HERB - Where do we Stand?

[Katherine Blackthorne]

> Mistress Christianna MacGrain wrote:
> >One, I enjoyed your explaination about plant chemical interactions.  It
> >is just that sort of give and take that makes this list so interesting.
> 
> At the risk of chiming in with a "me too," let me say "me too."
> Discussions combining the chemical interactions, the botanical
> know-how and research, as well as the historical make it
> ever so much more easy to search on our own for information.
> Well, at least they do for me, anyway. It also encourages me
> to learn more and watch myself when I post. :)
> 
> >Four, How about Mistress Agnes deLanvallei, OL
> >	          Nurturing the safe study of Period Herbalism      ?
> >You're right, it is awkward, but I've read some signature lines that
were
> >worse!
> 
> Mistrell Agnes, Mistres Christianna, Dr. Brandt and more....For some
> reason, these didn't really register until just now. Good gracious!
> I'm surrounded by Laurels and doctors! I feel....slightly intimidated.
> *blush* I'm sure it won't keep me from posting, but now I'm absolutely
> certain to watch what I say and how I document it. :)
> 
> With sincere affection,
> 
> Jasmine de Cordoba, Midrealm
> jasmine at infoengine.com or

I admit it, sometimes the conversations on this list are way out of my
league -- usually when two (or more) botanists start talking....but I learn
a little bit and find a whole new area to look into.  :)  I've also seen
people who are very new and just learning this subject...and people at my
own level who have knowledge I lack or lack information I have.  One of the
things I love about this list is that is serves all of these people.  A
bunch of folks getting together and sharing their combined knowledge and
experience, asking intelligent questions, offering intelligent answers
about a subject that would bore anyone else to tears.  (I know -- I've seen
the glazed eyes in the room when my mother & I get excited about her
garden.  It's gotten so that once the garden-gloves come out, anyone else
at her house finds urgent business elsewhere....)  

I am grateful to those who can speak from a position of -- what word do I
want...confidence? more-authority-than-me? assurance? -- on confusing
subjects, I am grateful to those who help expand my own knowledge, and
grateful to those who let me share it.  

My take on the time-scale thing is....We're SCA, and we're herbalists.  Two
"weirdness" strikes against us.  Good information on either can be
difficult at best to come by.  As an herbalist, I have to work with what's
available to me in the US in 1998, in the framework my female antecedents
have been trained in since 1898.  As an SCA member (my brother forbid me to
use the word "Scadian" after is offended a Laurel) I am interested in the
history of what I do, and period sources of information on it -- whether
that information is safe to implement or not.  I believe that most of us
who practice herbalism here do so more in Mundania than in the SCA --
mostly because we spend more time there, and Herbalism is one of those
lifestyle-type things -- not something you do just for events.  I think it
is a rare and wonderful thing to find a place to discuss this topic in the
way we have been -- OOP as well as period sources.  I would hate to see any
of that change!

--Katherine Blackthorne
Province of Golden Rivers
Principality of Cynagua
Kingdom of the West
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