Chapter Eight: England
Europe – Travels and Adventures through the Amazing World of Medicinal Plants
By Geoff D’Arcy, Lic. Ac. DOM.
I grew up in the West Country of England. From twelve years old, I was irresistibly drawn to Japanese arts, an uncommon journey, in a working-class area of Bristol. It led me to Japan, and rebounded me back to England, to formally begin to my life’s path as a healer. Having studied and graduated twenty years ago and left the green shores of England, my interest these days draws me back, back to the history and magic of medicinal plants with which my birthplace is so richly endowed.
Ironically, my path as a healer started because of my study of martial arts. I was drawn to Japanese martial arts from the moment I heard about the ancient “warrior priests”, it was a magnetic attraction . I began practicing Karate, Kenpo, Iaido (sword kata), Aikido, and studying related practices such as Teso (Japanese palm reading,) Shiatsu (massage of acu-points), and meditation. When our teachers pushed us too far, or we ‘took a knock’, we were instructed to make our own simple herbal remedies, such as Tiger Balm liniment. (I made my first batch of tiger balm liniment, so strong, that by the time my students wanted to buy some, it had burned right through the cardboard container!)
At the age of 17, I started my own Karate dojo, officially sanctioned by my teacher. One year later, after an intensive, two-day long examination and submitting a written thesis, I achieved a black belt. I was the youngest in the UK at the time. It was such an enriching growth experience that by 19 years old I had been exposed to Japanese culture and thought, Tibetan and Zen Buddhist meditation and philosophy, and had traveled to America and Israel, all from my involvement and dedication to martial arts.
I was infatuated with martial arts from the ages of 13 to 22 spending more and more time at the dojo, I was barely able to participate in the conventional pastimes of an English teenager, such as soccer, rugby and cricket. At twenty-one years old, I was invited to live at the Oki Yoga Dojo in Mishima, Japan by Master Oki in return for teaching Karate. While I was making preparations to leave my job and go off on the biggest adventure of my young life, my world was shaken. Looking back it was this ‘catastrophic event’ that really set ‘my path’ before I knew it and even before I headed for Japan. My Father died suddenly of a massive, unexpected heart attack, in my arms, in the middle of CPR, in the middle of his ‘death rattle’ belch into my mouth, he passed, and was gone. I knew he was dead and gone forever, even when the rest of my family could imagine him walking-in at any moment for years to come. I knew he was gone, as I watched his lifeless body for an hour afterwards, trying to comprehend the incomprehensible sudden death of a loved one. Then there was the inconsolable suffering that death brings to those loved ones left behind, such as my mother, numbed just trying to comprehend it, trying to understand our own mortality through theirs. When I learned that his heart attack, like many other illnesses, like many deaths were preventable. I wanted to help prevent the needless suffering, I was called to healing. Looking back at this young man who is me, from this point in my life, I can see, that this was the defining moment, that my path was set as a healer.
My family, myself and most of all, my mother, were devastated. My plans were immediately put on hold for a year. During this year, questions of my father’s death were deepening within my psyche. How could a healthy 49-year-old man die suddenly without warning? Why was conventional medicine unable to diagnose heart attacks? What was the definition of health? It was clear to me that it was not an absence of symptoms! This led me to questions about diet and what constituted a healthy diet, and, how can we protect ourselves? I came to realize that there was so much we could do to help ourselves, through diet, herbs, complementary medicine and exercise. To call this information on ‘wellness’ to us, seemed to me to be ‘against the flow’ of our society’s promotion and advertising of unhealthy practices. (junk food, disease causing farming practices, no pharmaceutical alternatives, sedentary lifestyle). I realized then, that the “disease centered model” of our society, and our conventional medicine, was far too focused on symptoms and symptomatic relief through pharmaceuticals and surgery rather than focused on prevention and cultivating health achieving well-being! As this realization was surfacing to my consciousness, it was motivating and driving my interest, in what defined health. My questions centered around how good health can be cultivated and how we can help others heal themselves before a crisis. I was not interested in studying the ‘disease model’ approach with powerful drugs with their unwanted side effects. I could see there was a place for ‘acute crises management’ or ‘life-threatening’ disease; yet, because I was more interested in creating sustainable effects that work with and cultivate the body’s own ecology, that take into account emotional, mental and physical imbalances that underlie chronic degenerative disease, I had no doubt the study of ‘natural healing’ and wellness would be my path (even if at that point in time I didn’t quite know it yet!). It would take many years of study, but slowly my interest would return to the rich history and experience of the herbal medicine of my birthplace.
European and British Herbal History
In Europe, ever since the Roman Empire, herbal medicine has had its roots in two main sources: local, indigenous, pre-Roman (and often prehistoric) traditions, and the Greek medical tradition brought by Romans in their colonization of the continent. In Great Britain, the pre-Roman herbal medicine was from the Druidic tradition.
The Druidic Tradition and the Myddfai
Evidence of herbal medicine among the Druids, the mystical priests of the Celts of Britain and Gaul, has been found in Stone Age burial sites. Not much is known about this secret order of Priest-craft. The term 'druid' means 'knowing the oak tree' in Gaelic; the oak tree was sacred to the Celts. The Romans tell us that the Druids were magicians, of a Harry Potter or a Merlinesque stature. Like most ancient civilizations, every household knew their plant lore and knew of many plant remedies for everyday illnesses. The tribal shaman or the ‘Ovates’ were the healers of the Celts. They held special knowledge about plants and treated villagers for more serious illnesses. They treated illness spiritually as well as physically. Most of their plant knowledge was passed on to carefully chosen individuals in an era of oral tradition. The Celts had their own medicinal traditions usually carried out by the Druid priests for about 1,000 years BC.
In Wales, there was a group known as the Myddfai – traditional healers of doctoring families who passed on their knowledge down the generations. The physicians of Myddfai drew upon a Materia medica of around 175 locally grown herbs. Their methods were very simple, just single herbs or combinations of two or three different varieties. According to legend, these Physicians were the descendants of the ‘Lady of the Lake,’ a beautiful fairy who arose from the depths Llyn y Fan Fach, married a local shepherd boy, and set up home on a farm near Myddfai. A story of love, magic and broken promises, it is one of the best-known folk tales in Wales.
