, on identifying plants, if a a great field guide, especially for the, is is the Newcomb's wildflower guide.
And even if Absolutely. Yeah.
You're you're in Oregon here, Mike. So I would use Newcomb's even though Newcomb's East Coast specific. Use Newcomb's in combination with the the Poe jar and McKinnon Northwest plant book and, because Newcomb's, but but use that thing that that section on her mentor how to use learn about plants because when you find the flower of the plant and correctly identify it when the plant's flowering, then you can be on the road to know that you've safely have the right plant.
Do you agree with that or do you have another way or Well, no.
I think a, an excellent field guide or two is indispensable.
I like the Newcomb Guide. I also like the Peterson.
And then, also going out with someone who really knows the plants themselves personally is very, very important.
Someone who really knows the plants can show you just a few plants in a very short amount of time and you can kind of build upon that knowledge. And, but certainly, a good field guide is spent years roaming around field and wood with the field guide in our hands, bringing home plant samples, pressing them in a book, looking them up, identifying them, writing whatever we could write about the plant. And In that way, creating notes upon notes and, you know, from your own hand about each individual plant. You know, that's another wonderful way of keeping your own records.
Right. Right. Exactly. Pressing the actual plant in there is is a really nice way of of doing it, especially if it's flowering.
So Actually, I know we're getting short on time here, but there's just one more question that that that looks seem like one that you you would be great, at answering because because Patty in Pennsylvania, says that, says that you refer to roses a lot and and, because she has your books.
She has both of them. She loves them. And she's interested in knowing kinds of roses that that you grow in any I don't know if there's opening a can of worms, but, roses she grows and tricks for caring for them.
So Okay.
My favorite I love roses. If there was one plant in all the world for me, it would be roses. I can use them for just about anything that comes up in my world.
Roses are phenomenal medicine.
They're incredible.
Not only the rose flowers, but the leaf, the leaf bud and of course the beautiful rose hip. Mhmm. Now my favorite roses are the rosa rugosa. They grow wild and abundantly all over Maine, especially on the coast of Maine.
But I, many years ago, started, from seed, from rose hips that I gathered.
I started rose plants. So I have huge hedge and then all kinds of assorted roses all around my farm here now. All of which have been started by seed, over the years. These are the roses I love the most, the Rosa rugosa.
I harvest the flowers very carefully. Every night this time of year we gather the roses and we pick the rose petals off the flower leaving the ovary in the center behind. So we'll still be able to, develop fruit and we go back for a second harvest later and we gather all those rose hips in the fall. Wow. So, I love Rosa rugosa. There's another wonderful rose here and I'm sorry I don't know the name of it, but it's a beautiful climbing rose with a white small very, very fragrant flower.
I call it an apothecary rose, an One is they One is they make fabulous medicine. Secondly, they require absolutely no care whatsoever besides reading and and the usual. But no sprays, no bugs, no problems, no yellow leaves, none of that. Right.
They're just roses that are live to bloom and thrive, you know, with with that kind of wild existence. So those are my favorites. The ones that are tricky to grow, they don't last long here with me. I'm not that type of a, I don't I don't do well.
My kids were never, pampered and I don't do that to plants either.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad to hear that. Me neither. If they if they can't make it on their own, they're not in my garden.
That's that's my perspective.
Exactly.
I'll keep trying a few times to find a spot that they like. But if after a few years, no go, forget it. They're off my list.
I'll just look for them in the wild.
And and also I'll say to that, members well, or mention, we we have some great you know, there's Rose Honey on recipe thingy on, on Herbmentor. And, soon we're gonna have a great, Kiva. Kiva Rose is gonna have a great, lesson on making a rose elixir that's gonna be on there. So we have lots of rose. So just search for rose for for remedies because she was curious about that too.
And Wow. I love rose medicine, and rose hip syrup is fabulous. Fabulous. And rose glycerate is awesome.
Oh, yeah.
Rose is out of this world.
How do you make rose glycerate? How do you make rose glycerate?
How do you make rose glycerate?
A rose glycerite? Oh, gosh. Just picking the roses and then, however your recipe for a glycerite, I usually use, glyceride, water and alcohol mixed all together. And that's my menstruum as I make a glyceride. It's mostly glyceride, alcohol soluble will also come out into the menstruum. But when you use it, it's a very, very tasty, very, very, just sublime rose flavor in that glycerite.
So I love those glycerites. But the best is the rose mead with just a little sprinkling of some nice champagne yeast on top of the, rose water.
Just heavenly.
Oh. Oh. Give me some ideas here.
Yeah.
You'll have to go with it.
Yeah.
So, and so what I'd like to end with here, Gail, is that I'd like you to tell us about your correspondence course, about your programs.
How can people learn with you? Because one of the things about our event that was great about one of my many purposes, of course, if not just to hang out and talk but also like to I like to just connect people with with mentors and teachers that are all around the country because sometimes people will be like, oh, I really like Gail. I really wanna learn from her. So how can they learn from you?
