Welcome to Sage Advice

And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat… and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine. — Ezekiel 47:12

The Herb in the Title

I named this book after a plant. Garden sage, Salvia officinalis, takes its Latin name from salvere, “to be well, to be saved,” and the old herbals asked, “Why should a man die while sage grows in his garden?” Sage is a humble kitchen herb that also dries a fever sweat, soothes a sore throat, tightens bleeding gums and helps a nursing mother wean her baby. That is herbalism in one plant: something ordinary, growing close to home, that turns out to be medicine.

“Sage advice” also means wise counsel, and that is what I want to pass on to you. Almost nothing in this book is new. It is the counsel of the herbalists who came before us, from the healers of ancient Israel, Egypt, Greece, India and China to the American master herbalists Dr. John R. Christopher and Dr. Richard Schulze, written down plainly so that you can use it in your own kitchen and teach it to others.

How I Came to Herbs

I did not grow up with herbs. I was trained as a computer scientist, and I came to herbalism the way most mothers do: because someone I loved needed help and the usual answers were not working.

During my first pregnancy I developed painful charley horses in my legs. Calcium pills helped, but while I was studying to become an herbalist I found Dr. Christopher’s herbal calcium tea, and I wanted to try something made from plants rather than something manufactured. The tea did more than stop the cramps. It ended years of bleeding gums and, in time, the back pain I had carried since that first pregnancy. You will read the whole story in Chapter 4. That tea taught me what Dr. Christopher meant when he said that herbs are food for the body: you take an herb for one thing, and it nourishes you in places you never expected.

Since then I have raised seven children with herbs. Colds, fevers, earaches, cuts, burns, sprains, toothaches and upset stomachs have all been handled at home, with a kitchen cupboard of teas, tinctures, oils and salves. I studied the School of Natural Healing that Dr. Christopher founded, and the teacher whose work shaped me more than any other was his student, Dr. Richard Schulze. Their teaching is the backbone of this book.

The Teachers in This Book

Every chapter credits the people whose ideas it teaches. The words are mine; the wisdom is theirs.

Dr. John Raymond Christopher (1909–1983), the master herbalist who founded the School of Natural Healing and taught a whole generation of American herbalists. His Herbal Syllabus, the families of herbs he taught, is the backbone of Part Two of this book.
Dr. Richard Schulze, Christopher’s student, who healed his own heart condition with herbs and food and went on to run a busy natural healing clinic in California. His teaching on cayenne, first aid and his SuperFood formula fills Chapter 3.
Dr. Nicole Apelian, the biologist and survival instructor who wrote The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies with Claude Davis. Her plant-by-plant knowledge of wild and backyard medicine shaped Chapter 6.
Merina Ty-Kisera, a classical Five Element acupuncturist and aromatherapist, whose method of pairing essential oils with acupressure points is taught in Chapter 7.
Amy Lansky, the former NASA computer scientist who turned to homeopathy when it healed her son, and whose book Impossible Cure is the best introduction I know. Her story opens Chapter 8.
The herbalists of Mountain Rose Herbs, where I buy many of my herbs, whose short videos show each kind of remedy being made. They go with Chapter 2.

How This Book Is Built

Sage Advice has two parts.

Part One is eight teaching chapters. Each one goes with one Lesson of Arukah’s Herbalism certification: Chapter 1 with Lesson 1, and so on. If you are a student, the chapter teaches everything in its Lesson and answers every quiz question. If you are not a student, read the chapters in order and you will have a full foundation in home herbalism.

Ancient Roots and the Herbalist’s Way: how people have healed with plants since the beginning, what herbs do, and how to use them safely.
Making Remedies: teas, decoctions, tinctures, oils, salves, syrups, capsules, poultices and more.
Dr. Richard Schulze: Cayenne, First Aid and SuperFood.
Dr. John R. Christopher: The School of Natural Healing, with my Arukah Herbal Calcium.
Christopher’s Herbal Syllabus: the families of herbs, how they work and how to combine them.
Survival Herbalism and Wildcrafting: finding, identifying and harvesting wild medicine, and caring for a family when help is far away.
Essential Oils and Acupressure.
Homeopathy.

Part Two, the Herbal Syllabus, is a reference: an entry for each herb Dr. Christopher taught, and the other herbs this book uses, grouped by what they do. Each entry gives the parts used, traditional uses and main actions, how the herb is prepared, typical amounts, cautions and interactions, and the Lesson that teaches it. Use the search box on the contents page to find any herb.

Five Rules I Keep

Herbs are strong medicine. That is why they work, and it is why I keep five rules, which you will see again and again in this book.

Know your herb. Know its name in Latin as well as in English, the part of the plant you are using, and where it came from. Most herb accidents are mistaken identity.
Know your person. Before you give an herb, know whether the person is pregnant or nursing, how old they are, what medications they take and what conditions they have. Every entry in Part Two lists the interactions that matter.
Start low and build. Begin with a small amount, watch, and increase. A child’s dose is a fraction of an adult’s (Chapter 1 shows how to work it out).
Watch and adjust. The body talks. If a remedy helps, keep going; if it brings new symptoms, stop and think again.
Know an emergency when you see one. Herbs belong in every first aid kit, and in an emergency you use them on the way to help, not instead of it. Chest pain, signs of a stroke, severe bleeding, trouble breathing, a stiff neck with fever, a baby with a high fever, and poisoning all mean calling emergency services first.

Where Herbs Fit

Herbs are one tool of the Arukah Method, not the whole of it. An herb cannot out-work a diet of factory food, a home full of chemicals or a life without rest. When this book touches on food, nutrients or cleansing, it points you to Arukah’s other free books: Do This, Detox That for toxins and cleansing, From A to Zinc for vitamins and minerals, Around the World in 80 Diets for the world’s ways of eating, and The Arukah Method for healing the whole person, body and soul.

Now let us go back to the beginning, to the first gardens and the first healers.