Rosemary Gladstar: I do have favorite plants for sure, and they change with the seasons and the tides, but nettle is one of my all time favorites and it's so exciting to see nettle like, become as popular as it has because when I was a kid growing up on our dairy farm, nettle was just despised, it was like, you got bad, it took over, and then you get bad welts from it when you fell in the pile. I really grew up to just love nettle. I love the way it tastes. I love the soup, I love making nettle spanakopita, and nettle soup and all the good things.
And I love its personality too, so it's like very giving, very nurturing, very healing.
But then if you treat it wrong, it just gives you big welts. It's like always say, it reminds me of woman, you know you just nicely and it's gonna be nice back, but you say the wrong thing, it's gonna spit at you.
Josh Wilder: Welcome to the Mother Earth News and Friends podcast. At Mother Earth News for 50 years and counting, we've been dedicated to conserving the planet's natural resources while helping you conserve your financial resources [00:01:00] in this podcast. We host conversations with experts in the fields of sustainability, homesteading, natural health, and more to share all about how you can live well wherever you are in a way that values both people and our Mother Earth.
Hello, welcome to this episode of Mother Earth News and Friends. My name is Josh Wilder and I'm here today with Ana Skemp, lead editor for Mother Earth News. She's a mother, farmer, and maker at Deep Roots Community Farm, and she has a variety of livestock there. And in the summer, the farm is opened up to local youth for educational programming, and her family recently became the next generation to tend the family apple orchard.
And also today is Rosemary Gladstar, who's an American herbalist educator and author, often referred to as the godmother of modern herbalism. She's the author of several books on herbalism, including Rosemary Gladstar's Medicinal Herbs: a Beginner's Guide, Fire Cider, and the Generosity of Plants: Shared Wisdom from the Community of Herb Lovers.
She's the founder of United Plant Savers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting, preserving medicinal plants, and has been practicing living, learning, teaching, and writing about herbs for over 50 years. Thank you so much for being here.
Rosemary Gladstar: Thank you. It's an honor.
Ana Skemp: Thank you so much Rosemary, for being here. And I wanna start by saying you've pretty much changed my life. When I was a young mother with our first kid we were dealing with a lot of ear infections and I discovered your mullein and garlic oil ear drops, and she stopped getting ear infections and your healing salve allowed my cloth diapers to thrive and her diaper rash went away and the list goes on and on and. So I just wanna start by saying thank you for that. You have reached so many lives and I think that's pretty special. We are excerpting some of your recipes and we are including some of your wonderful tea blends and all purpose healing salve, and then your [00:03:00] recipe for throat drops.
Oh, yeah. What, what encouraged you to write this book for kids?
Rosemary Gladstar: Oh because. I just think everybody should be using plants, right? And why not start when you're really young? I think it's in response to so many parents these days, wanting to start with more natural means if possible.
And just because of the, long interest in herbalism. But from my own self personally, I worked with a lot of children and had my own children. And herbs just work really wonderfully for them. And oftentimes, are the first step. And if you can, like you were just saying with that ear infection, if the infection didn't clear up, you could always go to good pediatrician, your doctor and, get like antibiotics, which is usually what they would get.
But if it clears up with a little homemade oil that you made, why not? You have a much less expensive, much safer, and much more ecological medicine so it just makes sense, to wanna [00:04:00] share this information with others. And I do wanna say, and I'm so appreciative you, of you calling of my recipes, these recipes are, many of 'em are ones that have been shared for centuries.
And the ones that I feel like maybe I might have come up with, I don't really know 'cause sometimes the information just pouring through you, you don't even sure where it's coming from, but these are universal recipes that, have been shared by mothers and fathers through the generations, and I just have the great honor of being able to share them on, pass 'em on.
Ana Skemp: You're reconnecting us with in such an important way and I'm wondering why, what, how did we get unconnected in the first, how did that happen?
Rosemary Gladstar: I think there's many stories to that, but the, but what I see from my own. Just observation and research is right after World War II, there was an enormous disconnect from almost anything natural, even as basic as food, right?
Like food became, it seemed to be the more synthetic it was, the more [00:05:00] fake it was. The more people you know, the more it was being sold for people to eat, including margarine, which is probably one of the biggest farces that you know, was sold to the American people. So certainly with our medicine, we went from a culture that was primarily still relying, not just on herbs, but on natural remedies. People's doctors still paid home visits oftentimes and would treat with the least harmful things. And many people, especially I would say the immigrants and people from other cultures would come over with this rich body of information.
And many of them were still treating themselves, with home remedies. But so the disconnect from natural remedies, herbalism, and, other forms of home healing, I feel became really strongly after World War II. And I think some of it was political. There was this, and economics, there was this huge industry, a massive industry manufacturing, terrible chemicals.
And those companies had to figure out what to do with those chemicals. So we started seeing in mass, pesticides, [00:06:00] herbicides, fungicides, and also a lot more synthetic kinds of medicine for people as well. So it was just a disconnect really, that, people forgot that we are nature, that we need nature to survive and be healthy.
