Herbal vitality rituals with William Siff

Herbal vitality rituals with William Siff
William: Cultures with a longstanding tradition of health and uncommon longevity invariably incorporate medicinal plants into their cuisine .
Now let's say it's 9:30 and I've already incorporated, maybe nine or 10 medicinal plants seamlessly into my regimen without even thinking about it. All of which are enjoyable, pleasant and fun to produce.
I might finish the day with 20, 30 different medicinal plants woven into my diet, my habits, my rituals, like there was really no supplementation. It's quasi cooking and sort of beverage making and tonic formulation.
You add that up in a year, you start to accumulate the benefits over time. I give it to patients this way - it's not an add on that you could do healthier. it's a non negotiable, particularly in our culture if the goal is really optimized health and resiliency.
Lana: You're listening to plant love. Radio episode, number 70.
Hello friends. I hope you're having a good week.
Lately I've been thinking a lot about ways to continually develop my own herbal vitality rituals. To explore how to do this well, I invited one of my own herbal teachers and friends, William Siff to take us through his.
William is an expert of Asian and Ayurvedic medicine with over 20 years of experience, working with thousands of individuals and groups to successfully incorporate plant based medicine into their lives.
He's a true 'Plant Man' with depth of expertise across many different aspects of this field. William is a licensed acupuncturist, ethnobotanist, medicinal herb grower, formulator and educator.
Having formulated over a hundred different herbal products and getting great results with them, both for his own retail apothecary and the wider market, William created a line of 11 specific formulas to address the most vital functions and systems of the body. This line of formulas became William's new company called Goldthread tonics. And you can find his products in many retailers across the country. In recent years, he also created the plant venture experience to guide groups through the amazing world of medicinal plants and they're profound effects, developing a large and loyal following.
His work on behalf of plants and people takes him all over around the world, both sourcing plants for his tonics and plant ventures, as well as supporting indigenous plant medicinal projects.
His background includes founding Goldthread apothecary and herb farm, creating the Farm to Pharmacy educational program - and this is where I originally met him. And we will talk about this in this conversation- being a member of faculty at the Kripalu Ayurvedic school and visiting faculty at Bastyr university and much more.
I absolutely adore Bill and his wife, Edith, and am always inspired by their creative genius and their mission to connect people with the power of plants and to ensure that the cultures who cultivate these plants continue to thrive for generations to come.
Today's episode give away bonus is a variety pack of William's Goldthread tonics. To participate in the raffle, please head over to https://ko-fi.com/plantloveradio, and share your favorite moments from this conversation.
To get access to links and resources from today's episode, please head over to the show notes at https://plantloveradio.com/70 Enjoy.
Interview
Hi, Bill. How are you doing?
William: I'm doing great. How are you?
Lana: I'm great. I am so, so excited. We planned to do this for quite some time. And so I'm thrilled that we connected. So, we first met 10 years ago when I signed up for a program that you offered at the time. And I remember that year and the whole entire experience with such warmth. And I know that we'll talk a little bit about it, but I wanted to catch up and learn more about what you're doing these days.
Bill's training and early experiences
But to start this, I wanted to take you back a little bit and ask you to talk about your initial interest in natural medicine and herbal medicine. How did your training, and your early experiences, how did they help you to develop this holistic approach to body and to treating it?
William: I spend a lot of time outside when I was young. I spent a lot of time in the woods and that's where I first started to get acquainted with plants first of all. And I first got acquainted with health and vitality because I spent so much time kind of running and swimming in my teens and early twenties in nature and getting a sense of where vitality really comes from and where I felt most vital.
And so I started to associate this source of health and vitality with nature pretty early on. And I had some experiences pretty early also when I did a lot of running and trail running and I ran through a forest and came out into this field and I saw all these white flowers and I was sort of stopped in my tracks and I remember very distinctly going over and looking at these flowers up close for the first time. I guess just being curious about them and like sort of what are these things?
And it took me almost 18 years of living to get curious enough to stop and really look at a flower in that way. I have no reason to have done it. It just happened spontaneously. I wanted to know what it was because what I noticed about it was that it was Alive and a distinct being, minding its own business, had its own agenda. It was there all along and I'd never noticed it.
So I got a guide book and then I identified it, it's called soap wort. And it was a pretty common weedy species. but I read about it guidebook, the Peterson's guidebook what Native Americans use for. And I was really captivated at that point. My mind was blown that you could dig this thing up, wash the roots off, dry them, boil them in tea. And if you have a cough or a cold or something like that, it can improve that.
