Mountain Medicine & Magic:

Appalachian Herbalist Andrew Bentley (Part 2)

In this episode, I interview longtime friend and accomplished Appalachian Clinical Herbalist Andrew Bentley of Lee County, Kentucky.

This is part two of two, where he shares more about what it’s like to visit his clinic or have a tele-health appointment, opens up about projects on the horizon, and tells us more about his new online school of herbalism, called The Hedge School.

He also talks about the ways that he promotes his services, by sharing his sense of wonder about the magic of the healing plants around us.

Links From Show
Andrew Bentley’s Facebook Page
Andrew Bentley’s Instagram Page
Andrew Bentley’s Website
Andrew Bentley’s YouTube ChannelSupport the show

Transcript

welcome to the what dreamers do podcast. i’m your host carla govan and appalachian musician flatfoot dancer, mama creative and dreamer from kentucky. i’m on a mission to inspire others to realize their dreams and live their most creative lives. grab your mason jar full of sweet tea or something a little stronger and pull up a chair because it’s time to get your dream off.

that’s what dreamers do.

hello dreamers, welcome back to another episode of the wet dreamers do podcast. this week, we are continuing the interview that we started in last week’s episode with appalachian herbalist andrew bentley. if you did not catch last week’s episode, please go back and listen because andrew talks about his early experiences in herbalism. growing up in the hills of appalachia, as well as his influences as an herbalist, the lore and the teachings he learned from his family and his community and his travels in education that informed his current day practice as the village herbalist in lexington, kentucky. this week’s episode, we’re going to dive into

what it’s like to visit andrew at his clinic and

just take a little trip into his herbal apothecary. and we’re also going to hear more about the projects that he is working on, including some books he’s writing, and the very exciting hedge school, which is a school of herbalism for everyone who wants to learn more about taking charge of their own health, and taking care of the health of their community, through learning about how to forage and prepare and use the herbs that grow all around us. so i was so excited and interested to hear about all of these wonderful projects that he’s doing in service of our world and our community and our plant community. so thank you for being here with us. and let’s listen to andrew bailey. well, i know that you have a lot of different projects going on right now. and i want to talk about those in a minute. but i also went, since we’ve since we’ve been talking about the differences maybe between what you do and what you might get in like just a regular doctor’s office.

i’d like to kind of take people on a little journey of what it’s like to come and see you at the clinic here or even telehealth, you do some telehealth, right? yes, i do. i’ve been doing a lot of it since the pandemic started.

so when somebody comes in to see me,

basically, the one of the main things i want to do when somebody comes to see me is get a very thorough history. so i’ll i’ll ask a lot of questions, usually spend about an hour sometimes more, talking to a person, figuring out what they’re experiencing, how long it’s been going on, for, you know, what makes it better, what makes it worse, all that sort of thing.

and this is true, whether the person already has a diagnosis or not, we try to figure out, you know, what it’s like in their particular case, because it’s not, it’s not the same for everybody, even if they have the same

diagnosis, or even if they maybe they don’t have a diagnosis, just depends on on why they’re coming in, but try to figure out what structures and functions in the body need some additional support? and

what herbs would be most specifically good for that particular person? so that’s usually a process of of asking a lot of questions, you know, history, what medicines are taking right now?

any allergies, they have all kinds of things like that, and sorting out, you know, what, what would be best to do for that particular person.

so that’s mostly mostly how it goes. you know, sometimes i’m also taking people’s pulses or, you know, observing things if there’s, you know, physical symptoms that are observable.

and just trying to sort out what’s going on in their body that needs health and which herbs would be best for that person’s constitution because some people respond better to hot, spicy herbs, and some people really can’t stand them, for instance. and so you know, figuring out that sort of thing.

so personalizing and personalizing it a little bit, you know, because everybody’s a little bit different. and that’s one of the nice things about having hundreds and hundreds of different herbs to choose from as that there’ll be, you know, often several different ones that might be good for a particular symptom, and figuring out which one would be best for this

to individual person?

