Hope this is alright to ask,
Any advice for someone that want to learn herbalist?
I have books that i borrowed from my mother on the topic, but the biggest question for me is how a herb should be used (in a tea, infused in a cream, etc) and how to do mixes for a specific purpose,
From your pinned post i understand that your practices are closed, so i don't want a step by step guide or recipes, more how to develop the intuition of how/when to mix and use different plants.
Hello! Of course it's alright. The answer is long at best and overly complicated at worst, so I'm going to try my best here 😅
I learnt those answers from mixed practitioners, learning from doctors, nurses and other medical practitioners who are also Indigenous (aymara, quechua, etc), applying both frameworks to their practice, and thus were able to transmit to me both the medical, scientific reasoning, aswell as the cultural reasoning behind how each herb should be used, for who, and how to use them.
(While, for obvious reasons, I can't share the cultural aspects here...) The medical explanation comes from the combination of active compound + solvent, and herbal actions. If we ask "what chemical compounds are present in this plant that have medicinal properties in my body?" the answer is active compounds, specific to the chemical composition of each plant species, and often easy to find in monographs of that species, or scientific articles. For example, caffeine is a very popular active compound found in many plants, not only coffee. You'll find many different types of active compounds, alkaloids, sugars, minerals, mucilages, polyphenols.... among many many others. The importance of solvents (water, oil, alcohol, a long etc) comes from being able to extract those active compounds successfully and depends on the affinity of your desired solute (active compound) and your solvent of choice. Some active compounds are only soluble in water, some only in oil, some are better extracted in other ways, sometimes combining solvents in multiple steps of extraction. To "how does that active compound affect my body once it's consumed or applied" the answer is herbal actions. Think of things like nervine, calming, warming, antiinflammatory, antiviral, antioxidant, another long etc. These are the medicinal properties conferred to a plant species from carrying those medicinal compounds, and what is achieved after it's effectively extracted and used. The effectiveness of extraction depends not only on using the right solvent, but also on being careful about the dosage.
My best recommendation would be to take a course from a medical herbalist first (which, I know, requires investment but it's so worth it!) and then supplementing what you learnt there with books of your interest, and really, with reading a ton of scientific articles. I actually didn't start with books, but from physiology classes by researchers and medical herbalists. While books can act as a general map of other threads to pull from, the meat of herbalism is always in monographs that list their bibliography clearly, and in the scientific articles cited therein, or that you find yourself. With them, you can build your own materia medica, a sort of working archive to hold files of every herb you work with, all the necessary information about them (scientific name, dosages, parts used, ecological info or conservation status, field identification, chemical composition, herbal actions, counterindications, articles cited or bibliography, and any other info of your choice, like magical correspondences or folklore associated with them!)
Books often have outdated information, and don't often include the physiological details necessary to really understand how that herb's active compounds are affecting your body. Articles do a much better job at explaining the details in a systemic, cellular or molecular level, so you know exactly what is present, how it behaves in your body and why it works, necessary to also understand who can take that herb and their medicinal compounds, and who should avoid them for other health reasons (counterindications, possible side effects, etc). Which is why we do the work of compiling everything into our own materia medica, and then work from there, regularly checking sources for new information.
If you're curious about an intuitive way to apply this and slowly start exploring new herbs to use, I recommend sensory herbalism! Keep in mind that it greatly generalizes the types of active compounds you may find in herbs based on clues from taste, scent and other senses, but it's still a good place to start alongside researching the chemical composition of the herb, it's counterindications and dosage, and generally giving a good read to a few monographs of that species before use. It will help you develop that "intuition" of knowing how to combine herbs, make blends, and what extraction method would come in handy for what.
I think this covers your question, but If you have any more questions I always love to yap about herbalism !!! In fact, you caught me prepping for a workshop about ethnobotany and herbalism I'm about to impart this week at our university 😭