I just couldn't wrap my mind around that. Some people might hear that and think that's interesting and then move on. I was not moving on. I was sort of like, wow, that's in my mind. That's incredible. And then I started to notice every other plant, I just went from that plant. And then I said, okay so I'll look at that tree I've been running by, this white pine tree or this Birch or this other flower or this other herb or weed or shrub. And I just started to really, first of all, notice everything and it was just like then going into the forest was kind of like a scavenger hunt for me.
I just wanted to know what everything was and understand what they all were from the perspective of people that lived with these plants in my bio region for a lot longer than I had been there, or anyone had been there from European ancestry.
And that was like the beginning, but I felt myself always better when I was outside. And then I continue to have that interest. I mean, this was again late teens, early twenties, but I spent a lot of time too going into Boston. And I have been studying medical anthropology at that point in school with an emphasis on ethnobotany and how cultures used medicinal plants.
That was what I was really focused in on, but I remember going into Boston, on breaks or a long weekend or something like that. And I would always go to Chinatown and I would always be very interested in Chinatown. I remember the first time I really came across an herbal apothecary or like an herbal pharmacy.
And I walked in and it smelled kind of like the forest or it smelled like nothing I'd ever smelled before, obviously, nature-ific. It was very pleasing and relaxing to the senses, it was kind of like reassuring to me.
But I remember seeing all the remedies from all over Asia that were systematized, for every kind of thing under the sun, every kind of problem or element you could imagine, there was something that would benefit it. And there were people filling prescriptions behind a counter for people who are walking in off the streets.
That was my first encounter with the fact that like some culture here is devoting a lot of time and energy and value to plant medicine. And to see that as a systematized thing that some culture was taking that seriously, it was another revelation for me. I was like, wow. So this is actually a real thing.
It's not just me digging up roots and self experimenting and making teas from the forest and eating wild foods and all the things I had been doing.
Lana: Right.
William: So that's when I knew that there was a career path as well. So these are the kinds of experiences, that started to shape my interest. It started early on and I guess you could say recognize the plants and nature was where health came from and comes from.
And from then on, and it was just a lot of it was about an interest in other cultures that were distinct from our own. I'd always been interested in comparing what other people have to do, when it came to staying healthy and treating ill health, and particularly with plants.
Lana: Okay, that's awesome. and so that interest in Chinese medicine evolved into you following some sort of a program in acupuncture. Am I correct?
William: Yeah, ultimately it did. I traveled a lot and I apprenticed myself to different people, to get a feeling for what it would be like to become a practitioner of natural medicine as a career path. So I would do some office work or cleaning or anything I could with different acupuncturists and naturopaths, and Ayurvedic docs and so on.
If I could just be a fly on the wall in their practices and get a sense of it, but it didn't take me all that long. I was reading about it, self experimenting with herbs and different traditional medicine techniques. I was getting acupuncture and massage and chiropractic and anything I could to sort of understand it more from the inside out. So I thought, okay, I'm spending all my free time doing this, learning about this, reading about it. So what would I have to do to continue that forever and help people with what I'm learning? Because that always the other thing, when you start to learn about this stuff pretty soon, at least in my case, I wanted to share what I was learning cause people all around us contending with health challenges. And if you can see in your friends or your family, or whoever's close to you suffering with something and you know, something that can help them, even if it's just the beginnings of knowledge. You're not like an expert, but you're just starting to understand that, then you want to share it. At least I wanted to share it. But I wanted to share it completely. I didn't want to just be suggesting something, but not entirely being sure whether it is the right thing. So that was just natural that I had to continue to learn to really be of more service, really more helpful.
Goldthread apothecary and Farm to Pharmacy
Lana: Of course, of course. So by the time that we met you had an acupuncture practice, but you also had a beautiful farm in the Western part of Massachusetts. And at the time, [00:13:00] you created this incredible experiment. So, at the time, the farm was producing a variety of medicinal plans and, to have this farm to run it successfully, you were helping young herbalists and other healthcare providers, practitioners to get to know these plants through their work at the farm.
Right. So they were experiencing it and later the plants were harvested and you were using them in your apothecary and you were using them in the variety of products that you were selling to the public. Why at the time did you feel that this was an effective system and what lessons have you learned from creating this experience?
William: Well, at the time I started Goldthread, I had already been licensed and had my degree in acupuncture and Asian medicine. And I had seen the Asian model of practice, not just in Boston, but in Asia. And I'd seen places where plant medicine was more fully integrated into the everyday life of people. There were these institutions that were basically like herbal pharmacies sort of equivalent of the pharmacy that we associated with pharmaceutical drugs here, but just instead of those, there was natural medicines like at the turn of last century in this country?
