International Women’s Day seems an appropriate time to acknowledge and bring thanks and attention to the many women herbalists who have kept the tradition of Western Herbalism alive through the centuries, and enable it to thrive today. From the wise women to the dedicated practitioners and the enthusiastic educators: we thank you all.

The list is long enough to provide a name for every day of the year, but on this special day I’ve taken inspiration from Hilda Leyel’s book ‘Cinquefoil: Herbs to Quicken the Five Senses’ (1957) to highlight a few of the herbalists who have brought us to our senses.

A sense: a mechanism in the body that allows a human or an animal to receive special information about the world and transmit along nerve pathways to the brain.

These special women have a way of imparting information in such an inspiring or memorable way, our encounters with them – in person, or often through their writing – can be doors to new understanding, new interests and a renewed sense of the impact of herbs in our lives.

Helping us taste

We are incredibly grateful to the pioneering, relentless and daring spirit of Hilda Leyel, founder of the Herb Society. Her writings on herbs were deliberately evocative and enticing: ‘The Magic of Herbs: a modern book of secrets’ (1926), ‘Herbal Delights’ (1937), ‘Compassionate Herbs’ (1946), ‘Elixirs of Life’ (1948), ‘Hearts-Ease’ (1949), ‘Green Medicine’ (1952) and the above-mentioned ‘Cinquefoil’ (1957).

However, she also had a novel approach to incorporating herbs in cooking which was equally inspiring – and sometimes challenging to contemporary tastes. Indeed, the cookery writer Elizabeth David, who revolutionised so much of our approach to simple, seasonal use of local ingredients, was herself inspired by the copy of Hilda Leyel’s ‘The Gentle Art of Cookery’ she received for her 21^st birthday.

Hilda Leyel was a woman of unstoppable persuasion and fantastic imagination, learn more about her here.

Helping us see

Non Shaw has helped open the eyes and hearts of many budding herbalists. Along with her husband, Christopher Hedley, a highly respected teacher of herbal medicine, she brought awareness of herbal traditions and simple approaches to understanding and using herbs over many decades.

As well as her talent for engaging with and through herbs, Non was a highly visual and creative person working in many forms, from sculpture to jewellery and dress-making, filling her world with visual delights.

The sharing and caring spirit of Non and Christopher is brought to the fore in their book ‘A Herbal Book of Making and Taking’, reviewed by the Herb Society Book Club. In this gift of a book they distil all their observations on herbal growing and healing in a truly accessible form.

Helping us listen

Chanchal Cabrera has mastered the art of tuning-in to listen to herbs, and it’s what she encourages students and patients to do too, even prescribing ‘a walk in the woods for an hour each day’ as part of her therapeutic treatments. She is a certified Shinrin Yoku (forest bathing) practioner, so knows the healing that can be achieved through sitting with trees and listening to plants.

Her ability to slow down enough to listen to herbs was nurtured through time spent with a shamanic practitioner in Iowa. This ten day, one-on-one retreat – fasting-mode, camping in the bush – was profoundly transformative, influencing her continually enquiring approach to herbs today. This curiosity has led her to be a leading practitioner in using herbs to support cancer patients. Her book ‘Holistic Cancer Care: A Herbal Approach to Preventing Cancer, Helping Patients Thrive through Treatment and Minimising the Risk of Recurrence’, is helping to fill a gap in contemporary knowledge and awareness.

While Chanchal is based on Vancouver Island, British Colombia – managing Innisfree Farm and Botanical Garden – her sister, Dee Atkinson is also a leading herbalist, practicing from Napiers the Herbalists in Edinburgh. Both take a listening approach to understand their patients holistically. It’s a person-centred way of diagnosing and they accompany this with empowering patients through encouraging connecting with plants in their whole form.

Helping us touch

Though Magical Herbalism meditations and workshops Elisabeth Brooke, enables us to ‘tune in’ to a plant and learn directly through holding the plant in our hands. Her guidance helps explore the plant’s depths, to reveal its physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and magical virtues. We feel the plants as allies, wanting to impart their story to us, and achieve this through the sense of touch.

Elisabeth Brooke is a champion of Women Healers through history, and of the traditions of western herbal medicine that were lost, or driven underground, through persecution. She draws on the writings of Culpeper who highlighted the planetary associations of plants, to develop her approach to Magical Herbalism.

Helping us smell

The therapeutic power of herbal scent is most evident in the distillations that make essential oils. Through her teaching, writings and business, Julia Lawless speaks to a broad audience, demystifying essential oils to encourage their many uses on a daily basis, making life more beautiful.

With a biochemist mother, Julia grew up with essential oils and was instilled with a love of aromatic plants. Her studies of both Western and Tibetan herbal medicine, along with her qualification in aromatherapy, equipped her to take on the formulation responsibilities for the essential oil company founded by her Finnish mother, Aqua Oleum.

Her books, including a critical reference book ‘The Encyclopaedia of Essential Oils’, the more hands-on guidance of ‘Growing and Using Scented Plants’ and the how-to advice of ‘Mud, Salt and Medicine’ secure her place in the pantheon of wonderful women helping advance the appreciation of herbs in all their many ways.

A sense of gratitude

So, on this International Women’s Day, please be encouraged to think of the women herbalists who help you make sense of the world, and offer them whole-hearted thanks.