So the herbal medicine going deeply underground was just part of this huge movement away from Mother Earth and all she provides for us.
Ana Skemp: When I first discovered your books as a young mom, you gave me so much confidence. Okay, I'm just gonna try this. This is brilliant and easy. Why not? And then when you're met with great success, then you wanna learn more right away.
And like, how could this magical plant so quickly clear up my daughter's ear infection. But I feel like there's also, especially with new parents, there can be a lot of fear to try something unknown and it's best to probably just go to the pediatrician and get the antibiotics right away.
And how do we overcome that fear and reconnect with some of this? [00:07:00] Old wisdom and these useful plants, how do we overcome that? Especially as new parents living today?
Rosemary Gladstar: Yeah, and I think that's a really good point. I think we see that more actually, because when I was a young mother, which was a long time ago, over 50 years ago, most of the people who were interested in herbs were all from an alternative type of community or elsewhere from immigrant communities or native communities that already had a long connection with the herbs.
But on the whole. But who we saw coming into our herb stores, and buying herb, herbal remedies were people who were already willing to try these remedies. They were already really open. Where today we're seeing, we're just seeing a huge interest, an upsweep in the interest of natural remedies, herbalism being part of that.
And also it's become more mainstream. So we see a lot of people who have been indoctrinated into thinking that the doctor always knows best, and there's absolutely times when the doctor does know best. But for all of the home health situations, like all of them that your grandmas would've treated or [00:08:00] your grandpas would've treated at home, herbs still work the best, and then if they're not working, if we're not really getting better, we can go see a naturopathic doctor or an herbalist, because they're all over the country now, thank goodness. And oftentimes, even medical doctors at least are open. It's not but I do have to, I do wanna just say this, like all of the books, including mine, there's always this warning if you're going to use herbs, consult with your pediatrician first. If you're talking about children, and I always say that's useless information unless you're talking to somebody who's trained in the use of using herbs because just out of responsibility, they know nothing about the plant. So what are they gonna say?
It's like asking me something about some serious, drugs and stuff. I don't really spend a lot of time researching pharmaceutical medicine. I know a little but not enough to give really wise advice about it. So if you are going to consult with a pediatrician or a doctor, you wanna about herbs, make sure they know about herbs, they have training and it otherwise go see [00:09:00] a naturopath or an herbalist and you'll get much better.
What we see is there's a lot of people who have uncertainty, right? But what I would just say to people is that all of the herbs that are available, and especially herbs that are written in children's books, by all means, all of those herbs have, are safe and have a long history of safety, thousands of years of safety used on people.
The tests are actually done on people, and so there really is nothing of harm in those books. There are herbs that can cause harm, but most of those are not legally available to us. Some of them, they make ha they make pharmaceutical drugs out of, 'cause they're so strong. But there, you would have to go to a lot of work to get those herbs and put 'em on your shelves.
And that's what I really try to do in those books. Those are safe herbs. There can be idiopathic or idiosyncratic reactions, which is like that one-on-one. An example would be strawberries for most people are wonderfully delicious food, but for some people they're a poison and a toxin, they'll die.
But you walk into a grocery store and you don't see big signs [00:10:00] over the peanut butter or over strawberries, like toxic food do not eat unless you talk to your doctor. So it's the same thing with herbs. The herbs are far safer. All you have to do is look at any pharmaceutical, even over counter drug, and there's a long list of horrific horrific side effects, right? With herbalism, a side effect and  idiosyncratic would be, you get a little bit of allergic action, you might get itchy throat. Itchy eye. You might little get a little gastric upset and it goes away as soon as you stop using the plant. So I do wanna say there do, there are people who have reactions even to common herbs like chamomile, for instance.
And of course we, I say that in the book, occasionally child will have a reaction to chamomile because they have allergies to the the family, the Asteraceae family, that chamomile is part of, I think, anyway but it's mild and it, you stop giving it to the child and it clears up right away. [00:11:00] So it's just asking people to just look at this long safety record that the plants have.
A lot of times people think that the herbal industry is not regulated. It's heavily regulated. Differently, the pharmaceuticals, but it's very regulated. They're, if a drug has hundreds of reactions on people, it can still be sold. If they consider the benefit, it's called the benefit risk ratio.
But with herbs, if one or two people have a really adverse effect, they're taken off the market because of the they're not recognized as having a benefit, so there's no benefit. It doesn't, it means even if thousands of people have had good use with it. And there's one or two really bad reactions, those herbs are pulled off the market, so we don't have access to 'em.
Ana Skemp: So let's say you're someone who's really completely new to herbalism. What are maybe two or three things you would recommend to get started with?
How to Get Started with Herbalism
Rosemary Gladstar: Yeah. I think if at all possible to take a beginning class in herbalism because it's so fun. Even just an afternoon or [00:12:00] an evening where you're talking to an herbalist who has a, good reputation or have been using plants for a long time. It's, first of all, it's fun. It's exciting to learn. It's also fascinating how many people recognize that this information is something that. Is familiar to them, even if they've never studied plants. Ana? Like the first time you started using them, it was like, it's almost ancestral in us. People have been using plants around the world for literally centuries. So this information is almost encoded in us. And I can say that actually freely because I've. Thousands of people herbalism, and one of the things that I've seen over and over again is people going, oh my God, this is so easy to learn.
