meetings & awakeningsthe coevolution of plants and people

Ric Scalzo andGreg Cumberford

some sort of blurb about Gaiaabout Gaia the company or the philosophy? or a blurb

about what the book is?about Gaia the company or the

philosophy? or a blurb about what the book is?

meetings & awakeningsthe coevolution of plants and people

by Ric Scalzo and Greg Cumberford

© 2010 Herbal Research Publications

Brevard, North Carolina

There is a Field of Infinite Correlationthat connects all life. Within this field there is perfect order, unbounded

energy, and supreme knowledge that guides the organized expressions

found within the bounty of nature. It is from this vast dark, underlying

canopy found at the core within this field, that all life is manifested. From

this vastness within the unmanifest, emerges an equally vast diversity

of creation. These expressions of nature spiral forth and interact in a

coherent and dynamic manner.

There is no distinctionbetween time and spacein this field of infinite correlation. It is at this core of all life where

we meet the unmanifest source of our diversity. The journey of the

meetings that we observe in nature begins at the junction point

where the unmanifest begins to express itself. So much awareness

and so many awakenings are born here and a pattern of organized

intelligence begins to take shape.

The Wisdom and Intelligenceimbibed in every seed expresses itself into a endless pattern of

diversity. With each phase of growth of the plant more and more

of the unmanifest intelligence begins to become manifest. We begin

to witness the expression of order, of sequence, of conviction and

of reverence. And when we observe the pattern of flowers aligning to

the energy and movement of the sunlight we begin to see the coherent

coupling within these intelligent expressions of nature.

Coherent couplingcan begin to be seen in many forms—the pistils and stamens interacting

with the forces of sunlight, the morning dew finding a purposeful

home on the tender petals ,the flowers aligning to the rays of the sun

for their journey through the day, and the young roots beginning to

seek out growth promoting nutrients from the fertile soil that they nest

within. As this blossoming of creative intelligence shapes these

relationships, we begin to realize that we are part of a vast network

of meetings that shape our plant medicines that restore our memory

of this wholeness born within the core of nature.

Meetings…..We are all part of one body seeking harmony. We remember our

instinctual connection to the earth and all its inhabitants. Each

individual longs to rekindle this connection, this partnership.

Therefore, we must act in accordance with nature. There is no

action more responsible.

reverenceEvery plant, in its true form, has the extraordinary ability to restore

our bodies’ natural vitality through a symbiotic chemical interaction.

It is our deepest belief, our duty, to help others return to a state of

harmony by stewarding the coevolution of plants and people—

encouraging each indivdualto meet the herbs that willwork for them.

Stewardship…..We assume our role as stewards of this life cycle. Plants bring forth

their wisdom and intelligence through endless interactions with

the formative forces of nature. We create fertile soils to nurture this

expression of plant intelligence. Our meetings at this moment are

very special as we recognize that we hold responsibility for the free

and full development of this fertile and vibrant expression of nature.

a symbiotic relationshipPartnership with the earth is our passion and commitment. We

serve as dedicated stewards of this bond. We nourish the plants

and the land, and they give vitality to all of us in equal measure.

Symbiotic Relationships……we all are part of a life cycle… a journey together with relations

that are both seen and unseen. Just as the wasp and the grub are

connected together in their life path so are we connected with the

soil, the plants, the insects, the cycles of day and night, the changing

of the seasons. All these connections, all these relationships remind

us how we are intimately woven together into a fabric of wholeness

that sustains the very life that we live.

Nature healswhen given the opportunity to do so…..we work diligently within the construct of nature to restore balance to

our soils and attract elements that assist in maintaining that balance.

Within nature are the remedies for any state of dis-ease…. We simply

subscribe to this truth as self evident and allow this intelligence that

connects us to fully express itself so that we can meet our medicines

in their purest form.

Within the very core of our existenceis a mosaic of shapes and forms and relations.Our very existence

depends upon our ability to sustain the fertility and vitality inherent within

nature. The meetings that take place with our medicines should not

be taken for granted. These meetings offer a promise that the cycle of

life will not be broken. These meetings offer a promise that there will

always remain a continuity of relations that will, if given the opportunity,

provide us with the ability to achieve true health and wellness.

The web and the weaver……we stop for a moment in our work to witness the energy, the effort

of those forces of nature that are always working for our benefit, our

growth, our sustenance. Just as we take a moment to reflect on

these relations, the sun carves out a moment in time to remind us

that our medicines are being woven for us together within these

meetings at every moment through the life cycle of plants.

Gratitude and humility……in the process of giving, we receive. We are humble servants of these

formative forces of nature and pride ourselves knowing that we may

not meet all that take our medicines but we still own the responsibility

to maintain the purity and integrity throughout every phase of this life

cycle that we are intimately woven into.

Order and coherence….there is a sequence and harmony that emerges from the vast unity in

nature. So much diversity yet so much underlying harmony to connect

these diverse elements of nature. In this field of infinite correlation

we are connected at the core. Our work with plants remind us of the

importance of nourishing the stillness that connects us all.

Stillness and dynamism…..two opposing forces of nature harmonized together become the

building blocks of all life and wellness.

Honoring our present….Nurturing our future…..We are reverent stewards of what surrounds us and what is within

us….Every day we awake to these relations and honor our role in the

co-creation of this evolutionary process. We must always improve

the tilth of the earth we walk upon so that those that follow us can

also share fully in these relations we nurture.

the choices we makeThe coevolution of plants and people is a harmonious continuum.

Plants revitalize us, and we must nurture them in return it is this

reciprocity that sustains the well-being of everything on the planet, and

brings a renewed sense of wholeness to all the earth.

Observationwithin our sacred medicinary.We remain awake to our relations…. we observe and we serve….. we

respect and we respond. We continuously take note of these ever

changing cycles of nature with the intent to capture the full potential

of nature’s vital energies. Our intent is purely to act in harmony with

these formative forces. Our interactions must be timed perfectly.

Intention…..every thought, every feeling, and every emotion becomes part of our

medicine. We harvest and prepare our medicine as reverent servants

knowing that our being, our consciousness becomes a part of every

plant medicine that we steward.

Conviction…as plants nourish us we in turn nourish and cultivate themorganically, tending to them largely by hand, maintaining their purity.

Only the truest expression of the herb must be brought forward. We must

harvest gently at the optimal moment, to ensure the greatest potency.

We must process carefully to deliver these gifts with integrity.

Respect for nature…..the formative forces of nature that guide us towards peak performances

in our lives also guide the medicinal plants and trees to their peak

performance. We remain patient, willing to observe their changing

appearances and chemistries. Only at the precise time do we harvest

these plants with deep respect for this co-evolutionary process that we

share. We come to meet our medicines as they have evolved to meet

us. These formative forces of nature that the plants have metabolized

deepen our connection to a vital process that nurtures us endlessly.

As we share our passion,communicate our deep knowledge, and faclitate a personal connection

between plants and people, coevolution grows stronger. We commit to

responsible sourcing through our relationships with Family Farmers

and Certified Partners, all upholding the Gaia Standards of Excellence.

The influence of our carefully tended acres continues to grow, as both

a trusted source and a model of organic farming and plant preservation.

co-creation with passion......there is a small window of time in this process for us to be awake to

the peak and total potential of nature. We come to this window with a

passion for this meeting, with a purpose for this meeting, and a deep

appreciation for the outcomes of this meeting.

Fresh and vital……this is how we relate to our medicines. Nature is our pharmacy and

we harvest this pharmacy while in it’s freshest and most vibrant state.

We do not alter what nature has so perfectly created rather we look

through the window of science to confirm our conviction that as long

as we preserve freshness we preserve the healing power of nature.

The soil nurtures us with its vitality……we come forward to meet this fabric of fresh and vibrant life. It awakens

us to the knowledge of our purpose as stewards of these medicines.

A medicine for all seasons….Whether floral bud or flower; whether seed or root…. In every stage

of development nature creates a pharmacy that determines it’s use….

For every phyto-chemical in nature there is a corresponding and

complementary receptor in our body. What resides within the body and

mind of nature nourishes our body and mind to make us whole and vital.

The fruits of our labor…..we’ve waited all season for this moment… the ripening of such perfectly

woven plant intelligence. This ripening represents the closure of a

cycle….but within each ending there are also new beginnings… these

are the seeds that keep the memory of wholeness within every cell

in our hearts awake to all possibilities.

Our hearts are filledwith joy and gratitude….So many forces, so many elements, so much patience has come to

this moment in time where we hold the conviction in our heart that

we have truly been a part of cultivating pure plant medicine.

the roots that connect usin making transparent and traceable the history of every herb in every

jar, bottle, and capsule, we empower individuals to reclaim control of

their own well-being, share their knowledge with others, and participate

more fully in an exchange that advances the coevlution ofplants and people.

Confidence…we have nothing to hide and everything to gain. We must remain open

and allow the world to share our experience at every level so that others

can meet and know us—and meet and know their herbs. To enable this

exchange we invite each person to see where their herbal medicines

come from, how it was grown, harvested, extracted, and validated for

purity, integrity, and potency.

