Interview and Article by Bethanni Grecynski, Photos by Mary Bortmas

(Editor’s Note: jim mcdonald prefers to spell his name in all lowercase letters, and we have obliged this request in the article.) jim mcdonald is a Michigan original, a passionate and dedicated wisdom teacher who combines a “traditional European folk perspective of herbcraft with the eclectic physio/medical approaches of 19th century American herbalism” into a blend he calls “energetic folk herbalism.” We’re lucky to have him practicing and teaching in southeastern Michigan. Raised in Clinton Township, he was one of four kids, his dad worked at GM, his parents were living conventional lives, he was an outlier in his family. He went to MSU, worked at radio and recording stations, wanted to be a musician—what he considered a “completely impractical career.” Instead, he chose an even more impractical career and has made it work beautifully (though he continues to play the guitar). He has made a very good name for himself in this region, just by being himself and having a deep understanding of herbs and their uses. He teaches herb classes and workshops, maintains a friendly and enticing website (herbcraft.org), leads nature walks, and has a more intensive herb training program which he calls Lindera. (Spicebush is the most common name for the lindera plant.) mcdonald says lindera is an aromatic and calmative plant, yields berries, and is one of his favorite teas.

mcdonald lives in White Lake, with his wife, Stephanie, their three kids, a dog, many cats, and two ferrets. Stephanie is deeply involved in running the business and website, and they “keep doing a little bit better every year.” mcdonald is a very winning fellow – chatty, engaging, tangential, lively, casual. He is a man who has developed a deep love for plants, and it shows. “Plants are awesome,” he says. They are an “intermediary” between nature and humanity.

It’s a Saturday morning at the beginning of spring, 2023. Weathered wheels on my Toyota RAV4 roll into the parking lot of River Hawk Annex at Proud Lake State Recreation Area for the first weekend of Lindera. I bluster into class to find jim—jovial and lively, with a playful smile on his face—warmly welcoming each student who arrives. He presents a mystery tea he prepared for us to sip from travel mugs; we begin feeling into the qualities of the plant and spontaneously call out insights. The room is happy and curious.

I had heard about Lindera through word-of-mouth and felt inspired to commit to the 8-month-long herbal intensive as a means to become more practically aware of plants and better skilled to help my friends and family. jim mcdonald—renowned community herbalist, wildcrafter, medicine maker, and teacher—created the course in 2005 with the focus on foundational energetic principles of western herbalism. He continues to annually offer Lindera and a variety of other plant classes and walks, cultivating herbal connections and shared knowledge.

Now, a perfectly warm May afternoon one year later, my sandalled feet travel toward an old farmhouse at the Michigan Folk School where jim and I meet for an interview about his life and passion. After some laughing and catching up, we sit together in the shade; a strong breeze billows across the picnic table, and we begin to talk.

Bethanni Grecynski: How do you look at herbalism?

jim mcdonald: I look at herbalism as this natural thing that I think pretty much every animal does, and because people are animals, it’s just a natural thing that we are inclined to do. Just recently, there was news about an orangutan using a poultice on its face. That just makes sense, because in nature that’s what medicine is.

Some people are drawn to herbalism as the thing that they love, just the same way some people are drawn toward putting stuff together, or fixing things, or to be a musician or an artist. Some people like plants, and then discover this relationship with plants where you work with them to help yourself and other people. Herbalism is fun!

There’s this concept of interdependence, and I think that herbalism is the act of interdependence happening, rather than the cerebral idea or understanding of that concept. We live in a system of nature where everything is interdependent on each other. With the herbalism that I’m inclined to do—which is not better than anyone else’s—I like to use what grows around me. If a deer is in the woods, everything that the deer needs to be healthy is in its habitat. Likewise, we’re in the world, and everything we need to be healthy is here. That doesn’t mean that everything is fixable. I’ve heard people say, “There’s a cure for everything,” and that might be true, but there’s not always a cure for every person with every thing at the stage that they start to deal with it. So, I feel humble like that.

It feels so fulfilling to work with plants and to be in relationship with them, especially when that relationship is reciprocal: I’m going to harvest plants, but also—because I’m doing that—I’m going to have a lot of respect for them, advocate for them, plant them, steward their habitat, and try to give back. I think that the best way we can give back to the plants is by stewardship.

