Notes from the Farm: Part Four
This is the fourth installment in a series following one student's journey through the Level I Herbal Apprenticeship at the Boston School of Herbal Studies. Each month, we'll share a dispatch from the farm: what we're learning, what's growing, and what the plants have to say. Follow along. To learn more about the apprenticeship, visit bostonherbalstudies.com/education.
As summer reaches her peak, so does the farm. Lavender, California poppy, wood betony, and St. John's Wort are all peaking at once, throwing vibrant pops of color across the field. For everything blooming loud and bright above ground right now, there's just as much happening underneath it, out of sight.
The weekend opened with a check in, and the twinkle in everyone's eyes was hard to miss. One student's kids had started asking to help with the medicine making at home, pulling up stools to stir whatever was on the stove. Another had started bringing tinctures to her friends, handing them off like she'd always been the one people came to for this. A third had reached for the plantain oil from our last session on her daughter's bee sting, and it worked almost instantly. We're witnessing each other's awakening, fostering a deeper connection with the earth, learning to see plants as old friends rather than foreign invaders. Instilling each other with hope, with love, inspiring stewardship in our own communities. This is how we change the world, one herbalist at a time.
Mairead taught the cardiovascular system, and she teaches with her whole body, hand pressed to her own chest as she talks, like the heart itself was leading the lecture. Though it moves an impressive five quarts of blood every minute, the heart is much more than just a pump. It is our mental and emotional center, our soul intelligence. Balancing both the heart and mind is key to overall wellness.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the heart is the shen, the emperor organ, connected to the tongue: joy, laughter, singing. We could all use another reason to dance and take ourselves less seriously in today's world (it's good for you!).
The heart has no shortage of herbal allies. Our friend linden strengthens and tonifies the entire cardiovascular system, while ginger, cayenne, and yarrow work as circulatory stimulants, pushing blood out to the extremities.
The heart is very much an energetic center. These herbs also have energetic signatures aimed at healing the heart. For example, physically, hawthorn is a cardiac amphoteric that helps dilate the arteries to improve blood flow; energetically it is a healer of grief and replenisher of joy.
Did you know loneliness is believed to be worse for you than smoking a pack of cigarettes a day? The most important factor in heart health, it turns out, is community. We've learned this from the blue zones of the world: the places where people live longest. The heart is even said to give off its own electromagnetic field, and some believe we are all picking up on each other's frequencies, for better or worse. What's going on inside and outside your system impacts heart health.
As the afternoon clouds swept through, we grouped off to process fresh St. John's Wort. It was an all hands on deck operation, plucking only the buds about to open into a giant basket. We split off into groups, sitting in circles around the farm. We talked about all sorts of things as our fingers turned deep red from handling the buds thanks to the hypericin, one of the herbal constituents that makes St. John’s so powerful for brain health. There's something about working with our hands in community that felt deeply nourishing, like this was the exact feeling we'd all been searching for when we signed up for this program. And now here we are, sitting on the deck at the farm, making medicine.
Sunday morning, Tommy opened the circle with ceremony. Today coincided with Mercury retrograde cazimi in Cancer, meaning the sun amplified our inward revelations about roots and healing. Impeccable timing. The entire apprenticeship has unfolded in the most aligned timeline. The farm held space for honest, heartfelt shares, breakthroughs and moments that will inspire us for years to come. The roots we've been building for the past few months are approaching the surface, buds beginning to pop up above the soil. We really felt that today. A low hum of support enveloped us all.
After a brief break for tissues and hugs, Tommy moved on to the muscular system. The health of our muscle tissue is dependent on the health of our bones. It starts at the foundation. Our bones are metaphors for depth; in this case wellness truly starts bone deep. Herbs like turmeric can help reduce pain and chronic inflammation, while Solomon's seal and St. John's Wort address deeper underlying imbalances instead of simply alleviating symptoms. There it was again, the same plant that had stained our hands red yesterday, now showing up as medicine for the very systems we were learning to support. The beauty of herbalism is addressing dysfunction holistically, by how all of the systems interact. The health of the musculoskeletal system is strongly tied to the digestive and nervous systems. Roots hold up everything we see above ground, the same way our skeleton holds up the muscle and tissue we move through the world with. Nothing here works in isolation.
In addition to external intervention, what you tell yourself matters. Notice how your body reacts when you say "I am tense" versus "I am relaxed." That inner dialogue is its own kind of medicine, whether we are paying attention to it or not.
Driving home with our muscles a little looser and hearts a little more open than when we'd arrived, it was hard not to notice how much sturdier the ground felt beneath us. Roots do that. They hold you up long before you ever see them break through the surface.
If this resonates with you, the Boston School of Herbal Studies offers a range of programs for anyone ready to deepen their relationship with plants, whether you are just getting acquainted with your green neighbors or have been working with herbs for years. Explore our offerings at bostonherbalstudies.com/education.
