John Gallagher:
Do not do this at home.
Tara Ruth:
I wouldn't dream of it.
John Gallagher:
That's something I learned today when talking about Poke with Lucretia VanDyke, our guest today on HerbMentor Radio.
Tara Ruth:
Yes. What an incredible guest to get to chat with today. I learned so much from her, not just about Poke, but about food as medicine, about ancestor reverence, about, I mean, just so many delicious foods that I now want to try.
John Gallagher:
Godmother's of herbal medicine that we didn't even know about.
Tara Ruth:
So many important stories that she really has been uncovering and centering through interviewing elders.
John Gallagher:
Just her own life journey. Moving to New Orleans and all that happened from that point is just truly inspiring, enlightening.
Tara Ruth:
Yes. And how the plants were there with her every step of the way.
John Gallagher:
Well, everyone, welcome to HerbMentor Radio and let's get to it. You were listening to HerbMentor Radio by LearningHerbs. I'm John Gallagher.
Tara Ruth:
I'm Tara Ruth. Today we're chatting with Lucretia VanDyke. As one of the foremost experts on southern folk healing arts, Lucretia integrates rituals, plant spirit meditation, holistic food and herbal medicine, and ancestor reverence into people's practices. She's the author of "African American Herbalism: A Practical Guide to Healing Plants and Folk Traditions," and you can learn more about her work at Lucretia.Vandyke on Instagram.
John Gallagher:
Welcome, Lucretia.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Hi everybody. How y'all doing?
Tara Ruth:
Thanks so much for being here with us.
Lucretia VanDyke:
I'm so excited. I was like, anytime anybody wants to sit around and talk about plants and plant things, I'm really super pumped.
Tara Ruth:
Right. Oh my gosh.
Lucretia VanDyke:
It's when you don't want to talk about plants. I have no idea what to talk to you about anymore. I like cashews. Do you like cashews?
John Gallagher:
What do you like about cashews? What plant family is that in?
Lucretia VanDyke:
Exactly. Here we go again.
John Gallagher:
It is not a perennial or an annual. No, go ahead.
Tara Ruth:
Yeah, we at a party just talking about the garnishes on various things, trying to make conversation. Yeah.
Lucretia VanDyke:
I was like, do you know cilantro removes heavy metals from your body.
John Gallagher:
Makes a great dip.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Exactly. You're just like, stop being weird, Lucretia. Stop being weird.
Tara Ruth:
It's my favorite kind of weird.
Lucretia VanDyke:
See, yeah, kindred plant spirit people. I love it.
Tara Ruth:
Exactly.
John Gallagher:
It helps everyone listening, knowing that they're not the only weird ones out there.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yes. We all are linked together.
Tara Ruth:
This makes me think about, Lucretia, when I got to read the two articles you wrote for the LearningHerbs blog, your Spiced Sweet Potato Apple Butter, and then the Fire Cider Pickles and just the excitement about the plant nerdery in them was just so palpable. It was so fun to read them.
John Gallagher:
Love those articles.
Tara Ruth:
The recipes were delicious. Oh my God.
John Gallagher:
Yes.
Lucretia VanDyke:
It's, I get pumped about food and plants. That's why I'm like, I can't believe you get paid to do this. For sure, because I always-
John Gallagher:
Wait. You can get paid?
Lucretia VanDyke:
Not very well. That could be a whole podcast.
Tara Ruth:
Exactly.
Lucretia VanDyke:
We could sit here and talk about the fair payment of herbalists in the industry. We'll come back for a round table discussion.
Tara Ruth:
Yes. Yes. Yes.
John Gallagher:
Sounds like a good one.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah, exactly. But yes, you can get paid, but I have a passion for food and a passion for plants, and when I'm always trying to find a way to shove more plants into recipes and food and with people, so that's a very important pathway of herbalism to me that I think has been sometimes a little forgotten in the western world that I see so much as I travel in my cooking and the cooking of my ancestors as well. We've come away from some of those beautiful rituals with the plants.
John Gallagher:
Well, speaking of recipes, what kind of herb-infused foods are in your kitchen these days?
Lucretia VanDyke:
Oh, I just made, speaking of my old lady, herbal woman weirdness, I really am like your 80-year-old auntie from the country in the kitchen. I just made this amazing jam. Elderberry is very affluent here. It's just everywhere. You find it everywhere, and so some trees have got berries, so I just made some jam and it's elderberry infusion with, what did I put into there? A little bit of reishi as well and some echinacea. So I made that into an infusion, and then Louisiana strawberries and blueberries are into that, and then-
Tara Ruth:
Oh my God, that sounds so good. What?
John Gallagher:
Wow.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah, so it's elderberry elderflower because really kick it with the antivirals, but I love because in honor of my grandmother to make jellies and jams, but I really got into adding herbal infusions and figuring out recipes to use less sugar. So this one is what I'm really playing around with now. I made it with agar plankton instead of with what you traditionally, the box, more chemically thing. So I was able instead of using six cups of sugar to take it down to a cup and a half, so that's the nerdy things I do in my kitchen.
Tara Ruth:
Oh my gosh.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Today is going to be, I have a bone broth that I had made with a lot of blood nourishing herbs in there and some really high nettles and those kind of things in there. I'm going to make a black eyed peas with okra with goldenrod and nettles infused cornbread for dinner.
Tara Ruth:
Wow. Oh my gosh. I feel so hungry.
John Gallagher:
I know. It smells delicious.
Tara Ruth:
I'm like, I'm going to need to pause and grab a snack.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Exactly.
Tara Ruth:
You mentioned your grandma inspiring you, and I'm curious how you started weaving food and herbs together. Was that something that was part of your childhood growing up, or did that kind of come online for you more in adulthood?