It's so much fun. I feel like it's in me, and I'd say, I laugh and say it is almost as easy as breathing, eating, and talking.
Ana Skemp: Yep. We just have to remember it again. Oh yeah. We just have to remember it. It's the
Rosemary Gladstar: remembering. Yeah.
Ana Skemp: One thing I love in your Herbs for Children's Health book is how you weave in the importance of [00:13:00] getting outside and connecting the kids in your life to these plants.
And also another key pillar is eating nourishing nutrient dense foods. Could you talk a bit about that interplay and how important all of them are to a child's wellbeing?
The Importance of Playing Outside for Kids (And Adults!)
Rosemary Gladstar: Yes, thanks, Ana. I think it's in critically important, right? That children are connect it with nature because of the emphasis that it's just gonna hit them with technology, and the screens and all the children that we see are who are not outdoors.
You drive through towns now, it's really different than driving through towns 20 or 30 years ago, where children were in the play yards and children were riding their bikes and children were out in the neighborhood running around and playing. We just don't see that much anymore because children today are sitting with their little devices and they're in a screen world now.
And so we are forgetting our most vital link, which is with nature and creator and God and Spirit, whatever, all the many names that we wanna call them directly our [00:14:00] connection with nature, which feeds us in every way. Definitely, our food coming from nature, but also.
That spiritual connection that we have that makes us feel connected and alive. So that I think is critical. And there's been a lot of studies now they even have a word for it. Nature deficiency, Last Child In The Woods. There's some really good work done on it, but you know that it's really critical for many things, for the health of our human species.
I think it's essential also for the health and how we live on this planet earth because we really can't really be good warriors for the earth unless we love it with all our hearts. You have to love what you're fighting for. And we don't wanna see our kids fighting over screens and devices.
We need to be standing up for clean water and clean, good earth and the bees and but if this generation is not connected to that, it's gonna be very hard. So there and then just on the physical level, of course, we are what we eat and we also, I think we are what we don't eat also.
If we're not eating nutrient dense good food, we see what we're seeing [00:15:00] now, which is so unfortunate. Like again, I think about when I was a young mother and working in my herb store. This was back in the 1970s and 1980s. It's a little bit a long while ago, we didn't really see a lot of children's illnesses you saw mostly still robust kids and yes, there were illnesses and yes, there were kids that were born with, chronic illnesses, but nothing, it was rare. It's nothing like we see now, like there's just children's disease after children's disease. It's not because we have more children, it's because these parents were raised on diets that were not sustaining to us.
And we see it in our animals unfortunately as well. Many human diseases now because we feed our animals human bad diets. Terrible things. Yeah, terrible things. Kibble and stuff. People are trying to be conscious because the pet food companies tell 'em this is like whole balanced food.
You try living on kibble, it's like it's, your dogs are gonna get sick and your cats and then, over and over when [00:16:00] people start trying to feed their animals, like how animals have been living first millennia, those animals just restore to wellness and health and I know that even I watch our cats, we have all of our cats on raw food diets and the difference is remarkable.
They never get sick, they never get fleas. I haven't had fleas one time, but any, we have four cats that drive us crazy. So yeah, definitely. When we talk about raising children that. It can be happy, healthy, productive beings on this earth. We have to look at feeding them naturally, which means that just, again, it connects us to taking care of the land that, you know this better than anywhere, anyone being a farmer, but it does. It connects us to the land and caretaking the land so that it can be healthy to take care of all that. It does take care of.
Ana Skemp: My little place in the world. So when the kids come to the farm camps in the summer, they put their screens right away for the whole week and that's part of it. And that's [00:17:00] always really hard for about, half an hour, but then they move on and they forget it. And we do a ton of gardening and I am always so fascinated how people, the kids, how everyone is drawn to different plants and I wonder if you could talk just a little bit about that.
I am so drawn to those Linden blossoms when it's flower time in my woods I smell it. Even if I haven't thought about Linden's for weeks, I head right out to those woods and get my Linden blossoms.
Rosemary Gladstar: I love Lindens. One of my favorite. Isn't it good? We have plant allies that seek us, as much as we seek them.
And all of us as children, like who were children, who were allowed to be outside and to play in nature, had plants that just automatically would relate to us. It's, we call that, sometimes it's considered like shamanic or whatever, but it's just normal. It's the same when people go into their garden. There's certain plants that just speak to them, call them or or elicit an excitement in them, and definitely that happens is children, but what hap all children. Have that ability to communicate with other species. [00:18:00] But what happens as children, it's never encouraged, often discouraged.
