Plant Medicine Summit - Amazon S3...This is David Crow, your host of the fourth annual Plant Medicine Summit where we are exploring the many wonderful uses of medicinal plants around

Vickie Shufer | March 22, 2019 | p. 1

Plant Medicine Summit™ Foraging for Health

Vickie Shufer David: Welcome to everyone. This is David Crow, your host of the fourth annual Plant

Medicine Summit where we are exploring the many wonderful uses of medicinal plants around the world in all kinds of cultures for healing the body and the mind and the spirit and our families and our communities. In our segment today, we're going to be talking with Vickie Shufer. Vickie is an herbalist and a forager with a Master's Degree in Therapeutic Herbalism from the Maryland University of Integrative Health. She's the owner of Wild Woods Farm, a native nursery in northeast North Carolina where she grows and sells native plants and other herbal products. Vickie, welcome.

Vickie: Thank you. David: Let's talk about what you do. We're going to be discussing foraging, and you

have a very unique story. You are working with herbs and wild foods in a very unique way. Let's just set the context here. Maybe you could give us a little background on what you do and how you do it and how long you've been doing it and then we can move into why you do it.

Vickie: Okay. Well, to start with the beginning, how I got into it, I grew up on a farm and

we harvested a lot of the wild berries and nuts for just our own personal use. I was always intrigued by what you could find in the wild that you could eat. It was in the back of my mind, what if you weren't able to go to the store, what would you eat? So I was always seeking out these wild plants more from the survival perspective at that point. Then when I got into college and to graduate school, I took a class on poisonous and edible plants, and realized there's a lot more out there than what I had realized there was growing up. Well this was fascinating to me. It was like opening the door to a supermarket and whatever you could pick was yours. I was discovering all kinds of flavors and just various things that you could eat, and it was fun. I would go out with my teacher and classmates on weekends, and we would do nothing but forage and come back and make these interesting dishes with what we had gathered.

Then when I came to Virginia Beach in 1979, I started looking around to see who

can I go foraging with, and I wasn't finding anyone. I thought, well, you know what's out there, just go gather it. When my refrigerator would get full, I would have a wild food party, and I would invite my friends. This continued for a number of years, and my circle of friends grew larger and larger. I finally realized I'm spending all my time picking and preparing. I need to share this fun. So I


started doing it as a class and teaching others what they could gather and eat as well. Then I linked up with people in North Carolina that were doing the weekend workshops, and we would go out in the morning and gather and spend the afternoon preparing, and that evening we would have a wild feast. This was just really fun for me. I really enjoyed it.

So what started out as looking for survival food, went to having fun in the

outdoors and then it became more of a matter of then when people would ask me, "Well do you ever do medicine," and I would say, "No, I'd rather eat than be sick." I'd leave it at that until I met Dr. James Duke in the early '90s. I met him at a workshop that he was doing on medicinal plants, but I had done some research background, gotten information and found out that he also was a forager. So I thought, well, let me see what he has to say. It turned out everything I had been gathering and eating all these years was medicine, and that's what his talk was on, medicinal herbs. That just really opened the doors to this other world. I was totally fascinated. You mean this food is really medicine? Medicine can be food and food can be medicine? I was fascinated.

So, it took another turn and this really changed my whole approach to wild

plants. I saw them now not just as food but medicine and something that could keep us healthy and prevent us from having to go to the doctor for every little ailment that surfaced. I proceeded to follow James Duke to the Amazon, to Costa Rica, to Maine, to his Green Pharmacy garden up in Fulton, Maryland to learn as much as I could about these wild plants and finally decided, well, if I'm going to incorporate wild medicine into my talks and programs then I needed more than my BS in Recreation, so went back to school at Maryland University of Integrative Health and got my Master's degree in Therapeutic Herbalism. So that just set the tone for what I'm doing now.

Now, my approach is time to share this information, the knowledge with other

people, doing workshops, better health, wellness classes, medicine chest classes, and continuing to do my foraging classes as well. So, once a month, I try to do a foraging class where I live, and once a month I do one of these medicine-making classes. I have combined the two, I guess you would say. I've combined the two so that my approach is really to teach people what they can gather to eat but also under this context of food is medicine and eating these wild plants is preventive medicine. Then with the wellness classes, the medicine chest classes, if you do have an ailment, what can you gather in the wild that's considered safe that you can prepare your own medicine with?

