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APPENDIX B

WELCOME TO THE GARDEN

I’ve been waiting for you.

I’d like to take the opportunity, while we are here together in the garden pages of this manual, to restate that in my opinion the supreme form of all herbal medicine is the direct association with a living plant. In my experience, the most powerful nourishment given us by herbal tonics is delivered by simply commingling with living plants growing in a garden, particularly when it is your own garden. This is why in my herb school, we start all our intensive “Roots of Herbalism” and “Foundations of Health” course curricula and our herbal medicine-making classes and so forth in the garden. We ground all our teaching in the garden where Herbalism is rooted and flourishes. This way, we never forget just whom we are talking about. This way, when we delve into other facets of our herbal studies, those that often and quite quickly become highly intellectual and theoretical, we don’t misalign our perspective. We don’t lose sight of the reality of our most knowledgeable herbal teachers, the plants. The garden is established as “Home.” At any point we can step back into this reality from the abstract symbolism of our mental journeys and be immersed in the organic vibrations of herbal truth. The garden, from its Earth connection and its aesthetic nectar, is the only classroom qualified to satisfy the hunger and thirst of passionate student herbalists, and it is the only teacher who can answer all their questions … without speaking a word.

Growing your own garden is very simple. How does one do it? “Just put your hands and some seeds or roots into the earth and grow something.” Placing a plant or a seed in the soil, watering it, and caring for it, makes a “mother” out of you, a nurturer, and if you don’t think that is important, you will. Whether you are a man or a woman, a young girl or a young boy, the experience of taking a plant into your life, providing it a place to dwell, paying attention to it, checking on it every day or so, talking with it (and you do talk to it with every thought and feeling, because plants don’t require ears or mouths to communicate), checking to see that it is happy where you put it, moving it if necessary (it’ll let you know where it likes to be), talking with it some more, all puts sparkle in your life. And sometimes that’s all we are looking for … a little sparkle to help polish the nervous system and clear the heart valves. You’ll be thrilled, and if your thumb’s not green at first, just keep on gardening, it’ll turn green. Actually, green is the natural color of all human thumbs. They just get coated with ink, and grease, and makeup, and all that kind of day-to-day stuff of civilization. Gardening—bending, kneeling, stretching, reaching, digging, smiling, spreading, picking up, setting down, pruning, watering, pushing, pulling, carrying, scratching, and so forth—are also very gentle, yet excellent forms of physical exercise, akin to that which wild animals get while roaming the fields, the seashore, and the countryside gathering their food.

Also, purchase a chime for your garden. Spend some time selecting it; find the one (or two or three) that resonates perfectly with the appetite of your aesthetic ear. You’ll recognize it when you feel your inner being humming along with its tone. Buy or build some bird houses, a bird bath, and a couple of bat houses. (If you disapprove of bats, consider reconsidering this attitude; unless you fly at night and you are a whole lot smaller than they are, bats won’t bother you; and they garble from the garden sky a myriad of flying insects that take great delight in bothering you.)

Arrange all the above things in your garden near your plants. The birds you attract eat bugs that eat plants, and most important, the songs of birds are the perfect serenade for plants. It has been discovered that no other form of music makes plants happier and more garden-active. Bats patrol the garden airways for you at night. The music of the chime announces the arrival of garden breezes; this uplifting euphony