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The Art & Practice of Spiritual Herbalism: Transform, Heal, and Remember with the Power of Plants and Ancestral Medicine
Discover how to utilize the magic of plants and diasporic ancestral practices in remedies and ritual.
What if plants could be used to guide the process of transformation? What if you knew which rituals and plants could be partnered to alleviate physical symptoms or heal emotional and spiritual imbalances? How can plants help you stand in your power, strengthen your intuition, and provide protection? In The Art & Practice of Spiritual Herbalism, leading Black herbalist Karen Rose provides the answers you seek.
This guide to harnessing the power of plants is a practical tool for working through the symptoms of body disease and the underlying emotional and spiritual issues. Organized by major body systems such circulatory, digestive, and reproductive, The Art & Practice of Spiritual Herbalism gives a brief overview of the physical mechanisms of the system, the spiritual correspondences associated with that system, and the plants, remedies, and rituals that can be used to bring oneself back to healing and balance.
Filled with stories, ancestral recipes, and accessible practices that anyone can use, The Art & Practice of Spiritual Herbalism shows you how to use the power of plants for spiritual and physical healing.
What if plants could be used to guide the process of transformation? What if you knew which rituals and plants could be partnered to alleviate physical symptoms or heal emotional and spiritual imbalances? How can plants help you stand in your power, strengthen your intuition, and provide protection? In The Art & Practice of Spiritual Herbalism, leading Black herbalist Karen Rose provides the answers you seek.
This guide to harnessing the power of plants is a practical tool for working through the symptoms of body disease and the underlying emotional and spiritual issues. Organized by major body systems such circulatory, digestive, and reproductive, The Art & Practice of Spiritual Herbalism gives a brief overview of the physical mechanisms of the system, the spiritual correspondences associated with that system, and the plants, remedies, and rituals that can be used to bring oneself back to healing and balance.
Filled with stories, ancestral recipes, and accessible practices that anyone can use, The Art & Practice of Spiritual Herbalism shows you how to use the power of plants for spiritual and physical healing.
208 pages, Paperback
Published February 8, 2022
442 people are currently reading
960 people want to read
About the author
Karen M. Rose
2 books17 followersTrained in Eastern and Western Herbal Medicine, Master Herbalist, Karen M. Rose created an outlet for her teachings and healing modalities with the opening of Brooklyn-based Sacred Vibes Healing and Sacred Vibes Apothecary in 2002. Her inspiration for this work began as a child in her native home of Guyana, where she was exposed to how African, Caribbean and Latin American traditions profoundly influenced plant medicine and community healing. The legacy of these lands is the foundation of Karen’s spiritual and healing practice.
Karen is dedicated to empowering individuals to make informed decisions not only about their health, but their total lifestyle. She has developed authentic and enlightening materials as well as an extensive line of herbal products, all of which are available through the apothecary, apprenticeship classes and mentoring programs, such as her Get Off Your Knees platform, in which she weaves myth, fairytale, folklore and her own experiences to uniquely coach clients on how to become their spiritual, physical, and emotional best selves based on their innate talents and gifts.
A strong advocate of community partnerships in healing, she believes that all spiritual traditions offer guidance on the path to finding truth, and she has authored articles on the power and simplicity of herbs used to heal and nourish mind, body and spirit.
Karen and her work have been featured in a variety of media outlets, including on The FEED, featuring culinary celebrity Marcus Samuelsson, the New York Times, Black Enterprise Magazine, Organic Life, and the New York Daily News. Aside from her dedication to healing, Karen is also a devoted mother of three, who she proudly believes are her best apprentices.
Karen is dedicated to empowering individuals to make informed decisions not only about their health, but their total lifestyle. She has developed authentic and enlightening materials as well as an extensive line of herbal products, all of which are available through the apothecary, apprenticeship classes and mentoring programs, such as her Get Off Your Knees platform, in which she weaves myth, fairytale, folklore and her own experiences to uniquely coach clients on how to become their spiritual, physical, and emotional best selves based on their innate talents and gifts.
