James Green - The Herbal Medicine-Makers Handbook: A Home Manual

Disclaimer: The nutritional information, recipes, and instructions contained within this book are in no way intended as a substitute for medical counseling. Please do not attempt self-treatment of a medical problem without consulting a qualified health practitioner. The author and publisher expressly disclaim any and all liability for any claims, damages, losses, judgments, expenses, costs, or injuries resulting from any products offered in this book by participating companies and their employees or agents. Nor does the inclusion of any resource group or company listed within this book constitute an endorsement or guarantee of quality by the author or publisher.

Text copyright 2000 by James Green
Interior author photo copyright 2002 by Carolyn Staub

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Crossing Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
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Crossing Press and the Crossing Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Green, James, 1940
The herbal medicine-makers handbook: a home manual / by James Green.
p. cm.
1. Materia medica, VegetableHandbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Traditional medicineHandbooks, manuals, etc. 3. HerbalsHandbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title.

RS164.G674 2000
615.321dc21 00-030708

eISBN: 978-0-307-77946-5

Illustrations by Ajana Green

v3.1

A CKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to express my deepest gratitude to Ajana, graphic artist and illustrator, for gracing this book with your wonderfully creative imagination and extraordinary talent. Your aesthetic spirit, wit, and creative excellence generously conveyed by the illustrations lying within these pages openly reflect a uniquely brilliant consciousness I find intrinsic to your generation. Speaking of which, I sincerely thank you too, James Snow, for your regard and friendship. Your clever mind and discerning herbalists eye have enhanced this herbal and spared me litters of technical chagrin. I also wish to extend my gratitude to Dave Broach for your good-natured willingness to manifest the cover photo with your patience, your Hasselblad, and the singular touch of your light, and shutter skills. And while Im on this roll, thank you Elaine Gill and skilled staff members of The Crossing Press. Your support, your fluid spirit of co-creating, and your confidence in my work as an herbalist and writer leave little wonder in my mind why your catalogs repertoire of publications is bursting with the works of so many excellent authors. This is not to say that we didnt have to get down and dirty while tussling with a few differences of opinion, the aftermath of which found a number of Ajanas most splendid illustrations adorning the cutting room floor, alas never to be seen by the readers eyes; and that is the tragic component of this story. However, the ending is of course a happy one, for all who enjoy entering aesthetic realms of exquisite fantasy can visit Ajanas captivating Web site at and experience the beautiful sanctums of her talent and creative vision. Please note, dear reader, this is not one of those commonplace commercial plugs; this is a dads fervent praise of his daughters superb talent and fascinating mind big difference, big, big difference. Go check it out youll come back delighted.

For
Bre and Ajana,
my gifted daughters
and artful companions

We dance our madness;
we dance our joy.
Oh precious ones, the fun has just begun.
Wild music is in the air;
theres beauty flowing everywhere.

T ABLE OF C ONTENTS

P ROLOGUE

A WORD BEFORE THE MEDICINE SHOW

The day you decide to appreciate yourself is the day you begin to dance.

T. E LDER S ACHS

Herbal medicine-making is much like dancing; its easy, its natural, and its undeniably delightful. To say the least, it is a lucid expression of ones distinct character. If you have never worked with medicinal plants or made herbal medicines for yourself, you will have to take my word for this. However, as you experiment with the procedures suggested in this manual, I promise that during some private moment, maybe when shaking your tinctures or while garbling some dreamy Mugwort, you will find yourself thinking, Hey, that Green guy was right. This is more damn fun! I think I might even go dancing tonight! And like dancing, once you find the rhythm of the music and begin moving your body with it, youll never want to stop.

The ever-engaging green-melodies of herbal medicine-making are sung by the seductive voices of your neighboring leaves, roots, barks, rhizomes, flowers, and seeds, while the rhythm you move to is composed entirely within yourself, by the cadence of your creative enjoyment. Youll find yourself swinging to the pleasures of simple fun, personal independence, and a renewed connection with Earths natural beauty and perpetual abundance. And thats feelin good, which is the essence of health. The making is the taking of herbal medicine.

Keep in mind that herbs, the principal ingredients in homemade herbal medicines, are basically free once you learn how to correctly harvest them for yourself (which we will cover in Chapter Three). Therefore, I can assure you that herbal medicine-making performed in the home-kitchen is not only simple and fun, it is universally affordable. This makes perfect sense, for the art and empirical science of Herbalism were engendered eons ago by the wit and enduring ingenuity of some remarkably intelligent, resourceful, and visionary peopleour ancestors. This is our cultural heritage.

Herbalism is one of those peoples things. It is indigenous to all communities of our globe, which is why it thrives so harmoniously in our homes. To manifest high-quality, health-pumping herbal preparations, you can take this plant lore in hand, make your own preparations, and thereby liberate yourself, your family, your community, and your monetary resources from dependence on others. Why pay others to frolic in the luscious gardens of Earth, picking flowers and enjoying themselves making herbal products? You can do all that frolicking, immersing yourself in wondrous herbal beauty, and uplifting your mind and spirit. Making your own herbal medicine both enhances your happiness and boosts your immune system. And the herbal preparations you make can be every bit as excellent as those you bring home from the store. Actually they will be better, profoundly better; this I can also promise you. Ralph Waldo Emerson, another born-again herbalist, expressed similar feelings, When I go into my garden with a spade, and dig a bed, I feel such an exhilaration and health that I discover that I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have been doing with my own hands. I always suspected that Waldo was in the garden.

Another word, if I may; then well get on with the medicine show. For much of my life, I have focused my attention on health, herbs, foods, gardens, and making plant medicine. They are my passion, and I feel passionately about them. As such, tendrils of my feelings and opinions will undoubtedly intertwine with the rhetoric of this manual. Knowing the inevitability of this, I want to restate (with some minor alterations) a passage from the prologue of my other book, The Male Herbal . I havent evoked a better way than I did therein to say to you what I want to say here. Being the sedulous Sagittarian that I am, Im accomplished at quoting my own thoughts, as references anyway.

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