Essential oils -- Helpful or harmful? by Susun Weed

Dear Jole Power,

This is my response to your apologia for essential oils written in response to Lesson Six in my "Be Your Own Herbalist" series. First, thank you for engaging in spirited debate. It makes us all stronger and more thoughtful and I welcome it. However, your comments do not seem to take into account that you were reading a lesson written to be used by someone with little or no background in herbs or healing.

"Be Your Own Herbalist" focuses on creating safe, simple herbal remedies. Herbal medicine is an enormous field with plenty of room for harming as well as helping, and that is why I advise novices to make infused oils and avoid eos.

Essential oils, like any other drugs, while exceedingly fast-acting and highly useful are, nonetheless, more harmful than helpful in most people's hands.

Neither of us would wish for an end to drugs. Concentrated, extracted medicines or drugs are powerful allies in health care. My question is not "Does it work?" Of course eos work, of course drugs work. But do they help heal the planet? And what are their long-term effects on us? Not just physically but mentally and emotionally?

Eos not only fail the "heal the planet?" question, they actively harm the earth and our relationship with the green allies.

Why? Because tons of plant material must be grown, and processed, to extract small amounts of eo. While eos may be used in drops, they are sold by the ounce. And every ounce of eo produced decreases the ability of the planet to provide herbal medicines to our growing multitudes.

You falsely claim that only a little eo is used -- even while admitting that "many people waste essential oils." You attempt to bolster this falsehood by comparing apples to oranges. Instead of comparing the amount of plant material needed for a "treatment," you compare the number of treatments in a teaspoon. Do the math. How many hundreds of pounds of plant material are in one teaspoon of eo?

Yes, I know it differs, depending on the plant, so let's use lavender, no, not the true lavender, of course, the high-oil cultivar grown with lots of help from pesticides and herbicides and irrigation, let's use that as our basis. Even a single drop of eo is pounds of plant material!! Lots more than a teaspoon of dried herb, lots more even than the full ounce of dried nettle I use to brew a quart of infusion.

Eos fail my safety screen. I want to return herbal medicine to the hands of the people, even the simple, uneducated people.

I focus on child-proof herbal medicine, and eos fail that test, too.

The highly concentrated nature of eos is the very thing that makes them dangerous. Infused oils are not "diluted herbal preparations" any more than tinctures are "diluted drugs." There is an enormous difference between whole herbs and "distillation and cold pressing [which] yield a somewhat different profile of constituents than does infusing." Eos are made in labs, infused oils can be made at home by an intelligent six year old. Eos are not safe to use as they are sold; infused oils can be used safely, with no further instruction, as sold or made.

I beg to differ with your assertion that "you can definitely get a rash or other skin reaction from infused oils." The only times I have seen that happen, I have found an eo as an ingredient in the ointment. I doubt that you could supply even one legitimate case of a rash caused by the heaviest application of a simple (one herb) infused oil of any of the plants suggested in Lesson Six. I can, however, supply numerous cases of consumers burned and rashed from applying tiny amounts of undiluted eos.

I could go on and on pointing out the errors in your logic, but this reply is over long as it is, so I shall limit myself to two particularly irksome ones.

You quote Peter Holmes on plant anti-infectives without seeming to register that eos are no longer plants, they are partial extracts and therefore drugs. Apples and oranges again.

You state that everyone working with eos finds them "immune-enhancing and vitality- enhancing." I was first made aware of the problems with eos by those working in the field. Just two days ago I listened to the story of a woman who thought she would have to give up her practice until she figured out that it was eos that were zapping her. Since switching to scent-free she feels a thousand percent better.

If I haven't already, let me refer you to Mary Rose's excellent article in the Jan-Feb 2004 issue of Massage and Bodywork: "Natural Scent Therapy." Growing live aromatic plants in our treatment rooms and using pillows of dried aromatic herbs is a kinder, gentler way to heal, ourselves and the planet.

With all due consideration, I stand firm in my stand against the general overuse of eos. As far as is possible, I don't brush my teeth with them, use mouthwash containing them, wash or care for my skin with them, nor burn candles scented with them. I am an herbalist, not a druggist. I use herbs, not laboratory-created herbal products.

Green blessings.

Susun S Weed, www.susunweed.com

p.s. My travel first-aid kit is even lighter than yours, was created entirely by my own hands (for pennies, from generally common plants), and required a fraction of the plant material used to make your eos, which you had to buy from a distributor who bought them from someone who got them from the manufacturer, all at considerable expense.

