'A Working Herbal Dispensary - Respecting Herbs as Individuals' to be released May 2023
I’m so excited to announce that my second book, published by Aeon Books, will be released this May. As you can see from the image, it’s a herbal.
I chose the main part of the title “A Working Herbal Dispensary’ because I wanted to write about my own experience with 108 of the herbs that I work with regularly. Many I grow or gather myself here in the UK but there are also a significant number of herbs from tropical climes. Over the years I’ve built a relationship with all of these herbs and I wanted to share my perspective with you.
I believe that to really understand herbs we need to learn about them as individuals with their own characters and stories, their own special virtues and energetic properties as well as their historical and magical associations. Since, in my practice, I combine Tibetan Medicine with Western Herbal Medicine, I also include a consideration of the herbs within the Tibetan medical framework.
This is a working herbal so I share numerous mini case studies showing how they’ve transformed my patients’ lives. There’s nothing like seeing real life examples of how wonderful herbal medicine can be!
All of this, I hope, will make the herbs that I write about much more memorable and real compared to when we try to learn about them by simply memorising their actions and constituents.
I’ve also included many ‘suggestions for the herbal apothecary’. These are carefully chosen herbal recipes with guidance as to how these can be called upon to help with family health needs.
The second part of the title is ‘Respecting Herbs as Individuals’ . The reason I included this is that I wanted to really move away from describing herbs purely in terms of their actions and how they can be ‘used’ to help people. I feel that we have a reciprocal relationship with herbs and they are individual beings worthy of respect. By learning about their individual characters we can’t help but to get to know them more deeply. They become beings that we work with rather than objects to be ‘used’.
The book is due out in May and is available to pre-order now. Aeon are offering a 20% discount - simply enter the code WHD20 when prompted. They're also offering free shipping within the UK. The link is here:
If you're outside the UK you'll have to weigh up the postage cost against the 20% discount. For example, customers in the US, Australia and New Zealand may find it preferable to order through the large online retailers in their own country.
After more than two years in the writing, this labour of love is actually becoming very real now and I’m beyond excited.
