by Maia Toll
The mission of Storey Publishing is to serve our customers by publishing practical information that encourages personal independence in harmony with the environment.
Edited by Carleen Madigan
Art direction and book design by Jessica Armstrong
Text production by Erin Dawson
Illustrations by © Kate O’Hara
Author photo by © Emily Nichols Photography
© 2018 by Maia Toll
Ebook production by Kristy L. MacWilliams
Ebook version 1.1
August 7, 2018
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Toll, Maia, author.
Title: The illustrated herbiary : guidance and rituals from 36 bewitching botanicals / by Maia Toll.
Description: North Adams, MA : Storey Publishing, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018002245 (print) | LCCN 2018004090 (ebook) | ISBN 9781612129693 (ebook) | ISBN 9781612129686 (hardcover with 9 cardstock sheets in a bound-in envelope : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Medicinal plants. | Plants—Symbolic aspects.
Classification: LCC QK99.A1 (ebook) | LCC QK99.A1 T64 2018 (print) | DDC 581.6/34—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018002245
This publication is intended to provide educational information on the covered subject. It is not intended to take the place of personalized medical conseling, diagnosis, and treatment from a trained health professional.
To the wild ones and the mythic souls who walk amongst us, unseen . . .
. . . And to Gina McGarry, for teaching me to listen for them.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
The Herbiary
Chickweed: Start Fresh
Daisy: Be Yourself
Red Clover: Center and Ground
Sweet Violet: Inner Sanctum
Apple: Forbidden Fruit
White Sage: Clear the Way
Self-heal: Ripple Outward
Thyme: Distill Your Self
Dandelion: Perseverance
Burdock: Tap Your Resources
Rose: Crack Open
Raspberry: Create Space
Hawthorn: Heart’s Home
Plantain: Rewild
Valerian: Release Rigidity
California Poppy: Resurrection
Mugwort: Between Dreams
Elderberry: Cyclicality
Lady’s Mantle: Fortitude
Starflower: Finding Grace
Lavender: Tough Love
Comfrey: What Needs Mending?
Marshmallow: A Spoonful of Sugar
Yarrow: Pocket of Protection
Oats: Just Be
St. John’s Wort: Light in the Darkness
Trillium: Spirit into Matter
White Willow: The Ways of Water
Quaking Aspen: We Are One
Mullein: Integration
Reishi: Defying Gravity
Passionflower: Exuberant Quietude
Nettle: Pay Attention!
Tulsi: You Are Sacred
Vervain: Let Magic In
Rosemary: Remembrance
How to Work with the Herbiary Cards
Thank-Yous
About the Author
Enjoy Better Health, Mindfulness, and Nature’s Wonders with these Books from Storey
Share Your Experience!
A bestiary is a collection of short descriptions about all sorts of animals, real and imaginary, birds and even rocks, accompanied by a moralising explanation. Although it deals with the natural world it was never meant to be a scientific text and should not be read as such. Some observations may be quite accurate but they are given the same weight as totally fabulous accounts. . . . A great deal of its charm comes from the humour and imagination of the illustrations, painted partly for pleasure but justified as a didactic tool “to improve the minds of ordinary people, in such a way that the soul will at least perceive physically things which it has difficulty grasping mentally: that what they have difficulty comprehending with their ears, they will perceive with their eyes.” (Aberdeen Bestiary, folio 25v, circa 1200).
- University of Aberdeen, The Aberdeen Bestiary MS24 About the Manuscript (from the website)
An herbiary is a collection of short writings about botanicals: medicinal, decorative, and whimsical. Although it alludes to healing properties, it was never meant to be prescriptive. Many observations are quite accurate, but they should not be seen as superior to creative or fanciful descriptions and symbolic flights of fancy. A great deal of its charm comes from the depth and creativity of its illustrations, allowing us to see what otherwise would remain hidden.
- Maia Toll
Preface
The bus rolled through the Irish countryside, pulling over from time to time so the driver could shout a greeting to a gentleman corralling sheep off the road or a woman parking her car a few blocks from the next station stop.
What I remember now, more than a dozen years later, is the vibrancy of the green that surrounded us. The air seemed to shimmer with it, the color refracting and multiplying.
I had come to Ireland to study plants, apprenticing myself to a traditional healer and herbalist for a year’s span. I was to live in her house, help with the gardens and medicine making, sit with her as clients came to call, and, through osmosis, learn a calling that has always been as much an art as a science.
