Community Herbalism in Action: Accessible Ways to Share Plant Medicine & Support Your Neighbors

When healthcare becomes unaffordable, food insecurity rises, and communities are struggling, herbalists have a unique power to help. But how do you actually show up without burning out or giving everything away?

In this episode, you'll discover simple, accessible ways to share plant medicine in your community—from free herb walks and sliding-scale care to medicine gardens and mutual aid kits. Whether you're a clinical herbalist or just getting started, you'll find practical ideas to make herbalism spread like wildflowers right where you live.

What's in this episode:

• 01:00 — Why community care matters now more than ever
• 03:00 — The lineage of healers we're part of today
• 05:00 — Teaching herbalism through workshops and herb walks
• 10:00 — Offering sliding-scale community care days
• 11:00 — Herbal first aid at protests and community events
• 12:00 — Tea tables, care kits, and mutual aid ideas
• 14:00 — Building community medicine gardens
• 16:00 — Sustainable harvesting and foraging ethics
• 18:00 — Seed libraries and medicine swaps
• 19:00 — Setting boundaries while staying generous

For full show notes, resources, links and to download the transcript: https://www.theherbalistspath.com/blog/community-herbalism-in-action

Ready to deepen your skills and serve with confidence? Explore the Community Herbalist Certification Program at https://www.theherbalistspath.com/community-herbalist-certification

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Purpose
• 1:31 Crisis, Healthcare Costs, And Community Unity
• 3:28 Herbal Lineage And The Rebels By Caring
• 5:25 Practical Ways Herbalists Can Help
• 7:07 Teaching, Walks, And Sustainable Harvesting
• 9:40 Sliding Scale Care And Herbal First Aid
• 12:10 Tea Tables, Conversation, And Care Kits
• 14:02 Community Gardens, Seed Swaps, And Libraries
• 16:08 Ethics, Identification, And Reciprocity
• 18:18 Boundaries, Burnout, And Balanced Giving
• 20:06 Small Acts, Big Impact
• 21:18 Training Invite And Resource Guide
• 23:08 Closing, Connect, And Disclaimers