So it was common to see these places where it's like a store, you go in, there's all these different herbal remedies, maybe custom combining herbs formulas for people, that a licensed practitioner had written out and prescribed. And I found that that was a really great way not only to practice as an individual, because for me it meant being surrounded by plant medicine, which is what I wanted, but it also was a useful and necessary function for the delivery of plant medicine to the masses.
We have grocery stores and health food stores and whole foods and things like that that have supplement sections, but it's not the same depth as what I saw as possible and necessary. Meaning like a real professional operation where the people that are doling out the plant medicine to walk in customers or people making consultation appointments and so on are licensed and at the very least really experienced the ins and outs of the system.
Like what are the contraindications, what are the extra things that you do when you're taking these things to look out for, or to pay attention to as signs of progress or signs of regression, and when you might need to move through the different layers of healthcare and go to a Western practitioner versus what natural medicine can safely handle. what are the appropriate dosages? Are there any other modifications you can do to enhance the effectiveness of whatever herbal remedy you're taking.
Like, if you have a cold or flu, what's the best diet to take with the cold and flu remedy to make sure that you get the most out of it. Things like that real credible stuff.
That was why I did it. I thought it was like a way to learn a lot too, to practice in a way that I wanted to, because I want to be primarily plant centric in my practice. So that's how it started and it became a successful model. And then I started to get just layer upon layer wanting to build on it.
I was really into curation, first of all. So another thing I could offer, which was different than sort of just a supplement section of a grocery store. I would go and find the best sources of all of these plant medicines. So in Goldthread apothecary, which is what it ended up being called we have medicines from all over the world and a really highly curated collection. People would come from New York and Montreal to get stuff from us. I mean, it was that complete. We would custom formulate. We would formulate for naturopaths and MDs and people they would just write prescriptions for plant medicines and we've got all these bulk supplies of tinctures and powders, teas and stuff that we could put together.
However, people wanted them relatively quickly, database it keep track of it for people. So we were just like a regular pharmacy in that way, but at some point I wanted to replace some of the products because our herbalists like to get their hands on stuff and they always want to make their own version of everything. Cause there's no product out there that really can match the the herbalist sort of sensibility for customization. And so I started to make a whole bunch of products and formulate and that became popular. And then it was sort of like let's continue to build that supply chain and get even closer to the herbs and the medicine.
So we got the farm and the Berkshires kind of outside of the town in which the pharmacy or the apothecary was running. And that was when I met you. We grew hundreds of species of medicinal plants and we supplied the apothecary with them as raw materials for the formulations that we were creating in house.
And in order to do that we also simultaneously created the farm to pharmacy program and that was partly in an effort to make the model works because farming is labor intensive, it's not very profitable, it's very difficult to have a local supply chain of anything for that matter, herbs included.
So we did that, but we also wanted to educate the people that were coming on fundamentals of plant medicine, especially at the grassroots home health care level. And so I would trade a day or two of my time in an effort to educate people on the ins and outs of growing processing, harvesting, soil maintenance and management, all the ins and outs of a working herb farm on the one side. And then the other side, the ins and outs of traditional Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine principles, traditional Western herbalism and the theory behind it, the application of it and so on and so forth. So it was pretty successful. It started to attract people from all over the country and then we would use that raw material that everyone had generated together to supply the apothecary.
we got a distiller in there. We were distilling with 85 gallon distillery for our David Crow out in California, where I am now. And, we were distilling the birch and the pine and the spruce and the fir in the middle of the winter.
So we had the farm kind of running all year long. this model to me represented a mandola of different activities. When you combine them all together, represented a sustainable healthcare model or system that's predicated on the use of plants. And it was resting on the foundation of local agriculture. There wasn't a big carbon footprint to it. It was training, and capacity building for want to be herbalists or practitioners, or even farmers who wanted to integrate plant medicine into their existing CSA or teachers who wanted to bring herbs into the classroom.
So that a lot of functions, the education and I was treating hundreds and hundreds of patients every week, both walk in and in the clinical setting with the plants that were grown 25 minutes from the pharmacy. And I just saw a lot of that as beneficial to export as ideas for others to replicate in different parts of the country.
I think then, and I still think that that's like a huge missing element to a sustainable healthcare system. At least at the level of the everyday enhancement optimization, simple treatment of common everyday elements with plants as being revived in our cultural skillset at the home, the neighborhood, the individual level, and ultimately the societal level would solve so many issues at once economic, ecological, empowerment and all that stuff.
Lana: It was absolutely such a beautiful system and idea. I remember being inspired. So, I came to the apprenticeship in 2010 after hearing you talk about it in 2009 at the American Herbalist Guild, and you sharing your passion for creating the system and really putting all these pieces together. It was so beautifully designed and done.
