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by JR Valrey, The Minister of Information
Lea Jones is a modern day medicine-lady in the traditional way, where she is not only a plant scientist, but she also communicates with plants and the land in a way that is not taught in Western schools. In today’s society, she would be called a horticulturist and a herbalist among other things, but what she does, understands and communicates is so much more than that.
I met her when I was tough into my horticulturist journey after a very traumatic event in my life, and I used growing plants as therapy right alongside using herbs as natural painkillers. In this period Lea Jones and I became friends; I learned a whole lot from her about the history of different plants and their relationship to humanity.
I have always had a love for plants because they were always around me growing up; both of my grandmothers were big on growing and maintaining plants for food and decoration. My father grew marijuana among other plants in the house. So I am no stranger to the importance and necessity of knowing about plants and how to grow them.
With the rise of Genetically Modified Organisms and RNA crops, it is more important than ever to know how to grow crops and food since the government is allowing corporations to sell us plant-like substances and products calling it food that has been genetically manipulated on a mass level.
JR Valrey: When and how did you get into horticulture?
Lea Jones: I was introduced to herbalism through being trained as a rootworker over a decade ago. I learned about the power of plants first through magick and then discovered that most plants used magickally also have medicinal and cosmetic properties.
While I was in school for herbalism and aromatherapy, I lost my mentor, Coach Amin Denny of Castlemont High, at the age of 40 to colon cancer, shortly followed by losing my aunt to cancer. Around the same time, I noticed changes in the medical forms at my local physician’s office. Suddenly everything was scripted to conclude that most, if not all people were expected to get cancer in their lifetime, while I was learning about all these plants that have been used to successfully cure cancer for a good two centuries.
Further historical research revealed why mainstream narratives were set up to normalize cancer in modern times and frown upon herbalism, or at the very least not take such seriously. Around 120 years ago, a collaboration between the American Medical Association, Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller developed a “new” curriculum created by the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
This collaboration omitted holistic – herbal medicine, hydrotherapy, energy, sound and color therapy – modalities, as well as medical astrology, in the early 1900s, and by the 1930s allopathic medicine was king.
Of the 166 medical schools operating in 1904, 133 had survived by 1910, and 104 by 1915. By 1930, only 76 schools of medicine existed in America, all following the same curriculum, “creating a system of medicine that better served economic and hegemonic intentions than social or humanitarian needs,” according to “Medicine Men: Medicine and Capitalism in America” by E. Richard Brown (1979). That means every one of us is expected to be a profitable customer to the behest of the AMA from cradle to grave.
Herbal-aromatherapy school taught me how to research medical journals globally from different countries that never stopped using herbalism and holistic modalities. I also learned that a lot of American physicians do the same research, and many abide by many holistic modalities personally, while prescribing their patients strictly allopathic treatments. The West calls a lot of these regions of study “blue zones,” where people live the longest and age better than Americans.
In America we have a ton of professional dietitians and nutritionists. Those job titles are unheard of in blue zone cultures. Their countries simply don’t allow the amount of synthetic ingredients into pre-made meals and foodstuffs like we do here in the states. GMOs have been outlawed, and a large percentage of the locals grow their own food and stay connected to the land as their ancestors have done for thousands of years.
Horticulture came along a good decade later, after observing how our government became increasingly pitted against natural healers and organic farms that sold fresh herbal products, including food. First, a wide range of organic herbs for reasonable prices were attacked in various legal ways that held no basis. Then, holistic centers that were successfully healing people from various imbalances – that allopathic medicine normalizes as chronic – and diseases were attacked, along with state licensed physicians who taught their clients how to heal through diet.
I watched all these types get targeted and shut down throughout my entire herbal education, many of them still sitting in prison through today. It also became clear that the state was messing with our soil and “disappearing” heirloom seeds, while teaching mainstream society that our soil was simply depleted and nonrestorable – which is a lie – as justification to turn towards GMOs. So it was clear that there was a need to learn how to become as self-sustainable as possible over the past 10 years. All of this inspired me to start collecting and reproducing indigenous heirloom seeds.
JR Valrey: Can you explain the spiritual relationship between humans and plants?
Lea Jones: Although we are socialized to believe that we are separate from everything around us, in truth we are interconnected to all things in this world and beyond. If you go back far enough within any given culture, you will find a noteworthy historical relationship between geographic locations, the people and native plants.
Within that dynamic, you will find an abundance of information regarding how plants have been successfully used in medicine, magick-spirituality, rites of passage ceremonies, and traditional cultural foods that connect and bond people to their land and their culture.
I will say Africa is different, in that Western cultures have a long history of using the spiritual, religious and magickal application of many of our botanicals. Frankincense is a good example of this – how traditional Orthodox Christian churches and Mid-East Islamic masjids have obtained Ethiopian luban (Boswellia papyrifera) for their religious ceremonies, exorcisms and pagan rituals for thousands of years.
