The Opening Volume, Freely Given
The Living Materia Medica
Five plants, from the historical record to the body's own system.
The Living Materia Medica is Dr. Lakisha®'s opening teaching volume, connecting the historical record, botanical traditions, chemistry and endocannabinoid research. Read it free below. The reference is educational: historical use and experimental activity are not proof of clinical effectiveness, and it is not a prescribing guide or an approved pharmacopoeia.
Read it here, in full
The volume is free to read in the image-based reader. Turn pages with the arrows or keyboard. The plant names and overview below are available as webpage text; the full book is not yet an accessible HTML reference library.
What is inside
The opening volume, in two parts, moving from the idea to the plants and ending at a frontier. Each plant is written to the same standard, so the work holds together as it grows.
Part One
Understanding the Endocannabinoid System
A plain-language primer on the body's own balancing network, what it is, what it does, and how diet and plants speak to it.
Part Two
The Five Plants
Nettle, black pepper, garlic, hops, and hemp seed, each carried from the historical record to the modern chemistry, across European, Indigenous North American, African, and Caribbean traditions.
The Method
Held to a Real Standard
Each entry should distinguish historical sources, contemporary research and questions still open. Plant identity, preparation and evidence matter. Food use, botanical research and a drug-development claim are different categories; this teaching volume does not establish a cancer treatment.
Keep a copy
Reading is free and always will be. To keep the book, in a form you can hold, print, or carry on any device, join the mailing list and it is yours. You will also receive the open teaching as it continues, sent only when there is something worth saying.
Where the teaching leads
The book is the Commons, the open teaching everything else opens off of. When you are ready, here is where it goes deeper.
The Commons
The open teaching, freely given. Stay on the list and it keeps coming.
You are hereThe Circle
The Alkemist Mother and the Rooted Legacy Healing Collective. Food as medicine, in a circle, through the turning year.
Enter the community →The Lineage
The Apprenticeship, for those called to carry this into scholarly or professional practice.
Study the practice →The Frontier
The research at the edge of what is known, through the Kiona Foundation.
Support the work →
About Dr. Lakisha®
Dr. Lakisha Jenkins-Samuels, Ph.D., is a Traditional Naturopath and Clinical Herbalist, a Registered Herbalist with the American Herbalists Guild, and the Founder and President of the Kiona Foundation, advancing pharmacognosy, novel botanical drug discovery, and endocannabinoid system science. Read more about Dr. Lakisha® →