We believe that most medicines are best in their natural state. Often, they go beyond extracting it to trying to create it synthetically, without even using the plant at all. By the time we buy the medicine in the pharmacy, its ingredients may not have come from their original sources. The medicine is no longer balanced and no longer knows where in the body to go to heal. The medicine plants were intended to be used whole, as they were created.
Many plants contain several medicinal ingredients, which work together in harmony.
These medicine plants grow from our mother and by using her flesh and blood, the medicine was able to become strong, healthy and balanced. We, as humans, need this balance to be healthy. If we take in only one part of the medicine, we will not be balanced and this is what creates harmful side effects. Our elders always talk about the earth being our mother, a mother who will provide us with all things we need to be her healthy children. The medicines continue to take what they need from our mother, to provide us with what we need, in the hope that we will use them.