well, i know that you have really seen people for such a wide range of conditions. you know, i remember the time there was somebody in my life that i was close to that you that had septicemia, in round after round of antibiotics didn’t work, you’re able to help them out with that. me personally, you know, i’ve had i had a really entrenched staph infection in my finger, i had childhood fever, or i guess, what’s otherwise known as a uterine infection, and you’re able to help me with those things. and i know you’ve worked with cancer patients and addiction and covid and

lots of fun stuff. yeah.

yeah, yeah. and you know, it’s to me, it’s like, it’s less about there being specific diseases than it is about there being specific systems in the body needing help, and trying to trying to do things that will help those and you know, in some cases, it’s really like, okay, this, this particular herb will kill bacteria. and, but it’s also about helping the immune system, and this resources that are already in your body to be able to help with that process of killing bacteria. so it’s not the same as just taking an antibiotic that either does or doesn’t work against that particular bacterium. it’s also about changing the terrain, so that it’s so the body is not as hospitable of a place for the bacteria to grow. that’s a major difference in the way western medicine typically thinks about health. and i think the way that you are describing it is you’re thinking of the body as a whole, as something that fundamentally has like health as its nature, and you’re just trying to help it regain equilibrium, rather than i’m going to heroic lee swoop in with this medicine and kill off the bad thing inside you. it’s just like a difference in thinking really, right. right, i think that there’s been a sort of tendency in

conventional medical thought to think of it

to have like, this extended metaphor of fighting and killing, you know, or fighting bacteria and killing germs and things like that, and thinking of it as like a battlefield. and i don’t really think that’s the most apt metaphor for what’s really going on with the human body, even though you know, i mean, bacteria do literally die, they are living things, but but it’s not really like,

it’s not much like a fight. it’s more like cultivation, and what will grow and what won’t grow. and so, you know, i think of it as more like a farm than a battlefield or like a farmer than a soldier. yeah. and, you know, i think, in the last 20 years or so that conventional medicine has come around to my way of thinking more and more, and i hope to see that trend continue. yeah, well, i think, hopefully, it’s

tracking an entire cultural shift and paradigm shift that i’ve talked about on this podcast before, which is having what we think of as masculine and feminine principles more in balance, instead of just always emphasizing the doing and the getting in the fighting, and also emphasizing the receiving and the healing and the,

you know, a more holistic

perception and experience of ourselves and our culture in our world. it’s not all just writing and machines. and sure, yeah, yeah, i think that, you know, and i think just kind of,

you know, maybe not overlaying metaphors on things so heavily, and just kind of looking at them as what they actually are, is also a helpful a helpful change that i that i hope is happening more and more.

yeah, i guess it’s just maybe partially human nature to we understand things through the stories that we’ve learned. absolutely. we interpret our world through all the stories that we received from the time were small. and yeah, so i also hope that we received fewer stories of war and fighting and smashing and destruction. and i hope so.

so, this might be a good time to jump into talking about some of the projects that you’ve got going on. i know there’s writing, there’s teaching. sure, sure. so i have a free ebook about covid. that’s available on my website. and that’s something that is

kind of a finished project at the moment, although i might go through and update it at some point, although hopefully, you know, hopefully, it will become irrelevant, sooner rather than later. but that’s something that

i came out with about a year ago and i think something like 25,000 people have downloaded it so far, which is, which is a lot for an art book.

but it is free. and that that helps too, i’m sure but

i’ve, i’m working on a few other writing projects. but one thing that i’m working on right now, that’s my biggest project at the moment is, is an herb course, sort of a, the first course of what i’m conceiving of as a as a school, or school that i’m calling the hedge school. and this first one year course is called herbalism, from the ground up. and it’s designed to sort of teach people the fundamentals of

being an herbalist from starting from a position of learning about the plants themselves, learning how plants work, and then also how herbalists work in society and what an herbalists role in in society is, and

kind of integrating some more,

not just use this plant for this ailment, but also how we, how we interact with the plants in our community, and how we sort of how as herbalists, we’re sort of kind of an ambassador between the human world and the plant world, and that we try to take care of both.

