Your beginner herbalism guide for how to think like an herbalist
A beginner-friendly guide to learning how herbalists think, not just memorizing what herbs are “good for.”
Herbalism can feel enormous when you're first beginning. There are hundreds of plants to learn, preparations to understand, new terminology everywhere, and approximately a million things the internet says you should know. So You Want to Be an Herbalist was created to help you slow all of that down and build a strong foundation for your herbal practice.
Rather than giving you another giant list of herbs to memorize, this book helps you understand the foundations that make all of that information actually useful, including herbal actions, energetics, preparations, safety, materia medica, observation, and how to begin developing your own relationship with the plants.
So You Want to Be an Herbalist
Maybe you’ve been here...
You’re fascinated by herbalism, so naturally, you start learning everything you can.
You buy the books. You save the posts. You learn that one herb has twelve different actions, six different preparations, a handful of contraindications, and apparently you should also understand energetics, constituents, botany, body systems, formulation, medicine making...
And before long, something that started from curiosity and a love of plants begins to feel like an enormous amount of information you’re somehow supposed to memorize.
Maybe you know quite a bit already, but you still don’t feel confident actually using what you know. Or maybe you’re brand new and wondering where the heck you’re supposed to begin.
I’ve been there.
One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that becoming an herbalist isn’t about collecting enough information until you finally feel qualified. It’s about learning how to think, observe, ask questions, make connections, and build relationships with the plants you’re studying.
That’s why I wrote So You Want to Be an Herbalist.
Want to go a little deeper?
Meet The Herbalist’s Companion
The Herbalist’s Companion is a printable 17-page workbook designed to help you take what you’re learning in So You Want to Be an Herbalist off the page and into your own practice.
Inside, you’ll find prompts and exercises for exploring plant observation, ecology and conservation, habitat and seasonality, the Doctrine of Signatures, reciprocity, and your own developing relationship with the plants.
Print it, write all over it, tuck pages into your herbal notebook, and use it alongside the book as you learn.
The Companion is available on its own for $12, or bundle it with the book for $42 and save $5.