Healing Energetics

  Most herbal books and herbal classes don’t teach about the energetics of herbs.  I find this so odd because energetics are so important.

      Let's say you are a new herbalist (and maybe you are), and you develop a cough.  You look up “herbal remedies for coughs''.  You will probably get a list like: elecampane, mullein, osha, grindelia, and wild cherry.  Maybe you think “Okay, I’ll buy them all, combine them and make a tea or a tincture, that should be good right?”  Maybe you just pick up the first one that you see.  The trouble with that is they have different energetics, and because of this, both can cause more harm.

     Let’s say for example you have a dry cough, and you buy elecampane.  Elecampane energetics are “warm and drying”. This means that they are going to dry out the lungs. You don’t want to dry the lungs out even more.  That wouldn’t feel good.  However, mullein has demulcent properties in it.  Demulcent properties bring in moisture.  Mullein targets the lungs, so mullein will bring moisture into the lungs.  Mullein energetics are “cooling and moistening ''.  If you have a bunch of gunk in your lungs, then elecampane would be perfect.

     Let's say you fall, and during your fall you somehow hit your leg really hard on something.  A few minutes later, it is really warm to the touch.  Cayenne is really good for inflammation, but I wouldn’t want to bring cayenne to this wound.  We all know that cayenne is hot, that would bring too much heat.  I would probably reach for some plantain Plantago.  This has cooling properties.

     One more example of how energetics work.  Let's say you want to boost your immune system…which we all should want to do.  Fortunately and unfortunately there are so many herbs out there that can help boost your immune system.  So which herb or herbs are right for you?  This is where Ayurveda, an old ancient medicine from India really comes in handy.  If you don’t know anything about Ayurveda that is okay.  I plan to talk more about it in the future. Anyways Ayurveda has taught me that I run cold and dry.  So I focus more on herbs that are warming and moistening.  If you run more hot and oily, then you are going to want to focus more on cooling and drying herbs.  Now, this doesn’t mean these are the only herbs I want to use, I can still use cooling and drying herbs, but I just need to focus on the warming and moistening.

     So energetics are both important when it comes to the person's constitution and the symptom.  This is the beginning of talking about energetics.  I will be talking about this a lot in future posts, and videos.