That's where I have come around to, and with that came the development of

products that I could provide to people who wanted these things on their own without having to, maybe they don't have time to make it or they don't have the access to the plants that I have. So the workshops have taken a little different


twist going more in the direction of generally recognized as safe medicine but also food medicine and just general good health altogether. Today I do programs, I do plants, I do products, and it's all tied around plants. That's the center. That's what really, I love working with. Anyway, I hope that answers your question.

David: Great introduction, thank you. Where are you doing the majority of your

foraging? Is it on private land? Is it on public land? A combination? What's the source of your food and medicine?

Vickie: My primary source is out in the farm where I live. There are 16 acres that I own

in northeastern North Carolina. It's not where I live, but I also live on a large farm. I have a big yard and so I've been growing these wild plants for 30 years, I guess, since 1984, whatever the math is. I have worked to bring them into my yard, so I don't have to be concerned about, have these plants been sprayed, what is the history of the land where I'm getting them from or getting permission from the owners. Or in public lands, oftentimes it's frowned upon to go in and pick wild things. So I grow myself what I gather. I give the plants a place to grow.

That's what I encourage people to do. When they want to know, "Where can we

gather this?" I want to say, well, do you have a yard? Dedicate one part of your yard to just letting the wild things grow. The seeds are in the soil. If you do nothing, they will emerge. So trying to encourage people to grow a lot of what they can and if they're not able to grow it, get to know an organic farmer. Farmers are growing crops, cultivated vegetables. They don't necessarily want to grow the weeds or the wild plants. They want to get rid of them, for the most part. They're happy to have you come in and weed their garden for them. So get to know an organic farmer where the fields haven't been sprayed with the herbicides or the pesticides and develop a relationship with them.

Finding a habitat for the wild things, that's the biggest challenge I think. Where

can you go to find your wild plants? That's why I bought the 16 acres that I bought. I was realizing wild lands are becoming rare where you can actually go and pick your plants. So I encourage people to grow as much as they can. If they have a garden, leave a space for the wild plants or don't pull it up unless you know what it is. It might be that what's coming up on its own has more nutritional value than what you're trying to grow. Very often that's the case. So identify your weeds before you weed them. If you're going to weed it, ID it. Basically get to know what's growing around you. A lot of what's in your yard, if you don't have lawn service, the weeds are there and then the wild fruit trees. It's part of succession. Nature works to fill in the gaps, and a lot of those gaps, those empty areas that are filled in, they start with your grasses and then you


start getting your biennials and then the perennials and the woody plants. So if you just let nature do its thing, you'll have your plants.

A lot of people want that nice-looking lawn and no weeds in it and trim the

edges. Edges are a great place just to find your wild plants if they haven't been sprayed. It's a matter of finding an area that's allowed to grow wild. If it's on private land, get permission from the owner. If you have the land, let it grow. I gather most of my stuff. I grow most of my stuff. I think if you're able to grow it and harvest it yourself then you feel that connection with the earth. You feel empowered. I produced this. You feel good about harvesting it and doing what you want to do with that product. So, grow your own, yeah.

David: Great. Okay, so you've got your farm. You've got your own private foraging

grounds. It sounds like you're set when it comes to getting your food. Now you said that you are getting most of your food from these sources. I'm curious, what percentage of your diet are you actually growing or harvesting yourself? Does that include any protein? I'm imagining going out and spending some time with you doing this work. I imagine that I would start to feel great, but I also know that foraging doesn't necessarily give us a lot of foods that are going to keep us warm in the winter, for example. So tell us a bit about the specifics of what you get, what percentage of your diet is actually coming from this, what do you have to supplement and then we can move into a few of your favorite plants that you like to harvest.

