Bioregional Herbalism, Vitalism, & Ancestral Healing Podcast

I spent a weekend in 2019 on the Autumnal Equinox doing a plant diet with Angelica with a small group in her hogan (hooghan) like structure, or temple, on the grounds of Derrynagittah, her restored farm cottage site in East Clare, just up the road from the historic site of famous Irish herbalist, Biddy Early.Being my ancestral homeland (East Clare), I was excited to speak with Carole again.I hope you enjoy the talk and I do hope to have Carole on again at a later date.Find out more about Carole here:https://derrynagittah.ie/https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Carole-Guyett/483742777https://foundationforsacredplantmedicine.org/about-us/our-team/carole-guyett-2/ Get full access to Bioregional Herbalism, Vitalism, Ancestral Knowledge at johnjslattery.substack.com/subscribe

As a new twist to this week’s article, I’ve made an audio recording of myself reading the article. If you’d like to have a listen, here you go. Let me know in the comments if you appreciate this! A Shifting ParadigmI feel we are at a primary juncture of revisiting what we have been taught to believe about medicine, illness/disease, symptoms, healing, healthcare, etc. So much has been presumed, at the very least, and an entire paradigm of thought has been believed to be absolutely true as a consequence of these presumptions. Well, what if things actually did happen differently than what we’ve imagined, or more importantly, what we have been told?I’m using the term “illness” here to communicate an expression of detoxification, or relieving the body of waste. Let alone the conventional concept of “disease”, I recognize there is debate as to what constitutes disease, whether symptoms are an expression of vitality, or even whether such a thing as a disease exists at all.These ideas may seem preposterous or utterly ridiculous to some (ie, the medical establishment). I get it. I understand. We have been indoctrinated into a certain way of seeing the world and in order to see something differently we must be willing to take on a different perspective, to open our minds to a greater flexibility than what we’ve been accustomed to. It is often simply a matter of a slight shift in perspective, and the entire world changes before our eyes.Undoubtedly, we have a general consensus that when one is not feeling well that one is ill. If that illness persists over time (weeks, months, years) and significantly interferes in one’s life then we may consider it a disease and that person often receives a diagnosis, if they are “lucky”. I say lucky because many patients will cycle through the medical establishment for years, or decades, bounced around between specialists, being experimented on with toxic pharmaceuticals and invasive procedures, while receiving a multitude of diagnoses, often conflicting.I recognize that it is a rather unconventional viewpoint today to consider one’s illness as a sign of health, or vitality, but this has been the perspective of many a health practitioner in the past. Not too long ago (mid-19th century) this would have been one of the presiding philosophies of medicine. A fever, for example, was seen as the body’s vital response to an illness, or to an accumulation of toxins, perhaps even a stage of growth and development, particularly in a child’s life.Since the mid- to late 19th century, in the Western world (first, then the entire world), we have been indoctrinated with the idea that our bodies are subject to microscopic invading pathogens, to which we can mount an immune response (when capable) in order to thwart this incursion and once again regain sovereignty over our domain. There is something plausible to it. I get that. However, the truth is that these ideas have not been proven. Instead, impressive narratives, with the aid of technology and medical jargon, have been crafted to impress upon us the veracity of these claims - to the point that we have come to accept these “universal truths” wholeheartedly (eg. has anyone ever seen a ribosome, let alone a virus?? Dr. Cowan’s video on What does make you sick)We know that our bodies have a capacity (to varying degrees) to take on toxicity - up to a point - at which point we shift into detoxification mode and specific bodily systems are engaged bringing on fever, cough, diarrhea, vomiting, rash or pustulant excretions from the skin. See Dr. Bailey’s recent video on The Truth about Fevers.What seems to be especially in question these days is what is making us sick. Well, let me re-state that. There’s a schism wherein (very roughly speaking) two parties see things very differently from each other. One party - let’s call it Germ Theory - proclaims that infectious microorganisms are largely responsible for disease (add in another layer for the genetic component as well; but that stays on this side of the argument, largely), and another party - let’s call it Terrain Theory - that proclaims the vital force within the individual is paramount. When sufficiently supported and nourished, this vital force is capable of thwarting off toxic onslaught, to a great degree, and is intimately connected to our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well being. So I’d like to focus on the vital force paradigm as that’s where my heart has led me - yet it has taken some wandering through the