An oath is a promise that we make privately & publicly and in this case with the plant medicines on the plant medicine Road. Hippocrates is the talking point because his concept of ethics has been part of a 2500 year old talk. It is worth revisiting this conversation. Hippocrates speaking to the people of his time 400 BC Greek, related there must be an openness to sharing the teachings, an openness to follow through with that openness. Hippocrates was himself bound by his cultural envelope and in his Oath spoke of passing on the teaching to males and male heirs, this i do not condone or in anyway seek to emulate. The plant medicine Road is not a female only clique. It is not a Male only club. It relates to our greater participation in the environment beyond our own personal birth and death. The plant medicine Road is a trans personal endeavor. It crosses culture, political boundaries, and social stigma. For in what we have gathered, within that is a commitment to share. It is also within the realm of that sharing, that there is a quality of danger. What we share can be misused, misinterpreted, and in addition to a perfect transmission laden with danger, there is also the imperfect transmission, whether originating in the student or the teacher. There is danger of a person approaching the plants directly. Plants are powerful living creatures. They are often tricksters and they exist in a world outside of our own making. Plants themselves have a myriad manifestation within their ecological niche. One plant that comes to mind is Estafiate, Artemesia ludoviciana. Although in no way a dangerous plant, it is a plant that morphs with regards to it's environment. Estafiate can grow along a water course, it can grow in a Alpine mountainous environment, the low desert, in a multitude of environments. Within each of those environments Estafiate is somewhat of a different plant. Presenting itself in different ways. It presents itself differently both physically in its appearance and also medicinally in regard to its constituents. Plants present themselves in the pollen highway and there is often hybridization of the plant, plants combine with other plants of the same species often times revealing different ways of expressing themselves. In addition to this hybridization which occurs within nature as part of the multifactorial interchange of genetic information on the pollen highway there is also plants that are look-alike plants. Some of these look-alike plants although in the same genera may possess completely different characteristics, poisonous qualities. It is much different when buying a plant from a reputed source compared to going out into the plant gardens and interfacing yourself with them. The Safetynet of trust on the plant medicine road is contained in your own willingness to go deeper, to dive deep into the plant medicine garden visiting it time and time again throughout the seasons, throughout conditions and knowing who is who, what is what, and where is where. The danger factor can only be mitigated by a careful study throughout time, a discipline to commit to the plant Medicine Road. Luckily for us on the plant medicine road the power of the plant is contained in The stored vitality, stored in root. The leaves are very much part of an exoteric, open tradition where as the roots are part of a more esoteric tradition, and inner tradition passed on face to face directly from person to person. The plants themselves have been identified and re-identified by noted plant persons in different ways at different times. One such plant is Baneberry, red cohosh, Actea rubra.
The noted herbalist Michael Moore, if you follow the pathway of his books, in one of his initial books he identified Actaea rubra as a poison through and through from top to bottom, with no appropriate medical use. Even a warning not to use or engage with this plant. In his later books he took back this warning and re-described Actea rubra as a legitimate medical plant which could be used, gathered, and harvested safely. With Actea rubra it is a legitimate question to ask, did the plant itself change? It takes great courage to revise an understanding and to say, I was wrong about this plant, I didn't understand it fully, and my understanding now has changed. It is important that we continually engage with the plants and revise our understanding according to what the plants have given us. This can be what part of the plant is used, there is a growing movement in the body of herbal knowledge to go away from the distilled powerful root of the plant and go more towards the aerial above ground portions of the plant for medicinal use. This can also be how the plant is used, methods of preparation and what the plant is used for as a remedy. Disease states and disease processes change and morph within our human community and whether the plants themselves have changed in their medicinal quality or not is a legitimate question, yet it is obvious that the way that we use plants will change. While it is clear that books, online courses, and new methods of communication will arise, there is no substitute for the actual face-to-face transmission along the face of the plant medicine Road. Both the sharing of information and the growth that occurs within community, and direct relationship with others along the plant medicine Road cannot be underestimated.
It's within the nature of the face-to-face transmission between plant, place and person that we need to continue that face-to-face transmission outside of ourselves, outside of our personal comfortable container. Part of the oath of the plant medicine road is to engage with others in the community with the sharing of information regarding plant person and place. In the nature of plant person and place there is a human dimension. When ever we step out of our personal container and engage in community we meet with the other. The other is by its nature different from ourselves. On this level we relate to other people with different values, different backgrounds, different political and social perspectives. There is a tendency with human beings to create a litmus test of, are you with us? How do you stand on this issue? For this we must maintain a neutrality with regard to who is with us, and look at the existential value of a persons intention to engage on the medicine road as the sole litmus test of sharing. Hippocrates spoke of the need for a sexual morality in relationship to the transmission of knowledge. The sharing of knowledge from expert to novice implies vulnerability and often youth. Vulnerability, youth, and innocence, have their own benefits and power. It is the responsibility of the teacher on the plant medicine road to be aware of youth, vulnerability, and innocence, and not use these for personal gain. It is important that within the transmission of this direct face-to-face knowledge that there is a respect for the vulnerability of the novice on the part of the teacher. It is perfectly reasonable to expect that people will gather together based on their common interests sharing the gifts that they bring from their unique place. That relationships will form along the plant medicine Road is an obvious fact of our human existence. What is required is that both the novice and the more experienced on the plant medicine Road acknowledge the sacredness of the journey and do not take advantage of that vulnerability and innocence for personal gain.