Not saying that Oman’s Boswellia sacra doesn’t have effective applicational use for the same, but there’s something to the history of using Ethiopian luban for sacred religious-spiritual ceremony.
I always say plants are the best teachers of world history. They indeed are. And if one is willing to open oneself up to the wisdom of the botanical kingdom in general, plants will teach you a great deal about yourself, others and how the world around us truly functions.
For me personally, plants also communicate through dreams and are not solely interconnected to a third dimensional realm.
JR Valrey: What’s the importance of remembering and learning the remedies of ancestors who lived on certain lands?
Lea Jones: In Egyptian foundations of magick – the magick of ancient Nubia (modern day Sudan before Western alliances staged a coup that broke the country into two) and Kmt – teach how to tap into the magickal patterns created by ancient priesthoods. Within these priesthood temples, specific plants were traditionally used in honor of the temple deity, and very often that deity would have an expression of divine healing power communicated through the power of the land, plants and elemental forces.
You learn how to pay attention to the interconnection of how all things across any given landmass are expressing. It will help guide you regarding what to plant, when to harvest, what to offer up to the land in service, etc. You start to understand at a deeper level the truth of interconnection – the power of presence and balance.
Many cultures believe that one remains well who stays close to and connected to the land. I find this to be true, and it also explains why colonial forces historically attack the bond indigenous people have to their native land(s) in order to monopolize-centralize control over any given region.
A lot of our ancient ancestral modalities involved the wisdom of deity expressions, as well as God/Creator/Allah. If we take for example beloved Ptah, father of Imhotep, who taught Hippocrates all the holistic wisdom the West loves to parrot – Ptah is notorious for showing up as a teacher along the learning paths of healers. Most say Ptah teaches knowledge, but few mention anything about his immense power to assist healers with the accumulation of knowledge, how he is connected to the elemental force of wind and what all of this entails for the cultivation and application of healing modalities.
Another example is Yemoja and her water priestess healers that are passed down through African bloodlines, who help to birth healthy, strong generations, and in response uphold the well-being of kingdoms. They are very powerful healers, but you see most of us are socialized to become disassociated from this genetic information. So we don’t respond to and learn how to work with our local water systems to cleanse and empower them – we don’t really understand the power of using specific plants with water (hydrotherapy) to cure many chronic issues, nor that for most of human history these modalities were in use.
In America, we are led to believe that we live longer today than we ever have before, solely because of the rise of allopathic medicine over the past century. This is propaganda. If you look into indigenous natives of the Americas – or any region – you will find that they did, and still do, live a lot longer than the average American in 2023.
We often grow up with many plant-tree companions around us that we are connected to throughout our life that have potent spiritual and healing power(s). Even within a concrete jungle there are plants there, usually deemed weeds, which are attempting to communicate their healing power to locals in their community. They are usually liver-digestive system, reproductive and respiratory system cleansers and tonics that become present as healing solutions to the environmental toxics normalized within many Black communities that are commonly located next to airports, freeways, railroads and chemical manufacturing companies. Tons of dandelion, burdock, yellow dock and mullein are usually growing around these areas.
Our ancestors understood all this – they did not only intuit and speak with plant intelligences, but they also understood the language of the cosmos and elemental forces. They are all interconnected. Our ancestors brought that knowledge to the Americas, and it was often used to free us from enslavement, and/or keep us safe from harm within a society that was entertained by brutalizing us for most – many would say all – of its existence.
Many plants became forbidden for slaves to use because they were great for self-defense, while we used star mapping to help us escape harm. The constellations at night were all the lights we needed. Most have heard of examples of this, such as how Harriet Tubman navigated freeing many through her underground railroad system.
JR Valrey: What are some of your favorite plants to work with? Why? What are some of your favorite medicinal plants to work with?
Lea Jones: These are very hard questions, because as a student of plant medicine and magick, I am always attracting new plants to learn from. Off top, I cannot live without frankincense. I use scents of the resins on Sunday to honor Re and Allah. I use it in tooth powders, face toners, hair oils, take frankincense elixirs every so often as a body tonic.
Moringa is another favorite because it is so nutrient dense. I also love chlorella and spirulina for the same reasons. The kelps in general also make excellent fertilizers for plants.
Sage is a favorite and used in similar ways to frankincense. There is actually an extensive history in America on the use of sages in the African-American community that’s rarely mentioned.
Turmeric has saved my life in many instances, and the cannabis plant deserves way more attention, per its power to help heal diseases like cancer. Turmeric, along with CBD and fenben – called the Joe Tippen’s Protocol – has healed so many people and pets from cancer.