This is legend of a farmer who fell for a beautiful ‘fairy woman’ living in a lake. The farmer against the odds successfully wooed her and she agreed to marry him. But she warned that if he were to strike her three times, she would return to her watery home forever. The lovesick farmer instantly agreed. The two were married and the bride brought with her a dowry of magical cattle.
All went well until the Christening of their first son. Several times they set off to attend the ceremony and several times the Lady insisted on returning home to collect something she had forgotten. Eventually, her exasperated loving farmer patted her on the back, urging her to depart for the ceremony. The woman told him that the gesture was the "first strike." She explained that she had been waiting for the sky to cloud over because of a premonition that their baby would die if she took him out in full sun that day. Their relationship recovered, flourished, and our couple had their second boy.
A problem emerged, however, at the wedding of the farmer’s cousin. During the ceremony, the ‘lady of the lake’ began to weep. Unknown to her husband, she had had another premonition. She had foreseen the death of the bride. Embarrassed and anxious that his wife's tears should not stop the service, he tapped her arm – realizing a heart-beat too late that he had now struck her twice.
Our couple of legend went on to have a third son, but the woman's tragic and magical premonition about the bride proved accurate, and worse was to come. The dead woman's husband also died. At his funeral, our ‘the lady of the lake’ began laughing uncontrollably. She had, through her psychic powers, seen that her husband's cousin was in a better place, smiling down happily on the gloomy funeral. Her husband the farmer was so outraged by her reaction, that he slapped her softly on the cheek to bring her to her senses. Dumbstruck and sickened, he realized too late that he had sentenced himself to the exile of his heart’s beloved. He had now struck her three times -- and he had “struck out.” His beautiful fairy wife left him. Losing his mind with grief, he pursued her, but his search was fruitless. She had returned to the lake, and she was lost to him forever.
The Lady of the Lake only appeared again for the benefit of her sons. She instructed her three sons in the Druid ‘Ovate’ arts of healing and medicine and showed them where to collect the herbs, which, then as now, grew in abundance in the area. And so began the lineage of the physicians of Myddfai, shrouded in Druid and Celtic magic. The eldest son of the Lady, Rhiwallon, was recorded as the personal physician of Rhys Gryg (warrior son of the Welsh Prince Rhys ap Gruffydd) who was the Lord of Dynevor and Ystrad Towy. Rhiwallon was assisted by his three sons, Cadwgan, Gruffydd and Einion and they and their descendants were famed for their skill as herbalists. The reputation and fame of the herbal Physicians spread throughout Europe over the centuries.
Their collective wisdom is contained in a thirteenth-century document called "The Red Book of Hergest," which is now held in the British Museum. The legacy of their knowledge continues today, and the National Botanic Garden in Carmarthenshire is now growing and developing herbs used by these legendary herbalists. Legend has it that the Lady of the Lake told her sons that for many, many generations their descendants would be among the best physicians in the country. In fact, this family continued to practice medicine without a break right up until the middle of the 18th century. The last physician Rice Williams died in 1842.
My own meeting with an old mystical, Welsh woman?
I remember my own meeting many years ago, with an old mystical Welsh woman. To this day, there is a belief throughout the British Isles, that Celts are attributed with more –than-their-fair-share of Mystics. I was visiting my friend’s house, who lived in a poor mining village in Wales. We were leaving, on our journey together to Japan. His Mother was such a mystic, and she was well respected and revered by the community for her Psychic abilities that would come to her when she would ‘read the tea leaves’. She called me in to her living room, it was dark and murky and I could barely see across the room in the half-light, to where this white haired, wizened old lady sat. She was a kindly, easily approachable old woman, hunched over by arthritis. I sat down quietly, apprehensively as I remembered the many tales my friend had told me, about his Mother’s reputation for reading peoples futures accurately. I started to get nervous. We drank a cup of tea together, I looked up and met her odd gaze, she was looking at me over her tea, gray face, gray hair and gray eyes and piercing into me, with a kind and benevolent knowingness. We finished and then she took my empty teacup and started to look into the dregs at the bottom of the cup, quite intensely. “You will meet your wife” she began and immediately I was startled, I didn’t want to meet a wife any time soon..” You will meet your very beautiful wife, in a building that bends in the middle, you will work together, yet when you first meet and become friends you will not know that you will work together. I see she has will have different colored hair, than those around her. Maybe she is blonde” Well to be honest I was not the type that was susceptible to suggestion or easily fooled, yet I was a little bit spooked! There was something about her far-away glazed-over look that sent shivers down my spine and the fact that registered in me was how sincere she was, just something about her energy, tand didn’t know what she saw, but I filed it away in my mind. Within a year in a half I had forgotten, I found myself moving after a year at the Oki Yoga Dojo Mishima, to a small dojo in Shimokitazawa to make a life in Tokyo and continue my studies into the healing arts. I was teaching a small Yoga class of foreigners to pay my keep, and after the class we would hang-out and chat, I had started to have fun and make friends, when I was offered a job teaching English, I gratefully accepted as I was running short of money, and I planned to start in a month. The next couple of weeks my boss-to-be would hang-out after and then one time she introduced me to Roberta ”Geoff do you know Roberta?” “Oh yes we are friends” I replied “we’ve enjoyed each others company, many times after other classes” “Well”, my–boss-to-be said, “then you’ll be pleased to know that you two will be working together next month” I had a strange sensation well-up inside me fear or apprehension, I wasn’t sure, and then in a flood the strange premonition came to my mind, and I was scared.
