Marguerite Dunne is a city girl and traveler. Visit her website at www.herbs-on-hudson.com or listen to her radio show, The Urban Herbalist, on www.wtbq.com. Marguerite was also the third place winner in The Herb Companion's essay contest, "Looking Forward to Herbs."

When the herb spirit is alive, roots mature, vines unfold and souls blossom, reaching out with a fragrance of subtle energy. The herb spirit increases with each herb gardening task: planting, tilling, pruning, gathering, infusing, decocting, tincturing, compounding, dyeing and the wistful sundown delight of simply watching the garden grow.

For a millennium, the herb spirit has grown as gatherers have bundled, blended and applied precious herbs. Father Time's laws have never ordered Mother Nature's gardens and so her gardens have continued to grow. Every herbalist carries this intense energy of the vine, which reaches and pushes upward. And when each garden wall is scaled, the vine simply develops, adjusts and flourishes.

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How did our holistic health garden grow? Expo East, an extended vine of the herb spirit, is an annual event in Boston where health food companies can display their wares for the benefit of  storeowners  So in September, several hundred health food industry vendors carried their boxes and set up their displays. Meanwhile, curious independent store owners and chain-store buyers busily sampled new flavors, dabbed crèmes, collected cute samples and carried out stacks of scientific reports. The “old-timers” wanted to show off their newest merchandise while the “newcomers “ proceeded with caution, ever vigilant for the show’s discount specials. The “old, old-timers” mused pensively about the olden days (the late 1960s) when we still sold bunches of wild-crafted herbs from the backs of battered station wagons and traded addresses for where to get authentic brown rice and good local clover honey. I miss the days when our herb-talk was a secret code among friends, who took the time to put their hands in the dirt, do some digging and do some thinking too.

Lo and behold, I found some wonderful, recycled hippies who've kept the faith and turned our evergreen idealism into the kind of small town companies we admire.  Bob MacLeod and SteveByckiewicz  (“two vegetarians”) started Kiss My Face about 25 years ago. I like their products because they feel great and they don't leave any sticky residue from overly processed extracts. Their product line started with a big bar of olive oil soap, but many face moisturizers, shaving creams, shimmers and cosmetics later, they’ve got a charming website (www.kissmyface.com) and the goodwill of customers in 19 countries.

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I chatted with their VP of kissing and telling, Lewis Goldstein, whose “business card” is a coconut-pineapple SPF 15 lip balm. Who says corporate can’t be fun? We wound our way around the conventional business max topics: the roller coaster economy, quick-fix supplements wrapped up in chocolate and educating the next generation. But what made me smile the most was Lewis describing his mother's experimentations with natural remedies.  Growing up, he knew that there were herbal health alternatives for conventional medical and cosmetic trades.  We reminisced about making soups and brewing teas.  We talked about teaching children the right food choices and the early encounters Lewis’s mother had when questioning doctors.  It’s nice to know that there are still good folks out there and that the herb spirit is very much alive.

Now it’s late fall and my herb drying rack is loaded with peppermint, lemon balm, oregano and catnip. I’ve already made my last batches of this healing salve with my freshly picked comfrey and calendula, maybe I’ll run some over to Bob, Steve and Lewis.

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Marguerite’s Comfrey Salve
Makes twenty, 1-ounce jars

This salve is great for cuts, scrapes, bruises and soothing irritated skin.

• 20 comfrey leaves
• 10 calendula flower heads
• 2 cups olive oil
• ½ cup grape seed oil
• 1 cup lanolin
• ¼ cup of beeswax
• Lavender oil

1. Slow-boil all ingredients in a crockpot for about 4 hours. Periodically, wipe the water off the lid.

2. Strain through cheesecloth into a spouted measuring cup and pour quickly into individual 1-ounce jars.

3. As soon as the liquid salve is poured, add 10 drops of the lavender oil to each jar. The lavender oil is added at the end so it won't evaporate if boiled.    

Marguerite Dunne is a city girl and traveler. Visit her website at www.herbs-on-hudson.com or listen to her radio show, The Urban Herbalist, on www.wtbq.com. Marguerite was also the third place winner in The Herb Companion's essay contest, "Looking Forward to Herbs."

My Jewish friends have always found it odd that I'm such a fan of Yom Kippur. I like the idea of taking one day a year for thinking about your mistakes and making yourself a better person. When I was still teaching, I used the occasion to assign this essay thesis statement: If you could take back one thing you did as a child, what would it be? 

The stories were often painful to read. One story was written by an angry, adolescent young boy from the inner city. He wrote about the time he was 11 years old, hanging out with his pals in the garage, and playing with his father's guns. They were each taking turns handling the gun. When it was his turn, he accidently shot his friend, nearly killing him and taking out one of his friend’s eyes.

He never alluded to this tragedy before, masking the emotion he felt. The part that was so painful for him was that he'd never been given the canvas, the paper or the platform to express his feelings and tell his tale.

People are faced with great challenges, and somehow people have to deal with them daily. Reading these painful essays reminded me of how regenerative Mother Nature can be, and how lucky we are to have her abundance to help overcome tough situations.

Although it would trivialize my former student’s situation to imply that a few herbs could take away the pain of his life situation, I do believe that some of nature’s healing plants can help put our bodies and spirits at ease.

Here are some herbal remedies that have specific healing properties for dealing with overcoming sorrow, anger and depression.