A strong advocate of community partnerships in healing, she believes that all spiritual traditions offer guidance on the path to finding truth, and she has authored articles on the power and simplicity of herbs used to heal and nourish mind, body and spirit.
Karen and her work have been featured in a variety of media outlets, including on The FEED, featuring culinary celebrity Marcus Samuelsson, the New York Times, Black Enterprise Magazine, Organic Life, and the New York Daily News. Aside from her dedication to healing, Karen is also a devoted mother of three, who she proudly believes are her best apprentices.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
June 20, 2022
Wow, this is a fantastic book! I’m very much a beginner when it comes to herbalism, and honestly it often feels too overwhelming to start. Karen M. Rose’s genius is in how she’s created an accessible volume on herbalism that seamlessly weaves physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual healing in the specific context of Black women and queer folks but also with a direct relevance rippling out to other folks of color as well as those marginalized in other ways (and even, I think, a general audience).
Rose is based in New York, but the plants she features includes quite a few found in most parts of the world, so this volume will be applicable wherever you live. Even if you don’t ultimately end up working with plants as medicine, you’re going to learn a lot about the human body and how it connects to the spirit, to nature, and to the harms of modern experience. It’s a great blend of practical reference and healing wisdom.
The material is organized by systems of the body, and before getting into the specific plants in each chapter Rose covers some of the key topics that relate to the body system in question, clearly demonstrating how physical functions relate to our experiences, whether literally or by association. For example in the section on the liver we learn about all sorts of detoxing and processing, as well as ways to relate to emotions of fear and anger. Rose has a real knack for natural metaphor, and she presents elemental, planetary, and orisha correspondences (as well as occasional examples from other pantheons) to really help the reader understand the energies involved. I found it much easier to connect with and remember the plants and their qualities with this approach. Rose also uses the Doctrine of Signatures to show how plants’ appearances mimic their uses, and includes color sketches of each key plant.
Systemic oppression, Black women and femmes’ experiences, and the costs of ecological deprivation and colonialism are emphasized throughout the book, as well as the general burdens of a capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacist culture disconnected from the land. Women of the Black diaspora are Rose’s primary audience, and one of the ways she centers Blackness is in weaving tales of the orishas throughout the book, with an artistic representation of each. In discussing different body systems and the plants she uses to work with them Rose also gets into specifics around the complexities of working with the land when your enslaved ancestors were forced to develop it, the weight of Mammy and Jezebel stereotypes for Black women, the legacy of medical experimentation, and more.
Other readers of color will appreciate in their own contexts the specificity of remedies addressing migration and displacement, spiritual theft, social justice burnout, and emotional labor. I think this would be an excellent book to pair with ancestral healing work, or with further reading on healing from intergenerational trauma (e.g. Resmaa Menakem’s My Grandmother’s Hands.) And it’s not entirely about the burdens and challenges—Rose also emphasizes the power of inherited spiritual technologies, community, and cultural foods.
Each chapter features a few key plants for the featured body system with detailed information including the plant’s appearance, origin, uses, risks, how to respectfully and sustainable acquire the plant and what parts of it to use, the planetary and energetic qualities, biological composition, notes on historical and mythical uses, the kinds of physical actions it promotes in the body, and a few specific ways to use the plant with recommended doses. The kinds of problems addressed are much more specific than I expected—rather than “here are fifty things you might take for a cold,” you’ll get something more like “use this for the kind of lingering cold that ends up in your chest” or “here’s a plant to help you heal your relationship with difficult ancestors.” As a beginner, I’m more tempted by these very tailored ideas than I have been by larger reference volumes. Along with the featured plants, a handful of additional options are covered more briefly to round things out. Reading this book feels a little like chatting with a super knowledgeable auntie—solid information, but also curated to what’s essential and relevant.