Okay. Well, I have thank you for asking me and for giving me an opportunity to share what I do offer. I have a one year long or twelve lesson herbal medicine correspondence course that's been wonderfully received.
I work personally with every single student, as they go through the lessons. So each, course is really individually, suited for each student and, I kind of guide them in their interests. So that's the one year long and some students take a year and a half or even some longer, which is fine with me as long as they're really working on the program. I give them all the help that I possibly can. I also have a three year community herbalist program.
Students who are serious about continuing with their studies and somehow fitting themselves into their communities, whether it's in a school setting or newspaper writing or clinical setting or whatever.
They work with me for a period of three years. That's by correspondence and also hands on. In the second year they come to the farm for a week long session.
At the end of the second year we have a weekend together. And then third year and graduating year, we also have a weekend. And, those three year students all get together for one weekend a year here on the farm. So it's a wonderful time of sharing. And the second and third year students actually give presentations to the first year students. So that community herbalist program is is another wonderful way to get deep with the plants and to have my personal guidance, for three years.
So, Well, if anybody listening is does any of Gail's we want reports on the forum on how it's gone and what you're learning.
Oh, I'll tell my I have plenty of wonderful herbal correspondence course students.
I'll have to tell them to, check-in with your herb mentor.
Yeah.
And also, you can go on to I have a Facebook book page. I just started for the school, Blessed Maine Herbstons School of Herbal Medicine. And then, of course, my website which is, w w w dot studyherbalmedicines dot com.
Oh, I like that URL.
So, those, you know, that takes you to my school page on my Blessed Maine Herb Farm website.
And then also I offer one month long herbal apprenticeships here. Right now I have two women studying here for the month and working with me on a daily basis and doing all of the gardening and the gathering and the medicine coming to them. Others do well with more independent study with you just kind of looking over their shoulder and guiding them. I try to offer what I can to meet the needs of any herbal student that's, you know, seriously, wanting to learn and grow.
And really, anyone out person. Anyone out there is just like, you know, if you got a busy life and job not no matter where you live in the country, if you get a week or two vacation, take a week off and what a better vacation than to go hang out with Gail and do do an apprenticeship for you. So much just be in there and live in it for a week.
You got well, where I studied with, two wonderful wise woman herbalists here in northwest, Eaglesong and Sally King at Oh, yes.
I know them.
Oh, you do? I know them.
Well, they were my they were my wife and I's mentors, when we were learning.
And we both did their three year program, but I was always a little jealous because the, week long or two week long apprenticeships live in that they had were just for women.
So you couldn't go.
But but but those I those I know who did just got so much out of it.
So Oh, I'm sure.
So that's I I love that you have so many formats that people can learn with you.
I love teaching, John. I really love sharing about the plants. It's something that gives me a great deal of happiness and satisfaction.
So, it's really my life's dedication at this point, is sharing and bringing people along in knowledge of the use of the plants. So, you know, we are all trying to do our best on behalf of the Earth. And that's my one little tiny piece that I feel, you know, very good about doing.
And the great news for, you know, the thing about everyone listening here too is that, you know, if you're listening and you feel like you're starting out or you're learning or you're a little into this, is this like, keep down this peg because you never little classes. Before you know it, five years down the line, you're gonna a couple little classes. Before you know it, five years down the line, you're gonna have people around you that are gonna be studying with you, going wildcrafting missions with, and you're gonna be be a community or village herbalist in your area, and that's what we need. We need everyone in communities across the country just to delve in there and just connect with the plants and start sharing what you know with people.
Absolutely. I think that's the critical important part right there is the sharing. You learn and then you share. You keep the information moving. Yeah.
Thank you so much John. This has been a wonderful talk with you. It wasn't like an official interview. It was more like a fun conversation.
Well, that's what that that's that's exactly what I try to do. Who wants who wants to be official?
Yeah.
The plants aren't. The weeds aren't official. They just do what they want so we can do what we want. Right? Yeah.
There you go.
Well Gail, I'd love to have you back sometime so maybe we'll get that chance.
Love to.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Once again, Gail, thank you for calling.
Thank you to your readers for, your listeners for, listening in, and God bless all of you.
Oh, thank you so much. Have a great day. Bye.
Alright. You too. Bye.
After I turned off the record button, Gail continued to tell me of a couple of other things she wanted to let everyone know about which was that blessed Maine Herb farm is a certified organic growers and, processors and all of their own herbal products such as tinctures formulas and herbal teas. They're all USDA m o f g a certified organic, and their tinctures are made in certified organic grade alcohol. Also, that she offers earth and spirit tours each spring. Their nine day tours of southern Italy and many incredible archaeological sites such as a pilgrimage of the black Madonna of Positano, the Amalfi coast, Pompeii, ancient caves, shrines, beach mountains, herbs, gardens, incredible food, you name it. And this is only limited to six participants.
So thanks again to Gail for sharing with us and her website again, blessed mainherbs.com.
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