I have to tell you something. So the apprenticeship was great, but there was one piece of it that wasn't credibly memorable to me. And that was you feeding us. So you hired several people that actually created the most amazing soups and salad and bread. It's been 10 years. So remember how calendula flowers the petals went to into a Curry or I still make a spicy honey butters similar to those ones that you were using there. So why was food such an important part for you even then and how maybe has it evolved since then?Integration of plant medicine into everyday life
William: Yeah. Well, I think in order to really scale the mission that I've been on, which is the reintegration of plant medicine in the everyday foundational living of people in their daily lives, woven into routines and rituals and habits because that's where I feel like it's most effective, as opposed to treating pathology that's well in progress.
And I'm not saying that it doesn't have its value there. Of course it does. But I keyed in 10 years into my clinical practice most people were coming in with advanced pathology to see me really had common origins for what caused it. It's really just about them, like individual constitution, variations, genetics, and then circumstances for where this person breaks compared to that person breaking.
But really pathology has its roots in longterm neglect or dysfunction of the core bodily systems that keep us healthy if they're in good working order. And that's things like digestion and assimilation and detoxification and the endocrine functions, how we handle or don't handle stress and what it does when we don't handle it properly, or we're too drained and dragged out and inflamed because of it, how our nervous system functions, meaning what's the balance like in our life of rest and rejuvenation versus activity and excitement, you know, hydration, these kinds of things. When you start to look at those as like core necessities, like these spheres of physiology that if attended to really create the foundation or the roots of wellness.
That's what started to become clear to me. And then plant medicine is perfectly situated or perfectly suited to enhance and optimize these core bodily systems. And let me explain what I mean by that.
If we need to digest and assimilate nutrients from our food in order to feed ourselves, to govern everything, to feed the organs, the tissues, to govern the metabolic pathways, maintain health, right? And then there are plant medicines that are biocompatible, that are enjoyable and that just subtly enhanced the way the digestive and assimilative functions work. Why wouldn't we incorporate them into our daily life? Same is true of... if we have to get rid of metabolic waste, that we don't digest, we don't assimilate. There's always something left over that has to be recycled. And then finally some of it has to be eliminated. and there are plant medicines that can be woven into everyday life, integrated into our diet, integrated into our routines that enhance subtly without imbalancing us, our ability to detoxify. Wouldn't that be a valuable thing to know about it and to embrace?
And it's the same way with all of these spheres, whether it's adaptogens and our endocrine system or nervines and our nervous system and so on and so forth. Demulcents and mucilaginous herbs for our ability to deeply hydrate.
From my travels and my studies for my own self understanding, from clinical practice and my life, I knew that there were a whole bunch of medicinal plants and categories and medicinal plants that are not supplements are not high powered, sort of standardized extracts, they're just food, they're cuisine. They're like diet. It's as simple as cooking with culinary spices with most meals or drinking aromatic antispasmodic digestive relaxing teas after most meals like the Mints and the lavender and the lemon balm and the Linden.
And things you can find in traditional cultures are not even so traditional. I mean, in Europe, for example, it's not uncommon to find a wide selection of bitters and people understanding the importance of digestives and aperitifs, and so on as just subtle amendments to these really important functions of digestion and assimilation.
And there are examples of this across the board. I've seen different things like in Japan, it's very common to drink a lot of green tea and matcha and the different kinds of things like ginger and wasabi and horseradish. And in India, they have curries and chutneys and amla berries, different kinds of sour plums. Cultures that have cuisine and have a longstanding tradition of health and uncommon longevity, invariably incorporate medicinal plants into their cuisine at some level.
I wanted it in those programs and every day since then revive those traditions by really integrating medicinal plants into the diet, into the lifestyle, into the cupboards, into the cabinets, in an effort to on a continuous basis, be amplifying and enhancing these core bodily functions that keep us healthy.
First of all it's enjoyable and enlivening to do that because they smell great, they're very colorful and beautiful, they taste amazing. And it's what defines cuisine, you can't think of Indian food without the Curry spices, or you can't think of Vietnamese cooking without galangal and Thai basil and different kinds of capsicum and so on. Certainly Mediterranean cooking without garlic or the Mediterranean spices oregano and thyme wouldn't be what it is. And so it's bringing out the obvious and expressing just how important it is as a health care measure.
Lana: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Quick break
Just taking a quick break here to remind you that today's episode has a giveaway bonus associated with it - a variety pack of Goldthread tonics.