Bethanni Grecynski: In your own yard, what plants do you love to grow?

jim mcdonald: I’m more of a what-plants-do-I-like-to-find-in-my-yard kind of person. I encourage and mow around plants more than grow them. Though this year I’ve got some wormwood and hyssop growing...I planted okra…there’s some holy basil going…and then—akin to what I was saying about stewarding plants—one of the things that I’ve done for a really long time is if I see a piece of property that is going to be “developed,” I will very often pull my car over, walk around, and look to see: “Is there anything here that is unique to this place that is going to get plowed up? And (if I can) can I dig it up and transplant it somewhere else?” So that’s doing root divisions and transplants, gathering seeds from an area and taking it to another area, and saying, “Oh, this plant would grow in this area, I’ll throw the seeds down.” That’s a lot of the way that I cultivate, a little bit more indirectly. I’m not the greatest gardener, but I do a lot of root transplants, mostly with native plants, unless it’s on my property and I’m sure they won’t take over and cause a problem. Mugwort, for example— if I plant mugwort in my yard, I’ll be trying to keep it from taking over for the rest of my life there, so instead what I’ll do is find someplace else it’s already growing and harvest there to help keep it in check.

Bethanni Grecynski: What seeds do you intentionally drop?

jim mcdonald: I always collect a lot of New England aster seeds and butterfly milkweed seeds and spread those all over. And then as far as root divisions, sometimes I’ve been places and thought to myself, “Wow, I don’t see spikenard—for example—very often, but there is just a ton of spikenard here,” and without digging it up, I’ll just take a little small shoot off in the fall and plant that in a similar place in my yard. I’ve also planted American ginseng all over, because someone once gave me a quart Ziploc bag full of sprouting seeds, so I planted them in my yard, at a bunch of parks, at rest stops on I-75, behind a Big Lots…there were a lot of seeds and they were sprouting; I needed to get them in the ground as soon as possible. So, if you’re ever parked behind a Big Lots and you say to yourself, “Is that… no, it couldn’t be American ginseng...”—it could be!

BG: We’ll call it ‘Jim’s American ginseng.’

JM: “jimseng.”

Collective laughter buoys upward to meet mountains of bright ivory clouds drifting across a blue expanse.

BG: When you’re doing root divisions, are there any principles to keep in mind overall, for someone who has never done it before?

JM: Well I’m saying root, but what I’m actually referencing here are rhizomes. Rhizomes are underground stems, and they tolerate division really well, because if you break off a teeny, little piece of them, not only will the plant you collected it from keep growing, but it will usually trigger the plant to grow a little bit more where it was broken off. Kind of like pruning. But you want to be really mindful—so if I’m working with a plant I’m less familiar with, I make sure I know the plant is not endangered, threatened, or a species of concern. For example, spikenard is not endangered; I just don’t often see it. When I came across that very abundant stand, I took one shoot and moved it. After that, I go back and look at the place from where I collected for at least another year or two—often forever after I’ll keep going back—so that I can see: Is it growing more? Is it growing less? Did something happen with it? And most of the places that I do this, I will notice actually more prolific growth because of doing a division.

BG: Considering your own roots, who inspires you?

JM: Oh, who inspires me...my wife, because she’s my wife, and that’s a good thing; she’s wonderful. But also, we’ve been together for a really long time—we were together when I first started learning about herbs, and she let me try stuff out on her. She was the first person open to me asking, “Hey! I made this, do you want to take it?” And she would. She helped me expand my skills because she let me create things for her.

jim’s wife, Stephanie, helps manage all online aspects of making his work more accessible. They have three kids, a dog, many cats, and two ferrets.

I really lucked out, because although I primarily learned on my own when I was getting started, I did eventually meet Matthew Wood and Rosemary Gladstar, and kept in touch with both of them. They were amazingly kind and supportive of me and what I was doing.

There was an herbalist in the Southwest named Michael Moore, who called me up out of the blue one day. I think that I sounded a little bit blubbering speaking to him: I was like, “OMG Michael Moore called me!” He had read stuff that I had written online, and he called me up to find out to what degree I just wrote well and to what degree I knew stuff. Then he said nice things about me to Howie Brounstein and 7Song, who also helped me out. Then there was an herbalist who’s still in Detroit named Gary Wanttaja of Nature’s Products—he was the first actual herbalist that I met; I would go there, and we would talk and he’d give me little things to chew on, things to think about.

