Herbalista Blog: Education

Image 12The final stop on the Herb Bus’s 2014 west Coast Tour, was at Ponderosa High School in Flagstaff, AZ.  This is my second year visiting this accomodations high school that is tasked with educating a diverse and underserved group of teens.  The Bus was hosted by the Terra BIRDS program, a local nonprofit that teaches kids stewardship and sustainability through gardening.  Together with the students they have turned what was once desert pavement, into an incredible example of permaculture in action.  

This Tuesday morning, we set up the Bus so the students could learn more a bit about what we do at the Herbalista Free Clinic.  After showing the medicine kits and describing the type of healthcare we provide, we stepped into their garden and talked about the plants they had already growing around them.  I was honored to get to share my work on the Bus with them and look forward to another visit!

The bus went snow-birding in early February, as we toured Florida.  The photo above shows our first aid station at the Florida Earthskills Gathering.  It is a privilege and pleasure to be able to offer support at events such as these, which preserve and promote a culture of earth protection and respect.  Working a station such as this is a chance to see herbs in action, learning by doing and by observation.  We benefit from noting our patients’ experience, from seeing herbs work and not work, and through skill-sharing of materia medica and clinical techniques with the other practitioners we serve alongside.

Next the Bus headed south to St. Pete’s to run a workshop and clinic practicum for the clinical students of the Acupuncture and Herbal Therapies Training Program.  Day 1 reviewing the Herb Bus Service Manual and making preparations for the next day’s clinic.  Instead of working from the Herbalista Kits, this time we custom built herbal kits on site. This was important for a few reasons. First, we wanted the kits to reflect THEIR style of herbalism and be filled with the tools the students are used to working with (this school practices from a chinese-western blended herbal perspective). Next, it’s just fun to build them. It makes you consider every aspect of your clinical practice– which herbs you use, in what quantities, what types of preparations, how you dispense them, how can you arrange them in an efficient way, and how can you add a little bling (it’s all about the gold duct tape). And what is really thrilling, is that when the Herb Bus rolls out of town, the kits will remain in St Pete’s, with the students, hopefully for many clinics to come! Day 2 brought severe thunderstorms, but in the style of good health we were flexible.  Instead of working out of the Herb Bus, under the elements, we held our clinic in the shelter of the center.  Click here for photos.

~Herbalista Lorna

Herbalista Free Clinic Service Report

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2013-2014

It’s hard to believe that our clinic debut was not even a year ago!  On Feburary 6, 2013 we pitched for the first time at the Open Door Community in Atlanta.  It has been a tremendously exciting year, and we hope this is just the beginning of a long and healing journey.

We wanted to share some of the highlights with you:

At our Atlanta hub we hosted 17 clinics, where we served gallons of seasonal tea blends, conducted 111 consultations, dispensed 2 1/2 gallons of customized tincture formulas (alcohol and glycerites), 8#’s of raw custom herbal and powder blends, and a variety of other remedies including essential oil sniffers, herbal capsules, and oil rubs.

We facilitated several pop-up first aid clinics around the country, including the Rainbow Gathering in Montana, the Firefly Gathering in North Carolina, the Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference in North Carolina, and the Georgia Organics Conference in GA, where we served hundreds more and put herbal healing in the hands of the people.

We spread the Herb Bus method and our love for plants and community at numerous classes and workshops.  Some of our hosts included  Ponderosa High School, the Blue Ridge School of Herbal Medicine, Warren Wilson College, Homestead Atlanta, and the High Museum of Art.

We created the Herb Bus Service Manual to help others start free clinic projects in their communities.  This manual is available as a free PDF download from our website.

The Herb Bus Service Manual

Lorna, the herbalista who drives this sweet ol’ bus around town, was awarded the 2013 Community Service Award by the American Herbalists Guild to honor her work with the Herbalista Free Clinic and the Harriet Tubman Free Foot Clinic.

The Bus drove over 10,000 miles delivering healthcare and herbal education around the country.

And, saving the best for last, we spent time with the plants– studying their form, learning their energetics and actions, and wildcrafting to prepare sweet sweet remedies to share with our patients and community.

Thanks  to our community who supports this work, our teachers who inspire us to grow and strive, the plants who heal, and the people who receive these gifts with grace. Viva la Herb Bus!

~Herbalista Lorna

The Herb Bus turned Black Friday Green as she circled up in the museum piazza to share some herbal healing at the High’s “Go West!” exhibit.

Teachers from Homestead Atlanta demonstrated survival and crafting skills such as tanning, cobbling, spinning, herbal healing and orienteering —  all skills necessary for life on the frontier.  The pioneers relied heavily on plant medicine for survival during the days of western expansion.  Most families would have needed to have a basic knowledge of how to use plants to keep themselves healthy as doctors were few and far between.  For many, their doctor was in fact their wife or mother, and her apothecary would have been her kitchen using the herbs that grew around them.  The Herb Bus is honored to carry this American tradition into the 21st Century.  We spent the day crafting herbal remedies for wintertime health.  I’ve posted the recipes for some of the remedies we made on the Herbalista website for your crafting pleasure.  Give the gift of health this holiday season!