Purity…Nature is pure.We must hold ourselves to nature’s standards above all others. Each

herb must be cultivated according to how nature intended. Chosen from

heirloom seeds, grown organically, harvested with care at the perfect

moment of maturity with reverence—each herb realizing its potential to

grow, to develop, to bring forth vitality.

SCREENSHOT

Integrity—through the window of sciencewe validate the intelligence of nature. We hold a keen awareness

that every plant, and only the correct plant, will deliver it’s vitality and

healing properties with selectivity. Validation of integrity and identity

assures that a true partnership will be born between the body and

mind of nature and our body and mind.

SCREENSHOT

Validations…..we evaluate identity on a macroscopic level and recognize the wisdom

of the plant is expressed in both seen and unseen ways. Plants reveal

their intelligence in many ways… we must take time and honor the

meeting between what is truly scientific with what is truly reverent.

Potency—colors and waves—a reflectionof the strength that lies within…….interactive meetings between plants and sunlight are observed in

absorbance and wave lengths. These meetings take place in the sacred

laboratory of nature and validated within our own laboratories.

We measure what nature has created and confirm with confidence

the potency of our herbal medicine.

SCREENSHOT

Awakenings……the co-evolution of plants and people…..meeting our herbs as our herbs meet us… we meet our full potential

as servant leaders with one simple intention……. to awaken the full

potential of these meetings in their purest form……. to encapsulate

the Vis Medicatrix Naturae, the healing power of nature,……. and

to guide the awakening of this wisdom of nature within every cell of

our body and mind.

meetings & awakenings...

As your supple diaphragm draws in and slowly

expels air, sustaining your capacity to exist, consider

this: that you and I can breathe at all signifies a pre-

cious and infinitely diverse interplay between animals,

plants, and our living earth. Fundamentally, that all

cellular life respires in order to live ties us all into a

responsive and empowered relationship to our own

bodies and to the ecology of the place in which we live.

At a cellular level, the living biosphere in which we are

intimately embedded records our existence—from at

least the moment of our conception to the last meta-

bolic assimilation of our organic residue by the environ-

ment—and responds instantaneously to our every act.

In this way we are not ever, in our earthly existence,

alone. Our shared biological provenance guarantees

this. We may no doubt feel or believe that we are sepa-

rate, that we are alone—existentially or physically—

in this life, but our very breath tells us otherwise when

we apprehend its significance. The humility in this

apprehension carries us to one tenet of ecological

consciousness.

Another is that we are all mammals. Going back

perhaps 100 million years to our emergence, we

mammals have shared one common, vital need in

whatever environments we’ve lived. We’ve all needed

to continuously respire an acceptable, tolerable,

chemically stable quality of air. This is a precondition

for any mammalian life form to exist, to proliferate,

and to evolve. What assures us that this most basic

need will be fulfilled?

75

As you read these words, you are, presumably,

breathing.

But you may not fully realize what you are

breathing. The fact that your nostrils, trachea, alveoli,

and approximately 600 miles of lung capillaries are

respiring a stable balance of atmospheric gases

embeds you in a story whose origins lie at the very

beginning of life: the story of co-evolution. In this

story, something so basic to being here—breathing—

connects you and me physically to the most ancient

roots of life on earth.

Close your eyes and slowly take in one full, con-

scious breath, hold it briefly, then slowly release it.

Chapter 1: Co-Evolution

77

sugars, and proteins to metabolize and maintain a

remarkably constant physio-chemical environment

inside us that mimics some key conditions for life on

earth that predominated at their emergence.

Unlike a host-parasite relationship, this is a truly

mutually beneficial relationship that trains our

immune systems, provides us metabolic energy, and

kills unfriendly pathogens. This relationship signifies

a true co-evolutionary adaptation of highly interde-

pendent cellular structures. It is rooted in continuous

interactions that began hundreds of millions of years

ago, but—crucially—required another evolutionary

innovation in order to occur at all: photosynthesis.

Prior to the emergence of photosynthesis, bacte-

rial respiration produced methane and carbon dioxide

primarily. (And largely still does inside our gassy GI

tracts, where sunlight never goes.) But once photosyn-

thesis emerged, free and abundant sunlight was con-

verted by these “green” bacteria directly into sugars

that sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide into their

cell structures while also liberating oxygen and water

vapor into the atmosphere.

Paleoecologists recognize this stunning event,

some 3 billion years ago, as the beginning of the

proliferation of life beyond the “simple” organisms.

This makes sense, because once the free and contin-

uous energy of the sun could fuel an organism’s vital

activities, a whole new world of ecological niches

emerged for life forms to colonize. Yet an interesting

and perhaps ironic evolutionary trade-off occurred.

76

At any given moment in earth’s history, the content

of our atmosphere has varied quite dramatically.

Indeed, the atmospheric content at the time of bacte-

rial life’s emergence on earth some 3.5 billion years

ago was a methane and ammonia steam bath in

which we would perish nearly instantly. The conditions

for life at the beginning of life were completely incom-

patible with the conditions we require today—and

that have been available reliably since at least the

emergence of mammalian life. Quite interestingly,

however, the genetic descendants of the earliest

anaerobes, which paleobiology has determined were

the first living organisms on earth, live on today inside

the warm, mobile, flatulent digesters we maintain

for them: our stomachs.

This is a good thing, for those primordial, ancient

bacteria make it possible for us to metabolize our

food. Without them, our foods would putrefy inside us

and we would auto-toxify in short order. Hence the

crucial importance of bacteroides, lactobacillus, and

other beneficial gut probiotics to our own health. We

can’t live without them.

Yet many of our friendly gut bacteria can’t live in

what is now, for them, a toxic, nitrogen- and oxygen-

rich atmosphere—which nearly all animals and plants

today require to live. So they live symbiotically withinus, ensuring that we can experience a long measure of

years so long as we feed ourselves, stay clean enough,

and avoid fatal incidents. In exchange, we provide

them a regular “diet” of fluids, carbohydrates, fats,

7

Of course, we partake in this co-evolutionary

symbiosis for the most part unconsciously since, like

breathing, digestion is something most of us take

for granted. Yet in our exchange with the hundreds of

anaerobic bacteria species and trillions of bacterial

organisms in our guts, we each ensure the other’s

genetic continuity. It’s an excellent trade, especially

since, had they not emerged, it’s a safe bet that

higher plants and animals (to say nothing of mam-

mals) could never have emerged.

Today we collectively breathe from a singular van-

tage point—or precipice—in our living earth’s history.

Not only do plants form the basis of our nutrition

and our global medicinary, they also respire what we

require (oxygen and water) to live and we, in turn,

respire what they require (carbon dioxide) to live.

We have received an atmosphere bequeathed to

us and maintained over hundreds of millions of years…

by plants.

As we breathe, so do we collectively nourish and

feed one another continuously across the plant-animal

“divide,” which reveals from a cellular metabolic

standpoint that we are in fact bound to each other

through the respiratory and digestive cycles that

sustain us. Each “kin-dom” literally could not have

proliferated over geological time without the other,

even though each individual animal and plant species

is never relieved from remaining relevant—either

adapting or failing to adapt in response to the ever

unfolding co-evolutionary paradigm of this biosphere.

6

Photosynthetic organisms have remained sessile—

incapable of purposive mobility or mass migration.

Many non-photosynthetic organisms, including nearly

all animalia, developedmobility as the means to feed

and to avoid being fed on. And as our atmosphere

became more and more oxygenated over billions of

years by the earliest photosynthesizing bacteria, algal

mats, and ultimately plants, the archaic ancestors

of all of today’s animals developed larger, faster, and

more complex body structures. They could do so

because they could derive energy from their food far

more efficiently in the presence of increasing oxygen.

And so the “botany of desire” among plants and

animals, as Michael Pollan has brilliantly surveyed it

among plants and people, came into play.

Yet at some early stage in the Paleozoic atmos-

phere’s transformation to its present composition,

some anaerobic bacteria co-evolved metabolic

systems inside the earliest multi-cellular organisms

that would eventually allow the earliest forms of

mobile animals (arthropods) to emerge. In this way,

the earliest ancestors of plants caused a global envi-

ronmental transformation that, in turn, created the

conditions for all animal life to flourish. But like mol-

lusks that would emerge eons later, these anaerobic

bacteria had to adapt to their changing environment to

survive. They had to grow protective layers. They had

to go somewhere. Luckily for us, this symbiotic

digestive dance with the anaerobes led to our being—

or more precisely, our continual becoming.

9

ago and eliminated more than 80% of all terrestrial

and marine life, most likely due to an asteroid impact

that altered earth’s atmosphere. This was an infinitely

long time ago in terms of conscious memory, but

relatively recently in terms of the genetic and cellular

“memory” shared between the mammal and plant

genera that (re)inhabited and co-evolved in the

postapocalyptic new world they inherited from the

dinosaurs and the gymnosperms.

A shared adaptive “memory” and a mutually

beneficial, appropriative history between humans

and thousands of nutritive and medicinal plants is

encoded into our DNA. Our cellular biology comes

straight from the womb and crucible of that last

great awakening among earth’s surviving species.

