It’s 10 PM, Do You Know Where Your Herbs Come From?
It is no longer very hard to find many forms of alternative medicine in the most progressive cities of America. There are some small towns where you will easily find a dozen acupuncturists within a few blocks of each other; spaced evenly between the massage therapists, yoga studios and a few apothecaries. One apothecary may have bulk herbs and the other may have a cozy atmosphere and gift items such as bath salts and home-made incense. In the beginning, this trend was rather charming and offered a lot of options for those of us who are seeking to heal our bodies and minds in alternative ways.
We were sick of the excessive pills and willy-nilly use of antibiotics, sick of the doctors who didn’t look us in the face. We wanted a kind woman with comfy clothes to feel our pulse and tell us what tea we should drink to help our headaches. We wanted the massage therapist to work some magic and cure our sciatica; we wanted the kind gentleman at the herbal shop to whip up a tincture that could get rid of that nasty poison ivy rash. But somewhere along the way, we realized that we could go to our local CVS and get St. John’s Wort supplements or beeswax lip balm. Finally, the main stream was beginning to get it, right?
On one hand, this shift is an amazing opportunity to experience many forms of alternative healing. It is fabulous to be able to choose between seven acupuncturists and exhilarating to have a different yoga class to attend every night of the week. It’s as easy to find a bottle of Goldenseal supplements as it is to find a bottle of aspirin. But where did these alternative medicines come from, and how do they work?
It is a question that is no longer asked by many people who use these supplements daily. They may not know what St. John’s Wort looks like, but they know it helps with seasonal depression and comes in easy-to-swallow pill form. They aren’t sure where to find Goldenseal, but they are pretty sure that they should take it with Echinacea as soon as they feel sick, or once they are already sick, and what’s the difference? The problem is that this mentality is turning herbalism and alternative medicine into the very thing we hated about Western medicine to begin with. (more…)
