Herbs

As human beings we live in contact with two environments, the outer ecological one and the inner psychological one. Herbs can be seen as a bridge between the outer and inner environment, augmenting health by facilitating harmony and resonance between the two. One we are in balance, we can radiate our higher state of health back into the ecosystem from which the herbs came.
If we slightly shift our view, we can see that we are part of the whole ecology, not separate from it. When we are healed with the help of plants, a part of the ecology is healed. By healing our bodies and our minds we will be more present as whole beings. And it is hoped that health will enable the growth of new awareness so that we can become conscious con-creators with nature and not remain the abusers and rapists that recent history shows us to be. A state of wholeness and health can affect our whole environment. It can affect our relationships, which affect society, and so potentially act to heal all humanity. If we consider the concept of Gaia and remember that the Earth constantly works towards staying in a state of homeostasis, we can see how herbs act as homeostatic agents. Their purpose is to keep an element of ecology – humanity - integrated and in harmony with the whole ecology.

David Hoffmann, The New Holistic Herbal, Element Books Limited, UK, 1990, pagg. 18-19.