I feel really fortunate that I met people who helped me out and were so kind and supportive about it. I try to give that back—when I see people who are doing great things, I ask myself, “Is there something I can do to support them? Can I mention them to someone else, or speak highly of them?” I’ve really lucked out because the majority of the people that I’ve met and students I’ve had are great people, friendly and kind, and it’s a good relationship.

BG: Who are some of the people that you recommend in the area?

JM: Oh! I’ve got a Bloodroot Herb Shop tee shirt on; Corinne Denomme and Alex Crofoot run that. Gary Wanttaja has Nature’s Products in Detroit. Southwest of Lansing, there’s Golden Hour Farm with off-the-charts, really high quality herbs. Ginny Denton at Linden Tree Herbals makes amazing bitters. Lottie Spady, who lives up in Clarkston and teaches a ton in Detroit, is such an inspiration and is doing great work in her community.

I love when people are out there doing stuff. The more people who do things, the more access there is for people who want to learn. It’s not that there’s a best teacher; to a certain extent there is right and wrong information—but also, in a completely different way, there are just a bunch of perspectives, and sometimes people need a different perspective than I can offer. It feels great to me when someone asks me something and I can say, “I actually might not be the right person for that, but I know this other person,” because I love making connections—so that this network of plant people grows tighter and more connected.

I have a collective discussion group for people who have been through Lindera, and each year also has their own group. Sometimes I’ll see a question come through, and if I have the time and something really unique to say maybe I’ll answer right away; but, I often just let it sit and other people will answer. Honestly a lot of times there’s nothing I have to add—it might be something that someone else knows more than me about; they’ve covered the issue at hand well, and I feel relieved.

I think that there’s an older idea about nature and survival of the fittest and competition of species, and—absolutely—in nature, competition exists; but, it is by no means the guiding principle. The guiding principle of nature seems to be cooperation; the systems work interdependently. If we’re going to have a system of herbalism that is rooted in the principles of nature—which is at least what I want to do—then there’s not a piece of nature that’s the most important thing.

And it’s all perspective: what might be most important to one species isn’t the same thing that’s most important to another species, and so one teacher who’s most important to a certain person might not be the same for another person. So, I just think it’s great; I love having more colleagues. When I think about past students, at a certain point I don’t want to refer to them as past students anymore. They took my course, got some ideas, thought about it, tweaked them in their own way, learned other things, and put it together in a way unique to them. I’m not the reason that the insightful students I’ve had are insightful; it’s about their curiosity and connection to the plants. Our paths cross, hopefully more than once, and maybe we get to walk alongside each other for a while.

jim—now 51—was raised in Clinton Township, Michigan, where he lived until he went to college at Michigan State University. While living in an old farmhouse in Okemos he stumbled across an herb book that was left out and started collecting plants from the land there.

BG: How long have you been helping people through herbalism? What are some things you’ve learned along the way?

JM: This year, 2024, is 30 years from when I started specifically studying herbalism. I’ve always thought that learning herbalism is kind of like learning cooking, in that you learn it and you start doing it at the same time. It would be really bizarre if someone said, “I’ve been studying cooking for about a year or two, and now I feel confident enough that I’m going to try to cook something.” So, when you’re studying herbalism, I think that you learn stuff and you try it out, again and again. The more that you can try out different things on yourself and other people—who have said that it’s okay, that’s the important part—the more you can really get an understanding. Like most everyone, I initially started out thinking and learning, “What herb is good for this problem?” and, “What problem is this herb good for?” Now what I think is, “What are the qualities, nature, and virtues of this particular plant?” and, “How would that be helpful or not helpful for an individual person?” The more people we work with we’ll start to see things like, “This marshmallow is really good for this kind of cough, and these kinds of people, and maybe not so much over there.” So, in 30 years, I’m just still trying to figure more and more of that out with greater and greater nuance.

BG: And what the person’s nature and virtues are, too.

JM: Yea, so we have to think about that. And the cool thing about that is it means that learning is never-ending, because there’s always new directions to take it, new understandings to have, and old understandings to let go of.

BG: What do you do at the point of revision? Do you feel like you have to address or correct the old understandings that you shared in the past?