YET no building! Two or three months went by, and I was enjoying work in down town Tokyo, at the Executive training English School, on the 13th floor of the 26 floored Kasumigaseki building. One day there was a mild earthquake, which was not uncommon, the first for me in this building, and it was very physically unsettling. The floor moved in one direction and the ceiling in another, I was very unsettling almost to the point of nausea. I asked a colleague “how can the floor go one way and the ceiling another?” and his reply sent chills down my spine. “Well this building is a special earthquake design, it bends in the middle” A BUILDING THAT BENDS IN THE MIDDLE that was the strange premonition!!! The last point of that prediction was not complete; my good friend Roberta was a ‘Red Head’! I learned there was only one word for blonde and redhead in Japanese ( then I recalled her exact words” I see she has will have different colored hair, than those around her. Maybe she is blonde” It seemed the fates were set. Yet this time even though their was a very strong synchronistic connection that happen between us we were clearly ‘on the same wavelength, there wasn’t a physical connection. Yet, the meeting was predicted in the ‘strange premonition’ with uncanny accuracy, by the Celtic mystic, two years before. I believe connections may be predicted; alternate future paths can be present, yet we are in charge of our own fates, and what we choose to do with them is up to us. However, I did meet my very beautiful wife and she is blonde, but it was some twelve years later on another continent.
The Roman Empire
The Druidic medicine in Great Britain, as well as other indigenous traditions throughout Europe, was to mingle eventually with the knowledge brought by Roman armies and settlers. The Romans, in their drive to solidify their empire, exported much of their own culture throughout Europe. This includes their medical system -- botanical medicine as well as surgery -- which they had inherited primarily from the physicians of Ancient Greece. Asclepius (1250 BC) is believed to have been the first scientific herbalist in Western history. A great healer, Greek legend has transformed him into a god. In Greek mythology, Aesculapius was the son of Apollo, the god of healing. His mother, Coronis, a princess of Thessaly, died when he was an infant. Apollo entrusted the child's education to Ciron, a centaur, who taught Aesculapius the healing arts. Aesculapius was skilled in surgery and in the use of medicinal plants. He also was said to have acquired the power to raise the dead. Eventually Zeus, fearing that he might render all men immortal, killed him with a thunderbolt. Hygeia was his daughter and considered the goddess of health and healing. Two of Asclepius’ sons appeared in Homer's Illiad as Greek army physicians. Their descendents were believed to have formed the Asclepiadae, a large hereditary order of priest physicians who kept tight control over the sacred secrets of healing. Asclepius is also the source of the image of the snake that wraps around the caduceus, the symbol of modern medicine. He was traditionally represented holding a staff with his sacred serpent coiled around it, symbolizing renewal of youth (like the serpent casts off its skin).
Hippocrates (460-377 BC), however, remains the best-known herbal practitioner in Western history. He was a member of the family of the Asclepiadae, and was believed to be either the nineteenth or seventeenth in direct descent from Aesculapius. It is also claimed for him that he was descended from Hercules through his mother, Phaenarete. Hippocrates became known as the father of medicine because he was the first to set down a scientific system of medicine (i.e. he cut out all the magic and superstition). As a testament to his strong moral character, physicians must, to this day, swear to abide by the Hippocratic Oath.
In Rome, this Greek tradition persisted, though not always without resistance. The oldest known Roman writings on medicine were written by Pliny (AD 77), who devoted seven volumes of his epic 47 volume work on plants and their medicinal uses. Pliny had a bit of stoic chauvinism regarding the Greeks in general, and their medicine was not spared his bias. Instead of reliance on classically trained Greek physicians, he advocated and ideal of self-sufficiency and self-care. According to Pliny, the doctor came between man's ideal direct relationship with nature, "in which nature gives cheap and simple herbal remedies to those willing to make the effort to find and identify them.” Other Roman physicians, however, were much more receptive to Greek medicine. Galen (AD 131-201), in his teens, became a therapeutes or "attendant" of Asclepius (considered a god at that time), whose sanctuary was an important cultural center for the entire Roman province of Asia. Galen, is best known as having been a gladiator-surgeon and the author of the most difinitve anatomy text up until modern times; he was considered the greatest physician / herbalist since Hippocrates. His medical writings encompass nearly every aspect of medical theory and practice in his era. In addition to summarizing the state of medicine at the height of the Roman Empire, he made his own important advances in anatomy, physiology, and therapeutics. In general, the Roman Empire influenced Europe and the world by introducing formal hospitals. Each Roman legion, numbering from seven to eight thousand men, were divided into ten to twelve cohorts, and to each, Augustus Caesar assigned four doctors with a supervising legionary physician.
The Dark Ages
Ignorance and inertia descended over Europe like a dark cloud, for six centuries after Rome fell, nothing happened - no research, no writing and no progression of ideas or practice. Only the monasteries kept medical and herbal practice alive. Outside the monasteries, ritual, magic and superstition returned. As the Christian Church assumed the power after the Roman Empire was torn apart, it became the locus of medical knowledge. Monks grew extensive herbal medicine gardens and wrote volumes of botanical medicine texts; they traded this accumulated knowledge together with plants among networks of monks and travelers. King Alfred (870 – 899) ordered medical texts to be translated from Latin into English to make them more readily available. The most famous and Europe’s oldest surviving herbals is the Anglo Saxon book “The Bald Book of Leech” (læce in Old English means healer) written in the 10th Century. Bald was a friend of King Alfred, and the text was a compilation of the best of the Roman and Greek literature. The knowledge it displayed of herbs is remarkable. Anglo-Saxon medical practices were holistic, in the sense that it sought to heal both body and spirit. A great deal of this period of herbalism concerns itself with charms and amulets to protect against evil influences, were treated with a combination of practical and magical means. It includes remedies sent by the Patriach of Jerusalem to King Alfred. As Medicals schools began to spread through Europe, with the most famous at Naples and Salerno, Italy instruction fell from the Church’s hands into laymen’s hands. Salerno (10th – 12th centuries) was one of the lay centers that flourished. Neapolitan medicine returned to blossom during the 12th century, under Norman rule. They taught with Hippocratic principles of good diet, exercise, fresh air/nature, yet healing and herbalism was largely still controlled by the Church. Its monasteries grew extensive herb gardens were the guardians of the books and tended the sick and poor as part of the Christian duty. As with many Herbal traditions throughout the world prayer, incantations (mind-body medicine) were fused as part of Herbalism.
