The reality of growing and harvesting our own food and medicine is very different from what we know and have already.
Our food and medicines are sterilised, packaged and presented to us in such a way that we need to withdraw from it, become adept in foraging and farming and take back ownership of our food production.
It can only start with us and with our local nature.
Over 70% of pharmaceutical drugs are derived directly from plants.
Bizarrely, we are made to believe that a plant must be standardised in order to extract its potential in healing.
I beg to differ.
If you believe in natural selection, then you can believe a plant has adapted for its survival within its surroundings to create perfection in its entirety.
The reductionist model of orthodox medicine completely and blindly misses this synergy and the dynamics of this symbiosis and co-reliance in nature.
Holistic medicine is the only way forward in helping us rid ourselves of the idea of separation from nature.
We are shifting to a more Palaeolithic instinctual and impulsive (fight or flight) situation.
We constantly ask ourselves, ‘where is the right place to be, where is the safe place?’
We dream about scaling down, living off grid, community living, sustainability, and learning ancient skills.
We need to begin manifesting these thoughts into actions, otherwise we become stifled and imprisoned and our creative energies mutate into angry toxic interactions on social media.
We become sad keyboard warriors and lose sight of our aspirations.
Seasonal nature walks enable us to learn more about herbs and wild foods that grow locally.
Only connecting with these plants all year round gives us this knowledge.
The truth is, without it, we are nothing, and slaves to big pharma and supermarkets.
Actively taking charge of your health and becoming responsible for it gives a massive finger to a nanny state which wants to drug and spoon feed you into submission.
There is nothing more endangering to a tyrannical government than a people who know how to feed and heal themselves.
More than 70% of pharmaceutical drugs are derived directly from plants
Having a deeper relationship with nature makes us less likely to fall for the tricks of manipulation and control in society and arrive at our own core values.
There are thousands of herbs growing in the UK, the vast majority of them are completely edible and have medicinal and nutritional value.
Many have been researched and although only some are commonly used today, there is evidence a great many herbs have been forgotten through history.
Only around 130 plants should be avoided or are poisonous - make sure you know the plant is not poisonous before using it!
With this in mind, nibble testing plants (taking a small 2x2mm piece and chewing it, then spitting out all of the plant and saliva) uses a chemical analysis laboratory called your mouth.
For example, take a dandelion leaf- what you are tasting is bitter; it stimulates your salivary glands, the endocrine system, the gall bladder, the liver and cleanses your blood.
You are putting a flood of chemistry into your system, which provokes the most advanced biological body we know to respond and process it at a cellular level.
This is our body computer, and is fundamental towards waking up our perceptions and instincts - reactivating those tools that are our senses, and the processor is taste.
If we don't, we stand to lose it and let artificial technology win by changing our biological brains to a point where they become unrecognisable.
The rewards for learning about plants and stepping out of your comfort zone are immeasurable.
Benefits include free herbal medicine, which I can assure you as a medical herbalist is abundant and plentiful everywhere, reduced depression and GP visits (if these still exist), increased exercise and vitamin D, free sources of food, more autonomy, mindfulness and inevitably this helps heal communities and makes people happy.
With your hands scratched and soiled from nature's terrain, with dirty nails and windswept hair, it is possible to then understand the fractal of life.
The macro to micro, our terrain earth, each and every one of us a human terrain, a perfect reflection on a smaller scale.
The germ theory becomes redundant, mere fodder for the uninitiated, but that thought can keep for another time.