Lucretia VanDyke:
Oh, no. I mean, people always ask me and I'm like, I don't remember a time in my life that I was not around plants. I'm always telling people I grew up on a farm in North Carolina, so eating and drinking bold roots and folk medicine has always been ingrained in us for generations. So yeah, my grandmother raised me. My mom was a single mom and she was 18 when she had me, and so my grandmother would babysit me and she was all about the cooking, and so there's really not a picture of me as a child that you don't see me barefoot running in the woods or on her yellow linoleum. Do you remember? I don't know how old those are, but the yellow linoleum kitchen floors, licking beaters or just watching her in these labors of love and these rituals about creating dishes, and she just made everything, the best biscuits, jams, and we had a working farm for most of my life, so watching harvest everything from seed to harvest and part of it, and so that's my ancestor practice.
She died in my early twenties, and so it's a way that I came to honor her, but it's also like, and that's my Irish Scottish side, and then I have my African roots side, and it was a way for me to tap into studying food and plants to connect with them because I didn't have that connection until much later in life. So I began a cultural connection by studying after eating African food, studying plants, studying their spirituality around that.
So yeah, it's something I've done forever, but then it's also something that's just in you, and I don't know where, I always say it's the ancestors. You're not the first person in your family to love plants or we all have that deep ancestral connection, and when we sometimes remove the books, the genus, the species, which are all important, and we just tap into that ancestral knowledge, the coolest things happen. Let me see what happens when I put elderberry or make a holy basil infusion and put it into this grape jelly or golden rye cornbread. The plants begin to speak to you in a different way through food. At least for me, I put music on, the plants are like, add me, and I'm like, are you sure? Because that sounds great.
John Gallagher:
These recipes, you're talking about experimenting. It's like I'm sure that our ancestors were experimenting with whatever they had or could do with all kinds of stuff too. Probably just didn't get written down, right?
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah. Well, my family, I don't know about your family. They didn't write recipes down. A lot of, as I move through the world, it's a feeling that you have, which again is something that I really want, try to utilize my knowledge and my class is about, is tapping into that intuition knowledge. I find that a lot of people are afraid of creating things with plants due to that fear. I'm always like, but who ate the first pineapple? Oh my gosh.
John Gallagher:
Now I'm thinking of things I can infuse with pineapple.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Oh my God, I have five cocktails right in my head already.
Tara Ruth:
Oh my gosh.
Lucretia VanDyke:
A pineapple butter and like a jam with it. Yeah.
Tara Ruth:
Oh my gosh.
John Gallagher:
Yeah. It's like you just have to kind of know some basics from a recipe book if you're starting out, and then from there you can improvise.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah. It's also understanding, food is our main pathway to health and wellness. You can only take so many tinctures a day. You can only drink so much tea, but you have these periodic meals and condiments that we put on our meals and that it's just integrating all the parts of herbalism together and consciously eating in a way. Right now, I have a lot, low iron is a big issue of mine, so creating spices that have herbs that support iron or support anything that I'm working on that add in my food.
I realize the biggest impact is my peri-menopausal symptoms and starting to cook with Vitex as a spice. I actually ordered the wrong thing. I got powdered Vitex instead of Vitex leaf, and I'm like, what am I going to do with all this Vitex about seven years ago? I started cooking with it because I tasted it. I taste everything. I'm the worst person on a herb walk. Everybody watches me if I go to one, and I'm always chewing on every plant. They're like, and this one's toxic. I'm like, got it stuck in my mouth looking at everybody. They think I'm the expert because I wrote the book, but anyway, so.
John Gallagher:
Are we going to leave the parking lot? Nope. Just this plant.
Lucretia VanDyke:
So yeah, it's really, and thinking about that, and my clients, I work a lot with community and my biggest thing is meeting people where they are. You can always meet people where they are through their plate and their food. They might not have the money to go buy the tinctures or to get this and that, but I can help you with your food. Ancestrally, it's such a big thing. I spend time in Haiti and they use leaves in their food. It's important also, African cooking is that way. Island cooking is that way. Thai cooking, Ayurvedic has the same thing. All these Indigenous cultures have the same connection to food. It's just a little harder I think sometimes for us in this western world here to make that connection.
Tara Ruth:
This makes me think about one of the sections in your book where you talk about creating sacred space in the kitchen.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yes.
Tara Ruth:
Can you share a little bit more about how you really create and call in that sacred space and any tips you have for listeners who are wanting to cultivate that in their own kitchen space?
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yes. To me, it began, it's a part of intergenerational healing and intergenerational communication. People try to make ancestor work so hard, or honoring your ancestors is a taboo subject in something, but all of us can remember a great meal in our childhood at some point. I think creating that energy to honor that ancestral connection and to open the space up to where you can hear the plant go, add me to this spice or add me to this dish. So for me, it's really like music is step one for me. I have an ancestral playlist. I love the gospel or old Negro spirituals is what some people like that old chanting music. But then also there's some Sam Cooke that's in there. There's some Miles Davis sometimes that's in there. There's that old that you can hear your grandparents or your aunties or your uncles just be like, oh my God, that's my song.
Or it could be whatever you like, Latin music or Haitian kompa music or whatever, your ancestral connection. So that's one of the first things to me that I like to, is to set the stage with music. Sometimes having pictures in there of my grandmother really helped me heal a lot with her because it gave me something to do. That's what setting the sacred space is. Even when we cling to and we're setting up the space to make our plant medicine, burning sacred herbs to open the way is another thing to me, to separate myself from all the chaos of the world, to focus on this moment that I'm having to prepare food to heal my body or for my family.
That, and when we set those spaces, turn on a little music, burn some sacred plants, it tells us to be like, okay, pay attention to this right now. I also have crystals. There's a lot of really interesting things that are southern that I've really started researching in the latter years is my ex-mother-in-law. She had this old corn husk doll in there, and she called it her kitchen witch. I was like, what is that? I was always obsessed with it, and she couldn't really tell me where it come from. But in her family, everybody had this corn husk doll in their kitchen.
