Tara Ruth:
John, what are we doing here?
John Gallagher:
It's a question I often ask myself. Another question I ask myself, Tara, is, what are we good for?
Tara Ruth:
These are both really good questions.
John Gallagher:
Yeah. Yeah. And if anyone has been asking themselves these questions, we have answers for you today-
Tara Ruth:
What a relief.
John Gallagher:
...but in the context of the hawthorn tree.
Tara Ruth:
Mm-hmm. Keeping it contextual and herbal.
John Gallagher:
Absolutely. So, everyone's probably curious. Should we get to it?
Tara Ruth:
Yeah, let's dive on in.
John Gallagher:
You were listening to Herb Mentor Radio by LearningHerbs. I'm John Gallagher.
Tara Ruth:
And I'm Tara Ruth. EagleSong Gardener is an herbalist, earthkeeper, grandmother, and an adventurer with over 50 years of homesteading, herbal, and teaching experience. She's worked as a professional gardener and farmer at a high-profile hotel and Five Diamond herb restaurant, earned certifications in healing and therapeutic garden design, and studied from diverse traditions. EagleSong has cultivated a deep practice of observing how life weaves itself through seasons and time. This informs her unique approach to plant medicine and inspires her to teach others how to connect with the earth in meaningful and practical ways. Discover more about EagleSong's learning opportunities at eaglesong-gardener.com.
John Gallagher:
EagleSong, welcome back to Herb Mentor Radio.
EagleSong Gardener:
Hey, John, it's great to be here.
John Gallagher:
And from that introduction, folks can see that I didn't have your typical herbal apprenticeship. And if we can just give listeners a glimpse of what this experience was like in the next hour, it'll be worth it, everyone, I swear. And so, the first thing we need to do here, I'll just throw out the script for a second, because you don't follow scripts usually, right?
EagleSong Gardener:
Yeah, that's right.
John Gallagher:
I mean, you remember all those... I often tell people that I don't know how much there were classes at RavenCroft. There were a lot of classes, but most of what I remember was either out weeding buttercup ranunculus with you or shoveling manure and listening to you and your perspective and way of looking at herbalism. And I don't think there'd be a LearningHerbs without that experience with you because I was able then to start this company's business, this adventure, Kimberly and I 'cause we both apprenticed at RavenCroft with you and Sally, your partner in crime there at Ravencroft.
EagleSong Gardener:
My accomplice.
John Gallagher:
My accomplice in Herbal Crimes Unit. Herbal Crime Unit at RavenCroft.
EagleSong Gardener:
You're definitely out of the box, you could say that.
John Gallagher:
Yeah. And because there was a way, a foundation, a way of looking at the world in this big holistic way, ways I never would've gotten from books or anything, really appreciate that. So, when I showed up or someone shows up now at RavenCroft and EagleSong, I'd like to learn about herbs. What goes through your mind, or what this herbal journey is going to be like for this person that's coming to you?
EagleSong Gardener:
Well, over time I finally realized I can't teach people what I've learned. I can teach them how I've learned. We set up, it's very experiential, and we use our senses a lot. And what centers my work is a deep love of the earth and women. And so, that holds the core for me. And how we can a connect with earth. I always want to don't know, when I was young, how does nature do it? I've never seen her go out with a shovel. And that's what I was trying to convey. And it's such a big, coming from the wholeness and trying to break it into pieces wasn't my... I've had to learn how to do that. That wasn't natural to me. Seeing wholeness is natural to me. So, that's where we start. We just start with some, just getting into ourselves in our physical body, the old fashioned breathe, put your feet on the ground. And then, we learned the herbs simply one at a time.
John Gallagher:
One at a time, and it was almost, like the first year of the apprenticeship, there wasn't a whole lot of herbal teaching, I feel like.
EagleSong Gardener:
No, it was 10 herbs a hundred ways. You got one herb a month and worked with that herb for an entire month. And that's the way the apprenticeship still works.
John Gallagher:
And we also got to do one herb a year too.
EagleSong Gardener:
Yes, so everyone got to choose one herb, still does. You get to choose one herb that will be your ally for the year, and then you go through all the seasons with that plant, and you build a relationship with the plant over time. This is the slow method of LearningHerbs, but it's a great foundation. What I've learned now is I can go anywhere in the world just about and actually be able to connect with plants and find out which ones that I can use and which ones are going to be harmful to me, so to watch out for them.
John Gallagher:
And so, Tara, you have an herb in mind that you'd like to focus with on with EagleSong today. So, what do you think?
Tara Ruth:
I do. Yeah. I say this about every plant I talk about, but it is one of my favorite plants, is the hawthorn tree. And I'd love to learn more about hawthorn from you, EagleSong. How do you like to work with hawthorn? And what can this glorious plant teach us about life and thriving and challenging conditions?
EagleSong Gardener:
I tell you what, if there's any plant that I've worked with that can thrive in challenging conditions it is the hawthorn, the Crataegus genus. It's an amazing plant. And I've been working 30 years with this plant, probably a little more than that, but I know 30 years I've been harvesting at the same broken hedge. And over time we just keep going deeper and deeper together. And so, a lot of people think, oh, hawthorn's good for a broken heart. And yes, hawthorn is good for a broken heart, but she's helped me to understand by strengthening the heart, tonifying the heart, getting close to the plant and seeing the role she plays in her part in nature, that actually having a strong heart and a flexible heart can help us to have less heartbreak in our life. I like that idea.
