Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism

EDITORIAL PROVIDED BY VERMONT CENTER FOR INTEGRATIVE HERBALISM

Wild and cultivated bounty

An integrative approach that incorporates the adaptive nature of herbs safely alongside conventional medical care is often an incredibly effective strategy in modern clinical practice

Herbalism is a long human tradition, including many different practices, depending on culture, landscape, and the needs of the people seeking healing. Across history and geography, people have always relied on plants for help with both common complaints and more serious chronic conditions. People experiencing conditions such as difficult digestion, colds and flus, and insomnia all the way to clinical depression, autoimmune conditions, and cancer can be supported through working with herbs as teas and extracts and as part of their daily diet.

Herbalism has long been based on the belief that the human body is a resilient and intelligent system that can be innately self-healing and that properly crafted herbal formulas assist and encourage the body in its effort to heal. As our name suggests, we find that an integrative approach that incorporates the adaptive nature of herbs safely alongside conventional medical care is often an incredibly effective strategy in modern clinical practice.

If at this point, you’re still wondering exactly what the job of an herbalist is—you’re not alone! And, there’s no single job description!

(top) Outdoor classroom with gardens and greenhouse. (bottom left) Making heartsease pansy tincture; (bottom right) Lavender harvested for tea

In the practice of “clinical” herbalism, a skilled practitioner considers all aspects of an individual’s health and life to identify the most appropriate plants and strategies for each person to work with, as herbalism is not one-size-fits-all. All traditional medical systems understand that every person is physiologically, emotionally, and energetically unique and also has different day-to-day experiences socially, economically, and environmentally. Through an herbal consultation, you might learn how to care for yourself and your family with herbs using custom formulas to support immunity, digestion, sleep, or to experience less stress. And, along with discovering some plants to work with, you might get help choosing nourishing foods, or strategize how best to do all that with limited resources or alongside medications.

Founded in 2007, VCIH is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Originally housed in Montpelier, we relocated to the Goddard College campus in Plainfield in 2020. As it turned out, this move has enabled us to grow our programs in some crucial and unexpected ways. After years of offering exclusively in-person clinics and classes, we made a sudden pivot to online classes in the early pandemic days in 2020. Eventually, we began experimenting with a low-residency model, offering weekly classes online with in-person classes only happening when we could gather safely outside. We expected this to be a temporary shift, with an eventual return to weekly in-person classes. Instead, we were delighted to discover that we were able to maintain a rich, connected, and robust online learning experience for and with our students by pairing online classes with a series of five- to six-day immersive learning experiences spaced throughout the year. These learning intensives give students a chance to experience hands-on learning and to connect in-person with faculty, with each other, and with the land where our school is rooted.

Through this process, one thing that’s become clear to us is the value of virtual platforms for increasing access to our clinical services and programs. We’re thrilled to now be able to consult with individuals all over Vermont and beyond, widening affordable access to personalized consultation and herbs dramatically. 

Similarly, we can now welcome folks to our long-term programs, as well as to our shorter community workshops, who don’t have the option to move to Vermont to pursue herbal education—whether that’s due to financial barriers, work, family commitments, health needs, or another reason. As an organization going forward, we’re committed to making our programs available to as many people as possible, and in particular to those who’ve often had the least access to advanced herbal training, including BIPOC students, disabled students, those on a low income, and other folks who’ve been marginalized in many herbal educational spaces.

The heart of our work has always been about making connections between people, plants, and place. We envision a world in which connection to plants returns to a central role in the daily rhythms of home and community life—because we believe that herbal medicine has the power not only to heal the individual, but also to address the broad dysfunctions in our culture that have at their root a deep disconnection from nature.

Hawthorn flower

VERMONT CENTER FOR INTEGRATIVE HERBALISM'S MISSION IS TO:
 

• educate and empower individuals to use traditional remedies as viable options in caring for themselves and their families;
• emphasize partnership with a clinical herbalist or other practitioner as an important adjunct to self-care;
• provide high-quality education for aspiring family and clinical herbalists;
• offer financially accessible health consultations to the community, creating an opportunity for collaborative practice among experienced herbalists, as well as a forum for education of clinical students;
• integrate and collaborate with other modalities and advance the role of the herbalist as an integral part of an effective healthcare model;
• renew deep connection with nature, encouraging a culture of ecological awareness, respect, and interrelationship.