John Gallagher:
Oh, wow.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah. It's those beautiful things like having pieces of your ancestors in your kitchen, even if it's a whisk that your grandmother used or a pot or something to set that up in there. Sometimes it's lighting a candle, and I love to do that. Then having that prayer for the ancestors or for the plants to come and guide you, those who are my highest and greatest good.
John Gallagher:
It's like we always seem to obsess nowadays with the data, the recipes, the books, but it seems like it's more important to hand down the rituals. In a way, it's a way to find your own voice in it, that's connected to something greater than yourself, right?
Lucretia VanDyke:
Absolutely. To me, my book was so important to me and to me it's so important. I want to hear the recipes that your grandmother made you. I think the modern books and the modern platforms and all that brings people, which is great. I think it's amazing that we have access to that. But then you forget what your personal family forgot to do. That's why in the book I have writing prompts for people to interview an elder, interview your grandmother.
It's a lot of times, a very healing for a family that has a lot of trauma to also, I give that homework to clients of mine who I see my coaching clients, and I'm like, they can't talk to their family members because of trauma. I was like, y'all talk about food or what did, you used to use to heal? There's been a lot of beautiful dialogue that's been really healthy with the feedback of other people. I know there's that with myself, but it's preserving culture in your family, in your neighborhood is one of the most important things for me, honoring the elders. It's an African saying that when an elder dies, the library is burnt to the ground.
John Gallagher:
Oh. Oh my gosh. That is one of the best quotes.
Lucretia VanDyke:
We don't do right by our elders in this. They have so much knowledge for us. I think that that's why I'm so, people are like, you're so smart. They've always told me that for my age, but if there's an elder, I'm sitting next to them.
Tara Ruth:
Me too. I feel that. I am currently scheming of joining the local water aerobics class, because I want to hang out with more elders.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Me too.
John Gallagher:
You should come to my town. The median age is like 70.
Lucretia VanDyke:
It's so fascinating. I've had clients and taking, one of the smartest clients I had was an acupuncturist, and it was like, but their mother had gotten really ill and they became a caregiver and the roles were reversed, and they're having a hard time with that. Of course. I'm like, ask your mom about her mom. So it gave her mom a purpose to be able to pass on something, but she found out that her grandmother was a forager and would cook from any things that she found in the woods, and she loved to do that too. So it's fascinating what we find out about our cultures, our lineages and things through these conversations and dialogue. Yes, sharpening that intuition. I run into people who paid the $10,000 of training but are scared to make...
John Gallagher:
Yes, something very, it's very true.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah.
John Gallagher:
It's very true.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Absolutely.
John Gallagher:
This is an amazing conversation.
Tara Ruth:
Yes.
John Gallagher:
Something that really comes to mind is how we really find our own voices when becoming home herbalists, right? I mean, you might learn a few skills, but really it's about taking them and writing your own song in such a pretty much, right?
Tara Ruth:
Yeah. Getting to improvise, getting to learn what herbs you are drawn to, who you really want to become friends with in the herbal world.
John Gallagher:
Exactly. It's kind of why we started HerbMentor, which is an online community where you can take courses and find your own voice. I'm just thinking of Rosemary's Remedies with Rosemary Gladstar where you kind of, it's not just like, yeah, she gives a recipe, but also how can you put your twist on it? How can you learn to do that?
Tara Ruth:
Yeah. It also makes me think about our course called Folk Medicine, Changing the Narrative with Shereel Washington. She brings in all these beautiful recipes and really gives you the framework and tools to make them your own and to experiment and get creative in your own kitchen.
John Gallagher:
An important part of it too is having people to talk to and share your wins and get support and see if you're doing things right. Because we don't all have herbal friends in our neighborhood, and if you do have herbalists in your neighborhood, please make friends with them. Find those local courses.
Tara Ruth:
Find the other weirdos.
John Gallagher:
Right. Find the other weirdos. But it could be that you might be that person that's going to learn things and bring people in your community to you. So if you don't have those connections in your neighborhood yet, or whether you do or don't, we have a place where you can share those stories, ask us questions, join, come on lives, meetups with us, and take challenges, all kinds of stuff just to keep it part of your everyday life. That's the thing is, it's not like you do a class A to B. It's about infusing herbs and getting inspired every day.
Tara Ruth:
Being steeped in the medicine.
John Gallagher:
Steeped in the medicine. Making yourself herbal tea. Yes. Steeping yourself. So yeah. There's a way to, listeners can get maybe a little discount on HerbMentor.
Tara Ruth:
Oh my gosh. Yeah. You got to go to Herbmentorradio.com.
John Gallagher:
Yeah, that's the podcast you're listening to. So just put a .com on the end of that and check it out, making you try for a dollar and see if you like us.
Tara Ruth:
It's so fun. I love being on HerbMentor, in our forum, getting to chat with people, getting to go on lives. I love learning with all of you. Please hang out with me there.
John Gallagher:
Yes, please hang out with Tara. Meanwhile, let's get back to the show.
Tara Ruth:
Yes, let's do it. You've also mentioned a little bit about some travels you've had and how that's shaped your plant journey, and I'd love to hear more about that for you and the role that traveling has played in your relationship with plants.
Lucretia VanDyke:
It's so funny. It's like all of my trips and things. It is the plants that take me to these really wild places and wild adventures, and sometimes I don't even know and they just show up. So I'm always like, they're deeply rooted. It started in the Caribbean as one of my first trips that I took in the Caribbean to Jamaica and learning about the Maroons, which were people who went into the woods to escape being enslaved. They kept themselves healthy by using the medicines of the jungles and the mountains and all that.
