There is nothing new about the use of herbs to promote recovery, health and wellbeing. Every culture throughout the world has at some point used healing plants as the basis for its medicine and had a basic healing flora from which remedies were selected. The range of plants would vary from area to area depending on the local ecosystem, but the human problems they dealt with were the same.
The Herbs and the Environment: The 'whole' individual - mind, body, spirit and emotions - in the wider social setting of lifestyles and behavior is part of a greater whole, however. Humanity itself exists in the context of the entire planet. All these levels work together in a dynamic, integrated system.
It seems clear that many health issues - stress, 'asthma', allergies, heart disease - are connected with cultural and ecological problems and often reflect our alienation from nature and 'natural' lifestyles. Herbalist can playa major role in bridging this separation. With its reverence for life and the relationship it establishes between plants and people, herbalist is close to the heart of the greener vision that is slowly but surely changing our cultural worldview.
Herbal remedies can be used for the safe alleviation of illness, but as we shall see, this is not the only way to use these plants. Herbs can be used to support people's health and wholeness, helping them to stay at their personal peak of vitality and prevent disease development. There is food that supplies nutritional needs (calories, proteins and vitamins) and also delicious tastes and smells, and there are herbal 'foods' that nurture our wholeness, integration and wellbeing. These tonic remedies playa fundamental role in the maintenance of health and prevention of disease. In this section three aspects of this vast field will be considered: prevention; detoxification and elimination; and support for the body's immune system.
|