So children at a very young age learn not to share it, and then they move on and forget it. And, the only difference with me is when I grew up on a dairy farm in Northern California. With, and all farmers just work endlessly. You're, the children are just out being little wild creatures, from the land and the animals and, the way we should be. And there was nobody ever to discourage me from that. In fact, my grandmother, who was one of my earliest teachers of plant, of herbalism, she loved the plants and she was a mentor for me and it wasn't like she encouraged me to talk to the plants or anything, she encouraged that relationship that I had with the plant.
So I just, I never, I was so fortunate that I was never told that I shouldn't be doing this. You know what, if that kind of energy is cultivated at a young age it becomes a really powerful force in our life. We feel connected to something ancient and nourishing and healing. And yeah.
Ana Skemp: If you have that [00:19:00] respect for plants, that would hopefully translate to ecosystems and everything else that's.
That we need kids to be aware of and recognize and feel called to. Amen.
Rosemary Gladstar: Yeah. It definitely connects us to that because the plants just, they attract us by their beauty or their scent, or oh, look at this beautiful flower. And then as you look, you're pulled down into the structure and then that pulls us into the earth.
And then when we start to work with, maybe discover the uses of the plant, that also connects us to this greater. Yeah, there's just greater cosmos. So the plants do that. That's one of the beautiful things about studying plants. Even with people who have very left brain, very scientific.
When they start to come into the world of plants, it's almost like the herbs just wrap themselves around them and go, okay, you ready for the rabbit hole? It's down you go and up you go. It's pretty amazing. Isn't.
Ana Skemp: Let's talk maybe a little bit about sustainable harvesting, because I know this is something that's really important to the readers of Mother [00:20:00] Earth News.
So you can purchase plants, of course, and a lot of us are drawn outside to harvest plants. How, if we are using wild harvested plants, how can we make sure that we're not taking away from wildlife, from bees, from whatever else that also needs these sources? And how can we make sure we're not taking more than we should for the ecosystems.
Balancing Field Collecting and Conserving Ecosystems
Rosemary Gladstar: Yeah. It's a really huge issue and I'm thank you, Ana, for bringing it up. We used to have a little kind of guidelines for how to harvest, like you could take 10% of this and always make sure that when you harvest, it doesn't look like you've been there and leave enough for the person behind you and all of those, and leave.
Give thanks, you that could be in any way plant seeds, bring water, say a prayer, just any kind of gratitude that. That so you could open up your being when you were doing this. But really I have to say, I don't think those guidelines are enough anymore because we've been so successful at breeding herbalism back to the American public and really in the world we see this [00:21:00] happening everywhere.
So even if we are harvesting really consciously, there's always another army behind us, right? There's just not enough plants in the wild. And I wanna clarify that with the difference that we would need to look at is both between the native species and the weedy species because weedy species are very vigorous and they're designed to come into disturbed areas and they oftentimes will seed rapidly and grow quickly and will oftentimes, sometimes even push out native species.
They have a really powerful purpose. I call them the healer plants, right? Because they often are coming in healing the soil, reestablishing communities, and then other plants, some of the less rigorous plants that can then come in. And start to grow. And that process can take a long time. But our native species, those ones that are native to specific areas, generally have much slower ways of reproducing.
They're much more particular about who's going to pollinate them. They're very habitat specific. And it doesn't matter how conscious [00:22:00] we are as harvesters if these plants are in demand. I'm thinking of plants like black cohosh and blue cohosh and golden seal and ginseng. Blood root, white sage, there's a large group of plants today. So even if we are really conscious we can make an impact, that means that those plants are not going to be here for generations. There are very conscious wild crafters. That's the term that we call people, go out, myself included, who you know, really ensure like by their planting methods that they're watching over.
They're plots of land, so there's no judgment on who's doing it, but I just think it needs to be called into question that because of the demand for wild plants these days, the huge demand, like the marketplace has just grown so rapidly over the last 30 or 40 years that we, that each one of us need to be conscious, especially when we're harvesting plants that are native or at risk or to watch.
There's United Plant Savers is the organization that we created. That is an umbrella for watching [00:23:00] over our plants that are sensitive in their native environments. And, the whole project is about ensuring that these plants are here not just for future generations of plant lovers and herbalists, but also for the earth itself.
And I would refer a book that a good friend of mine, Anne Rech, who's with the Sustainable Herb Project, wrote, Following the Herbal Harvest.
It's published by Chelsea Green, but it's a really excellent reference book for anybody who's thinking about starting an herb business or is interested in growing plants 'cause it really it really is looking at these issues from a very deep, thoughtful manner. So as far as harvesting weedy species like our dandelions and our burdocks and lambs quarter and chickweed, and these plants that just come up in abundance around humans, right?
They love the disturbance that we make, and so we find them in our habitats. So at this point in time, those plants are here. They like they wanna be used. There are everyday medicine plants. Some of our best medicines are those weedy species. [00:24:00] So I would say that so long as we're harvesting them consciously and thoughtfully with gratitude and grace, then there's no problem.
But all of our native species, we have to be incredibly thoughtful about thinking that we can just go out and harvest them without thinking of these bigger issues. That's my take on it.