You’re going to find a wide variety of preparations featured in Rose’s remedies, which I found informative even just reading to learn about how plants can be used in different ways, such as for steams or herbal smoking blends. It’s also nice to just trust that an herbalism book is going to support you in working ethically with plants, avoiding overharvesting or other harmful practices. And Rose’s practices as a spiritual herbalist go beyond plant preparations alone. For example, one of my favorite practices she shares is the plant walk, with guidance on how to enter into reciprocal relationship with a plant and learn from it experientially.
This is an incredibly valuable resource for anyone who wants to explore the richness of life on this planet and their relationship to plants, but also their relationship to healing. It offers powerful remedies to heal from and resist capitalism, racism, and colonialism and teaches herbalism in an accessible way that will resonate with many readers. I highly recommend it!
(ARC provided through Edelweiss.)
Rose is based in New York, but the plants she features includes quite a few found in most parts of the world, so this volume will be applicable wherever you live. Even if you don’t ultimately end up working with plants as medicine, you’re going to learn a lot about the human body and how it connects to the spirit, to nature, and to the harms of modern experience. It’s a great blend of practical reference and healing wisdom.
The material is organized by systems of the body, and before getting into the specific plants in each chapter Rose covers some of the key topics that relate to the body system in question, clearly demonstrating how physical functions relate to our experiences, whether literally or by association. For example in the section on the liver we learn about all sorts of detoxing and processing, as well as ways to relate to emotions of fear and anger. Rose has a real knack for natural metaphor, and she presents elemental, planetary, and orisha correspondences (as well as occasional examples from other pantheons) to really help the reader understand the energies involved. I found it much easier to connect with and remember the plants and their qualities with this approach. Rose also uses the Doctrine of Signatures to show how plants’ appearances mimic their uses, and includes color sketches of each key plant.
Systemic oppression, Black women and femmes’ experiences, and the costs of ecological deprivation and colonialism are emphasized throughout the book, as well as the general burdens of a capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacist culture disconnected from the land. Women of the Black diaspora are Rose’s primary audience, and one of the ways she centers Blackness is in weaving tales of the orishas throughout the book, with an artistic representation of each. In discussing different body systems and the plants she uses to work with them Rose also gets into specifics around the complexities of working with the land when your enslaved ancestors were forced to develop it, the weight of Mammy and Jezebel stereotypes for Black women, the legacy of medical experimentation, and more.
Other readers of color will appreciate in their own contexts the specificity of remedies addressing migration and displacement, spiritual theft, social justice burnout, and emotional labor. I think this would be an excellent book to pair with ancestral healing work, or with further reading on healing from intergenerational trauma (e.g. Resmaa Menakem’s My Grandmother’s Hands.) And it’s not entirely about the burdens and challenges—Rose also emphasizes the power of inherited spiritual technologies, community, and cultural foods.
Each chapter features a few key plants for the featured body system with detailed information including the plant’s appearance, origin, uses, risks, how to respectfully and sustainable acquire the plant and what parts of it to use, the planetary and energetic qualities, biological composition, notes on historical and mythical uses, the kinds of physical actions it promotes in the body, and a few specific ways to use the plant with recommended doses. The kinds of problems addressed are much more specific than I expected—rather than “here are fifty things you might take for a cold,” you’ll get something more like “use this for the kind of lingering cold that ends up in your chest” or “here’s a plant to help you heal your relationship with difficult ancestors.” As a beginner, I’m more tempted by these very tailored ideas than I have been by larger reference volumes. Along with the featured plants, a handful of additional options are covered more briefly to round things out. Reading this book feels a little like chatting with a super knowledgeable auntie—solid information, but also curated to what’s essential and relevant.
You’re going to find a wide variety of preparations featured in Rose’s remedies, which I found informative even just reading to learn about how plants can be used in different ways, such as for steams or herbal smoking blends. It’s also nice to just trust that an herbalism book is going to support you in working ethically with plants, avoiding overharvesting or other harmful practices. And Rose’s practices as a spiritual herbalist go beyond plant preparations alone. For example, one of my favorite practices she shares is the plant walk, with guidance on how to enter into reciprocal relationship with a plant and learn from it experientially.