Tara Ruth:
I like that too. Can you talk a little bit more about that flexibility and how hawthorn has shown you that and how it can bring that energy to everyone?
EagleSong Gardener:
She's a rugged tree. Yeah, she's a really tough... I honestly, I call hawthorn the gnarly old hag, because she's like a really old woman who's lived a really broad life, and she's found all around the northern latitude on the whole planet. When people say hawthorn, many people are just speaking of one genus, the Crataegus Monogyna, but there's over 2000 species of hawthorn on the planet. And that was a big mind-blower for me, that I started to realize everywhere I looked there she was. And then, I started thinking about, this is a genus of plants that's a lot like people. We just show up everywhere.
John Gallagher:
Yeah.
EagleSong Gardener:
And the number one killer of humanity at the moment is heart disease. And that's what the hawthorn is renowned for at this point in time, but has not been that way always. The heart thing came on way late. It was in the 1800s that they figured somebody actually, in talking to the wise woman healer in a village in England, she was having good luck with people who were having heart trouble. And a doctor asked her what was she using? And she said the hawthorn fruit seemed to be helping, and the hawthorn tree. And so, that's a late comer. The genus of hawthorn in China has been used over 3000 years. In Mexico the same thing. And those two cultures have the largest fruit. Their fruit is more like a little apple than the tiny berry-like fruits that we experience in North America.
So, that got me thinking, these are two really old cultures. Not to say that the North American cultures aren't old as well, but they have worked with the plant for so long, I think that they've just kept improving it, size, taste, texture. And it was used more in China for the digestion and used more in Central America as a... It's an herb that is available in the winter and it's harvested at high altitude, which would be the equivalent of a northern latitude. And they make a punch in Mexico and Guatemala, Central America, Mexico now the southwest and even in Monroe, where I live here. In Washington state is I can buy fresh Crataegus Mexicana in my local Mexican tienda because we have such a large population of Mexican people here.
So, two or three years ago I was in Mexico and I really wanted to see them growing on the trees. And so, I took myself to Puebla, Mexico where they were cultivated as an economic part of the culture. And they were loading up at the transfer station, people were bringing in the fruit and they were putting them in boxes. And when I got back to Washington, there were fresh hawthorns, which they called Tejocote in the local tienda. And it was like those could have been the same ones I saw them picking in Mexico. So, this plant has taken me to six different countries. It's expanded my understanding of plant medicine in a big way. The plants that come to me in my practice are generally plants that are just like that. They're found in many countries and they're used in many countries. And so, I think we are coming to a new stage of the understanding of plants and people and the earth. I can see it around me everywhere.
John Gallagher:
Let's talk a little bit about that and then your travels and what you discovered in these different places that you visited about hawthorn. And maybe along the way, what was the most surprising thing for you?
EagleSong Gardener:
Whoa. Let's see. The most surprising thing is to actually come to appreciate, which, because I always saw things whole, which also looks wholly healthy, the root word's the same. This plant is the, I guess, I say the harbinger of wholeness. When somebody once asked, I was at an herb conference, "What are the constituents of hawthorn?" And the gentleman who was giving the talk said, "The active constituent of hawthorn is hawthorn." The plant is used wholly in its wholeness. There aren't constituents. Although after 25 years of trying to figure out how to make different preparations with hawthorns, I realize pectin is a really big part of hawthorn, mucilage is also a real big part of hawthorn, but then also the leaves and the flowers are useful. And after going to Mexico and seeing the economic benefit that this tree brings to this little village out in the middle of kind of nowhere, right next to a very large volcano, I started to think about plants not just from what do they do for me? What can I get from that? But really, or the old saying, "What's it good for?"
John Gallagher:
Yeah, what's it good for?
EagleSong Gardener:
Yeah, right? After working 10 years as a gardener at a high-end hotel and restaurant that was based around herbs, I was fried. I had expanded beyond my capacity. And it took a little while to get back into my rhythm, my own rhythm and not the rhythm of a work life. And so, I was out with hawthorn, and we were doing an herb walk and, I was out with a people and we were doing an herb walk. And I'm in front of a hawthorn tree explaining it to people, introducing, not explaining, introducing the hawthorn to people. And the first question always is was, "What's it good for?" And my response, because I was still a little edgy, was, "I don't know. What are you good for?"
John Gallagher:
"What are you good for?"
EagleSong Gardener:
And I had this tapping on my shoulder. It was like, I turn around and hawthorn says, "EagleSong, that's not her question, that's your question." So, I spent the next five years trying to figure out what is hawthorn good for? And that was a really long... I removed myself from people, I stayed home, I traveled, I went to England, I went to France, I went to Italy. I really wanted to know what is hawthorn good for?
And finally, if it started to become more evident to me, in eco, the study of ecosystems, there are plants and animals that are called the keystone species. hawthorn is a keystone species in North America. It's not just the United States because I actually went to Canada as well to visit an endemic hawthorn on Manitoulin Island in the middle of Lake Huron. Hawthorn became the instigator, if you will, of all these amazing adventures. It was like an excuse, "Oh, I have to go there. There's a hawthorn I have to meet."
