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The School of Evolutionary Herbalism

@evolutionary_herbalism

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Herbalism, Alchemy & Medical Astrology
Online Herbal School 🌿 est 2011
w/ herbalists Whitney & Sajah Popham

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When there’s too much mucus in the lungs, it doesn’t just stay there, it can sometimes drip down into the stomach and create that queasy, heavy feeling we sometimes mistake for indigestion. And the same can happen in reverse too, when the stomach is bogged down with phlegm, it can rise and affect the lungs.

In both cases, it’s what Ayurveda would call an excess of kapha: dampness, heaviness, stagnation.

Elecampane is one of those herbs that clears this pattern beautifully. With its mildly bitter, warming action, it drains the damp, moves the lymph, and helps the body release what’s been stuck. Its antiseptic qualities make it especially helpful when infection or stagnation is lingering in the gut. 🌿

Learn more over on the blog. Comment ‘ELECAMPANE’ and we’ll send you the link 🌿🧡🍂 by @evolutionary_herbalism

Many people today don’t believe nature is intelligent, mainly because Western philosophy has traditionally confined intelligence to humans. In that view, people have intelligence, while the rest of the animal and plant kingdoms merely have instinct.

But instinct is also a form of intelligence, and acting on instinct does not mean someone or something is acting without intelligence.

So what does intelligence really mean? The word comes from the Latin “intelligere,” meaning “to choose.” Many dictionary definitions prioritize reason and intellect over other forms of knowing. Intelligence is broader than intellect alone, and a more useful definition is the ability to learn, understand, or deal with new situations. That’s exactly how nature and evolution work. 🌿

In nature, there’s a process called self-organization, where organisms adapt to new or challenging circumstances. Parts synchronize into a new whole, that whole responds to disturbances like changes in temperature, moisture, or light, and it recalibrates to maintain balance. That process of adaptation is a form of intelligence. The late herbalist Stephen Harrod Buhner wrote extensively about this in “The Secret Teachings of Plants.”

When we see nature this way, plants and animals stop being machines running on programming. They become participants in an intelligent, living web, and we’re part of it too. by @evolutionary_herbalism

Nutrition is at the foundation of our health, and our bodies need more than fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. We also need vitamins, minerals, and trace elements, substances we can’t make ourselves. We only need tiny amounts of things like boron, copper, and selenium, but specific biochemical pathways can’t work without them.

Paul Bergner compares trace elements to the letters of the alphabet, and our biochemical pathways to a language built from them. Lose the “Z” and you can still speak English. Strip away A, E, O, and S and it gets hard to say anything at all. 🌿

Magnesium is a classic modern example. It’s one of the most common deficiencies, and it supports muscle relaxation, sleep, and cellular energy. Low magnesium can mean spasms, tight muscles, anxiety, poor sleep, and intense menstrual cramps.

It doesn’t matter how many antispasmodic herbs you take if you’re deficient in magnesium. To reach the root cause, you have to replenish it.

Learn more in our latest blog post, comment FORMULA and we’ll send you the link by @evolutionary_herbalism

Herbalism is a doorway to our ancestors.

All of us come from people who turned to plants to heal. No matter where we’re from or what our lineage is, if we go back far enough, we find ancestors who relied on herbs for medicine.

Even when the knowledge of herbal healing wasn’t passed down in a family, there is a memory that lives in the bones of a time when one of our ancestors was healed by a plant. Like a seed waiting for the right season, it can lie quiet for generations. For many, the calling to herbalism feels like something ancient within their lineage wanting to sprout again and live through them.

Being healed by herbal medicine, and in turn learning to help others heal, is one of the closest ways to connect with the ancestors and carry on their work. To answer the call to this path is to pick up a torch that has been tended, protected, and carried by healers for generation upon generation. Every herbalist belongs to a vast lineage of healers and medicine carriers, and their work continues through us today.

On this holy day of Samhain, today celebrated as Halloween, when the veil between worlds grows thin, we remember the ones who came before us. They carried and protected their precious seeds of healing wisdom so that it would live on all the way to now. We honor and acknowledge every ancestor who has contributed to the legacy of herbalism we are a part of. 🕯️🍂 by @evolutionary_herbalism

Reishi 🍄❤️ A slow-growing perennial polypore shelf mushroom, Reishi grows across North and South America, Asia, and Europe. It was documented as far back as 56 B.C. in the Shen Nung Pen Ts’ao Ching, the Divine Husbandman’s Classic of Materia Medica, and has been a cornerstone of Chinese Medicine for thousands of years.

Known as Ling Zhi, meaning “spirit plant,” it has long been called “the mushroom of immortality” and was treasured by Chinese mystics, sages, healers, and emperors alike.

Ganoderma lucidum is most commonly found on hardwoods, while other species may grow on conifers. Our research focuses on G. lucidum, though the other species can often be used interchangeably, with minor differences in their energetic and medicinal properties.

Swipe to explore the magic, medicine, and mysteries of this extraordinary mushroom 🍄👉🏽

Want to go deeper? Comment "MATERIA" for a FREE monograph from Materia Medica Monthly. by @evolutionary_herbalism

Mugwort is the plant for dreamers. Its scientific name is Artemisia vulgaris, named after Artemis, the Greek goddess of the moon and hunt. As the name suggests, this herb ushers you into the lucid world and wakes up the parts of your subconscious mind that have been left to settle and collect dust. In this way, it helps you process past wounds so you can experience greater closure and healing.