Our species’ predilection to feed from, cultivate, and

in so many ways co-create our world with plants

that form our food and medicines expresses and vali-

dates what our DNA “knows” are highly successful

strategies for surviving the most dramatic geochemical

upheavals possible on this planet. This knowledge

lies latently within us, even when we have no conscious

or cultural referents to it. Even when we now appear

to be the upheaval.

By reorienting our awareness (and our breath) to

the air, and to the magnificent story of how that air

came to be, we can feel profound hope. The several-

billion-year-long story of phylogenesis on earth—

the determined co-evolutionary force driving all life

forward—will never finish so long as living organisms

8

No individual species is inherently privileged, but

every species expresses a particular, coherent, and

successful adaptive vector in relationship to its eco-

logical matrix. A living or thriving species embodies

a co-evolutionary success story within a functioning

habitat. A dying or recently extinct species embodies

a failure to respond adequately to co-evolutionary

challenges and opportunities.

In this light, there can be no evolution outside co-

evolution. That all life forms, including humans and

plants, inextricably interpenetrate each other’s cells

means that we are always reciprocally co-evolving.

We only perceive taxonomic species and genotypes

as immutable because we take a relatively short-

term perspective, where climatic oscillations have

been relatively regular and relatively benign. But

when we delve down into the world of bacteria, myc-

orrhizae, and endophytes, we see remarkable mor-

phological adaptation and phenotypic plasticity. We

see into the co-evolutionary fire by which certain

assemblages and clades persist through successful

adaptation, and others die out. During the recent past

2–3 million years of human proliferation on earth, a

fairly stable phylogenetic array of animals and plants

has prevailed. Our atmospheric composition and

temperatures have been for the most part quite com-

fortable and conducive to plant and, certainly,

mammal development. The narrative of earth history,

however, is punctuated by cataclysm.

The last Great Extinction occurred 65 million years

1110

can interact within local habitats and so long as the

sun sustains photosynthetic life. But due to our sheer

numbers and technology, we humans bear far more

responsibility for outcomes now than ever before in

our cultural or biological memory.

A dynamic, atmospheric equilibrium between

plants and animals is a fundamental precondition for

our joint proliferation across the eons into countless

morphologies and habitats. Our every breath is owed

to a basic co-evolutionary process that connects our

breathing to the origins of life itself.

What is the simple act of breathing but the out-

come of a vastly intricate and complex interaction,

mediated by bacteria and mycorrhizae, among plant

and animal species over millennia? For that matter,

what could be a more plain form of interspecies

interaction—or cause for phylogenetic adaptation—

than eating? Or being eaten? All organisms are

programmed by their shared DNA to learn from each

close encounter at the threshold between life and

death, to adapt as efficiently as possible to ensure

continuity of their kind. Co-evolution is what life forms

do and how they assert their relevance over geological

time within a biosphere that has proven remarkably

capable of maintaining a dynamic, pulsing equilibrium

for life’s proliferation as its only directive.

Today more than ever, aligning with that directive

is our most pressing imperative.

Chapter 2: Sustainable WellnessFrom Plant Intelligence

Many of us believe that within our lifetimes we will

experience a global convergence of science, eco-

nomics, and earth-honoring spirituality that will cause

humanity to embrace holistic and integrative wellness

as the dominant mode of primary health care. Not

only do our macroeconomics compel this, but our most

incisive sciences and our most profoundly resonant

spiritual traditions are converging to pass humanity

over a threshold, through a sort of Deep Remembering,

into a rhizomatic awareness of our own embeddedness

in a regenerative, health-giving biosphere.

The most patient denizens on our home planet—

the algae, fungi, and plants—form the real basis of

human and animal wellness today, as always. By

remembering our human natures, and the basis of

13

our wellness within the wider and wilder realms of

phyto-medicines, we can also build a very pragmatic

and sustainable platform of solutions to our wellness

challenges. To enter into the realms in which our

neuro-physio-chemistry will meet and be enlivened

by intelligent phyto-medicines, we should first ask

what will form the basis of a truly sustainable and

regenerative phyto-medicinary? For without a robust,

diverse, and accessible phyto-medicinary, we cannot

experience the meetings and awakenings with plants

that our bodies have co-evolved to expect.

The answers are truly fascinating and deeply reas-

suring, because they point to the resolution lying in a

globally regenerative ecological agriculture, one that

mimics the sophisticated pharm-ecological forestries

and phyto-medicinal gardens of indigenous peoples,

yet which must be scaled up to accommodate 8–10

billion people’s basic wellness needs by the year 2050.

Implications for urban ecology and all related land-

scape and energy design professions could be pro-

found. We are at an important threshold requiring

all our healing disciplines to align within a biospheric

mandate that has never altered over the eons.

As the organic farming and local foods revolutions

indicate, people hunger for real nutrition that is mean-

ingfully connected to place: there really is no practical

limit on society’s ability to promote sustainablenutrition once the preventive and wellness benefits of

healthy and natural foods reduce society’s health care

costs. Billions of dollars spent managing avoidable,

15

to the “BRIC nations take over” narrative that we’re

hearing so much lately, since America enjoys a lead in

superior academic research infrastructure, environ-

mental and ecological bio-diversity protections, entre-

preneurship and financing networks, vast agricultural

support and production systems, and legal property

and patent rights guarantees. Throw in its break-

throughs in bio-fuels and bio-plastics, and America

is uniquely situated to rev up a new economic engine

delivering the world a robust, safe, and scientifically

verifiable phyto-medicinary supply chain.

Imagine the societal benefits of greatly expanding

the naturopathic and integrative medical professions

while keeping millions of people out of the medical

claims nightmare through responsive and natural

self-care strategies. Two diagrams may help draw

this contrast. The first captures the conventional

processes and costs associated with our dominant

pharmaceutical development and delivery paradigm.

The second depicts a natural phyto-medicinary

development paradigm.

This second system is vastly more sustainable

than the pharmaceutical paradigm because it is

rooted in the inherent co-evolutionary symbiosis

between humans and plants, while at the same time

honoring the pivotal role played by practitioners as

the keepers and communicators of medical wisdom

traditions embodied in plants.

We believe that a sustainable phyto-medicinary

14

preventable disease states can be redeployed to

supporting our inherent capacity to stay healthy when

we facilitate routine cellular interactions with benefi-

cial plants, and make whole plant nutrition plentiful

and affordable. When a society starts realizing tangible

wellness dividends, through preventedmanaged care

costs and high-tech interventions (particularly for

low-income people and elders), then all the financial

resources necessary to realize a renewable-energy-

driven, bioregionally diverse phyto-medicinary

agriculture will be freed up. Farming will also become

a much more sustainable enterprise, because of the

inherent needs our bodies have for phyto-medicines

free of herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides.

With health care and “big pharma” representing

roughly one-sixth of America’s GDP—to say nothing

of “big agra”—a certified organic phyto-medicinary

supply chain could actually rival biofuels and bioplas-

tics as the Next Big Thing that revives the American

economy and turns our society away from climate-

change-inducing fossil fuels. If we recognize the co-

evolutionary power of plant intelligence to feed us and

make us healthier, and if we align our society with co-

evolution, we can see a very compelling economic path

forward that requires a balance of university- and gov-

ernment-sponsored technological innovation, respect

for indigenous wisdom traditions, and entrepreneurial

ventures responsive to particular societal wellness,

energy, and nutritional needs.

Such a path also offers a substantial alternative

research in pharmacology and systems biology has

expressed our personal beliefs and experiences

through observed science. These observations cer-

tainly validate the naturopathic approach, while at the

same time reinforcing our deeper genomic ties to a

rich, biologically-diverse ancestry upon which true

human wellness was always sustained prior to the

advent of chemo-pharmaceuticals.

A leading voice in this area is Kevin Spelman, a

doctoral researcher and scientist with ties to UNC-

Greensboro, Tai Sophia Institute, and the NIH National

Institute on Aging. We find Spelman’s research and

writing highly compelling, because he is elevating and

articulating the paradigm-upending biological concept

of “coherent coupling” and its expression between

supply chain belongs at the base of our wellness,

along with seasonally diverse, regionally or locally

grown foods providing for our nutritional needs. When

this approach is pursued as an ethos, as an outcome

of a regenerative ethical relationship to place, to family,

and to our bodies, the need for nearly all of society’s

best-selling pharmaceutical “lifestyle” drugs simply

falls away, as do nearly all of the attendant costs that

seem to be driving our governments into prolonged

insolvency. Not surprisingly, our physiology, our social

economy, and the biosphere are all signaling to us that

something has to give.