To participate in the raffle, please head over to https://ko-fi.com/plantloveradio, and share your favorite moments from this conversation. And now let's get back to our discussion. Current philosophy and daily rituals
I reached out to you this time around because I saw something on social media where you shared your daily ritual of incorporating herbs. Can you give us some examples of what exactly do you do? Where do you put those herbs so simply and elegantly that they become part of your diet, part of your food, that they don't feel like medicine, but they feel like something that is pleasurable and exciting and yet feeds you incredibly throughout the entire day.
William: Well, yeah, what you're asking is the core of my current philosophy with patients that I've see in the clinic and with the work I do teaching. And all of it is really about on a daily basis, integrating and incorporating some plants from each of the main categories, that I spoke about that enhance or amplify the functions I want to make sure are in good working order, regardless of any other health consideration or someone's status of health or ill health. At least every day I'm touching upon with medicinal plants, the fundamentals or the foundation.
So what you're referencing is in the morning, it's actually chia seeds, but it doesn't have to be, but in the morning, you've slept all night long and you're dried out a little bit from sleeping and breathing and you haven't been hydrating and you've been doing a lot of metabolic work rebuilding when you're sleeping.
So you wake up and it's time to hydrate and to get the fluid matrix and the hydration, give it some attention. And so I would make a drink, this is just my current iteration of it, but I put some chia seeds, maybe a couple of ounces of aloe Vera juice. Then let that kind of soak, let the mucilage come out of the chia seeds, add a little bit of lemon juice, and maybe like a tiny dash of maple syrup, but maybe not and drink that down. And that's just start that process, you know, get some bulking fiber feed the microbiome, hydrate and start to lubricate and move the fluid matrix.
And then at some level, it's time to eat a little bit later. And before breakfast, that's a good time, for example, to incorporate some kind of agani or digestive fire enhancing shot or spice elixir, or something of that nature. Because as the solar cycle is rising in the external environment, it's also rising in our internal environment. And traditional medicine knows that our ability to digest and metabolize and break down is at its height when the sun is at its height and the outside world.
So sometime in the mid morning til late morning, I might just have fresh shot of juiced tumeric, pinch of lime juice, maybe a pinch of Himalayan rock salt. And I might down that and then it's time to eat with a fully amped up digestive system that can really break down and assimilate because I've kindled the flames. And then after I eat the breakfast, which invariably will have some kind of medicinal plants, usually fresh herbs, hopefully in there. Today, for example, I think Edith made some buckwheat cereal. We're gonna put some blueberries in there and then we'll also make sure there's some goji berries, maybe mix in some powder in there.
So I'm getting some nutrients from there, again, I'm drawing from the plant world, what were considered medicinal plants in this case, like super fruit medicinal plants extra polyphenols and antioxidants and just a little bit of an extra blast of nutrients. And then after when it's time to sit down [00:32:00] and start the Workday maybe it's time to brew some peppermint tea or have some peppermint elixir to sip on to create space and expansion and relaxation of the digestive system. So the digestive system can churn and mix and break down properly and assimilate effectively the contents of the breakfast.
Now let's say it's 9:30 and I've already incorporated, I don't know, maybe nine or 10 medicinal plants seamlessly into my regimen or my routine without really even thinking about it. All of which are enjoyable and pleasant and fun to produce.
And I could give you this kind of scenario that will go on throughout the day if you want. But the point is it continues maybe after that lavender tea or peppermint tea, I decided I needed a little more focused. So maybe an hour later I whip up some matcha and I get a whole bunch more antioxidants and theanine for the nervous system and so on. And it just keeps going like that.
Now, if you add that one day up, I might finish the day with 20, 30 different medicinal plants woven into my diet, my habits, my rituals, like there was really no supplementation. It's quasi cooking and sort of beverage making and tonic formulation.
But if you add up that week, now we're talking about 200 different medicinal plant experiences. And if you add up on month, it's like hundreds more. You add that up in a year, you start to accumulate the benefits over time. And really that's how it's been done and how it is continuing to be done in parts of the world where they haven't forgotten the place of medicinal plants to enhance, amplify, challenge activate our physiology. And I start to see it, I teach it, I give it to patients this way that it's not an option. It's not an add on that you could do healthier. I think it's an essential, it's a non negotiable, particularly in our culture to start to work with plant medicine in this way, if the goal is really optimized health and resiliency. so that's the fundamental.
Lana: That's fabulous. Thank you.
Ways of combining plants together
You mentioned that all of these herbal experiences are tasty and delicious in addition to being healing and really wonderful for you. But you're a master formulator. So I remember tasting a number of different preparations that you have created, and I still have some of my favorites that I try to recreate, but I wanted to talk a little bit about your approach to putting things together. Right? So when you're blending different herbs, you approach them from a variety of perspectives. I shared on social media that one of the things that I miss about not being at work is seeing beautiful plant mandallas you create with herbs you put in your tonics. So can you talk about how you think about creating some of these combinations of plants? Is there a formula? Is there an idea of how things are combined best together? Whether from visual perspective, the perspective of tasting them, what typically goes through your mind?