It was such a huge rite of passage. Using spiritual bathing as a part of a holistic treatment plan, and then going to Southeast Asia and realizing that skin care and things that we put on our skin is not just to keep us beautiful. It is this ritual to celebrate something even if it's just ourselves. So I got stuck in Southeast Asia for quite a long time, Bali and Cambodia, and I love to be in the markets, both spices and things for food and how they cook and how their cooking is for health and wellness, and then how they utilize the plants in so many different ways. So ending up, oh, I heard that this man does herbal poultice massage and he can diagnose your illnesses, and he's in the, so getting up at four in the morning to drive to this place to find this man that you heard that did this thing with plants and just-
John Gallagher:
You know there that those traditions are being passed down through the elders there.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Well-
John Gallagher:
Are they?
Lucretia VanDyke:
Modern technology, it's very fascinating to me. Young children these days are not as interested in places like that. Especially, everybody sees America, so they want to be like America. I mean, you still find the traditions, it's very, you still find them, and you still find people who do pay reverence to them, especially in Thailand. Tons of, that's one thing that you do is you go to school for Thai massage. That's another thing. My most recent love that's done so much healing for me has been Haiti and seeing their connection to the plant world. I've had Haitian teachers and now I get to go there and be with the plant people. Yeah, they're all about what they say, the leaves, the leaves and knowing about the leaves, but it's so ingrained in them that it's not something that you go to learn to do. It's just something that you know to do.
Tara Ruth:
This is making me just think about what you're talking about with cooking and how you grew up running around in the forest and then just seeking out these experiences of connecting with plants and your travels. There's so much really important embodied knowledge there that can partner so well with the intuition and really feed each other.
Lucretia VanDyke:
It's intuition. I don't really seek them out. They seek me out. That's the weirdest thing about it. It's just like honest. But again, it's that tapping into the plants. I have one of my oldest structures that I sought this teacher out because she really worked a lot with plant spirit meditation, and she's in North Carolina, Suki Roth, and she's studying plants in that way where we meditate with them and they accept us into their world, and so we can ask them to come and call on them even if they're not there and utilize medicine and that energy. So I've been that way since I was born. So it's like they call me from a far away place, and then they make all the things happen for me to get there.
John Gallagher:
It's just having that passion and those questions and just being generous and putting your skills out there. Things just kind of happen and line up for you to learn next.
Lucretia VanDyke:
It's even my book, I conjured that with the plants. The plants and the ancestors made that happen. It sounds weird to people who are not of that practice, but my ancestors in the African, it all brings me closer to myself and them because that's just how we've always utilized the plants is ceremony, medicine and community together. So again, it kind of makes me laugh and I'm just like, wow. But then I'm just like, I am of that. I tapped into that, but yet they call me to places I don't know. Who would've thought I'd be standing in Haiti with a 70, 80, whatever old medicine woman. It's right place, right time, right intersection.
John Gallagher:
When you were there in Haiti, were people you were meeting just very welcoming to share?
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah. A lot of times there's a way that you have to approach some people, but yeah, the Haitians are so big, beautiful hearted and running into this woman and asking her, and she brought down all these plants to me. So through an interpreter, all these plants, like the whole sidewalk, she had plants that she got up early and scoured the mountain and through an interpreter told me how they utilize them both medicinally and spiritually because they utilize them in ceremony. A lot, course as well, just in the African tradition. So yeah, she had so much knowledge that she kept on, but it's just, again, she's an elder. That's why I'm like everybody, we want to capture that knowledge in a respectful way from your community and your family, because those stories are so important. It just makes me sad to think that they would be gone if you weren't there.
Then when I asked her how she learned about plants, she said in her dreams, her ancestors came in the dream world and taught her about plants. She also worked with a doctor late in life, which is very similar to my own story. Even in the book I write about Emma Dupree, Little Medicine Thing. That's the thing about Emma Dupree also, she said God taught her the plants. It's weird to say to a lot of people, but the plants tell me what they do and they have since I was a child.
Tara Ruth:
Can you talk more about Emma Dupree? I know you write about her in your book. You also write about folks like Henrietta Jeffries and yeah, their significant contributions to herbalism that.
Lucretia VandDyke:
Oh my gosh. Yeah. I get so excited and emotional again, it's just honoring these sacred spaces that where plant medicine was passed down that people don't see. I mean, in modern herbalism now, most people have their story that they've heard about herbalism, a small group of people in the hippie age revitalized herbalism, and that's the story.
John Gallagher:
Yeah, I want to hear the real story here.
Lucretia VanDyke:
That's the narrative. What's very interesting to a lot of People of Color and Indigenous people of the land, we just look at ourselves and our elders and ancestors have been doing this the entire time. That's what I found out so much is my own research is wanting to just push against this narrative, honoring it because it is an important thing that happened for that group of people that did inspire a group of people. But when we talk about the grandmother of herbalism, to me, it's Emma Dupree. To me, it's these women who have held these traditions down and people like Henrietta Jeffries or a lot of the other women I wrote, sometimes during a lot of them are just themselves, have been enslaved or very, very close to that, and held these traditions from Africa, held these traditions from this place of spirit and knowing and folk medicine. So Emma is always one of my favorite because she's the first one that, again, when I say the plants come to me, when I started working on this class, these women came to me and dreams and weird internet things just flashed up.
But Emma, of course, she's a North Carolina girl, and I'm a North Carolina girl. I might live in Louisiana now, but I'm a North Carolina girl and a mountain girl for sure. What's so important is these are pivotal people who held communities up. They were the person that people came to see. They're the grassroots of community herbalism to the nth degree. I think they teach us so much about being practitioners and also just about being generally kind people and community in the south, making sure your neighbor had the medicines that they needed. During COVID is when I really started getting into a lot of research about the importance of that, because we're seeing people be isolated, seeing everybody run out of elderberry, seeing all those things.
