Dana O'Driscoll As I mentioned in some previous blog posts, I’m currently taking an herbalism course with herbalist Jim McDonald. I find that visualizing material really helps me. This is my visual from the first class–its the energetics of herbalism, upon which everything rests. I made this at 13″ x 20″ on some board with watercolors and ink.
Update: I have a poster available for sale on Zazzle.com if you are interested –its full size!
About the image: My thinking about this image and how to read it is this: the energetic quality is on the outside, the tissue states is in the first row, then the herbal actions with the same temperature/quality are on the inside. So you have both hot states, and hot herbs, all in one slice of the pie. If you click on the image, it will take you to a larger version of the file.
this is beautiful! thank you for sharing it 🙂
You are most welcome!
Dana thanks – this is AWESOME! I’d like to share it from your facebook page to the page of my Intro to Herbalism class*, too, if you don’t mind – they’ll love it!
*class I took here in Asheville, at Appalachian School of Holistic Herbalism, last Summer.
Glad you like it. Feel free to share 🙂
It is indeed beautiful! What would be an example of a cooling herb?
The primary herbal actions are all those that you can discern–so things like coconut, cucumber, even mints, can be cooling.
Your watercolor skills are phenomenal in their precision; I cannot manage such clean color boundaries when I do watercolor XD Thanks for posting!
I’ve been painting a very long time :). Its all about practice! Thank you!
I just found your blog and have enjoyed it so far. I am also a fan of Jim McDonalds so I hope you don’t mind my saying that I am envious that you can study with him. Your chart is beautiful and I think its a great learning tool.
Thank you, Linda! Jim is a wonderful teacher and I am so fortunate to live nearby to take his herbal intensive course 🙂
I love this illustration. I was just pondering the best way to get these ideas across to my students when I chanced upon your beautiful wheel. I just purchases a poster from you, but I wanted to ask your permission to print a few copies to hand out for my class on energetics this weekend. I’ll make sure to plug your poster too. Let me know.
Hi April!
You are welcome to use it and to print out copies :). I’m glad you can use it! I’m using it for an herbalism class myself this week! 🙂