Reflections on the
Grassroots Healthcare Revolution

Part 1:

One week ago William Siff and I completed teaching the fall season intensive at Goldthread Herb Farm. It was the sixth week-long program that we had done together, which included spring, summer and fall this year and last. It was again a unique and memorable event, filled with shared learning, healthy work with the healing plants and a sense of restoring and creating something precious and meaningful for our society. It was also a time to reflect on what we had accomplished, and where the program might evolve to next.

William and I have been friends for several years, since he first invited me to teach at his original Goldthread Apothecary in Northampton. Over the years we have supported and inspired each other in various ways through our collaborations, so it was natural to accept his invitation to co-teach the Farm to Pharmacy intensives that he had launched the year before.

I had three primary motivations for joining him when he suggested that we work together in this capacity. The first was that I wanted to give further support in whatever way I could, as I felt that this program was of crucial importance to the wellbeing of people, land and culture. The second was that I wanted to deepen my understanding of the herbs on a more physical and organic level, meaning preparing the beds, planting the seeds, weeding and mulching, harvesting and drying and garbling, then making medicines and distilling essential oils; I also wanted to take the opportunity to learn from William’s vast knowledge of botanical medicine. The third was to spend more time around William and his family, simply for the enjoyment of this growing friendship.

After these six intensives, I can say without a doubt that my wishes and aspirations were more than fulfilled. We had the pleasure of sharing a total of thirty days with sixty-six students, several of whom took all three seasonal courses; with the addition of the interns in the ongoing year-long program who joined us, it was over a hundred people. The majority of these students have gone on to do something important with the information they learned and the vision of grassroots healthcare that we shared with them. One of the great rewards was hearing returning students describe the gardens they had planted, the community apothecaries they had opened, and the success stories they had using their home pharmacies.

The experience for me was not only highly educational, but deeply influential as well. I definitely learned many important lessons about herb farming and what we like to call “grassroots healthcare.” But being in the presence of powerful medicinal plants in such a beautiful environment offered far more than that, and in retrospect I can say that this was the most superficial level of learning. There were of course all the details about growing, identifying and making herbal medicines, but within this container we discovered larger life lessons: the powers of nature’s elements, the importance of this work to everyone, our dependency on the earth, pollinators and seeds, the benefits to body and mind, the life force expressing itself in the tastes and smells of everything growing around us through the seasons.

Before the program I knew the identity of numerous herbs, but that number has probably doubled at least. Many were herbs that I know from my work with essential oils, but had not spent time with, such as clary sage and birch. Others were herbs I knew from clinical practice but had never seen growing, such as rhodiola and the many species of gentians. Many were common species but unique varieties I was not yet acquainted with, such as the multitude of basils, oreganos and thymes.

Simply walking through the different gardens as William named the plants and pointed out their unique characteristics was one of the most enjoyable classes we did on an almost daily basis. I was endlessly amazed at not only how much he knew from working intimately with the plants, but how little I knew, especially about their most basic botanical characteristics. In each season, the different stages of plant growth revealed themselves to us; I was more fortunate than many of the students who could not attend all three intensives, as I was present at every stage from planting the seeds to tending the plants to the final harvesting, drying and preparation.

Continue to part 2...