This herb was one of the first plants I ever worked with, nearly two decades ago now. There’s something about those first plants that stay with you and become a touchpoint throughout your herbal journey. For me, Mugwort is just that. 🌙

Plants like Mugwort are exactly why we started our upcoming free workshop series, to help you build this same kind of relationship with the plants you work with. Comment REGISTER and we’ll send you the details. 🌿 by @evolutionary_herbalism

Nutrition is at the foundation of our health, and our bodies need more than fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. We also need vitamins, minerals, and trace elements, substances we can’t make ourselves. We only need tiny amounts of things like boron, copper, and selenium, but specific biochemical pathways can’t work without them.

Paul Bergner compares trace elements to the letters of the alphabet, and our biochemical pathways to a language built from them. Lose the “Z” and you can still speak English. Strip away A, E, O, and S and it gets hard to say anything at all. 🌿

Magnesium is a classic modern example. It’s one of the most common deficiencies, and it supports muscle relaxation, sleep, and cellular energy. Low magnesium can mean spasms, tight muscles, anxiety, poor sleep, and intense menstrual cramps.

It doesn’t matter how many antispasmodic herbs you take if you’re deficient in magnesium. To reach the root cause, you have to replenish it.

Learn more in our latest blog post, comment FORMULA and we’ll send you the link by @evolutionary_herbalism

There are no truly “beginner” herbs. 🌿

Some herbs get called beginner herbs because they’re gentle, safe, and unlikely to cause harm. That doesn’t make them basic or weak, and it’s not something an advanced herbalist moves past. Calendula, yarrow, chamomile, and peppermint are still powerful medicines, and they’re worth studying at every level.

Studying materia medica is a lifelong journey, and even advanced herbalists keep refining their understanding of plants. The herbalist is forever a student of nature, and that means deepening your understanding of all plants, not just the obscure ones.

Which “basic” herb keeps teaching you something new?

#herbalism #materiamedica #herbalist #chamomile #peppermint by @evolutionary_herbalism

The function of the intellect is to dissect, separate, and analyze. It sees the observer as distinct from the observed, while the heart sees the observer as part of, and connected to, what’s being observed.

That’s why the mind has such a hard time with wholes. It tries to understand something by breaking it into pieces and scrutinizing each one in isolation, but as soon as you dissect something, each part acts differently than it would as part of the whole.

None of this means the intellect is bad. Instinct, intuition, and intellect each serve a purpose, and none is superior to the others. The intellect on its own can be unhealthy, but when it connects with the heart, it becomes integrative and balances an overly rational or rigid mind.

In the human struggle for fulfillment, we’re ultimately seeking wholeness and completeness within ourselves and our place in life. Because the mind’s job is to separate and analyze, we can’t get there through the intellect alone. It takes the heart. 🌿 by @evolutionary_herbalism

Once you’ve built a solid foundation in herbalism and human physiology, the next step is learning how to bring it all together by working directly with people 🌿

Knowing how the body works and understanding the actions of herbs is essential groundwork, but at some point, you have to step out of the books and into practice 📚✨ 𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬-𝐨𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭.

In this stage, you’ll start conducting client intakes, learning how to identify root causes behind symptoms, and crafting formulas that support balance and healing from the ground up 🌱

You’ll also keep deepening your connection with the plants themselves, even the simple ones like Chamomile and Peppermint. These “beginner herbs” have endless layers to discover, and every herbalist, no matter how advanced, remains a lifelong student of nature 🌼

𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐥𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞 is the key at this stage. Work with people you trust like your friends, family, coworkers, and allow your practice to evolve naturally. Each experience will sharpen your intuition, expand your understanding, and help you grow into the grounded, confident herbalist you’re meant to be ✨ by @evolutionary_herbalism

🌿 Elder is one of those plants with a long memory. Elder seeds have been found in Neolithic dwellings dating back to 2000 BCE, and after the fall of the Roman Empire, Charlemagne decreed that every household plant an Elder tree, making it one of the most prominent remedies in European folk medicine.

Elder flower is anticatarrhal and decongestant, helping resolve the excessive mucous of sinusitis and hay fever, astringent enough to use as a facial toner, and one of the oldest, most reliable relaxant diaphoretics for colds, flus, and fevers.

The berries bring their own strengths: a powerful antioxidant and direct antiviral effect, with research showing Elder berry relieves influenza symptoms an average of four days earlier than placebo. Together, flower and berry support the respiratory system, the skin, the kidneys, and digestion.

One important note: never use the red berries of Sambucus racemosa, which are toxic. Only the blue and black berries and the flowers are used medicinally, and the berries should always be cooked or properly prepared first.

Swipe through for the full picture on Elder's history, actions, and safe preparation.

This is just one of the 70+ in-depth herb monographs inside Materia Medica Monthly, our subscription program with video lessons and a searchable archive. Comment MATERIA to get a free sample issue and be the first to know when enrollment opens. 🌿 by @evolutionary_herbalism