Vickie: Probably 20 to 30% of my diet is wild plants. When I say that, a lot of the wild

things, you can gather greens and eat greens all day and you're not going to feel full. Yes, you have a point. What's going to sustain you? What's going to make you feel like you had a meal? I like to supplement the wild things with cultivated vegetables, potatoes, rice, pasta. I like to start with that as the base and then I build around it with the wild things. When the wild things come in, it's usually in abundance. It's more than what you're going to be able to eat now. So with the greens, I will dry them, ground them up and use them as a seasoning. I like to use the wild things a lot of times more as a seasoning than as the main course of the meal. Your roots and your tubers are going to give you a little more of that starchy, protein type food that's going to make you feel a little more full. Nuts definitely are sustaining, and that's what you get in the winter when there's not a lot else available.

I do bring coaching into my diet in various ways. The nuts and the roots are one

way. I do have a friend, a helper who is a hunter and so wild game makes its way into my kitchen on occasion. Here, again, I use the wild plants as my seasoning. I probably use these wild herbs in every meal I cook. The nettles, the dandelions, the crushes, mustards, I dry them, grind them and so use these as a seasoning to whatever it is I am cooking. So I don't really have a problem meeting my protein


needs or feeling like I've had a meal. I feel satisfied after I've eaten a meal. Part of it is just changing your taste buds. If you're getting those things that are satisfying you nutritionally then you don't feel the hunger pains that you do when you eat a lot of the empty calories, the empty calories I call it, the junk food, the processed food.

You're not necessarily going to feel satisfied afterwards unless you eat a lot of it.

You don't need to eat a lot of the wild plants. You'll feel satisfied after a wild salad with a little protein on the side, whether it be with a pasta salad or whatever. It's more satisfying. You feel like you've eaten. You feel nourished. You feel like you can get up and go do a day's worth of work. It's quality of food. It's quality not quantity. So we don't have to eat as much of, if you eat a wild salad, it's small in comparison to a salad you might get if you went out to a salad bar and filled up your plate. It's a matter of getting what you need in that small quantity without having to eat a whole lot of it.

It is time-consuming. You do spend a considerable amount of time picking these

things. That's where you get more than what you need now so you preserve it. I make herb vinegars with the wild greens. I dry them. Fruits, I freeze usually. I will dehydrate some of them. So I'm constantly harvesting, drying, preserving and looking ahead to when they're not in season so that I can extend their season through the year and have them at different times without having to go out and harvest. That also works if it's a rainy, yucky day and you don't want to go out and pick anything. Okay, what do I have in the pantry? That's where I go.

It's a matter of just taking advantage of the plants that are in season while

they're in season, knowing you get what you need when you need it, but sometimes there's a surplus. It's in abundance. That's when I like to do the programs because then I can share what I have harvested and fresh is always better. I prefer fresh, but sometimes it's more than what you can eat right now so I find different ways of preserving it.

David: Nice. Well, you are an herbalist. I would say with your background and the way

that you harvest your plants that you are an herbalist who really understands the life cycle of the plants and where they come from and the influences of the weather and the soil and the water and all these things to a very high degree, probably a lot higher than a lot of herbalists whose training is really more academic, book learning. I know that people are going to be very interested to take away something practical here, and I know that a lot of people are not able to do harvesting and foraging on their own or cultivate their own herbs. I know a lot of people are not interested in it also. They would just like to get their herbs all ready to go. I'm wondering, what are some of your favorite herbs and how do you use them and how would you tell people that they can bring in some species that are widely available maybe even in their backyard and if not, some


commonly available herbs that people would know about right away if you told them?

Vickie: That's a very good question, and it's one that I get a lot. People, they don't want

to go out and pick. They just say, "Well, can't you just pick it for me? I'll buy it from you." It's like, no, I don't want to spend all my time picking for other people. I want to teach them what to pick. So, yes, you're right. They don't have the time. They don't have the means, and they simply just don't want to. At the same time, they want to be healthy and they want to eat these things. There are more and more you can buy certain products at health food stores, at farmers markets where they sell some of these things, but I tell people, "Start in your backyard." Even if you're not able to pick a whole lot, just start, first of all, become aware of the plants that are there. Just recognize that these are more than just green things and it starts with being aware, increasing your awareness of what's there.