This is an incredibly valuable resource for anyone who wants to explore the richness of life on this planet and their relationship to plants, but also their relationship to healing. It offers powerful remedies to heal from and resist capitalism, racism, and colonialism and teaches herbalism in an accessible way that will resonate with many readers. I highly recommend it!
(ARC provided through Edelweiss.)
October 21, 2022
This book would be a great addition to any well-rounded library on herbalism/natural healing.
May 11, 2025
Just magic. In love with it's book, it's connection to our land and ancestral wisdom. Beautiful plant selection and full of lovely recipes for your own healing and connection ❤🌹
November 23, 2022
a deeply conscious and beautiful book that introduces us to the power of plants and healing. Karen Rose is weaving magic and insight into the practice of herbalism. i came across her book at my library and was drawn to the cover and title, especially where she uses the word “remember” since so many of us have forgotten how plants aid in our healing! each chapter covers a different system of our bodies, with a handful of herbal allies following Rose’s embodied introduction to our spirit. i learned so much from her and am further inspired to learn about medicine making and healing ancestral wounds. so wise, full, and perfect for this time in history. thank you, Karen Rose. 🌹
March 9, 2022
I really connected with this absolutely beautiful book. Karen Rose offers a unique and much needed perspective in modern herbalism. While staying true to her cultural tradition and standing against cultural appropriation she also offers a completely useable reference for herbal enthusiasts that want to take their practice to the next level.
February 21, 2024
I read this book in a day and a half. If you’re into herbalism, spirituality, ritual etc., you will love this book. This is my new favorite herbalism book and I read a bunch, most of which I forget to review on here. Karen Rose has such a specific gentle yet powerful voice in the herbalism community. I can’t get enough of this.
May 26, 2022
Full of facts about herbs and ways to use them to nourish and care for yourself. Gives information on the Orishas and amazing insights on the systems of the body. A wonderful addition to your herbal book collection.
August 16, 2023
This book was written for my soul. It overflows with guidance, wisdom, and knowledge that exceeded my expectations. A book that will be a companion for a long time, if not for my entire existence on earth. Thank you, Karen, for sharing your soul's medicine.
August 9, 2024
Great practical and spiritual advice for anyone looking to build an intentional relationship with plants! Each section starts with a transformational way to look at each system of the body followed by herbs and plants to work within that context. The descriptions are clear and offer easy to use advice as well as recipes.
June 18, 2025
spiritual herbalism
Found some interesting information and some great recipes. Everything is very well explained and easy to understand. I have found all the herbs are easy to obtain in the UK either grow your own or buy online already dried.
Found some interesting information and some great recipes. Everything is very well explained and easy to understand. I have found all the herbs are easy to obtain in the UK either grow your own or buy online already dried.
April 8, 2022
If you want to understand how herbs can help heal certain body parts and understand how it’s all connected, this is the book for you, lol.
September 4, 2022
It is a good intro for anyone starting to learn herbalism, full of insight, heart and gorgeous drawings.
November 16, 2022
As a beginner, this book is a must. I am so thankful for the knowledge Karen M. rose shared with us.
December 17, 2023
So many powerful words of wisdom
Read
January 2, 2025I don't think this is something I'll need on my shelf for the future.
August 28, 2025
such a great read!
I am in love with this book! It’s a true guide and it’s great for beginners like me. Purchase this book!
I am in love with this book! It’s a true guide and it’s great for beginners like me. Purchase this book!
May 15, 2022
Very readable overview of herbalism in the context of ancestral traditions. Filled with practical knowledge and accessible recipes.
March 10, 2023
Be prepared for an inviting, sumptuous journey through this collection of knowledge, wisdom and teaching, when you read Spiritual Herbalism by Karen M. Rose. It is rare to have such a detailed and in depth look at spiritual herbalism, especially when it includes African, Caribbean and Latin American traditions.