The Renaissance, Onward
Paracelus (1493 –1541) believed that medicinal plants grew where they were needed and they were marked in some way that indicated the part of the body on which they would be effective. Like cured like. Paracelus challenged the ancient Greek, and Roman's belief that disease is caused by an imbalance of body humors, more likely known as fluids. He argued that each illness has a specific, external cause. Born Switzerland, he taught at Salerno and shifted established and entrenched ideas of the day. He lectured in German instead of the elitist Latin, and called for physicians to task for their greed, in a time of the patients sickness and need. He taught his students to always be open minded enough to learn experientially through ‘clinical experience’ instead of ‘just academically’ Paraceleus was followed by William Turner (1508 –1568) as a great light of their time. He also taught in English so that common people, apothecaries and “old wives that gather herbes”’ would be able to follow what was meant by the physicians latin names.
During the reign of Henry VIII (1491-1547) The balance of power between established physicians and Herbalists would set the directions of modern medicine and herbalism. In 1523, with an act passed by Henry VIII’s father, the physicians, barber-surgeons and apothecaries used this act to protect their financial interests. First the physicians had authority over barber-surgeons, they in turn were over apothecaries and apothecaries Henry VIII, famous for his wives and taking off the heads of his enemies was also a keen herbalist himself, he was responsible for the famous ‘Herbalist’s Charter’ in 1548. This law legalized a new class of practitioner, the traditional herbalists. This regulatory dance, essentially between business interests of the various medical groups, would play itself out many more times over the centuries. At the time Physicians were educated at universities, and drew their clientele strictly from the upper classes. After 12 years at Cambridge or Oxford Universities studying Astrology, Classical Greek, Latin, reading Galen, Hypocrates etc, they became Doctors that prescribed expensive esoteric compounds imported from a far. The poor called them ‘Talking Doctors’ as they talked a lot and didn’t get results. They considered themselves the elite of the profession and were themselves considered of the ‘Gentleman’s class’. They possessed the right to prosecute unqualified practitioners. Barber-Surgeons were apprenticed, and did not attend universities. They performed crude surgeries operations and dressing wounds. (They threw out barbers from their association in the 17th Century) Apothecaries: also apprenticed. Were responsible to supply, make up, and dispense herbal medicines. Ranking socially among tradesmen. Then there was the ‘Wise Woman’ tradition, where Housewives and Grandmothers and along with common herbalists, they would help people with locally grown herbs, and with knowledge passed down the generations. It was these Common herbalists that were protected by their Herbalist King Henry VIII. He was sensitive to their plight and to the plight of the poor, who were suffering and dieing, unable to afford ‘Gentlemen Talking Doctors’. This charter not only enabled the great number of poor people of this time to obtain the means of relief for their woes but also protected the position of the herbal practitioner. It left for the future 'the cornerstone', which safeguards the practice of herbal healing in the U.K to this day.
In 1597, John Gerard (1545-1612) published his “Herbal or General Historie of Plantes". His style of herbalism was traditional, his practice enhanced with his intimate knowledge of plants as a gardener. Publications of his book became a “must have” for every housewife and Mother to help their families. He had even described the use of scurvy grass as a treatment for scurvy in the 16th century. One Hundred and fifty years before the British navy prescribed a cure for it’s sailors. Gerard was, well travelled, gaining his M.D. degree from a medical school in Italy. He was a surgeon and an accomplished gardener. Gerard started to include some of the herbs in which the world around him had entered trade with. Gerard produced the first description of the potato—one of the most economically significant plants to come from the New World. His descriptions come from Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh. He grew over 1000 plants mostly for seed. He had a lot of practical knowledge from his own experience with the plants. Gerard altered the classification of plants and added a great deal from his observations. In his work he suggests efficacy of herbs to treat not only the body but those of the mind and spirit. This belief is shared by the greatest civilizations of antiquity and the humblest of healers.
Nicolas Culpeper (1616-1654) Was on the path to become a ‘Gentleman Doctor’ studying at university, when he fell head-over-heels in love with a beautiful heiress. Tragedy struck when the heiress, on her way to meet Culpeper, to elope, one stormy night, a cruel twist of fate happened, her carriage was struck by lightening and she was killed. Culpeper was besides himself with grief, devastated and totally reconsidering his life, after an existential crisis that often follows death of a loved one, he left University. He was an educated apothecary, and practiced herbalism tending to the poor of London society. The poor could not afford the high fees and expensive, exotic treatments prescribed by the physicians He could see the value to the poor and working man, of giving them access to knowledge of the medicinal plants, yet it was blocked by the medical ethics and greed of the day, trapped in latin, trapped in the language of the medical elite. It was the custom of the time for official medical knowledge to be printed and discussed only in Latin. In Culpeper’s opinion, this was simply an elitist ploy to keep the knowledge of herbs and healing from the masses And Culpepper was going to something about it. .. . .... He translated the Pharmacopoeia which he retitled ‘A ‘Physicall Directoy.’ Some of this information eventually found its way into his ever popular ‘Culpeper’s Herbal’. He was most loved because he was able to empower common folk with the knowledge of self treatment. There was also some sense, that this would protect the masses from possibly mistreating themselves. In doing so, he had violated a solemn oath of London’s College of Physicians by translating from the Latin
The time between the 14th and 17th centuries, produced a persecution for women healers, great numbers of common peasant, women herbalist, midwives and healers were persecuted and systematically tortured and many executed as ‘witches’ There are believed to have been millions of executions ,of women under accusations by the Church., before and during the ‘Inquisition’ for the practice of herbalism and healing by simple herbalists, this led to the masculinizing of European Medicine.
Some European Herbs
So what herbal remedies have survived this long, tortuous road of herbology in Europe? There are two trees that come to mind to me. Trees occupy a unique place in nature; they are often “keystone” organisms in developing ecosystems In the realm of healing, many have also held quite special places for many European peoples in both their traditional herbal systems as well as their spiritual mythologies. Amazingly, it is estimated that some 65 percent of all medicinal plant species are trees.
