Medicinal plants are a large part of how Ju supports themselves and they have been exploring how plants can support our collective wellbeing in community settings since 2014. They enjoy chatting and sharing traditional knowledge about plants and health stories.

Currently they are building on their skills and knowledge by training to be a community herbalist with Plant Medicine School Scotland.

They see herbalism as a creative practice and the making of medicine with people and the social fabric of these exchanges as a rich expression of community art. Their intention is to facilitate connection between people and plants, encourage bodily autonomy and inter-dependance.

Herbal Workshops

In herbal workshops they share knowledge that has empowered them and their communities using plants that are seasonally abundant nearby for nourishment.

They like to offer sessions that explore plants from a sensory perspective and foreground nurturing an inherent body intelligence that we all share. They have noticed that exploring this can help people to increasingly trust and nurture that knowing for themselves, affecting the agency they feel in their lives. A core part of this work is Mystery Herbal Tea Sessions, during which participants are guided through the experience of drinking a medicinal plant tea, relying on the senses for information and then discovering how that chimes with what is traditionally known about a plant.

Workshop ideas:

• mystery herbal tea tasting

• winter kitchen medicine

• balm and ointment making

• herbal skincare

• nourishing our nerves

• immunity

• first aid

If possible, they run workshops on a solidarity basis where participants make several of each product each so there is one for them to take home, one for someone they care for and one for a solidarity group. This can be the wider group of makers if there is a group or a herbal solidarity group that Ju has connections too, it’s flexible in relation to what is most possible and appropriate.