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Sally King, CCH, is the Director of RavenCroft Garden, an educational center near Monroe, Washington, that connects people, plants and the earth. My conversations with her about helpful herbs have inspired me to weave these herbs into our daily lives. For this issue, Sally and I reflected on her philosophy of health and healing. This is an edited version of our conversation, with my questions in italics. Contact Sally at 360-794-2938 or www.ravencroftgarden.com.

What is your core philosophy of health? For the last 15 years, I have dedicated my life to creating health through acts of nourishment and the cultivation of life. It's a way of living that is accessible to anyone; it's empowering. My philosophy rises from a tradition that sees both our world and our health as whole. Every moment we can choose a greater wholeness, a greater understanding of who we are and the world that we live in. Health and healing are about transformation — not fixing or curing or making it better.

Health is about adding to our lives. There's a whole tradition of healthcare that requires following the rules — something is either good or bad, and if we don't do what we're told, we're wrong. I don't have a set of rules that I follow. I just understand that my experience is unique. In my daily life, I choose things that nourish my uniqueness. I ask myself, what "grows" me?

What are your main practices for nourishing health? Our bodies are in a constant state of renewal and regeneration. The following daily practices nourish them. I have seen them transform and empower — literally re-create —individuals, families and communities.

• We nourish ourselves with common plants such as dandelion, nettle, chickweed, oatstraw and burdock. (See Articles Archive at www.polishingstone.org.)
• We eat whole foods (including these herbs) grown locally and prepared simply — a choice that not only nourishes our bodies but also has a huge impact on farming and distribution practices.
• We develop an awareness of the seasonal wheel. By understanding how our health follows both seasonal cycles and daily rhythms, we begin to see patterns that we may want to change. For instance, if we know that we're going to bottom out at 3 p.m., we can take a break just before then.
• Practicing compassionate communication and listening nourishes health, as well. How many times in our lives have we just wanted someone to listen deeply — not offer advice, not make it better, but just hear us without needing to respond?
• We also include simple rituals that keep us connected to our core values. I tend to get lost in all the work there is to do, so I light a candle in the morning and ask myself: What is my personal mission for the day; why am I here on this planet? If it all fell away, who would I be?

What can help us work through personal health challenges? A health challenge offers us a chance to look at our lives instead of just getting rid of the symptoms. But sometimes we're just not ready to begin. Or it might take years to do the work — and that's OK, too. The transformative work is ours; it's not anyone else's work to do for us. Healing isn't about fixing someone or fixing ourselves. To see the bigger picture is to understand that there is nothing to fix or cure. The healing process is a transformative process, and where we move through that process and where we come out the other side is ours alone to be empowered by — a way to grow.

How can we transform our cultural view of health? We live in a world where we think of "dis-ease" as our enemy, and we have a whole language of war to describe our fight. We've lost an inner sense of our own healing and transformation. We've also gotten confused by thinking that drugs and medicine are the same thing. Everything is medicine, and medicine is the essence of everything. When I work with a plant, the essence of that plant and my essence have an exchange, a relationship. This is medicine. We're always in relation to something or someone else — we're part of the web of life. And I also understand that I'm unique, you're unique and the plants are unique, so my experience with them will be different from yours.

There isn't anything wrong. I guess that's the most important thing I can offer. So how do you nourish the part of you that wants to change? What we can offer our families, our children, is space so they feel held while they do the work — even if we just carry the space in our hearts, where we continue to see everyone in our lives as perfect and whole.

What about the health of our planet? What if there was nothing wrong with the world that we lived in? What if it was simply in its transformative process and we were able to participate in cultivating life? There are so many ways to do it: preparing and growing food, listening to another's story, celebrating the cycles of life, death and transformation and offering gratitude and thanksgiving for our blessings.

As I listened to Sally, I thought about the mental list of "shoulds" I've been carrying with me. "Creating health and cultivating life" is a welcome change.