Once you start realizing the differences in the plants, whether you pick it or not,

or whether you just can appreciate it, you start with that. Little by little you can incorporate bringing, okay, dandelions, everybody knows a dandelion. I think everybody does. If they don't, there are enough commercials that show this herbicide is going to kill this plant if you use it, so it gets a lot of attention on the commercials. Regardless, it is one of your most useful wild greens. If they want those supplements without having to pick it, they just sell these things in capsule form. If they don't like it, okay, go buy a bottle of dandelion greens in a capsule. That's removing yourself from being out there. If you can encourage people to get out, at least start recognizing it. Then if they start incorporating it just a little bit into their diet as it comes along, in the spring are the greens and the greens, those are your vitamins. What it amounts to is they tried something that they find really, really works for whatever it is, or they really, really like it and they become hooked. They want to try a little bit more.

With the berries, they may not be the wild ones but at least if they get real

blueberries instead of wild blueberries, that's a step up. Just shifting your attention more from the processed foods to the real foods and little by little, as you learn to identify it and then you start using it, and you recognize that there is a difference. Especially as you get older and start experiencing some of the health issues that I see around me, and they realize that these can be prevented if you just use this herb with that product. That's, I guess, why I also am developing the product. They don't have to go out and gather. They don't have to go pick them. Okay, you want a little bag of mixed herbs seasonings with your dandelions and nettles. I've been doing the herb seasoning mixes, mixing the wild greens together. Just take these, add them to your vegetables that you're cooking, and you get your wild greens. These are your vitamins. Get your cordials


and elixirs with your berries in it. These will provide you with your vitamins, your minerals that are available from the fruits.

If you link up with the right people who are doing it, you can get these things

without having to go out and picking them yourself. That's where I'm starting to realize people come to my programs a lot of times because they want the products more than they want the knowledge. First thing they do is go look to see what do you have this week. So I am finding that, yes, people want the products. I have the products in dried herb form. I have them, the berries, like I said, in cordials and elixirs and tinctures. The vinegars, I use the wild greens in vinegars. So I do find that this is what people are really more interested in than they are in going out and picking it themselves.

I would like to see more people interested in growing it, harvesting it and using it

that way, but if you get them started and they realize the difference in how they feel, they'll be more inspired to go out and pick their own, especially when they realize, oh, that's growing in my backyard. Oh, I recognize that weed. I've been pulling it up. So you have to start by making them become aware of what's around them then help them develop the appreciation. Using them helps them to understand the value in using these herbs. That leads to, well, maybe I should try growing this. Maybe I should start harvesting this. That's also why I like to sell plants. I sell plants to encourage people to grow their own. So it all ties in together. It's, give them the plant, encourage them to grow it, harvest it, use it. Some people come up with some really unique recipes, and they'll be so proud of what they just developed. Here, taste this, tell me what you think. That's when I really feel I've done something good is when I see people take the initiative to grow it, harvest it and make a product with it, whether it be a food, a medicine or whatever the case might be.

David: Yeah, that's great. Well, I'm curious what you can tell people about how to use a

specific specie or two for specific health concerns, and I'm personally quite interested in what are you taking that's giving you so much energy? I want to take that too.

Vickie: Okay, well starting in the spring, you get your greens, and that includes

chickweed, your dandelions and, yes, the nettles, they haven't started coming in yet, but your chickweed, your dandelion, corn salad, a lot of members of the mustard family, your cresses, your wild mustards. These are your vitamins. These will give you a lot of your vitamin A, C, E, calcium, and so starting with your greens. Then as the season progresses, we get the poke. Poke is one of my favorites in the spring. It's a cleanser. It's a diuretic. One that there's a lot of misunderstanding about. People hear poke salat, they think S-A-L-A-D. It's not. It's S-A-L-A-T which means cooked herb. Poke is a cleanser, but you do have to cook it before you eat it. You can go out and pick your poke, make your wild


salad with poke leaf. You're going to spend the afternoon throwing up. You have to cook it first in two changes of water. The nettles, that's one that people make teas from the use on a regular basis for different ailments, to get their iron, to get their calcium, but nettles is a great food. You can pick nettles. Once you've cooked it, it does away with that stinging sensation. Nettles, I like to make nettles soup, throw nettles into my vegetables. I dry them and use them as a seasoning.