John Gallagher:
"I got to go."
EagleSong Gardener:
Exactly. And so, I ended up going on these really fantastic adventures, chasing, I can say chasing hawthorn, but of course there's no chasing. She's just standing right there waiting for me. So, all of a sudden I started to realize there's been plant hunters all through time. People are always going around the planet looking for plants. Plants that would be useful in many ways, economically, medicinally, as food. And so, it was almost as if I had joined this whole new club of plant explorers. And that brought to me a greater wholeness in my understanding of, where I think plants are leading those who wish to be led into realizing how we can work with plants and be connected with earth, which is the tagline for RavenCroft since the day one, "Connecting people, plants and the earth." So, she's a keystone. She creates habitat for many, not just for herself but for many.
And she creates homes for birds, and she's amazing pollinator. She creates pollen for a wide range of pollinators, not just bees, but all kinds of bugs and moths and butterflies, to forage on her nectar and her pollen. And so, then it started to fall over to other plants. What do they do? What are they good for in their environment? Not what are they good for me, but what are they doing here? And that led me to the question of, what am I doing here? What are all of us doing here? And as I am doing this, of course, I'm always trying to figure out new ways to put hawthorn on the table because now I realize it's more important, people want to know the dose. And after I get snarky and say, "I don't know. What's the dose of carrots?" I say...
Tara Ruth:
Carrot cake.
EagleSong Gardener:
Yeah, very good. I love it.
John Gallagher:
Can I put cream cheese on?
EagleSong Gardener:
Exactly, exactly. Oh, good. You're getting a more whole meal there. So, what I realized is the dose of hawthorn is two to five times a week on the table from 1 to 101. If you can do that, then you're actually bringing hawthorn into your diet on a very regular pulse. And it's easy to do because you can harvest leaves and flowers in the spring. And they make a delicious tea. I drink it often, just a nice light tea with the leaves and flowers on a regular basis. It's really great through the summer. Then in the fall, the fruit comes, and we do a big fruit harvest. The fruits can be dried, they can be frozen. We make into all different kinds of preparations, mostly because I'm really curious.
I just keep making more and more, I've been hawthorn chutney, hawthorn oxymel, hawthorn tinctures, extracts, hawthorn fruit leather, mixing it with different plants that are happening at the time. And then, I realized, "Oh, my gosh, this plant has taken me on the greatest herbal adventure I've ever been on," because it's not just one way, she can be in the garden, she can be in the kitchen, she can be in the apothecary. This is a whole integrated plant, and what I was looking for was a whole integrated way of being a human being on the earth. And on the side she's pretty good for a broken heart. But she is so much more, as are we all.
Tara Ruth:
So, true.
EagleSong Gardener:
I know. It's such an exploration. So, really there's the going outward and there's the turning inward, that we grow as people when we begin to understand the world we live in better.
Tara Ruth:
This is making me think about how hawthorn grows too, has these branches that can reach outward and be so expansive, but that then can also create these hedgerows that little animals can go into and hide in and holds that duality.
EagleSong Gardener:
Yeah. Absolutely. And all kinds of animals. It's just the big predators can't get in there, so all the little bits are safe. She's feeding them through the flowers and leaves and the fruits. She creates this really good thicket that the smaller mammals and birds can get into. And so, she is truly a keystone for providing habitat. And then, it's, "Oh, I want to be a keystone species." Can you imagine human beings being a keystone species?
Tara Ruth:
Wow.
EagleSong Gardener:
So, we create habitat for many, and this is to me the most exciting adventure and really, because now I realize that hawthorn has taught me something. I don't even hear this word. I'd hear it one place, but I'm not going to say it right now. But hawthorn has taught me what it means to be generative, that people want to be sustainable, and honestly sustainable is not quite enough. They want to "re-," I don't know, there's a "re-something" going on. I don't remember what they call it, but...
John Gallagher:
Like rewilding or something.
EagleSong Gardener:
Yes, there's rewilding and there's regenerative. And it's, oh, no, you can't "re-" anything. Every day is new. Everything is happening new every day. I've learned from hawthorn, and I think really because I've eaten so much it must be doing something to my heart, that we are generative. We're a generative species. We are a keystone species. We have the capacity to create a habitat for way more than just ourselves. Then I started thinking about, because we can see farther into space than ever before, and we can see deeper into our own physical being than ever before. We can see tiny things that never could be seen before the last couple decades with the microscopes. And so, it's really about becoming, like when I was flying to a conference somewhere where at one point in time I look out the window and I look down at the earth and I realized, "Oh, my God, this is the Starship."
Earth is a Starship hurtling through space and time. And we are not the passengers, we're the crew. And immediately I wanted to know what's my job? If I'm a crewman on this Starship, then what is it for me to do here? How do I be that generative species. And learning to work with nature, learning about microbes, that was what the side trip to the hotel and being the garden manager for a three-acre farm, 3,000 square foot high visibility herb garden, and a five-acre hotel grounds. It was all about, I had to learn more about plants and the earth to really understand how to have integrated earth medicine in my life. And luckily, the hotel people don't know anything about outside, so I had a pretty much free rein. But unfortunately it was in 2008, so it was a huge financial downturn. They were always trying to figure out how to keep the hotel afloat financially.