September sure put some miles on the Bus!  Since its inception, we’ve visioned the Bus as not only a service provider, but a mobile classroom where we could teach by example, inspiring others with the feasibility of offering a no-cost, earth-based, community clinic.

Blue Ridge School Student Clinic

Last month I finally had the chance to do just that.  For their final student clinic of the year, the Blue Ridge School of Herbal Medicine hosted The Herb Bus. After giving the students a preliminary training (using the Herb Bus Service Manual as our guide) about how to run a free, mobile, herbal clinic, we set up the bus at a community in Asheville to allow the students a chance to work in this type of health care model. We had a great time serving the folks at The Landing.

During a post-clinic feedback session, I was asked, “Do you need a VW Bus to do this type of clinic?”  And while I am clearly partial to this little Bus, the Herbalista Free Clinic would function out of the back of my Honda hatchback if need be.  Good healthcare (just like good health) requires both flexibility and creativity to serve the needs of the community with the resources available.

To see more from this clinic, check out the album in our Photo Gallery.

Just a couple of days later, I loaded the Bus for a trip to Arizona.  My final destination– the Herbal Resurgence Rendezvous.  This conference did not disappoint, from its beautiful location in the Coconino National Forest to its eclectic and deeply knowledgable class offerings.  I visited with old friends and teachers and made new connections.  Sitting under that bi, western sky I was reminded of the strength it requires to survive such impacting conditions.  Those plants have developed potent defenses from which we benefit when we receive the gift of herbal medicine.  If you would like to see some of the plants, lands, and people I spent time with on my travels, you can click here.

On my way back through Flagstaff, I was invited to Ponderosa High School to share a little bit about herbal medicine and the adventures of the Herb Bus with their gardening/permaculture class.  Ponderosa High is an accommodations school that enrolls and mentors students who have faced difficult challenges in their lives.  I was inspired by the students’ ability to transform desert concrete into an oasis of creativity and sustainability, and enjoyed sharing with them some of the herbal uses for the plants growing around their school.  In honor of the Elder tree near where the Bus was parked, we passed around a touch of Elder Berry glycerite for them to try.  For more photos of the program at Ponderosa High, please click here.  It was a lovely morning and I am grateful to my friend, Jonathon Taylor, for inviting me to meet with his class.

~Herbalista Lorna

November Herbal Happenings
Thursday, November 1, 2012

As we witness the devastation from Sandy, extending from the Caribbean through New England, it is a reminder of the importance of community. When our homes have been destroyed and our normal means of existence ruptured, we hope there is a hand to catch us. It is important not to wait until disaster to begin weaving your web of support. This support structure starts with you and includes your neighbors, your local fauna and flora, and will continue to grow as long as you nurture and care for it.

This past month I was lucky to attend two herbal conferences which filled me with abundant gratitude, not just for the opportunity to work alongside the healing plants, but also for the deeply compassionate and incredibly intelligent herb-lovers I am sharing this journey with. First came the Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference. This annual gathering of over 1,000 women and children, offers learning on so many levels. Helping to facilitate the free clinic each year is a highlight, as I appreciate the opportunity to combine passions– free health care, herbal first aid, and support for out sisters. Here is a link to photos from this year’s clinic. In an effort to “spread the health,” I put together a checklist for supplies needed to set-up a highly functioning clinic to service 1000+ women and children for 3 day events. This is still a work in progress, but I hope is helpful and can be a stepping stone to making this type of offering a more regular occurance.

Just a fews days later I hopped a plane to Western Pennsylvania for the American Herbalists Guild Symposium for 3 days of classes and plant walks. The woods were on fire with fall (the picture above is the fading foliage of Wild Yam.) The teacher-roster was incredible, and really displayed the diversity that gives herbal medicine both its relevence and longevity. The Georgia Herbalists Guild sponsored a viewing of the documentary Herbal Aide which promotes community building through herbalism. This one hour film highlights the wonderful miriad of ways in which we can support our community through our herbal work (disaster relief, United Plant Savers, free clinics, education, etc…) Here in Atlanta, one way I contribute to community building is through my work at the Open Door. Our weekly free foot clinic was featured in a beautiful photo essay in last month’s issue of Hospitality, the Open Door’s monthly newspaper (see pgs 6 & 7.) Click here to learn more about this clinic’s holistic offerings and how you can be of service.

So what’s to come? The month begins with 3 days of amazing classes at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens with Christopher Hobbs and Richo Cech (see calendar below for details.) Then, as we ease into the holiday marathon, I’m offering an herbal gifts workshop on the 10th in the hopes that we can show our friends and family how healing the holidays can be when we gift them with herbs.

Today is seen by many cultures as a day of transition. We move from summer to winter and we recognize the cycle of life and death. We have just witnessed massive destruction, and now we have the chance to rebuild and nurture.

For the full newsletter, click here.

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