One important one is like Mary Hayden, who is in North Carolina. I was just at the Medicines of the Earth and spoke there at that conference and by being right there where she practiced and would go through those mountains as a midwife and herbalist, and it was 24/7 for her, and she didn't care if you paid her. You could pay her in a slab of ham. So I think that this is important because they're carrying a long lineage of things that come all the way from Africa mixed with what they had to adapt with so much. Then creating that intuition. All of these women, some of the plants they use, they use them in ways that you and I, all of us would be like what? But their connection to that plant made that medicine work in that way. So they really pushed you to understand your intuition and make your own connection to the plants and to people who you're servicing.
John Gallagher:
How did you learn the stories of Emma and Henrietta? Did you research that or do people you know, or how did that come your way to have these realizations?
Lucretia VanDyke:
All of the things, but pretty much the women in the book in some weird way came in a dream. Then the dream led me to look something up. Then it went that way. Somebody would mention somebody to me as we were doing interviews and again, talking to the elders and they're like, well, have you heard of so-and-so, and I'm like, no. There's so many more that I'm trying to capture. Then you begin the research. But a lot of times research is limited because of what I've found is a lot of books are not written by People of Color.
They're written by someone else's perspective and they leave the names out or don't remember them anymore. So becomes to be quite difficult to get some of the real research. But there's archives that has Emma's work in there. There's a documentary that I found, it's called Little-
John Gallagher:
Really?
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah, it's so good. If you're not, I've been talking about doing a movie this fall. I'm going to do a book club with the book and watching the movie and be her interpreter, because she's very southern. If you don't speak southern, it's hard to understand what she's saying.
John Gallagher:
So what's the name of the documentary?
Lucretia VanDyke:
It's called "Little Medicine Thing," and it's about Emma Dupree. There's two that's going to come up, but hers is the EDU. It's an actual documentary in the, I think it was the early nineties, late eighties. She's so cute. They're in her house. She walks around the garden. I get super excited because she talks about poke, and I love poke medicine. I'm like, I'm making poke medicine cool again.
John Gallagher:
Oh yes. Well, let's talk about poke medicine. Please tell us about poke medicine. Do you mind?
Lucretia VanDyke:
No, I always will talk about poke.
John Gallagher:
Okay.
Lucretia VanDyke:
I taught a whole class in the American Herbalist Guild about poke. It was interesting, my obsession with poke, because when I say poke to you, you're probably like, you're going to die, or everyone's connection and they skim through poke. They don't really talk about it much in classes. So a few of my colleagues, my BIPOC colleagues and I, all of us from the South, started talking about the fact that our trainings had made us afraid of a deep ancestral medicine. Not only ancestral, but cultural. Like poke greens were a very important plant, foraging plant of survival back in the day, caught the poor man's greens. So even Elvis Presley covered a song called Poke Salad Annie. Another artist did too, because they're off from the South and remember that.
So I'm like cross-culturally for white and black and Indigenous nations. This plant was really important, but all we get is it's powerful. If you're taking the tincture, it's micro dosing. But something like poke salad that I use that recipe in my book, using, understanding that mother nature gives us the plants that we need at the time that we need them. That spring lymphatics are really important, just being mindful of our food. So our ancestors in the South, they knew Springtime's coming. First plants we see are what? Cleavers and poke plants, those ones, chickweed, those beautiful ones that pay attention to our lymphatic system. So they would go and harvest, poke leaves and parboil them. Sometimes not. I've ran into tons of elders that they just would make them quickly like collard greens and eat it. They love the vomiting, purging. That's why they, to clean you out. I see.
But I'm always modern times, let's parboil them, pour the water out, do it again, be a little careful. So I try to not get too hype and make sure people understand the safety precautions of it. But it was so funny to me because you ask people about, or you're sitting there and one of the elders would be like, that's some poke salad or poke salad with a T. You were seeing how many elders were talking about this plant, which made me want to learn about it and love it again. It was calling to me also as a part of a plant medicine that I needed because I'm always telling people what plants are growing around you are the ones that you need the most.
One of my favorite times to harvest is the fall when the ground is cold. It became a challenge for us herbalist colleagues who could harvest the biggest poke root. I was out there for two and a half hours by myself digging one out, trying to, the nerdy things we do with the plants. So it's like making people re-see these plants that were so pivotal to our diet and our culture. Again, meeting people where they are and teaching about what's growing on your land. It's important for me, for people to understand micro dosing, that plant and bringing into food. I've made saag paneer with poke salad before or incorporating it in dandelion greens, all of those and poke greens and all of those medicinal weeds together, chopped up and cooked with okra and put over grits or rice or whatever. So again, it's just one of those plants. I try to bring the fear out of it because it is such a cultural and ancestral plant for us here in the South.
John Gallagher:
You talk about micro dosing, you mean you make a tincture the root, and you use that for a certain purpose?
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah. If you're doing the tincture, which that's why, again, food pathway is an easier way to meat poke because a lot of people, if you give it to a client, you've never seen me before, I don't get to do as many consults because I do more talking about medicine than be able, but in my community classes, I need to have a relationship with a client before I put them on a poke tincture.
Because I need to know that you understand, and I'll write it down because I've done it too. Been in a hurry, taking your tinctures really quickly and not, and the poke is right next to the lemon balm. Before you know it, you take a dropper full of poke, and it was hilarious. I was in a meeting one time, I wasn't running, I was just in an event meeting and I got so high, the fan would blow, and it's like the wind would blow through me. I was like, what is going on? So I was like, okay. I was like, oh, I took too much of the poke, which my colleague, I know you probably know her Patricia Howell, she wrote the Medicinal Plants of Southern Appalachian.
Tara Ruth:
Yeah, I've heard of her. Yeah.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Oh my gosh, she's hilarious. We were both the keynotes of the Florida Herbal Conference, and she has a very similar poke story. She's like, what really could happen if you take too much poke? So we're like, let's push that and see. Do, as I say.
