Jean Giblette checks ripening fruit of Phellodendron chinense. Photo: Robert Ragaini, Hudson Valley Newspapers.

In early November of 1993 I walked into Lin's Sister Herb Shop in New York Chinatown for the first time.  The sight of all those small drawers, each stuffed with a different exotic ingredient, struck me with an epiphany:  "Somebody really does remember how to do plant medicine!"

Immediately I dropped out of Letha Hadady's tour and got myself a tongue-and-pulse diagnosis with custom prescription.  My Philmont neighbor Laura Smith was with me on that tour, and later we discussed how to find the plant material to grow some of those herbs for ourselves.  Thus began a journey of many twists and turns, some dead-ends but more open doors, and even wormholes into new realities.

Frank Lin referred me to Jeffrey C. Yuen that winter, and I enrolled in Jeffrey's one-year Chinese Herbal Studies certificate program given back then at Swedish Institute.  We found some, but not much, propagation material through the ornamental trade.  Then, in 1995 Elaine Sedlack at the University of California at Berkeley Botanical Garden referred me to Robert Newman, the center of a small group of Johnny Appleseeds who were bringing Chinese medicinal herbs to the New World with the intent of revitalizing traditional medicine.

None of this adventure was planned.  It's been lived in the moment, every step of the way.  I do not actually direct High Falls Gardens as much as try to stay upright on my surfboard as the Dao bears us toward the future.  Thousands of people have contributed Qi in the form of intentions, good will, sweaty weed-grubbing, ideas, referrals, money, and all the myriad small ways we cooperate to change the world.

I repeatedly try to articulate the Dream that is High Falls Gardens, and below is another attempt.  On this website you'll catch a glimpse of how thousands of people - many students, practitioners, patients and other friends of Oriental Medicine, working together with farmers and gardeners and plant lovers - are striving to make this Dream a reality for all.

High Falls Gardens' mission is to:

• Make efficacious traditional medicine available at affordable cost to all Americans. Traditional medicine, which has been with us throughout human history, uses parts of plants, animals and some minerals as special-purpose foods to resist disease and as rebalancing agents. It can complement conventional, western biomedicine, which has been around for about 120 years. The Asians have preserved traditional medicine in its totality into the present era, primarily through unbroken legacies and 2,000+ years of peerless written scholarship. This priceless knowledge now is being assimilated by different cultures throughout the world, including the United States.

• Help recreate sustainable cultures, right here and now. Due to the unique history of herbal medicine in this country, Americans are able to use Asian knowledge to reclaim their own legacies of traditional medicine including the efficacious use of our own native plants. Recent progressive movements in agriculture allow us to cultivate herbs with vitality that rivals their wild counterparts while preserving biodiversity and wild habitat. Farmers receive additional income streams, new value is discovered in fields, woodlands, wetlands and drylands. This new recognition of value helps reduce sprawl and pollution. The increasing popularity of traditional medicine counteracts the environmental costs and profitability of manufactured drugs and other chemicals.  People take charge of their own health. Local communities become self-reliant for food, medicine and other needs.

• Stop the war on nature! In the postmodern era we have begun to awaken from our illusions. We remember that broad-spectrum resistance to illness is more useful, and far less destabilizing, than magic bullets to kill bugs.  Biodiversity is a major support of health, a principle now applied to the soil, plants (including the microflora in our own guts), animals, and ourselves. We've learned that many indigenous cultures were once in balance with their environment, and their traditional diets prevented many of the diseases of so-called civilization. The route toward health is re-adaptation. And what is the ultimate goal of health but an end to war? Perhaps if we learn to stop fighting against nature we can call back our own mental projections that provoke us to torture and kill each other.

Idealists unite!  You have nothing to lose but your nightmares.

Contact me to see how you can get involved.

Please consider making a fully tax-deductible donation payable to the High Falls Gardens Fund.
Mail to:  HFG, Box 125, Philmont NY 12565.

Jean Giblette