I've been studying to be an herbalist for a number of years. When you start with herbs, you usually find yourself presented with jars of powders and dried things, most of which you couldn't identify even if they were in front of you alive. Completely by accident, the first live teacher I found (in Minneapolis, where I was living at the time) just used things that grew around her. I'd been using herbs, and even essential oils, but I never felt as fascinated as when I could find a helpful plant hiding in my backyard. It was like a not-so-hidden treasure. Lise opened my eyes to herbalism not as a use of plants, but as a connection to plants. As in, real plants. Plants that look weedy and no one cares about and show up on your path to the grocery store. Not a powder someone else grew literally half a world away.
I'd been a Master Gardener, and I had Feelings about natives, and their total superiority to non-natives. Sure, a big part of that was sheer laziness (I'm sort of a Deist gardener: plant things and set them free. Hope they live. Natives are good at that.), but some part was also a moral judgement about how to care for our damaged ecosystem. I definitely bristled when one of my Master Gardener instructors repeatedly made the point that to call something "native," you have to (arbitrarily, from his point of view) chose a time in history as The Right Time, and consider everything after that less legitimate.
I find myself drawn to the idea of a grandmother's herbalism. In that model, the latest and greatest exotic herb is less interesting that what happens to be growing outside your door. It doesn't matter if it's a native or an invasive - if it can be helpful, I want to understand it.
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