John Gallagher:
Stephen Buhner once said, when I interviewed him once, that he calls them proving. He just will push. We are not suggesting anyone listening do this.
Lucretia VanDyke:
No, do not.
John Gallagher:
Please. But he would try to push that. He's on the podcast going, well with the poison hemlock. I tried. I'm like, no, don't say that.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah, don't do that. But I have run into some really beautiful stories about how that plant really helped a lot of women who had breast cancer and these kind of things were these plants and their doings. That one in mistletoe I taught about, because they're both. So we hear in Europe the research that they're doing. So I'm like, if we don't slowly start to bring some form of awareness, safe awareness to these plants to be brought back into the spotlight, we are going to be able to really assist so many people with so many things.
Tara Ruth:
This makes me think about how you've talked about building the relationship with the plants too, and how, I mean, the plants will interact with all of our bodies a little differently, but especially as we build that relationship and get to know them more, and yeah, it's like a friendship deepening. They might have a different effect on us as we continue to deepen with them.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah, poke did it for me. That's how I ended up in New Orleans. Talk about another travel with the plant story.
John Gallagher:
Do tell the story.
Lucretia VanDyke:
I'm always poke, clean my whole life out. It's hilarious.
John Gallagher:
It's a true lymphatic.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah, it really is. That's why I'm like with my clients, or I always educate people. If you pray for the thing, pray for the strength to hold the thing and always pray for it to come with grace and ease. So I'm again, do not do this at home. I can't wait. I decided to do a plant spirit meditation with poke in the woods. So I found this poke plant, and I'm sitting on the ground with this poke plant, so I just eat a piece of the raw leaf, do not do this at home again. So I'm like, folks, show me your medicine. Really meditated. I saw the hands of so many ancestors, which was beautiful in the earth, collecting that plant. But then a couple days later, I was led to do a seven-day spiritual bath series, and this is all the pandemic is going on, the world shut down. On day two, my partner at the time, we've been together for seven years, was like, I need space. So this was all in the same week.
John Gallagher:
Oh. Wow.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Poke's plant spirit meditation.
Tara Ruth:
Cleaning it all.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah, poke says, do a seven-day spiritual bath. Then all of a sudden, my partner at the time, so needless to say, I had a COVID divorce, and it just like everything, I had to leap without any safety net. The world shut down. I had no idea where I was going to live. We weren't making money, none of the things. But poke pushed me and cleaned all the things that had me stagnant. That was what I thought the love of my life. My gardens were there, these were there and sent me on this journey to be here in New Orleans to manifest, going to Haiti, publishing my first book.
These things because I was afraid to let go. So poke really cleaned me out, and it was not easy in the beginning, but it was utilizing the plants again and ceremony. I was like, go back to the basics of what I teach and what's in the book. Let's continue this seven day spiritual bath, which gave me strength. I had plants that I had choose with my intuition, new ones I didn't even know like mock orange flower that helps you, it's good for, the flower essence is great for crazy brain, monkey brain, but also bringing everything into alignment and focus. All the plants I had chosen for this bath before this thing blew up were all the things I needed. Then I just kept doing that throughout the time. I was like, okay, I need to conjure more money. What plants are used and what ceremony with the plants?
All right. Then I came to New Orleans and we were doing ceremony with the Houma tribe to heal the sacred waters, the Mississippi. They had been moving down the Mississippi, this group of priestesses. So I joined them on this last ceremony, which was beautiful. It was during the winter solstice and we took a boat ride where the Mississippi opens up to the Gulf and there were moonflowers, which is one of my favorite flowers all down the banks of the Mississippi where we were at that were open all day because it was foggy and it was winter.
But we got to stand on brand new earth that had just started the plants. You look around and you're surrounded by water out in the boat. When the boat came in, I saw the moonflowers again, and it just was like everything said, I'm supposed to move here. I made a promise to my ancestors and the plants if I make it through this brutal breakup then I promised to fall in love with my spirit and I did. Then after I got off the boat, somebody was like, oh, how are you? They're like, oh, I know this place where you can live.
John Gallagher:
Wow and think New Orleans just seems like a place with just an intersection of the richest traditions of herbalism, probably. You have African and Native American and European, all these traditions come together and for many hundreds of years or thousands. But I mean in the blending part. Yeah. Tell me about that, how your life is blending with all these traditions and what you discovered. Yeah.
Lucretia VanDyke:
It's just fascinating with New Orleans to me, their reverence and how they handle grief. I'm a grief worker with plants. I help because plant, that's why my journey is about, is grief. So I do plant spirit meditations with grief and work with organizations and grief and plants and ceremonies. So to me, I was grieving so much and to watch New Orleans and if you've ever seen a jazz funeral, and then when they'll mourn with the music and then that trumpet hits, and then it's just dancing, dancing, dancing down the street on the graves, everything. Yeah, I'm obsessed with the intersection of everything. So even food, like seeing jambalaya comes from jollof rice from Africa, seeing gumbo filet, gumbo uses filet, which is sassafras, which the Indigenous people use for this and that we use in the South for cough and colds in North Carolina that they use for gumbo here.
Studying the people that brought me here, and also our version of the maroons. We talked about being in Jamaica, but the maroons that lived in the swamp here of those who did not want to be enslaved and being fascinated by what did you eat when you were here? So I go to Jean Lafitte Park and I'm like, people lived here in this swamp before there was nothing. People prayed here and have babies here, and this is the food that they use and the plants that they made themselves out of. It's something about being Black and being in these places and being African-American or whatever term that resonates with anybody and being at these port of entry places, both sides of your brain are activated.
