Homestead Health to Herbcraft

Just shy of our 10th Anniversary, we decided to do somewhat of a pivot. We're still so emotionally attached to Homestead Health... it was the beginning of sharing what we were doing in relation to living a self-sufficient grassroots lifestyle. Our organic herbal capsules were the mainstay of our income for quite a few years, until laws changed, Facebook rules changed, and my foray into formal education crashed and burned. It was an extended lesson into what not to do. Because whilst my position on "medicine" is very traditional, and has always encompassed food, lifestyle, herbs, and every possible natural extension of these aspects of life, my perspective became somewhat outdated in the modern health model. Essentially, every consideration I had on what was healthy, the breadth of healing herbs could bring, living clean and free, became almost illegal. Even suggesting that there was a viable alternative to vaccination through Covid had us threatened, shunned, and silenced. In our lives, very little changed, we are still living the very life we promoted before it became almost dangerous to do so.

Undertaking a formal education was another eye-opener. When I set out to return to study to gain formal recognition for the knowledge I already have, and have been using for many years, I had no clue of how much the education system had altered in the study of Naturopathy. My passion to run my own naturopthic clinic began back in the 90's, when I started studying... life had other plans for me, so I never completed that study, but I did enough to know that there was still a very spiritual slant to the curriculum. We learned about the different herbs, their planetary rulership, growing by the moon cycles, and so much more. This has always been the way I saw natural medicine... as fully aligned with nature, and as just one aspect of a complex interweaving of the physical and spiritual that could not be broken.

But broken is exactly what it had become. The knowledge that had been shared with us all those years ago had been entirely erased from the curriculum. No discussion of herbs for the treatment of cancer, no passion for the cultivation of the incredible plants we work with. No connection at all in fact, the majority more interested in when they were allowed to purchase herbs from all the wholesalers in pretty matching bottles, and how to compound synthetic vitamins and nutrients, rather than growing beautiful fresh organic food and incorporate it into every meal. Hundreds of years of empirical evidence, ousted in favour of peer reviewed studies, and assessments that had a greater focus on how to write a scientific paper with accurate APA Referencing, than actually learning about the herbs themselves. Then there were the amount of incredibly effective herbs that had been scheduled by the TGA (that's the Australian version of the FDA, for my international readers), and could no longer be used. And why? Safety concerns... yes, you heard that correctly... after hundreds of years of safe and effective use, they were considered to be too dangerous. But experimental pharmaceuticals were entirely acceptable. You can understand how my frustration was growing. Because contrary to my goal of being able to legally utilise my lifetime of learning in addition to what I'd inherited through my maternal bloodline, I discovered that I would become even more restricted in the use of anything I knew because I was only legally allowed to use what I learned formally, and could lose my license, be sued, etc., if I chose to do otherwise.

Meanwhile, the wealth of knowledge I had learned about herbs now restricted, about cultivation, growing, harvesting, preserving and manufacturing, was almost entirely gone from the curriculum, and from general knowledge. It was also absent from the textbooks issued by the college. Anything containing older information, or authors not approved by the college, deemed inadmissible. So as usual, I found myself on the fringe... always on the fringe. My learning still going unacknowledged, and the things I was passionate about learning, entirely absent from the curriculum. I was aware too of so many herbs that had been used in the past, but had already been banned back in the 90's, generally the most potent and powerful, I wanted to find out more about these ones too... the ones categorised as poison plants.

But where to start? I had no clue. Nothing I had found in the books for my study made any mention at all of these plants, and why would they, we would never be able to access them, use, or prescribe them. It was at this point it was suggested I read the Poison Path Herbal by Coby Michael. This was where everything started to come together for me. I was no stranger to witchcraft, I was no stranger to herbal manufacture, there was nothing in this book that was new to me, except that I now knew how to use these plants safely, what they were used for, and different preparations for various applications. Now, rather than being on the fringe, in a constant battle with an occupation that would crush and bind me, I am thriving with an incredible community of people who have the exact same understanding as I do about the incredible power of our plant allies, and I am able to grow, expand and continue to learn without hinderance. Because having a safe and solid foundation is just the beginning of the journey.

So in a bold expression of this new-found direction, Herbcraft was born. And it feels like this was where I was always meant to be... I just wish it hadn't taken so long to find. And in that vain, I hope that our name, our logo, and all the information and products we distribute, shine a light on the old ways, so they will not be lost in a sea of scientific and AI fabrications.

Bella 💕