Elder (Sambucus niger) is a fragrant, flowering tree, and gets its name form the old English means ‘eldo’ or old age. Older names refer to an ancient vegetation Goddess, Hylde Moer, as she was known in Denmark. Once the Elder-tree was considered sacred to this Goddess. It was commonly believed that Elders if treated well and honored would blessed and protected the people who cared for it. Thus, Elders were often planted around the house and on the farm where they served as a shrine to the Goddess. There was a widespread taboo against cutting Elders down, or burning any of its wood, Its reputation to offer protection against evil spirits was throughout Europe. This well-loved, bushy tree is common all over and most parts of central and southern Europe. In May big umbel-shaped bunches of tiny 5-petaled whitish flowers, exuding a sweet, almost slightly intoxicating smell. By the end of the summer they develop into small purple-black berries. Elder has often been described as the medicine chest of the ‘country people’ and many of its medicinal uses are still widely employed by modern herbalists. Today the flowers are the only part of the Eldertree that is still commonly used in modern herbal medicine. The flowers have a long-standing reputation as a treatment for all kinds of inflammatory and congestive conditions of the respiratory system, especially when these are accompanied by fever. An infusion can be made to treat coughs, colds and flus, asthma and hay fever. The elder was known to the ancients for its medicinal properties, and in England the inner bark was formerly administered as a cathartic. This tree was said to have mystical abilities, and to have such an arboreal on one's property meant good luck. Maybe those who lived in antiquity somehow understood that the tree indeed offers something nearly "magical." Its berries, in particular, have been found to contain compounds that can stop a cold or flu dead in its tracks, an accomplishment that still has not found its way into OTC pharmaceutical products or vaccines. Gypsies, have used the berry from the black elder tree as a popular remedy for flu and colds. Elderberries offer good levels of vitamins A, B and C, and they have long been used as a savory fruit in jams and pies. In the 1980s, virologist Madeline Mumcuoglu, Ph.D., set out to determine by what mechanism elderberry successfully defeats the flu. She found that the action of elderberry extract was to prevent viral hemagglutinin, or the process of the invading cells using their spike-like projections to introduce its enzyme into healthy cell membranes. She further noted that the viral enzyme is also neutralized in the presence of elderberry extract.
The Hawthorn tree (Crataegus oxacantha) is one of the sacred trees of Wicca/Witchcraft and is associated with the spring celebrations. The main spring celebration is that of May Day which honors the sun god Belenus. His festival commenced on the first day the hawthorn blossoms opened. Worldwide there are some 1,000 species of hawthorn In Britain there are two main types known as the English hawthorn and Common hawthorn. The tree will attain a height of 30 feet (9 meters) and lives to a great age sometimes to over 400 years. In Irish folklore the hawthorn, is also sometimes referred to as the fairy bush, and it was considered bad luck to cut it in fear of offending the fairies that inhabit the tree. However, during the May Day celebrations the collecting of the sprigs and flowers was allowed for use in the festivities, after which they were place in the home to banish all evil influences. The Roman goddess Cardea, who presided over marriage and childbirth, was associated with the hawthorn. Hawthorn has been used as a sedative, an anti-spasmodic and a diuretic, and is a natural regulator of arterial blood pressure. It is often used for Coronary heart disease, Congestive heart failure, Angina, Irregular heartbeat, Hypertension, High blood pressure and Atherosclerosis in China, the berries have been used for centuries to relieve ‘food stagnation’ which may manifest as bloating, gas, and indigestion. Hawthorn berries are considered to ‘move blood’. The flavonoids in hawthorn have been shown to work to increase oxygen utilization by the heart. It also increases enzyme metabolism and acts as a mild dilator of the heart muscle. Hawthorn is a peripheral vasodilator. This facilitates lower blood pressure and thus relieves the burden placed on the heart as a pump; when the pipes are opened up, the heart doesn’t have to strain as much. In combination with other herbs, hawthorn is given for cardiac problems such as palpitations, angina, and rapid heartbeat. Components in hawthorn have been shown to lower cholesterol and reduce the amount of plaque in arteries. Rigorous clinical trials have shown improvement in objective signs and subjective symptoms of congestive heart failure when hawthorn is used. The influence of the main flavonoids has been shown to have a positive effect on coronary flow, heart rate, and left ventricular pressure as well as on the velocity of contraction and relaxation. A reduction of triglycerides and cholesterol was also noted.
Some studies suggest that it may take months of use to produce notable results. Hawthorn can interact with the pharmaceutical Lanoxin (digoxin).
In the last few centuries of the last millennium, Europe began to be influenced by other traditions outside its continental borders. This accelerated in the last half of the 20th century, as physicians and researchers began combing the world’s herbal traditions, to better solutions to current health issues. In Germany, this resulted in the publication of the Commission E Monographs, a landmark publication in medicine. It applied modern research principles to the investigation of herbal medicine, gathering and sorting the voluminous data that has emerged over the years. One of the stars of the monograph is another tree, this one not native to Europe, but which has, thanks to European research, found new uses in recent years. An example of the new ‘Modern European School of Herbalism’
Ginkgo (Ginkgo Biloba)
With sales of $310 million in 1998, ginkgo is extremely popular among Americans as a safe way to treat age-associated memory loss. In Germany, where the German Commission E has sanctioned the use of ginkgo for improving memory and concentration, the herb is even more popular, boasting sales of more than $200 million per year in Germany alone. Originally an Asian tree, Ginkgo is in our European section as an example of what I call the ‘Modern Scientific School’ of herbalism. The Germans pioneered the research into ginkgo leaves and extracting Ginkgo-flavon-glycosides and terpene lactones as the most beneficial compounds of the leaves. These major physiological effects are thought to be due to several groups of active chemicals or constituents, specifically, flavonoid-like compounds, such as quercetin, kaempferol and isorhamnetin, and complex molecules called terpenoids, most importantly, ginkgolides A, B, C, J, M and one bilobalide (which are unique to ginkgo). Ginkgo-flavonol glycosides are thought to reduce neurodegenerative damage caused by free radicals. Flavonoids, or bioflavonoids, are a ubiquitous group of polyphenolic substances which are present in most plants (such as ginkgo leaves), concentrating in seeds, fruit skin or peel, bark, and flowers. A great number of plant medicines contain flavonoids, which have been reported by many authors as having antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antiallergic, antimutagenic, antiviral, antineoplastic, anti-thrombotic, and vasodilatory actions. They have demonstrated that in certain situations, standardized extracts are desirable. These compounds stimulate circulation to the brain, supports mental functioning and memory. It has been found to promote cerebral blood flow to increase short term memory, concentration, and protects blood vessels from damage. Ginkgo also has powerful antioxidant and neuroprotective properties that are therapeutic for a variety of conditions: cerebrovascular insufficiency, anxiety, stress, loss of memory & concentration, hearing disorders, impotence & male infertility, circulatory disorders and prevention of early dementia.