And I had zero budget to take care of a million dollar landscape, so I just had to hire all the microbes I could find. And let me tell you, they have little placards they're waving around that say, "We'll work for food." And we plugged them in, billions and billions of them. And we did it. We actually managed to bring a vitality to the grounds of the hotel that people could actually feel. And that made me super happy. And it lasted because I can go back there, I've been gone now for, I don't know, 14 years something, and I can go back and talk to the gardeners and we can kick right in. And I can see that foundation, that got laid in the 10 years was there, is still working.
John Gallagher:
Tara, it is an honor to have my mentor on for the beginning of her 20th year here at LearningHerbs.
Tara Ruth:
I bet. To have your herb mentor on Herb Mentor Radio, that's really special.
John Gallagher:
I know. And we're starting LearningHerbs out, one of the things, and one of the reasons why Kimberly and I started this was because we wanted to share how we were learning with the world, because not everyone had EagleSong living 15 minutes down the street like we did.
Tara Ruth:
So, true.
John Gallagher:
So, I was starting to think about with all the years Kimberly and I hanging out around there, and what were some of... It's impossible to replicate, as you can imagine, this experience on the internet and whatnot. But I was trying to think of what are some of the key aspects that were really important in our time at RavenCroft. And one of those was community. You went to herb school at California School of Herbal Studies, Tara, and how important was the community?
Tara Ruth:
Oh, it was one of the number one things that drove me to go there and really fed me throughout the program and beyond.
John Gallagher:
And then, another one, which I'm sure is similar in your experience is discerning what information you could trust. And there's so much information in the world, "Okay, well just tell me where should I start? Where should I learn? How do I learn?" versus facing the entire internet and a Google search or billion YouTube videos.
Tara Ruth:
Especially now in the age of AI, it can be really challenging to discern what information you want to be trusting when you're learning about and working with herbs.
John Gallagher:
And the third to me was having a guide or more than one guide, and I experienced RavenCroft, and EagleSong, and Sally of course, but we learned from other teachers that came in or they would like, "I remember Steven Buhner came to town once they hosted." And it was just amazing the people that we got to learn from. How about you? What were some influential herbalists that you got to learn from at your school?
Tara Ruth:
Yeah. One of the best parts of getting to study at the California school was that we had, I have 1, 2, 3, we had about four core faculty on staff, and then we'd also have visiting teachers as well. So, Bryan Bowen, Jed Bredesen, Karen Aguiar, and each person had their own perspective and expertise, but they wove all of their collective knowledge together to really give you this tapestry that you got to work with of learning.
John Gallagher:
And the program itself is right rooted in mentors and elders that came before them because that school started by Rosemary Gladstar, right?
Tara Ruth:
Exactly. Yeah.
John Gallagher:
So, you have all that. So, there's a lineage, so to speak.
Tara Ruth:
Yeah.
John Gallagher:
Yeah. So, all those things, those became an important foundation when creating the Herb Mentor website, just doing the best it could to replicate something, but not just so someone could learn about herbs from start to, there's no finish, it's just ongoing. But also if you were learning with somebody, that you were in a school, like your school or any school, that it could be a compliment to that too. Those were the key elements that we focus on, on the Herb Mentor member site at LearningHerbs.
Tara Ruth:
Yeah, I definitely used LearningHerbs, especially Herb Mentor throughout my time while I was in herb school. It was so helpful, especially those monographs, love them.
John Gallagher:
And even this podcast, you could go back and listen to other episodes with EagleSong and so many other amazing herbalists. So, Tara, if folks wanted to join Herb Mentor at a little listener discount, how might they go about that?
Tara Ruth:
Yeah, they can go to herbmentorradio.com to check out that discount, which is even more than a little, actually.
John Gallagher:
Yeah, you just have to go see herbmentorradio.com. So, I am excited to get back to this episode with EagleSong, so shall we do?
Tara Ruth:
Let's do it.
John Gallagher:
And so, people, when they often study regenerative or regenerative agriculture, the word permaculture always comes to mind of people. In the teachings of permaculture as it is now, and you take a certification class or you go to school, like Haley, my daughter's taking a permaculture class right now. It feels like there's another layer that you're adding here or putting, there's maybe something missing in the way they're looking. So, your farm garden at home, do you still consider, oh, this is permaculture, or do you have a new understanding?
EagleSong Gardener:
It's more than permaculture. Permaculture had to become as most things do... You have a great idea and a bunch of radical people jump on it. And they play around and they do stuff and they figure things out. And eventually it becomes a system, and once it gets systematized, then people can actually teach it. It's a college course now. You can take it at college. And so, the adventure, the excitement, the beginning of something is where I always want to be. I want to be on the leading edge. That's where the plants get their nutrient. It's down on the hairs of those roots that they're interacting through the microbes with the earth and the soil and other plants in the place that they're growing. Once they become the tree up above ground, people only see the tree, but they don't see the invisible part of the world.
And so, I appreciate that permaculture, plus with all the new technology, so it can get spread really fast. Things that happen really fast, generally they come and go quickly. And things that are really foundational, things that really work from the ground level, we say healing from the ground up at RavenCroft, those things have stood the test of time. They've been through all kinds of... So, the whole thing of permaculture was basically just a couple of guys who looked at agriculture around or really it's more like horticulture around the world. And then, they created a system that they could teach to people, and it's really useful. I think it's helpful, but until you do it, it lives in your head.
And once you do it, you realize that was just the beginning. That's just the gate. Once you go through that gate, the whole world expands. And so, I like to think of myself as a gatekeeper or a guide. I've given up the word "teacher," because I'm going to be 75, so who cares? It's like I can have any name I want or any role I want now in my life. And I am excited by that because a lot of what I've learned over time, and I had no idea. I went to the hotel thinking I'd be there three years, and I ended up there at 10, and I was pretty grumpy about it, as you well know, John. But it was a really big part of learning how to live on the earth or with the earth. Not on it, but with it. And that's the big thing now is we have to know in our bones how to live with earth, and our bones already know how because they've been around a long time.
Tara Ruth:
How do we do that? You've talked a little bit about expanding our awareness with plants like hawthorn or healing from the ground up, but how do we really sink into our bones to remember that?
EagleSong Gardener:
You find guides and mentors. Oddly enough, I was making a list today of my guides and mentors, and they are not herbalists for the most part. Susun Weed was probably my best herbal guide, and Sobom Fusome from Africa was a really helpful guide, Martin Prechtel. Any of these people, if you read their books, you'll start to open doors for yourself because we have to get out of the western mindset to begin to understand we live in a global world. And all these other people's way of seeing the world are just as valid.
And so, Marshall Rosenberg, Allan Savory, these are all people who were driven by questions like, "How could we have peace in the world? How could we actually create food in the world for ourselves without destroying the earth?" And finding those people, even if it's through books to begin with, and then trusting and finding a plant ally. A plant that you're actually going to start out with by sitting with it. And all you have to do to start with, and I can't tell you how hard this is for people, but they assure me it is, sit with that plant for 10 minutes a day, for 10 days, at different times of the day, not always at the same time. And that will get you, first of all, just doing it. It's like in the way you learned, John, where you had a sit spot.
John Gallagher:
Mm-hmm. Yes.
EagleSong Gardener:
Well, we do it in conjunction with a plant and then that plant can become your ally for a whole year, watch it go through all the seasons. If it's a tree that's a deciduous tree, it's going to lose its leaves. If it's a conifer, it's going to keep its needles. If it's a perennial, it'll go away for half of the year and come back again. You have to understand how that plant grows through all the seasons. And by learning that one thing, you'll start to understand what it means to be whole.
John Gallagher:
Because often when, let's say, "Hey, I want to learn about hawthorn or comfrey or whatever," it's, "Oh, quick, when do I harvest this, so I can make a tea or I can do this?" And often we try to say, "It's okay if you don't harvest that plant this year. Where's it growing? And how's it growing? And how's it fit into nature? Let's look at it for a year, and it's okay. It's going to come around and back next year when those flowers again and perhaps then harvest some flowers or berries, right?"
EagleSong Gardener:
It's totally the antidote to not having enough time. It's like it gives you permission to be a part of time, not letting time run your life, but recognizing time is just a sequence of events that changes through the seasons through the years, through the seasons of your own life. Each person's life is exactly like a year or a day, that you have the morning when you come, midday when you're vital and doing their thing, you have the evening as you get older, and finally it's night and you leave again. And the plants show you that you'll just come back again. I have a trazel nut tree, John, you probably remember it because the kids love to climb in it. It was a great climbing tree.
John Gallagher:
Yeah.
EagleSong Gardener:
And that tree started dying almost as soon as it got here, unbeknownst to me. But last summer we were doing a tour of the garden and one gentleman asked me, he said, "EagleSong is that tree dying?" And I said, "Why? Yes, it is, Tad, it's been dying for 25 years. But look how many things have happened in the process of dying, mushrooms, there's all kinds of lichens and mosses." And actually this winter it officially died, the tree itself. And it's so wonderful because we've come to love, this is an odd thing to say, but we've come to love watching the tree die so much.
I was going to cut it down and Sally said, "No, you can't cut it down." We just are letting the limbs fall off as they wish. The birds are making their nests in the rotten wood now, and so it's never died. It's just changing form. And that's, to me, the beauty of the garden, the beauty of watching nature, that she reassures us, that we are capable of the same kind of life to be engaged by doing what we've come here to do, to know that things are going to change and we can change with them. Not always easily, but we are going to change.
So, that's why I love to teach herbs in the garden. And also we do a lot of foraging and going out into nature and looking at... We have actually apprenticeship of place that's just six field days where we go from the top of the Cascade Mountains all the way to the Salish Sea, and we explore all these different ecosystems in the river valley, in the watershed of three different rivers. And so, we start to see the world in a bigger way. We see that we're a part of this much bigger landscape, and it's so fun. It's so fun. We break our brain out of just looking at one plant and not wanting to know what it's good for, and we start seeing a whole world.
John Gallagher:
I think the most valuable teachings, seasons and rhythms and watching death and generation and composting and just season after season. I don't know if you remember, EagleSong, when I first showed up at your doorstep in 1999, but I think I was probably a lot more of a impatient person.
