This is an interview with Rasheeqa Ahmad (she/her) a herbalist based in Walthamstow, east London. In this episode we explore what community herbalism can mean in practice, drawing on Rasheeqa’s decade of organising as a herbalist in her local area. We learn about the Community Apothecary project, as well as other current and previous herbal projects she’s been involved with and learned from. We talk about that balance of clinical practice vs community work, funding, whiteness in herbalism and so much more!
Links & resources from this episode
- Rasheeqa’s website
- Rasheeqa’s instagram
- The Community Apothecary
- The Community Apothecary instagram
- Practical Medicine Making Intensive with the Solidarity Apothecary
- Herbalism and State Violence Book
Find them all at solidarityapothecary.org/podcast/
Music from Sole & DJ Pain – Battle of Humans | Plant illustrations by @amani_writes | In solidarity, please subscribe, rate & review this podcast wherever you listen.
Transcript
Welcome to the Frontline Herbalism podcast with your host Nicole Rose from the Solidarity Apothecary.
Nicole:This is your place for all things plants and liberation.
Nicole:Let's get started.
Nicole:Hello, welcome back to the Frontline Herbalism podcast.
Nicole:I hope you enjoyed the interview with Leyla.
Nicole:Yeah, I'm really interested to hear people's feedback.
Nicole:I personally found it really moving so it'd be Glad to hear what other people think.
Nicole:Today's interview is an interview with a herbalist called Rasheeqa, who I'm sure a lot of you listening will know.
Nicole:She's definitely made an impact in terms of the UK.
Nicole:And yeah, we've known each other a long time from various kind of radical herbalism things.
Nicole:I think she's amazing.
Nicole:She's such a beautiful example of someone super embedded in their community, doing lots of kind of community herbalist activities.
Nicole:So, yeah, hopefully you'll find it inspiring.
Nicole:I think especially if you're maybe like, studying herbalism right now, or you're just kind of like, wondering what to do, like, after you finish your training.
Nicole:Not that a training is ever finished, by the way, like, obviously, you keep learning, but I mean, in the sense of like, yeah, how you want to be in your community, like, do you want to run workshops?
Nicole:Do you want to host a community garden?
Nicole:How do you want to organize?
Nicole:And I think Rasheeqa is a really beautiful example of that.
Nicole:So we talk about all different nuances around kind of yeah, around her work.
Nicole:Just one announcement.
Nicole:I'm teaching a practical medicine making intensive in September.
Nicole:I know it's quite far away, but I wanted to kind of do the bookings and admins stuff before I go on maternity leave.
Nicole:So it's three days.
Nicole:It's absolutely tons of fun.
Nicole:We learn everything from tincture making, glycerides, infused oils, bruise ointments, Yeah, all the things harvesting, like it's like just very hands on, very practical.
Nicole:And yeah, people last year absolutely loved it.
Nicole:I loved kind of teaching it and hosting it.
Nicole:I don't do many face to face things.
Nicole:So it's, yeah, it's quite a kind of fun kind of special part of the calendar and I will probably have a baby on my hip.
Nicole:Well, I will have a baby on my hip by then.
Nicole:All being well and yeah, I will have childcare support to be able to give the learners all the focus they need.
Nicole:But yeah, I'll put the link in the show notes.
Nicole:I just want to say that, you know, there are subsidized places available for people on super low incomes who, you know, who need that.
Nicole:There's also the ability to pay via, like, payment plans.
Nicole:Like, I can set one up for you.
Nicole:So, yeah, just get in touch basically if you're interested or book it directly.
Nicole:I'll open up the booking.
Nicole:bookings for things like food and accommodation, like later on in the year, but yeah, just in terms of your actual course place, like that's available now on the store section of my website.
Nicole:And there's a course page where you can find like all the information about what's covered and you can read some testimonials and see some gorgeous photos from last year.
Nicole:Okay, but for now, please enjoy this amazing interview with Rasheeqa.
Nicole:And yeah, let me know what you think.
Nicole:Okay, take care.
Nicole:Okay, welcome Rasheeqa.
Nicole:Please can you introduce yourself, your pronouns, like any political affinities or projects you'd like to include?
Nicole:Obviously, we're going to dive into detail of all the things you do.
Nicole:But yeah, if you could just kind of briefly introduce yourself, that'd be amazing.
Rasheeqa:Hi, Nicole.
Rasheeqa:Thank you.
Rasheeqa:Yes, my name is Rasheeqa Ahmad, pronouns she, her.
Rasheeqa:And I practice as a herbalist, medical herbalist, community herbalist in London.
Rasheeqa:Walthamstow in North London.
Rasheeqa:And projects, I suppose my clinical practice, the name of it is Hedge Herbs.
Rasheeqa:And then, at the moment, a key project that I'm part of is called the Community Apothecary in Waltham Forest, where I am.
Rasheeqa:Which is a project that's based around community access to herbal medicine through taking part in herb growing and medicine making.
Nicole:Amazing.
Nicole:So we know each other from back in the radical herbalism gathering days, which feels like a million years ago now.
Nicole:But for folks who don't know you and all the like incredible things you do, can you share like a bit more about your work as a herbalist?
Rasheeqa:Yeah, sure.
Rasheeqa:So yeah, it was a while back, wasn't it?
Rasheeqa:2013 at your your land in Somerset that we first met and in a way that's been a big part of my journey as a herbalist.
Rasheeqa:So I have a clinical practice where I am in London a couple of days a week.
Rasheeqa:People come to see me for consultations and treatment and I'll do that, do consultations with them in person and I do it where I live at home.
Rasheeqa:Or online, and then we'll be making medicines for them and supporting people in their, their healthcare situations and journeys.
Rasheeqa:And then, I've always done quite a mixture of different activity in my practice.
Rasheeqa:It's never been just clinical practice only.
Rasheeqa:And I think that's partly through the connections with friends and with people that I studied with having conversations around what it means to be, to practice as a herbalist.
Rasheeqa:And particularly around things like access to it, who can access herbal medicine within the context that we live in today.
Rasheeqa:And that was a big inspiration really for getting involved in the Radical Herbalism Collective originally with you Nicole.
Rasheeqa:And it felt like when I first qualified that.
Rasheeqa:It felt a really exciting thing to be doing and there was a great desire to share it.
Rasheeqa:I think so, with Charm, who's a friend that I graduated with from Middlesex University.
Rasheeqa:We quite quickly after qualifying started to do different things like offering herb walks locally and workshops around introducing people to herbal medicine.
Rasheeqa:So that has led to me.
Rasheeqa:Really following that path in my work and doing a lot of community based work where we come together in groups to share knowledge Where I've been teaching about many different aspects of herbal medicine and you in the first question you said Were there any political affinities and in a way, I think very widely and I guess we'll go into it more but I feel politically in my work, I'm really about seeking out ways that we can build healthy relationship, healthier relationships and systems that address imbalance, the flow of power.
Rasheeqa:Because obviously that is a massive aspect of how we experience life, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:And I think that were the things we talked about with the Rad Herb Gathering were, what are all the things that affect health?
Rasheeqa:Politically looking at it through a framework of Yeah, all of the inequalities and health care injustice, social injustice and environmental destruction that are affecting our health as communities and as individuals.
Rasheeqa:I think that always is a thread through the work that I'm doing.
Rasheeqa:But it's been a very fun journey to not to be practicing alone, but always to be, I know you do this but to be in collaboration with other people in the work.
Rasheeqa:And then, yes, there's a big key element in recent years has been the community apothecary project that I mentioned, which is a collaborative a project really where we're growing medicine gardens together.
Rasheeqa:With people and with the herbs that we're growing, making remedies and medicines collectively.
Rasheeqa:For me, it's all about how do people come together to learn about herbal medicine, where it fits, what role it can play in our lives and how it can connect us with the land that we live in.
Rasheeqa:But also with our own bodies and our healing journeys.
Nicole:Amazing.
Nicole:So yeah, like I can see on your website and stuff and all the things you put out that there's this kind of like strong piece of like being a community herbalist and obviously you do, you know, clinical practice as well, but what does kind of like, yeah, being a kind of community herbalist mean to you?
Rasheeqa:Yeah, it's such a nice question that because people do it in many different ways, don't they?
Rasheeqa:And I think my way really developed just through doing it rather than having a big strong vision at the outset.
Rasheeqa:I just followed this path where it felt like, Oh, this is such a collective communal activity, historically and traditionally in cultures all over the world, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:To, to be practicing together.
Rasheeqa:With our knowledge of our relationships with plants and the seasonality of it and going out together to harvest.
Rasheeqa:And for me it was, I think it's always been about knowing a rich mix of plants and a wide range of people in the place that I live.
Rasheeqa:I always remember when I first went to study at the Scottish School of Herbal Medicine in Glasgow, and Keith Robertson who was one of the founders of the school, said to me, you know, you need to really be rooted.
Rasheeqa:Grounded in a place to be a herbalist with your fingers in the soil and I think I did come to realize that later and because I guess I have been a person that's moved around a lot and doing this work in a way has meant that I've stayed in the one place that I've, where I'm living now for the last 12, 13 years.
Rasheeqa:And that feels like the way that you do develop a community practice, doesn't it?
Rasheeqa:That you, it takes time.
Rasheeqa:And, but yeah, I think for me it means being in relationship with lots of different people.
Rasheeqa:Knowing what the land is around me, the streets and the wild parks and where the places are.
Rasheeqa:And, sorry, where the plants are and where they grow at different times of year.
Rasheeqa:And also being open to questioning and to difference.
Rasheeqa:We live within the, you know, settings of a lot of difference, don't we?
Rasheeqa:And not having sort of fixed or rigid ideas around that.
Rasheeqa:And, yeah, being able to, learning and to responding to the needs that I see around me.
Rasheeqa:And a big part, learn, part of my learning in the last couple of years is Realising that you also need to have space for your, I need to have space for my own health, because you can get so excited and driven by your work that you're just doing nothing but that.
Rasheeqa:And I'd say, I feel, I feel like a really, a life part of it is sharing connections between each other, so being a channel of flow between people, it feels really nice and satisfying to be able to say, Oh, I can't necessarily help you with this particular thing, but I do know someone else that, that may have the capacity or the skill to help with a certain thing.