Ginkgo is the world's oldest living tree species on earth, a species whose existence can be traced back-over 250 million years! For this reason, the Ginkgo was referred to as a living fossil (1859) by Charles Darwin. The ginkgo tree can grow to 130 feet and some are believed to have lived for as long as 2,000 years. They are exceptionally resistant to pests and to destruction by fire. Ginkgoes have no known insect pests or diseases. The ginkgo has probably out-survived whatever insects or diseases ginkgoes may have suffered from in the past. And since the tree is no longer found in the wild, the animals that planted its seeds are probably gone too. They are extremely tolerant of air pollution and thrive in urban environments; there are reports of ginkgo trees re-sprouting from the blackened remains of Hiroshima. Because of the high concentration of anti-oxidants in the tree, it has a great resistance to the mutagens such as ionizing radiation. After the Hiroshima atomic bomb, in the first spring, one re-growth spouted out: that of an old Ginkgo. The growth was respected and encouraged. The temple-site in Housenbou was smaller after the war and they considered transplanting or cutting down the Ginkgo to rebuild the temple. It was decided to leave it there and adjust the temple to it. Next to the ginkgo, they engraved, "No more Hiroshima."
The Chinese have long used the seed or nut of this ancient tree to treat wheezing and to expel phlegm. In the late 17th century, Engelbert Kaempfer (1651-1716) , a German botanist, became known as the first European to discover and categorize the Ginkgo biloba. He lived in Japan from 1690 till 1692 and described the Ginkgo tree in his book Amoenitatum exoticarum (1712). The leaves were used somewhat, but it was just recently that research has shown the longevity benefits this ancient tree could provide. The Ginkgo nuts are mentioned in Japanese textbooks from 1492 and on as used at tea ceremonies as sweets and dessert. In the Edo-period (1600-1867) common people began to eat them as vegetable and ingredients for pickles. In the 18th century the nuts (called ginnan) became used as a side dish when drinking sake. Today they are used a pot-steamed egg dish or in nabe-ryori (Japanese fondue). In 1932 the Japanese Furukawa isolated the ginkgolides for the first time, which were further investigated for their chemical structure by Nakanishi in 1966. Dr. Willmar Schwabe’s Company produced the first extract from the leaves in 1965. Dr. Elias J. Corey of Harvard University received the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1990 for among others the total synthesis of Ginkgolide B in 1988.
Nowadays Ginkgo is prescribed in Europe and used by many people in the U.S., Canada and other countries for its medicinal abilities. Age-associated memory impairment (AAMI) affects up to 38 percent of individuals 50 and older. Everyday factors often contribute to AAMI, including stress, sleep changes, alcohol, smoking and medications. Keeping the arteries healthy is key, say experts, because clear arteries ensure blood flow to the brain. Another way to reduce AAMI is by supplementing your lifestyle and diet with herbs such as ginkgo. Ginkgo has powerful antioxidant and neuroprotective properties. Speak with your healthcare practitioner if taking coumadin. Stop use before any surgery.
The Community within Eco-Systems
“In communities there are little players and big players, and the biggest players of all are the keystone species. As the name implies, the removal of a keystone species causes a substantial part of the community to change drastically”.
– Edward O. Wilson, ‘The Diversity of life’
In terms of ‘Plant time’ we humans have been around but the blink of an eye. From our narrow time-frame, science has studied plants only in terms of ‘three year grants’ or, at most, the length of scientist’s career. Even the plant we know best have only been studied using modern scientific methods for 200 to 300 years. Taken from the Earth’s perspective, during its four-billion-years of continual evolution, it has developed such subtle communications, and community relationships, such subtleties of language and relationships, that its clear to me that we Humans, have only scratched the surface of understanding Gaia, her language and her communities.
“My elders have said to me that the trees are the teachers of the law. As I grow less ignorant I begin to understand what they mean”
– Brooke Medicine Eagle
Trees such as the Elder or Hawthorn in Europe, or the remarkable Ginkgo tree throughout Asia, have been venerated, worshipped, even planted in places of worship or planted for protection for thousands of years by the folklore populations living around them. It is not unique to these three trees or to those eco-systems within which they grow and cultivate plant communities. In fact, nearly every culture has similar beliefs around certain impressive trees. All races on all continents have picked up the energy patterning, or developed feeling, in their eco-systems, regarding ‘keystone trees’. They are the ‘keystone’ species leading the ecosystem. Where does this feeling of veneration and of leadership come from?