Perhaps we wouldn’t believe this so fervently if

we had not experienced this degree of wellness our-

selves. But more recently, an emerging field of

Figure 1Conventional Pharmacutical Supply Chain Paradigm

(Modified with permission from Dr. Jeffrey Schmitt, Wake Forest University)

target ID target DEV pre-clinical DEV phase I phase II phase III

lead ID lead DEV lead OPT

basic research translation of research clinical research

pharma mfg prescrip plans physician patient

REJECTEDcompounds

synthesis

biotech designercompounds &molecultes

natural phyto-chemistry

ACCEPTEDcompounds

I N D N D A

•Only 1:20,000 odds from target ID to NDA

•92% of drugs rejected in clinical trials

•Only 1 in 3 drugs make back R&D costs

•DD pipeline cost per product: $1 billion

Do we need to rethink drug development?

biosphere &ecosystem community

family

patientphysician:advisor &

apothecary

COGmanufacture

& GMPquality

validation

bio-regionalagriculture

& ecological

harvesting

traditionaluse history& clinical

observation

naturalphyto-

chemistrynatural

productsretail

Figure 2Sustainable Phyto-Medicinary Paradigm

1716

19

grade biology class, this is a highly disruptive notion!

Yet we find its implications both cosmological and

comforting at the same time.

Put another way, a species’ genome is proving to

be far more flexible, adaptable, and plastic than can be

accounted for by simple random genetic mutations

and natural selection alone, and our ability to “pheno-

typically shift” based on either health-inducing experi-

ences or harm-inducing experiences at the cellular

level is more latent to a species’ genome than clas-

sical evolutionary theory permitted. As an example, we

already have evidence of phenotypic plasticity in how

individual Pacific tree frog tadpoles metamorphose

differentially due to differing predatory pressures from

fish or diving beetles in their natural pond environ-

ments. Now we’re starting to see tantalizing evidence

in the cellular makeup of plants and humans.

It starts with the self-evident notion that all living

organisms are inexorably interwoven into their envi-

ronments since they all start as single-celled entities,

and that it is not really possible at the cellular level to

speak of environment and organism as separate enti-

ties—and probably not at the level of species and envi-

ronment, either. The term first coined in the 1980s by

systems biologists Maturana and Varela to account for

DNA shifting is “structural coupling,” which is defined

as “a history of recurrent interactions leading to struc-

tural congruence between two or more self-organizing

systems.” Thus, living systems can and do undergo

18

phyto-chemical ligands and matrices of cellular

receptors. Spelman has helped us enormously by

surveying an international body of scientific literature

in the fields of evolutionary medicine, molecular nutri-

tion, proteomics, and metabolomics, and what he calls

ecological pharmacology operating at the cellular level

of the human-plant interface. Spelman is intrepidly

exploring and bringing home fascinating stories of his

encounters along this margin.

Spelman’s research of the past 20 years is nicely

encapsulated in a chapter titled “Ecological Pharma-

cology: Pharmacology Informed by Evolution” in the

forthcoming book Fundamentals of Complementary andIntegrative Medicine, 4th edition (Elsevier, 2010). He flu-

idly connects information exchange processes at the

metaphoric levels of the cell, the body, and the bios-

phere, deftly weaving togethermolecular-genomicexchange processes and species-biospheric exchange

processes. We believe his work and that of his col-

leagues will form the scientific foundation for clinical

research in integrative medicine for the next 20 years.

In essence, a central dogma of biology—namely,

that genetic information flows only in one direction,

from our DNA to RNA to protein and onward to the

cell, multicellular systems, organs, organ systems,

and the body—captures only part of the story. It is

emerging through science that our cellular experi-ence through environmental interactions can affect

our DNA. In effect, this means that DNA can “learn”

directly from the environment. Going back to 8th

21

chemistries, we will see, show significant bio-activity

in animals in vivo, but purified or synthesized fractions

of the same chemistries do not perform as well.

But these relationships don’t only happen over

geological time. They are happening right now in ways

we can observe in cellular structures. As an explana-

tory framework, coherent coupling gets radical when

we move to the cellular and genomic level—where

science is showing that the environment (via metabo-

lism, among other exchanges), and even an

organism’s perception of the environment, can induce

genetic adaptation and rewrite sections of DNA code.

This moves us well beyond random mutation and

natural selection guiding epigenesis. It confers a far

more profound evolutionary legacy and resilience on

all species—and perhaps uniquely to humanity, which

is capable of perceiving and realizing our interactive

nature in the biosphere. It also places a special

responsibility on us to facilitate wellness and natural

biodiversity among all species.

Environmentally induced genetic change under

coherent coupling means that sciences capable of

characterizing genetic change due to metabolic

interfacing can finally validate and authenticate why

ancient nutritional protocols like the Okinawan or

Mediterranean or Costa Rican diet and lifestyles tend

to yield markedly higher longevity. Coherent coupling

as an explanatory model can also move the medical

sciences away from disease-driven single-vector inves-

tigations toward truly wellness-driven investigations

20

“coupled histories” of structural change due to their

consistent and constant interactions. Anyone who has

been married for decades can visualize how coupled

histories cause structural coupling in our own lives.

Among humans and plants, this means that for

every cellular receptor in the human body, there is

already a corresponding and complementary phyto-

medicinal expression in nature. This co-evolutionary

work is already massively correlated inside our

human physiology and that of plants. How ingenious…

and how reassuring. Yet, as we’ve seen over geolog-

ical time in our atmosphere, each system is slowly

transformed by the other due to their recurrent inter-

actions. Life is always in flux. We can look around the

genera of plants and animals and see myriad expres-

sions of the basic observation that mutually adaptive

morphologies occur among plants and animals.

Certain species of hummingbirds have co-evolved

bills for extracting nectar from flowers whose shape is

uniquely suited to allow the hummingbird optimal

access that assures the hummingbird departs with the

plant’s pollen and/or seeds. The same is true with cer-

tain milk thistles and butterflies with specially adapted

mouthparts. The December 2009 National Geographicfeatures an article showing in micrographic detail

how individual pollen morphologies from flowering

plants have adapted extensively and optimally to the

morphologies of their animal carriers, the better

to increase the odds of successful coupling between

sperm and ovum. Many whole-plant extract phyto-

23

hundredth? A thousandth? What are the consequences

of any protracted illiteracy over a generation or two?

Many conventional clinical doctors, nurses, and practi-

tioners are finding out!

Evidence that humans have caused genetic mor-

phological and biochemical modifications in plants

only requires looking at our agricultural and horticul-

tural history. Practically every plant-based staple

or starch has already been bred and/or genetically

altered by humans to produce the results we desire.

But Spelman gives examples of how plants are

causing changes in human DNA and protein.

First to the witness stand is the shaping of genes

in cytochrome P450, which are an ancient set of liver

enzymes shared by all vertebrate animals. Spelman

notes that CYP 450 genes, which allow animals to

generate a metabolic resistance to plant compounds

designed to dissuade herbivory, “follow an unusual

ability to evolve rapidly.” The large family of genes in

CYP 450 supply a cache of available proteins from

which to metabolize novel, never-before-digested

plant compounds. Not only do novel plant com-

pounds—themselves adaptive phyto-chemical

expressions in response to environmental perturba-

tions—cause human physiological changes that

affect and potentiate differential advantages. Those

novel compounds also trigger CYP 450 genes to writenew RNA code to create new enzyme isoforms capable

of detoxifying the novel plant compounds. This is a

co-evolutionary process happening in real time, in our

22

explaining what appear to be the underlying genomic

adaptations and adaptive proclivities that result in

sustained vitality and greater longevity. Key to this

whole framework is the notion that our DNA in some

sense “expects” to be perturbed by our environment

and is able to “leap” adaptively when conditions are

favorable—like Atacama desert flora waiting cen-

turies for rain.

In this way, environment and organism and DNA

are constantly shaping and transforming each other

to mutual benefit or, at least, to potential benefit to

the most adaptive organisms undergoing environ-

mental perturbation. So how do we maximize adap-

tivity to perturbation in the system? We believe that

our co-evolutionary history of coherent coupling with

nutritional and therapeutic plants, through metabo-

lizing phyto-chemistry, shows us the way. . . . It’s nota one-way street.

All higher primates, while considered omnivores,

are nevertheless primarily herbivores. Nutritional

paleontology estimates conservatively that over the

past 5–7 million years, Homo sapiens and our imme-

diate ancestral forebears have accumulated dietary

exposure to a conservative estimate of 80,000 to

220,000 phyto-chemicals, a vast library of secondary

metabolitic repellants and attractants, nutrients,

immuno-modulators, anti-inflammatories, toxins, etc.,

that have shaped our genomic conditions for optimal

wellness. How much of that dietary library do our

bodies “read” today? Perhaps a tenth? A twentieth? A

25

lular communication regulating human cell growth.

Further, soil fungi molecular messengers have been

shown to bind with the human estrogen receptor

and influence gene expression, as have plant steroids

and flavonoids. This suggests to us, at minimum, a

common communication strategy among fungi,

plants, and animals involving molecules with similar

shape and electronegativity as estrogen.

We wonder whether such coherence among such

disparate evolutionary forms as fungi, plants, and

animals could result from mere chance… or from a

shared phenotypic adaptivity derived from a rooted

genomic mutability, expressed as a messenger-

receptor homologies, to shared or common environ-

mental influences. Further research will no doubt

elicit compelling explanations, but we firmly believe

that mounting evidence of such structural correspon-

dences at the level of cellular receptors across

phylogenetic kingdoms argues strongly for coherent

coupling as an operating paradigm among humans

and plants.

