Native Healers. Anita Ralph
called it.
Steiner developed this approach into anthroposophical medicine, and other authors and researchers have applied his methodology to plant study—such as Wilhelm Pelikan (Healing Plants I and II). Goethean methodology has also been used in architecture and other areas of life and is promoted by the Goethe Institute in Germany. The science of phenomenology continues to be used in other areas of research.
Goethean methodology was also taken forwards by two pioneering medical herbalists in the 1990s, Keith and Maureen Robertson. Keith and Maureen ran a School of Herbal Medicine in Glasgow, Scotland. They worked with Goethean practitioner Dr Margaret Colquhoun, founder of the Pishwanton Project, and developed the Goethean method for use by students of herbal medicine. They utilised this method to gain insight and deepen relationships with the medicinal plants they were studying and would eventually go on to use in practice.
We would like to acknowledge the source of some of the plant exercises we have included here as being from Keith and Maureen Robertson, medical herbalists, and their fabulous experimental work with Goethean scientist Margaret Colquhoun. Other herbalists have used sensory plant communication and developed techniques similar to this and we wish to acknowledge, Elisabeth Brooke, Hildegarde of Bingen, Juliet de Bairacli-Levi, Stephen Harrod Buhner, Carole Guyette and Christopher Hedley.
Speaking about how physicists strive to discover universal, elementary laws, Einstein once said;
There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them. The state of feeling which makes one capable of such achievement is akin to that of the religious worshiper or one who is in love.
—Albert Einstein
A sympathetic understanding of contemplation and experience is at the core of this, and is central to the practice of Goethean methodology.
Here we would like to introduce you to a simple tea tasting exercise involving the leaves of the magnificent nettle plant. This is a sensorial or organoleptic tasting and is used as a key component of plant study in the Heartwood Foundation Course. We reproduce a simplified version of the method here for your use if you wish to conduct your own contemplative sensory plant tastings as we look at more magnificent plants throughout this book. We recommend that you read through the next section thoroughly before embarking on a tea tasting so that you have a good sense of what is needed.
Definition—Organoleptic: acting on, or involving the use of, the sense organs.
Organoleptic tea tasting
We recommend you read through these notes on tea tasting once before you begin.
Preparation
•Make an infusion using 2 tablespoons of fresh nettle leaves, or 1 tablespoon of dried loose-leaf nettle.
•Pour freshly boiling water (approximately 200–300 ml) over the leaves and leave covered for 8–10 minutes.
•Whilst you are waiting, prepare yourself. Be in a comfortable place, with writing and/or drawing materials to hand. Maybe close your eyes for a moment. Take a few slightly deeper breaths. Notice, how you feel. What sounds are around you? Relax. Be present in this moment, right now.
•We would like you to enter into this tasting experience with an open-hearted, innocent, child-like wonder. It is our intention that you enter into this exercise with a sense of humble excitement and anticipation—as if you are meeting a person for the first time. In a way—you are!
Step 1a
•Strain some of the infusion into a clean mug and begin by smelling the tea. Record your observations on the sheet provided.
Notes
You may feel the tea smells ‘fruity’, ‘dry’, ‘moist’, ‘spicy’, ‘mineral-rich’ or ‘lemony’, these are examples of good descriptive words to use. There may be more than just one or two words because of the complexity of compounds within a single plant. It is okay to have only one or two words.
You may also note that smell brings a feeling with it. Observing it is ‘warm’ ‘comforting’ or that it ‘reminds you of something’ are useful observations to make.
It is important not to slip into brain-led value-judgements here. We are using our hearts not our heads. We are enquiring with a completely open mind, and without trying to be clever or to derive a medicinal property. So, try not to say things like ‘I feel this plant may be good for the liver’ as this sort of comment has leapt well beyond observing that you perhaps have an awareness of your abdomen—even just from the smell, or perhaps an awareness of the ears or eyes—just from the smell.
By the way—these notes apply to when you are tasting, as well as when you are smelling, the infusion of the plant. Goethe emphasised that we should try to capture the brief moment as we experience a phenomenon, and immediately before our brains kick in to construct ideas around the experience. He said that our senses are true, our brains and thinking are often not. Also Goethe acknowledged that it is impossible to un-learn everything you know up to this point. So—tasting the infusion of a plant you are already familiar with will inevitably influence you consciously but also unconsciously.
Modern authors who are interested in this technique such as Stephen Buhner, Pamela Montgomery, and others, note that by employing a child-like, but enthusiastic or ‘euphoric’ state we secrete different hormones that affect our ability to allow information past our neural ‘gating’ channels. We induce a hormonal change that allows us to perceive more richly. It is that feeling you get when you are out in nature and filled with a deep sense of joy and harmony and possibly have a flash of insight or inspiration. Trying to feel this way also helps silence the critic in your head who is telling you that you are being silly!
Despite our tendency to allow prior knowledge to influence our senses—it is still worthwhile pursuing this practice. With practice, you will deepen your experience and you will expand your capacity to notice and then verbalise that experience. Maybe you do not feel anything at all at first. Don't try to force it, just keep going, observing, listening. After you have recorded everything you have noticed about the ‘smell’ (approximately 1–3 minutes), it is now time to taste the infusion that you have made.
Step 1b
•Begin by writing down all of the actual taste/tastes that you can. What does it taste like?
•You may at any point in smelling or tasting, experience a sense of colour or movement that is difficult to express in words. Use coloured pencils, pens or crayons to record these colours and movements.
•Re-taste the infusion as you consider the questions below.
Step 2
•As you taste the infusion, where does it go in your body?
•Does it stay in your mouth? Move to your pelvis or evaporate through your skin or none of these!? Suspend disbelief.
Step 3
•How does this plant feel like it moves around your body? Is it slow, sliding and syrupy? Is it tingly and active? Is it strong, fast or gentle in its movement and effect?
Step 4
•What is the infusion doing now you have observed where it is going?
•What is its effect now it is there? Again, be careful not to choose medical words, refrain from using your intellect to describe these active effects. Choose simple descriptive words, try to get right back to the feeling, rather than trying to interpret that feeling.
This tea-testing exercise is only one part of a whole methodology that is beyond the scope of this book to reproduce here.
Keep your tasting (and smelling) notes in a way that you can reference them again at a later date. Make a note of the date and time, the herb tasted and the method used to prepare it. You may taste this plant again and it would be interesting