Digest Number 2589

[Guest guest]

Joseph,

 

Could you pose your question again. I missed it and can't seem to find it.

 

I have many issues with Peter Holms' work. Mostly it is because he makes up some

of his own terminology, some because most Western herbalists don't look at the

work as being very good (especially those with CM training), some because I find

it hard to believe that he could have enough experience with that large number

of plants to write so definitively, not simply speculative. The first volume is

excellent, the rest is questionable, in without value though.

 

I hope my work will be in print in the next year or so and I hope you like it.

 

 

All,

As has been pointed out too many times of late, we are gradually having our toys

taken away by the mean guys down the block. That is, the US government is

quietly and very gradually shutting down the flow of herbs from China to the US.

And although I agree with Bob Flaws' stated position on sticking to the tried

and true and the well-known herbal combinations from the past, I think it

behooves us to start seriously exploring how we can turn " Western " herbs into

" Chinese " herbs. I know there are those that have been doing just that for some

time, but by rights we should have centuries to come to consensus on the

energetics. We don't appear to have that luxury.

 

I first read Peter Holmes' Energetics of Western Herbs in the early 1990s.

Everybody I spoke to in the field panned it. I was never quite sure why, but I

found my own reasons to lay Holmes' books down for years. A couple years ago I

picked them up again, and I was truly impressed. Yes, there are some errors of

detail here and there, and yes, one may or may not agree on the energetics

assigned to every plant, but who else has taken on the task of figuring out the

energetics of Western herbs with such amazing scholarliness? And he continues to

do so. I think people panned his books because they just weren't ready to spread

their minds out that far. We all needed to get better at traditional CM

herbology. Still do, for that matter. But I for one have been ready to open my

mind to this, and I think we are going to be forced to do so as a field, or lose

our ability to practice.

 

This is why I posted a quote from his Volume I the other day, about how alcohol

extract effects differ from decoction effects, and I have not heard back on it.

Perhaps no one on the list knows the answer. I certainly don't. But I think we

need to start working out the great core formulas of CM in terms of other

medicinals that will stay available to us no matter what the US government does,

unless they come and take us all to prison one night, and I don't think that

will ever happen. Our government impinges freedoms more subtly than others do.

Some will say that we should just grow all the Chinese core pharmacopeia here,

and that is slowly happening, but not enough to keep up with demand, and

besides, they will be somewhat different herbs anyway grown here in these soils

and these climate zones. We'll need to figure them out all over again anyway, at

least to some extent.

Joseph Garner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professor of

Honolulu, HI

808-349-8219

 

www.herbsandmore.photostockplus.com

 

 

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