Matthew Wood asked me to participate in his April first online Materia Medica class (click here). The topic was the Trickster. Matt had a great repertoire of herbal remedies that can help shift the various ways our wondrous human mind can trick us into states that are really not so wonderful.
Of course the question from the host was why I was ion the show when I do not present myself as a practicing herbalist. A while back I decided that I could conserve my own life force by only working with people who were at least as bad off as I was. That promptly dropped my prospective clients to practically none.
But I do use plant medicine for myself and for my animals. I offered my first round of herbal remedies for rescue horses who arrive injured and stressed as an example. I use:
- True Solomon’s Seal tincture to help restore health to connective tissue
- Agrimony for anxiety and tension. and
- Black Cohosh to help ease and regulate cerebrospinal fluid movement and torsion in the vertebrae.
Matt remarked that it sounded like a Matt Wood formula, but not one he had used. I insisted that it was a Matt Wood formula because I learned it from him. After a bit of laughter, we concluded that a good teacher offers their students sound principles and those principles prove themselves in practice.
After the talk, I found myself thinking of how few horses have access to Dr. Green anymore. And that while time in pasture to just be horses with other horses is priceless, it also gives horses a chance to eat all sorts of what are usually dismissed as common weeds but are also long-standing herbal remedies.
When pasture is not available, I like to give the horse the option to accept or refuse herbal remedies. If I think a tincture or homeopathic remedy might help, I prefer to add some to a bucket of water and leave it where the horse can drink it when and if they please. Of course, their normal supply of drinking water should be readily available.
Sometimes the horse will refuse to drink, and in my book, the horse is always right. The Choctaw Princess was one of those few who rejected my offering. And she was right. Solomon’s Seal, Agrimony and Black Cohosh do not address degenerative disorders of the central nervous system. I do not know much that does, which is why I have resorted to using CBD’s as a palliative measure, suppressing the symptoms as long as possible despite the progressing degeneration.
At any rate, the talk got me thinking about how to include some sense of how much of a Doctor Green pasture really is when discussing how to resolve training problems.
sara annon 