that’s amazing. so people are going to have the opportunity to, to study with you and learn from you. and is it is it going to be primarily online? or how do you conceive of yeah, this, this course is going to be primarily online with optional in person experiences, there’s going to be weekly online classes, and then some directed self study type activities, and then seasonal herb walks, where i would take people out in nature and look at plants and things like that. and that will also be

live streamed or recorded and put online but but there will be the opportunity for people to do that in person, and there will be a weekend intensive that people can come to and get some hands on practice with skills, and also some opportunities for people to to get a little bit of experience or exposure in the clinic if they if they

want to and are able to do that. wow. okay. well, that’s really exciting. you know, i’ve been evangelizing about your, your work for a long time. so i’m excited to be able to share this with with my listeners. and

i think that the the herb walk component, i’ve just always, like i said, so much enjoy getting to go out in the woods with you. and i mean, i also learned herbs growing up, but you’ve definitely taken it to such a deep level. and i’ve always learned so much.

what will be the process for people, if they’re interested in this, i’m going to

applications for it are going to be on my website, and the applications are going to open on february 2. and the actual course itself is going to begin the first of may. okay, what a great time of year to to begin

studying herbs because the at least in kentucky, it’s it’s really gorgeous at that time of year.

and for those of you who might be listening to this later after those dates have passed. i know there are also many ways that people can access your teachings online. oh, i should tell people this is really awesome. billy. few years back bought this.

it’s like a gypsy wagon, right? it’s like an old fashioned gypsy wagon. it’s a yeah, well, when i bought it, it was a utility trail. i built i built a structure on it that is based on vardo used by irish travelers a barrel top wagon or bow top wagon. and it’s jeep tillable mobile clinic, the traditional ones or horsedrawn. but this one is the jeep john jeep drawn. and so it’s a relatively light camper type of thing. it has it set up so that it can be converted back and forth between a nighttime mode where it’s a living space and a daytime mode where it’s a mobile clinic. and so i’ve got, you know, various different remedies and in the past i’ve done set it up as a first aid station at festivals and also used it for

a lot of my youtube videos and things like that. yeah, that’s where i was going with it. so because if people are listening to this podcast after the deadlines have passed for this year’s round of the head school, you do have videos available on youtube and instagram. you can follow you on instagram and get a lot of great information. you know, you’re always dispensing. there’s there’s always lots of good good information on there that i’m sharing with people. i use the username

clinical herbalist on both both youtube and instagram. i’m sure we’ll put some links up to that as well. yeah, i’ll put those up. i want to ask you something real quick because we also try to have a social justice

be something that we address on this podcast and i said the term gypsy wagon, and it has come to my attention lately that there’s some people that consider that term to be derogatory or racist. and i believe you saying that was part of your family background? ireland? well, some of the sides were travelers, which is different than roma people, travelers have their own celtic language and whereas roma is kind of more closely related to, to sanskrit and to the indo iranian branch of the european indo european language family.

that yeah, that word is sometimes considered.

well, not not so good. does it kind of depends on where you are also in the english speaking world, because in in britain, it’s sort of a legal term that, that a lot of groups they’re advocating for rights of traveling people use.

but yet, it’s sort of that i tend to avoid saying, myself, but

you know, different people feel different ways about that, for sure. especially, like i said, depending on where you are in the world,

but yeah, my one branch of the family were

were irish travelers. they were more the gaelic speaking. so it was kind of well, yeah, well, were it was one branch that traveled but spoke gaelic, and were were irish. they were, what you might call look to let rather than look shul they weren’t like fully nomadic, they had a place that they live, but they also traveled around and sold. okay, herbal remedies, and then another branch of the family were actually travelers.