Rasheeqa:So sort of being this, yeah, being part of a web of connections where people are able to support each other mutually and not being a gatekeeper of things.
Rasheeqa:Yeah, I think that's some of the things I'd say in response to that question.
Nicole:Yeah, I've always thought you're like a real, like amazing kind of like node in herbalism of it's like you meet anyone in London who's into herbalism and they're like, Rasheeqa, Rasheeqa, Rasheeqa.
Nicole:And it's like, yeah, I think maybe you don't realize your impact almost of it's like very local, but actually it's still like much broader than that.
Nicole:If that makes sense in terms of.
Nicole:Inspiration and relationships and like yeah.
Nicole:I think I'm quite jealous because I kind of like, used to do shit loads of community organizing near me in this Feed Avalon workers co op, like community food courses and stuff.
Nicole:And I think I just got so burnt out from like, facilitating and hosting groups and like, I guess the demographics near me, like the biggest local town is Glastonbury.
Nicole:And it's like, I just don't always feel like affinity with people like politically or just kind of I have a maybe a bit of like new age prejudice stuff going on because of my politics and my childhood and stuff.
Nicole:So I've kind of like, yeah, like yearned for that local community, but like.
Nicole:struggle with it at the same time if that makes sense and my whole life's been going to prisons all around the country visiting friends so it's like somehow all these people affected by the prison system are like my community but we're not like geographic.
Nicole:Does that make any sense?
Rasheeqa:Very much so, yeah.
Rasheeqa:Yeah I really hear you on that because I remember in those early days when we first did the gathering didn't we at your place and I remember you were more involved with the the sort of food projects and that so but I really understand that because when you are, it's about your experience isn't it and where your work is and obviously I've been following your work and your writings through the time I think we sit in in quite different positions, don't we, in our work, and sort of conversely, I've always felt that you're doing such powerful work in the, in the real sense of resistance and activism, aren't you?
Rasheeqa:And I sometimes feel about myself, I'm a bit mild, I'm not doing things in that very directed political way.
Rasheeqa:And I think it's a journey of going, are we all We all have our positions, don't we, of where we're sitting and what we're contributing to things, and it feels very strengthening to know that you're there doing that and critiquing the, the relational dynamics that we live in, because they're always present, aren't they?
Rasheeqa:And how is it that we that we are with them, that we respond to them.
Rasheeqa:So I think as it feels very strong to have you to learn from, that we have each other to learn from in the journeys that we're in.
Rasheeqa:And I know for sure that, you know, everyone I'm in connection with through, through my teaching and different networks here in London.
Rasheeqa:Are always in awe of your work and the things that you make, and then your books are always present, you know, and in workshops and this kind of thing.
Rasheeqa:So I feel like, yeah, what are the lessons that we can learn from each other as we go on about how we connect and how we relate because they must be relevant, mustn't they, in, in, in all these different spheres.
Rasheeqa:And yeah, I guess with your work, it's quite a special, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:There's not, there are people, but I don't know of many people here that are doing that very particular intersection of plant medicine, herbal medicine in the.
Rasheeqa:prison abolition and the resistance to state violence work.
Rasheeqa:So it feels we, yeah, we need to be supporting each other, don't we, in our different strands of work and how do they influence each other as well?
Rasheeqa:Because I think, yeah, even in the community work, it's very possible, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:For for the inequalities and for the weird dynamics of power that are present everywhere to, to still replicate in the garden, in the community gardens.
Rasheeqa:And it's like, how do we.
Rasheeqa:Yeah, how do we go about responding to that?
Rasheeqa:In what way is the fact that we're doing community herbalism work?
Rasheeqa:How are we also bringing in the political framework and that sort of reparative justice lens or paying attention to access and inequality?
Rasheeqa:And that's something that, you know, we're still really figuring out, I think, in, for example, in our project here.
Rasheeqa:Yeah, I hope that sort of made sense about, yeah, because we all look at each other, don't we, and what we're doing, and go, oh, they're doing amazing things, and yeah.
Nicole:Yeah.
Nicole:Yeah, I really see it as, like, different, like, niches, almost, in a whole ecosystem of things that are going on, and, like, I was writing this piece for this state violence book, Herbalism, State Violence, and about kind of like responses to like war and you know like in the second world war these different like herb committees and stuff that were harvesting plants to make medicines with and it's like the backbone of that infrastructure is like always local right like it's always People and relationships and infrastructure that they know each other.
Nicole:They've got the skills to make medicine and harvest together and like share knowledge and stuff.
Nicole:And yeah, it just kind of shows how like, yeah, you need like all of it.
Nicole:But yeah, in terms of the community apothecary, could you share like a little bit more, you've mentioned it already, but like a little bit more about like what's happening with that and what it involves.
Rasheeqa:Yeah, sure.
Rasheeqa:Yeah.
Rasheeqa:Yeah, no, it's really true.
Rasheeqa:It sort of works at multiple levels, doesn't it?
Rasheeqa:It makes me think of Organic Lea that we've been closely connected with, that are a food growing workers co op here in, in London where we are.
Rasheeqa:And they very explicitly in their mission and statement and so on, talk about working really at the local level and developing skills in people and changing the local food system, but also having the political aims around liberation and supporting the peasant farmers movement on, in a global way.
Rasheeqa:So yeah, I think it's true what you say, that it works at these different, these different levels.
Rasheeqa:And yeah, community apothecary.
Rasheeqa:Has really been supported by organically and that's where it feels like collaborative approaches and solidarity with each other have been so helpful.
Rasheeqa:But the project started it's been in I suppose It's really grown through a bit through organic iterative phases through the last maybe five six years and it started off I'd say with Me doing lots of teaching around London and taking lots of things, you know And you're always slogging around with loads of things and materials and stuff And carrying things and going.
Rasheeqa:Oh, I wish that I had a place This is the commonest wish, isn't it, of everyone?
Rasheeqa:Wish that I had a place that we could just do everything in.
Rasheeqa:But also realising that, you know, starting to do teaching and workshops and things in Walthamstow and all around London through the years, starting to realise that there, that there is such Such a core of people that really love this, love this, are connected with herbs, are connected with plants, with going out and learning about the landscape, but also making medicines.
Rasheeqa:There's plenty of people, isn't there, that are already herbalists, not necessarily having done what, what you and I have done in the sense of a degree course, but.
Rasheeqa:They are just innately connected with plants and they're doing things themselves at home or in their community.
Rasheeqa:And it's some, this is the type of thing we've always been talking about with the Radical Herbalism Collective is around the different kinds of practices of herbalism, as a, sorry, as a herbalist.
Rasheeqa:And What does it mean?
Rasheeqa:And that sort of hierarchizing of different forms of knowledge.
Rasheeqa:But yeah, so meeting all these different people.
Rasheeqa:And I think that's one difference as well between London and places like where you are.
Rasheeqa:And places where there's just fewer people.
Rasheeqa:In London you've just always got this infinite flow of people that are coming through with strong ideas and inputs and skills.
Rasheeqa:So that's felt like it's been a real a big part of my practice developing is I've had this abundance of people to, to work with.
Rasheeqa:But yeah, coming into this place of having lots of connections between people and with different projects around London and gardens through my work, I started to feel like, oh, it's such a collective communal practice doing herbal medicine and lots of hands make it happen.
Rasheeqa:Like it's a lot of labor, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:If you're a herbalist who's doing a clinical practice and then you're doing other activity like teaching and then you're medicine making and then you're going and harvesting herbs.
Rasheeqa:I remember Anwen from the Rad Herb Collective saying each one of those could be a whole job in itself.
Rasheeqa:And so I started to feel like, oh, it's such a lot of work and we need more people to do it.
Rasheeqa:And maybe through this.
Rasheeqa:process of teaching people, it could be that we form a collective of people that are interested and through their learning, they're actually making medicines together.
Rasheeqa:And if we had a place to do that, that'd be the apothecary, the place where people come and get the herbs, but also come and learn.
Rasheeqa:And it could also be a clinic.
Rasheeqa:So in a way, it's not a completely novel or original idea.
Rasheeqa:And it was a little bit me going, Oh, I can't do this on my own.
Rasheeqa:We need to do it all together.
Rasheeqa:Also having a vision of a place that people could come to, to be supported in their health care, but in a way that's peer supported and not, maybe not necessarily with that whole hierarchy of, you know, the practitioner and the person that's coming for treatment.
Rasheeqa:And it costs a lot of money, but how do we do it in a more mutual and collective way?
Rasheeqa:Where it's co created and, you know, having this vision of groups of us going out and gathering herbs at different time of year as a way to also be in our landscape and to know the cycle of the seasons.
Rasheeqa:So all of this, and every, every time I was teaching or doing an activity, I'd just speak to people about it and say, Oh, I want to make this community apothecary and who's interested?
Rasheeqa:And I started to build a mailing list of people that were saying, yeah, yeah, we'd be interested in getting involved in some way.
Rasheeqa:And then, through speaking with Brian Kelly, who's a member of the co op at Organic Lea, which is this food growing amazing project in Chinford in North London, where they've got a growing site on the edge of Epping Forest, where now it's going into quite a multi layered project where they grow food, they do a veg bag for the local area for Waltham Forest, Borough of Waltham Forest, do a lot of horticultural training, do various different projects that are centred around land care and things like biodiversity.
Rasheeqa:So yeah, multiple things they do and do have a good track record of supporting groups in the locality and different projects to get going, you know.
Rasheeqa:So, yeah, I feel that they have a strength of belief in saying we are not The only people doing this work, we want to be in collaboration with others that are doing it and support, like you said, an ecosystem.
Rasheeqa:So for example, at the moment, they've set up a food growing partnership or network around the whole area.
Rasheeqa:That's about supporting the growing of food, the distribution of food as a way to make.
Rasheeqa:yeah, make better health in the, in the eating of people in this area.
Rasheeqa:But anyway, I had a conversation with Brian at one point a few years ago about this idea of the community apothecary and he said, oh, it's a really good idea.
Rasheeqa:Why don't you make it real?
Rasheeqa:Bring it out of the ether, put it on the street.
Rasheeqa:And it was because of that, really, that it started to take shape because Organic.
Rasheeqa:ly then started to include the idea in project sort of funding bids or project plans that they had and having access to land was a big one that they have lots of connections with.