It's a certain reverence to the ancestors that you pay attention to, but it's also to see how they celebrated in these pockets during the most trying times gives me knowledge and practice to be able to help people during the trying times we're having today. But yeah, the religious part of it and ceremony, like the baptisms in the river, the tent revivals remind me of North Carolina, the intersection of voodoo. Even the pharmacy museum here has a section on voodoo. Wow. Yeah. If you've never been to the pharmacy museum-
John Gallagher:
I totally am intrigued. I want to go to the pharmacy. That sounds-
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah, sometimes they have cocktail hours there too, and they do tours, but they have really lots of interesting things people did. That's also studying too, going back to Ancient Egypt, which I think is interesting. The emperor's Papyrus gives us so much knowledge of things that they were doing way before time. So I think it's just, and then you see a move and come across the ocean either. My people were travelers before the transatlantic slave trade. So to see that they were, hear the stories here about those people that were travelers, not just the people that were enslaved.
So it gives me this full spectrum. Then also, it was interesting, during the Haitian revolution, New Orleans got flooded with, it almost doubled the population with Haitians coming to America. People don't understand that, but the Haitians liberated themselves utilizing the plants in a way for their poisons, for their this. So they brought that with them. So the pharmacy museum guy had told my Haitian friend, and my love is Haitian also, so I get to learn so much about Haiti. That's what ended, so many, people got nervous when the Haitians came because they're like-
John Gallagher:
Okay, that was early 18 hundreds or-
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yes, yes. Early. I think Haitian Revolution 1854, they liberate themselves 10,000 rich and upper Haitians all came here. So they were like, okay, we got to ban all these plants from our enslaved people because my people, they utilize the plants in such a way for so long to fight. They even had plant medicine that would remove their spirit from their body so they could be enslaved. So it's so interesting here to hear that from a grassroots. But then also on the other hand, hearing about, right now, I live where they say Marie Laveau would come do her private work on the Bayou here, in Bayou. So she'd bring her plants and her offerings and stuff and do her ritual. Yeah.
John Gallagher:
Oh gosh. She was a Creole [inaudible 00:54:08].
Lucretia VanDyke:
Creole, most famous voodoo priestess of New Orleans. There's several Marie Laveaus, but everybody's got a story. Of course that you'll run into so many people who are Marie Laveau, reincarnated. I was like okay.
John Gallagher:
Tara, we got to both make a trip to New Orleans and hang out with [inaudible 00:54:27] little tour here.
Lucretia VanDyke:
It's so funny about the plants and conjuring and bringing me places too. I was like, one day I found where her house was, the land where one of her houses in the quarter was, and I had went harvesting, I think mimosa or something in the quarter, something weird plant. I walked by and I saw, oh, Marie Laveau lives here. I was like, you know what? I'm going to get in this house. Two days later by plants working. I had an opportunity to go inside and tour the house, not even 48 hours later.
John Gallagher:
Oh my gosh.
Lucretia VanDyke:
So I was in there feeling the energy of this place because Marie and I met the owner and the owner. It was so fascinating what came out. I even brought a small class into there so they could sit in there. We were just like, what does Marie want people to know about her other than she's the voodoo queen? That she was an abolitionist and an activist, and she helped move enslaved people and really utilized her powers and her connections to really help and move her people to safety. That people don't know that about her. So we brought her cute offerings, rose liqueur because she loves roses. It's her favorite flower. She loves gumbo.
John Gallagher:
I love that you are mining stories and bringing them to light of things that so many people have forgotten about or overlooked. This is beautiful. I mean, herbal medicine is story medicine, and this is so amazing talking with you. I feel like we could have you back all the time and just talk and talk and talk and hear so many stories. I feel like you should make a, have a podcast about herbal stories and bringing to light all these amazing things and herbalists that you're finding out about and sharing.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Everybody says that. Maybe-
John Gallagher:
Oh, they do.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah. Everybody for the past 15 years, and it's hilarious. I need a John, or-
John Gallagher:
Well, I can sense something might happen here. This is very interesting. I'm loving this conversation.
Lucretia VanDyke:
It gets so much weirder. I told people I would say, I want to do a whole podcast. People laugh at the back stories of the book are really more interesting than the book. I told you the one about that. But there's still so many other stories about how everything I wrote in the book is things that I utilize to move myself through pain, grief, and to conjure new loves, new relationships, heart healing. I'm a living embodiment of my work.
So I think that that's what the old ways do is help remind us. That's what my hope for it, for the future is to come back to that heart centered practice of just not seeing somebody, knowing what an herb does, giving them this plant. You're not listening to their stories or anything. Somebody comes to you with a lung issue and you're already got four formulas in your head to treat the lung issue, but somebody just died and the lungs are associated with grief. So we miss that. That's what people like Emma Dupree who I write about. That's what people like Henrietta Jeffries remind us of. Still looking at that person and still looking at our community. But yes, tons of weird, weird, strange plant stories. I could keep going forever, but you'd be like, what? If I wasn't there, I wouldn't believe it.
Tara Ruth:
I believe it.
John Gallagher:
Folks, you're going to look out for the new podcast. Weird Plant stories with Lucretia VanDyke coming out soon.
Lucretia VanDyke:
It's like, can you believe-
John Gallagher:
I'll work with, well, we're going to make this happen. We're going to make something happen.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah. I was like, I need a John. It was the owner of Mountain Rose Herbs. I went out there one time and it was so funny. Sean's like, you need an-
John Gallagher:
Sean.
Lucretia VanDyke:
He's like, it's time for you to have an assistant. I was like, I know because it's so much, you have Lucretia the writer, Lucretia the book this, that, and it's like, ah. The technical things. But yeah, when the plants embrace you, they take you on a really beautiful journey. When we tap into humanity, which is what the plants are really teaching us, I think is at the core of it. I saw one herbalist page where people were arguing about lavender, and I'm like, what is happening?
John Gallagher:
Obviously, none of you have used any lavender recently.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Exactly. I see that so much, even in the herb world, people will battle it out over what a plant is supposed to be for these people. It's like, are you even using plants?