There’s nothing like a sip of skullcap tea. Also try a medium green leaf tea, which helps relax nervous tension and is a favorite at the end of a trying day.

Verbena officinalis

Vervain (don't forget to add the honey to this one!) is more “full-bodied” and can help overcome a deeper depression. The secret is in the consistency; you can’t have a “one cup here and a one cup there" approach. Instead, use 2 to 3 cups daily for a couple of weeks, depending on how overwhelming the sorrow is and how many toxins one loads up with. Vervain also acts as a hepatic remedy and helps with inflammation of the gallbladder. In Chinese Medicine, anger is held in the gallbladder.

Next, I suggest picking up a paintbrush, grabbing a pen, or finding a guitar and discovering new ways to express your emotions and overcome terrible situations. Bodies and minds can mend; nature and art can lead the way.

Marguerite Dunne is a c ity girl and traveler. Visit her website at www.herbs-on-hudson.com or listen to her radio show, The Urban Herbalist, on www.wtbq.com. Marguerite was also the third place winner in The Herb Companion's essay contest, "Looking Forward to Herbs."

A friend asked me to be a guest speaker in her college class one night, with the noble task of explaining to her students how to get started using medicinal herbs. Twenty intelligent adults leaned forward as the spotlight was on me and I told the tale of how I got started with herbs. I talked about how the doctors had pumped me with drugs, which made me feel worse, and about how herbal roots and leaves were what gave me back my body.

One flustered 40-year-old lady raised her hand. She described, in scathing detail, her arthritis, hip replacements, autoimmune diseases and the various failing pill protocols the doctors placed her on and off and on and off for the past five years. She raged over a lopsided conversation she’d had with a young clerk in a health food store. Pounding her fist into her hand, to the beat of every spoken word, she intoned, “How do I know I’m getting the right medical advice when I go into a health food store?” 

What I would have liked to have said was, “So, you want to make sure this 18-year-old young woman in a health food store can give you the proper diagnosis to your illness, which three medical doctors and, collectively, 55 years of graduate medical school, have failed to correctly analyze? Did I get that right?”

It’s frustrating as heck when your body is going one way and you want it to go the other and nobody, but nobody, is giving you the right information and you just want some answers; when it isn’t like anything you or your friend has experienced before; when you did all the things the doctor told you to do! I remember how sick I was for three years after I stopped taking birth control pills: I lost my period, gained 30 pounds, got all kinds of allergies and suffered from 104 degree fevers for days. I went in for all kinds of tests and got all kinds of pills and shots from nine different doctors—nobody could tell me what was wrong with my body.

That was when an old and dear friend, turned me on to herbs. My friend took me to a chiropractor who adjusted my back and suggested I use aloe root and blue cohosh. Within two weeks, I got my period back for the first time in nearly three years and fifteen pounds fell off of me. I was sold!

My very first herb book, which I still recommend and now holds the highest place of honor on my bookshelf, was the original 1939 version of Back to Eden by Jethro Kloss (Lotus Press, 1997). Yeah, I know there are thousands of scientific studies about herbs and all kinds of texts with annotations written and efficient, systematic technobrews that have been sliced-and-diced-analyzed, investigated, footnoted, and refined, but after 30 years as a practicing herbalist, I still prefer the sweet sensibility of the wise, old healing shaman of the village. I learned so much from trying each herb. Sometimes, there is no exact name for one disease to explain all the knotty symptoms your body is showing. Locate which body system feels the most affected, and begin there. When anyone asks, I just say, “Start with one herb related to one health issue you want to work on.”  Jethro Kloss would approve.

Marguerite Dunne is a c itygirl and traveler. Visit her website at www.herbs-on-hudson.com or listen to her radio show, The Urban Herbalist, on www.wtbq.com. Marguerite was also the third place winner in The Herb Companion's essay contest, "Looking Forward to Herbs."

What are herbs?

Herbs are the spirit of Mother Earth talking to her children who walk, fly, swim–keeping the connection between the garden, the green, the light, the wind, the sand and the stars. They are working plants, giving us nourishment for our minds, clothing for our bodies, medicine for our ills, dyes, colors, fragrance and harmony.

Many lessons come from herbs and from the garden. We can take the light of day and transform it into a whole person. We need to find our place in the garden in order to grow. Whenever a plant does not thrive in one place there is always another place for it to flourish. Every season has its own beauty. If you move, shake loose and tumble, you will only be a tumbleweed, bumping along on the whimsy of the wind, or you can burrow down deep into the earth, spread your roots, claim your space, stretch your limbs, arms and soul, face the light, take the rains, snows and storms, bare your hardened bark, shed your falling leaves, and go inward on the veil of the winter solstice.

Grow grandly into a mighty oak; weep as a willow, head bowed all the daylong. Tend to the weeds, the infinite distractions we face daily, the loss of time, creativity and energy.

Herbal plants offer the medicine of Mother Nature–ye shall be known by thy fruit. Whatever grows of beauty and purpose is more than a single day’s work.

Courtesy of Flickr/Per Ola Wiberg
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It's time to get planting again as the chi of my comfrey, burdock, yellowdock, chocolate mint, catnip, stinging nettle, golden seal and echinacea rises, remembering the infinite connection. It’s spring once more. I grab my gardening tools, call my kittens and join the birds and bees as we all have work to do.