different actions, parallel paths

As a learner, poet, and proudly neurospicy individual, I find metaphors in many directions.

Sometimes, nothing beats a good metaphor for finding some good, grounding focus when in the midst of incomprehensible situations.

During a recent session with one of my students, one metaphor in particular featured strongly in our conversation, in which we explored some of the ways different plant medicines can interact with our bodies’ healing processes…

and this conversation got me thinking about herbal actions as a metaphor for collective organizing.

So, what are herbal actions? Put simply, they offer one vocabulary for describing how herbal and plant medicines interact with the body.*

Many of the labels given to herbal actions are also frequently used in medical settings and in everyday conversations about everything from over-the-counter medicines to self-care practices.

For example, most people have a general sense of what sort of impact a plant medicine might have if it is described as anti-inflammatory, or sedative, or diuretic, or antidepressant, or analgesic, or antihistimine, or antioxidant, or….

Other herbal actions may be less familiar in vocabulary, but easily recognized as offering some significant gifts and benefits for body, heart, mind, and/or spirit. Some that are worth a specific mention are**:

• Adaptogen: A tonic that helps to balance the body by supporting its ability to deal with physical, mental and emotional stress.

• Alterative: Supports the body in healthy cellular metabolism and its natural process of detoxification, cleansing and elimination.

• Anxiolytic: Helps lessen anxiety.

• Antirheumatic: Relieves the pain and discomfort of musculoskeletal inflammation.

• Emmenagogue: Helps to bring on menses.

• Hormone balancer: Aids in balancing reproductive hormones.

• Hypnotic: Inducing or sustaining deep sleep.

• Immune tonics: An herb, traditionally used over longer periods of time, to support and bolster the immune system.

• Immunomodulator: Regulates and balances the immune system.

• Immunostimulant: An herb that is typically used in short-term infections to stimulate the immune system.

• Immunosuppressant: An herb that is used to suppress or slow the immune system.

• Nervine: An herb that has an affirming/supportive effect on the nervous system.

• Phytoestrogen: Compounds, produced by plants, with an ability to bind to estrogen receptor sites in the body, and subsequently elicit an estrogen-like effect.

• Vulnerary: Helps to heal tissue, topically and/or when taken internally.

So, where’s the metaphor for collective organizing? I promise, I’m getting there! First, and to really set the scene, we’re going to look more closely at a few concrete examples of herbal actions.

Let’s say it’s getting close to bedtime, and you’re hoping to have a lovely mug of tea to help you settle in for the night. You know that any herbs that are stimulants are not the choice for the task at hand… but do you want to pick an herb that’s an adaptogen, anxiolytic, hypnotic, nervine, or sedative?

Of course, the only honest answer is that it depends!

Every single one of those options is likely going to be correlated to improved sleep and/or relaxation for most people.

With the hypnotics and the sedatives, this will likely be a pretty direct path: take herb, get sleepy.

With the adaptogens, anxiolytics, and nervines, the path of the herbal action is a little more of a winding path rather than an expressway. These herbal actions help provide support for the systems and conditions that can interfere with restful sleep. They don’t so much make someone sleepier as they do assist the bodymind with letting go of the hyperarousal that can be a barrier to relaxed and restorative states.

To sketch out a different hypothetical situation: let’s say someone is feeling sick, and is deciding on a tea or tincture.

They could choose to go a symptom-management route, selecting herbs that are bronchodilators (increasing airflow), anti-pyretic (decreasing fever), and/or decongestants (releaving congestion and nasal inflammation).

And/or, they could go on the offensive, focusing on herbs with appropriate antimicrobial actions, such as antiviral herbs, perhaps with some antioxidants thrown in for good measure.

And/or, they could tend to the immune system directly, choosing to go with an immunostimulant in the short-term (assuming they don’t have an auto-immune condition for which immunostimulants are contraindicated), followed by some immune tonics and immunomodulators once they get on the mend.

Obviously, none of the options are as binary or siloed as such a description implies.

For one thing, no herb is just one thing with just one action. For example, Passiflora incarnata (aka passionflower, aka passionfruit, aka maypop) offers actions including anodyne, hypnotic, hypotensive, nervine, antidepressant, and anxiolytic**… so even a single-herb preparation with that one plant friend would offer multiple gifts that can help with a good night of sleep.

For another thing, there are a nearly infinite number of options for different blends and mixes and ratios and delivery methods that can be explored.

And these are the lines of thought that led me around to community organizing.

For a person can easily allow minutes… hours… days… weeks… months… years to pass while wondering to themself, “But of all the possible choices I could make that could help us through this, which is the right one?!”

When, in fact, there is likely no single supposedly ‘perfect’ approach, but many, many truly helpful approaches.

And perhaps, just perhaps, the ‘best’ option for any of us to take is one in which there is an overlap between:

• what will be helpful (i.e., what meets an existing need?),

• what is accessible to you (i.e., what’s in your cabinet?),

• and (when possible) what contains some element of fulfillment, pleasure, and/or comfort (i.e., what will you actually take/do?).

It is undeniable to me that there is much in the world that is calling for healing right now.

There are things that count as outright sickness: fascism, white supremacy, capitalism, xenophobia, ecodespair, the growing influence of eugenicist forces, and so much more.

And, alongside these outright sicknesses, there are so many systems and beings who are calling out for support and tending.

And there are so, so many entry points for creating skillful and needed change.

There are the entry points of directly facing down the sickness; in this metaphor, direct actions and agitations echo the actions of antimicrobials, antioxidants, antivirals, etc.

There are the entry points of supporting the organs, parts, and systems in the body that are being attacked, so as to enable them to survive and to heal. In this metaphor, mutual aid and community building echo the actions of adaptogens, immunostimulants, immune tonics, etc.

There are entry points that enable immediate access to triaged sources of care, in which an urgent need is responded to with a quickness and the understanding that there will still be healing to do once the triaged need is met. In this metaphor, crisis response and mobilizations echo the actions of bronchodilators, anti-pyretics, sedatives, hypnotics, etc.

All of these approaches are valid, necessary, and of inarguable benefit.

No one tea or tincture will, in and of itself, approach the healing a system needs in every single possible manner. And still: all of them have gifts that are powerful and impactful.

Furthermore, just as all herbs have more than one action, each person who is committed to making a positive impact in the world today has more than one gift.

And none of us are in this alone. To the contrary, we are all very much in it together.

Building connections with comrades, friends, and community members who share the values of collective liberation frees us from any paralyzing sense that any one individual among us needs to (or even should) do all of the work that is needed to shape a better, more compassionate future.

In each moment, we are given opportunities to learn about the work that there is to be done. We are also given opportunities to learn about the actions that are available for us to take.

None of us have to do everything.

All of us have to do something.

What actions are you going to embody today?

*It is worth emphasizing that herbal actions are solely one of multiple ways of describing the impacts that plant medicines can have upon someone’s body. You may also come across descriptions of plant medicines that focus on energetics, elements, and/or doshas: as is true for all things, there are multiple ways of categorizing and describing the profound nuance and complexity of plant-based healing.

**References:

Blankespoor, J. “Introduction to Herbal Actions.”

D. Hoffmann, FNIMH, and AHG. Medical Herbalism: The Science and Practice of Herbal Medicine.