Rasheeqa:With the local council and with housing associations and private residents with little pockets of land where it might not be being used.
Rasheeqa:And they may have a system set up where they were sending food growers that they'd trained to start growing salad and veg in these sites.
Rasheeqa:So they started saying to us, Oh, look, there's a space here.
Rasheeqa:There's a garden here.
Rasheeqa:Why don't you, do you want to access it and come and start growing the herbs?
Rasheeqa:And that could be a way to actually route the project.
Rasheeqa:In the, in the ground, because at that point I was connected with Izzy, who is had been training with Organicly and had got funding from Unlimited to start a little garden where she was growing herbs because she was interested in ecotherapy and she wanted to make products with the herbs.
Rasheeqa:And then Hemena, who's an amazing grower.
Rasheeqa:at that time was growing salad with growing communities and she was also very passionate about herbs and the three of us started to think about what the project could look like and so concurrently through Organic Lee we started to cultivate these herb gardens and that was probably around 2017, 2018, that kind of time, the very start of it and it's been on quite a big journey since then where we started cultivating herbs.
Rasheeqa:The idea has always been to involve people locally to understand, okay, What are the healthcare needs in our community?
Rasheeqa:What sort of herbs might we grow in response?
Rasheeqa:And then how do we involve people?
Rasheeqa:So we started to grow herbs and to do monthly medicine making workshops where people could come together to learn about making a specific remedy for seasonal medicine with the herbs from the garden.
Rasheeqa:So they We share knowledge together.
Rasheeqa:They also gain the skill of making the medicine, but then we also make a big batch of medicine that would be then available locally.
Rasheeqa:And that's pretty much been the structure of it since then, but we've developed and changed and through the every year become a little bit more established with We've actually registered as a community interest company, so become, you know, a business, a company that brings with it a whole lot of stuff I guess as you know.
Rasheeqa:And we've got four people working as a collective now, so there's Izzy.
Rasheeqa:Myself and also Johnny and Jane, two others who have joined us to work at the main garden that we have, which is a place called Mulberry Close in Chingford, where it's a big hillside allotment that we're growing herbs and do sessions every week that people can come and get involved in learning about the land and about the plants.
Rasheeqa:Cultivating herbs and then harvesting them through the year.
Rasheeqa:I'm going to stop there because I feel like I've been speaking for ages in case you want to jump in and ask anything particular.
Nicole:No, that's amazing.
Nicole:I was just wondering, this is just like shameless personal curiosity, but Yeah, now you've registered as a CIC.
Nicole:I know, yeah, I know from experience what a nightmare all that stuff is but it does enable you to get grants and resources and stuff.
Nicole:Do you have anyone doing things like in a paid capacity, like coordinating stuff or teaching things or is it all kind of like is everyone a volunteer or like how, how do you navigate that stuff?
Rasheeqa:Yeah, so I'll speak about that.
Rasheeqa:And so when we first started, it was voluntary.
Rasheeqa:We were all just doing it because we were exploring the idea and we wanted to see what could happen.
Rasheeqa:At the moment we're all paid, all four of us.
Rasheeqa:So it's been a journey from those early days of the three of us, Izzy, Hermena, and I starting to.
Rasheeqa:have meetings and think about what could a community pottery look like.
Rasheeqa:At that time, we were all working in our own work as, you know, Jimena as a grower, Izzy doing training and, and different bits of work and myself in my clinic and the other things.
Rasheeqa:So at that time, it didn't feel immediately like, Oh, we need to be earning money from this.
Rasheeqa:It was more, we've got this vision, we've got this dream.
Rasheeqa:How do we start to step towards it?
Rasheeqa:And then as we went on, we were obviously putting more time into it.
Rasheeqa:As the garden, yeah, as the gardens became made, yeah, organically we practically said, oh, we've got these gardens, do you want to start cultivating them?
Rasheeqa:That meant we were obviously putting time into thinking about what, how we were going to cultivate these gardens.
Rasheeqa:We were really fortunate.
Rasheeqa:Yes, that's what happened.
Rasheeqa:So, as it began, and I was teaching, and we had the blessing of being supported by this organization called Necessity which you know of, Nicole, I think and that was, has been through a personal relationship, in a way, with one of the people who coordinate this project, which is about supporting people and projects that are doing grassroots work, and it's about giving seed funding really but doing, yeah, supporting projects that are, I'm just gonna kind of read from their website projects that explore and expose the oppressive ties of the circumstances that we're living in to seemingly inescapable powers and systems and so they're effectively supporting projects that are resisting or challenging or transforming oppressed systems of oppression that we live in.
Rasheeqa:And building solidarity and collaboration between us all.
Rasheeqa:And through this connection, yeah, with Julie, one of the people from Necessity who had been, who had a personal interest in, in the community herbalism work and had come and said, Oh, would it be helpful to have financial support for this project?
Rasheeqa:Which I was obviously like, wow, yeah, that's amazing.
Rasheeqa:So it's really, yeah, that's been a major empowerment, I'd say, in the development of this project is having that support.
Rasheeqa:From necessity, it enabled us to start paying ourselves a little bit to get, you know, to be able to pay for infrastructure of the gardens in the beginning, like building a shed and getting tools.
Rasheeqa:Buying plants and buying seeds, this kind of thing.
Rasheeqa:So we had this startup money.
Rasheeqa:And then as that went on, it feels like it does go in this inevitable direction, doesn't it?
Rasheeqa:Because the three of us would definitely, we're not business people.
Rasheeqa:We had this dream of what we were doing, but we didn't necessarily have the idea of, oh, we're going to have to put all these systems in place.
Rasheeqa:But again, through Organic Lea supporting us as in a way a mentoring organization.
Rasheeqa:And showing us the ways that they'd developed in early days, as well as people like Nat from Hackney Herbal.
Rasheeqa:It's been really supportive because Hackney Herbal originally set up as a CIC as well, and it's in a way, yeah, it is a structure that enables you to apply for funding and it means that it's community interest companies are the whole idea is like whatever income you make you're putting it back into the work which is oriented around working in your community.
Rasheeqa:So yeah, we just went more and more in this direction of going all right so.
Rasheeqa:If we're going to continue this and we're going to build it, then it does need resource behind it.
Rasheeqa:So we started to apply for different pots of money as well, again, supported by Brian and Organic Lea, so things like awards for all from the National Lottery Community Fund.
Rasheeqa:And then there's been other pots of money that we've applied for, like last year's from groundwork.
Rasheeqa:Which is an organization that looks at land regeneration and environmental stuff.
Rasheeqa:And we got a bit of a pop from them from the Our Space project.
Rasheeqa:So there's been these different sort of community garden environment, these types of funding pops that we've been applying for.
Rasheeqa:Which has meant that, yeah, we've had to become more systematic about what we need, you know, income wise, and now that there's four people, so yeah, we've been paying ourselves, I would say, for at least the last three years, for the hours that we do.
Rasheeqa:I think, as you know, you're always doing loads more work than than what you're being paid for.
Rasheeqa:But it has been in many ways a big labor of love.
Rasheeqa:But there has also been a commitment to it.
Rasheeqa:And we've got this steering group Cat and Mel who are always saying, look, you do need to be sustainable.
Rasheeqa:So you need to be able to keep living and keep working, doing it and figure out ways that whilst being fair and still keeping the project, it has always got to be accessible.
Rasheeqa:How do you also sustain it financially?
Rasheeqa:So at the moment, the four of us are paid.
Rasheeqa:We've had, we've got one other gardening, horticulture.
Rasheeqa:Sessional worker and trainer, Kathy, who's paid, we had a little phase of paying sessional workers for coming in to cover garden sessions and workshops and then through the last year, I've had to sort of pull back a little bit to really focus on, okay, we're going to need such and such amount of money each year to keep running it and thinking about applying for more funding and so on.
Rasheeqa:So yeah, that's always a concern, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:Like, how do you keep it going?
Rasheeqa:What are the ways that you can keep going while still living in your beliefs and your values?
Rasheeqa:And the funding system is, I mean, we're really blessed again to be being supported by Organic Lea and Brian who's you know, work, working together with us on doing funding applications.
Rasheeqa:Yeah, and it's a time, I guess, isn't it, when there's ever more focus on health and well being in connection with the natural world, as it's called, and green activism and all this kind of thing.
Rasheeqa:So in a way, there are resources that we can access that way.
Rasheeqa:Which, you know, as you just said, it's just such a whole nother world, isn't it, that I didn't start being a, come into being a herbalist to do, so that's been quite uncomfortable as well.
Nicole:Yeah, I know, I know the fundraising game well, it's very, it's very tiring, but I think it's great to talk about it and be, like, for people to be, like, not honest about it, but it's like, Yeah, like, my, my personal opinion around funding is that, like, if something can be funded, like, if something is too radical to not be funded, then I'll do it for free.
Nicole:Like, I will traipse around the country visiting friends in prison, I'll organise abolitionist stuff that, like, no one's ever going to fund, or I wouldn't want them to fund, because, you know, we, we want to have, like, total integrity or whatever, but, like, for things that are, like, You know, can tick that box on a grant application.
Nicole:Why not fucking do it, right?
Nicole:Like, I used to love it with Feed Avalon that we could pay people, like, we had five people working and nearly everyone before the co op was on benefits, like, single parents, and like, then people, like, You know, like really improve their lives by getting paid, right?
Nicole:So, yeah, I think, I think it is necessary for like, yeah, long term projects.
Nicole:You know, I also really acknowledge this whole not for profit industrial complex stuff and this horrible grant cycle and things.
Nicole:But yeah, no, it's super interesting.
Nicole:So, yeah, I also had a question because you were involved in the mobile apothecary, right?
Nicole:I know all these projects, it's like, apothecary this, apothecary that.
Nicole:I think you mentioned you're not involved anymore, but I just wondered if you could speak to what that kind of involved or where that Is that now, if you know.
Rasheeqa:Yeah, sure.
Rasheeqa:Yeah.
Rasheeqa:So mobile, it started, I think it was around 2018 and it was coming out of Phytology which is a a multi site in a way.
Rasheeqa:It's an art site specific installation location.
Rasheeqa:It's a medicine garden.
Rasheeqa:It's a woodland.
