Welcome to the experience of plant medicines that are specifically formulated for YOU, not for the symptoms alone that you manifest. The origins of the word “drug” come from medieval German roots meaning dried plant, and indeed, drugs today have come a long way from dried plants.
Most pharmaceuticals on the market today come from an original discovery of a medicinal attribute from a plant. For the purposes of research, patent profits and controlled titration, pharmaceuticals are based on ONE chosen pharmacologically active constituent from a plant that originally has hundreds to thousands of constituents. While there are some powerful life-saving drugs that have been discovered and produced in this context, the daily maintenance of human health and wellbeing is arguably not best served by these one-hit-wonders. The strong drugs we know of today are worlds apart from the biologically active and conscious plants that inform and work WITH our natural systems as opposed to against it.
Aspirin, one of the most popular over the counter drugs sold in the world today, had its discovery from a Spirea plant (meadowsweet). Salicylic acid was isolated, and then was found and extracted from the willow plant, from which is was more accessible to extract. Once the chemical was isolated, plant material was no longer needed, because now it was understood how to produce salicylic acid in a chemical lab. Aspirin flew off the shelves, and then, a detrimental side effect, stomach ulcers and bleeding, was discovered.
This is perhaps one of the most common examples that shows up consistently in the pharmaceutical versus plant medicine world, one isolated constituent out of balance with the chemistry of its mother plant can also have negative side effects that upset our own organism balance. Yet meadowsweet, the original herb salicylic acid was found in, also has mucilages that protect the stomach lining and prevent the experience of ulcers and bleeding, while providing anti-inflammatory and pain relieving properties.
If we look beyond mere chemistry, which is required by herbalists who work with plants that have hundreds/thousands of active chemical constituents, we begin to discover an intelligent system of checks and balances, certain harmonic systems put in place when we consume plant medicines in a conscious and intentional way. This is not to say there are not poisonous plants out there, as there definitely are, but traditional herbs with thousands of years of usage all over the world, and with 85% of the world’s population still using herbs as primary health care, there are absolutely more benefits than risks compared to the hasty and detrimental over-medication that occurs in our current healthcare model.
Your body is wise! You are designed to self-heal. One does not doubt when they get a cut or scrap that it will heal…yet the placebo effect is the constant bane of healthcare research, and is never given its own attention and due. Why is this? Because your self-empowerment, and knowledge of your natural healing state is overlooked in preference to pharmaceutical profits and power. If just by THINKING about taking a drug you can begin to heal yourself, imagine what you can do when thinking about healing, AND taking a biologically active conscious medicine from this earth that has intimate knowledge of your own DNA and healing processes? Behold, our dear friends the plants! Science is only just now scratching the surface of the multi-faceted power of synergistically acting chemical constituents on our body. For example, the have found a receptor for farnesene terpenes in the nuclear DNA of our cells. This is the part of our cells that is responsible for our genetic material that leads to transcription and translation to body proteins, and for some reason, it has a receptor, that is, it is listening for, a constituent that is found in the essential oils of flowers! I wonder what that genetic conversation is about!
While there are thousands of years of precedent using herbal medicine, it is often undermined and overlooked…why? Because plants are FREE, they grow in your backyard, down your street, in your local parks. Did you know one of the most powerful liver tonics is fought bitterly against, creating perhaps the highest amount of herbicide sales, and is most likely out your front door? Can you guess? Dandelion!
We live in a world that is full of healing and opportunity for deep transformation, if we are willing to soften our gaze into our own beings, and into the world around us.
So our first step of the journey to true healing, transformation, and self-integration is to wake up to the ways we experience constant conflict within our own beings, and the natural world around us, and begin to accept, and allow, that we are indeed self-healing. We are powerful instruments of healing and change, for our own selves, for each other, and for the greater world around us.
So next time you scratch your head about the state of “primary care” in this country, remember that YOU are primary care. It is time to reclaim it!