William: Well, I guess I would start with saying that I do place a high emphasis or premium on taking advantage of the aesthetics of plant medicine as an important part of the overall system of adopting plants into your life as sort of a regular everyday thing, because it's a huge advantage of plants that they are so aesthetically pleasing to the senses. And that experience of being around, I guess you would say beauty, whether it's aromas or colors or fragrance or textures is in and of itself an important element of being well, I think being optimally well. And right before we started this interview, I showed you a little like FaceTime of my kitchen and my house and stuff and how I set it up and I've set it up every dwelling I've had for the past 20 years.
And I'm sure most of the herbalists on this podcast who are listening know what I'm talking about. We love having jars of herbs and bottles of herbs and the ability to look at all these things in our house all the time. They're like our pals and they kind of just make you feel better just being around them.
And they really are so anciently a part of our DNA and our connection with nature. So that's one thing, the other one making things flavorful and appealing to the senses is the only way to make a habit out of it.
The system I just described to you with the adoption of these plants seamlessly into the lifestyle on an everyday basis only works to enhance health if it's done over a long period of time. Plant medicine is slow and steady in its enhancement of physiology. So if you're not going to make a habit or a ritual out of it, you're not going to get the full benefits. And so that's why it has to be appealing to the senses.
And that's not to say that one of the first things that anyone who practices clinically has to confront with people is coaxing them into expanding their palette to incorporate bitter and astringent and sour and different flavor tones that medicinal plants have that other things that we commonly eat don't and not being repulsed by them or averse to these things and finding that actually the opposite is true.
When people are put off by a bitter taste of something like dandelion or artichoke leaf or something it's not herbal medicine's problem. It's just that people aren't accustomed to that. And it can be unlearned as much as it's been learned and, any herbalists on this podcast will know that we love those, that is also an expansion of our physiological capacity, because we're taking in all phytochemicals and then they're reflexively activating all these physiological processes.
So to be healthy means to invite all of the flavors of nature in my opinion, that plants contain. So with that being said, though, formulation comes about for me anyway easily because of a long standing commitment to self experimentation.
I drenched myself over decades with these plants. So I know their flavor profiles, what they do, how they feel when they're ingested at the physiological feeling state, not theoretical, but like what it feels like to ingest Tulsi versus to ingest lemon balm. What does that experience like? What does the [00:39:00] experience of tablespoon of cloves versus one clove, what's overdoing it with something what's underdoing it. There's so much to that, just really getting to know your own palate.
Someone really knows wine can take, a whiff of the wine and know okay, this has these kinds of fruity overtones, and it comes from this kind of a soil, or maybe even this region and this is the effect when you first drink it, and this is the aftertaste and they get really into the language of describing what's happening with wine.
That's the same way that I feel about how I work with plant medicine. and that's just practice. I mean, to me, that's the best part of the practice of plant medicine and herbalism is actually getting really familiar with the material, the plants themselves, because it really expands not just enjoyment of life, but just really like expands the textural experience of life.
Plants are so novel and so unique and there's so many combinations and any way, then what happens is applying that to formulation becomes the same way that a chef uses, foods and oils and then sauces and so on.
It's really no difference. It's just like being a herbal chef. I hope that makes sense. mean, there's obviously more like, it's more I can say about it, you know, like make sure you offset the spiciness of this with the sweetness of that, or the earthiness of this with the fire use of that. But that's more advanced. I mean, that gets into like very specific territory. I'm just saying, get familiar with it.
Goldthread tonics
Lana: Of course, of course. Thank you. So your passion for combining these flavors and tastes, you have been following this in your own cooking and in your own preparation. I remember that during one of the sessions you came to teach my pharmacy students you brought different beverages. And I learned that you started a line of Goldthread elixirs or Goldthread tonics. I want to ask you to talk a little bit about them. What are these elixirs and what makes them so special?
William: Yeah. I still have a vibrant clinical practice and I see patients regularly, but I also am like really interested in scaling the sort of broad application and adoption of plant medicine in the wider culture integrated into people's daily lives and routines. I see that as such an important piece of the healthcare for individuals and society. And so about three and a half years ago, we, my wife Edith and I decided to scale.
