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Welcome to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast with your host, Nicole Rose from the
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Solidarity Apothecary.
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This is your place for all things plants and
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liberation.
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Let’s get started.
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Hello.
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Welcome back to the Frontline Herbalism
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Podcast.
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I’m in the ******* car park right now.
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My son’s grandma, bless her, has just arrived so that I can focus on the course launch stuff
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today.
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So I will be getting to my inbox shortly and
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replying to everyone’s emails and also spamming people to tell you that it is
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literally the last day to join the herbalism PTSD and traumatic stress course.
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So if you haven’t joined, I’m sure lots of people listening have probably heard me talk
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about it to death, but I’m just going to talk about it briefly.
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It is a ******* epic course, not going to lie.
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It’s eight modules all about herbalism and
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trauma and the nervous system.
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So all the kind of like herbal content is there, like how to make medicines.
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We look at tinctures, glycerites, infused oils, like drying herbs, like sustainably
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harvesting herbs.
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We look at,
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yeah, just kind of all the medicine making stuff.
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The like, necessary foundations like herbal safety and herbal energetics.
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There’s also stuff around kind of like the fundamentals of health, like sleep and
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nutrition and yeah, the role of kind of herbalism in all of that stuff.
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And then in terms of the trauma content, there’s like modules about like, what is
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trauma? And kind of looking at how trauma is defined
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in the kind of global north, which is like a very imperfect term, but in a way of kind of
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describing like attitudes to trauma as a very kind of individualistic,
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pathologized thing rather than something that is,
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you know, systemic and, you know, oppressive and all of this other stuff.
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But yeah, we look at the kind of politics of trauma and more like expansive ways of like
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framing trauma.
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We look at collective responses to traumatic stress.
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So how do we respond to these conditions to try and change them collectively while also,
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you know, trying to take care of ourselves, which I know isn’t always easy, but it’s all
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kind of connected.
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And then there’s just ******* shitloads of geeky stuff.
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So I go into like the physiology and anatomy of the nervous system from looking at kind of
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how it’s structured, how it functions and communicates things like neurotransmitters to
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different nervous system states.
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So frameworks around describing kind of different survival responses and states in the
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body, like fight or flight, freeze, fawn.
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Like all of these things we kind of
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interrogate in a Bit more detail.
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So, yeah, yeah.
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And then the last two modules are basically 32
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plant profiles of herbs with an affinity for the nervous system.
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So these are called nervines.
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And we look at nerve tonics.
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So these are herbs that can help us recover and kind of cope with like ongoing stress and
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burnout that support the kind of structure and functioning of the nervous system in different
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ways.
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You know, whether that’s supporting the HPA axis or whether that is like addressing
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nutritional deficiencies.
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Like, there’s many different actions of nerve
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tonics.
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And we look at relaxant nervines.
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So these are herbs that have a kind of action
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on triggering a more like parasympathetic state.
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So kind of helping us shift from this sympathetic state, our kind of fight or flight
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response, to something a bit more kind of,
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yeah, steady and focused so that we can kind of be what I call, like safe and social.
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So we can,
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you know, connect with other humans and feel grounded and feel alive and access joy and
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play.
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So, yeah, they’re all very important.
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But, yeah, relaxing nervines are like fantastic herbs that we can work with through
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the daytime and also in the evenings and nighttime.
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And then there’s a big,
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like a bunch of herbs that are sedative nervines.
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So these are herbs that have a more kind of hypnotic or sedating effect on the nervous
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system that are commonly worked with in states of kind of pain, but also sleep.
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There’s lots of nuances to those.
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So if you listen to the last podcast episode
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where I bang on about sedative safety, you’ll know that there’s like lots going on there.
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And then finally there’s stimulating nervines.
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So these are herbs that have a more kind of
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stimulating effect in terms of not putting us in fight or flight in this kind of activated
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sense, but helping us access more kind of energy in the body.
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And also a lot of these herbs have a real affinity for brain fog and memory issues,
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concentration, stuff like that.
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So anyway, so yeah, so there’s 32 plant profiles.
