Matriline Herbalism
The Wise Woman Tradition is thriving. When I first wrote about it in 1989, in "Healing Wise," few were familiar with the term. Now, 35 years later, it is recognized, respected, and acknowledged. Healing by nourishing is now considered valid as a healing technique. This way of relating to plants and health has, over the past 25 years, changed the game throughout all aspects of herbalism. Success.
My web browser tells me: "Wise Woman Ways focus on healing through nourishment of one's whole being; body, mind, heart, and soul." That's cool.
Everyone from women's groups to the National Institutes of Health chimes in (favorably) on the Wise Woman Tradition. I like this.
There's even a film on the wise woman. Dominique Debroux and Christopher Henze — after an eight-year investigation — created CRONE—The Wise Woman Hypothesis.
Dominique: "For me and most older women I know, it does not feel like we matter. Rather, we are told that youth, fertility, or at least the look of fertility, is what is expected and if we don't have any of that, we are no longer needed. You say it wasn't always this way?"
Christopher: "The Wise Woman Hypothesis shows evolutionary proof that women, especially mature women should run the world and that's the way it actually was for most of human history. Then something happened about 10,000 years ago that changed everything. The movie talks about how we got to the patriarchal shit-show we are feeling now. The movie also gives an idea on how we can fix it." Hooray.
Since my massive surgery and throughout my equally massive recovery and healing, I am aware that I am "living past my death." I am allowed to see how things go on after I am dead. The Wise Woman Tradition does thrive, is thriving, but, as is often the case after the death of the creator, it gets distorted and changed. No wonder ghosts haunt.
For instance: This May, 2024, past-apprentice and false-friend Linda Conroy announced publically that I was her Elder and that her ongoing women's conferences are in honor of me and the Wise Woman Tradition, then called the police and threw me, my daughter, and my granddaughter out without giving any reason. (We believe it was because we saved another woman's life, literally, which infuriated L.) This is not the Wise Woman Way.
For instance: Corinna Wood dismissed my concerns about her workshop title: "Speaking Your Truth, the Wise Woman Way." Though she asked my permission to represent Wise Woman Ways, she does not respect my concerns about her belief that she can simply add the phrase "the Wise Woman Way" to anything. Truth cannot be yours. Truth is not mine. If there is my truth and your truth, then we have eliminated truth entirely. Truth is that on which we must agree despite our differences of opinion and belief. The speed of light is truth. That the sun burns hydrogen is truth. What any individual believes can never be the truth. "Your truth" is not part of the Wise Woman Way.
For instance: Red Moon Herbs, a business started by two past apprentices, but now run by women I don't have lineage with, ignored my pleas to reconsider, and now base their tinctures on grain alcohol, a poison I urge herbalists to replace with 100 proof vodka. Vodka tinctures are one of the foundations of Wise Woman herbalism.
For instance: Past apprentice Robin Rose Bennett destroys the Wise Woman Tradition of using simples by teaching and writing about using herbs in ever more complicated formulas. Using one herb at a time is foundational to Wise Woman Ways.
I support those still true to the Wise Woman Ways, such as Astrid Grove and the Red Earth women's herbal gathering, EagleSong, who trains apprentices in the Wise Woman Tradition, and the many, many other women — including my apprentices, students, and mentorees —who heal by nourishing, stick to simples, avoid grain alcohol, and treat each other with care and consideration.
These things are what they are. There is little I can do to change them or to protect the Wise Woman Tradition. I laid it out in "Healing Wise." All the precepts are clear. No sense in "working on what is spoiled."
It is time to move on. Time for my next "good idea."
I walk in beauty.
I breathe in a giveaway dance with the plants.
I feel the earth's heart beating within my heart.
Green blessings surround me.
What comes next?
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