Back home in the States we focused on the science. We justified using “alternative medicine” by pointing to properly conducted studies with statistically significant control groups. We could make the sensuous beauty of a rose as dry and antiseptic as an aspirin tablet . . . and feel justified in doing so because it gained a modicum of acceptance, albeit grudging, for this age-old healing practice.
But in the emerald swath of Ireland’s center, near the Hill of Uisneach (said to be the umbilicus of the island), I learned the art of botanical medicine and the magic of coming into communion with the plant world. And that has changed everything for me.
I want to gift you this sense of connection.
Connection with the plant world may seem a small thing, but once you step into it you’ll realize it is profound and playful, granular and encompassing. Whether this is a first step on your journey into the green world or a reminder of magic you’ve come to know deeply, I hope this book, this herbiary, ignites your imagination, your passion, and your love for living in deep connection with the earth.
Introduction
“Apprenticed to a medicine woman” sounds terribly romantic. Indeed, at times it was terrible, and at times it was romantic. Sometimes it was mystical, but most often it was simply lonely.
Living in the middle of cow pastures with no car, an hour’s walk from tow
n, leads to introspection, experimentation, and a lot of listening — to the wind, to the birds, and to the plants.
I ended up studying herbalism after the Manhattan medical community scratched their collective heads and said, “You’re obviously sick but we don’t know why.” After seven years of reading and experimenting on my own, I landed in Ireland, living and learning from a woman who was by turns a scientist, a witch, a gardener, and a detective.
I was continually flabbergasted that this was my life. And yet I was finding more wisdom in this little house set among the Irish cattle fields than I’d found in three years of graduate school, which, though it filled my head with information, left me feeling strangely flat.
I spent evenings taking advantage of my teacher’s prodigious library, reading and studying in the manner I’d mastered at the university. During the day I dug in the dirt, drank teas that tasted like salad (or the dirt I’d just been digging in!), and learned to use my nose to tell plantain tincture from nettle vinegar. One of my teacher’s favorite games was to take the caps off dozens of bottles of essential oils and leave me to sniff out which cap went on which bottle.
This was somatic learning at its finest. My body began to know all sorts of things and in the evening my brain would turn to the books to catch up. This odd sort of “knowing” went against everything I’d been taught and enculturated to believe, and often it left me at war with myself as my heart and my head tried to learn to coexist.
I’ll confess: I meant to keep my distance. I meant to learn the medicine of the plants without dipping into the “woo-woo” and hippy skirts. But learning with my senses, instead of through the power of my intellect, moved me incrementally into my right brain — my intuitive brain.
What you hold in your hands is the fruit of that slow transition from left brain to right. Each plant’s description is woven with a warp of modern knowledge and a weft of ancient wisdom. Or perhaps a more apt description is a double helix, the modern and ancient twined together on a cellular level.
Personal experience is a profound teacher. The lessons I learned through my nose and my tongue, my hands and my heart, trump anything I’ve read in a book. And yet, miraculously and affirmatively, the book learning almost always supports the somatic experience and so science explains what we have known all along.
Listening for the Second Song
“If doctors had to take the medicines they prescribe before giving them to anyone else, I suspect they’d be writing fewer prescriptions.”
My teacher made this particular pronouncement while we were sorting elderberries, picking the plump fruit off the toxic fuchsia stems. We were sitting at her dining room table, the same table where we ate our meals, gathered with classes, and sat to consult with clients.
There were many such pronouncements during my year-long apprenticeship in Ireland. This one felt no more or less profound than any of the others, and as my fingers continued to sift berry from stem, I amused myself imagining med students popping colored pills and suffering mythical fates, like growing wings and horns, as the chemicals combined in turbulent and unexpected ways.
I never suspected that this tart statement would become a guiding principle in my pursuit of knowledge, both for healing the body and for salving the spirit. But in many ways it encapsulates the difference between traditional shamanic healing and the modern health care system.
Pause for a second and think about medical students or doctors experiencing the effects of the medications they prescribe (and the effects of mixing meds) before they dose others; it’s completely antithetical to how “medicine” is taught today.
And yet this is exactly how medicine was learned for thousands of years. Traditional wisdom and healing are based on the healer knowing the medicine deeply and personally through sight, scent, taste, and the feel of it moving within her body. Even beyond these very tangible interactions, a traditional healer, medicine person, or shaman knows the story of the medicine, the song it sings in the universe, its unique energy signature.
I call this energy the second song.