A final, critical “witness” in the emerging ecolog-

ical pharmacology is highly compelling. Spelman’s

personal research in phyto-pharmacology has led him

to propose that the body’s overall wellness response

is stimulated and potentiated not only by high-affinity

single-ligand agonists or antagonists targeted to a

single, well-characterized receptor. Rather, the body’s

wellness response is optimally stimulated and poten-

tiated by repeatedly digesting and metabolizing high-

24

bodies due to environmental “experience” in the form

of ingestion.

Such a rich history of recurrent interactions

between our Pleistocene forebears and a rich, biodi-

verse array of plant compounds argues strongly that

human CYP 450 genes have engaged for millennia

in a mutually convergent evolutionary dance with the

very same phytochemicals—themselves metabolites

designed to confer adaptive preference in plants—

that we now recognize for their specific medicinal

properties.

How likely is it that this storehouse of adaptive

genes in CYP 450 resulted, even over millennia, from

random mutation and selective pressure alone?

Coherent coupling suggests that while random muta-

tion and mortality certainly drive genomic adaptation,

something deeper is going on. Further investigation

inside the “omics” revolutions will tell. Spelman’s

second “star witness” is the steroid receptors. He

describes in particular how the estrogen receptor,

whose gene structure and ligand-binding properties

have been conserved in fish, amphibians, reptiles,

birds, and mammals for 300 million years of

vertebrate evolution, have a high degree of genetic

homology to a receptor on the cells of fungal mycor-

rhizae in plant roots. These fungi perform functions

involving mineral and other nutrient metabolism that

are absolutely essential to plant cell growth. These

fungi possess a receptor that is homologous to the

human estrogen receptor, itself a key gateway in cel-

27

molecules targeted to single receptors—aside from

accommodating business concerns—was the method-

ological and technology limits against characterizing

activity across cooperating matrices of receptors. It was

never because phyto-complexes were not known to

be biologically active—just that they were too complex

to characterize within typical business investment

constraints, a reductionistic scientific model, and the

technology of the day. But that is now changing.

Even within traditional allopathy, there are many

diseases, including AIDS and Alzheimer’s, that are

now shown to be treated far more effectively with

combinatorial therapies acting on multiple receptor

sites simultaneously. Leading researchers now pro-

pose that research investment dollars will yield more

fruitful outcomes by pursuing “magic shotguns”

instead of conventional “magic bullets.”

The implications of all this opens up a whole new

corridor in the investigative mandate of 21st-century

pharmacology, especially if coherent coupling among

plants and humans is the norm, and our organ sys-

tems actually require phyto-complex inputs to adapt

to changing environmental conditions. If coherent

coupling demonstrates that it is the “other” basis by

which cellular biology functions, then it also has pro-

found implications for what constitutes a sustainable

medicinary and how society achieves optimal well-

ness via the medical professions.

It certainly argues against a pharm-agra indus-

trial complex, which systematically simplifies and

26

volume, low-dose phyto-complexes with recognized

broad-based affinities within whole organ systems.

To an herbalist, this sounds very familiar.

Spelman’s hypothesis extends a self-regulatory

cooperativity in multimeric proteins to receptormosaics. Perhaps in the same way that receptor

mosaics synergistically integrate colors in the fovea

of the human eye, Spelman’s cellular research is

showing how superior therapeutic responses are

achieved in the presence of complementary (suppos-

edly “non-active” or “low-activity”) phyto-constituent

complexes. His proposed mechanism is the stimula-

tion of cooperative and synergistically interacting

matrices of cellular receptors that, if triggered solely

by a single high-affinity ligand drug may fail to be

optimally activated or, indeed, fail to be activated at

all in certain people. His work is showing that both

high- and low-affinity ligands must be present to

optimally stimulate receptor mosaics. This partly

explains why oftentimes a purified drug or bioactive

molecule fails to work in certain individuals and

sometimes triggers only undesirable side effects.

Spelman proposes other supportive mechanisms

like plasma membrane morphology shifts, but the

key point is that whole phyto-complexes deserve

pharmacodynamic characterization as much as high-

affinity ligand drug molecules do.

Tellingly, the main reason 20th-century pharma-

cology and the ensuing pharmaceutical drug develop-

ment model focused on isolating high-affinity ligand

29

We find comfort in this idea that our genome,

and thus any species’ genome, has a vast reservoir of

accessible yet latent phenotypic adaptiveness open

to influence at the cellular interface. Why? Because

it means that abiding wellness is our biological

birthright. It means that life is not an endless battle

against disease states until we die. And abundant

wellness is not something scarce to be rationed and

mediated through a medical/insurance/pharma

complex, like Pell Grants or food stamps or carbon

credits. Abundant wellness is abundantly available to

anyone who consistently supplies his or her phenome

with cellular experience that our genome expects

based on millions of years of iterative physiochemical

and psychological interactions, primarily with plants.

The more diverse experiences, the better.

To regain abundant wellness as our natural state,

we must remember the rich herbivory upon which our

species has always relied and which our living bios-

phere still makes readily available. We must meet our

healing herbs—whether by cultivating them in plant

pots or garden beds, using them in our cooking and

salads, collecting seeds, or fortifying ourselves with

them in medicinal preparations. As the poet Rumi

wrote, “There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss

the Earth.” Our challenge is to find our own ways to

allow such coherent couplings to occur. When we do

this, we are stewarding a wellness revolution whose

utmost consequence is a determined co-evolution

that transforms our species’ future.

28

artificially fortifies our food to suit the dictates of

capital efficiency and mass distribution. It also argues

against heavy governmental investment in single-

vector drug development (and towards combinatorial

approaches), since under the paradigm of coherent

coupling, more affordable and sustainable medical

interventions would derive from influencing a

patient’s entire ambient experience through dietary,

lifestyle, and attitudinal changes—guided by our

knowledge of our prehistoric ancestors’ diets. If you

wish to go deeper into this realm, we highly suggest

reading Paul Shepard, the human ecologist who

wrote Coming Home to the Pleistocene (Island Press,

1998) and Traces of an Omnivore (Island Press,

1996), among his many classics. We are also very

consciously extending Michael Pollan’s brilliant co-

evolutionary thesis in the magnificent Botany of Desire(Random House, 2001) to include adaptive mutualism

among the human genome and entire plant communi-ties in one direction, and adaptive mutualism among

specific plant genomes and human DNA/receptor

matrices in the other.

Such holistic, transpersonal, and integrative

approaches would greatly increase the likelihood that

balance and natural vitality return to a distressed

or diseased individual, precisely because the human

genome is biologically inseparable from its environ-

ment and each individual’s genome awaits gentle or,

at times, robust interventions to stimulate healing

and regain balance.

Chapter 3: Conviction If all this is scientifically reasonable, then our real

challenge is to sustainably provide people with the very

best organic nutrition and botanical preparations that

support convergence with their evolutionary potential.

It is up to us—we must create the opportunity for

informed practitioners to help their patients “meet

the herbs” and accelerate the transformative power

of coherent coupling. We want practitioners and

patients to feel undeniably better through a visceral

experience of coherent coupling with the most lov-

ingly and caringly produced botanical medicines. It is

then only up to you to meet the herbs that have been

stewarded by medicinal herbal partners who adhere

with conviction to deeply sustainable practices.

Organic foods have legions of advocates, but our

31

heartfelt passion is to build a certified organic foun-

dation for medicinal herbs so that people will taste

and feel the difference in their quests for radiant

health. Thankfully, a cadre of botanical medicine

manufacturers is on this same quest. Many, if not

most, of you reading these words would make botan-

ical preparations lovingly by hand if you could spare

the time. No doubt some of you do! For the rest,

we’re here to help you convey your love of the healing

power of phyto-medicines directly to your body,

mind, and spirit. If you believe in what we’re sharing,

then together we can move many more of our

friends, relations, and colleagues to embrace a path

that not only sustains, but also regenerates our

bodies, communities, and ecosystems even as we

turn the tide against our amazingly dysfunctional

health care system. Herein lies the power of our

shared conviction, one that rests on solid science.

Recent peer-reviewed scientific studies confirm

the interesting ways in which complex plant extracts

exert a more “intelligent” therapeutic synergism than

isolated phytochemical fractions or their synthetic

counterparts alone. For example, in 2009 the journal

Phytomedicine published a review of recent pharma-

cological literature on this topic. Authors Wagner

and Ulrich-Merzenich (J. Phytomedicine 16: 97–110)

survey the main mechanisms through which recent

molecular medical science is discovering how

complex botanical extracts oftentimes show a supe-

rior therapeutic effect compared with isolated single

33

pounds that are naturally present in the whole-plant

Hypericum extract “meet” a particular individual’s neu-

rophysiology and exert a definite antidepressant effect

that is customized intelligently to that person’s neuro-

chemistry. Notably, the preponderance of over 40

placebo-controlled clinical studies cited by the authors

show little or no side effects, although certain herb-

drug interactions and increased photosensitivity are

well-known factors to consider when using Hypericumfor mild to moderate depression.