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Welcome to the Herbalist Path, a podcast that's all about helping herbalism spread like wildflowers. I'm Mel, a clinical herbalist, environmental educator, and a mama who's been walking this path for well over 20 years. I created this show to help you feel confident with herbal medicine. You're gonna get a blend of how-to episodes, incredible guest experts sharing their wisdom, and real talk about using herbs every day. All to help you care for your family naturally, take better care of our precious planet, and maybe even become the trusted herbalist in your own community. You see, this work isn't just about the herbs, it's about healing ourselves, it's about caring for each other, and it's about living in deeper connection with the earth. So whether you're blending your first tea, making your first tincture, or feeling called to be the go-to herbalist in your community, welcome. You belong here. You are right on time, and you are on the herbalist path. Hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode here on the herbalist path. I hope that you and yours are doing well and feeling safe and comforted right now in this time. I know that there are millions of people out there who are not feeling safe, who are losing access to food. Obviously, a basic need for survival. There are people watching healthcare costs and insurance premiums skyrocket to levels that are absolutely mind-blowing to me, that anyone could even think that this is anywhere near okay, especially as we or me, myself, and I don't know where you are, but I live in the United States, and we are said to be one of the leaders of the world, but we can't provide health care for our people. And it's sad and it's scary and it's heartbreaking. And in that same vein, what I am seeing is the way that communities are coming together in the most beautiful and empowering ways to help one another, no matter what, quote, side that a person is on. And that's kind of what I wanted to share with you in this episode. Because as an herbalist, all I can think of is like, how can I help my community? And we are herbalists. There are so many ways that we can help our communities. I'm seeing food drives happen all over in my small intimate community and beyond. I'm seeing restaurants and coffee shops raising money for food banks. I'm seeing restaurants offer free food to people that are losing their food benefits and seeing how powerful the unity of community, that's rather poetic, the unity of community is. It's really beautiful. And, you know, the food piece is really awakening a lot of people. But again, back to being an herbalist and how we can help and how we can make a difference in a time when medical care is becoming 100% unaffordable and unobtainable to people. It's going to cause more and more people to turn to herbal medicine, which is beautiful. And if you think about it, like forevermore. I'm actually recall recording this on Sao Huen and Halloween, for those of you that don't know. And it's rather ironic, right? Because we think of the witches during this time. And if you really look back into history, it was the midwives, the healers, the grandmothers with gardens full of medicine that were keeping people well in their place and their time. And quite frankly, they were the rebels. They were rebels by caring. How messed up is that? Rebels by caring. And these were women. And they were burned because they were, quote, witches, or because they had a different way of caring for people, one that was more connected to the earth, connected to the plants, they had connection to the water, to the air, to the fire, all of that. And they had compassion, they had skills, they had empathy, and they rose up in times of need. That is us. We are that lineage of healers today, right now. So whether, you know, you're a wise woman, whether they were root doctors or folk healers or whatever it may have been, or whatever you may resonate as, there's so much that we can do. I'm getting kind of babbly because there's there's a lot of thoughts and feelings and emotions going into what is happening in our world today. But what I really want to do is just take some time and just talk about different ways that we can show up for our communities, also as herbalists, not just for providing food, but how can we make a difference? Obviously, we're not here to replace doctors. We can't fix the healthcare system overnight. This is not what this episode is about. But what we can do is really, really strengthen the web of care that is happening between all of us, whether that's through sipping a cup of tea with a neighbor, taking somebody on an herb walk, or just doing something kind, offering some type of herbal remedy that you have to a stranger in need or a neighbor in need, right? So yeah, that's kind of what I want to do here is offer some ideas to you if you are up for it. Um if this is something you think is helpful for another herbalist friend of yours that would be rad, please share it with them. Because there is so much that we can do when we come together and when we share our wisdom and our knowledge, and it's really, really beautiful. So, some ideas as we go into it. Uh, you may have guessed, but I I love teaching herbalism. I find it to be incredibly empowering. It's a lot of fun for me. Every time I teach something, I am learning too, and that's really, really exciting. So there's a lot of ways that you can show up in your community and teach people about herbal medicine. You can do free or donation-based workshops. I'm not saying you don't deserve to be paid for your work. You definitely do because how can you sustain yourself and your life and your practice as an herbalist if you're not receiving the compensation in this world where it requires money to live? Um, but you could take kids out, like go to your local public school and do an after-school program. Teach your kids about the local plants in the parks or even in the schoolyard. There's so many of them. And those kids are so thirsty for the knowledge. They're gonna remember that and get that connection that, oh my gosh, these plants are more than just weeds. They are actual medicine that can help me and my family, right? It's pretty cool. I am about to do an herb walk in my community with a group of women, and I'm really excited about it. It's it's again, it's Halloween, so it's late in the season, but there is a lot of medicine in the forests around me. And I'm just going to teach the people that have been living in this community for so long, but have lost connection with the plants and the lichen and the other fung fungi and forms of medicine that are currently ready for us to help strengthen the immune system and whatnot. So I'm really excited about that right now. Um, the plan is I have a woman who's offering her 13-acre space that has some trails through there. And I'm just gonna walk everybody through the trails and we're gonna identify plants. I'm gonna talk about what I know about those plants and how they can be used as medicine, how they can be sustainably harvested. And then we'll likely gather just enough for us to go up and have some collective medicine-making sessions together. And I'll teach them how to make the remedies and what we're making and why we're making them. Um, if I didn't mention it already, we're definitely going to be talking about sustainable harvesting because I think that is a very big deal. We will talk about, you