I would also say the medicinal mushrooms – chaga, lion’s mane, shitake, cordyceps and reishi are daily, weekly elixirs for me. I combine three different types of medicinal mushrooms with a chai spice mix and make herbal infusions to keep the mind sharp and body healthy. There’s an ongoing debate in herbalism that mushrooms are the most powerful herbal medicine of all. While I can appreciate how some can conclude this, I hesitate to adopt such stances because the West is only taught a good 4% of the medicinal properties of the entire plant kingdom.
You have to work with the history of plants within cultures of the world to go deeper into the more expansive realms of plant medicine (the West calls this ethnobotany). From an ethnobotany perspective, I’d bet there’s a generous amount of medicinal plants in areas like the Amazon rainforest that can match if not extend the healing power of medicinal mushrooms. So it just depends how much plant medicine you’ve been exposed to and what you have access to use.
Lastly, I cannot live without calendula flowers. They are easy to grow, and make the best herbal oils and facial toners. The herbal oil heals burns, cuts, cracked skin and mild wounds. The facial toner works wonders on the skin and creates a natural glow.
JR Valrey: What have you learned from being a gardener/farmer?
Lea Jones: I have learned to have patience, to listen to the language of plants to understand what they need, their interconnection to the local animal kingdom, and how they influence the vibration of any given environment. A lot of the information available online when it comes to growing plants is incorrect, and it more-so depends on the ecological setup of your environment, so be willing to learn through trial and error.
I’ve also learned that there is a natural rhythm and balance of any given land region that one must respect. What the land wants to grow will thrive. What the land doesn’t want to grow, or if one is creating a level of imbalance by the way they set up their home and garden, the land may take it away.
JR Valrey: What are your thoughts on vaccines?
Lea Jones: That’s a tough subject to speak on living in a state like Cali because since Covid, people like me have become public enemy #1. But I began noticing red flags back in 2011, when physicians began changing their patient forms (again), and were investigating ways to get both youths and adults onto an annual vaccine schedule. What usually follows is an increase in variants of the very virus the AMA is vaccinating against – like the measles vaccine trials in certain lower-income predominantly Black communities in Los Angeles in the late 1980s and 1990s that were disabling Black children while also producing stronger variants of the measles. Once parents began to speak out, the experimental trials were moved to Haiti, wherein youths and babies were injured and killed. Learn more at https://globalpossibilities.org/the-scandalous-la-county-measles-vaccine-experiment-is-the-unsuspecting-public-still-being-used-in-secret-vaccine-trials/.
So many crimes of like nature have been committed before Covid – for decades now. And California currently has a real problem, in that childhood imbalances like Autism and ADHD continue to increase right along with the childhood vaccine schedule, in my humble opinion, at a rate that far outpaces other states that don’t have the insane childhood vaccine schedule that California authoritatively dictates.
Legislatively, moves like this also monopolize power for the CMB (California Medical Board). Hence why in 2023 the CMB (and CMA, California Medical Association) has more authority over the bodies of children than their own parents.
Because so much disclosure is coming out in response to ongoing Covid vaccine deaths and injuries, I believe that many additional disclosures will follow regarding the entire history of vaccines and child/adult experiments that have taken place in our lifetime. African slaves were used for centuries within the development of both AMA and APA treatment modalities. It’s exhausting, and at times traumatic, to see so many of us still consenting to being experimented on – especially when it comes to the children.
JR Valrey: Do you sell plants or plant products?
Lea Jones: I currently do not sell plants or products because, in addition to being a legislative director, and growing a lot of food and botanical medicine, I also volunteer my time locally at the Sonoma County Herb Exchange on Mondays to meet local farmers, herbalists, plant people and learn how to work with and harvest a good amount of organic herbal medicine native to Northern California. It’s one thing to label yourself as an herbalist because you purchase dried herbs from any given seller. But the education and knowledge you obtain from knowing how to plant ID, grow, harvest and use fresh herbs to create your own medicine is far more extensive.
JR Valrey: Can you tell us any interesting facts about plants native to Cali?
Lea Jones: California is really paradise when it comes to this state’s wide range of locally grown herbal medicine and holistic foods. We are the most biodiverse state in the nation. Our forests, rangelands, farms, wetlands, coast, deserts, and (hopefully increasing) urban greenspaces contribute to the global food supply – we exported a total of $22.5 billion in 2021. Our soils are home to more than a quarter of the world’s biodiversity and California boasts more than 2,500 different soil types. Over a third of the country’s vegetables and three-quarters of the country’s fruits and nuts are grown in California. I say this to express that there is no reason for anyone living in California to be hungry or wonder where their next meal is going to come from.
JR Valrey: How do people keep up with the work that you do with plants online?
Lea Jones: I would say Instagram is the best place to connect with me for now (https://www.instagram.com/niya360/). I do try to post there weekly, as well as check and respond to direct messages.
JR Valrey, journalist, author, filmmaker and founder of Black New World Media, is also the editor in chief of the San Francisco Bay View newspaper. He teaches the Community Journalism class twice a week at the San Francisco Bay View newspaper office.