Enhanced pharmacokinetic benefits occur when

“minor” or supposedly “non-active” constituents

increase the solubility or resorption rate of the sup-

posedly “active” compound(s), thus improving overall

bioavailability. The authors cite a 2000 German study

involving the Ayurvedic herb Ammi visnaga as an

example, in which Khellin, the bioactive agent from the

whole-herb extract, is fully bioavailable in 10 minutes,

as compared with the purified equimolar Khellin that

is not fully bioavailable until 60 minutes. They also cite

a compelling animal studies involving Hypericumshowing that pure hypericin exerts only a weak antide-

pressant effect, but when combined with other con-

stituents normally present in a whole-plant extract,

“the plasma level of hypericin is clearly enhanced and

a strong antidepressant effect is obtained….” These

studies underscore how important it is to prepare

phyto-medicines in a manner that preserves the nat-

ural array of phyto-constituents contained in the

useful plant part. Just because science has not yet

32

constituents. They define a synergistic effect when-

ever it can be shown that two or more constituents

interact within in vitro or in vivomodels in such a way

as to reduce the total amount of “actives” required to

achieve a given dose-dependent effect than would

be required using any single constituent. Put another

way, the total effect achieved in a truly synergistic

therapy is greater than what could be achieved by

merely adding up the separate effects.

The three main mechanisms the authors find are:• Synergistic multitarget effects• Pharmacokinetic effects

(e.g., improved solubility, bioavailability)• Influencing bacterial resistance mechanisms

The authors give an example of synergistic multi-

target effects occurring in Saint-John’s wort (Hyper-icum perforatum), in which multiple phytochemical

constituents in this extract—hypericins, hyperforin,

rutin, xanthones, etc.—are evidently “cooperating”

in achieving a beneficial antidepressant action at

multiple receptor sites that is comparable or favorable

to synthetic drugs. They cite a study by Simmen et al.

in J. Pharmacopsychiatry (2001) that showed affinities

among these compounds at presynaptic neurons,

postsynaptic neurons, the hypothalamus, and the

pituitary gland, and they further cite beneficial binding

inhibitions for serotonin, histamine, and H-estradiol,

among other known depressant compounds. This is

a classic example of how differing bioavailable com-

35

Along these lines, they discuss research into many

different essential oils, including those from oregano

and tea tree, and show many promising examples

whereby their use in combination with antibiotic drugs

significantly reduces the antibiotic dosage required

to achieve the same effect. They state “…in all cases

real synergy effects could be measured.”

Another highly compelling study recently con-

ducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota

(J. Cancer Prevention Research, 2008, 1(6): 430–438)

showed a statistically significant chemopreventive

effect from kava root (Piper methysticum) extract

against induced lung cancer in mice. The researchers

in this study followed up on epidemiological evidence

showing that people in certain Pacific island nations

such as Fiji, Vanuatu, and Western Samoa have

exceptionally low incidences of cancer, including lung

cancer, despite not having smoking rates or cancer

registration systems much different from other

countries. This led them to suppose that kava con-

sumption may have a chemopreventive effect, since

their epidemiological study showed that the more

kava these nations consumed per capita, the lower

their cancer incidence rates. One key outcome of this

study was that whole kava extract given at 10

mg/gram of diet reduced lung tumorgenesis by 56%

vs. controls, yet showed no liver toxicity at this

relatively high dose. The authors concluded, “These

results clearly show a chemopreventive effect of kava

against lung tumorgenesis in the A/J mouse model…

34

parsed out exactly how a traditionally used botanical

medicine works does not mean that the traditional

preparation methods, which preserve the natural array

of compounds, should not be respected. The minor

compounds may hold the key to the medicine’s syner-

getic and coherent coupling potential.

A fascinating third synergistic mechanism exhib-

ited by many botanical extracts is bacterial resistance

inhibition. The authors highlight many examples,

including the well-known antimicrobial effect that

Oregon grape root (Berberis aquifolia) has, despite the

fact that pure berberine is only weakly antibiotic.

This occurs because a non-antimicrobial phenolic

compound (MHC) in the plant extract has been shown

somehow to shut down the “efflux pump” in Staphyloc-

cocus aureus, potentiating the antimicrobial effective-

ness of berberine, and consequently shutting down the

multidrug-resistance capacity in the bacterium. They

also cite studies involving thymol and carvacrol,

essential oil compounds commonly found in thyme,

cloves, and holy basil, which synergistically facilitate

the permeation and penetration of antibiotic com-

pounds into gram-negative bacteria. They further cite

the remarkable effectiveness of grape seed extract

(Vitis vinifera) to potentiate the anti-candidiasis effect of

amphotericin B in mice. When used in combination

with grape seed extract, half the dose (by body weight)

of amphotericin B resulted in mean survival times

nearly three times as long as in control groups

receiving the full dose of amphotericin B by itself.

37

botanical medicines work now represents the cutting

edge on which our wellness may very well rest. For

these reasons, we feel even greater conviction that, as

makers of herbal medicines, we are helping usher

humanity over an important biospheric proving ground.

36

Its chemopreventive efficacy compares fairly favor-

ably over other chemopreventive candidates…” We

find outcomes from rigorous scientific investigations

highly compelling because they verify that modern

21st-century pharmacological and toxicological

investigations are capable of fully validating the var-

ious efficacies of traditionally used and traditionally

prepared botanical medicines, both for their past co-

evolved expressions of the infinite correlation

between humans and plants and for their future syn-

ergistic expressions as botanical drugs. Science is

finally catching up and converging with the traditional

medicinal arts. This is part of the Deep Remem-

bering we are now inside.

Modern medicine is just now on the verge of discov-

ering how the unifying field at the deepest level of

nature expresses itself through medicinal plants.

Ancient cultures have known of this formative force in

nature for thousands of years. Modern pharmacolog-

ical sciences are just recently developing the capacity

to evaluate and characterize the synergetics of tradi-

tional Chinese, Ayurvedic, and Native American for-

mulas—some of humanity’s most ancient medical

systems. They regard medicinal plants as particular

embodiments or expressions from the wellspring of

intelligence within nature that coherently nourishes

and fortifies the infinite diversity of life. A “natural

biotechnology” that respects these ancient cultural

systems and deploys 21st-century analytical

approaches to understand how and why traditional

Chapter 4: Confidence Of the early 20th century’s many memorable insights,

an especially compelling one to those who make

whole plant phyto-medicines in the early 21st century

came from The Secret Garden, a children’s book by

Frances Hodgson Burnett, which was published in

the spring of 1910, exactly 100 years ago:

In each century since the beginning of the world,

wonderful things have been discovered. In the last

century, more amazing things were found out than

in any century before. In this new century hun-

dreds of things still more astounding will be

brought to light. At first, people refuse to believe

that a strange new thing can be done, then they

begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can

39

be done—then it is done and all the world wonders

why it was not done centuries ago.

In our lives, once we know something to be true—

especially when it is something that bears moral depth

and captures our hearts—we can no longer avoid it.

We can uphold it, share it, and humbly follow its conse-

quences. Its truth transcends our individuality even as

our lives feel more significant as we join with others

who understand its meaning.

Yet our conviction must move beyond the scientific

validity of traditional whole-plant medicines. So much

of the synergism our bodies seek from medicinal

herbs can be harmed, or at least attenuated, inside

the supply chain from seed to shelf. We must culti-

vate, make, package, and distribute herbal medicines

with a heartfelt confidence—an indwelling knowing—

that we are doing our utmost to preserve the integrity

of the plant intelligence expressed in each herb.

You probably know that Certified Organic status in

the United States, besides conferring certain undis-

putable quality benefits to foods and medicinal plants

alike, also explicitly creates lot traceability to the orig-

inal agricultural source (the grower) and oftentimes to

a particular field on a particular farm. This is true at

Gaia Herbs: we are Certified Organic on our farm and

our manufacturing facility by Oregon Tilth, the strictest

USDA organic certifying agent. Under annual audit,

products must not only prove the absence of toxic and

synthetic agricultural inputs, they must also rigorously

41

chain parties source only from wildcrafters who follow

ethical, legal, and ecologically sustainable harvest

practices, who provide full and complete authentica-

tion of their location, timing, and methods of harvest,

and who submit willingly to site visits by their buyers.

For their part, the buyers must respect international

and national laws prohibiting trade in CITES-listed

botanicals, must assure that properly identified botan-

ical species are in fact being harvested (and not com-

mingled with other species), and must assure that

fair trade practices are employed, preferably under fair

trade certification. This is particularly important when

the botanical in question is endemic to the tropics

and is being harvested by indigenous people who are

themselves susceptible to exploitation. A number of

fair trade certification agencies now exist to assure the

socioeconomic sustainability of a particular botanical’s

uptake into the phyto-medicinal supply chain.

The best medicinal herb companies take it a step

farther and assure that a premium on the price they

pay for a given botanical goes directly into educational

and community-supportive infrastructure in the

source villages. Gaia Herbs and other cohort compa-

nies in the United States have for decades directly

supported local and indigenous communities through

direct financial or in-kind sponsorship of school con-

struction, agro-ecology education, forest academies,

and wellness clinics in places as diverse as Vanuatu,

Jamaica, Costa Rica, Indonesia, and West Africa. Fur-

ther, Gaia Herbs in recent years has donated over a

40

demonstrate an unbroken chain of custody for all their

allowed inputs, yielding up a complete geographical

and chronological characterization of the provenance

of each botanical. An industry movement in “radically

transparent” disclosures of sources is beginning,

and we’re among the companies at the headwaters.

