AI Summary
5 min readWhen Donette Lowe was deep in a plant spirit medicine dieta—six weeks of isolation, strict diet, and single-minded communion with one plant—she chose rose. She was going through a divorce, still living with her ex-husband, and she asked the plant to take her grief. Rose answered: I’ll hold it for a couple of minutes, but your job is to alchemize it. The relief was immediate, then gone. The lesson stuck. That kind of hard-won teaching, passed between plant and person, is the thread running through Lowe’s work as a clinical herbalist, founder of the Black Herbalist Collective, and practitioner in the hoodoo tradition.
Liberation medicine and the meaning of a poisoner
Lowe describes African-American herbalism plainly: “The core of it is liberation medicine. The actual core of how we got here was a need to have our own autonomy in order to save ourselves.” That origin story matters because it reframes herbalism not as a wellness trend but as a survival practice born under enslavement. She names herself a “poisoner” in the hoodoo tradition—a term that sounds sinister but describes something precise. A poisoner, she explains, is someone who can alchemize something dark into medicine. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, I’m taking this really dark thing and making it light.’ No, I’m taking this dark thing and I make it in medicine.” She points to cotton root as a perfect example: the plant t
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What you'll learn
- 1 Timestamped Navigation Outline
- 2 (00:00) **African-American Herbalism as Liberation Medicine** - Donette defines the core of African-American herbalism as liberation medicine, born from the need for autonomy and self-preservation
- 3 (00:51) **Introduction and Guest Background** - Lucretia introduces Donette Lowe, clinical herbalist behind Honey Balm Health and founder of the Black Herbalist Collective
- 4 (03:14) **How North Carolina Called Her** - Donette shares the spiritual calling that brought her from New Jersey to Raleigh, North Carolina
- 5 (05:42) **First Plant Encounter: Wild Ginger** - Donette describes meeting wild ginger on a hike with the Eno River Association
- 6 (07:50) **The Sacred Relationship with Plants** - Donette explains why the tea doesn't work if you haven't cultivated a relationship with nature outside the cup
- 7 (09:13) **Defining Spiritual Herbalism** - Donette describes spiritual herbalism as the sacred relationship and communion with plants
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
This week on Herbal Radio, we are joined by host Lucretia Van Dyke, and the spiritually attuned clinical herbalist who has found herself guided on an ancestral path to unite the Black herbalist community, Donette Lowe.
Join us as they explore:
- Spiritual herbalism: cultivating connection between person and plant
- Alchemizing ancestral medicine as a poisoner in the Hoodoo tradition
- Food as medicine: onions, collard greens, and everything in between
- Customizing care aligned with the individual's lifestyle
- Donette's calling to connect the Black herbalist community
- Herbalism and social media: the real herbalist vs. the reel herbalist
As always, we thank you for joining us on another botanical adventure and are so honored to have you tag along with us on this ride. Remember, we want to hear from you! Your questions, ideas, and who you want to hear from are an invaluable piece to our podcast. Email us at [email protected] to let us know what solutions we should uncover next within the vast world of herbalism.
Learn more about Donette and Lucretia below! ⬇️
🌸 Donette (Títílọlá) (she/they) is the clinical herbalist behind Honeybalm Health and founder of the Black Herbalists Collective (BHC), an association of Black herbalists. For a decade, she has been a spiritual student of plants, formalizing her medicinal studies at the Land of Verse with certifications in Clinical Herbalism and Plant Spirit Medicine. Recognizing that wellness is holistic, her work is rooted in healing justice as she practices as a spiritualist, medium, and energy weaver. Standing firmly in her ancestors' footsteps, she is a poisoner in the Hoodoo tradition, Òrìṣà and Ifá devotee, and ritualistic student of African Traditional and Diasporic religions. Based in Raleigh, NC, Donette currently teaches holistic herbalism for Black herbalists, facilitates healing justice workshops, and continuously deepens her academic research of our ancestral practices.
📱Find Donette on social media! Instagram: @blackherbalistcollective & @honeybalmhealth
👚 Want to support Black herbalists? More from this podcast