This Tea is Not Your Medicine
I have been working towards selling teas for a few years. Now please don’t take me to be too much of a capitalist entrepreneur right out of the gates... although it is true, that I am going to be selling a “product”. In bringing my first blend to this point, I want to share a bit about how this came to be.
On the path to bring you this tea, I have connected with local harvesters and added some of my own harvested herbs to this first blend. I first dreamed of creating blends for just the right person for the right moment-for new parents, throughout your cycle, when feeling stressed, etc. I first imagined that I could buy a few kinds of tea and have 3 or 4 blends - thinking it would be all good by throwing a few herbs together and covering a few areas or concerns. This kind of thinking slowed to a stop pretty quickly! Because the more I learned about the plants, the more I realised that although I consider myself someone who knows bit about eating real food, fermentation, Ayurveda, and I’ve always cared a whole lot about the earth - I didn’t really know that much about what was growing all around me. The plants taught me pretty early on that if I wanted to proceed in any kind of honourable way, I was going to have to learn a hell of a lot more about the plants whose lives I was ending to sell.
So, this curiosity about coming to know the plants and their own stories spun me on a path towards Sacred Gardener, Herbalism and Morning Altars. At Sacred Gardener and through Herbalism (still a student since 2018!), I learned that it is all about relationships- (like yes, everything, everything..) but more specifically when working with plants and food. If your intention is for this plant to offer you medicine, there is something to the courtship and tending to the land that needs to part of the asking.
And yes, I mean asking because it is acknowledged by many that just because you can make or buy or sell something, does not mean that it is yours for the taking. I still feel that in this world where we can buy so much with such little effort, it is still significant to have ways of connecting with what we buy or consume in ways that can be at the very least, mindful.
At Sacred Gardener, when we wanted to know more about a particular plant, we were taught to do so in a way that acknowledged and remembered the aliveness, history and story of the herbs we were working with- rather than our cultural way of demanding to know “what it’s good for or how can this benefit me?”. When we harvested, we were taught to do so at particular times in the season and in specific ways that felt like we were asking their permission. We were fed with such loving hands with the bounty of their garden. We learned about the plants growing there, but also how to tend to herbs before, during and after the drying (dying) process. The bulk of the herbs in my first blend come from Golden Lake - from hands that I know tended to these ones with love and care.
I also need you to know that although each plant has been tended to with love - this tea is not your medicine. Yes, they are medicinal and nutritive (you can even see and smell the qualities of the herbs!). If I am really being honest (which can sometimes be problematic!), I need to also let you know that yes, tea and herbs are used in Plant-Based Medicine but through Herbalism, tea is used much differently than how we might regularly enjoy “a lovely cuppa” tea.
To keep this part from going on too long, Herbalism uses teas and tinctures in very specific combinations and very specific dosages according to the individual needs or concerns of the client. It’s like how we would use more western types of pharmaceuticals - and of course we learn how herbs interact with pharmaceuticals. We have a scope of practice and it takes years to become a Clinical Herbalist (BTW there are also “Folk Herbalists” who have not had formal training but many have exceptional skills and are a wealth of knowledge).
I felt it important to be a little more clear about this gorgeous tea. And I also think it is significant to share what I mean when I say this tea is medicinal but not medicine.
Taking the time to be embodied, perhaps a few moments in your busy day to slow your breath, smell lovely herbs and notice how good it can feel to connect mindfully to what you are inviting into your body-is a nourishing way to weave awareness, self regulation and meaningful ritual into your days. But no, this tea is not your medicine.