Each plant, plant neighborhood, plant community, ecosystem, and biome has messages flowing through it constantly—trillions and trillions of messages at the same time. The messages are complex communications between all the parts of the ecosystem…Life is so closely coupled with the physical and chemical environment of which it is a part that the two cannot legitimately be viewed in isolation from one another. As James lovelock says (developer of the Gaia theory), ‘Together they constitute a single evolutionary process, which is self-regulating.’--Stephen Harrod Buhner, The Lost Language of Plants In his book, The Lost Language of Plants, Stephen Harrod Buhner develops exciting novel concepts regarding the extent of the interconnectedness of plants and their ecosystems. The tip of the iceberg of such inherent interconnection has been acknowledged for over a century. John Muir remarked in 1911 in My first summer in the Sierra, “when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” The intricacy and subtlety of extended connections among plants in their ecosystems and their various ways of ‘hitching’ living things together, both bio-chemically and bio-electromagnetically, has many implications for the way in which we investigate the plant world, including its medicines. We must look to the ‘whole’ for an insight into the ‘part’. From the perspective of the medicinal plant, how and why it chemically evolved its compounds offers greater insight into and greater respect for these healing compounds and how they impact us. The plants on our planet right now are old, older than we might imagine: a Tasmanian king’s holly exists that is estimated to be 43,000 years old; a creosote bush in the southwestern U.S. is 18,000 years old; a box huckleberry in northern U.S. is 13,000 years old; a grass colony covering half a mile is nearly 5,000 years old; the oldest Bristlecone pine tree (the “Methuselah") was found to be 4,723 years old and remains today the world's oldest known living tree pine; the oldest Redwood tree is estimated to be 3,500 years old; a mycelial network covers 1,500 acres in the American Northwest and is over 1,000 years old. With these kind of timeframes, it is difficult to know, or even to observe, how plants set up their support communities and what is involved in them finding or creating the right location, the right soil conditions over such enormous expanses of time. Plants move throughout Gaia, the planetary ecosystem, with their own needs, responding to their own language. The farthest seed dispersal known is 15,000 miles. Their dispersal is at the moment beyond the explanation of mathematics, and science. Furthermore, we are finding more and more that their arrangements and ecosystems are not random or accidental, as was once thought. Plants instead form symbiotic relationships, worked out over many millions of years.
Raoul France put forward the idea, shocking to the contemporary natural philosophers, that plants move their bodies as freely, easily and gracefully as the most skilled animal or human, and that the only reason we don’t appreciate the fact is that plants do so at a much slower pace than humans.
– Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, The Secret Life of Plants
Plants arrange themselves in eco-systems and throughout continents, throughout time and space, to fulfill awfully specific functions and needs, according to well-defined relationships with other plants developed over millions, even hundreds of millions of years. Their arrangements exist for very specific symbiotic reasons and relationships. When we examine plant neighborhoods, we can begin to sense the context within which “healing compounds” are generated by plants and their supportive communities. When we think of plants, conventionally or medicinally, we usually think of them in isolation, by themselves. Plants mean nothing by themselves, they are considered isolated, and this is the furthest from the truth. They are a ‘part of a whole’ they share their resources selflessly with the whole, they mingle and blend their chemistries together as an ‘integrated part of the whole’. This may be one of the fundamental reasons that formulas or blends of medicinal herbs, are more effective than single herbs in clinical herbal practice. They are even used medicinally by many traditions in isolation (singles) without the community or synergy of plants and other compounds that make-up a formula. Separated from its entwined and entangled multi-faceted relationships of their dynamic, living chemistries and energy’s. To get a glimpse into the wonder and the context, the timeframe s and the symbiotic relationships within plant neighborhoods, let’s look into studies done on the ecosystem of the ironwood tree, the basic workings of which are most likely true for every other macro and mini plant neighborhood.
The Ironwood Tree
“By modifying the habitat under its branches, ironwood plays a leading part in creating the ecosystem that it occupies, greatly enhancing the diversity of the Sonoran Desert”
– Tewksbury and Petrovich, ‘Ironwood as Habitat Modifier Species’
The Ironwood is one of the largest and longest-lived trees in the southern California deserts. The Sonoran Desert plant reaches 45 feet in height and lives as long as 1,500 years. It is a single or multi-trunked evergreen tree and has lavender-pink flowers beginning in March. The Ironwood survives and converts the baking intensity of the harsh desert into a nourishing place, where the tree and the community it helps to create can thrive. "Mature ironwood trees provide critical habitat for more than 275 species of wildlife, not just pygmy owls," confirmed Dr. Gary Nabhan, Director of Conservation and Science at the Desert Museum. "In addition, more than 230 flowering species use desert ironwoods as 'nurse plants,' relying on their canopies to protect them from freezes, heat waves and other stresses." The ironwood never looses its leaves, even in the baking heat of summer; this provides its community of associated plants with much needed, and constant, precious shade. At maturity it can send down roots 165 feet deep, searching for water below the desert. It then hydraulically pumps the water up into its leaves, breathing-out moisture. This refreshing cool dampness, settles downwards, nourishing the thirsty plants below. At night when the photosynthesis stops and the stomata within its leaves are closed, the hydraulic lift stops and the water settles around its root system among nutrients just under the surface of the ground. Then the small plants come, they cover the ground, trapping moisture from evaporating from the soil, thereby raising soil moisture content.
The migration of the keystone players in an eco-system, such as the Ironwood, may take over 400 to 500 years. An ecosystem’s response to feedback cues are only suspected at this time. Often a ‘scout plant’ goes out ahead and prepares the way; their colonizations often signals the movement of a system shift in response to Gaian feedback loops. When the soil is prepared then the “keystone,” such as ironwood, is called to it fulfill its destiny as the “shepherd” of its “flock” to create new archipelago of life. Through animals and wind the seed moves to its destiny.