JM: I open up the file that has all of my handouts, search the term to find everywhere it’s written down, and fix it. If it was just a mistake and nothing dangerous, I’ll add it to class stories. “I said this and thought this for a while and I found out it was wrong,” and that’s cool, because then it models that we have ideas and we hang on to them, then we find out that they’re wrong and we let them go. We used to think that there wasn’t lymphatic activity crossing the blood-brain barrier and now we know that there is; we used to think that the appendix was a vestigial organ and now we know that it is not. So, it’s not just in herbalism, it’s not just with me—that’s just the nature of learning.

BG: When was the first Lindera? What was the inspiration?

JM: The reason I started teaching at all is because people told me, “You should teach classes.” Before that, it had never crossed my mind. But I got asked and asked and asked, and I think I relented just so people would stop asking me. I offered a 7-hour herb walk as the first class, and then another one, and another one, and that was around ‘98.

Then probably between 2003 and 2004, people who were coming regularly to day classes suggested I start a longer course, so we began to meet about one Thursday evening and one Saturday every month. Over the years that changed to roughly one weekend a month, which is what Lindera is still at now.

Before herbalism, jim earned a living working at radio stations and recording studios. He gives much credit to his boss at that time, Barry—who helped him build his first website, let him use the copier for thousands of class handouts, had a tolerant attitude about chopping up foraged herbs in the break room at lunch, and was graciously flexible with schedule when people started to ask Jim to teach around the country. Initially, jim worked full-time at the studio and did herbs on the side but transitioned to herbalism full-time as things panned out more and more. Now, all of his work involves gathering herbs, making medicine, writing, teaching, and endlessly learning about plants.

BG: What are some insights you’ve had along your journey?

JM: Before people asked me to teach, I had never done that or considered it at all. So on the journey of becoming a teacher I’ve come to the unexpected personal insights that I love teaching, I love seeing things click for people, and I love making my classes fun.

There’s a kind of learning where someone tells you something and you memorize it and can say it back or write it down—and then there’s a kind of learning where you get to the point of, “Oh, ok I get it, this is why it makes sense,” and there’s a real connection. That’s what I’m striving for—to teach something in a way that is usable and makes common sense—so that students gain the confidence and foundation necessary to safely extrapolate and explore on their own and in community.

I want people not just to learn a lot but to think, “I had fun, I enjoyed it too.” That’s why I like to figure out how ridiculous I can get with all the props that I use. I’ve also realized over time that whenever I use a prop or when I tell a story or joke, those things become the anchor for the concept. People remember the joke, or the donuts, the garden shears, the piece of leather, the castle, the catapult—and those things become the placeholder to remember the whole ideology and story, rather than having to remember terminology or a flow chart.

I started teaching like that because of what it takes for me to learn. When I would feel confused or unsure about something, I would just sit and open-endedly wonder about it with the goal to understand better. I would toy with it and toss the idea around in my mind, and occasionally have an insight, “Maybe it’s like this!”

BG: What do you love about Lindera?

JM: I love the students. For me, when I think about teaching, the Lindera course is my favorite thing that I offer every year. Not because I don’t like my other classes, but because I get to see the same group of people more consistently, eight weekends a year. I get to know them, see them make friends, and in a lot of cases see the friendships that they make in the course maintained for years after. I also love the walks; I get to take people to some of my favorite places and show them my favorite plants. Almost exactly last year, at the beginning of the June weekend, we did the walk at Bald Mountain—and we were sitting with the sassafras and the blueberries and the wintergreen, and it just struck me in a way that was unique. I thought to myself, “I’ve been teaching in this exact same spot with groups of people for almost twenty years. My class, coming and sitting in this spot with these plants is a part of the cycle of this place,” and that just made me so happy. It made me so happy for the students, the plants, and that piece of land—it’s just very fulfilling.

BG: What defining features do you see in a healthy wild place? How do you help care for the landscape and ecosystem?

