Witch Notes: At Loose Ends Edition

I’ve completed my herb course with Sage Mountain. I’ve submitted the last assignments and exam and now I await the results. I feel pretty good about it, though. So, fingers crossed. A certificate in herbalism doesn’t exactly allow me to be a practicing herbalist, but I like that I completed the course because it helped me organize and extend what I already knew. I find as I get older, that it’s really more about the process than the goal anyway.

I have other projects on the table, but I always feel at loose ends when I complete a project as involved as Sage Mountain’s course. It’s like the energy for that work continues without me, looking for something to do. At least with herbs, my work is never ending. I’ll continue to formulate various herbal remedies to keep my rheumatoid arthritis in clinical remission as well as others to keep my husband healthy. The end, in this case, is really just the beginning of more study.

Herbalism is an interesting thing. Throughout history, herbs have been the primary medicine for everyone and yet currently herbalists are discouraged from sharing that knowledge with others to avoid creating all sorts of legal headaches for themselves. Still, we have wonderful herbalists to learn from because for them, it’s a higher calling at work. At some point, we’ll find a way to blend herbs with allopathic medicine, preserving the integrity of both. But at this point, every herbalist must arrive at his or her own comfort level in terms of what they choose to share with others.

I think the biggest issue is that people don’t realize what they’re asking of a herbalist when they want to know what to do for one thing or another. In a medical situation, a clinical history would be taken before anything else happened. When a friend or a stranger asks, there is no clinical history possible and without that, a herbalist risks giving improper advice. At worst, the herbalist could inadvertently recommend a treatment which could be harmful and no one wants that. Herbalists have no medical malpractice insurance, so we’re basically on our own with what we know and choose to share. So, as much as many of us want to help others, we find ourselves in a weird place doing so. And I hate that because I love herbs so much and I know the power they have to heal. And I’m chatty, so there’s that.

I’m redoing the garden, devoting the entire area to herbs. I can tuck vegetables anywhere and I’d love to grow as many herbs as I can myself. I’m adding a dome greenhouse and an apiary greenhouse, both with living covers in lieu of traditional greenhouse plastic. The bees will appreciate foraging for pollen in the small living greenhouse in their area and the 25-foot dome greenhouse will give me a place to grow veggies that can climb.

In past years, we’ve spent all of our time creating the spaces in which to grow. Now we can focus on specifics, improving the soil and focusing more on aesthetics. While we’re waiting for our outside mushrooms to grow, we’re slowly creating a permaculture bed to see how that works. And we await the arrival of the bees for our two new hives.

In the meantime, my herbs continue to grow in pots under Dominator XL LED lighting in the room I normally grow medicinal cannabis. I have a lettuce raft in there as well, growing lettuce, bok choy and fennel. I have to replant the kale because I used old seeds. I started early this year, so I’ll no doubt be re-potting some of it, but that’s okay. I’m just thrilled to be gardening again.

~Blessings!