Rasheeqa:It's located at a place called Bethnal Green Nature Reserve in East London.
Rasheeqa:And it's got a big lot of story around it, but I suppose where I came in was through Shumaisa, who's a friend who had been working in community gardening and permaculture and Islamic ecology.
Rasheeqa:So I'd known Shumaisa for some years.
Rasheeqa:She's also been at the radical herbalism gathering and she practically got a job at Phytology at Bethnal Green Nature Reserve working with Michael who had initiated the project, the Phytology project there as a way for people to access green space and biodiversity and develop biodiversity in a, you know, very intense urban area of London.
Rasheeqa:And it was a time when Yeah, I suppose it's the same time that I was talking about the ideas of the community apothecary and this circularity of sharing of resources through our connection with the land and through growing herbs and the idea of collectively.
Rasheeqa:I suppose collectively connecting with herb growing and medicine making and how can that be a way to mutually support our health care where we live.
Rasheeqa:So through conversations with Shumaisa who was saying, Oh, you've got a fund to phytology and we should be, we should do some things there.
Rasheeqa:And it was also around the same time that of having conversations with Melissa.
Rasheeqa:And you and, you know, people around the activity of going to support people living in, in refugee camps in Calais and Dunkirk.
Rasheeqa:And that whole idea that again, that solidarity model of, right, okay, if we have the capacity, can we bring herbal medicine to people in response to, you know, materially in response to you know, the horror of the physical situation, but also as a way to articulate our resistance to these systems of border violence and racism.
Rasheeqa:So yeah, kind of a mixture of all these conversations.
Rasheeqa:And because We I felt quite, yeah, I was starting to feel quite, I suppose, quite located in where I live and looking at the systems where, you know, where, where, where I'm very present the streets where I live and thinking, oh, in a way, I feel like I want to put my energy into responding to healthcare inequality here where I live.
Rasheeqa:And so yeah, through conversations with Shumaisa, Michael and a few other people at that time who had come in through the route of being interested in the Herbalists Without Borders activity.
Rasheeqa:So I think initially we'd been talking about making medicines in the garden that would contribute to the project at the time of going to Calais.
Rasheeqa:But then we sort of shifted the focus a little bit and started speaking about how numbers of rough sleepers in that area in Hackney seemed, looked like they were increasing and about refugee community kitchen that were doing hot food, hot food distribution regularly at Bethnal Green Tube, I think once a week and in a couple of other locations through the week.
Rasheeqa:And so we started to say, what about if we did.
Rasheeqa:Workshops where we come together to make medicines and then those remedies we could give out on the street alongside refugee community kitchen.
Rasheeqa:And that's how it started.
Rasheeqa:Really.
Rasheeqa:We did one little pilot workshop in the garden.
Rasheeqa:It's a very beautiful space that, that Bethnal Green Nature Reserve with a medicine garden.
Rasheeqa:And so we did a session that was pretty well attended and people were really into the idea of the sort of pay it forward model as Lorna.
Rasheeqa:And from herbalist I always used to call it this way of exchanging where people contribute or pay for the workshop and that covers the materials and the time, some of the time of the facilitators and then through that process we collectively make medicines and so that's how it began.
Rasheeqa:I think we start doing monthly sessions at the garden or in the community centre next to the garden to make batches of certain things that from talking with refugee community kitchen and people that were accessing it.
Rasheeqa:You know, finding out what kinds of things might be helpful in terms of herbal medicine on the street.
Rasheeqa:So sort of things like warming joint, joint and muscle rubs and balm or cough syrups and this kind of thing.
Rasheeqa:And that's how it started and I think went on for probably a year or so.
Rasheeqa:In that model of the workshops making the medicines coming out.
Rasheeqa:Oh, and then, yeah, so Michael had got funding to have a cargo bike made that was originally meant to be for another project, but then he said, oh, well, let's make this the mobile apothecary and we'll bring it out.
Rasheeqa:So we would come out, I think initially it was once a month alongside the RCK and start giving out medicines and that's how it began and went on for a little while.
Rasheeqa:But then changed because of the COVID situation happening.
Rasheeqa:At the start of 2020.
Rasheeqa:Amazing.
Nicole:What, what was the kind of response like from like people who were like houseless or rough sleepers and hackney and stuff?
Nicole:Like, cause I think, yeah, it's like, it is such a different model to Calais in the sense of we're always driving people to hospital or like advocating.
Nicole:like in the clinic, like in the like the French state clinic for health care and stuff like that.
Nicole:I just wondered like what, what kinds of medicines were kind of given out specifically and like if, yeah, like what other, was there any other kind of responses to people's health needs if that makes sense or was it just like, hey this is the thing, like this is the pack, you know, kind of hope it's helpful sort of thing.
Nicole:Does that make sense?
Rasheeqa:Yes, yeah very much, yeah because it is quite a different situation isn't it, where you're working this quite intense, acute, yeah, sort of context, whereas we just appeared, you know, in a way there are it's not always straightforward, is it, to say, Right, okay, here we are, we're going to come and start giving medicines, and that's always been a discomfort and a caution of mine, of, I suppose it's something you learn as you start practicing as a herbalist, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:That you can't just start pushing herbs on anyone and expecting everything to be fine, and that's a big part of the, the sort of learning I've done through the years.
Rasheeqa:Is that.
Rasheeqa:We have this underlying system, particularly in this country, where there's such a disparity between the dominating primary health care system and then other modalities like herbal medicine.
Rasheeqa:So I think it felt quite important at the beginning to, to understand.
Rasheeqa:I've always felt strongly that we need to understand what the needs are and then Yeah, this is how I feel, and then be responsive to it.
Rasheeqa:So we might have our ideas of what could be useful as such medicine, but I think in the beginning we turned up, we had the mobile, we'd done the initial workshop where we'd dug up.
Rasheeqa:Okay, so that's how it happened that because we'd been talking with Melissa about remedies that were being made to bring to Calais, and one of them was the cough glycerite or cough syrup, and it was partly with a campaign route, and there was a big lot of Ella, beautiful Elecampane at the Phytology Garden.
Rasheeqa:So the very first workshop I think was about that we went to the garden and we dug up and a campaign route together and learned about the plant a little bit.
Rasheeqa:And then in workshop came and washed it and chopped it.
Rasheeqa:And I think gave Melissa.
Rasheeqa:A certain amount of the dried root and then went through the process of making a syrup together as well.
Rasheeqa:So that would have been one of the early remedies that we brought, but a big part of it in the beginning, there was a little crew of us, maybe about.
Rasheeqa:you know, six, seven people initially that we would come out together.
Rasheeqa:Not everyone, it'd be sort of three people coming out for a session where a big part of it was talking to people.
Rasheeqa:And because we were setting up alongside the refugee community kitchen, hot food distribution set up, We had the chance then to chat with people and obviously people were curious because it was another thing, a new thing next to it.
Rasheeqa:We would always have a big pot of tea, of something seasonal that we would give out to people and the medicines were for anyone, anyone that wanted to come and take some they could, but obviously the primary intention was to support people who were living in, yeah, houseless conditions or Not having access to healthcare or as, as, as much as was necessary for them.
Rasheeqa:So we would then chat to people and say what, how, you know, what would be helpful for you.
Rasheeqa:But the beautiful thing in the reception of it was that plenty of people were really enthusiastic and that was so nice because, and also people from many different cultures, so people, you know, the way that people get it often if they've grown up not in the UK where there is this this real hierarchy isn't there of belief in, in healthcare, in different systems.
Rasheeqa:But a lot of people from Europe, from Asia, from Africa would come and be like, Oh yeah, I know this.
Rasheeqa:This is familiar to me.
Rasheeqa:We use this in our, you know, in my place, in our family.
Rasheeqa:So there was a bit of an immediate connection because it was herbal medicine.
Rasheeqa:And we started to have a few people that would, we'd see regularly every time we were there who would stand and chat and also start to feed back on some of the things.
Rasheeqa:So yeah, I suppose we had a bit of a system of asking people what, what they would find helpful or useful and also asking them for feedback on the remedies.
Rasheeqa:So a big one.
Rasheeqa:A big sort of popular or favorite one initially was the skin type preparation.
Rasheeqa:So joint and muscle rub and also a skin balm that was made with calendula.
Rasheeqa:We, we experimented with a few different remedies, I think, through that first year.
Rasheeqa:So, I would facilitate workshops with Shumaisa.
Rasheeqa:And then we had Melissa come and do, I think, one or two through that summer.
Rasheeqa:So we're trying to understand to figure out what, yeah, what is really helpful for people.
Rasheeqa:And there was a few, we had a book where we'd, every time we were out, write feedback or write requests that people were making.
Rasheeqa:And be responsive to that.
Rasheeqa:So, yeah, I think.
Rasheeqa:Yeah, things that would help skin.
Rasheeqa:Obviously, people are experiencing a lot of different skin situations with chronic infection or rash or irritation and affect from cold and then some digestive things and then respiratory was a big area of health, like people living with COPD, or yeah, often having coughs, colds, this kind of thing.
Rasheeqa:So I think we started to be responsive in that way.
Rasheeqa:Always having some form of immune tonic and fire cider, I think is something that is great to make in big batches, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:And to give out.
Rasheeqa:And so you'd have quite, Yeah, yeah, you'd have really informative conversations with people about how they found it and they might suggest things themselves that they knew or that they'd made that they'd found helpful.
Rasheeqa:So it felt important for it to be you know, an interactive communicative process.
Rasheeqa:Int In terms of, yeah, the effectiveness, I think, yeah, that level you feel like you are supporting people because they return and they keep asking for more remedies and it is helpful.
Rasheeqa:In terms of how it connects in the wider ecosystem, I think that is always an ongoing challenge.
Rasheeqa:And then at one point, I, I I think probably two or three years ago, because the community apothecary project was becoming more and more.
Rasheeqa:Established and taking up more energy and capacity.
Rasheeqa:I felt that it wasn't possible for me to be part of organizing too.
Rasheeqa:major projects in that way.
Rasheeqa:So I stepped out and I can talk more about how it's continued as, as far as I know, but I'm not directly involved with it anymore.
Rasheeqa:And the COVID also was a big interruption in, in its development.
