I will leave something behind of great value to improve the world I live in and the planet I adore. This book, my children, my clients finding their way to the plants, and students who carry on the teachings are my legacy.
This edition of The Practicing Herbalist, IV, is my last.
Beautifully bound, in the old tradition, Smyth Sewn with 584 pages that are not glaring to the eye. Deep purple end sheets complimenting the new cover color. I will keep you in suspense for the cover color! A satin ribbon sewn into the binding to help you find your way, or, remember where you have been. New chapters on Covid Viral Infections, using the Sous Vide for tincturing, updates, and rewrites on each of the individual chapters. Most especially new sharings by my fellow herbalists and friends. They are the educational sweetness that balances and brings light and joy throughout the pages.
I am so fortunate to have a math teacher daughter. Sarah and I sat down with all the expenses and arrived at a cost for the fourth edition! So sweet to have a daughter who is not daunted by large numbers and calmly arrives at a number that adds up to 9. “In numerology, the number nine represents completion, as it’s the last of the single-digit numbers (which are known as cardinal numbers in numerology) and the highest in value. That said, it symbolically represents a culmination of wisdom and experience, and buzzes with the energy of both endings and new beginnings.” So says Madam Google.
Over the years so many changes. Some knowledge is steadfastly true, a foundation of plant and diagnostic knowledge. I can recall almost every moment of study in my apprentice program in the seventies with Rosemary Gladstar. Those teachings are my connection to the Earth that I continue to learn how to walk on. Honoring the plants and sharing, and more and more, learning to follow my own advice! I will run upstairs and take my Hawthorn Solid Extract from Avena Botanicals right now. Ahhh, yummm. Drops of Vitamin D3 and some liquid Zinc. A glass of good pure water.
More? George Vaughan on the use of our fungi friends, Nicole Telkes on head injury, social media and sprinkles of her bright wisdom on many other pages. Wendy Snow Fogg, Kate Gilday, David Dalton all wrote new thoughts on Lyme and co-infections. We have a great new re-write from one of my very first teachers, David Winston. 1974 seems so long ago, and just yesterday! We were so young and juicy with the beginning steps of our amazing herbal paths. Inclusive. Excitable. Sincere. Light. Connected. Well, we are still juicy but with the years of wisdom absorbed by our peers, our plant friends and the crystallization of it all dripping out our ears, or other places. John Redden, Anne Dickerson and our beloved jim macdonald contributed as well.
Fecund is a good word. These teachers create us, the terrain of these minds with hands connected to dirt, current herbal practice mixed with soil, water, sun and moon, sweat and breezes making wafts of hair into halos, study, application, preparation of all and toil with our ancestors the Plants. We are blessed beyond comprehension.
A few new diagrams in the organ indications chapters and plenty of new written notes in those tables. I always believe everything I know is in these pages. Thank goodness my students point out little absences – “No Margi, that’s not in the book….” Oh well. Who wants to be perfect on a pedestal, so precarious up there!
I have ordered bordered bookplates, to be inscribed to all who preordered, or maybe anyone in the future who orders? Heart stamps for envelopes. And here a word about stress. All of us in the healing fields give our hearts away. I chose heart stamps to remind us to care for our own hearts. We all have normal human stresses like making a living, family time, cleaning the home and office, gardens and shipping. Be self-ish. The time has come. Right now. I am listening to my own heart. I must do now what I have waited too long for. Joy is the meaning of the next birthing of me. My genes and hidden stressors have spoken loudly. Genetics does seem to emerge more loudly as we accumulate years and our super-hero behaviors catch up with us. So, I smile and say, “Fun and play? Bring it on!
Right – numbers, I will be sending out updated invoices soon.…
So, you sweet people reading these thoughts, here is what you need to do if you ordered the fourth funding deposit or will now:
The fourth funding invoice will soon include the total cost of the hard bound book $171 in the states and $180 internationally, plus shipping.
I am working on shipping costs now.
When the invoice arrives, make sure that your name and address are postal perfect! If a book returns to the warehouse, there will be an additional charge of $20 in the United States plus re-shipping charges! I am trying to come up with general shipping costs for the US and each country. All books will be shipped UPS in boxes from the warehouse. Friends who order together will save shipping expenses.
Your address needs to be standardized
Capitalize your name, capitalize it all when in doubt.
What name do you want on the inscription? ie Margaret Flint “Margi”
***Make sure the PayPal payment indicates the matching name filled in on the earthsongherbals.com website.
I can’t tell you how many hours I have wasted trying to figure out whose name goes with that PayPal payment with a lovely business name and email that does not match anything on my form.
I need time to play – give me all the details, pretty please.
Street number ie. 10 Central St.
Apartment numbers and PO Box numbers on the next line ie Apt #117
State in 2 capital letters ie Massachusetts is MA
State Zip Code or town mailing code from your country ie 01945
Country Code ie US
Please include your phone number with country code +1 781-631-4312
Phew.
So, my friends and peers and all of you I have not met yet, the book is in line for printing. February for sure, earlier if possible. My legacy. Enjoy, mark it with your own learnings and celebrate the gift of plants and their immense gifts to we humans.
Off to play, Margi.