The Best Way to Study Herbs
The Plant Path: Herbalism, Medical Astrology & Spagyric Alchemy
Sajah Popham
4.8 • 570 Ratings
🗓️ 20 September 2019
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When most people study herbalism, it's easy to get stuck in a strictly intellectual orientation to learn about plants: reading books, attending conferences, workshops, or online programs.
While gathering intellectual knowledge about the plants is essential, it really only gets you so far. Let's face it, memorizing facts can be difficult and tedious (and usually not that fun). The best herbalists balance their intellectual knowledge with experiential understanding.
And one of the best ways to get that experiential understanding is to taste the herbs. We have to literally "put our medicine where our mouth is!"
This episode outlines the importance of the taste of herbs, how we can refine our sensory awareness of herbal tastes, what kind of information we can learn about a plant through it, and some fun ways to build a learning community around our direct experience of medicinal plants.
To see the full blog post, more free videos and training, head over to our blog at: https://www.evolutionaryherbalism.com/2019/09/20/the-best-way-to-learn-about-plants/
————————————
CONNECT WITH SAJAH AND WHITNEY
————————————
To get free in depth mini-courses and videos, visit our blog at:
http://www.evolutionaryherbalism.com
Get daily inspiration and plant wisdom on our Facebook and Instagram channels:
http://www.facebook.com/EvolutionaryHerbalism
https://www.instagram.com/evolutionary_herbalism/
Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyP63opAmcpIAQg1M9ShNSQ
————————————
ABOUT SAJAH
————————————
Sajah Popham, founder of Organic Unity and The School of Evolutionary Herbalism, is committed to creating a new paradigm of plant medicine anchored in herbal, medical, and spiritual traditions from around the world. His work integrates the science and spirit of herbal medicine, creating a system that is equally holistic, healing and transformational. His unique synthesis bridges herbalism not only east and west, but north & south, above & below, into a universal philosophy that encompasses indigenous wisdom, Ayurveda, western Alchemy and Spagyrics, Astrology, clinical herbalism, and modern pharmacology.
Sajah's vitalist approach utilizes plants not only for physical healing and rejuvenation, but for the evolution of consciousness. He never allopathicallyl focuses on just what a plant is "good for" but rather who the plants are as sentient beings. Sajah's teachings embody a heartfelt respect, honor and reverence for the vast intelligence of plants in a way that empowers us to look deeper into the nature of our medicines and ourselves. He lives in southern Oregon with his wife where he teaches at his school, makes spagyric medicines, and practices his healing art. For more information about his products and programs, visit www.organic-unity.com & www.evolutionaryherbalism.com
————————————
ABOUT THE PLANT PATH
————————————
The Plant Path provides unique perspectives for the modern practitioner of herbalism that doesn't just want to "fix what's broken" in the body, but seeks to serve others with deeper levels of healing and transformation with herbal medicines.
A unique synergy of clinical herbalism, alchemy, medical astrology, and herbal traditions from around the world, The Plant Path focuses on giving you a truly "wholistic" perspective on herbal medicine so you never fall into the trap of allopathic herbalism.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The Plant Path, Your Window into the World of Urban Medicine, with Saja Popham, founder of the School of Evolutionary Herbalism and Organic Keenade. |
| 0:25.6 | Hey there everybody, Sagea Popham here, founder of the School of Evolutionary Herbalism. |
| 0:30.6 | And in this week's issue of the blog, I want to be talking about one of the best ways that you can approach studying herbal medicines. |
| 0:40.7 | You know, I think it's really easy for us as herbalists when we're considering how we approach |
| 0:47.4 | learning about medicinal plants that we think about, you know, reading books and going to |
| 0:53.6 | workshops and classes and conferences and really |
| 0:57.5 | focusing on studying them more from that intellectual approach. And I think that's really important. |
| 1:05.2 | Obviously, if we're going to be an effective herbalist, we got to have our know-how, right? |
| 1:10.2 | We got to really dig |
| 1:11.7 | in to our studies and into our research and really focus on learning them in that way. But to me, |
| 1:19.4 | what makes a really effective herbalist isn't just having intellectual knowledge about the plants, but rather we want to have that be balanced |
| 1:31.5 | through an experiential understanding of the herbs, right? And I think it's really important |
| 1:39.3 | that when we're focused on progressing on our plant path and that we're, you know, aiming towards moving |
| 1:48.8 | to kind of that next level, that next stage in our development as an herbalist, that we do our |
| 1:54.6 | best to maintain this balance between intellectual knowledge and experiential understanding. |
| 2:02.6 | And you know, I always like to say that I think it's really interesting |
| 2:06.6 | that in, you know, our Western culture, we have this phrase of knowing something by heart. |
| 2:14.6 | And I always think about that, like, what does it mean to really know something by heart? |
| 2:19.6 | And how is that different from memorizing a bunch of stuff, right? You know, I think about our |
| 2:26.0 | educational system and how oftentimes in the Western world, the whole way our educational model is done is that we have to memorize, |
| 2:37.9 | right? We got to memorize all the information so we can get the good grade on the test. |
| 2:42.5 | And who likes memorizing, you know? It's like when it comes to studying about plants, you know, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Sajah Popham, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Sajah Popham and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.