know, prayers and offerings that you can give to the plants and the land, which I think is really, really important. Um, yeah, that's kind of fun. And I'm doing that as a sliding scale donation-based program where I was very clear that nobody will turn to be turned away for lack of funding because I want to make sure that everybody has access to this. And I have groceries to buy too. So um, you know, those that are in a little bit more fortunate place right now may feel inclined to, you know, reimburse for somebody that that couldn't. And it really becomes a beautiful giving, receiving, energetic balance when you do it in that way. And then as you're educating these people, it's really empowering them. It makes it so much better. It brings more of us back to the earth and really respecting what the earth has to offer us when we offer it respect and love and kindness as well. Other things I've been doing in my community, I have just been teaching some medicine-making workshops. Um, recently I did a fire cider one. So that's really nice because it's such approachable kitchen medicine. Most people have those things around them. So that can be really, really helpful. I did an elderberry syrup workshop. I think I'm going to do uh an herbal gift giving workshop as we head into the holidays, and everybody's like, oh my God, holiday gifts. Like, why not give the gift of some herbal remedies that you have made? And that class is always just so much fun to teach. So there is that. Um, yeah, obviously there are endless ideas of ways that you can teach and offer your time and um empower people in your community to learn more about plant medicine. Another thing you could consider doing if you are somebody who's got the skills to work with people one-on-one and help them uh with their health care is offer, like, you know, again, you've got to pay your own bills, right? So that's really important. But what if you were to pick a day of the month when you're like, okay, this Saturday, November 15th, whatever, um, I have a whole day that is open to community care. It is a donation, sliding scale-based care system, and you work with as many people as you can under that. Make it known in your communities and share that you are there and available for them. You can partner with your local community library, you could find a Lions Club or other community center. If you have a mutual aid group, you could reach out to them. Um, all of that could be really important. You could also show up to community events and bring herbal first aid. I highly recommend, like if you're going to any of the protests or anything along those lines where um nerves are heightened, uh, feelings and emotions are really heightened, there's a lot of stress, there's a lot of anger. You could bring a lot of nerving support to those kinds of things, or be prepared for anything that might help with tear gas or any of those kinds of things. Like just being that herbal first aid person on hand at those events is really cool. And even if, you know, even better than being the person, like find your collective of other herbalists around and create a mutual aid station or tent or something along those lines. Um, go to your local farmer's market and uh brew a batch of tea and sit at a table with your tea and invite people to come sit and have a cup of calming, nourishing, maybe immune-boosting tea with you. How lovely would that be? I mean, you could even do that in your local park, just sit there with a little, a little pump pot and and some little cups and say, hey, can I can I interest you in a cup of tea? And maybe even have come uh like a conversation with those people. I think so many of us are in this world of fear and um gosh, just disbelief of everything that is happening and that connection and time to speak with somebody about it and be like, oh my gosh, I'm I'm not going through this alone, can be so healing and empowering in and of itself. So that could be really nice. Another thing you could do, you could, if you've got the means to like create some herbal care kits and distribute it to neighbors or families that are in crisis right now. Distribute to unhoused people. That could be really, really cool. Again, join those mutual aid efforts and come in with those T's and those salves and the immune support, right? If you are a product maker and that's your business, like do you have extra product left over? I know I always did when I ran Mountain Mouse. You can give that to those organizations and that would be really helpful. Um, maybe there are doulas or midwives in your community, and maybe they have like new parent groups. You could offer postpartum support kits for them and gift those to those people. Like how beautiful would that feel? Or even come in and do an educational session for those postpartum parents and teach them how they can support themselves throughout this next phase of life. I think that would be super rad. Um there's uh, well, I guess during this time of year, it's not the best, but you could plan it right now. Like, what about building a community medicine garden, right? Organize community planting days, decide on what to grow right now, find your local herbalist or seed grower or farmer or whoever, and find the herbs that grow easily and are super beneficial and multi-purpose for people. So I would definitely be planting things like lemon balm or chamomile, calendula, making it stuff that is easy and generally regarded as safe and could also be um really abundant and make it accessible to everybody so people can just go harvest freely if necessary. If you can find the space to do that, um, that might be a really cool thing to do. I've been trying to find the time to work with my daughter's school more and get a community, or not a community, but an educational garden going for those kids where we do grow food and medicine. Um, I know that's a model that's out there in so many places, but I'm in such a rural area that rains nine months out of the year. So uh nobody's really taken the lead on making something like that happen. But then it becomes a really great educational space, too, where you get to teach people what they're growing and how they're using it and why, right? And this also ties into the food security piece because so many of those medicinal herbs are food. So many of those foods are medicinal. So it really kind of goes back and forth in some beautiful, beautiful ways. So um consider doing that. Like start the planning now, find the land, find the means and and and see who's in your community that has resources or knowledge or skills or time to offer to such a thing. Because somebody might not have the knowledge that you have, but they've got the space in their yard and they really want to learn about this stuff, right? Or somebody may be retired and just think it's so cool that you're doing what you're doing. And they're like, Yeah, I can volunteer like 20 hours a week. I'm retired. Amazing. Connect with your community and make it happen for everybody, right? Um, the foraging piece, I think is a really, really nice thing, like sharing plant identification and knowledge and skills. But I do, you know, I think I talk about this a lot on this podcast, but I think it's really, really important to iterate the sustainable harvesting ethics, making sure that people are not harvesting too much. I know when I first started wildcrafting, it was like, don't take more than a quarter of a stand. But I feel like with the