Restoration Work for Native Plants and Herbs
Ana Skemp: Yeah. Are there good restoration efforts? Going on for some of the native plants or if they're landowners, is there a good list of things that you could be planting again in your woods and tending and bringing back?
Rosemary Gladstar: Yeah, there's a lot of work done that United Plant Savers has been working on this issue for over 30 years now. In fact, this, I think this year or last year, we celebrated our 30th anniversary and they have all kinds of free resources on their website. So you can look at the list of plants that have been identified in the North American continent.
That have, that are considered to be very sensitive to their environment. They're classified both as at risk, like [00:25:00] these should not be harvested right now, and ones that we need to watch. And then there's a wonderful project we started also, right when we first started United Plant Savers called the the United Plant Savers Botanical Sanctuary Project.
I think we have three or 400 members across the United States that have turned their backyards farms fields into sanctuaries for the wild plants, which of course when you start planting wild plants in your backyard, even in city backyards, all the native species start to come. So you get native pollinators and you get more bees and butterflies, like your backyard becomes the in place to be.
How to Source Herbs Sustainably
Ana Skemp: So if you aren't harvesting. Are there safe, reliable, the large wholesalers of these plants, how do you know if they're providing sustainably harvested or sustainably re produced products?
Rosemary Gladstar: I would say that it's a lot like when you're shopping for food, right? You go to your local farmer's market as often as you can.
You try to skip the really big industry [00:26:00] because even when they're trying to grow organically, that food is still being shipped from. Really far away. Like it could be coming from Mexico, maybe not right now the way that politics are, unfortunately, and I'm not saying anything's bad with the food in Mexico or Canada or Europe, but it's like our food grown in our own backyard by your local farmer is there's just not gonna be anything better.
And you have a connection with the food and you actually can see how the cattle and the sheep and the corn are raised. So it's a very same thing with herbs. There's a lot of organic farmers in the United States. That are working really hard to supply high quality organic plants. And in that process, not only take care of their communities and their neighborhoods, but also the earth itself by, implementing really good soil management techniques.
So when you can buy, you buy from your local farmer, your local growers, go to the farmer's markets and go to your local herb store and ask them where are they getting their herbs from? And we do have larger, really good, [00:27:00] larger companies that. Are really trying to do good things as well, but you never get better quality than when you either grow it yourself in your backyard or you're buying it from a local grower or a farmer.
That's, main intent is to take care of the land and provide really good plants for people.
Ana Skemp: Yeah. When we started bringing we did farmer's markets and we just started bringing vegetables and fruits and such, like the regular things. And we started experimenting, bringing some of the more medicinal herbs in and having conversations with people about how to use them. And I was blown away about how much interest there was in it. I didn't expect that people were so excited and we're so interested in learning.
Rosemary Gladstar: So yeah, there's a really big interest, I, in my own lifetime, from my herb store, I think in 1972 in a little community in Northern California.
And from the morning moment I opened that herb store, I always say it was packed from the day I opened it, but it's not the size of a closet, right? The first incarnation of the store. [00:28:00] But there was so much interest, at that time because there had been such a disconnect for so long.
Really not so long 30, 40 years, really not even quite that long, but people have such a need to connect with their roots. And how do you do that? You do it best through plants. They connect us right down to our roots in the best of ways.
Rosemary Gladstar's Favorite Plant?
Ana Skemp: I'm curious, Rosemary, if you have a favorite plant, is that even possible?
Rosemary Gladstar: Yeah. It's like asking who's your favorite child or who's my favorite? But so I do have favorite plants for sure, and it, and they change with the seasons and the tides but nettle is one of my all time favorites and it's so exciting to see nettle like, become as popular as it has because when I was a kid growing up on our dairy farm. Nettle was just despised, it was like, you got bad, it took over, and then you get bad welts from it when you fell in the pot pile. I really grew up to just love [00:29:00] nettle. I love the way it tastes. I love the soup, I love making nettle, spanakopita and nettle soup and all the good things.
It's just such a luscious, rich, nourishing green, and then it's also such an amazing medicine, really. A very strong medicine for the body, but also can be just eaten as a food. So I love those crossover plants that do that.
And I love its personality too, so it's like very giving, very nurturing, very healing.
But then if you treat it wrong, it just gives you big welts. It's like always say, it reminds me of woman, you know you just nicely and it's gonna be nice back, but you say the wrong thing, it's gonna spit at you.
Ana Skemp: That's pretty funny how the second you look away or stop giving your full attention to the harvest, that's when you get the, this thing on your hands.
Rosemary Gladstar: Yeah. It's so true. Yeah, it's really true.
Ana Skemp: I should mention, we also include Rosemary's recipe for nettle soup in the April may issue of the great the magazine. So the herbal remedies, but also the food is medicine with the nettle soup, and that's such a wonderful way to prepare nettles. Very kid friendly. [00:30:00] Everyone friendly.
Rosemary Gladstar: Yeah. I love what David Hoffman says. He, David is a very very well known herbalist who's written, he's a clinical herbalist who's written a lot of books a lot of medical herbalism. One day at one of the conferences, I remember he was giving a very erudite lecture on the chemical constituents and counter indications and toxicity of plants.