darkness of self-doubt and inadequacy (as a recovering and unofficially educated, re: “uneducated”, member of the Germ Theory crowd) to get there over many years. To see illness as an expression of vital force one needs to appreciate the flow and rhythm of Nature. In our hi-tech world we are often disconnected from the rhythms of Nature. We can name these as the diurnal cycle (sunrise, sunset, sunrise, etc.), or the circadian rhythm within our bodies that accompanies this daily phenomenon, or perhaps the movement of the sun along the horizons at sunrise and sunset marked by solstice points at either end, or the midway point of equinox. The point is that our world is a composition of dynamic interplay between a great variety of natural cycles, all of which, it appears, feed off of each other - that is, their is a dynamic feedback loop which informs, and is informed by, each part of the whole, thus creating a dynamic whole.This, as I see it, is the crux of our entire collective cosmology. We can either be in touch with this or not, to varying degrees. How are we in touch? Through our God-given sensory perceptions, through the heart-field awareness, through somatic intelligence, etc. To be in-tune to the natural phenomenon of which we are a part is to be in touch with ourselves - as we are made of the same elements, albeit comprised in a unique and beautiful way. This is the great mystery and beauty of creation.To limit this article (I do intend to go deeper and expand on these ideas in future articles), I will say here that this is where our illness derives from: the moment at which we perceive ourselves as separate from the whole.That may seem too abstract for most. But it’s much more subtle than that. In traditional Ayurveda there is a saying (I can’t recall the Sanskrit at this time) which describes the origin of disease. It roughly translates as, “the mistake of the intellect”. I have come to interpret this as the moment at which our intellectual mind separated from the heart mind. This may be a collective mistake made by humankind long, long ago (perhaps as we passed from the Satya Yuga, or from the Golden Age into the lesser Ages), or it may have been a foreign and malicious incursion into the human race from elsewhere - some other creation, another motive, with the will to destroy. I conjecture here as I simply don’t know.But the point is that the progression towards “illness” is long and sinuous, marked by repeated occurrences that, taken in full context, always look and feel a little bit different - yet some aspect of them is the same all the time. These are the patterns of disease states, whether they be psychological, emotional, physical, or spiritual. To believe in the sovereignty of the human being is primary in accepting that a vital force dwells therein which propels us through life, inspires us, protects us, and keeps these mysterious and wonderful bodies of ours going. Many human lives have shown us the proof of this, and the vitality exhibited through courage, strength, compassion, love, creative capacity, productivity, joy, and any other beautiful thing you could imagine coming from a human show that this vital force lives within us.An age-old question then is why does someone fall ill when they do? In the absence of any direct influence (and even those need to be taken and understood in a broader context - please, expand your minds here) it could be a great many things. The old phrase, “it was the straw that broke the camel’s back” comes to mind. Was it really that one little straw that brought the camel to its knees and all the cargo crashing to the ground? Or was it an accumulation that didn’t show itself until it suddenly became too much.That, my friends, is all too often how we fall ill. Our vital force - and ability to remain at a functional capacity - becomes over-run by toxins (to put it simply) and we reach a state in which our body (in all its wisdom and intelligence!) must shift priority towards detoxification lest we become completely overloaded by these toxins causing a critical situation for our bodies. I realize that life is dynamic and each person is a unique story and composition of entirely unique circumstances (however related to those of their peers), but it is this phenomenon of critical mass (how, when, and why, exactly, remains the mystery) that leads one into a deeper expression of illness.BUT it is the vital force that is responsible for spawning the so-called illness as its highest priority is the preservation of the vessel for the spirit-based light body that is the human being so that it may continue on with its mission of self-development here on the sacred Earthly plain.Any notion to discredit this is, ultimately, a spiritual sacrilege against our Creator, the Creator that resides within each of us. And it is for this reason alone that it is utterly essential for each person to come to understand the fraud of pathogenic contagion for it ultimately promotes fear and anxiety - a most deadly contagion if there ever was one. In an upcoming post, I will take a look at how some plants act on our bodies in order to resolve toxic build-up, thus enabling us to heal ourselves while promoting deeper self-awareness, and longevity as a consequence. Get full access to Bioregional Herbalism, Vitalism, Ancestral Knowledge at johnjslattery.substack.com/subscribe