EagleSong Gardener:
Well, if nothing else, John, age does help that.
John Gallagher:
Go ahead and talk about me if you want. I don't know. I feel like I don't even remember how I was when I was [inaudible 00:37:22].
EagleSong Gardener:
I'll tell you how you were. Do you want to hear it?
John Gallagher:
Yeah, I do
EagleSong Gardener:
Actually, you were young. You were really enthusiastic. You were filled with life. This is how I remember you. And you were going to have a baby. And you were the only man in a group of women that had several, almost grandmothers there already, and you brought into our circle a vital, beautiful element that I will always cherish. I do. I think of you in a way, oddly enough, as a son.
John Gallagher:
Oh, my gosh. Thank you.
EagleSong Gardener:
Yeah, because you took everything that I was doing, and you took it to the world, and look what you've done with it. That was just the best. I knew I couldn't do that. That wasn't my job here. I am much more, I would call myself contemplative now. And so, I totally appreciated that you had the vitality and the understanding and the training to do what you've done. And I just want to know you to know that I just saw in you great promise and you fulfilled it.
John Gallagher:
Oh, my God.
EagleSong Gardener:
Yeah.
John Gallagher:
I'm crying. My fingers are in my eyes.
EagleSong Gardener:
Yeah. It was very fun last year when we were in the shop fussing around and I saw the box, the LearningHerbs, the first kit, the first medicine-making kit, and I said, "This belongs with John." You can put it in your museum. My museum's full.
John Gallagher:
It's here. Yeah. Thank you. Well, it's interesting because when bringing LearningHerbs to the world, the thing that I was sitting with was, I'm not like... This isn't like I'm trying to heal people or be a healthcare guide or something. I was simply trying to bring what we've been talking about here, a way of stepping back and looking at the world, connecting with the seasons and the rhythms and trying to be generative and trying to make a healing from the ground up.
And that was interesting because I couldn't just, on the internet, just be like sale because that wasn't my strength, like how you can so elegantly talk about all this. But little by little, and little we do wild craft. We do different things. We always infuse it like an infusion into the work we did. And you as well, for me, you're one of those people, those few people on my shoulder, those voices, amongst them are my dad, and you are there and other mentors, and always, "Well, what would you say? What would they do?" I'm always referring to these, and you're one of those people for me. Like, "What would EagleSong say?"
EagleSong Gardener:
Those are our guide. Those are our mentors. Those are the people we can still, even though my parents, I love them much and they've passed over, I can still... Well, the beauty for me of being earth-centered is that... And now there's kids called Willow and Sage and all these different animal names, and my mom's name was Iris, which is like the rainbow goddess. And really, honestly, every time I really need the strength and support of a mother, I see a rainbow. And I know she's with me even though not physically, but everywhere in nature there are... My dad taught me, he was the first person who really taught me about birds, and cedar waxwings were his favorite, and cedar waxwings always come in a little flock, a little group. They're not solitary birds. And whenever I'm traveling and a group of cedar waxwings shows up and I think, "Oh, God, dad's here."
And he was such a community person. He always wanted to bring people together. See, when we bring nature into the center with us, we won't ever be missing the ones we love and the ones who've guided us because they're all around us all the time. And it's not what we're taught in the culture we've grown up in, and yet it's here every moment. It's just that gate when you open that gate and you walk through it, and you realize it's available to anyone and everyone anytime, all the time, then you are part of something that's bigger than yourself and you're an important part of it.
John Gallagher:
And seeing ourselves part of that whole is vital for future of our species and the other species.
EagleSong Gardener:
I think so, because we begin then to not think about, "What are you good for?" But you think about, "Gosh, what do you need? What kind of world do you need to live in?" That helps me to understand about the kind of world I like to live in. And so, yeah, who knows where it's all going to go. None of us really know. Now, we're passed into this stage of being comfortable with not knowing. And at first I spelled it N-O-T, but then, right, not knowing. But then I realized because I have gone through that gate, I do realize I'm a part of something bigger than myself. Then I started to say, I'm comfortable with K-N-O-T, knot knowing, knots that hold the world together.
John Gallagher:
Together, yeah. All the cultures and the species.
EagleSong Gardener:
Yeah, I love learning about everything. But other people love to learn about, we all love to learn about what we want to learn about. And so, hawthorn, I would say, has done more for me just by meeting her relations around the world, learning the history of where I came from, because the hedgerows of England are a really big part of my matrilineal lineage. My grandma was born in England and I had to go back to the village where she was born, so that I could get grounded essentially. I wanted to ground in a place that she knew, and hawthorn, of course was there.
And so, through all of it, the haw has woven me into this huge world. I haven't figured out how to get to China yet, and this might not be the best time to go to China. But I met people, when I was in England, I met an amazing woman from China who didn't even have English. We became friends because she wanted to learn how to speak more English. And I asked her, "Could you go on the internet and find out where the hawthorns are in China?" And she was all for it, because in China, they put them on sticks and dip them in sugar syrup. And then, they're festival food, if there's a fair or a thing going on.
John Gallagher:
Do they take the thorns off first?