My kit consists of a spray bottle of yarrow tincture (that's how I get an anti-infective herb on a large surface by the way), plus half- and quarter-ounce bottles of wormwood, echinacea, skullcap, osha, motherwort, and St. Joan's/John's wort tincture. When I'll be in the sun, I take the world's best sunscreen -- infused oil of St. Joan's/John's wort -- with me, with extra precautions to protect from the inevitable leakage.

Susun S. Weed, herbalist, wise woman, and teacher for over two decades, is the founder of the Wise Woman Center in upstate New York and the author of four highly acclaimed books on alternative/complementary healthcare for women. Honored as a Peace Elder in 1996, Ms. Weed is respected worldwide as the voice of the Wise Woman tradition, the oldest tradition of healthcare on the planet.

The Wise Woman tradition maintains that health is flexibility and that deviations from normal (that is, problems) offer us an opportunity to reintegrate those parts of ourselves that we have cast out. This reintegration is accomplished through nourishment and the person emerges healed/wholed/holy. The Wise Woman tradition is compassionate and heart-centered. It honors the Earth and the special mysteries of women. It is simple, local, ecological, and invisible, choosing to use common plants, such as dooryard weeds, rather than exotic herbs from far away.

The Wise Woman Center, founded in 1984, is a safe place for women around the world to gather together to celebrate the wise woman within and to study herbal medicine and spirit healing with Susun and notable teachers such as Brooke Medicine Eagle, Z Buda pest, Vicki Noble, and Merlin Stone.

Ms. Weed has been called a backwards pioneer. She agrees: "I've gone backwards into prehistory, into herstory, to rediscover and rename something as ancient as humanity, but something which is perfectly relevant, indeed critical to our survival, today." That "some thing" is the Wise Woman tradition; a unique viewpoint from the distant past that she be lieves will help us find answers for our collective future.

The Wise Woman viewpoint that we are all connected and that a health crisis is symbolic as well as physical -- characterized by some as shamanic, by others as superstitious -- still exists in our society today, both in lay healing and in professions such as midwifery and psycho-therapy, but it usually goes unnamed. "One of the characteristics of this tradition is its integration into everyday life. By healing through nourishment, whether it is a hug or a special dinner, the wise woman acts invisibly whenever possible."

This is in marked contrast to other traditions of healing, according to Weed, who differ entiates three major healing traditions: the Scientific, the Heroic, and the Wise Woman. In the Scientific tradition the doctor is highly visible and the patient is reduced to a body part or a disease designation. In the Heroic or Holistic tradition, the healer is the one who knows the right way to do things and the patient must follow the rules in order to get well. In the Wise Woman tradition, illness is understood as an integral part of life and self-growth, with healer, patient and nature as co-participants in the healing process.

Much of today's alternative medicine comes from Heroic traditions, which traditionally emphasize fasting, purification, colonic cleansing, rigid dietary rules, and the use of rare botanicals in complicated formulae. Even much of metaphysical healing is applied this way: It views illness as a failure rather than a natural and potentially constructive process.

Susun Weed sees herself as a teacher, not a healer. "A healer is someone who does for you, while a teacher shows you how to do for yourself. When I work with a correspon dence course student or an apprentice, for instance, I'm working with the intention of helping her to know herself better, to learn how to listen to and nourish all parts of her self, which will allow her to become more healthy/whole/holy."

Susun reminds us that wellness and illness are not polarities. They are part of the contin uum of life. "We are constantly renewing ourselves, cell by cell, second by second, every minute of our lives. Problems, by their very nature, can facilitate deep spiritual and symnolic renewal, leading us naturally into expanded, more complete ways of thinking about and experiencing ourselves."

Ms. Weed maintains an active teaching/lecture schedule, with bookings throughout the U nited States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Germany (where she also trains ap prentices). She has taught at many prestigious schools including the National College of Naturopathic Medicine, Yale Nursing School, South Florida Midwifery School, Rocky Mountain Center for Botanical Studies, and the Waikato College of Herbal Studies. She currently sits on advisory boards for the California Institute of Integral Studies and the National Institute of Health's Rosenthal Center for Alternative/Complementary Medicines at Columbia University.

Ms.Weed is most well-known for her books, which are variously described as informa tive, inspirational, and accessible. Her poetic and humorous style have endeared her to over half a million readers, who treasure her voice, the voice of the Wise Woman way. Her published titles include:

New Menopausal Years, The Wise Woman Way
Healing Wise: The Second Wise Woman Herbal
Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year
Breast Cancer? Breast Health! The Wise Woman Way

Susun Weed encourages women to work towards good health from the inside out. Her close-to-the-earth approach continues to break new ground in old ways, helping to make natural non-invasive solutions available to women from every walk of life.