so, yeah, various different

bloodlines and branches coming together just like everybody else has, but some of them i know about some of them, i don’t know as much. sure. well, it’s always fascinating. i mean, i love i love history and folklore and learning about people’s background and histories. and in your case, you know, there’s just a lot. there’s so much that fascinates me about about herbalism about linguistics, and language and appalachia and our family’s migrations from all the different places they came. so

well, we will, we’ll wrap it up here soon. but i had a couple more questions. one is, if somebody’s out there listening right now, and they are interested in herbal medicine, or they have dabbled in it, or they’d like to do more, what’s one herb that could be really accessible that maybe probably grows in most places, that would be a good place for people to start practicing with? well, i mentioned earlier, yarrow, that’s one of my favorite ones for this sort of thing. because yarrow is a very common weed, it grows in many places around the world, many temperate areas around the world. and

it’s

it’s got a wide range of different properties. and it’s very well tolerated. like there isn’t really, i mean, there’s probably a toxic dose at some level, but it’s not anything that a person could reasonably accidentally consume. and it’s, it’s, you know, it’s very well tolerated and very powerful at the same time. so, yarrow is its latin name is achillea, because achilles used it during the trojan war to treat people’s you know, sword cuts and things like that. and

so it’s, it’s got a really long history of use for injuries. and it’s also taken internally as a bitter and to induce sweating and to break up congestion. so it has a wide range of, of

different properties. it’s it tastes bitter, it smells like camphor, it and it if it’s if it’s applied to, if it’s applied to wounds, that helps stop bleeding and helps the wounds to seal up and

so assuming that somebody learns how to identify it, which it’s, it’s not that hard to identify.

we won’t go into that now because they can probably look it up and find a picture but if they know how to identify it what so they can actually pick it and place it on a wound if they first aid needs, what else what would be a good preparation for you can make tea out of it just by drying it and pouring boiling water over it. you know, keep dry it and keep it and pour boiling water over it. it’s

you know, it’s not

got really great tasting tastes dismal? yeah tastes, it’s, like i said bitter and kind of camp free. but if somebody has a fever, for instance, it will make them sweat. and that will help to cool their body off, break the fever.

if somebody doesn’t have much appetite, the bitterness can kind of help help to build their appetite.

so it’s go and if somebody’s got chest congestion, it’ll help to break that up too. so it’s got a lot of good properties like that. i usually keep it here in the clinic in tincture form, which is made by just sort of soaking it in a mixture of alcohol and water.

moonshine and water basically, and

and that, that draws the active constituents out of the plant and into the liquid. and then you can keep that for you know, a couple of years really, it’s a good way to keep it that so it’s ready and easy to use and readily available. and

i like to keep it in tincture form, because like you said, i don’t like the taste of the tea. but i have used it before when i’ve had a sinus infection that i couldn’t get over it with a fever, and i’ll take it and it kind of breaks everything up and helps me get through that last, that last stretch of it. yeah, so it’s okay. all right. so so you have some homework, you have an assignment, you can go start learning about yarrow. and the other good thing about it is it’s not really endangered. so i don’t feel bad telling people to go out and pick some it’s very weedy, very prolific, kind of in the same family as ragweed, and dandelion, and daisies, and let us and lots of other plants. but it makes a lot of seeds. each flower makes a lot of seeds. and so it’s

very well established. if you have yarrow growing somewhere, and you go back there, 50 years later, there will probably still be yarrow growing there. yeah.

awesome. well, i’m so glad that we got to spend this time together. and

i know that everybody’s gonna really enjoy

hearing all the things that you have to say. and i guess one final thing is a nod to the fact that this is the what dreamers do podcast, i would want to ask if you have any advice for people,

for just living

a life that is creative, or that contains things they’re passionate about. i know that like one thing that you and i have in common i, you can tell me if you describe yourself this way, but we’re both kind of introverts who

are in public positions a lot and talking to people, you know, i really like to just hold up at home and but then i’m on the stage.

and i know that you sometimes have kind of a shy nature. so i don’t know if that’s been a challenge, or maybe maybe something else in general. but like, i always try to give people like here’s, here’s something that you can take into your life that might help you connect with your creativity or connect with living your passions and your dreams.

