I am now started at Worker Bee Community Acupuncture, offering  shiatsu and herbal consultations.  The apothecary is well on its way!  Shelves are on the wall, counter is being built, some tinctures and granulars are on hand, and dried herbs will soon be coming in.
In October we will be able to resume the herbal apprenticeship and student community clinic.  I hope the students will return to pick up studies with a new focus on Chinese materia medica and a sharpened focus to prepare for the student clinic.  I also hope that new students will join with enough determination to "catch up" to the previous group(s) and/or enough previous study to soon be ready for the start of the clinic, which will focus on pulse and tongue diagnosis and the formulation of individualized herbal prescriptions.  
Class will be on Monday evenings (probably either 6:00 or 7:00) at Worker Bee Community Acupuncture in Milford, PA.  We will start on October 2nd.  New students are encouraged to attend weekly.  Previous students can choose to attend every other week. 

Left some fresh Reishi at Antidote Apothecary in Brooklyn.  Heading back with more next week...
Class is schedule there for 7:00 Tuesday the 20th:  Shaolin Medicinal Wines - will discuss the formulas and uses of Shaolin herbal preparations for topical and internal use, yin/yang theory, and other fundamentals of living herbalism.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a model allowing for community support of local farms through the purchase of shares. Generally, CSA shares are purchased at the beginning of the season and the farmer provides a generous portion of each week's harvest.  Since our herbal version of this model is largely to supply wildcrafted (wild harvested) herbs, we are calling it a CSW.  The W refers to work exchange as well as wildcrafting.  We have 5 delivery dates through the year for NYC and plenty of opportunities to get involved with the harvesting.  

Assessment of the tongue is a principle form of diagnosis in herbal medicine.  Like pulse diagnosis, it is one of primary ways Chinese medicine peers inside the body.  Pulse diagnosis, hara diagnosis (abdominal assessment), and meridian palpation use the hands to feel the condition of the body.  Facial diagnosis, assessment of body type, and tongue diagnosis are ways that we come to understand the body by how it looks.  All these methods are used to determine the condition of blood, fluids, organs, and body functions.  Tongue assessment is based mainly on observing the "body" of the tongue - the color and quality of the flesh itself, and the "moss" - the qualities of the tongue's coating.  

​See original post: Tongue Diagnosis and ​Visual Diagnosis in Chinese Medicine

When harvesting and making medicine, remember what you are doing.  Keep your thoughts clean and pay attention to the plants and to what comes up.  Remember, traditionally herbs are often picked when needed and prayers are offered for the sick.  Whether or not the use is known, permission from the plants should be requested.

Respect the medicine.  Consider that traditionally medicines that fall to the ground are to be discarded and medicinal herbs should not be placed on the ground.  Keep the plant material in clean places.

The cutting board is sacred.  Do not to place random items on your cutting board.  Generally, a cutting board for herbs should be used only for medicine and not for food preparation.  Knives also are best reserved for this special use.  At least, you should not cut meats on your medicine-making board, and avoid pungent vegetables.  Keep the work area, cutting board, knives, and other tools clean and pure.  It is also good to have a pocket knife that is primarily used for harvesting.​

​https://www.slideshare.net/Gandido/diagnosis-by-palpation

Herbalism based on pills and hype is dead.  Many practitioners and consumers use primarily herbal pills.  Though pill form is a valid preparation for certain herbs at certain times, there are numerous problems with them.  I have thoroughly and regularly discussed the problems with herbal pills (capsules & tablets) in various classes I have offered.  One great example is Echinacea: as an herb that looses potency in dried form relatively quickly (short shelf life), it is best preserved as a tincture not a pill.  Further, in the case of Echinacea, many pill companies use the leaf and stem rather than the more potent root, flower, and seed.  Pills are also not easily absorbed, as they are encapsulated in gel or bound in a tablet.  Liquid is much better: infusion, decoction, tincture...  But all these points are discussions of their own.  Indeed, what makes herbalism so daunting to the average person is the amount of relevant information associated with each plant: part used, harvest time, preparation, dose, indications, contraindications, et cetera.  All these things are important.  However, even when such information is observed the reality of herbalism as a living art is often neglected.

Just as people have become increasingly disconnected from the natural world in general, the art of herbal medicine has become increasingly separated from its source.  Perhaps the practical details (which are not even well observed) of herbal medicine can be considered the science of herbal medicine; while the intuitive and skillful practice can be regarded as art.  Herbalism is an art and a science.  For herbalism to be considered alive, the various aspects of the science and the art must be vital.  It is no great mystery that American tradition is in a sorry state.  Again, it would be possible to form several discussions from the various details relating to the state of American herbalism (Native traditions, the American mixing pot, the loss of energetics, the introduction of chemical analysis...).  For this discussion, I would like to direct attention to the art of herbalism.

Herbalism as an art relates to the learned skill of the practitioner (their familiarity with various disease states, their visceral understanding of the restoration of health, their familiarity with herbs and preparations), the intuitive capacity of the practitioner, and the ability of a practitioner to know what herb at what time.

