Herbal Inspirations

so hey good morning i've been clearing some of the brambles that have spread out over this part of the garden and as you can see i need to stream but it's too wet today in fact it's just started to rain again it's not the most ideal situation to be cutting grass in so i think because a lot of people have asked if i could recommend any herbal books for them or any books at all maybe we'll go inside and i'll show you some of the books that have been pivotal i suppose in my journey with herbs and plants and books that i still refer to and use today nearly every day yeah because the rain is coming i'm going to go inside take my tools with me come on dogs [Music] okay so these are just some of my books i have a lot of books because i read a lot um and every every room in the house has bookshelves dotted around but the very first book i think that um got me interested in hers was about 30 years ago it's just a little pocket book of herbs and i just had this romantic notion that i would i don't know wander around and find herbs growing and then i found this little book it's it's very small it's basically your rosemary sage tarragon mint but i love the wood cuts the kind of medieval wood cuts and that really um inspired me as well and it was something i aspired to have um pots of herbs like this one of the next books that was really really made a huge impression on me was this one the secret life of plants it's by peter tompkins and christopher bird and it was published in the 70s by penguin and it does what it says it talks about the secret life of plants it looks at various experiments that have been carried out which prove that plants are intelligent and thinking and considerate but what i remember specifically is the first story which is about a man who was teaching young police recruits how to use a lie detector machine and just for fun he hooked it up to a plant in his office and when everybody had gone out for lunch he spotted a spider crossing his desk and he went to kill it and just as he thought to do that the plant went berserk and the machine sorry went berserk because the plant reacted to his thought of killing the spider so that intrigued him and he did lots of other experiments including having plants to help solve murder mysteries so that's a really excellent book to um to really appreciate how plants are beings just like us so if you want lots of people wondering how do they know which plant is which and how can they identify it and i can't speak for the whole world but certainly for europe and most of north america any of these little wildflower books will be beneficial this one is really good if you're in ireland the wildflowers of ireland by zoe devlin it's very um extensive and it's colour-coded as well lots of these little books you'll pick up in any bookshop collins wildflowers another book um by the apple tree press irish wild flowers connemara wildflowers woodland wild flowers here's another one which is a field naturalist's guide to wildflowers and this one i love i got this at um one of those sunday fates where there's a secondhand stall and i love this book because it's old it's illustrated by pen and ink and it gives you little insights into the medicinal qualities of plants as well on to herbal medicine the books that i've used when i've been studying and that i just use every day anyway this is only some of them because i have a lot more but they're all on a little library upstairs on the landing so culpepper i've often referred to culpepper when i've been out and about in the garden written in the 1600s let me just check if it's 16 or 1700s 1700 1653 very interesting great information about the herbs but also the sense of history and the character of culpepper himself because you know he talks to you as if um you're there with him and he says things like there's no point describing this plan because if you don't know what it is you're an idiot you know so he's very forthright in his um in his dealings and this book is a revived book by julie bruton seal and matthew seal it's the herbalist bible by a contemporary of culpepper john parkinson and this is beautiful because they give you parkinson's version of a plant and how and his writings on the plant so it's in the old ye old english and then the modern view and how he was right about so many things because modern science has proved that yes that plant is good for this particular ailment so i love the sense of history i have several go-to books that i use nearly every day and one of them would be david hoffman's holistic herbal there's a huge section in the middle all about how to use herbs and how to prepare them in different ways topically and for internal use and he goes through all the different body systems as well so it's a brilliant beginning um it's a brilliant introduction to herbalism i've got several rosemary gladstar books they're brilliant as well um healing for women includes beautiful body care as well and she also has another book all about body care again this one is a beginner's guide really helpful and lots of simple beautiful recipes for the whole family this is by a uk writer and again i love to use the wild plants that grow around me so this book is very influential in that way because it's got fantastic photographs for identifying the herbs and again it tells you how to use them and it goes through the body systems and this is by a woman called zoey horse so you could use this in america as well because we share a lot of the same plants but it's really simple to use and amazing photographs