Rasheeqa:But I remember Melissa coming one time and talking about, okay, to be potentially more effective, perhaps it's also about developing relationships with other healthcare provision in the locality becoming part of an ecology.
Rasheeqa:Where things are connected up, because obviously there's so much going on, isn't there, in people's lives, especially if people are living in those sorts of circumstances.
Rasheeqa:So, yeah, you may be supporting at a certain level, but how much, yeah, where is it acting yeah, at a deeper level in the whole system is something to think about.
Nicole:Yeah, I think, yeah, I would love to have another podcast interview with people that have done similar projects, like, because I think there's just like so many layers to it, isn't there, of, yeah, like, gauging community needs and like, yeah, how do you refer, like, if someone's got pneumonia and you've just given them a cough syrup, are they then thinking that they've had treatment, or like, it's so, yeah, there's so many layers to it, but also, I think, like, people shouldn't be scared of doing things for fear of that, if that makes sense, like, I think.
Nicole:a lot of people don't practice community herbalism or like mutual aid projects stuff like this out of fear of it not being enough and actually you know it's really beautiful that you said you had a book writing down feedback like I wish we'd done that in Calais because it would probably be the best thing ever to like read back to yourself but like I mean we we get feedback from people in terms of medicines and stuff and assess needs but I mean like actual like beautiful comments that people have said like I think they've just disappeared into the kind of like adrenaline filled clinic, if that makes sense.
Nicole:But yeah, the, the next question was about a project which again was also a long time ago, but I think I was hoping you could speak to it so that I could include a tiny little bit about it in this herbalism and state violence book.
Nicole:I remember coming and giving a workshop about prison and abolition as part of your women's health project, which was supporting people who been like formally detained.
Nicole:I can't remember if that was just people who'd been in immigration detention or whether also prison.
Nicole:But I wondered if you could share a little bit about how that project was designed and what happened in practice.
Nicole:Yeah.
Nicole:And just like, how did you find herbalism supportive for women who'd been in detention?
Rasheeqa:Yeah, the Women's Health Project.
Rasheeqa:So that is quite a long lot of years ago now, and that was initiated by Lisa Fannin who's a friend of both of ours, who's an amazing person that's done a right big mixture of work around, Yeah, around healthcare activism, systems change, writing, performance, many things.
Rasheeqa:And yeah, Lisa had had this idea of starting a project to support women who had been detained, and it was immigration detention.
Rasheeqa:But other people have been through the justice system as well, not only immigration detention.
Rasheeqa:And Lisa had been, has been such a massive inspiration in the sense of I mean, she was part of the Radical Herbalism Collective and had done a lot of peer sharing community work around Yeah, radical approaches to health care.
Rasheeqa:So I've been working with Lisa doing things like teaching of workshops.
Rasheeqa:For example, at Walworth Garden, which is a community garden in South London.
Rasheeqa:And she'd had the idea of developing a whole project around.
Rasheeqa:herbal medicine as an empowering modality for systems change and doing it, it was called in our hands.
Rasheeqa:So the idea of having the knowledge and the practice in our hands and having more healthcare autonomy.
Rasheeqa:And so that was always such a strong guiding principle in her work.
Rasheeqa:The political analysis with how we approach the health care.
Rasheeqa:And so this particular project, it was really developed as the idea of not just a provision of a service.
Rasheeqa:But as a way to support people to access different healing practices, whilst also exploring resistance to the systems of injustice with the, you know, with the prison system.
Rasheeqa:And.
Rasheeqa:What we did was gather together a little collective of different practitioners.
Rasheeqa:So we had myself as a herbalist and there was different massage and massage practitioners and body workers and Caro, who's doing sound healing.
Rasheeqa:And yeah, the, the aim of it was to connect with women who both were already in prison or were being supported by organizations after their time in prison.
Rasheeqa:And so we connected, I think it was a charity called Women in Prison.
Rasheeqa:Can you remember Nicole?
Rasheeqa:I'm not sure if it was that or if it was a
Nicole:I'm not, I'm not sure I'd have to, I'll go ahead and check with Lisa.
Rasheeqa:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rasheeqa:But yeah, so there was a, we were trying it through a few different channels really, and we had been going to see about actually coming into, I think it was.
Rasheeqa:It was Pentonville to work with women there and there was the idea of working around nutrition and cooking and it just felt like there were, yeah, in that particular aspect there were barriers and it didn't work out to do that and then we were offered space at this particular charity's offices to work with people, to work with women, offering different sessions.
Rasheeqa:So it was quite a mix really, so we had group sessions.
Rasheeqa:Where we were doing collective practice around things like massage and the sound work and then one to one sessions.
Rasheeqa:We'd say as with me offering herbal consultation and treatment and then body work as well.
Rasheeqa:And yeah, we set up as a program of a certain number of months, I think.
Rasheeqa:With this idea of having this sort of political framing of it.
Rasheeqa:And I think in some ways it was beautiful because we did connect with a group of women who were able to come together and a big part of it was around developing more autonomy and self care practices which to some extent did happen.
Rasheeqa:But again, I think in the way as is so common because it was a project based funding pot that we'd got to make it happen.
Rasheeqa:It meant that it was time limited.
Rasheeqa:So it went on for a few months and you develop these relationships with people which feel meaningful and which feel important at the time.
Rasheeqa:And I think to some extent were helpful, but then obviously.
Rasheeqa:Yeah.
Rasheeqa:we weren't continuing the project.
Rasheeqa:And so that you know, that stopping, that lack of continuity means that, okay, how far have you gone in your aim of sort of conveying the politics of what we're doing?
Rasheeqa:And people were in, were in such different situations.
Rasheeqa:So you've got people, women that Coming out of prison who are from here, who obviously are living in circumstances that have elements of trauma in them.
Rasheeqa:And then other women that have gone through the immigration system, and again, were coming from places often of extreme trauma and pain.
Rasheeqa:And then it's being exacerbated by the journey that they have to go through here, arriving here and going through the detention system here.
Rasheeqa:So, you know, we're coming from very different places in this, we had a lot more privilege in being able to offer this, but also we're not necessarily staying with them as they continue on their journey, if that makes sense.
Rasheeqa:So I feel that there were there were strong aims and desires in setting up the project, but then in how it works in actuality, there, there are maybe problematics and working within the context of that charity organization as well, that you, you know, you meet people working there and they're not at all coming from the same place that we are.
Rasheeqa:They're working within very particular confines of their belief system and what.
Rasheeqa:what they think it's good to do, what they are happy for us to do and not for us not to do, and quite sort of a political, I suppose, about it.
Rasheeqa:So they weren't necessarily that supportive of where we were coming from practically.
Rasheeqa:So, yeah, I don't know, it felt like what we were seeking to do would have been more possible if we were able to do it more on our own terms.
Rasheeqa:In the spaces that we were in and in the timescale that we did it with.
Rasheeqa:But at the same time, it was an amazing work to do to make connection with some of the women that we met.
Rasheeqa:And were able to, to interact with during that time.
Rasheeqa:But it was really painful also to hear.
Rasheeqa:their stories and hear what they'd gone through and to feel somewhat helpless about how, you know, how much we could play a role in that trauma that is going on because of these systems, if that makes sense.
Rasheeqa:Yeah, I don't know, I feel like there's always a discomfort with coming to people saying, oh, we've got this to offer you when there's such a disparity in the situations that you're in, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:There's still this power dynamic and I remember feeling that in Calais going with Melissa.
Rasheeqa:It just felt quite angering that we were coming and we had this power to be able to offer this, you know, this medicine or whatever to people who are, you know, from their lives and their cultures and their backgrounds are fully capable of doing the same thing, but because of the external circumstances, the brutal conditions that they're living in, that's the power, the agency that's been removed from them.
Rasheeqa:And of course, You know, we want to come in solidarity and as a way to express dissent with that situation ourselves.
Rasheeqa:It often made me feel uncomfortable and question my own position and also be thinking about the knowledges of cultures, of people, that are being put in these positions and how by it.
Rasheeqa:You know, by pressing them, we're also really cutting out the chance to, to be able to share knowledge together.
Rasheeqa:So yeah, it was these kinds of thoughts, I suppose, that came up partly through the Women's Health Project.
Rasheeqa:It'd be so interesting to speak with Lisa now about it as well, because I know at the time as well, she was Yeah, not quite satisfied with some aspects of how that played out.
Nicole:Yeah, that makes loads of sense, and I think that dynamic in Calais is like, it's just like always present and it's always uncomfortable if that makes sense like it's yeah especially i think there's almost this other layer of like when you have some kind of strange medical role like i don't wear a bloody like white coat as a herbalist or anything but like it is that yeah it's just that like constant power dynamic that is yeah very like confronting and yeah like i think it's interesting Almost like what you're saying about the women's health project, it kind of also like illuminates like the, the strengths of say the community apothecary, right, that you can build relationships over a really long time and build that infrastructure, whereas these kind of like temporary short term projects are challenging because you don't, Yeah, like you said, you don't kind of get to where you kind of want to be somehow.
Nicole:Like, I think I do a lot of like one to one consultations with former prisoners who contact me, and I think because I've been in prison for nearly two years, like, I think there is that like slightly more like horizontal feeling.
Nicole:I think when I was, you know, getting out of prison and I had to interact with like charity workers or probation or, you know, it was like always like super dehumanizing, right?
Nicole:So it's like, how, how do we like not do that as herbalists who have some power because we've organized something and made it happen and we're maybe we're getting paid or maybe we aren't.
Nicole:But, yeah, I could talk about it for hours as well.
Nicole:But yeah, thank you for sharing just in terms of that project.
Nicole:Like what was your role as a herbalist?
Nicole:Like, were you supporting people kind of one to one with their health needs or what did that look like?
Rasheeqa:Yeah, it was mainly, I think, one to one consultations that I did with women from the group that wanted to do that.
Rasheeqa:We did it in a number of different locations as well around South London, as I recall.
Rasheeqa:So yeah, I would do consultation and then give herbs.
Rasheeqa:And then we also, as a collective, took part in a number of different workshops together.
Rasheeqa:And I think that was what yours was, wasn't it, when you came to give the one?
Rasheeqa:about prison abolition.
Rasheeqa:But yeah, specifically, my work was offering clinical consultations.