Then as you move into summer, you get your fruits, the blueberries, there are

wild blueberries, there are huckleberries, blackberries, wild cherries. These are your blood-builders. These are your strengtheners. So in the summer when it's hot and dry, you get your sweetest, juiciest fruits. You need the sugars for energy, the fluids for hydration, and sometimes water just isn't enough. You need those minerals and antioxidants that the wild fruits can provide. So when hiking, pick your wild berries, eat them as you walk along. That will give you the stamina, the energy you need to get through the day. Then as you move into the fall, the roots, they could be your starchy vegetables. You're storing up, building up for the winter. Then the nuts come in. The nuts are your proteins, your calories, your fats. Nuts are, they're naturally sweet, but you can use those all through the winter and those will sustain you. Your wild nuts, you have your pecans, which aren't wild but you have the hickory nuts which are related to the pecans, so the hickory nuts, the walnuts, walnuts contain the serotonin, your mood elevator. When the dark gloomy days hit, you eat more walnuts, boost your mood.

It goes back full circle. You get what you need when you need it. It's being aware

of what's available now and using that food knowing that's what you need now, so just harvest those things. Yes, follow the cycles, plants have cycles. They go with the seasons, and they are available at the time of year when you need it, as you need and so just tune into that, your berries, your fruits, your nuts, your greens. You will get what you need as you need it. Of course then there are the seeds. Seeds are a starchy protein even though they're much smaller. Everything is out there, and there's always something that you can gather. It's just being aware of what's available now and harvesting, going with the seasons.

David: Great. Well, I've looked over your website because I'm curious about what

you're doing, and I see that you feature a unique herb that I actually haven't heard about, yaupon. What is this plant, and what are you using it for?

Vickie: Yaupon is a member of the holly family. I have been on the yaupon trail for

probably the last 30, 40 years. When I left school, University of Louisville, my teacher said, "When you get to the coast, be sure and look for yaupon." That's all she said. I got here, I found yaupon, I took the leaves, I made a tea, and it was clear. There was no flavor. I thought, of all the plants on the coast, why did she


tell me yaupon when there's no flavor? Started doing my research. It's in the holly family, so it's a small tree. I discovered that you have to roast the leaves to extract the compounds. Caffeine is what it contains. It's believed to be the only plant in North America with caffeine in the leaves, related to yerba mate. So I started doing my research. I wrote an article for the American Botanical Council that was published in 2016 on the yaupon.

Yaupon is one of the, if not the only plant with caffeine in the leaves, but it also

contains theobromine. The caffeine content is comparable to green tea, and it has been ignored until recent years. It's starting to get recognition. As people try it, they realize it doesn't have the tannins that green tea has. It's very tasty, naturally sweet, and it is abundant along the coast. This is one that I use on a daily basis, and I have pretty much given up coffee because I prefer the taste of the yaupon. I grow it, I harvest it, I sell it, and it's one of my favorites. Yes, a lot of people have shied away from it. Unfortunately it was given the name, Ilex vomitoria, which is a misnomer, and that was based on the use that was made of it by the indigenous tribes along the Southeast that used it as a cleansing ceremony, but in this cleansing ceremony, they were adding other herbs to facilitate the cleansing process. They were drinking this really strong, concentrated black drink and dancing and singing for several days to have a cleansing effect.

When used in moderation, and moderation being two to three cups a day. Of

course I drink more than that. I drink it all day, and I've never had the cleansing effect. I just find it very tasty. Yes, it is stimulating, and it's my favorite drink. I drink it on a daily basis. I love it. That has been my more recent things that I've been working to introduce people to and encourage to make their own, grow their own and to drink it.

David: Sounds like it's working. Well, I know that you are offering people herbs, that

you are teaching them how to harvest plants around them. You are preparing products. I'm wondering if you can tell us a few stories about what you have seen from your clinical experience. It sounds like you are operating as a classic village herbalist in the old model of somebody who actually gathered the herbs themselves, grew the herbs themselves, prepared them yourself and then gave them and sold them to the community. As the community herbalist, I know that you're not just giving people these plants for their nutritive value, you're also combining things for their therapeutic value. I'm wondering what are some of the things that people are giving you feedback about, giving you reports about in terms of their therapeutic benefits.