JM: What is really important is to learn about the ecosystem and to learn about the habitat, and not just the things you’re looking for in that habitat, or that you want something from. So, the questions become, “What is the soil like?” or “What is the understory like?” or “What kind of forest is this? Is it a beech-maple forest? Is it an oak savanna?” When you do that, you begin to understand the nature of that kind of place, and you might say, “Oh! There are some plants that maybe used to be a part of this ecosystem, that aren’t any more, because it’s no longer an old growth forest”—and it could be a swamp, it could be a meadow—we’re just happening to use forest in this example—“There was farming, trees grew back, some of the understory came back and some of the understory didn’t. How could I maybe restore some of those plants? What do I think maybe should be here; what’s native to this place? How can I tend to it?” There are a lot of places that I go to that have a lot of invasive species, and that’s problematic—not because invasive species are inherently bad plants or that we need to vilify them. They’re just being alive and having babies and families; they’re able to grow and spread where they’re at very effectively. But, in that process, there are also plants that are maybe not able to live there that should be able to, and I think we can acknowledge some of the disruption—or in some cases, destruction—of a habitat by invasive species without having to make that species inherently bad. And if we’re lucky, that invasive species has some kind of utility to it—maybe we can eat it, maybe it is great building material or has some kind of medicinal nature.

If we can apply some kind of useful action or create positive resources, I think that’s a great way to manage invasive species. There’s a time and a place for herbicides, I think—I’m not inclined toward that, but I know people who do really important habitat restoration, and that’s how they’re able to do it. So, despite my personal aversions to that particular tactic, it would be kind of judgmental and dogmatic just to label that as inherently terrible. Probably, I need to maybe think about doing that with the bittersweet that is taking over my yard, because my ability to utilize it is not sufficient to control it, and it is starting to cause problems to the other species there.

BG: So, there’s an aspect of harmony and balance that you’re looking for?

JM: Yes. If I look at the big picture, I see invasivity as a stage that non-native plants may go through before they naturalize, and they are sort of just a part of the ecosystem. There has been so much historical movement of plants. Some people say, “Invasive species, that’s just a part of what plants do,” but—as with climate change—we cannot deny that humans have really severely impacted the scope by which that happens, and the rate and speed, because it’s not just a plant being introduced to a place, it’s a plant being introduced to a place in a lot of cases where we have altered or damaged the habitat in a way that is detrimental to the native species and advantageous to the non-native species. If we want those native species to continue to exist, we have to do some kind of management to help them out, to compensate for the ways that we’ve altered the environment in a way that is damaging to them—and that is a whole field of study. As an herbalist, if there’s a plant that is non-native and either growing invasively or aggressively, I’ll try to really think, how can I utilize that, how can I harvest that, how can I maybe not only collect and keep that in check, but also plant back native species if I can.

BG: What do you love about connecting with plants?

JM: I just learn so much from plants. They’ve been here so much longer than us. They know what they’re supposed to be doing, and they know who they are.

I remember one time—I was stopped at the interchange of 696 and I-94; it’s just all concrete…a really hot day…the vehicle I was in didn’t have good air conditioning, so I had my windows down…there’s a ton of exhaust….really uncomfortable and humid. I looked, and in the crack—not on the side of the road, but in the expressway where all the cars were driving—was this dandelion that was flowering; and it wasn’t just growing there, it was growing there and flowering. It was doing everything it needed to do.

Plants don’t think, “Well, look at my circumstances, I can’t possibly thrive and grow in these circumstances, because it’s terrible.” They’re like, “This is where I’m at, I’m going to just live with all the vital force that I have, and be what I am.” And that to me is really inspiring, because I know that I often try to do that, but then feel flustered and frustrated and thwarted and feel like, “I would be able to do this if..” or “I would be able to do this if things were more conducive.” And, it’s not that there isn’t truth to that, but still—the plants, they just inspire me! They’re beautiful.

I think, in regard to herbalism as a system of medicine, it’s the most beautiful system of medicine that exists—not to disrespect flower essences or homeopathy, but jars of herbs are prettier than jars of pellets, and jars of tinctures are prettier and they smell nicer than jars of flower essences. They do take up a lot more space. They do take over your home and your cupboards and that is something to consider about them, but when you have a jar of beautiful calendula and it’s in the way, it brings you delight, and you don’t resent it. You know that this is true because when you go to an herbalist’s house, you want to look at their jars and they want to show you theirs. Because it’s beautiful.

BG: It’s art, medicine, life.