Rasheeqa:And I think that's a time when, you know, it's really good to hear what you've just said about the lived experience, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:Of how do you Yeah, as you came out, what was appropriate support for you?
Rasheeqa:And I think sometimes as a, I guess you find this a lot of the time as a, when you're sitting in one to one consultation, a massive part of it is just hearing and listening, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:People express that that feels like a big part of the support that you're receiving.
Rasheeqa:And I think also just coming back to Kelly and that kind of situation, herbal medicine is a different kind of medicine than pharmaceutical medicine, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:And it brings with it a love and a power that comes from its origins, like where it's coming from in the earth.
Rasheeqa:And the fact that it is.
Rasheeqa:It's always been a medicine that brings with it the care of human to human love, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:And so I think those things make it a little bit different, but a lot of the time with That project, I think I was just witnessing, you know, like a lot of the time you feel like, oh, the pain that this person is in and the trauma they've gone through.
Rasheeqa:It's not that I can offer a remedy that is gonna, gonna big time fix that, because that history is there and you're continuing to live within this system.
Rasheeqa:And so, in a way, sometimes it feels like it's you know, it is a material medicine, but at the same time it is representative of a greater care, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:I guess that's where the solidarity comes in and going, like, I am here with you and I You know, I dissent this that has caused you this pain and this trauma, and I'm here to hear you, to hear what you're saying, and be with you in it.
Nicole:Yeah, a hundred percent.
Nicole:Like, I think it's, yeah, like, especially with Calais, like, I think you know there's like completely legitimate criticisms around like white saviorism and you know why should you go abroad when there are like people needing support like here for example but it's like I always come back to like I'm actually just prioritizing and privileging the feedback of people that I meet in Calais which is probably like over 10, 000 people at this point.
Nicole:And it's like, apart from a couple of people who've maybe been like extremely kind of distressed, like most people are like, so appreciative of that medicine.
Nicole:And like, they've, you know, like, I've had people that are just like, I've traveled across Europe, and I've never met anyone who will like change my dressing, you know, or clean my feet.
Nicole:Like, we do like foot baths, antifungal cream, things like this.
Nicole:And like, I think you do forget how much.
Nicole:Yeah, there is that medicine of the medicines, but there is also that, like, humanizing of like, hey, I'm going to spend four hours sitting with you in hospital and not leave you until they've seen you because, like, I fucking care.
Nicole:And I think for a lot of people who've experienced such extreme kind of state violence, like, that is very, like, strengthening to them.
Nicole:And like, I think it's the same with, like, people that I've supported getting out of prison or, or, like, defendants, like, I think most people like haven't seen a health practitioner for longer than like five minutes, right, in their GP surgery or maybe in hospital but like, you know, you have like an hour with them and they can like share like all their stuff and be really like holistic and open about it and I think maybe because we're so like normalized to it like our I've got three calls this week where I'm doing this with someone actually for that person like it can be so life changing to feel like listened to and like cared about and like receive the medicines in the post and like I take that stuff for granted so much but like yeah, you just forget like how Yeah, like how much that can impact like someone if that makes sense or like how much a workshop can impact someone or how much like forming a relationship with a plant can impact someone and like yeah it's just kind of, it's interesting how we take it for granted because we're such like plant people you just forget like how special it is you know when that's Like, like your first encounter, or like, not your first encounter, but like an, an encounter when you need it at that moment, if that makes sense.
Rasheeqa:Yeah, yeah, so much, and that's so moving what you said, you know, that thing where people, it's the, literally the first care with hands on or with tenderness that they've experienced in this really brutal journey, and that's, that is life changing as well, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:In the midst of all the horror, it's something that you remember, I imagine you remember always.
Rasheeqa:Yeah, it's true what you say, and it happens all the time, doesn't it?
Rasheeqa:People come and say, Oh, that day, I remember when we went on that Hope Walk and that's when I met, you know, Mugwalk for the first time.
Rasheeqa:And yeah, when you're immersed in it for years and years, you don't kind of hold that same sort of exhilaration or excitement.
Rasheeqa:You're like, Oh, my God, this is all amazing.
Rasheeqa:Of course, it is always still.
Rasheeqa:But I suppose that's the ongoing work, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:There's infinite potential for, to keep supporting people to connect with plants and things.
Rasheeqa:And I guess that's another big work of the, yeah, the continuity in the longer term, if we're able to support people, say, who have gone through the journey of migration and have, been treated harshly and own a land that they don't know and don't feel especially welcome in.
Rasheeqa:And people have said that, so for example, through the community apothecary, there's, there's a few different ones now, isn't there?
Rasheeqa:Community apothecaries around the land and Mariam Salah, who's someone that had come on a course of mine in London, but then moved down to Totnes and has started the Totnes Community Herbal Project and has spoken with me about that experience of of being a refugee and coming to a place and discovering land and plants and how that was such a massive way in which she felt more rooted and more comfortable, more safe in the place that she was in.
Rasheeqa:And it's been such a big life changer in a way for her that that's what she wants to, to share with others and to support others who've gone through a similar journey with, and I think like you were saying about yourself coming out.
Rasheeqa:a prison and, you know, where do you find safety?
Rasheeqa:And me, myself, I am in a much more privileged position because I've grown up here in, in safety and security my whole life and I don't feel like I've experienced racism that much in my life and you know, I'm not, I haven't got that lived experience as Mariam that I've just described has.
Rasheeqa:So I think that's another thing, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:Like where as much as possible can people lead who are the ones with the lived experience like you have been doing and that's why you're so So passionate, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:And determined in your work because you have experienced it.
Nicole:Yeah, for sure.
Nicole:I'll definitely have to check out this herbal project.
Nicole:So yeah, I'm aware I'm taking lots of your time, but I've just got a few more questions.
Nicole:I, yeah, I know you've been involved with Misery which one of my besties, Victor, has also been involved with.
Nicole:I just wondered if you could share, like, what this involves and, like, how, yeah, how it's been for you, like, what, what the project does.
Rasheeqa:Misery, yeah, it's a beautiful one.
Rasheeqa:Yeah, so Misery is a mental health collective for queer people and people of colour that is, yeah, I guess it's originated in London, but has a worldwide following, it looks like, and they've been on quite a journey.
Rasheeqa:There's a little collective of people, and I had met two of them, Aisha and Soha, who are part of the, the group that founded it and the idea was to make safe spaces, safer spaces for queer people of color queer and trans people of color in London.
Rasheeqa:And they started off doing parties, sober raves in venues in London where people could come together just to share.
Rasheeqa:And I remember having a conversation with Aisha around.
Rasheeqa:the origins of it and how it had come to be and saying that it just felt like it was really needed a space where people were able to be themselves and feel less like having to code switch or having the discomfort of being in a white dominated world.
Rasheeqa:And so they started to make these gatherings and it turned out that there was a huge thirst for this and plenty of people were coming and the community formed around that and that was pre COVID and then I think, yeah, they went online doing sessions around experiences of trauma, things like addiction and yeah, plenty of different aspects of mental health experience.
Rasheeqa:was just really supportive, I think, for a lot of people.
Rasheeqa:And at one point I met Aisha and Soha, who had come on a course that I ran where a lot of it was outside, because I think it was during this pandemic time, where we would go to Walthamstow marshes and meet different plants through the spring and summer and connect with the land.
Rasheeqa:And they really loved it, the two of them, and said to me, oh, we'd love to do a course like this for our Collective for our Misery group for as a POC, people of colour only group, and would you be up for being involved.
Rasheeqa:So I said, yeah, of course.
Rasheeqa:And then yeah, so the following year, I think we started doing it and it started off just with a couple of facilitators, which was myself and Mai Mana, who's an amazing mushroom knowing person and forager and educator and artist.
Rasheeqa:And so we decided to do a monthly plant herb walk in different spots around London in big, wild places like Tower Hamlet Cemetery Park.
Rasheeqa:And yeah, it became a monthly gathering.
Rasheeqa:For people to come and connect, to feel safer in nature, to be with each other, to learn about plant medicine, but not only about herbalism, about many different aspects of land connection.
Rasheeqa:So into it came sort of creative activity and mushroom foraging, and it was very seasonal as well.
Rasheeqa:So that was, I guess, 2021.
Rasheeqa:And it was just really well responded to, like the first one, like a hundred people turned up and me and my man are like, whoa, are we going to do this?
Rasheeqa:And so like that, it went on.
Rasheeqa:Yeah.
Rasheeqa:And it became a regular thing.
Rasheeqa:And through the last year, a larger pool of facilitators has come and joined and it's meant that there's a whole lot of different skills.
Rasheeqa:So it became not just about herbalism, but about many different.
Rasheeqa:nature connected things.
Rasheeqa:So there's maybe, I don't know, around 10 people in the facilitators group now, and misery have been quite successful at getting funding to support it.
Rasheeqa:And it's been an amazing resource, I think, for people coming together and making friends and finding support in each other in natural spaces.
Rasheeqa:And I think a lot of it was about people.
Rasheeqa:either not having had connected that much in wild nature, partly because of not feeling welcome or feeling excluded or not feeling safe or comfortable.
Rasheeqa:And also growing up in London, you know, sometimes not having that much access to, to natural environment, so yeah, bigger land.
Rasheeqa:So I think it's been a big learning and it's been beautiful in the sense that people have really developed friendships and got to know each other and other projects have built and come out of the Misery plant magic.
Rasheeqa:And so people have had a sort of continuity of learning.
Rasheeqa:And again, this is part of the community building, I think, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:Like where people have started to build their knowledge of plant medicine as well as other areas that have been shared, like the mushroom foraging a big.
Rasheeqa:element, a really big, powerful element of it has been the presence of Claudia Manchanda, who's radical herbalist of London, who's always been a great agitator and questioner of the systems of oppression that we live in, and healthcare inequality as well as injustice in, in Many, many other areas of life, so it's really brought that voice of, you know, what do we mean when we're talking about decolonizing, say, ecology or herbal medicine?
Rasheeqa:Where, whose knowledge is it?
Rasheeqa:Where is it coming from?
Rasheeqa:What have we appropriated?
Rasheeqa:You know, bringing a lot of attention and learning for us all as part of the facilitators group with misery.
