Honoring our Herbal Ancestors

At this time of year when the plants are dropping their leaves, dying back and decomposing into the Earth again, it is a time to honor death in the sacred cycle of life that it holds. Many cultures across the world speak of this time when the veils are thinning between our physical world and the spiritual world where our ancestors live.

This potent moment in the wheel of the year is often marked by ritual, ceremony and holy days to feed the spirits of our ancestors and honor the legacy they created which lives on through us. From my Celtic lineage, the holy day of Samhain (today celebrated as Halloween) was a sacred time to honor our ancestors, but to also listen to their guidance and wisdom at this time when we have the closest contact to them.

Though this is a potent time to commune with our own passed family members and ancestors within our lineage, today I also want to recognize our ancestors who are at the root of the work we do as herbalists.

Before there were herbalists, there were plants. The plants were here on this Earth far before humans and their wisdom is far beyond our own limited human understanding. They are the ones who know how to heal sickness, how to mend and restore health. They know how to nourish and feed life. They know how to adapt and evolve, and have witnessed the ages of life on Earth. Their brilliance and intelligence is vast and profound beyond comprehension.

In this way, they are our ancestors. And as herbalists, they should truly be our primary teachers. The plants are the healers, we are simply the ones with the feet and hands to carry their medicine to the people who need their help. This is the way I relate to the plants, and so this is how I wanted to honor them today as our first ancestors.

But I also want to acknowledge and honor the human ancestors who have created this legacy of herbalism we are a part of. By virtue of being an herbalist, we are part of a gigantic lineage of healers and medicine carriers whose work we are continuing on today.

Where do you think all of that information in your herb books came from? A lot of knowledge that was passed from generation to generation eventually became written down and is part of the knowledge base most herbal books today are derived from.

Plant medicine has been evolving throughout millions of years, with each generation adding onto the knowledge base they inherited from the previous generations. Though we continue to evolve the practice of herbalism with new discoveries in science and with revelations from communing with the plants themselves, it is important to recognize the deep history that is the root we are growing from as herbalists today.

It’s also important to remember the hardship and turmoil that the herbal healers before us have undergone and the sacrifices they have made to preserve and protect the knowledge of how to heal with plants. Many healers were hanged, burned at the stake, murdered, their traditions lost and knowledge stolen. It’s critical that we remember the sacrifice of the herbalists and healers before us and recognize the incredible privilege we have to study herbalism and have so much information accessible at our fingertips in this modern age.

When we broaden our perspective and look at the long arc of time, we remember that we are a small part of a large legacy. It’s our responsibility to take care of the knowledge that has been passed along to us and to do our best to preserve this knowledge so that it can continue on to benefit the next generations.

As herbalists, we are caretakers for this moment in history of the precious wisdom of how to heal people with plants. It’s an incredible blessing and calling to be part of a lineage of plant people and healers. It’s up to us to carry this wisdom with humility and great care, to share it and help those who come to us asking for help & healing.