In lieu of a new post again this week, I’m sharing a recording from 2015, in the field with my apprentices. Here we are sitting with Ligusticum porteri, aka oshá, bear root, chuchupate, one of the most revered plants of the Southwest for centuries.I’ve been unable to make my weekly posts the past two weeks as I’ve been out trimming apple trees, gathering feral apples with my daughter, immersing myself in the autumn weather amongst my current apprentices in the shaded canyons of central Arizona, or otherwise taking care of my business. As I’ve also been preparing for the launch of my 2023 Bioregional Herbalist Apprenticeship, I’ll be sharing more in the weeks to come on what this is all about.Now back to serving Prickly Pear drinks at our annual main event at the Desert Forager booth… Get full access to Bioregional Herbalism, Vitalism, Ancestral Knowledge at johnjslattery.substack.com/subscribe

To supplement my most recent post on Tír Raon, this talk was recorded at a gathering in northern Utah, Fire To Fire, where I was inspired to share from the heart my views on Terrain vs. Germ Theory. I feel this very divisive topic does not need to be. It is not entirely binary, nor is one side absolutely wrong and the other, therefore, absolutely right. There are indeed subtlties involved.However, we must work with what we really know. Not only have we raced far ahead in our collective, rather unscientific assumptions about a great many things we presume to be factual, but we have also left a great deal of wisdom about the nature of the universe as was once held dear by our ancestors. To what end?I offer my views on Tír Raon as a means of reuniting with our essence and aligning ourselves with the truth of what resonates in Nature all around us, at its most basic. May you listen with an open mind, may you find inspiration in what I have to share, and may it resonate with a sense of truth deep within you. Get full access to Bioregional Herbalism, Vitalism, Ancestral Knowledge at johnjslattery.substack.com/subscribe

This was a live recording of a presentation I made at the Fire To Fire Gathering in Tabiona, UT in June, 2022. This is one of my favorite gatherings of the year held on private ranch land beside the Duquesne River where the high desert of the Great Basin meets the edge of the Rocky Mountains. Some key points from this presentation:* As above, so below; as within, so without* The integrity of the organism is dependent upon the natural influences which align with our being* The integrity of our system is maintained through living relationship with the Earth* What happens to the system when our organism becomes disintegrated?* Toxins come in particle form as well as wave form (eg. radio frequencies)* Cellular communication is dependent upon the integrity of the organism* Cells are made up of structured water (the “4th state”); when this water becomes unstructured (or overly toxic) within the cell, the cell may flush out the water from within the cell* A virus has never been identified and removed (re: isolated) from the living tissue/fluid of any mammal. Thus causation of illness by said agent has yet to be proven.* Individual sovereignty is exercised and expressed through cogent thought, and full responsibility in one’s own health and mental/emotional well-being* Herbalists have sought out validation from the reigning medical paradigm to be recognized and validated by the reductivist model. This undermines the foundation from which herbalism sprang - from the Earth.* Growing into Vitalism has been a process. Recognizing patterns of accepting hypotheses as fact where critical thinking was lacking.* There’s a detoxification of our mental landscape that is necessary, if not preliminary to the further detoxification of our physical bodies. The detoxification of our mental/emotional state may be a necessary precursor to detoxifying our bodies.* A discussion of creosote bush (Larrea tridentata) tea as an agent of detoxification. Creosote bush, aka chaparral, is found across our southernmost deserts: Mojave, Sonoran, & Chihuahuan. * 4 Qualities of all substances: Hot, Cold, Moist, & Dry* Creosote bush helps clear Damp Heat* Creosote bush stems are used amongst Seri herbalists in northwestern Sonora because the stems are “sweeter”, or less bitter.* Discussion of Ceanothus integerrimus, red root, as a lymphatic detoxifier. This species is my favorite for its wintergreen scent/flavor and its full spectrum of red root qualities.* Ama (toxic substance in Ayurveda) gathers in the tissue and disrupts the integrity of the organismI mentioned Dr. Tomas Cowan a few times during my talk. If you’re interested in listening to some of his presentations, you can visit his Bitchute channel.Thank you for listening, reading, following, sharing. I appreciate it. Get full access to Bioregional Herbalism, Vitalism, Ancestral Knowledge at johnjslattery.substack.com/subscribe