Rasheeqa:And that continues and you can look, you can see it because films have been made, a lot of, creative people in the Misery Collective, so there's been a series of short films that have been made of the walks that you can watch on YouTube on their YouTube channel, I think it's Misery Party.
Rasheeqa:If people are interested to, to look at those, but it's just quite a big joyous, loving gathering of people really.
Rasheeqa:Quite a beautiful thing to be part of.
Rasheeqa:And that continues once a month.
Rasheeqa:I think it's the first Saturday of each month.
Rasheeqa:I've not been doing so much of it.
Rasheeqa:This last Yeah, because of, yeah, having lots on and sort of diminished capacity in a way, myself, but then the space has been filled, you know, with plenty of other people bringing a lot of fresh energy into it.
Rasheeqa:So, yeah.
Nicole:Amazing.
Nicole:And, like, how has it felt for you to be involved with that project?
Nicole:Because, like, I know the, the kind of mainstream herbal world is very, like, white dominated, right, in terms of the UK context, at least.
Nicole:I just wondered, yeah, how that, how that's felt, kind of, personally?
Rasheeqa:Yeah, it's been, it's been a real learning for me, I think, because as you say, that is the case with the UK herbal scene, I would say.
Rasheeqa:And, I think, living in London, You, it does feel a lot different than my experiences of living in other parts of the UK, because obviously it's way more diverse, you've got much greater access to intercultural situations, and then myself, obviously, being of Indian heritage and being Asian and being Brown, you know, I'm just more automatically connected, I think, with more diversity than perhaps a lot of UK white herbalists.
Rasheeqa:And it started to be a thing and I think this is happening now because we've got a newer generation, a younger generation of people that are coming through where we are now living in a world where it's been so much more unpacked, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:Everything is way more visible in terms of histories that have been suppressed.
Rasheeqa:Injustices through hundreds of years ever more exposed and revealed, aren't they?
Rasheeqa:And that learning is more available and accessible to people, and a big part of that is through social media also, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:So you've got this I'd say kind of massive new cohort of people that have much greater awareness.
Rasheeqa:And I'm much more ready now to, to face what has happened and to look at, okay, how do we restore and repair harms that have been done and that continue to be done because of histories of colonialism and yeah, I suppose that, that kind of expansionist colonialism that has sought to dominate and destroy other worldviews and sort of diversity of cultures through, through centuries now.
Rasheeqa:And I think we're looking at, yeah.
Rasheeqa:Yeah, a real desire to address that and I feels like that is part of what is going on with the movement in herbal medicine as well.
Rasheeqa:So for years I've been having people come to me specifically because I'm a herbalist of colour.
Rasheeqa:Because that is what they want and, you know, whether it's culturally or in other ways they feel more comfortable doing that.
Rasheeqa:Which then You know, necessarily throws up the, the realization that there aren't that many herbalists of color within the whole scene in the UK.
Rasheeqa:And it means that we start to build networks of people.
Rasheeqa:So I'm in connection with a lot of herbalists, I suppose, here that, in London, that are, that identify.
Rasheeqa:as people of color and who have specific kind of orientations in their work around that, like Claudia and like N'Dake, who is a herbalist in Tottenham, who very specifically works within the Caribbean community and is also training in a West African healing.
Rasheeqa:modality.
Rasheeqa:And Cherelle Douglas, who's based in South London, who came and did a talk at the Power of Plants Festival which is organized by the National Institute of Medical Herbalists, which, you know, obviously historically is a white domain.
Rasheeqa:And there's a situation where we invite people to come into those spaces and we organized with Becs and Anwen when we organized a community herbalism session where we invited Cherelle to talk about work that she's doing, and she spoke really, really courageously and honestly about being a black woman herbalist and what that means in terms of her life experience and her own practices and what she is responding to in, in her work, the needs of black community in London and that can, that can arouse resistance, I think.
Rasheeqa:And it did even within that workshop where somebody responded by saying, Oh, I think you talk too much about race, you know, and it's, it's about other things as well.
Rasheeqa:And it feels like, you know, when someone has brought that energy and been given the energy to speak in that kind of space and then to have that response is painful, it's hurtful, it can be harmful.
Rasheeqa:And I think Cherelle did amazing because she responded to the person and said, I think you do need to listen to people's experiences and not dismiss them.
Rasheeqa:And so it kind of led to more conversation around it.
Rasheeqa:But I think, yeah, certain areas, isn't it, that people can be sometimes resistant to and not want to hear.
Rasheeqa:What's being said because there's a maybe an invisible, yeah, invisible layers of hierarchy that haven't been quite unpacked.
Rasheeqa:And I think that's where we're at this moment in history, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:All of this is just being unpacked and turned inside out and it's really uncomfortable.
Rasheeqa:So yeah, for me, I think in relation to misery, it's been so interesting to be in that kind of space as someone, like I said, that I feel like I don't necessarily have the lived experience as some, as much as some other people.
Rasheeqa:In this land of, you know, actively, I feel like I haven't, it may well have happened, but you know, I'm not living with that experience of feeling like I've been actively excluded or oppressed or discriminated against.
Rasheeqa:And so for me, it's also a learning journey to be within that POC only group and also see the range of experiences within it.
Rasheeqa:You know, you've got, if we're talking about race based on skin color.
Rasheeqa:People of color, then it's a massive range from, you know, every, every hue of skin.
Rasheeqa:And for me, it's been a big, interesting thing that almost more than the sort of racial categorizing, it's been a generational and age thing, because now I'm 44 and I'm not in my 20s or 30s.
Rasheeqa:I feel like I am in a next phase of life.
Rasheeqa:And then the misery collective is often represents, you know, 20s and 30s people.
Rasheeqa:That are growing and living in a different way that I did and in a way that feels like more of a Interesting bridge even then the color question.
Rasheeqa:So it's been really interesting and it's been so Eye opening for me I think to be together with people and to hear different experiences and to understand people's responses now to what has been accepted so far, you know, and what is not, you know, people are not prepared to accept anymore in terms of racism and sort of colonial structures that remain embedded to this day.
Rasheeqa:So it feels very hopeful because there's a great sort of peacefulness about it as well, about how people want to respond to injustice ongoingly and Bring, you know, I think such a big part of it, of of the racist colonial process that has gone on is that we don't know about the power and the quality of cultures that have been oppressed.
Rasheeqa:And I think what movements like misery are bringing is the desire to bring that into vision and to centralize, to center it more, what ancestral traditions can represent.
Rasheeqa:what they can bring into the mix of culture that we have here when we're thinking about care and health.
Rasheeqa:Not saying it's entirely straightforward and that it isn't, you know, ancestral connection isn't problematic even in diaspora cultures, but it seems to me what's missing a lot of the time in the societies that we live in in this country is that, you know, it's such a lot of separation, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:What Lisa used to call atomization and I think the focus now on Centering cultures from other parts that have been sort of destroyed and desecrated.
Rasheeqa:It has a lot of potential for bringing care back into how we relate to each other, if that makes sense.
Nicole:Yeah, for real, for real.
Nicole:It sounds, yeah, it sounds like it's been really kind of liberating and expansive for lots of people that I've kind of interacted with who've been involved.
Nicole:And yeah, thank you for sharing those reflections.
Nicole:I'm really aware of kind of time, and I know I had a couple of other questions, but I might, if it's okay, I might just like amalgamate them into one.
Nicole:because yeah, there was something you wrote on your blog and it was like literally 10 years ago or more after you graduated about you wrote but stepping out of the cocoon of herbalist teachers and like minded folk through the years of study, I emerged into a world where our impact seems negligible.
Nicole:And then you've written that, you know, it's not true that, you know that the world over traditional medicine is central and vital.
Nicole:And yeah, I just, I'm really fascinated to hear, like, how you're feeling all this time later, like, having been such an active, amazing community herbalist, like, what, yeah, what are your kind of, like, final reflections on, on herbalism and, yeah, if you still feel that feeling of the impact feels negligible or if it's changed and if you've got any other thoughts on kind of where like herbalism in general is going or what needs to happen to kind of move it in a more liberating direction, I'd be really welcome to hear your, to hear your thoughts.
Rasheeqa:Mm, yeah, nice, yeah.
Rasheeqa:I guess it's a while, yeah, I, yeah, it's a long time since I wrote that little part of that vlog, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:And I feel like the scene has changed such a lot.
Rasheeqa:I think you'd probably agree There's been shifts because many, many more people are coming to get involved with herbalism as I've seen through my own work, through my own journey of, you know, doing the teaching.
Rasheeqa:It continues to be that people are coming to get involved in the Community Apothecary Project, and I'll never Yeah, it seems to never stop.
Rasheeqa:I'll always be amazed and delighted how many people keep coming and showing me ways that they're already practicing land relationship and herbal medicine.
Rasheeqa:So as many people as there are, it feels like there's potential for people to be practicing, isn't there, and bringing their own ideas.
Rasheeqa:That feels like the beauty.
Rasheeqa:of herbal medicine.
Rasheeqa:I think what's really interesting, it'd be cool to hear what you think on this, is like the different levels of practice, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:We've had this situation where there's a bit of a hierarchy of, okay, so you're a trained, you know, medical herbalist, qualified, so you can treat people.
Rasheeqa:And then there are people in the community where that word lay herbalist is used.
Rasheeqa:And what's been interesting through the years is encountering people that are making things at home and that may be supporting their families and their communities with it, particularly if it's in that.
Rasheeqa:diasporic way where they don't necessarily feel like their lives and their needs are met by the primary health care system or even by herbalists that aren't of their cultures, say say if, you know, from what I've heard from African and Caribbean community herbalists that there's such a core integral spiritual aspect to healthcare practice that is absent from say European herbalism.
Rasheeqa:That's a generalization, but you know, that's a a situation that has been described to me.
Rasheeqa:So yeah, it's like where, what is the respect for these different forms of herbal medicine?
Rasheeqa:How do we, I think it's an ongoing question, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:Like where do we, where are we able to give support?
Rasheeqa:in appropriate ways to different people with different kinds of needs.
Rasheeqa:And I feel like, I don't know how you feel about this, but it feels like even in terms of the relationship between Say the NHS or the mainstream health care system and something like herbal medicine.