Master herbalist, Karen M. Rose, trained in Eastern and Western Herbal medicine, and is the owner of the Brooklyn based Sacred Vibes Apothecary. Her book is full of recipes, traditions, which have a global appeal and hugs the human spirit like a warm blanket.
"A healthy relationship with our families, communities, environment, Earth, and Spirit is necessary to heal."
Karen M. Rose
This lyrical exploration of plant traditions is blooming with colour and creativity. Each section is detailed and concise. A welcome invite to traditions which reconnect with a new generation. Rose guides the reader through transformational connections, to the restoration of balance in the human body via the use of specific plants which guide sexual health, skin health and immune health.
Wisdom finds a home in out hearts, not our heads.
Karen M. Rose
This book is the legacy of a knowledge keeper passing on what she learned from her own grandmother, plus other world view plant teachings. A true spiritual botanical feast.
July 2, 2024
I’ve been a believer of herb medicine and holistic remedies, but outside of picking and drying herbs for various purposes with my grandmother as a child, it has been decades since I’ve taken it into serious consideration. I am going through nutritional transformation and started cooking for myself again, and this book is just what I needed not just for its recipes and their connection to different life experiences they can provide remedy in, but the spiritual connection to nature that you start rediscovering when reading the book.
I love how the book goes into details of herb origins and historical use, as well as specific conditions they can remedy. Each chapter focuses on different body systems, and each recipe has a story of and historical use, along with detailed instructions, and origins. It’s the perfect blend to understand the plant, its benefits, connection to Earth and our bodies, and indigenous cultural traditions, beliefs and practices of herbal remedies to heal spiritually, physically, emotionally, sexually, and mentally. I will come back to add to the review when I try more recipes!
I love how the book goes into details of herb origins and historical use, as well as specific conditions they can remedy. Each chapter focuses on different body systems, and each recipe has a story of and historical use, along with detailed instructions, and origins. It’s the perfect blend to understand the plant, its benefits, connection to Earth and our bodies, and indigenous cultural traditions, beliefs and practices of herbal remedies to heal spiritually, physically, emotionally, sexually, and mentally. I will come back to add to the review when I try more recipes!
April 24, 2023
A gorgeous book, lovely layout, but why-oh-why, after using photos of the author and other things, do they include drawings of the herbs instead of photos? Makes it harder for layout. The book is sectioned according to reason for the herb, and some is very in-depth, but other quicker views. Rose is African-American, referring to that often, nice to see in an herb book. Lots of recipes. Lovely look at herbs. Worth including in the collection of a medium-sized to larger public library.
November 5, 2023
I enjoyed the information in this book as I've become very intrigued by nature and how natural herbs affect our body for medical reasons. Will definitely reread to refresh myself with the information.
December 27, 2023
Thoroughly interesting book
Read this on a whim through Kindle Unlimited and thoroughly enjoyed each section. Lots of herbal lore, recipes, and ideas. Particularly enjoyed reading about the benefits of Skullcap, I’m going to prepare a tincture of this mighty plant powerhouse.
Read this on a whim through Kindle Unlimited and thoroughly enjoyed each section. Lots of herbal lore, recipes, and ideas. Particularly enjoyed reading about the benefits of Skullcap, I’m going to prepare a tincture of this mighty plant powerhouse.
January 13, 2024
Great info
I've the simple recipes and the details if each ingredient. Some of these I've already made and others I will be making in the future.
I've the simple recipes and the details if each ingredient. Some of these I've already made and others I will be making in the future.
November 23, 2024
Loved it!
If your goal is to learn more about the meaning of illnesses and how to incorporate herbs to your life to heal, this book is it.
Very thorough and informative.
If your goal is to learn more about the meaning of illnesses and how to incorporate herbs to your life to heal, this book is it.
Very thorough and informative.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews