The Herb Society spoke to Meghan Rhodes from Rhodes Roots & Remedies about her herbalism course and what people should look for when choosing a course.

Can you tell us a bit about your approach to herbal medicine: Remember, Reclaim, Relearn?

Remember, Reclaim and Relearn, Meghan’s approach to herbal medicine, draws on the fact that herbal medicine is the earliest medicine of humans, and our earliest ancestors acquired this information and passed it down through generations. It is knowledge that is baked into our DNA. It is only the last few generations where there is a disconnect between humans and this learned information about healing. There’s been a separation in our conscious minds, from what we know in our bodies. For Meghan it is about remembering that plant medicine is the original medicine, remembering that humans have always worked with plant medicine and remembering that we’re not learning herbal medicine, we’re bringing this knowledge back up to the surface of our conscious minds and into our hands, so that it becomes muscle memory. Reclaiming is all about reclaiming what we remember; reclaiming the knowledge and reclaiming the skills. Relearn is about gaining this knowledge again, often through tangible, visceral, embodied, elemental and experiential methods.

Living herbal medicine

Meghan likes to use organoleptic methods with her students, which is understanding a herb’s medicinal properties through the sense of taste and smell. In this world of information overload, all of the information about herbs can be overwhelming, and people are unable to ‘live’ herbal medicine. Her teaching methods encourage students to work with herbs in a more tangible way, which allows the knowledge to get into their heads, their hearts and their hands, so that they can live it.

Connect through learning

Meghan wanted to provide courses for people that want to learn herbal skills at a level that makes them confident to use the knowledge with their family, friends and community. She feels that people are craving in-person learning and physical connection and community, which is why her course is a hybrid offering, with seasonal in-person gatherings throughout the year along with online meetings. She finds that her courses attract a wonderful group of like-minded people at different stages in their herbal journey. With 10 people maximum studying each cohort, the course has an intimate feel, and she has started offering student and alumni social gatherings, which adds to the experience. Meghan says that many of her student groups meet up outside of course time together, so she feels that real connections are being fostered amongst the students. 

Can you tell us about your herbal school setting, including your gardens? 

Meghan has a large yurt on her land in a rural farming village, where all in-person student gatherings take place. It’s private, secluded and off-grid. The Herb Garden on the land has been recently recreated and renewed. A student and prospective student event was held where people took part in the building of the new garden. The garden is a teaching and harvesting garden, with picnic tables to offer a place for fair-weather learning to take place. All of the herbs in the garden are taught in one of the three years of the course, with the intention that students see the stages of the plant’s growth. Herbs that are provided on the course are harvested from the garden.

What do you think makes your herbal medicine course unique? 

Meghan believes that the in-person and live online components and the use of the senses as a gateway to herbal knowledge helps to differentiate her course from others, which may be focused more on book-learning over experience with the plants. Organoleptics are a core-thread throughout the course.

The course also interweaves Western Herbal Medicine with Ayurveda, introducing her students to the core concepts of Ayurveda, such as the doshas and the five elements. Meghan’s students study plant allies in Spring and Summer, and turn inward to look at people for Autumn and Winter. The course asks students to consider the social messaging surrounding bodily imbalances, looking at a person not only holistically within their body, but societally as well, and considering how this impacts a person. Meghan feels that the students who are attracted to her course have started seeing ‘beyond the veil’ and have already been picking apart the facade of how our society works and how this impacts our health. She feels this element of ‘social revolution’ runs throughout her course. 

What do you feel people should consider when choosing an herbal medicine course?

From a utilitarian point of view, Meghan says that you need to consider what you want out of a herbal course. Find a course that matches how you want to have herbalism in your life. Find a course that you will actually complete! There’s no point in buying online courses with lifetime access if you know that you won’t have the discipline to see it through to completion. Be realistic about how you like to learn. She recommends using your intuition about courses. Ask yourself, when you are reading the description of a course, if you feel “champagne bubbles going off inside you”. If you feel this level of excitement about a course and you can’t wait to get started, that may be the course for you. She also recommends getting in touch with the tutor(s) of the course. If you have any questions, ask them. The teachers should be more than happy to answer your questions so you can decide if the course is the right fit for you.

Thank you very much to Meghan for taking the time to speak with us. You can find our more about Rhodes Roots & Remedies on our Corporate members page.

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