Failure to prove a continuous chain of custody is

grounds for loss of certification for that herb or even

that grower. Gaia Herbs’ farm has been Oregon Tilth

certified organic for 13 years as of 2010.

Potential loss of certification is true both at the

level of the grower and the manufacturer of a phyto-

medicine. So one critical element of a sustainable

phyto-medicinary is organic certification, not only

because of all the ecosystem and topsoil conservation

benefits it delivers, but also because of the third-party-

audited accountability it imposes on the entire supply

chain. Certified Organic, as we have seen in the food

industry, also tends to support the growth and prolifer-

ation of family-owned and -operated farm supply

networks, even when a nationally branded distributor

becomes the end consumer’s trusted trademark—for

example, Earthbound Farms, Organic Valley, Stonyfield

Farms, Cascadian Farms, and Seeds of Change. This

trend reinforces bioregional economic resilience and

undercuts the proliferation of GMO foods and medicinal

plant crops, which is all to the good.

The next stepping-stone in a “green” phyto-medic-

inary covers botanicals that fall outside the Certified

Organic framework. Here, the truly sustainable supply

43

this, we set aside crude dried herbs that can be taken

in capsule, tablet, or tea form. Many have a fully legiti-

mate role inside themateria medicae of the world’s

most venerated traditional medical systems, including

traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda. However,

crude herbs used in these systems present a number

of therapeutic challenges ranging from dosage vari-

ability and patient aversion to supplier quality variability,

microbial and heavy metals concerns, and oxidative

degradation. While there are certainly management

systems and companies devoted to assuring premium

quality in crude herbs, this delivery system presents

more unknowns and quality validation challenges to

the practitioner and the end user from a scientific

standpoint. Even with those constraints, crude herbal

delivery systems are well respected and well tolerated

and oftentimes the least-cost way of ingesting medic-

inal herbs. Certainly this is true for all culinary spices.

People take botanical extracts rather than crude

herbs because they want to consume a higher

amount of a given herb or herbal complex, beyond

daily levels that a crude herbal delivery system can

practically or palatably deliver. However, a wide quality

spectrum exists within botanical extract manufac-

turing. There are many extract manufacturers that

sacrifice the natural balance and array of phyto-

constituents in a crude herbal material for the sake

of process efficiency, cost-cutting, or fraudulent profi-

teering. This is some of our industry’s dirty laundry,

but denying it won’t foster necessary system-wide

42

quarter of our corporate profits to charitable or educa-

tional causes like United Plant Savers, the American

Herbal Pharmacopoeia, naturopathic college endow-

ments, and state naturopathic licensure efforts. This

is actually another mode of coherent coupling.

Bringing ecological and socioeconomic sustain-

ability full circle, the very best companies are now

engaging in efforts to coordinate their botanical pro-

curement as part of a global supply chain integrity net-

work, assuring that botanical and human communities

that supply the phyto-medicinal benefits that we all

prize in turn realize long-term and systemic health

benefits. Such companies will assure that horticultural

and ethical protocols reach beyond direct supply chain

involvements to include some of the largest Certified

Organic brands in neighboring channels like medicinal

teas and body care products. Bottom line: It makes nosense if the systems from which we derive our health

and livelihood are in turn degraded. That’s just a for-

mula for system-wide collapse, a possibility if we fail

to coordinate our vision and let misguided convictions

run our manufacturing companies whose work trans-

forms the economic and ecological nexus between

humans and medicinal plants.

Let’s now take up the manufacturing process, once

a given bark, berry, leaf, root, flower, seed, aril, nut, or

vine arrives to be made into a phyto-medicine. As you

may know, there are many ways to make a botanical

extract. Not all of them are completely nontoxic, and

not all of them result in a therapeutic product. In saying

45

the body to receive a more consistently therapeutic

concentration of the plant’s full-spectrum of con-

stituents. And there is no need to isolate, purify, or

“spike” the extract for the sake of hitting a certain bio-

marker concentration: it is simply a matter of meas-

uring the primarily active constituents using validated

analytical methods, assuring they are present at a

required level, and presenting this outcome on the

product’s label alongside the phyto-chemical array.

Beyond the sustainable manufacture of the fin-

ished botanical product, leading “green” phyto-medi-

cinary companies are now committing to sustainable

packaging. Gaia Herbs is proud of our efforts to

develop and introduce a renewable, all-natural, and

industrially compostable biopolymer resin for rigid

packaging applications in the natural products

industry. It is called the EarthBottle, and you will

start seeing it used by more companies in the natural

products industry. Soon we will have a real alterna-

tive to petroleum-based plastics and the associated

risks of low-level endocrine disruption from the con-

tainers for our bottled water, foods, and dietary sup-

plements. There is a whole movement underway

right now in sustainable packaging. Suffice it to say

that the most forward-looking companies are moving

away from packaging that causes unnecessary cli-

mate or solid-waste-stream impacts and towards

packaging that poses no harm to the environment or,

in the best cases, can actually enhance soil nutrition

in managed composting systems.

44

improvements. And from a health standpoint, practi-

tioners and consumers need to learn that many

botanical extracts today are primarily extracted in

industrial solvents like acetone, hexane, methanol,

and denatured alcohol—and must then be purified to

remove the toxic solvents prior to final formulation.

This common practice leaves open the question of

the cumulative effects of consuming legally permis-

sible trace industrial solvents in the finished products.

Needless to say, sustainable companies use only

ingestible and organically-certifiable solvents to make

their extracts. It is up to each company to decide how

harshly or gently they wish to make their extracts, and

which national quality standards to abide by. Different

countries have different environmental health and

safety regulations and widely varied capacities to

enforce the rules they’ve enacted. Country of Origin

labeling therefore is something we will see coming

forward to improve supply chain transparency.

From a “green” phyto-medicinary standpoint, and

certainly from the biology within the coherent coupling

model, Certified Organic botanical extracts made

from water, vegetable alcohols, and/or supercritical

CO2 deliver the best overall wellness solutions from a

personal and planetary perspective. That is Gaia

Herbs’ choice. Companies that follow these extraction

systems get extra points if they are already powering

their manufacturing plants with renewable energy

systems. The resulting extracts retain the natural

array of the crude herb’s phyto-chemistry yet allow

47

moment we first felt “held” in a still place in nature,

perhaps at the first whisper of dawn against a gull’s or

a loon’s cry, or perhaps under a liquid canopy of stars

against a primordial night din of cicadas, or at the lap

of a pristine lakeshore or lagoon, revealing a knowing

to our depths that we are not alone—we were never

alone—and the beating pulse of our earth mother’s

heart is waiting patiently, through her plants, throug-

hout the seasons, for us to hear her once again.

46

The final realm in which truly sustainable initiatives

are underway in phyto-medicines pertains to practi-

tioner and consumer education. The actual point of

all this effort at sustainability and wellness is not truly

fulfilled unless practitioner and patient alike under-

stand the principles of medical herbalism and can

trust wholeheartedly in their supplier’s transparency in

delivering full-cycle value to them. Gaia Herbs has

traditionally taken a leading role in botanical education,

through our sponsorship of the annual Medicines from

the Earth symposium in Black Mountain, NC, our on-

site residential naturopathic education seminars each

summer, our financial support of naturopathic college

endowments, and our development of path-breaking

online botanical-protocol support tools.

Unless each generation keeps alive the world’s

herbal traditions and delves deeper into the seemingly

infinite mystery of phyto-therapy at the human-plant

nexus, we will progressively lose access to our living

biosphere’s greatest and most plentiful source of well-

ness and renewal: medicinal plants. Education and

use must go hand in hand—another type of coherent

coupling—so that botanical communities and their

human collaborators around the globe can renew

themselves each season, in a never-ending dance that

yields greater and more sustainable wellness out-

comes for our soils, our ecosystems, and the biodiver-

sity of our only home.

The biosciences are finally starting to confirm what

many of us have known and felt intuitively, from the

Chapter 5: Reverence Reverence for anything we do in our lives with

conviction and confidence requires insight, perhaps

to the point of revelation, into what we’re reallydoing. Prayer and meditation express reverence most

directly, of course. So could eating, or preparing

a meal, or making love, or singing, or teaching

someone an art or craft or skill—like stringing a

bow or fletching an arrow or making fire. Traditional

hunters know this, too. We take reverence to mean

“enacting consciously with utmost humility and

respect” for the object of one’s actions and for the

process itself. Reverence occurs when we realize

we are encountering the divine, enacting the sacred,

and extending our awareness through the limits of

our normal everyday senses.

