ago. It took them only a very short period of time to diversify into the main flowering plant families we know today. This baffled botanists for a long time until they recognised that the plants evolved within the context of an ecological whole and not as isolated individuals. They evolved within the ecosystem they lived in. The rapid diversification took place through the interaction of plants and insects. The interface between plant and animal realms provided the evolutionary drive.
With the concept of Gaia in mind, we can see that evolution is an exercise in cooperation as well as one of competition, both processes forming a web of interactions and producing the complex tapestry of today’s ecology, an interwoven dynamic system. The ecosystem can only be understood as a whole—as one integrated and self-maintaining unit. All that is needed for the maintenance of any part of the whole is supplied by it; in fact has to be supplied by the system, since there is nothing outside it. If the system did not take care of itself, it would not be viable and could not survive.
A specific example is the phenomenon of secondary plant products. A number of plants produce a range of complex chemicals that play no identifiable role within the metabolism of that plant; we call them secondary plant products. The only way to explain their function within the individual plant scientifically is to assume that it is a very complex way of isolating waste matter accumulated from the metabolic process of the plant, and this would be totally out of keeping with the genius of the realm of plants for efficiency and design.
Secondary plant products such as the alkaloids, the glycosides and many other groups have a strong and marked influence on human and animal physiology. They are the agents that distinguish herbs from other plants, as pharmaceutical chemists are finding out. This is not merely a fortuitous accident. It is in fact the hallmark of Gaia. By eating plants we are linked to a circulatory system within the biosphere and to the energy source of the sun, since plants synthesise their own nutrition via sunlight. The secondary plant products are taking part in this circulation to reach us and to facilitate homeostasis. In a profound and ingenious way, our food can be our healing.
The realm of plants provides everything our body needs for a balanced and integrated existence. However, we are more than just a body; we also have consciousness, which brings other factors onto the stage. We not only have to take our animal body into consideration, but also our emotions, our mind and our spiritual nature. Harmony is no longer simply a matter of right diet or even right herbs, but also a matter of right feelings, right thoughts, lifestyle, attunement, actions—harmony of right relationship to our world and ourselves. Choice comes into the healing process when we see which of these areas we need to work with most.
It is impossible to generalise about the relative value of techniques that work with the physical body, with the emotions or spiritual energies. All have their role and can work together for healing to take place. It can be said that health lies in correct diet, or right use of allopathic drugs, or a free flow of soul energy. All these statements are correct and all of them are relative.
Where does herbal medicine fit into this picture? By the nature of the plant form, herbs work on the physical body. They are acting to integrate and balance its physiological function and to augment its innate vitality. When the body is balanced, the process of integrating the other aspects of our being is helped and catalysed. Whilst herbs will not replace relevant techniques like counselling or meditation, they will help the chalice of the body to be strong, receptive and supportive of the subtler aspects of human life.
Every culture throughout the world—until very recently—used healing plants as the basis for their medicine. The therapeutic philosophy and rationale for plant use varies, but for thousands of years plants have demonstrated their efficiency and significance.
Each culture had a basic healing flora from which remedies were selected. This range of plants would vary from area to area depending on the local ecosystem. It is remarkable, however, to look at Wales, Southern India, the North American plains or any other area and find herbs with equivalent actions. The plant species, or even the botanical types might be totally different, but the range of human problems that can be dealt with botanically is the same. Whilst this supports the idea of Gaia providing a context for healing with the aid of herbs, it raises the question of whether today we should always stick to the flora provided by the local ecosystem within which we live.
The ecosystem available to us is no longer a local one, just as our human culture and consciousness is no longer a local one. We have become planetary beings, though not necessarily yet out of our own choice. Our food may come from anywhere in the world and modern information technology brings the world into our homes, opening our thoughts and emotional lives to a wide range of influences. We are already in many ways planetary citizens. As planetary beings within the body of Gaia, the whole of the world’s flora is available to us and rightly so.
We also have to consider human impact on local ecosystems. In Wales, for example, it used to be possible to obtain a large range of plants in natural habitats. Nowadays, due to intensive agriculture, to deforestation and reafforestation with foreign conifers, and the expansion and industrialisation of towns, there are few truly natural and wild habitats left; the range of plants available to us locally is therefore greatly reduced. This has been part of the ecological impact of humanity, unaware as it has been of whole systems and the value of their interrelationships.
The potent healing qualities of herbs have been used in different therapeutic philosophies throughout history. We find plants used within the Indian ayurvedic system, in Chinese medicine alongside acupuncture and other techniques. They play a very important role in the spiritual healing ecology of the North American Indians. We see them being used as a source of drugs in the highly scientific and technological approach of modern pharmacy and allopathic medicine.
In fact allopathic medicine, now often called ‘orthodox’ medicine, has its roots in the use of herbs. Until about fifty years ago, nearly all the entries in pharmacopoeias describing the manufacture of drugs indicated a herbal origin. Only since the refinement of chemical technology and developments in chemotherapy has the use of herbs apparently diminished. Nonetheless it should be recognised that a majority of drugs still have their origin in plant material. Some very simple examples will illustrate this.
The amphetamines, which are based on the alkaloid ephedrine, supply stimulants and anti-asthmatic drugs and play an important role in medicine. Their exploitation followed the discovery of the active ingredient ephedrine in the Chinese herb Ma Huang, Ephedra sinica. The steroid drugs, the wonder drugs of the 60s now known to have unfortunate side effects, are still synthesised from a chemical extracted from the West African Wild Yam, Dioscorea spp. Aspirin too, was discovered in the last century from a number of plants like Meadowsweet and Black Willow. In fact its name comes from the old botanical name of Meadowsweet, Spirea.
Wild Yam
So we see that allopathic medicine still uses herbs, if in a limited way. Plants are approached as a source of active ingredients, specific bio-active chemicals that can be analysed, synthesised and used in the form of potent drugs. The body is seen as being essentially biochemical in nature, so when something goes wrong, it does so on the level of chemical processes and molecules. To get it to work correctly we thus have to use chemicals. If such an attitude is correct, why not use