i'll leave the rest of the herb books there because there's just too many to go through but julie brewton seal has written these two books with her husband matthew and i would definitely recommend those and a woman's herbal by anne mcintyre as well and i must mention these two because again we're going back to irish folklore and the use of plants in healing and nile makoto has done irish trees and irish wild plants and they're definitely worth getting for your library just because they're so interesting i'm i just love history i've always loved history and i love reading historical novels as well so that's maybe a book list for another day but if we move now into the more esoteric um type of books that i like stephen harred booner this is another wonderful book that really helps you to appreciate um the spirits of plants and how you can communicate with them and cooperate with them and how they will help you and pass on wisdom as well as physical healing so that's that's another beautiful book the first chapter made me cry because it just touched something so deep down inside um that i've i've enjoyed all of his books and he has several so that's sacred plant medicine by stephen harrod booner glenny kindred she's in england and she writes beautifully and she also illustrates her books she's a an amazing artist i love her pictures of trees she embodies them all with a spirit for example and again she talks about just nature really being in nature the spirits of the land the spirits of the trees the spirits of plants and she also gives lots of practical um applications and practical recipes and tips but also it's very much the spiritual side of things so how to celebrate the seasons and how to celebrate i don't know how to do things in corners of your garden lots of interesting things to read in there and then moving on to the more shamanic aspect of it kochlin matthews um has written this book the goddess and i just find that very interesting because she refers to goddesses all across the world but the message is basically there's only one goddess but she has many many facets and many um types of personality that we can we can tap into to bring forth the divine feminine in our own lives this is a book irish fork medicine it's less how to use herbs than a history of how they would have been used um and not just plants but all sorts of things like passing a child with whooping cough over the back of a donkey and through its legs again that was a very common commonly used folk healing then sticking with history this book is a beautiful book to have if you're going into the more esoteric use of herbs this man alexander carmichael i think he was some kind of government agent and he went around the highlands of scotland in the islands and he was very interested in in customs and um old habits so he collected lots of we we could call them spells or blessings or prayers they would have been from antiquity but they've been christianized so there's lots of healing herbs chants you can use using herbs lots of blessings for health and it's really beautiful and it's another insight into the gaelic mindset around healing so they could be used as they are you could adapt them and just re reintroduce them into your own healing practice i think it's really important to communicate with the plants in that way in in the recent new age movement a lot of people look towards indigenous american practices to in to inform their own whereas actually we still have our own western mystery tradition which is what kochlin and john matthews are writing about in this book the western way this goes back to our own indigenous our own indigenous ways of connecting with spirit and with the with nature and with the planet and it's not dogma there's meditations in here there's journeying everything you would expect to find within american indigenous tradition but it's our own and it's our own gods and goddesses and it's our own practices so this is a really lovely book to be looking at if you want to know more about the old religion that we would have had here so i'll just finish off with this little book grandma's ways for modern days it's full of how to make your own butter all kinds of recipes from knitting socks to making butter growing herbs household cleaners all natural ecologically sound products the power of vinegar is a very handy little reference book everyone who is interested in reviving traditional skills should get a copy of this and this is by paul and diana peacock i'll put all the authors and the titles in the information below and then you can go and check them out for yourselves another day i'll tell you about my literary shelves the books i enjoy reading for pleasure these are all very pleasurable to read as well but they've also got that wonderful practical and esoteric aspect so thank you so much for watching i hope you get hold of some of these books and enjoy them as i do and if you do want to start off really looking into herbs i can't recommend the ones i've mentioned more because they're so easy to follow and so interesting and so full of practical use if you enjoyed it please subscribe and i'll see you next time bye for now [Music] you

Channel: Danu's Irish Herb Garden

Views: 6,692

Rating: 4.9946952 out of 5

Keywords: Danu, Mother Goddess, Herbs, Plant Wisdom, Healing, Natural World, Nature, Irish Cottage, cottage life, self sufficiency, Wild plants, medicinal plants, foraging and growing, Divine Feminine, Goddess

Id: pikJWXxCA08

Length: 16min 3sec (963 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021