Читать книгу Holistic Herbal: A Safe and Practical Guide to Making and Using Herbal Remedies - David Hoffmann - Страница 11

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.