A few months ago, I wrote two related Substacks; one was called ‘The Slow Work of Mastery’ [1] November 28th 2025, the other was called ‘Thyroid Mastery in 60 Days?’ [2] November 21st 2025, in which I moaned quite a bit about the modern trend to speed-learn, usually by downloading courses from the internet that can be completed in a matter of weeks to get a certificate of ‘competence’. And I quote; And so I grumble […]
Category Archives: Herbal Medicine
31
Jul
Jul
I sometimes think that I have the perfect job. Any day of the week, I could be harvesting chamomile, digging up dandelion roots, dehydrating leaves, making tinctures, weighing out teas, seeing patients, writing articles, teaching students, researching, and from time to time, doing courses to stretch my mind. After I qualified, I took two years to do post-degree teacher training, two years […]
24
Jul
Jul
What the Evidence Actually Shows “I have 48 tomato plants!” This may have been the first comment that came out of my mouth in a light-bulb moment, but you will have to watch Bendy Brain Episode 5 on YouTube to find out why….. 1 The thing is, in my MSc in Mental Health Science I am primarily researching […]
26
Jun
Jun
A Metabolic Dysfunction? Yes, yes, I know. Parkinson’s is an incurable, progressive condition that needs to be managed rather than ‘cured’. But what if we could ‘manage it’ better? I treated my husband solely with herbs for several years, until he decided to accept the Madopar he had been offered. He hoped it would improve his fatigue […]
19
Jun
Jun
I don’t know how many people think that herbalists just hug trees and sit with sage leaves, but the result of that would be, understandably, a low level of trust concerning medical matters. Speaking of someone who was taught Biochemistry from Lehninger [if you know, you know], and Clinical Medicine from Kumar and Clark, I […]
29
May
May
Thoughts on Medical Credibility One of the more revealing features of contemporary medical discussion is not that people disagree about evidence; although I think that disagreement is frequently productive. Rather it is that they usually apply different standards to identical kinds of evidence, and that this asymmetry almost always runs in the same direction. This is not a problem of dishonesty. It is a problem of worldview. Mention that […]
Health, Herbal Medicine, The School of Herbal Medicine
Bringing Herbal Skills Back Into the Community
22
May
May
There’s a particular kind of energy that appears when people gather around a table covered in jars, leaves, roots, and the warm steam of a freshly brewed infusion. It’s the energy of people remembering that health isn’t something handed down to them. Rather, it’s something they can participate in. When we had our last trustees’ […]
15
May
May
On paper it doesn’t make sense to me. Thinking about it doesn’t make sense to me. But people [lots of people] maintain it works. When I was training over 20 years ago nutrition was one module in our degree course. Something that we acknowledged was a ‘useful’ addition to the complex mixes of medicinal herbs […]
01
May
May
And patients fall through the gaps… People may imagine that symptoms arrive one at a time, like items on a list. Fatigue. Pain. Gut disruption. Anxiety. Insomnia. They think each one has its own cause, and its own solution. But clinicians who sit with patients long enough to listen know something different: symptoms arrive in constellations. They cluster. They reinforce each […]
10
Apr
Apr
And Why It Matters… People often ask why I continue to practise as a herbalist and teach herbal medicine in an era saturated with pharmaceuticals, protocols, and increasingly algorithmic healthcare. The answer is not nostalgia, nor a rejection of biomedicine. It is something far more pragmatic: herbs remain one of the most effective ways to treat illness while preserving […]