Butterfly weed, California poppy, and lavender in VCIH‘s gardens

GET CONNECTED

If you’re inspired by herbal education rooted in values of mutual aid, sustainability, and justice, and want to help build a world where herbal medicine is broadly accessible, bioregional, and liberatory, we’d love to connect.

Ways to get involved:

• Take a community class.
• Work with an herbalist through our student or professional clinics.
• Join our Roots Apprenticeship, Family Herbalist, or Clinical Herbalist training programs.
• Become a member or donate to support our work.

Echinacea

SUSTAINABLE HERBAL SUPPORT FOR THE COMMON COLD
 

BY BETZY BANCROFT, RH (AHG)

Very often, I see people reaching for the goldenseal and osha at the first sign of a cold. While I agree completely that respiratory infections should be addressed swiftly because they can progress rapidly, I am more likely to begin with substantial doses of “food herbs” rather than more potent, “at risk” ones. What do I mean by “food herb”? Herbs commonly used as culinaries and wild edibles are some of the most effective and sustainable remedies we possess. For colds, my favorites are garlic, ginger, thyme, sage, rosemary, elder, pine or fir needles, peppermint, horseradish, and marshmallow. Throw in a few lesser-known invasive species such as honeysuckle flowers (Lonicera japonica) and ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea) and you’ve got plenty of weeds for your needs.

One principle that’s very important to pay attention to especially when the respiratory system is involved is the principle of energetics. If you have a cold—characterized by often copious clear or white mucus, pale face and tongue, chills, desire for hot foods—you will want to use the typical heating remedies to balance, or warm up, that cold. Ginger, garlic, and small amounts of cayenne in food and especially soup are wonderful here! On the other hand, if your condition is characterized by heat symptoms—redness in the face, tongue, or throat, yellow or green mucus, particularly if it’s not easily expectorated, feeling hot, headachy, flushed—and you take the “standard” cayenne treatment you will not be happy, for the herb will exacerbate your sore throat and other heat symptoms. Try cooling herbs such as marshmallow, plantain, or mullein leaves.

Similarly, for dry mucus membranes, use a nice moistening herb such as marshmallow root. A healthy mucus coating is critically important to the health of the respiratory system, and we have an abundance of immune activity in that mucus. Marshmallow soothes inflamed mucosa and helps replenish this protective immunity. Excessive mucus, on the other hand, can be a symptom of “dampness” and common garden sage is a great remedy for this. Aromatic herbs such as thyme, rosemary, and pine are excellent expectorants that help loosen mucus and make it easier to cough out.

Herbs commonly used as culinaries and wild edibles are some of the most effective and sustainable remedies we possess. For colds, my favorites are garlic, ginger, thyme, sage, rosemary, elder, pine or fir needles, peppermint, horseradish, and marshmallow. –Betzy Bancroft, RH (AHG)

Because tea provides a lot of contact with the mouth and throat, this is my favorite way to use these herbs. The hot water also loosens mucus, and a little honey is soothing, both part of the medicine. Tinctures or capsules will not be as effective as tea. For clogged sinuses, try breathing a potent tea of thyme and/or peppermint with a towel over your head. Amazing!

When you use gentle “food herbs,” you can take as much of the remedy as necessary for relief. You will mostly feel better while sipping that hot cup of tea, so keep sipping! A few quarts of tea per day in an acute situation is not too much.

When you use stronger herbs such as osha, overdoing the remedy is possible. They are potent not only in their action, but in their energy—goldenseal is cold and dry, and osha is hot and dry. Another consideration is to look at where these herbs grow. Both goldenseal and osha tend to grow far from human settlement, in the deep forest and rugged mountains. Better to stick close to home—use the plants in our gardens and yards.

What about echinacea? How could I write something about colds and leave out the most popular cold remedy! Echinacea is great for stimulating immune response, especially when the lymphatics under the jaw are getting sore or swollen. Use organically cultivated echinacea root, flowers, or seeds (it’s “at risk,” too!) in frequent doses when you feel your immune system start to kick in or you are exposed to airborne pathogens. Here a tincture is quite appropriate, up to a teaspoon every couple of hours. But to soothe the symptoms of a cold, and to help the body resolve the infection and get back to balance, by all means sip that tea! Keep it warm in a thermos, add a little mint and honey, carry it around with you, and enjoy!