Originally from 7/5/2014

9/23/14
Dearest Herbal Enthusiasts.
Since the dawn of humanity, people have utilized herbs to promote health and ward off illness.  Everyday knowledge of herbs by common folk has formerly been used to treat digestive problems, infections, bites, cuts, and tend to other common health concerns.  Many families of old would have been overseen by a grandmother who knew the ways of the plants.  Communities gave rise to clinics that housed herbal specialists and apothecaries to provide medicines.  Central to health care (and disease care) of the past have been shamans, herbalists, acupuncturists, clergy gardeners and herbalists, and various other forms of herbal doctors.
In many parts of the world today the use of herbs and the role of herbalists has greatly declined - replaced by pharmaceutical medicines and medical professionals trained in the use of modern diagnostic equipment.  Herbal medicine, however, remains a viable and important source of health-promoting ingredients.  Plus, traditional forms of diagnosis (to be discussed momentarily) remain superior in many ways to the measurements of modern equipment.
We are surrounded by many medicinal herbs and mushrooms, but very few understand their uses and benefits, nor know how to identify or find them.  Commerce moves medicinal herbs all over the world.  However, the stores, pharmacies, and individual distributors of our area fail to offer the necessary array of herbal medicines for a complete health-care system.  Many of the products available are made of herbs of inferior quality.  Many available preparations are improperly made or made of the wrong part of the plant or made of old, stale material.  Many very important medicinal herbs are simply not readily available for the common person. 
In the past I have run classes on herbal medicine, mostly geared toward home-care medicine.  Usually, I had a study-group format with an open door.  We met weekly and were open to new and occasional members.  We covered identification of local herbs, preparation of products ("tea", tincture, salve, cough syrup, etc), Chinese herbal theory, Native American herbal medicine, modern herbal materia medica, traditional diagnostic skills, medicinal mushrooms, and other related subjects.
Since my teens I have regularly harvested a variety of medicinal herbs.  My primary method of preservation has been herbal tinctures.  In many cases it is necessary to use a fresh herb to produce the highest quality tincture.  For this reason it is often easier to make better quality products at home than large manufactures can in their factories.  I have found it almost necessary to prepare tinctures myself with fresh herbs from the local environment.  
One benefit of tinctures is that they are easy to combine.  A fully stocked liquid apothecary allows one to easily measure and mix tinctures in order to create custom formulas.  Many pre-made formulas available through practitioners and stores are not precisely what an individual needs.  It is often best to treat an individual as an individual when considering a mixture of herbs.  Sometimes it is appropriate to utilize pre-made formulas, and so a fully stocked apothecary includes a selection of formulas found useful by the practitioners and a large selection of individual herbs to be mixed into custom formulas when the pre-mades are insufficient.  
As a sole producer of tincture, cough syrups, and other products made from wildcrafted herbs, I have not been able to comply with the FDA regulations that came into effect in recent years.  Although I no longer make products for public sale, I have not been able to shake the realization that many wonderful and necessary medicinal herbs of our area are not being utilized properly.
Although it could be of great benefit to create a local herbal product manufacturing, I think the real solution to our herbal medicine deficiency is to relearn home-preparation of herbal medicines.  Although herbs indeed can be dangerous, main-stream media has largely exaggerated the dangers of herbal medicines while ignoring the dangers of the products and practices of their advertisers and financial backers.  With some basic education many herbal medicines become safe to use.  The practical obstacles between people and the medicinal plants that surround us is largely educational and for this reason a functioning herbal clinic that guides people in the use of local herbs is one avenue towards a more available herbal medicine.  When practitioners and individuals learn to use wild and home-grown plants to prepare medicines themselves, they can tap into a living system of herbal medicine.  Much of what is common today as theories and products is full of commercial fluff, but has no life to it.  
In order to make living herbal medicine more available to the community I am offering training in herbal medicine - including plant identification and harvest, medicine preparation and formulation, and health intake and assessment.  We have a class of dedicated students working toward a student herbal clinic.  The clinic will begin when students are ready.
Curriculum is based on several areas inherent to clinical knowledge and skills:
1.  Materia Medica -  Herbal medicine is, of course, based on the use of herbs.  In order to utilize the herbs, one must know some basic information such as part used, correct harvest time, best method of preparation, indications, contraindications, dosage, use in formulas.  It is also good to not just rely on standard information, but to develop an intimate, personal, and intuitive knowledge of each herb through experience.  Because of this latter aspect of herbal knowledge, each individual's materia medica is different.  Each student will develop a comprehensive materia medica of their own, which will also be combined into a group materia medica for the clinic.
2.  Diagnosis - Clinical health assessment is key to deciding on appropriate herbs for each case.  Traditional herbal medicine, of course, did not depend on modern day technology (x-rays, cat scans, lab tests, etc.) but on use of the human senses, including the mind.   
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