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There’s things in there about how to build a plant ally practice, how to choose and connect
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with one plant on different levels, how to learn about that plant in terms of kind of,
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you know, research and everything else, but just kind of more like energetically and
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emotionally to kind of have that like, friendship building state with herbs.
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And then there’s lessons also about how to like, deepen your herbal practice.
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So how do you find your kind of crew? How do you find other herbalists, people that
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are Passionate about herbalism, you know, how do you design your kind of learning journey
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going forward of what you’d like to learn and how do you,
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like, take action for plants and act in reciprocity with these amazing herbs that are
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giving us so much? So, yeah, it’s absolutely jam packed, but I do
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only launch it twice a year, so I open it in March and September, like at the spring and
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autumn solstices.
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I always get asked of why I do that, but basically people just wouldn’t join if they
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thought it was available all the time.
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Like humans are humans.
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Like we’re busy.
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So that’s why I kind of open and close it.
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It means more people will kind of like make
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that decision to join the course.
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But I want to emphasise you can basically take
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all the time in the world to complete it.
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So I know some people like to like bash through things fast, but it is lifetime
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access, so you can join it and not start until, you know, December or next year or, you
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know, 10 years time, like, that’s fine.
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I mean, who knows if it’ll be online then, but I’m sure it will be.
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But yeah, it’s totally.
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I have designed it.
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Like I spoke to lots of people when I was
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creating the course about how to structure it, what people are interested in, and like
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everyone was just like,
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we just don’t need any more pressure.
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Just something that is nourishing, that you
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can work with through your own time.
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It’s now in its own private podcast feed, so if you don’t have time to kind of sit and
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watch lessons on a computer, even though my presentations are very beautiful,
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you can listen to it on the go.
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So, yeah, and I’m also doing a workshop in
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November for anyone that joins the course about all of this stuff in practice.
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Basically how do we work with trauma in kind of herbal practice.
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So, yeah, look out for that.
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And lastly, it is no one turn away for fun, for lack of funds.
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So you can join it for free if needed.
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You can join it for like a small monthly
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donation, you know, popping in a couple of quid each month.
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That’s amazing.
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You can have a payment plan spread over like
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five or more months.
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Yeah, it’s.
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I’ve tried to make it as accessible as
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possible, but people that are able to financially contribute, you are basically
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sustaining the whole of the soldier apothecary.
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So all the things I do, like the care packages distributed to.
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Distributed to people experiencing repression, like all over the world world.
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The Black Flag Herbal Clinic, which is like a free clinic for anarchist Comrades that are,
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you know, struggling with, like, burnout and repression, things like this.
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All the books to prisoners.
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The prisoners, herbal books that distributed
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all over the world, again by the thousands every year that the Apothecary funds.
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And also I run, like a bunch of group programmes for people experiencing state
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violence, including prisoner families and defendants going through repression.
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So, yeah, it funds a lot of things and it also obviously funds my livelihood.
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And yeah, I’m a single mum and, yeah, it is just very,
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yeah, kind of important to, I guess, my survival.
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That’s a bit scary to say, oh, ****, I better get in this ******* cafe and get these
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newsletters out.
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But anyway, but I’m just saying, like, yeah,
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it is a kind of regenerative offering of your contribution is just going to,
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like, ****, tons of solidarity work.
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So, yeah, I think,
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yeah, that’s probably different, right, to a lot of, like, herbal programmes and things.
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So anyway, everyone is welcome.
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Well, unless you’re a fascist or a cop.
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But I mean, you know, if you’re interested in herbalism and this course is speaking to you,
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I think it’s ******* fantastic.
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It’s super well organised and structured, like absolute, like gold mine of resources.
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Everything’s referenced, all of the things,
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there’s transcripts and captions on all the videos, stuff like this.
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So, yeah, please, please join it if you’re interested because, yeah, today is the last
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day and I will be taking it offline tomorrow morning to join.
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So, yeah, don’t miss it.
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All right, thank you for listening.
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Take care.
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Thanks so much for listening to the Frontline Herbalism podcast.
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You can find the transcript, the links, all the resources from the show at
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solidarityapothecary.
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Org podcast.