growth and interest in herbal medicine and wildcrafting, we should be cutting that down to like, don't take more than a tenth of a stand. Because if you go take a quarter and then the next Mary Jane goes down there and it's like, oh, look at these elderberries. Um and they take a quarter, you know, like obviously that's going to add up really, really quickly. And it is about reciprocity here. It's not just take, take, take, which I think unfortunately in the last 150, 200 years of humanity, we've been very much turned into a take, take, take society. But we need some balance here. So making sure that is a thing, uh, making sure that they understand the importance of 100% proper plant identification. I can't tell you how many times I see posts on social media where somebody is so excited and they show this huge harvest of XYZ plant, and it's a completely different plant. And they're like bragging about the harvest, but also saying, what do I do with it? Like, why are you gathering so much if you don't even know what to do with it and it's not the right plant? Like this can become really dangerous because there are plants out there that are easy to misidentify and can be um toxic and nobody needs or wants that. So that can be a big, big gig. Another thing that you could do in your community, like start some seed-saving circles or seed libraries together, or medicinal herb swaps. So maybe you guys have a medicine library. You know, in my neighborhood, I live in a very tiny neighborhood and we have like a book library. It's just a guy's yard that has a stand and there's books in there. But what if we came together and, you know, I pop in there because I made a bunch of a first aid salve and I pop that there, and somebody else is like, yay, I've got a shogunda. And somebody's like, I've got all these elderberries I harvested. And they all go into that library, but people just take what they need. They aren't filled with greed. They take what they are going to actually use. That could be a really, really cool way to collaborate with your community and help this help. Help. Just help in general. Help your community. What a neat thought, right? Anyways, I think that there's a lot that can be done. Um I also, again, I think I've I've mentioned this a time or two, but I do want to iterate this. Like it is about boundaries. And while yes, the plants are a medicine of the people, your time, your energy, the cost of goods for making products and packaging them, like it all costs. And so you don't have to give everything away, right? Your time, your skill, your knowledge are all very, very valuable. So if you can just find a little bit of balance in there, that allows you to also take care of you so that you can continue to show up. Because if you are so stressed and struggling and burnt out because you're giving every way, everything away and you can't support yourself mentally, physically, or financially, that becomes a problem. So find a little balance. That's like that. Okay, I've got one day a month or one day a quarter, even, to do donation-based uh pay what you can kind of consultations or you know, classes or whatever it is that you're going to do. So um figure out what works for you. All of this is a lot of ideas. You don't have to take all of these ideas. You can just shut up, show, not excuse me, you can just show up with a cup of tea or a salve and just share it with somebody. You can take a walk in your neighborhood and run into a neighbor and be like, oh, by the way, did you know that this plant does XYZ? This is the way that we make herbalism spread like wildflowers. This is the way that we show up and help and contribute to the community and the vast majority of humanity. And that is beautiful. That is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Okay, I know I'm a little bit ranty and rambly on this episode, but I hope that is inspiring you in some way, shape, or form and making you want to get out there and help more to use your knowledge and your skills. And you don't have to be an expert. You don't have to be a clinical herbalist like I am. You could just be making that calendula salve and be like, cool, I'm making calendula salve. And I know that's gonna help with this person's burn right now, right? Um, that's huge. You can know that linden leaves are so calming and soothing to the nerves, and you make a linden leaf tea for your community. Like, that's great. That's great. And if you are like, oh my gosh, this is really cool, and I totally want to do this. And I've been doing it for a while, but I really want to get to that next level of confidence. And instead of just helping with a calendar sab for somebody's rash, that's really cool. And like helps that rash go away in the moment, but then it comes back six months later. Like, if you want to get to that point where you're like, let me help you heal from the inside out, that's what we are learning about in the community herbalist certification program. So a little bit more in depth with herbal medicine. When I say a little bit, I mean a lot, but don't be scared. Um, anyways, if that's something that really you are feeling called to, I invite you to check out my community herbalist certification program. We are in the midst of doing some really exciting new things and bringing in more fabulous teachers that I can't wait to share with the world. Um yeah, easy breezy to do. I'll link to it in the show notes. Also, I am going to put together a guide. I'm in the middle of it at the time of recording this, a guide on how you can help in your community. And it may be a little less rambly. It may be more streamlined. So as soon as I have that guide up, I will put it in the show notes of this podcast as well. And I encourage you to share it far and wide, excuse me, far and wide. So we can make herbalism spread like wildflowers. I think I'm gonna stop this episode now because clearly I'm excessively rambly. So thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time to listen. Um if this is helpful or inspiring, I would love to hear from you. I would love for you to reach out to me on Instagram or TikTok or email. You can find me at the Herbalist Path. I would love to hear what you're doing to show up for your community right now. And if you have ideas that I didn't talk about in here, uh, sure. I have a I'm pretty sure I missed a few. So I'd love to hear from you. All right. Thank you so much. And have yourself a wonderful, wonderful day. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the Herbalist Path. If you're loving this journey and learning all about the various aspects of herbal medicine, be sure to follow and review the show. It helps more people find their own path with herbal medicine. And if you have a friend or know a mama or another budding herbalist who could use this kind of support, please share this episode with them. And that way, we can keep making herbalism spread like wildflowers. And a gentle reminder nothing shared on this podcast is intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease. All the information is for educational purposes only. And yeah, we throw in some entertainment too. But what it is not is a substitute for personalized care from a qualified health practitioner. Always do your own research, listen to your body, and when needed, partner with a trusted professional who honors both your intuition and your health. Until next time, take care, stay curious, and keep walking down the herbalist path.