From the first signals our embryonic seed sends out, it is interconnected, plugged into a network greater than itself. The ironwood seed sends out chemical messages, like a baby crying for its nutrients. This alert the desert soil, and is answered by Rhizobium bacteria that change the soil. In response, the ironwood begins to form nodules on its new roots, making nitrogen available. Next, fungal symbionts are attracted to help by a preexisting mycelial network, which in time will be one of the main arteries of this embryonic community. The fungi are now known to be the most essential allies of plants, even more so for the ‘world of roots’. By their abilities to form alliances with other soil organisms, roots are believed to be the main reason that green plants dominate the surface of the earth. As the ironwood seeds prepare to germinate, they call out to the amazing fungal web of super-fine, fiber-optic-like fungal threads, which weave their magical way to answer the call of this embryonic ‘leader’ tree, the newborn prince of this coming eco-kingdom. The equivalent of a ‘biological lightening flash’ of connection, this quickens the growth process of both of these allies by an astonishing hundredfold. Root construction is a highly nutrient demanding process; the chance of getting this nourishment merely from the immediate limited surroundings is very small. Plants have solved this dilemma by leaping ‘online.’ The source they plug into is like an amazing electricity powergrid of the root world: the amazing fungal-web that already exits in soil. Using this web of fungi allows the plant instant access to nutrients up to hundreds of feet beyond its own tiny root system, which can only grow 12 inches per annum even in an exceptional year in the desert is named after the and is known as mycorrhiza. The fungus-root attachment, these mycorrhiza (Greek: “fungus and root”), are web-like-networks able to explore the soil far more efficiently and penetratingly with their fine filaments probing for nutrients and mineral sources. This enhances the partnered roots’ own access to minerals such as phosphate. This enhancement is the likely explanation for why over 90 percent of plants have partnered with, one might even say ‘domesticated,’ their own fungi. But this is a two-way street, a win-win situation for both; the mycorrhizal fungi can take from a tenth to a third of the plant’s photosynthetic production as payment. A dynamic living bridge is formed through this fungal-web, interconnecting many different species, sharing chemistries, and messages, often for the good of the whole community. The next time you are walking in the woods, and you see a toadstool or a mushroom, think of the amazing network that must surround you, underneath the soil. This mushroom is like a ‘periscope’ sent up by the network; it is not an independent entity but a spore-dispersing device, produced by a huge network of branching tubes. One huge network has been identified in Montana, it is estimated that it spreads its underground tentacles under 15 hectares of virgin forest, weighs one hundred metric tons, and is believed to be more that one thousand years old. That is some “internet infrastructure”!!
This amazing fungal web has startling biological implications. Its resource sharing and resource balancing abilities for an eco-system is astonishing. Field experiments forty years ago by Eric Byorkman, a Swedish botanist demonstrated the ‘living bridge’ capabilities of mycorrhiza. Byorkman injected radioactive glucose into the trunk of a Norway spruce tree and was amazed to find it transferred to a neighboring plant. It seems according to Tom Wakefield in his book Liaisons of Life, that field-based evidence could not be reproduced in the lab. By using whole or partially dismembered plants, grown in the laboratory test tubes, they could not match the results produced in the eco-system. In the early 1990’s, mycologist Suzanne Simard began some experiments in the real forest ecosystem, to measure transference of resources between trees via their mycorrhiza. Her team demonstrated that not only do many trees of the same species share resources, but astonishingly so do even trees of different species. To the researcher’s great surprise, the sunlit birch trees seemed to be subsidizing the more shaded fir trees with sugars via their joint network of mycorrhizae. This underground-forest-welfare-state actually subsidized shaded young seedlings of another species that were struggling for photosynthesis, struggling for light’s life-blood, by sharing with those basking in sunshine higher up in the canopy.
As our seed thrives and grows, smaller plants begin to appear. In all, 230 species of plants will grow under the ironwood and 31 will grow nowhere else. It may take a century or so to form and the older the tree, the more complex and established the community becomes. Wherever the plants ‘plug-in’ to the amazing fungal-web, they can share resources of the communities and the chemical messages start to flow. Many messages are delivered by aromatic plants: some release aromatic compounds into the air, calling out to be pollinated; other aromatics shed useful compounds that simply fall in a gentle continuous rain over the community and are breathed in; and still other aromatic compounds fall into the soil below. Scores of insects, birds, animals and humans are called in to the system for differing purposes. They pollinate, spread seeds, build nests, dig burrows, aerate the soil, eat plants as food, eat plants as medicine, or defecate much needed soil enhancing fertilizers. The compounds that leech from the plant community can increase growth stimulation in affiliated seedlings by up to 1,000 percent. All the plants release phytochemicals, and dead limbs and assorted decaying plant material enrich the soil. Additionally, animals and humans come and go, and their manure further strengthens and build the soil and eco-system.
The microclimate progressively builds and adjusts to droughts, floods, fires and storms, wetlands shift locations, meadows spread and over the decades and centuries, even millennia, the ‘archipelago of life’ has learned to be flexible, to have chemical resources ‘stored for a rainy day’; the greater the biodiversity for the community, the greater resources the eco-system has for adjusting to stressors. Each community, for example, may contain rare plants held in small quantities that often produce unique or highly potent chemistries. These may only be needed by the communities once every century. It is with such strategies that over the decades and centuries the eco-system adjusts, calls new species and diversity to itself, and eventually an oasis in the middle of a barren desert is born. These ‘archipelagos of life’ eventually join together to form a forest, or a meadow; they may be imperceptible due their closeness or sparsely dotted across a landscape, yet they, their allies and associates are all tightly and inextricably connected. Their relationships have been refined over the millennia. They all form the inter-connected, self regulating messages that power that neighborhood ecosystem.
The Ironwood tree is a keystone, ‘a the teacher of the law’ to the eco-system. It increases the abundance of life by 88 percent and the richness of species by 64 percent. It is the lynch-pin in the system, creating and nourishing the conditions for life. “Setting the law, that other plants may follow” -- is it any wonder that trees are revered all over the world by folklore and indigenous peoples? And this seeming awareness, which can reach out and respond to other beings who are suffering, is the plant community’s real magic.
The plant community is full of chemical and energetic messages, producing sexual pheromones, insect repellants, plant estrogens to control herbivore populations, plant medicines to combat bacterial, fungal, viral assaults, medicines to stop cell leakages, heal plant wounds, stimulate or inhibit plant growth, inhibit cell mutation cancer. In his book The Lost Language of Plants, Stephen Harrod Buhner comments, “Plants always produce more chemistries than they need merely for their own health: these chemistries are released into plant communities and their ecosystems to maintain them. As with so many other aspects of maintaining ecosystems plants sense when members of their community are ill and they offer up chemistries to heal them... These chemistries are either sent through mycelial networks to where they are needed, or chemical cues call the ill animals or insects to the plant who needs it.” It in this context that animals and humans may also be considered just another integral part of this homeostatic community; it is in this way that we may perceive that plants can reach out to us, too. I am reminded of the shaman’s dreams – which may be but one method by which plants make themselves available to answer our psychic calling, to alleviate out hurts and wounds. We need simply to accept their help.