EagleSong Gardener:
No, they're fruit. And the fruits are big like little crab apples. And there's like five or six of them on a stick, and they dip it in bright red candy syrup, and then they sell those as part of the... You go to the fair and you get cotton candy, in China you go to the fair and you get hawthorn on a stick. So, when I asked her if she could show me where they live and she could read all the Chinese websites, it was awesome. It was like our need for one another to learn to communicate with each other went both ways. And so, we learned from one another. So, this is the part I really love. We connected through our cultures and our way of being and our love and passion about something in life. And oddly enough, her big concern was they won't let her go back to China.
John Gallagher:
Why?
EagleSong Gardener:
Because she went to the west and is being educated, and they're afraid if she comes back... I think for a lot of young people, she said it wasn't just her, it was a lot of young people that aren't allowed to come home, which was sad for her 'cause she wanted to go home. And it was very interesting that this kind of an odd situation on a personal level, but also on a global level... I don't know how that's going to work out for her. But basically in the two days we had together, we had a lot of fun sharing ourselves with one another. And the place that I was staying at, which is how I met her, 'cause she ended up staying there too. It was like a little Airbnb, but I broke my foot, so I ended up being there for three weeks. And luckily the woman had a garden, and she had three different kinds of comfrey in the garden. So, I was doing comfrey poultices on my foot the whole time I was in England.
So, that's what I mean, when you have a handful of herbs that you know, you can travel around the world and you can find out, you can get what you need. You can either find it in nature or you can ask people. When I was in Mexico a long time ago and I had a really face achy, congested, cold kind of thing, I found a homeopath, I explained what was going on, he gave me a homeopathic remedy, and it was a perfect remedy. It hit the constitutional point perfect and relieved my pain and congestion. And so, it's really great to learn about these things because it is people's medicine and you will, whatever level you find works for you, you'll be able to find that wherever you go, once you get into it as not just a trifle, but a way of life, it connects you to people all over the world.
Tara Ruth:
Yeah. I love how you've described your connection with hawthorn hasn't just connected you with this tree, but you've connected with the different, the other plant beings and pollinators and animals who are in relationship with hawthorn and different people in your travels too.
EagleSong Gardener:
And realizing we live on a global planet, the planet is whole. And right at the moment we're going through, I think it's a birthing of a whole consciousness that we think of the planet as a whole place, but we're going to get, or maybe not, and we're going to get more articulate in our understanding of the plants that grow around us. Because the hawthorn I use to make the hawthorn oxymel and the table things that I make, oxymel and sipping vinegar and a bio-boost, those all come from one broken hedge in the Snoqualmie Valley. And in the six countries I've been to looking at hawthorn's, there's not another one like it anywhere. So, I actually got to name the tree, and I call her The Golden Girl, because she gets gold leaves in the fall, and other hawthorn's don't do that. She's got a lot of things that are unique.
I think it's a seedling that was purchased to put a hedgerow in, and they were seedling trees from a certain area, but the farmer doesn't remember where they came from. And so, it's this precious little place to me where we've done a lot of scion wood cutting and getting it out to different nurseries so they can actually propagate the tree, which helps me think about economy. How does this tree help enrich people's lives beyond just being something we could eat or take for medicine, or how does it actually offer itself to someone who actually knows how to produce trees by grafting, so that it can travel around the world in her own new adventure? And so, The Golden Girl is slowly making her way out into the world from that one broken hedge.
Tara Ruth:
I love that name.
EagleSong Gardener:
It can only be done by grafting.
John Gallagher:
In the Snoqualmie Valley, I think of the trees in that bird sanctuary near Jubilee.
EagleSong Gardener:
Oh, yeah.
John Gallagher:
And then, in May when we would harvest flowers and it's like a taro, it feels like a weeping willow almost. You're going under into this.
EagleSong Gardener:
It's a real thicket.
John Gallagher:
They're harvesting. And the bees are just, you're just in the beehive.
EagleSong Gardener:
Yeah, it's so loud.
John Gallagher:
It's the closest to a beehive that I've ever had. And that was a ritual for us every year to harvest the flowers from that spot when we used to live near there.
EagleSong Gardener:
That's right. I still go there, the marsh hawthorn.
John Gallagher:
The marsh.
EagleSong Gardener:
Yeah. And it floods there sometimes from one to five times a year. There'll be water, standing water in that haw patch, the thicket. And so, this is the thing, hawthorns can live where there can be standing water, or they can actually live like Iraq and Iran up in the mountains and it's dry in those places. In Azerbaijan, all across the Stans, Kazakhstan, it's all in there. And the climate, it's a drier climate, and they still do well. Eastern Washington where I find them, again, it can be by wet riparian places, but it can also be up on hillsides that are pretty dry. So, she's very amenable, to whatever soil is offered she can make her way in it. And there's cultivars, crazy number of cultivars. It was a huge street tree in the fifties. Like the forties and fifties, it was used in a lot of towns.
John Gallagher:
Yeah, Our town has a lot.
Tara Ruth:
Yeah.
EagleSong Gardener:
They had the double pink and the other. And so, this is a tree that's also willing to work with us to lend herself to shape shifting and becoming a tree that would be just as suitable outside the library as off on the edge of a forest in England somewhere.