Vickie: Well, one that people keep asking more for, they like the passion vine. Passion

vine is a native plant that has fruits, but the leaves and stems are used as a calming herb to help you sleep at night. Apparently a lot of people have trouble


sleeping at night, so passion vine is one that I'm getting positive feedback for on its ability to help them sleep. As well as skullcap is another one of the native herbs that is used to help them relax and to sleep better at night. So those are two for the benefits of getting a good night of sleep. I also am getting a lot of positive feedback on prickly ash. Prickly ash is also known as the toothache tree, and it is used for sore gums, any kind of mouth problems that people have, sores on their gums or mouth. The prickly ash is one that is used either as a mouthwash or to massage into the gums. It has a numbing effect. They come back and say how clean their mouth feels after they've used it as a mouthwash. This is one that a lot of people keep wanting. Elderberry syrup is one that I cannot keep available. They keep buying the elderberry syrup because it's your flu prevention. Especially during the flu season, they buy that and use it to prevent the flu and claim that it works. So those are a few that I get regular repeats for.

The wild greens, of course, that's one that people use, but also the stinging

nettle is one that people use for their arthritis and one that they buy, use it as a green, they tincture it. Evening primrose seed, that's another one that people want. They buy evening primrose seed oil and then they realize, oh, you mean that's that wild plant that grows out in the field? That's where the seeds come from? So they're using the evening primrose seeds for joint pain, arthritis, fibromyalgia. Those are some of the more common ones that people are requesting and seem to have positive results with. Some things I make into a salve. I have a salve that I call Riditch that I combine plantain, yarrow, what's another one, violet leaves, chickweed leaves, and I make a salve and use it on any skin conditions, whether it be mosquito bites, bug bites, poison ivy. That's one the people enjoy using and getting. It's applied topically just as a salve or as an ointment. These are common things that people can use that are simple remedies but if you don't know, you don't know. It's, again, bringing it to their awareness.

David: Right. Excellent, well that's a really good, comprehensive list of things that

people can start with that are easily available that are for common problems, and they're also very effective. Simple things can be very effective, so thank you for that. Well I'm curious about a little perspective that you have from your life experience because your lifestyle is really different than a lot of people's. You're outside a lot. You're close to the plants. You're close to the weather and the seasons. You are consuming these plants on a seasonal basis which is benefiting your health and your energy. It's really something that a lot of people don't do. It's very unique, and I find it very interesting, personally.

Now I know that when I spend time just outside and especially when I spend

periods of time working with plants outside that it's a rich source of a kind of inner life. It's a source of inspiration, appreciation of nature. It's good for the


body. It's a kind of natural meditation in a way. I'm wondering if you could share a few of your personal insights at this level to help people understand that the kind of lifestyle that you have is not just about taking plants and eating them and getting their chemistry in the body for the immune system or good sleep or whatever, that you're actually doing something really important as a human being relating to nature and that has an effect on our consciousness when we do that. I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about your inner spiritual perceptions or what doing this has taught you, spiritually or socially or emotionally. I'm curious. You have a unique life, lifestyle. I'm sure you have very unique insights into this as well.

Vickie: Yes, and I think a big part of that is people are disconnected. They feel the

disconnect. They know that something is missing, but they don't know what it is. I think that a lot of that disconnect comes from not being out in nature. Yes, being out in nature is one way of connecting with the source, with the energy, with the plants, and with that comes an intuitiveness. It's like, do they talk to you? Of course they talk to you. Are you listening? It's a disconnect that people don't realize what is missing until they get out in nature. They know when they go out for a walk in the woods that they come away feeling good, refreshed, but they don't do it enough. So it's connecting with the earth, connecting with the plants, connecting with that spirit that moves through all things. I think that is a big thing that is missing in a lot of people's lives without them even realizing it.

