A letter to members of the American Herbalists Guild…
My dear fellow colleagues,
Just over a week ago, after the resignation of an American Herbalists Guild Board of Directors member - who is also my friend, a highly respected colleague, and was the Education Advisory Committee chair of which I am a member - I was asked to join the board to finish out her term. I believe I was asked for several practical reasons, the most important being:
1) That I am a Registered Herbalist (RH) member of the AHG and an additional RH member is now needed for a quorum according to the organization's bylaws.
2) I have been a member of the Education Advisory Committee for the past 6 years and am intimately familiar with both the organization’s strengths and areas of needed improvement from this perspective, and…
3) I have extensive experience as both a clinical practitioner of herbalism as well as a clinical and business mentor. I understand what it takes to make a living and build a reputation in this profession whilst also practicing safely within my scope and with integrity, trustworthiness, transparency, ethics, and accountability at the core of my values.
After much contemplation and discussion I have accepted the offer to join the board and in doing so I have chosen to stand up and actively participate in the problem-solving required to ensure the health and wellbeing of the organization. I believe in my heart that the American Herbalists Guild is worthy of this nurture.
Before I explain in further detail why I have accepted this leadership role and what I think I will be bringing to the table, I would like to remind everyone of something critical - something that may instill an essence of compassion for American Herbalists Guild leadership, past, current, and future - for both their failures and their contributions. And that is this: the American Herbalists Guild is a volunteer run organization. This means that the members of the board of directors are not monetarily compensated for their time and efforts. Everything is slower in this model - and just like healing of the human body - it can take much time and encouragement to find homeostasis after disturbance. As herbalists we know that patience with the allostatic mechanisms of any living system is central to facilitating its recovery and vitality.
Why I have accepted the role…
I appreciate this move into AHG leadership comes at a very critical and complicated time in the organization’s history - and just like any non-profit organization that I have ever known or worked for its history is fraught with harm-causing problems. And while I have no intention of invalidating anyone’s experiences or grievances, I am also not prepared to further any ‘he/she/they said’ rhetoric nor engage with unproductive vitriol or in conversations that put anyone’s professionalism or integrity at risk.
It is more important to me that I put my energy, skills, and passion to good use in moving this decades-old organization forward, should forward be the direction it is meant to go. Sometimes we have to swim upstream in order to evolve and I am prepared to step into this current. Additionally, I am not walking blindly into this role. There will be extensive trust-building required between me and the other members of leadership in order for me to feel good about remaining in a leadership position for the duration of my term (which is up in a year).
Most importantly, I have decided to accept this role because I have dedicated over 20 years of my life to elevating the profession of clinical herbalism by upholding and mentoring standards in clinical competency and professionalism (within the context of the modern healthcare culture that we are all trying to navigate). That being said, as a clinical practitioner of herbalism I am also attempting to build trust with the public by practicing and mentoring my craft with a clear scope of practice, safety, ethics, and accountability at the root. In order to do this work, I need professional organizational support…my mentees and my herbalism colleagues also need this support. And when you read the mission and vision of the American Herbalists Guild (as posted clearly on the website) it is understood that this support is central to the organization’s purpose (note that I have quoted what is most relevant to my professional needs as a member):
“The American Herbalists Guild promotes clinical herbalism as a viable profession rooted in ethics, competency, diversity, and freedom of practice. The American Herbalists Guild supports access to herbalism for all and advocates excellence in herbal education…The American Herbalists Guild envisions a world where herbalism is accessible to all as a core component of health care. We envision a culture of vocational empowerment for aspiring and practicing clinical herbalists...”
This is incredibly important to me, so much so that I believe without this professional organizational support I would/will suffer as a clinician, herbal entrepreneur, educator, and mentor and therefore, so would/will the people and plants that I serve.
However, there must be some organizational collectivity and professional cohesion in order for the ‘profession’ (as I experience it and practice it) to be supported. And as many of us are well aware, ‘organizational collectivity’ and ‘professional cohesion’ are complex phenomenon in herbalism, as is attempting to place every single one of us herbalists - with our rich diversity of perspectives, traditions, skills, and experiences - into the potential box of a ‘profession’.
In a recent blog post and podcast episode, I spoke to my investigations and reflections into the concept of ‘professionalism’. In order for professionalism to exist, there has to be a ‘profession’ - which means a group of individuals professing, in unity, shared values, morals, ethics, standards of competency, beliefs, etc. In my musings on professionalism, I recognized how difficult it can be in herbalism to standardize anything without colonizing, appropriating, or homogenizing. The American Herbalist Guild is up against an enormous foundational challenge in this regard - as it has been from its inception - and whilst I may not hold any clear answers or solutions, I believe that the organization needs all the collective help it can get to hold space for this intersectionality and I feel called upon to rise to this challenge.
(For those that are interested in my worldview surrounding professionalism, you can listen to the podcast episode here and I have also written about it here).
What I will bring to the role…
My promises to AHG members and the public will be to uphold, to the highest standard, the pillars of herbalism as I know and value them. These include vision, reliability, patience, ethics, trustworthiness, confidence, safety, transparency, reflection, integrity, professionalism, and collaboration.
Additionally, a non-profit organization is a complex financial entity to manage, especially when such an organization generally lacks access to grants and other funding sources that could support its goals and objectives while also lacking in diversity of self-generating revenue streams. I believe I will be able to bring both my non-profit experience as well as my entrepreneurial skills to the leadership of this organization in a way that will promote its financial health and longevity.
An additional goal of my work and contributions as a member of the AHG board of directors is centered around elevating the reputation of clinical herbalism as a safe, trustworthy, and legitimate health and wellness care option. As herbalists practicing in modern America, we are up against a pretty significant hurdle in this regard. Membership communications and public relations should be at the heart of this initiative and I would like to see what I can do to encourage more transparent, supportive internal communications and public outreach.
In closing, I would like to thank those of you who have taken the time to read through my statement. I would also like to thank the current board of directors for honoring me with the opportunity to participate in the leadership of the American Herbalists Guild - an organization that I love and believe in. I promise to hold myself transparently accountable as a member of the board of directors and very much look forward to serving the herbalism community with every ounce of integrity that I have.
For the love of the plants,
Erika G Galentin, MNIMH RH (AHG)
Clinical Herbalist & Lead Creatrix of Sovereignty Herbs
Host of the Herbal Practice Connexion and Herbal Sensorium Podcast