John Gallagher:
I know. I stay out of that world.
Lucretia VanDyke:
I do too. I'm just not understanding that the core, and I don't know where that comes from either, but it's our relationship with the plants that's really the most key and valuable thing that can help you learn so much and help you heal so much. That's what I really want to pass on to people.
Tara Ruth:
Wow. Yes. I'm curious, Lucretia, do you have any upcoming classes that people could take or anywhere else you want to direct people who are looking to deepen their relationships with the plants? You have your incredible book, "African American Herbalism."
Lucretia VanDyke:
Book, and then this fall I'm going to do a book club. It's not your auntie's book club. We're going to actively work through the book and talk about some of the things that didn't make it in the book. So it's going to be a series of talking about the book, but also making herbal medicines together. So that's going to be a virtual series. I'm going to do probably when it cools down. Definitely this winter, an immersion here in New Orleans. So look up for that. The people who want to come and study some plants and culture in New Orleans and lots of online. So my website, LucretiaVanDyke.com, she's getting a facelift now, but you can all contact me to be put on a brand new newsletter that I'm going to start.
John Gallagher:
Oh, great. We'll make sure that's on the show notes.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yes.
John Gallagher:
Okay. Then your book, "African American Herbalism: A Practical Guide to Healing Plants and Folk Traditions," you can get that on, looks like hardcover, paperback, Kindle, and audiobook.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yes. It's so wild. I was like, the first time I saw it was we were at the Whitney Plantation in the Physical for Sale, and the Whitney sells so many beautiful Black authors' books. I was right next to George Washington Carver and Zora Neale Hurston. I just broke down crying in the middle of this, and I was supposed to be holding the ceremony, and I was just like, but my book is here with these people.
Tara Ruth:
Wow.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah.
Tara Ruth:
A really powerful moment.
Lucretia VanDyke:
It was a powerful moment. It was. The plants and the ancestors seriously brought me here and utilizing them in ceremony. So yes, look for my website, LucretiaVanDyke.com. Instagram, Lucretia.Vandyke. I don't think I have any people trying to be me right now, which is a serious thing, which is why I really wanted to start the newsletter and sharing these little bits of stories with people and recipes with people in such a way and having people. So this late fall in October, we'll start the book club and then next spring looking for also some retreats here in New Orleans, some immersions in New Orleans.
John Gallagher:
Oh.
Tara Ruth:
Beautiful.
John Gallagher:
That sounds great.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yeah. I want to show people, there's some really amazing urban gardens that are here in New Orleans and people doing some really great things with community. So I want people to see that and get off Bourbon Street.
John Gallagher:
Yes.
Tara Ruth:
Yes.
John Gallagher:
Exactly.
Tara Ruth:
And join you for this incredible retreat.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Yes, this winter, hopefully I will be somewhere next to a beach studying, and I'm working on book two, so a book proposal for book two. I've got people asking me, they're like, what's next?
John Gallagher:
Well, congratulations
Lucretia VanDyke:
Publishers. I was like, okay, let's use the plants for creativity now.
John Gallagher:
Lucretia, it's such an honor to have you on the podcast today, and we can't wait to have you back and find out more. Everybody, again, LucretiaVandyke.com to find out about all of the event she's doing and newsletter and all the very exciting things. Book two, you can get book one right now. So please do that. Yeah, it's been, thank you. This is a wonderful conversation. Appreciate it.
Lucretia VanDyke:
Oh, you're so welcome. I'm so glad. Thank y'all all so much for having me.
Tara Ruth:
Yes. Thank you. For folks listening, please stick around for an herb note. Welcome to Herb notes. I'm Tara Ruth. Rosemary is most popularly known as a tasty culinary herb, but herb nerds know that rosemary also offers many healing gifts. Let's dive into three benefits of rosemary leaves. One, rosemary for digestive health. Isn't it super convenient that rosemary happens to taste delicious and also has an affinity for supporting healthy digestion? Like most culinary herbs and spices, rosemary is a carminative, meaning it can help ease stagnant digestion, gas, bloating, and cramping. Two, rosemary for hair growth. One reason why rosemary can help support hair growth is that it promotes healthy circulation. To support hair growth, I massage a rosemary infused oil into my scalp and let it sit for at least 20 minutes before washing it out. This leaves my hair looking soft and lustrous. Three, rosemary for memory support.
Rosemary has traditionally been associated with remembrance, both as an herb that can honor the memory of loved ones who have passed. As an herb that can help cement the memory of joyful occasions like weddings and birthdays. Smelling a sprig of rosemary while studying for an exam and then again right before taking the exam, can also support recall. Rosemary can also bring a sense of alertness and calm in the nervous system, and this combination lends itself to a more easeful test-taking experience. Just a few notes of caution when working with rosemary. Medicinal doses of rosemary are contraindicated during pregnancy and lactation. Since rosemary may lower blood glucose levels, folks taking insulin should continue to monitor blood glucose levels. A very small percentage of people can also get skin dermatitis when they're exposed to Rosemary. Want to learn more about the benefits of other common herbs? Visit Herbnotes.cards to grab a deck of our top 12 herb notes. You'll learn all about other common herbs like chamomile, elderberry, yarrow, and more. This has been Herb notes with me, Tara Ruth. Catch you next time.
John Gallagher:
HerbMentor Radio and Herb notes are 100% sustainably well-crafted podcasts written, performed, and produced by Tara Ruth and me, John Gallagher. Can you do us a quick favor? Look up HerbMentor Radio on your favorite podcast app like Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and rate and review us. We'd really appreciate it. Also, visit Herbmentorradio.com to find out how you can be part of HerbMentor, which is a site you must see to believe. HerbMentor Radio is a production of LearningHerbs.com LLC, all rights reserved, and thank you very, very, very much for listening.