49

In making herbal medicines reverently and

humbly before the great arc of our co-evolutionary

story on this earth, our object is at once the plants

themselves and the wider ecology in which we are

embedded. In offering herbal medicines to people

and other animals, we realize how crucial it is that

our actions express our relevance to the infinitely

complex co-evolutionary process by which life

unfolds. Such relevance, as we have seen, is not

guaranteed to any species. At this time, through a

global convergence of our sciences, our cultural and

spiritual traditions, and the economics of 6.7 billion

people seeking meaning in this world, we are called

to understand what it means to remain relevant

within that great arc. Surely the medicinal plants can

help us remember our gifts and understand the true

syntax mediating our wellness.

The message is quite humbling. As perhaps the

first generation to assimilate a detailed scientific

portrait of humanity’s impacts on global biodiversity,

climate, and myriad fragile habitats and threatened

species, we are likely the last generation with the

means to do anything pivotal to prevent our bios-

phere’s increasingly turbulent responses to humanity’s

excrescence. As translators of archaic cultural and

physiological memory through the intelligences of

the plants, we see that in order to achieve any of our

aspirations to love, to family, to God, to self-realization,

to influence or legacy in the world, or to service unto

others, we must each signify ourselves ultimately as

51

play, and knowledge. Is it working? More of us each

day are drawn into this vortex of smart phones, social

media, and digital simulation, but with unknown and

largely unaddressed consequences to our health. We

are undoubtedly more connected to one another glob-

ally. Many of us, however, are not healthier—only more

obligated, fractured, and oversubscribed. Hence the

adoption of avatars, virtual beings in cyberspace

whose lives we can live vicariously while our actual

biological being languishes. Hence the proliferation of

virtual media and nanotechnologies into our very cells.

Stressful responses and fantasized reactions

are the opposite of reverence, the antithesis of con-

sciously enacted rituals that reinforce our grounded,

natural feeling of belonging within the webs of life. Yet

how many of us are seeking relief and even perhaps

freedom, ultimately, from stress? Most of us, to be

sure. At Gaia Herbs, we know that we certainly want

this freedom—it was this yearning that led us to rec-

ognize the profound ways in which our medicinal

plants humbly meet us and can awaken a reverence

with the power to resolve our stresses.

We may feel tempted to regard our current stress

as historically exceptional—as if no time prior to ours

could possibly have been this overwhelming or fraught

with stressful triggers. Think again. The 20th century

brought humanity face to face with the real threat of

global fascism, genocide, and then nuclear annihilation.

The 19th century bore humanity through the Industrial

Revolution, which, despite tremendous technological

50

beings whose lives reinforce the whole of life that the

plants initially created and bequeathed to us. We see

that we cannot systematically conserve and lay waste

to our biological provenance. Paraphrasing Einstein’s

observation on the harrowing specter of nuclear

armageddon: you cannot simultaneously prevent and

foment biospheric extinction. We must choose. We

must remake our lives, our commerce, and our cul-

tures so that they proceed with reverence towards the

source of our wellness. Inevitably this returns us to

encounters with the healing and nutritious plants.

Of course, many of us already feel that we have no

option but to sequester ourselves away from healthy

relationships, healthy lifestyles, and healthy consump-

tion patterns. We feel our lives are moving too fast to

maintain balance. We have settled for medicating our

inflammation, stress, and anxieties. We have entrusted

our wellness to institutional experts and yielded to the

succor of conglomerate-produced surrogates for real,

abiding satisfaction.

So many of us excuse ourselves from the most

basic responsibility that our bodies expect from us and

which our biosphere makes available to us—to sustain

ourselves in vibrant health so that we may experience

joy, vitality, and fulfillment in relationship with others.

Very little, if any, technology is needed to come into the

intimacy of God, love, nature, or health in our lives. Yet

we are pitched headlong as a global society immersed

in ever more ingenious technological interventions

designed to “facilitate” communication, enjoyment,

53

Vedic philosophers 2,500 years ago already recog-

nized and recorded the basic ecological truth that we

humans are, in essence, expressions of plant intelli-

gence. They saw further that plants are, in essence,

expressions of the interplay of water and earth (in a

cosmic field of light). The wisdom we seek to help us

move through and beyond the debilitating stresses

of our lives, therefore, is literally under our feet,

beckoning us back to the garden.

Writing in the 1930s after experiencing directly the

mechanized human slaughter of World War I, the

American naturalist Henry Beston, in his little-known

gardening diary Herbs and the Earth (now reprinted by

David R. Godine, Publishers, 2002) saw clearly how

human alienation from the natural world is corrected

by the simple interplay of the gardener and herbs.

Rachel Carson, who is credited widely as the awak-

ener of the modern environmental movement through

her 1962 classic Silent Spring, herself credited Henry

Beston as her only literary influence. Beston stood at

the beginning of our technological age and, because

of his descent into shattering horror in places like

Verdun, sought personal renewal and solace with his

young family in a small herb garden at his farmhouse

in Maine. Luckily for us, his writing summoned well-

springs of reverence for the herbs full enough to span

well into our 21st century and beyond if we can yet

share in the delight, wonder, and yearning for (re)con-

nection to life that he expressed so lucidly as he

sought to heal from the psychological trauma of war.

52

advances in almost all aspects of human commerce

and science, was built upon the depredations of child

and slave labor in the most “advanced” societies, let

alone aboriginal ones. The 18th and 17th centuries,

albeit an era of an ascending rationalist and scientific

enlightenment, witnessed the ascension of the first

truly global empire—Great Britain—out of the previous

hegemonic reigns of France, Spain, and Holland, all

of whom had achieved their grandeur by laying waste

to indigenous cultures and native peoples the world

over while capitalizing on the addictive power of

opium, sugar, cacao, and coffee among other drugs.

Each time and century in the modern era has provoked

and distributed its own stressors.

Seeing today’s stress triggers in light of recent

human history is useful when we realize that despite

all our excesses—our global population has more

than tripled in just the last century—the medicinal

plants are still with us, still capable of offering the

same supportive benefits that they did thousands of

years ago, before all written history even began.

Musing on humanity’s basis in plant wisdom, the

Chandogya Upanishad, one of humanity’s most

ancient sacred texts from the middle of the first mil-

lennium BCE, observes:

The essence of all beings is Earth.

The essence of the Earth is water.

The essence of water is plants.

The essence of plants is the human being.

55

In describing a plant as powerful, ancient, and

ubiquitous as basil, Beston shows us what happens

when we allow ourselves the time and space to meet

a particular herb as it reveals itself to us:

Pivoted upon its share of soil, potent with its inten-

sity of living, symmetrical and predetermined to

symmetry, a fine plant of Basil is a form, a gath-

ering together of that mysterious vitality of green

whose veins draw up the earth itself, and whose

impulse of life is the other side of that rhythm of

life stirring with us in our blood. What a passion

for life plants reveal, what a body and desire of life

dwell in the dark of roots and the hunger under

the earth! What will they not endure to live and

bear, not surmount of caprice and outrage, of

attack and disaster, if they can but lift one flower

from the ruin.

In Herbs and the Earth, Beston offers us rich

and poignant declarations of his love for the healing

plants, and he perhaps uniquely understood the

contours of the precipitous escarpment along which

technological man stood, even before agricultural

chemicals, pharmaceutical drugs, and nuclear war-

fare. Beston saw into our present age with historical

foreboding, certainly, but also with an almost childlike

delight for the wonder and pleasure that healing

herbs would render to anyone who takes time to slow

down and meet them.

54

Since Beston’s words are so highly relevant today,

it is worth quoting him at length. Presaging our cur-

rent societal debate on preventing climate change-

induced impacts on humanity, Beston wrote:

What winds shall blow, fall what lustral rains that

the ancient sense of the beauty and integrity of

the earth shall presently reawaken in the indif-

ferent blood? Or must some great and furious

storm (and such storms come) sweep clear the

whole coast of the soul of man and restore him

thus to his humanity? For man is of a quickening

spirit and the earth, the strong, incoming tides

and rhythms of nature move in his blood and

being; he is an emanation of that journeying god

the sun… the slow murmur and the long crying of

the seas are in his veins, the influences of the

moon, and the sound of rain beginning. Torn from

earth and unaware, without the beauty and the

terror, the mystery and ecstasy so rightfully his,

man is a vagrant in space, desperate for the

inhuman meaninglessness which has opened

about him, and with his every step becoming

something less than man.

Peace with the earth is the first peace. Unto

so great a mystery…no one path leads, but many

paths. What pleasant paths begin in gardens,

leading beside the other great mystery of nature,

the mystery of the growing green thing with its

mute passion and green will.

56

Henry Beston saw, as we do still, that our own

humanity continues when we maintain some real

connection to the herbs—and that we descend at our

own peril when we decide to “go it alone” outside the

garden, outside what all indigenous peoples recog-

nize as our proper place among—not above—the

plants, the animals, and the rhizomatic tendrils of life

force that tie us all together, in our innumerable

diversity, as one.

As you breathe in each moment, as you proceed

over the terrain that is uniquely yours to cover in

the time you have, save a part of yourself for the

wondrous encounters that are also uniquely yours

to experience with the plant-beings who show

themselves to you. They are always available to meet

you, as you are, wherever you are, and to awaken you

to your highest potential under this sun, within this

majestic biosphere that they in fact created for us.

They are waiting patiently to bring you back home.

Photographs by Stacey Haines

Book design by Katie Craig

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