When someone asks, “Do you think this herb will work for me?” two different songs play through my mind. The first is the song of the chemicals, the notes science can see, which clearly say this plant goes with that disease. The other song is more subtle; it’s the song of synchronicity and alignment, the deep sense of harmony and dialogue that happens when a person finds the right Medicine (capital M!) for them in that moment — something mystical, an elixir not only for the body, but for the soul as well.
The first song is easy to teach. It’s simply a matter of memorization and wrapping your tongue around a bunch of multisyllabic words (which luckily come from Latin and so have a structure that can be parsed). You can learn this first song from any competent teacher.
But the second song . . .
I’ve worked for years finding a way to transmit the second song, to find the right exercises to help you hear the harmonies that happen when a plant and person come together. This book gives voice to the plants’ Medicine songs, so you can feel their energy for yourself and access their cadences for your own learning and healing. While other teachers might choose different words or images, the energy that runs underneath my chosen language is universal. If you’re a plant person, I suspect you’ll quickly recognize the vibration of your botanical friends as they appear on these pages.
The Herbiary
Start Fresh
Chickweed
Stellaria media
Chickweed sings of bright beginnings, welcoming you to your path. Her tiny, starlike flowers whisper, It’s time. Not sure you’re ready? No worries. Gently, she’ll break cells open, renewing energy and life. Chickweed reminds you: wherever you are is a fine place to begin (she’ll joyously demonstrate by tumbling from any possible place for new growth, from neglected farmstead flowerpots to abandoned urban planters). She chips away at old ideas on a foundational level, opening your internal windows to let in fresh thoughts, sloughing off what no longer serves. What’s keeping you from making the changes you crave? Perhaps you’ve been hauling around slowly accreted insecurities or anger’s quicksilver flame. See who you are without those burdens, she suggests, smiling, as she guides you to begin.
Ritual
Notice the Microworld
Like many tiny treasures, Chickweed is easily overlooked. In honor of Chickweed, spend time noticing the microworld.
Sometimes it’s the smallest things that make the biggest impact.
Broaden your field of attention to include the tiny cotyledons pushing up in early spring and the flecks of mica decorating the face of a boulder. Notice the myriad spots on a butterfly’s wings, the tiny seedlike capsules (called sori) on the underside of a fern’s leaf, the shifting colors in the sands on a beach. Listen for the small sounds: the rustle of a bird’s wings and the click-clack of a squirrel breaking open acorns. In this way, you’ll train yourself to pay attention to the subtler currents of not only the world around you but also your own life.
Reflection
Look for Little Stars
It’s easy to figure out the best way to move forward when life gives you big, flashy signposts, but it can be harder when the path seems mundane and mapped by only the smallest of lights. Chickweed reminds you to look for those small lights; her Latin name, stellaria, means “little star.”
What little stars are you ignoring as you search for floodlights and fireworks?
What bright beginnings are moldering as you wish for something bigger?
Is the trail unspooling at your feet while you have your eye on a distant horizon?
That my complicated life could be made so simple was astounding.
Cheryl Strayed, Wild
Be Yourself
Daisy
Bellis perennis
Daisy comes from a huge family. Her sisters — Chamomile, Echinacea, Boneset, Elecampane, Feverfew, and Milk Thistle (to name just a few!) — are among our greatest healers. Lucki
ly Daisy learned early on that the best way to distinguish herself was simply to be herself. So, despite her tomboy appearance, with white petals often tatty or rumpled, and her status as the most common of Medicines (she’ll heal a bruise and quiet inflammation, but nothing like her cousin Arnica montana), she’s a favorite guest. She persistently finds her way into our homes and gardens to remind us, over and over again, that loving ourselves as we are is the very best Medicine.
Ritual
Be Kind to Yourself
If you’re prone to perfectionism or wanting to be in some way special (more beautiful, more magical, smarter, or the best cook), it’s hard to realize that you’re already wonderful just the way you are. Daisy can help; this is her specialty.
Here’s your ritual: Find a photo of yourself from when you were young. Why use a photo of yourself as a kid? Because it’s human nature to have greater empathy for children than for adults. Use this evolutionary idiosyncrasy to your advantage as you work to develop empathy for yourself. It’s easy to think kind thoughts — which is what you’re going to do — when you see the child you once were. Who could be mean to that little one? Can you?
After you’ve chosen a cute photo of kid-you, decorate it with daisies! You can cut out photos of daisies and collage them onto the photo or use a marker and hand-draw them. Get creative, because this photo is becoming a shrine to you.
Whenever you feel like you’re not enough (not good enough, rich enough, pretty enough, smart enough), pull out your photo, absorb Daisy’s easy self-acceptance, and shine it into your heart.