This paper examines through my own and other practitioner's experiences, the benefits of including folk practices and plant ritual within science based plant medicine healing.  

My own initial experience of herbal medicine was the 'wall of herbs' at the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. Later in life I trained to become a Medical Herbalist, and now lead a foundation course in that subject. However approximately 500 patients and students later, I have come to the conclusion that some of the largest transformations in health and personal wellbeing, occur in largely group based plant meditations and journeying with the plants. Medicinal herbs are also woefully understudied in Archaeological contexts, and I have held these plant meditations in partnership with an 'Experimental archaeology and mental health' PhD project at Bournemouth university, which helped change people's views on the importance of folk practice and nature connections in the culture of past peoples, which are difficult to quantify in the usual ways. Through utilising their own innate skills via organoleptics, automatic drawing and guided meditations, people are able to not only participate in a folk practice but also regain a sense of connectedness to the world around them. We are often led to believe we must pick science or magic, but plant medicine, and the plants, show that you can have one foot firmly in both.