Rasheeqa:There's been some Level of shift in recent years where through developing our project the community prothecary and through organic lease connections with the council and public health and things like local GP surgeries and social prescribing there's been a bit more of a relationship building between say Doctor surgeries where we've been we've been this last year developing herb gardens within GP surgeries on their land, which feels quite amazing to be doing after, you know, the histories that we've lived through of that absolute separation between biomedicine and herbal medicine.
Rasheeqa:It's something Lisa actually spoke about years ago, was coming to do these.
Rasheeqa:Kinds of have plant medicine workshops within GP surgeries, and so obviously it always depends on the individual practice and the people that you encounter and how supportive the healthcare workers are of what we're doing, which is a big range, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:But at least from the way that the NHS has been articulating certain approaches in public health a lot of it now is coming to sort of environmental and nature practices, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:And things like this five steps, the wellbeing is around social connection and being physically healthful and being in green spaces together.
Rasheeqa:And so, you know, it sounds quite sort of, what's the word?
Rasheeqa:word for that, but that's what the expediency of looking for funding is like, Oh, now there's a big focus on all of this for healthcare, but that's where we want them to be going anyway.
Rasheeqa:Isn't it?
Rasheeqa:It's like connecting people up and coming out together to be in the garden together.
Rasheeqa:So yeah, something around integration.
Rasheeqa:I've always felt like in this country particularly, like it's so different from somewhere like India, where you've got a real plurality of healthcare and there's this book called in the.
Rasheeqa:Bonesetter's Waiting Room, I think.
Rasheeqa:It's called by Aarathi Prasad, that was, I read a few years ago, that really spoke to me about that, where she describes this sort of myriad landscape of healthcare in India, where you can access literally everything from like the highest cutting edge state of the art cardiac health hospitals to the person on the street that's treating you with the roots of the earth and everything in between and what, what she speaks about there is that there's this worldview or sort of paradigm where it isn't believed that primary pharmaceutical medicine is the only and the dominant and the main way of doing healthcare, that there are so many different ways as we know.
Rasheeqa:And I feel like, yeah.
Rasheeqa:That's the future in a way here.
Rasheeqa:If that is possible.
Rasheeqa:I don't know quite what the route is, but it's quite interesting working with people like organically to figure out ways of like, okay, you're maybe not directly bringing herbal medicine, treating people in within the GP surgery, but you're introducing it in different ways.
Rasheeqa:Because it's something that humans have always been doing.
Rasheeqa:that we've always been aware of, but we've built up these systems whereby the doctor will come and say, Oh, that's not evidence based.
Rasheeqa:So therefore it's not valid and we can't use it.
Rasheeqa:And, you know, that's quite that's still, I guess, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:The sort of major way of herbal medicine is seen still in this country.
Rasheeqa:But yeah, how do we move more towards that integrative connection with the healthcare system?
Rasheeqa:And I notice.
Rasheeqa:You might, I guess you might be noticing this, that there are plenty more healthcare practitioners that are coming to learn about herbal medicine.
Rasheeqa:I remember when I was studying with Hananya at Middlesex, and she was going over to do lectures or seminars with medical students.
Rasheeqa:And, you know, this kind of direction, I wonder where it could like, inch by inch, start to affect.
Rasheeqa:more potential, but then you also, you then encounter the risk, don't you, of that idea of regulation of urban medicine, and that's a whole nother area that is potentially problematic.
Rasheeqa:But yeah, so there's, I think, different levels, and then I think what we're trying to do with the community apothecary is really seed and root the practice and the knowledge in, in our, In our networks, in the street and in the locality and that's what I dream of is this, you know, situation where there's herb gardens everywhere so that people are really, you know, they're seeing the medicine all the time and they're touching it and they're connected with it and they're learning always more and more how to, that's we really, we're learning more and more how to be in relationship with these plants and how to make medicines with them and just bringing it more regularly into life, which I feel like it has been happening.
Rasheeqa:It feels like that's been happening more widely.
Rasheeqa:And the idea of intermediary sort of practitioners, like facilitators for community health maybe, where people like The ones of our networks that are learning with us, okay, they might not go and go on to train to become a medical herbalist, but can we get to a certain level of knowledge that is safe and effective, where they can be supporting people to be using herbal medicine beneficially in the community yeah, these types of things, and And then, yeah, like we've talked about, I guess it feels just really crucial for the liberatory impetus to always be present in our communal practices, like having that framework really explicit and articulated always when we're talking about herbal medicine, that it's not We're not being extractive, we're not just wanting to say, Oh, here's another way that we can take from the earth and make ourselves better with it.
Rasheeqa:But what is the history of it?
Rasheeqa:It's so important, isn't it, to look at the history of herbal medicine.
Rasheeqa:And, you know, that's been such a big informer in my own practice, I think, to learning about inequalities around health care, gender based and sort of Yeah, thinking about indigenous cultures and what has happened with the destruction of land and destruction of life ways.
Rasheeqa:We need to always remember that when we're talking about herbal medicine and make that a key part of the way that we share the knowledge and the history as we go on.
Rasheeqa:And I feel like.
Rasheeqa:The, you know, more people coming in from backgrounds of being a person of colour, say, from being of different heritages coming into herbal medicine, that is slowly informing it more.
Rasheeqa:Like some of the courses, you know, seeking to bring in more decolonial history information.
Rasheeqa:In the content of the courses and this kind of thing, which I see to be a change that's happening.
Nicole:Yeah, sometimes I'm like, is it because I'm in an echo chamber?
Nicole:Like on Instagram of like seeing all these amazing projects like around the world.
Rasheeqa:Yeah, there is that.
Nicole:It does, it does feel like, it really does feel like there's a shift.
Nicole:Like it does feel like, yeah, like I think it's interesting, isn't it?
Nicole:It's almost like, I think.
Nicole:Yeah, like, I've got a younger brother and he's just, like, You know, doesn't really drink much, like really into like fitness and stuff and that's like partly from this like Instagram land of like People being really into like health and being like really health conscious and stuff Which I think when I was a kid where you're just like getting drunk and dropping pills and like no one gives a shit So it's like I do just feel like our whole culture is like, yeah, like you said Thinking more about like lifestyle medicine or integrative medicine and we're, but we're at a kind of like Infant stage of it if that makes sense, like we're at a you know Like yeah, like the kind of still quite individualist kind of mainstream almost like capitalist approaches to health But then there's just like all these layers underneath that people are just like peeling and peeling and peeling being like what about race?
Nicole:What about class?
Nicole:What about colonialism?
Nicole:Like, what about access to land?
Nicole:Like, do you know what I mean?
Nicole:And I just think like, people are slowly peeling away together and like, we are maybe, yeah, like getting somewhere collectively.
Nicole:But yeah, I'm aware I've taken so much of your time.
Nicole:So I just want to say like, thank you so much.
Nicole:Was there anything else you wanted to share before we finish and also like, where can people find your work?
Nicole:Like, I'll put everything you mention in the show notes and a link to your website and stuff.
Nicole:But yeah.
Rasheeqa:Thank you, Nicole.
Rasheeqa:I mean, each question's so interesting that you could just go on all day, couldn't you?
Rasheeqa:About these different areas and yeah, I really appreciate it because it makes me, you know, Each time you ask these questions, you're always reframing and rethinking and questioning, aren't you?
Rasheeqa:So, yeah, thanks a lot.
Rasheeqa:And yeah, I, we always invite people to come and get involved in Community Apothecary, which if you're in London, if you're in East London, obviously it's easier to get to, but really always welcome.
Rasheeqa:people and always up for, cause I think what we're doing here, all the different, like you say, the different niches in the ecosystem, everyone's doing slightly different variations, aren't they, that are really responsive to the particular locality that you're in.
Rasheeqa:And Becs and Anwen and I have just seen this morning that you've been putting together a book which is really exciting and Becs I are very slowly working on this sort of book manual about community herbalism in the UK and the different ways that it expresses and manifests, so I feel like it's always really inspiring and strengthening to be in contact with each other like this and to share ways of doing things and also challenges and problems that come up and ways that we can collectively work through stuff.
Rasheeqa:But I think you're totally right, it's definitely feels like early, yeah, infant stages of working through this together, which feels quite hopeful.
Rasheeqa:But yeah, I can share links with you for, for the different things.
Rasheeqa:And I suppose, yeah, maybe a last thing that I'd say is about that integration connection as a way to, yeah, to transform the separation that we're all experiencing in so many ways and healthcare.
Rasheeqa:I think, you know, listening to Dr.
Rasheeqa:Abu Ghassan speaking about Gaza situation and how health is such a crucial, integral part of liberation from oppression and the way that we do it is so key, isn't it?
Rasheeqa:It feels like doing it collectively, together.
Rasheeqa:And so there's an idea that we're developing of making a queer healing space in London which is slowly birthing, but a way of having a place where people can come together to access, peer, Supportive mutual healthcare with different kinds of healing modalities, you know, accessible to each other feels like it's a good way forward, doesn't it?
Rasheeqa:And herbalism is part of that as a response to, yeah, to the imbalances that have been happening and that affect all of our health.
Rasheeqa:So yeah, I suppose more to come hopefully on that as we go on, but massive thanks to you.
Rasheeqa:It was amazing to speak with you.
Nicole:I'll never ever forget from my whole life when my friend Taylor, who died, who killed himself last year, was in a coma in London and I was staying like in Croydon or something visiting him every day at the hospital and I just texted you being like, I'm not coping and you made this like amazing like root decoction of like all these amazing I can't even remember what was inside it but this like amazing immune tonic for me and posted it to me and it just yeah it just completely kept me going so yeah I really appreciate your like amazing contributions to herbalism and I know a lot of things can also be like invisible like all the workshops we do in the gardens and You know, like, I just, yeah, I just want to say I think it's really inspiring and I wanted to start this series about community herbalism with You know, with that focus and that kind of intimate, local, like, rooted kind of style of approaching herbalism.
Nicole:So yeah, thank you so much for your time.
Rasheeqa:Lots of love.
Rasheeqa:Take care.
Rasheeqa:Bye.
Rasheeqa:Take care.
Rasheeqa:Lots of love.
Rasheeqa:Bye.
Nicole:Thanks so much for listening to the Frontline Herbalism podcast.
Nicole:You can find the transcript, the links, all the resources from the show at solidarityapothecary.org/podcast.