And, it was very heady. And at the very end, he leans into the podium. It's quiet for just a half a second or a second. Then he goes, when in doubt use nettle. I needed to make a bumper sticker with that. That's good. Yeah.
Interconection Between Humans And Plants
Josh Wilder: Thanks so much for being here, Rosemary, I just had a couple of questions I wanted to. Add. So in your newest book, the Generosity of Plants, you talked about this a little bit today, is like the interconnectedness between humans and plants and like you said, plant allies that relate to us.
[00:31:00] And you both talked about some of your favorites, obviously Linden and nettles but when you teach, how do you utilize that interconnectedness? Is it about helping people relate through their favorite plants? Is it just the realization of that interconnectedness, or how does that relate to your teaching?
Rosemary Gladstar: I always think my job as a teacher is to distract the person's mind so that the information is sinking deep and it's like I want my teaching to be like a key into their own ancestral knowledge. So when I see that happen, which I have many times in my lifetime, I know that I've been very successful.
Like people I know it, it works when people come up and say, thank you so much for saying this thing, and they'll tell me this incredible thing that I said, which I never really said, but I know they're just hearing what they need [00:32:00] to hear, right? And so that's a lot of it. It's like just helping people move away from all their barriers of thinking, I can't really learn this.
It's too complicated. It doesn't work. Is it say, it's just moving all that away so that this ancient wisdom that's in us is allowed to come forth. And, that's our best teaching guide when we always say, when we were younger, they used to say, we wear the voices. Don't listen to the voices in your head.
But I always think, Ooh, those voices are usually very wise. You might wanna learn to listen to those voices, those inner I think, I always think of 'em as their ancestors. That's what I call 'em. But it's just, that inner place of knowing that we have our own intuition. Yeah. I don't know if I'm answering that, Josh for you.
No,
Josh Wilder: Yeah, absolutely. , The new book speaks to that 'cause it is ruminations almost. Yeah. Plants and I see poetry as a type of prayer and kind of the art of bigger contexts of systems and in that idea of exploring [00:33:00] plants as teachers.
And so in that way, is there a moment that you can think of where maybe you stumbled across something profound and learned something like that from a plant?
Rosemary Gladstar: Oh, I remember the very first time it ever happened to me, and it was actually, it was when I was in my early twenties and I was working at my herb store and I had this feeling of just terrible grief and loss and something had happened. Maybe somebody had come in who had some sort sad story. Oddly enough, I can't remember what the incident was, but I went out, there was a field not so far away, like 10 minutes away from the herb store, and I walked out to the field, and I just laid down in the field to cry, right? And I was laying there crying and I just felt so comforted and I opened my eyes and I was surrounded in a field of self-heal (Prunella vulgaris). This little mint right there wasn't unusual to find it. You see it oftentimes in fields and yards, but there I was surrounded by this self-heal, and I [00:34:00] felt instantly this connection with that plant and that plant.
From that time on has always been one of my main plant allies. Prunella, it's showed up for me in times in my life when I've really needed it. It's physically as well, not just on a, emotional level, but physically I tell this story 'cause it's so fascinating, but when I was in my late twenties, I was doing an herb walk with a large group of people and we'd finished the walk and we were walking back on this dirt road and, we were just talking and everything and then all of a sudden I felt this pool to look at this plant. It was in the ditch and I leaned down. I walked out of the main road and was leaning down, crouching over. It was self-heal and at that instant, a young boy who he was 16, he didn't even have his license.
He was borrowed a Harley Davidson and he came driving around that corner and slid outta control and he landed on me. But because I was crouched over. I didn't get hit in my torso. I was hit in my legs. I was [00:35:00] hit injured, and I was injured very badly, but I still lived. And I always think, it was that self-heal at that last second called me, or, some people would say it was God or Great Spirit.
They say always look to the creator and not to the message. But for me, the plants are all part of, the great spirit, the great connection. With life and and that's how spirit always talks to me is through those plants. So I, yeah, I would say yes. I've had those experiences often in my life and they're not, they're not like just reserved for people, who study plants.
You, you just go out and start conversing with the plants, right? They almost always converse back, just, you have to listen and they don't converse back in a language, it's not like they know English. But it's a feeling like when farmers go out, you go out to your harvest and the plants, you're looking, yes, you're seeing this plant needs to be harvested and all of a sudden over here, you need to harvest this.
And there's a communication going on in there, you know about which [00:36:00] plants to pick and which ones to leave. And the more we practice that, the better we get at hearing and the better we get at receiving. So yeah. And that's the fear that Ana, you were talking about, that the fear that we have that we'll lose that if we don't.
Aren't constantly interacting with nature. Yeah.
Ana Skemp: We have to be still enough and quiet enough and away from our screens enough to be there and receive that knowledge. Yeah. So true.
Rosemary Gladstar: So well said. Yeah. I had so much fun putting this book together. Actually, it's the only book I could say that I actually the first book I ever wrote, the Herbal Healing for Women was a great joy.