You hear a lot of talk about this disconnect. Even when they go out and they

identify the plants, they're still not connected. They put a name to it and they walk away. Oh, that's such-and-such. It's not until you actually use the plant, taste it, feel it that you really connect. They're afraid to eat anything in the wild. They might get poisoned. What if this is poisonous? What if it's going to hurt you? With that, there are precautions to take. Not everything is going to work for everyone. We're all different and so there are people who are allergic to some things. You have to experiment. Try a little bit initially but also realizing that some things are not edible. You can't just go out there and start eating. I mean, buttercups, they're beautiful, but they contain irritant glycosides. They will make you sick.

Get to know the plants before you start eating them, harvesting them. Have a

communication with them, if you want to call it that, but follow them through the seasons. What do they look like when they bloom? What is their fruit like? Maybe you thought it was a particular plant, but it turned out to be something else. Watch for it to bloom, get to know it through the seasons and then see if it resonates with you. Once you have realized that, yes, this is definitely edible, dare I try it, and eat a little bit and see how it feels. You always have to take into consideration you don't want to be the cause of the plant becoming rare. You look at how abundant is it? Where is it growing? Is it something that's safe to


harvest? Are you going to hurt it if you do harvest it? With leaves, you just pick off the leaves and it will continue to grow. Seeds, fruits, renewable resources, always leave some for the birds, some to re-seed.

Use conservation ethics, keep that in mind when you're harvesting. You don't

harvest on the side of the road. You don't harvest at the edge of the field. It's getting a lot of the herbicides and pesticides being sprayed on them. So, be mindful. You think you're in a patch of blueberries only to find out they're some berry bush that has those berries that taste really bitter. So be mindful of what you're doing when you're out picking. Be in that awareness mode, so it becomes a meditation in itself. For some people, they think of it as tedious work. It's not tedious if you think of it as a meditation and being mindful of what you're doing while you're doing it. So this makes you naturally connected to the plants and, yes, you start getting insights and messages and where did that thought come from? It's a matter of connecting with the natural world.

David: Nice, thank you. Well, it's unfortunately time to start wrapping up our segment.

You have so much to share and a life of experience here with the plants that's very valuable for everybody listening. I want to let people know that there is more. It's not just this short recording, that you can actually find out about Vickie's work in detail. The website is ecoimages.us, just like it sounds, ecoimages.us. Vickie, tell us, what are people going to find when they come to visit your website? Can they come and visit you, and can they come and study with you?

Vickie: Yes to all the above. I offer classes, workshops on a regular basis. I keep this up-

to-date on my website. I usually only do a couple of months, three or four months at a time. I do have workshops right now. They're day workshops. I also do weekend workshops. Upcoming the fall of 2019 and continuing onto 2020, I will be offering three-day workshops so people who are coming from out of town and don't want to just come for two or three-hour or an all-day workshop, I'm going to be doing three, possibly four-day weekend workshops. They can come to the farm and visit, and I do have people that come and work in exchange for knowledge. They help because as you can imagine there's a lot of work involved and there's always work to be done. I sell native plants and they can visit the native nursery by calling and just scheduling it. It's not open on a daily basis. It's by appointment. They can call and schedule a time to come out and see what plants I have. My programs, like I said, they're ongoing and are continuous. I update my website as programs are developed. It's an ongoing process. Products are one of those things, it's seasonal. I develop them as I harvest them. They don't last long because I don't do it in large quantities. I do it in smaller batches. So it's following the seasons. What's in season this month, that's what I'm going to have. It's very cyclical.


David: Great, fresh, direct from the land. Well, Vickie, on behalf of everybody listening, thank you so much, very informative and inspirational. From me personally also, thank you for continuing this tradition. As I said, it's really a very ancient way of doing herbal medicine. This is the original way that people always get herbal medicine actually. Before there were products on the retail shelf, this is how people got their medicine was from people like you doing what you do. From me, I just want to personally thank you for keeping this tradition alive at this level.

Vickie: Thank you. I do travel, so if people aren't able to come here but they want to

bring me to their area, I walk and I talk. David: Nice. Okay, great, and for everybody listening, thank you for joining us and join

us again in another segment of The Plant Medicine Summit. Vickie: Thank you, David. © 2019 The Shift Network. All rights reserved.

Plant Medicine Summit - Amazon S3...This is David Crow, your host of the fourth annual Plant Medicine Summit where we are exploring the many wonderful uses of medicinal plants around

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