Tara Ruth:
That level of adaptability is so inspiring. And I feel like us as humans can learn a lot from that. And it makes me think about, I mean, I'm also inspired by what you were both saying about this amazing thicket and, John, your description of getting to harvest there when you were in this apprenticeship. And I feel like this program that you offer, EagleSong, is just such an incredible resource for so many people. And I'd love to learn more about it. I'm sure there's many of our listeners who would like to sign up. Would you like to share a little bit more about your offerings?
EagleSong Gardener:
Yeah, actually, you can find my work at eaglesong-gardener.com. And then, there are two branches to our craft. One is an online offering called Herb Wise Women, where women who are Herb-Ally curious can learn online. And then, the Hearty Hawthorn Adventure is where we sell our products. And there's links to those two websites at eaglesong-gardener.com. And this march I'll be offering the Hearty Hawthorn Adventure, which is a four-day, probably four-day, we're still hammering on it, look at hawthorn. It's a hour and a half live class, four times different classes. And it goes through where it's located on the planet, economy, how to make things with hawthorn. It's, I guess you might say a webinar. I don't know the language for all those things, but I do know the hawthorn. And we will be posting that. I'll be sending out information when people, if they're interested, if anyone listening is interested, be sure to sign up for our Walking Seeds Newsletter. And that's where we'll be disseminating information on signing up for the Hearty Hawthorn Adventure.
John Gallagher:
And there are weekend herb camps.
EagleSong Gardener:
Oh, we do.
John Gallagher:
Fly into Seattle for these, or you don't have to live right by Seattle to do the apprenticeship. You can drive a little bit. It's not every day. So, healing from the ground up, really look into these programs.
EagleSong Gardener:
Yeah. We meet once a month, and then we also have three camps, garden camp, medicine-making camp, and food camp. Those three things. If you know how to grow plants, if you know how to make medicine with them and you know how to cook them, you're good, you can go anywhere.
John Gallagher:
Exactly. I was saving this episode for the beginning of 2025. This will be out in January. And because we just went through 20 cycles, so I wanted to start this next part of our journey with you as our first guest.
EagleSong Gardener:
I'm so honored, John.
John Gallagher:
Same here. And so, I just want to let everyone know that. I think you probably have a pretty good idea how to go about learning about herbs this year from listening to this episode.
EagleSong Gardener:
Yeah, absolutely. And congratulations, John.
John Gallagher:
Thank you.
EagleSong Gardener:
You've done way beyond my imagination, which I constantly think about the poverty of my imagination. 'Cause you've taken herbs-
John Gallagher:
Wow, I don't think so.
EagleSong Gardener:
So far in the world.
John Gallagher:
You're pretty imaginative.
EagleSong Gardener:
Thank you so much for inviting me to be on. And to all the people out there, I just want you to just believe in yourself and believe in plants. This is people's medicine. You can do it. It's not confusing or hard. Once you get used to it, just go out and be with them. They're the best friends you'll ever have.
John Gallagher:
Well, EagleSong, thank you so much, and we'll have you on again soon. Now, that was your third time on Herb Mentor Radio, so we'll make it a fourth as soon as we can.
EagleSong Gardener:
Yes. Come full circle. Thank you, Tara, I really enjoyed your questions and I look forward to doing it again.
Tara Ruth:
Yeah, thank you, EagleSong. Such an honor.
John Gallagher:
And everyone, stick around for an herb note.
Tara Ruth:
Yes. Welcome to Herb Notes. I'm Tara Ruth. Thyme offers a familiar pungent taste to every dish it graces, and thyme also has a rich history as a medicinal herb with a wide range of benefits. Want to learn more about the gifts of thyme? Let's dive into three key benefits of time. One, thyme for immune support. Thyme is particularly supportive for upper respiratory infections like colds and the flu. When I have congestion, a sore throat, or a cough, I like to gargle with a thyme tea or do a steam inhalation with thyme tea made with the fresh thyme leaves. Two, thyme for digestive health. Cooking with this aromatic herb can help address digestive stagnation like gas and bloating. The antibacterial properties of thyme can also help support the health of the gut microbiome. Three, thyme for natural house cleaning. Thyme can also help you clean your home.
Infusing vinegar with dried thyme leaves can make for a wonderful all-purpose antimicrobial cleaner that easily cuts through grease. And just a few notes of caution when working with thyme. Medicinal amounts of thyme should be avoided during pregnancy and lactation. Allergic reactions to thyme are generally considered rare. And all the benefits I'm talking about are with thyme leaves infused into teas, tinctures, steams, and vinegar. Thyme essential oil is much stronger than all of these preparations and should be worked with in very small diluted amounts under the guidance of a trained clinical aromatherapist. Want to learn more about the benefits of other common herbs? Visit herbnotes.cards to grab a deck of our top-twelve herb notes. You'll learn all about herbs like elderberry, chamomile, and more. This has been Herb Notes with me, Tara Ruth. Catch you next time.
John Gallagher:
Herb Mentor 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 Herb Mentor 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 Herb Mentor, which is a site you must see to believe. Herb Mentor Radio is a production of learningherbs.com, LLC, all rights reserved. Thank you very, very, very much for listening.