Most of them have been tedious work to sit and type away and do all these formulas and make sure the formulas are right and all of that. But with this plan, this book, the Generosity of Plants, it was a creative process for me, and it was, I just, I've been a collector of quotes forever, and have always used them like in schedules and letters and things, but.
Some of 'em were so beautiful. [00:37:00] They're botanical musings. I call 'em, reflections and they just, some of them can take you really deep and just in one sentence or two sentences, there can be this just profound kind of wisdom. So it was so fun. And what was really fun about is my publisher story publication really got into this and they just, they poured their hearts into it.
They created just a beautiful visual for each of the quotes. It's, I think a very lovely book that's honoring the wisdom of the, it's
Ana Skemp: a super beautiful book. I have. Here we go. I have I've been reading it with my kids before bed and they love it too. Oh, that's
Rosemary Gladstar: That's very nice. Means so much to me, Ana.
Thank you. That's very touching. 'cause you never know how a book is gonna be received by the world. But this one I'm very fond of. And I'm hoping it'll be received really well. It's special.
Ana Skemp: Yeah.
Josh Wilder: Yeah. I agree. The illustrations are beautiful inside and it, or I think it really, brings out the beauty of the plants.
Like I had mentioned before, it just gives a different perspective [00:38:00] on things and talk about it through poetry or quotes or you have a couple recipes in there, but really only as more of as a tool for storytelling than anything. And yeah I think it talks to that, yeah connection with the plants and, even if you're on a nature walk, and coming across these things and. Making them part of your life. It's, it can be as simple as that. I'm, I, you talked about nettles being a nuisance. I remember dandelions growing up in Indiana, just being, I used them as like a crayon on the sidewalk because they're so numerous you could spend one, just writing your name and there are, dozens more after that.
Rosemary Gladstar: That's beautiful. I love that. I know that's something I've never thought of doing with anybody. That's pretty nice. When, one of the things, when I moved from Northern California to Vermont, it's been like a little over 35 years ago now, and that was one of the things I couldn't not believe here, that, every Vermont is so known for the autumn, [00:39:00] right in the beautiful colors, but there's actually spring when the dandelions come out. I think every bit rivals the fall because there are more dandelions that grow in Vermont than anywhere I've seen on this planet. It's like remarkable. Like all the farmer's fields are just carpets of yellow and gold. It's so beautiful. I don't know how the farmers feel about it, but
Ana Skemp: The herbalists all love it. We're about to send our oldest to to college in Vermont. It makes me feel better to know you're there.
Josh Wilder: That's great. Looking back, I, like I said in the intro, you've been teaching for 50 years and, United Plant Savers has been around for 30 years.
I know this is a big looking back on all of that, and what do you hope if there were gonna take something simple away from all of what you've shared. And apply in their daily lives. What would you hope that would be?
Rosemary Gladstar: I think what my hope is, and really what I've dedicated my life to is that everybody rediscover the magic of [00:40:00] herbs.
The healing power of plants and that it's something that our ancestors been doing forever, and we can do it. It's so important to do, and it's very fun. Really. It's fun and easy. It's so fun to be in your kitchen. Ana knows this, making your first salve and going, oh my goodness, it turned out perfect the first time.
Or going out in your garden to weed and yes, you may have to weed out the lambs quarter and the chickweed and the the amaranth, right? But you don't have to throw 'em on the compost. A lot of them could come in the house with the cook, with your vegetables, because they're actually more nourishing.
There's more vitamins and minerals in those weedy plants, then there isn't a lot of the food that we're growing. So for people to discover that, it's oh yeah, I can pull it out because it's too vigorous, but also it's useful. There's a place for it. It's here on this planet for a reason.
And it just starts to connect us in so many ways. It's not difficult, of course, if you wanna be, go on to be a professional herbalist and a clinical herbalist, you have to study a lot. But just to be a home herbalist, you start with a few simple [00:41:00] plants. Ones that are safe, you start using them for colds and flus and your digestive upsets or children's issues, and you begin to see, like what Ana said in the very beginning, it's oh my goodness, this really worked.
It worked better than the pharmaceuticals. And yeah, of course it does. Often that's why it's been around for literally centuries, and we say even though there are times when we wonder how intelligent human beings are, we're actually have incredible intelligence. And we would've discarded herbalism a long time ago.
If it wasn't effective and didn't work. But the reason that we keep distilling the best of the information and passing it on is because it's a very incredible, invaluable health system. Yeah, so I just, it's a long takeaway, but breathe the herbs into your heart and your home and start using them.
That's why they're growing here for us, yeah.
Josh Wilder: That's great. Thanks. It can be as sim as simple as just bringing something into your home, whether or not you do anything with it, just add some herbs to your flower arrangement.
Rosemary Gladstar: Josh, that's [00:42:00] incredible is I always say to people, many people are practicing herbalists without even knowing it because they open up their spice jar and some of the most valuable, they're spice in urban spice cabinet, and they're, some of our most valuable medicinal plants are in there. Every single plant that we use for cooking was originally a very strong medicine. And the only difference between it being a spice, a seasoning and a medicine is dosage, like dosage in preparation.