[How can we scale this message or this mission? And we went through a whole design process and thought it through and said, maybe we should scale the education, the apothecaries or the clinical practice or something. And we ended up settling on let's scale a product, let's go with a product because what it does is it introduces people to the subject in a way that's not requiring anything of them other than to walk into a store and buy it, drink it and that's it. It's a fairly low sort of barrier to entry as opposed to like, clinical education or like that, and it's wide and its potential application. Cause there's stores all over the country, all over the world.
So we decided to do that. And I had been, like what you've been saying on this podcast, you still remember the experience of consuming these plants in a way that was enjoyable and effective, it impacted your health in a positive way. All these years later, you still remember that experience.
And so giving people plants in that way is really memorable. It's sort of like makes a big impact. It's nonverbal as sort of just like let the plants do the work. All I have to do is get them into people somehow. And so we went with the beverages because we could also see that in the beverage world, you can see that people are going to the beverage counter in or the beverage aisle in a lot of stores all over the country, much more so for like a quick dose, or quick hit of healthcare. And there's all kinds of things like the kombuchas and the vinegars and all the Keifers and the sort of like all the fermented beverages that are attending to the gut health and the microbiome, which is really important.
And you go in there for a few dollars and you can get something that enhances that, or there's things that are out there, teas and there's all kinds of stuff that normally might have been in the purview of the supplement aisle where people would go normally for just supplements. But now beverages are taking a big chunk out of that and they're much lower commitment level.
They're not as expensive. You don't necessarily have a bottle of something sitting on a shelf. You don't know how to use it, it's something you can do at your lunch break or before a workout or a yoga class or after dinner or whatever. So there was something about that, but I had never thought it was possible based upon my experience in the farm and the clinic and the apothecary.
So I formulated. Now at this point, there's 10 varieties. Each one of them is addressing one of these core spheres of physiology that expressing a necessity for maintaining the roots of wellness or maintaining health. So there's there that's for digestion and metabolism and to enhance subtly the detoxification pathways.
And there's a skew in there, headed up by lavender and Linden for kind of subtly relaxing the digestive system and the gut and expanding the possibility of shifting into rest and digest mode. And then there's another one you could say like, augmenting or enhancing the immune response that has elderberry and astragalus and hibiscus and Rose hips and Tulsi. so that they could walk in to a store grab one or make rituals out of the daily use of medicinal plants in a way that takes the work out of it, but also creates self apply, to enhance whatever function they need [00:45:00] in that moment.
I tried to be complete about that. So sometimes you might crave the tumeric one or the ginger drink in the morning enhancing metabolism. And then if you're at the workplace and you need some focus and concentration, there's a matcha drink. And then after dinner, if you want to wind down, maybe you drink a lavender drink and you can sort of apply these things in a systematic way to enhance overall health.
And I want it to make them strong, strong enough, to actually do something. So I put 14 grams of herbs into a 12 ounce bottle, which basically means in the clinic, I would usually give a person 14 to 28 ounces per dose of raw herbs, depending on what they were coming in for.
But 14 is a really good dose. So they actually work. They're not just sort of like window dressing of herbs. They actually do something. I formulated them in these synergistic ways, like we've been talking about so that the sum is greater than the parts based upon my clinical experience of Aryuveda and Chinese medicine.
And lastly, I go and get these ingredients and continue to curate and source from all the best places in the world. That's the advantage of being a formulator, a clinician and a grower. The last trip that I went on before the pandemic was to Greece where I was sourcing some Mediterranean mints and some Greek mountain tea. I want it to go where the soil, the terroir and the are all the strongest to get the most out of these medicinal plants.
And I do that with all of them. So we go to India for our turmeric and our Tulsi, and we go to Korea for our Schisandra berries and our ginseng things like that. We go to the, United States for some of our herbs as well, because that's where some of the best stuff comes from.
So I wanted to find the best stuff and make the supply chain really work for the people. I was in a hyperlocal model for many years, and it's not that I don't believe in that still, but I also recognize it. that we live in a global society and there are people all over the world that depend on the herb trade to sustain their families, to take care of the land in which they're living in or the region, and have done so for generations.
And it really opened my eyes because I feel like there's gotta be a balance between a domestic and a global at least in a transitional state. First of all, some of these herbs only grow in those places. But second of all, I've seen what $500 can do in Fiji for buying school books for kids and stuff like that, if I buy a few kilos of kava kava for a drink. That's how it works everywhere.
So the supply chain I really wanted to make it an emphasis it's sustainable and really mutually beneficial all the way down the line. We started off in New England, our home territory when we moved to California, where we live now and started going from West to East. And now we're in 4,000 stores and most of the major chains. And the business is doing really well. And people really like these things because they taste good and they're refreshing but they're potent . That's my shtick on the drinks.
Lana: That's really awesome. And so congratulations on the success. And I am going to show you, I have to see clarity that I just drank earlier. And I really love the tonics.
