127: The Pursuit of Purity can Disconnect you from the World: Miriam Latif on Sacred Herbalism

The Elder Tree Podcast

Can purity be toxic? The stories we tell ourselves and our clients about health and disease can both cause harm, and can help us to integrate our illnesses with grace, and maybe even to heal. A detox can support our health, or it can deepen our disconnection from the world around us as we relentlessly pursue purity and freedom from contamination. Come with Miriam Latif and Stephanie Hazel as they veer away from the strictly Sacred and more towards the ethics and philosophy of wellness culture. Let’s pick apart some of the assumptions we have about wellness together! Miriam Latif is a herbalist who is less concerned with plants and the body, and more curious about the personal and cultural stories that define our understanding and experience of what health is in the first place.

She holds conflicting truths - wellness culture is broken, and it has much to offer us, if we can learn to be critical and curious.

Her mission is to radically change wellness culture by telling different stories about what it means to be well - stories rooted in equity, justice, relationship and the complexity of being humans, together.

She runs @___understory, and The Root Network - an online community of herbalists and naturopaths joining forces to make wellness culture a force for collective good. You can join the waitlist here: https://understory.myflodesk.com/waitlist

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