Modern Herbalism in the Southwest

 

It’s been five years since I interned with Deb Buck. At the time I was an ambitious college student looking for some practical knowledge about the ecosystems of the Southwest. I bought a few guide books about native edible and medicinal plants and very quickly realized how hard it was to learn about plant identification from books.  After explaining my challenges to a good friend, who recommended I talk with Deb, I got very excited about learning from someone else who has hands on experience in the area. That summer Deb took me on as an apprentice and I got to spend over 200 hours in the field learning not only how to identify the edible and medicinal plants in Colorado, Utah and Arizona, but build life long relationships with them.

This summer I got to follow and document Deb on one of her signature workshops as she leads her students and apprentices to new understanding and insights about the natural world and our participatory experience of it. Along with identification skills, Deb is a wellspring of metaphysical concepts that dip into healing traditions from around the globe (where most of our plant medicine knowledge comes from). Deb’s ability to blend these healing traditions together in a clear and practical way, makes her a huge asset to our community here in Durango and beyond. With these perspectives, Deb shares her vast hands on knowledge of ethical plant harvesting, storage and the preparation of many different types of medicines. Most importantly Deb shares tools for building the intuition and bodily awareness, so that students and apprentices have the tools to build their own relationships with these plants and others they will encounter throughout life.

Please, enjoy the video and for more information about Deb and her teachings visit her at www.whitefeatherherbals.com

Video Produced, Edited and Filmed by Alex Pullen

Thanks for reading and please check back again. To see other writings by Alex Pullen click here, or if you would like to see more of his work, visit him at alexpullen.com

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