#8 Peter Conway on Plant-Spirit Medicine, Love in the Time of a Pandemic, and the Punk Rocker Ethos

I first sat down with my guest in this episode, Pacific Rim College faculty member and herbalist Peter Conway, to record for my other podcast, Pacific Rim College Radio. However, I knew once the interview was over that I also needed to publish it here as, among other assets, Peter is freakishly intelligent and deeply committed to his purpose. He has lived in a van and a teepee, has fought for the preservation and dissemination of herbal medicine knowledge, and generally follows in life a punk rocker ethos. Listening to him talk about plant-spirit medicine is like listening to a living mystic – I actually think Peter is a living mystic – and his knowledge extends vastly beyond the bounds of herbal medicine. We touch base with myriad topics including chaos theory, inner reflection during Covid, punk rock, spirituality, and nature.

Here are some more commonly known bits about Peter. He graduated from the College of Phytotherapy in the UK in 1995. Prior to joining Pacific Rim College in 2015, Peter taught for many institutions and co-wrote the BSc Degree course in Herbal Medicine at Napier University in. He served as president of the College of Practitioners of Phytotherapy for 12 years and is a former director of the European Herbal and Traditional Medicine Practitioners Association. Peter is the author of “The Consultation in Phytotherapy” textbook that he is now revising for its second edition. Peter currently lives in Victoria, is one of 9 distinguished faculty members of Pacific Rim College Online’s renowned Home Herbalist and Community Herbalist programs, and is working on an online project that will address “deep herbalism".

Speaking of deep…that’s Peter. This guy has so much wisdom that you might want to listen to this episode more than once.

Episode Links:

https://twitter.com/conwayherbalist

School of Western Herbal Medicine at Pacific Rim College

Online Community Herbalist Program at Pacific Rim College Online

Online Home Herbalist Program at Pacific Rim College Online

Touch the Earth by TC McLuhan

The Complete Herbal Handbook for Farm and Stable by Juliette de Bairacli Levy

Green Pharmacy by Barbara Griggs

Principles and Practice of Phytotherapy by Simon Mills and Kerry Bone

Medical Nemesis by Ivan Illich

Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram

Thus Spoke the Plant by Monica Gagliano

Plants as Persons: A Philosophical Botanyby Matthew Hall

Plant-Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life by Michael Marder

The Enchantment of Western Herbal Medicine by Guy Waddell