Individual relationship with herbs

Individual relationship with herbs is not much explored in Chinese Medicine, at least since the influence of ZZJ, whose goal was to create a system of medicine which would work reliably as long as it was applied correctly (ie if you got the diagnosis correct, the formula should work).
Indeed, one of the major reasons for using herbal formulas is that they stabilize the action of herbs, so that patient or practitioner idiosyncrasies will be less likely to derail the therapy.


I see interest in individual relationship coming from two places. First, it is part of the general interest in shamanic type work, which is part of our broader efforts to return to the wisdom of the earth, etc. Second, it may result in part from the chaotic state of western herbalism, in which almost every good practitioner ends up developing their own system out of a number historical traces. In such a situation, one will of course have their own way of working with herbs.


We should distinguish two different aspects to our relationship with herbs. The first aspect is our understanding of the herb. This refers to our ability to understand what an herb does and how it will affect a patient. This is certainly a kind of relationship, since herbs are subtle and complex, and our understanding of them can always deepen. Still, it seems that much this relationship can be shared with others by learning to verbalize and communicate our understanding of the herbs. The second aspect is the possibility that an herb might behave differently for one of us than for others because of our particular relationship with it.


As we go down this path of relationship with herbs, we should be careful with egoic reasons for fascination with our these relationships - an interest in finding our identity in the plants (rather than just allowing them to do their healing work) and/or developing the idea that we are someone special because we work with this-or-that plant.


One of my main reasons for want to work with local herbs is that I am interested in having more complete and direct relationships with the plants that I use. At the same time, I hope that this can be done without losing the systematic clarity of Han-style medicine.


Thoughts?