JM: It’s very artistic, even though there’s absolutely a science to it, and there’s absolutely a structure to it and different ways of utilizing it. If I see an herbalist who has a formula for something, I can look at the ingredients on the bottle and it gives me an insight into that particular person’s artistic expression of how they put things together. I had a client once who moved from another city and was referred to me by their herbalist there, and they said, “I’d like to see you, but in the meantime, before we can talk, can you refill my formula?” They sent me the formula, I did have everything for it, and I said to myself, “Wow, I would have never thought to do that,” and it’s not because there was anything wrong with it—it was just a direction that I wouldn’t have been inclined to go in.

BG: It’s all kind of personal in a way.

JM: It’s very personal and creative. And I think it also has to do with that person’s relationship with the plants that they’re using. Because I get used to how I might arrange things—I’ll have it in my mind, “These plants, it’s not just that their actions work together well. These plants get along well. They’re friends. They would go on a road trip together.” Sometimes I might think, “I want to put that in, but I don’t feel I can unless I add this other thing.” The very instigating herbs, the more active herbs, the herbs that are a little bit more forceful, you want to have something gentle in there to take the edge off. It’s definitely a very creative and artistic expression that tells you lots about people.

I was at an event, and I saw somebody putting out bottles, and—this seems weird, but all herbalists do it—I walked over and casually picked up a couple bottles and looked at the ingredients so I could assess the person. They were talking with someone else, I wasn’t able to talk to them, so I looked at their formulas as a way to figure them out. The first thing I saw was, “There’s a lot of herbs in here, way more than I would ever use,” and my immediate thought was it might be a shotgun formula, everything-for-everything kind of thing, but then I looked at it and realized, “Wow, that is a very clever, purposeful, well-put-together formula, and nothing is redundant,” and that made me realize that this particular herbalist is a meticulous thinker. I kind of max out at five to seven herbs—once I get to seven herbs I usually start a new formula because I don’t know if I can keep track of how they’re all going to fit together.

BG: From the heart, on your path, and with how you fit into the greater picture—what do you hope to offer people?

JM: Kindness is important to me, integrity is important to me, and I always want that to be there. Fun is a really big part of it, too. I hope that people can come away from an interaction with a sense of empowerment and understanding things better. I hope that if I work with them regarding herbs, they don’t leave thinking, “I’m supposed to take this,” but instead, “I didn’t just get a suggestion of herbs; I had a great time and I got an understanding of the herbs and what the reasoning is.” I don’t want to just give a class or consultation and tell people what to do. I want to think about it together; I’ll give my perspective on it, but I want to do that in a way that is engaging and empowering so that the main action isn’t following my suggestion—the main action is engaging what’s going on with you in a way that makes sense, that brings you in the direction you want to go.

I have a lot of respect for conventional medicine, it does a lot of things that are important, and it does things that you can’t do with herbalism, but the dynamic between a practitioner of conventional medicine and the people who go to see them is often a really one-sided dynamic. I think that for most of the herbalists I know, our loftiest goal would be to educate people in a way that they don’t need us. I’m not just saying, “Here’s what to take,” but rather, “Here’s a way to think about what’s going on: here’s a way to frame it,” so that the people coming to me can learn the skill too. In traditional communities of so many different cultures, there would always be plant people—people who that was more their thing—but the community in general would have this baseline knowledge. I think a part of the reason that so much of what I do is education-based is because I want that knowledge to come back. I want people to know that there’s just a whole lot of simple, safe things that they can do with the plants that grow around them, so that they might not have to come and see me. They can feel confident and say, “I know this, and I can teach it to my children, and my children can teach it to their friends,” and it can become community knowledge again, rather than specialized knowledge. Herbalism isn’t supposed to be specialized knowledge; it’s supposed to be community knowledge, of which, as with anything, some people know more.

jim mcdonald—herbalist and teacher—offers regular plant walks and classes as well as his yearly eight-month-long herbal intensive course, Lindera. Although the herbal awareness he brings forward is advanced, his teaching style is so accessible and fun that the learning is easy. For more information, visit his websites herbcraft.org and herbcraft.podia.com, and make sure to check out herbcraft.org/gathering.html for essential (life-saving) safety guidelines when gathering your own herbs.

Kindness is important to me, integrity is important to me, and I always want that to be there. Fun is a really big part of it, too. I hope that people can come away from an interaction with a sense of empowerment and understanding things better.

…the plants, they just inspire me! They’re beautiful.