so i think that when i made the transition from working in a corporate type of situation, to working for myself, and kind of reclaiming my life, in that way, that the biggest obstacle was letting people know i exist. and it’s really just kind of not in my nature, to feel comfortable doing self promotion. and when i talk about how great i am in the form of an ad, or something like that, it always feels a little bit like, you know,

kind of, like i’m doing something impolite or just bragging about myself, you know, and that’s

and that maybe nobody would believe it anyway, because everybody’s seen ads before. and we all know what they’re like, right? so really, the the biggest challenge wasn’t even necessarily just talking myself up. but just in finding ways of letting people know that i exist to letting people know that there was such a thing as an herbalist in the 20th or 21st century, and that there was one locally that they could go to and how to get a hold of me. and so really finding that visibility and letting people know that i that that it was an option was really kind of the harder part, rather than just like convincing them to come in. it was really more a matter of letting them know that they could come in and you know, letting letting people know that that my services were here. and a lot of the way that i’ve gone about that, as it turns out a lot of the way that has been most successful about that has just been to put information out there and to just kind of, you know, share my sense of wonder about what i’m doing with p

equal because, you know, i don’t really feel like

i feel like the plants themselves are really miraculous. and hopefully what i’m doing is at least doing some justice to them. but that, you know, really the power and the medicine and the magic is all coming from the plants. and so mostly, i’m just trying to share that with people. and so as a way of letting people know that i exist, i’ve i’ve done a lot of producing content and teaching classes that were just kind of generally open to the community and things like that, to just kind of let people know about what i find wonderful about what i’m trying to share with the world. amen. amen. to all of that.

i think the things you said about you know, just

feeling like it’s impolite to promote yourself. i mean, i think part of that is appalachian, you know, there’s so many don’t get above your rising don’t get too big for your britches, don’t get this whalehead not put on airs and graces, i mean, there’s, it’s like about the worst thing you can do is to your own horn. but i think also, people in general struggle with this. it’s, it’s scary to show up, it’s scary to put yourself out there. you have that little voice inside your head that says, who do you think you are, you know, miss thang?

at least i have that voice.

it’s also we do have those sleazy associations with selling, you know, like, come on down, bob’s used cars. and we all have been sort of traumatized by that kind of sleazy advertising. and it’s for me, too, i really agree with what you’re saying. and i resonate with it, because it’s been a process of just learning how to just show up and, and offer what i do. and it’s, it’s a service, and it’s a gift, and it’s beautiful. and if people like it, they can come in and check me out. and if they don’t, they don’t have to, but i don’t have to do those sleazy high pressure sales tactics. so

yes, bailey is awesome. you should check him out, you should watch his videos and come see him at the clinic or do a telehealth appointment and take some of his classes. why don’t we review for people how they can get in touch with you. so youtube? so yeah, my website is kentucky herbalist.com. and then on youtube and instagram, i’m under the username clinical herbalist.

and those are the ways they would also get in touch with you about applications for the hedge school. yes, yes. okay, so great. so we have ways to get in touch with you. and i hope that you’ll be checking mentally out. and i’m also going to put all those links in the show notes for you. thanks so much for joining us today. and best of luck with the hedge school. i’m so excited. thanks. and thanks for having me.

well, that wraps up our conversation with andrew bailey. that’s part two of a two part interview. and i hope you were as inspired as i am by the work that bentley is doing in the world. and i just really loved a lot of the things that he had to say, especially there at the end about

showing up and sharing what you do, and promoting yourself in a way that feels authentic to you. because we all have to do that in some capacity in some way or the other. and especially the phrase, he said,

i just share my sense of wonder about what i’m doing.

and i know that connecting with that sense of wonder is something that brings such a sense of richness to my life. so i challenge us all to connect with our sense of wonder this week and find those things that are magical, that are all around us every day that we sometimes forget to pay attention to because we’re sleepwalking or daydreaming or just forgetting what a miracle it is to just be alive here on this earth. i am so grateful to connect with you in this way on this journey of wonder and miracles and herbalism and healing and learning and creativity and art. i’ll be back with you soon in your favorite podcast listening space. and meanwhile, stay wonderful. and keep dreaming because that’s what dreamers do.

thank you so much for joining me this week. if you want to make sure you never miss an episode. please hit subscribe wherever you’re listening now. or visit my website to get on my email list@www.karlova.com when you sign up, you’ll instantly receive my milton mama digital care package, a bundle of music and videos to help you wring every drop of yeehaw out of life. you’ll even find a dance lesson as well as my granny’s cornbread recipe with new goodies being added all the time. i’ll see you next thursday on the wet dreamers do podcast