From what I have understood of the plant medicine Road there is no place for race, ethnicity, color, or tribe. While some have tried to encapsulate plant knowledge with regard to race, to place plant knowledge within the boundaries of a safe container as a ethnic group, or inner circle, i think there is a strong judgment upon this. It's not a judgment within the human realm of judging it has to do with the exchange loop. The exchange has to do with an open movement, within the promise and oath that we make is a promise to be involved with the openness of this exchange. Within our promise is a commitment to the dynamic quality of this exchange outside of our own specific birth and death. We are making a promise to participate within this exchange that is an ongoing process with the plant place and persons. The exchange process that we are committing to is no other than the process of life and death. Both our own life and death and the knowledge body of plant materia medica that is passed on along the plant medicine road. Time is shown to be harsh with those who try to bind herbal knowledge within the confines of ethnicity, of a certain racial group and present a barrier to this knowledge in the sense of not sharing freely openly in the sense of an open container, it seems that people who trapped by this belief system or exclusivity, will with time gradually lose, and diminish the herbal knowledge they seek to protect. They have chosen to withdraw themselves from the exchange process, the continuum of exchange between plants, person and place which is the basis of our medicine road. This is not to say that there is not an aspect of protection in the sense of ethics with regard to the plant's themselves medicine road. There must be a careful stewardship of those medicine gardens that exist especially in the open West and what remains of the great American wilderness. The fundamental quality to this protection has to do with love, love of the plant medicines, love of the place, and love of the people who will benefit from this plant medicine Road. The fundamental quality of this protection has to do with the oath to the plant medicine road, the promise that is made, to share freely without regard to sex, age, without regard to particular creed or political affiliation, and without regard to ethnic background. The fundamental quality of the plant medicine road has to do with dynamism with the extreme life force that is present in the plants that demands an equally dynamic approach to sharing. The plants themselves are seeking to relate within the realm of plant person and place. There cannot be a native American herbalism. There cannot be a Latino herbalism. There cannot be a White Caucasian herbalism. There cannot be a feminist or gay, queer or transgendered herbalism. There cannot be a male or a female herbalism. There can only be the herbalism of herbalism. It is a fundamental quality of openness. With regard to the plants themselves there is an obviousness of the willingness to share their medicinal songs without regard to tradition, person or background. The plants themselves have a rather harsh judgment on those who over harvest or share information in such a way as to be grandiose and point to the person sharing the information rather than the plants themselves in their environment. To those who are seeking there must be a corresponding movement towards sharing. Sharing outside of personal gain and sharing based on the promise and oath of resiliency within the plant medicine Road.
Sharing medicine and sharing knowledge can relate to selling only if the primary basis of that selling is based on sharing with out regard to the ability to pay in terms of finance. Finance and money have a symbolic aspect within our human interaction yet finance is limited to our human interaction, when we relate directly to the plants we must move outside of the realm of money and finance into the heart. There is payment to be made. There is payment to be done. That payment is rooted within the plant person and place and relates to the quality of commitment and intention on the part of the student. The teacher is a conduit, a voice for the plants and is a spokesperson and translator of the subtle nuanced message of the plants on the plant medicine road. The plants themselves are the teacher and it is a mistake to idolize or in someway focus on the particular conduit for that knowledge on the plant medicine Road. It goes without saying that the person who is seeking medicine or teaching within the medicine road has a whole hearted desire, and centered purpose. It is only within the fullness of time that this tenacity to learning can be judged or evaluated. The exchange is based upon the purity of intention, not upon the ability to pay or repay, The exchange is based upon a greater whole within the plant person and place. For this reason Hippocrates made it clear within the oath that payment for teaching was not to be the basis upon which teaching is done. It is not that the student does not pay, or the teacher does not accept payment, but that the primary fundamental objective is the loyalty within the medicine road and the transmission of this knowledge from generation to generation. We are here for a short time, the plants in the plant medicine road will be here after we are gone, along with the needs of people to make use of this medicine way. The oral tradition and the direct transmission of the plant medicine road with the presence of the plant person and place in a face-to-face encounter is the best method of relating to teaching in the transmission for future generations of the plant medicine Road. There is no substitute for the subtle nuances of learning other than the face to face direct transmission within plant person and place. That this face-to-face transmission is problematic, has no doubts. Yet the face to face transmission is the journey we must make and prepare.
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