I recently came to finding my path in life as an herbalist and healer. I’m still learning, and hope to never stop, what is is to truly be an herbalist and healer. And exploring how to listen truly to the wisdom that nature shares with us when we pause and connect to her.
The majority of my life I had never given much thought to the issues of health, healing and my connection to or awareness of my own body was non-existent. Then I had a couple of incidents that served as my awakening. In each, the doctors not only didn’t help, they in fact made the situations worse. In the end, in both cases I found actual solutions and healing in “alternative” healing – acupuncture and herbal medicine.
During the first, which was an bleeding ulcer in reaction to aspirin well within the recommended levels, I had an enlightening conversation with one doctor. I heard from him that such reactions happened a lot, which prodded me to ask why hadn’t I heard more about this. He looked around a moment and whispered, “there’s too much money to be made from it still.”
With the second, I was told there was nothing to be done about a chronic health condition and it would be a life long adjustment just trying to live with it. Instead, I cleared it up with acupuncture and herbs in just a couple of months after more than a year of increasingly pointless consultations with doctors.
Between the two, I began to understand mainstream medicine, while still the place to go for urgent life threatening situations, had lost its way in truly healing patients and working with things chronic and/or not profitable for the health care “industry.”
From there I began my own studies of herbalism including completing an apprenticeship in it at the Gaia School of Healing. At the same time I studied, and continue to study, with other local herbalists – all of which still have a chance to disavow me, since unlike with Sage at Gaia, there isn’t a graduation certificate with my name and their signature on it! 
And I’ve extensively studied, and continue to study, on my own – developing my own views and understandings from a diverse set of approaches – including my strong belief in the importance of working with people to empower them to be able to take an active part in their own health and healing.
Michael Blackmore,
Mad Crow Herbals