If you sprinkle a little rosemary on your chicken, then it's a seasoning, but you make a nice cup of rosemary tea or you make a. A tincture of rosemary, then it's a brain tonic. It's one of the herbs that has been researched as well as empirical knowledge that is actually crosses the brain blood barrier and helps with memory loss, or, I would say helps with memory, period.
So that so even that simple, just studying the medicinal uses of all of the plants in your spice cabinet and your urban spice cabinet, you're gonna go, wow. This is a good place to [00:43:00] start.
The Future of Herbalism
Josh Wilder: For sure. So I guess my last question would just be, talking about the history and what you had said about the changes after World War II and what you've seen during your career.
Where do you see. The next 50 years. If you had to we'll say what? Yeah. What if you had it your way?
Rosemary Gladstar: Oh yeah. If I had it my way, that's really different. And I was laughing more at the next 50 years. I don't think I'm gonna get to see the next 50 years. I'm already in my late seventies.
I'd be lucky if I get a few more. But yeah, I think, I do think that there's just an incredible wave of young herbalists. Coming into the scene and they're just so creative. It's amazing to me like what they're producing and not just producing, their love of the earth and the changes that they want.
So it seems to me really positive. But the things that I'm most worried about, we had talked about earlier, is just supply. Like we have to be, all of us have to be acutely [00:44:00] aware that it's not like we were taught, that there's endless supplies of everything there are, if we manage and take care of it.
If we make the earth as important or more important than just the our human lives, right? Because this is the earth is what everything depends on, not just humans. And we can't function without our communities of other living beings. So that is big thing I worry about is like along with people realizing they could start businesses and earn livelihoods and go into practice and how wonderful the herbs work for health and wellbeing and all the products that are being made.
That even more important, all that is just that conscious intention of where are these plants coming from and how are we restoring, the conservation and preservation is, to me, the most important issue. I feel like the reason that we're being called into this and massive numbers of people is not just for what the plants do for us, but it's more because the plants really need us to pay attention and what we can do for them [00:45:00] and the planet Earth.
So I, I feel like if we don't do that on all many levels, plants are just one level of course, that we'll be facing some other much more dangerous task ahead. So I'd like to think that we can take our love of plants and turn it towards a love of the earth. And with that our willingness to be good warriors and lovers of the earth and do our part in keeping this healthy for.
The future generations of all living beings actually. So I don't know if that answers your question, but that's what babbled out of me.
Josh Wilder: That's great. I appreciate that.
Rosemary Gladstar: Yeah,
Josh Wilder: appreciate that. Thanks so much. I appreciate your time
Rosemary Gladstar: and thank you,
Josh Wilder: It was lovely speaking with you today.
Ana Skemp: It was so fun. Rosemary, thank you for your time.
Rosemary Gladstar: Thank you Ana. And thank you for your good words and your good work. You're doing really good work. Working with those children is just awesome. In fact, that's one of the things I'm so proud about with [00:46:00] Sage Mountain, which was the herbal retreat center in Botanical Sanctuary.
I lived in Vermont for almost 30 years. We just moved, downsized, but the young woman who took over stewardship, she's teaching primarily underserved children. They've created this year-round camp there and they bring they go and pick the children up after school and bring 'em out there and they're just, introducing them to the earth and herbs and they do the same thing, no devices.
And they had the same reaction. Like at first the kids were like, what? But then they forget about it and they're just so happy. It's really, I just feel so glad to see that legacy grow and it's changing, but it's changing in a really good way. Could you share the name of that one more time?
Rosemary? Yeah. It's Sage Mountain Botanical Sanctuary Herbal Retreats Center. Botanical Sanctuary. Emily Ruff is the young woman who has, is a steward there and has redirected it to focus. They still do herbal classes for adults, but their real focus is with the children and primarily, as I said, it's working with any child, but they [00:47:00] really focus on children that don't have the means to go to camps and come out there and stuff.
So they. Yeah, it's been going on for about, I think they're on their fourth year now. It's pretty awesome. Even in the depth of winter here, so like Winters in Vermont, they have a little Mongolian yurt that was donated. Got a wood stove, but they still have the children outdoors, building ice caves and going out on the pond and ice fishing.
So they keep the kids outdoors even during the winter time, which is remarkable important work. Yeah. And they love it. They completely love it. They're just, there's lots of great photos. You, if you go on, fine, you just look it up and you'll see it. Yeah. Thank you so much, both of you and for your good work.
Ana Skemp: Take care.
Josh Wilder: Thanks for joining us for this episode of Mother Earth News and Friends. To listen to more podcasts and get connected on our social media, visit www.motherearthnews.com/podcast. You can also email us at podcast@ogdenpubs.com with any questions [00:48:00] or suggestions. Our podcast production team includes Kenny Coogan, Alyssa Warner, and myself, Josh Wilder.