A little while ago, I interviewed someone yeah. about the concept of the supply chains. I am so grateful that you bring this up because I think what's important is that you have the knowledge and you have the expertise and you understand who you're buying from, and the quality of these ingredients. And I don't think that it always happens necessarily. Some of the best companies that lot of herbalists buy from and familiar with go through all these necessary steps, but it doesn't happen automatically.
And so educating others about the importance of purchasing from the right sources and supporting the right people, buying plants and the ingredients and doing it wisely, putting your money, your wallet behind the products and the ingredients you really believe in is incredibly important. So thank you for doing all this work and thank you for sharing it here.
Meaning of Goldthread name
so apothecary, Goldthread tonics, why goldthread? I probably should have asked you a lot earlier.
William: Yeah, well, there's a lot of levels that answer for me, but as you probably know and others, a goldthread is a small evergreen medicinal plant that grows in the Northeast Canada. There's several species, but Coptis greenlandica I've spent a lot of time with that plant before I named the first apothecary. I spent a lot of time with a plant loop on my hands and knees and the forest looking at the flower of this thing and sort of marveling at it and getting transfixed and hypnotized by something like that. I guess I was so amazed by something so small, really it's tiny and ephemeral, the flower just comes and goes so quick. Really. Anyone who's not an herbalist or a botanist would never even know it exists because you don't have to get down on your hands and knees to see that flower.
So everyone just walks right by it mostly, but I spent a lot of time thinking, wow, something so small is so powerful and captivating and the roots are really bright orange kind of gold, but really bright orange, like full of berberine and copticine or different alkaloids. And there's been times when I have had ailments where I've gone out and that's the Go-To plant. I didn't use a lot of it, just grabbed some handfuls in a respectful way and wash them off in a close by Creek and just munched down for different kinds of inflammatory stuff going on in the gut or the respiratory system .
so it's just been one of my go to early on plants that I learned about and found to be tremendously valuable as an ally. I would never use that plant in my formulations because it's so scarce and it has to be wild crafted, and there's not much of it, the roots are so tiny, but I've successfully grown it, my forest gardens . So I love the plant. It has a catchy name. It's sort of like a name that's memorable. And then as we move through the different iterations of the gold thread life cycle of institutions, whether it's the apothecary or the distillery or the farmer pharmacy program, or now the plant based tonic company, it just felt appropriate to continue the name, throughout all of these different incarnations of what I've been doing. It's kind of been with me for a long time. And honestly, I live in California now, but when I go back to visit new England, I make a point of going out to find one of my favorite patches of goldthread and hanging out with it and checking in with it and like having a chat with it.
Lana: It is a good story.
So I have a couple of more questions for you. how could our listeners learn more about you and continue learning from you? And then my last question will be, do you have any parting words for this audience? Any words of wisdom, anything that you want to leave us with?Connecting with William
William: Let's start with the first one Lana. You can follow me on Instagram @WilliamSiff. And that's where I put out content. I really just started it eight weeks ago in earnest, but it's there and I'm starting to put out content. The drink... the name of the company Goldthread plant-based tonics, and www.drinkgoldthread.com is the website and also the Instagram handle. And that one has a much bigger following and there's a lot of content going there.
There's also an online journal there that's called the thread, can sign up for. And that has articles that I've written and articles that we've gotten from other people, it's very custom curated content just to kind of accompany.
There'll be a book coming out. It's going to be a while, but it's coming. Before the pandemic we live in Santa Monica and we did regularly things called Plant Ventures, where we did classes, passed around different herbal remedies. It was like an herbal show and tell from all over the world and all the different places I've gathered things. In the meantime, we're now working on online version of that. So it will be coming soon. And if you just keep in touch with those social handles and the website, you'll see it.
My parting words are just to express how happy I am to have reconnected with you on this podcast and to have seen your lovely face before this podcast on FaceTime, because it's been so long and I've been an avid listener since you've done this. And I know what it takes to kind of maintain a project that you start yourself and stay consistent to it and do the work it takes to maintain it. And so I'm happy to be a part of it. And I thank you for doing it.
Lana: Thank you. Thank you so much, Bill, my love to Edith and thank you again.
Thank you for listening!
Thank you so much for joining us for this conversation with William Siff. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have. For links and resources mentioned in today's interview, please head over to the show notes at https://plantloveradio.com/70.
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The music you hear in the introduction was written by a neighbor of mine, David Scholl and it's called Something about Cat - my deepest gratitude to Bill Gilligan for this opportunity to play it.
Thanks again for being here today. I really appreciate you. Till the next time, thank you for loving plants and planting love!