From Ashwagandha to Ayahuasca: The Plant Medicine We Were Taught to Forget
- 1 day ago
- 15 min read
Dee Mani is a holistic healing advocate and founder of My Way CBD, who transformed her life after overcoming an aggressive breast cancer diagnosis using natural remedies. She is an author, entrepreneur, and speaker dedicated to empowering others through the healing potential of cannabis and holistic wellness practices.
What if one of the greatest resources we have for human health has been growing around us all along? Long before pharmacies, prescription pads and laboratories existed, humans looked to the natural world for medicine.
They learned which roots settled the stomach, which leaves soothed wounds, which flowers brought calm, which barks eased pain and which mushrooms could affect everything from energy and immunity to perception and consciousness. That knowledge wasn't born in a laboratory; it was built through generations of observation, experience and a relationship with nature that looked very different from the one most of us have today.
Nobody called it alternative medicine, it was simply medicine. But somehow we became disconnected from that knowledge. Plants and traditional remedies were increasingly pushed to the edges and labelled herbal, complementary, alternative or unproven. For instance cannabis went from a plant with a long history of medicinal use to a prohibited drug, while psychedelics became associated with recreational drug culture rather than the healing and ceremonial traditions that had existed long before prohibition.
Perhaps most strangely of all, generations of traditional knowledge began to count for very little unless somebody could explain why something worked in terms the modern medical world was prepared to accept.
I find that particularly difficult to ignore because I didn't come to this from the outside – I came from the pharmaceutical world. I spent five years in pharmaceutical training before eventually walking away because I had become increasingly uncomfortable with what I saw as the commercialisation of illness and the culture surrounding the industry. I had no idea then just how far that decision would take me, or how profoundly my view of health and medicine would change after my breast cancer diagnosis in 2017.
This article isn't about pretending that every plant cures everything or that every traditional remedy should be used without question. It's about looking at what plant medicine actually is, how humans have used it for thousands of years, why so much of that knowledge became marginalised and what these medicines can offer us today – from the everyday herbs sitting in our kitchens to cannabis, medicinal mushrooms, psychedelics and some of the most powerful ceremonial medicines on Earth. Because plant medicine never went away, we simply stopped being taught to look at it.
What do we actually mean by plant medicine?
Plant medicine is an enormous subject, ranging from the herbs, roots and flowers we use for everyday health to cannabis, medicinal mushrooms and powerful psychoactive medicines such as psilocybin and ayahuasca.
Some nourish us, some calm us, some support particular parts of the body, while others can profoundly affect our emotions, perception and consciousness. Mushrooms are technically fungi rather than plants, but they are very much part of this story too.
What matters is that we don't need a chemistry degree to understand the basic principle. Nature contains an extraordinary variety of medicines that humans have learned to work with in very different ways.
And once you begin to understand just how broad plant medicine really is, calling it simply “herbal remedies” suddenly seems rather inadequate.
Nature was the original pharmacy
One of the strangest things about the way we talk about natural medicine today is how easily we forget where so much of our medicinal knowledge actually came from. Nature was our original pharmacy. Willow and other salicylate-containing plants played a part in the story of aspirin. Morphine came from the opium poppy, quinine from cinchona bark, digoxin has its origins in foxglove, artemisinin came from Artemisia annua, and paclitaxel was discovered through the Pacific yew.
I could give you example after example, but I'm not trying to give you a pharmaceutical history lesson. My point is almost the opposite: nature had the medicine first.
As our ability to study plants developed, we learned how to identify individual compounds, isolate them, reproduce them and sometimes change them. However, along that journey, something shifted. Once a compound had been extracted, manufactured and turned into a pharmaceutical product, we were taught to recognise it as medicine, while the plant it originally came from could still be dismissed as herbal, alternative or lacking evidence.
And then there is the money side, which I don't think we can ignore. You can't own a plant that has been growing naturally for thousands of years. You can't suddenly claim ownership of ginger, cannabis, turmeric or a mushroom that existed long before any pharmaceutical company did. But isolate something, alter it, create a particular formulation and turn it into a commercial product, and now there is something that can potentially be controlled, protected and sold for profit.
For me, this is where our relationship with medicine really began to change. Plants and traditional remedies that people could grow, prepare and use themselves didn't fit particularly well into an increasingly commercial system built around manufactured products, patents and repeat customers.
The irony is that the plants themselves never stopped being medicinal simply because our system changed the labels we put on them. And perhaps no plant demonstrates that contradiction better than cannabis.
Cannabis: When medicine became marijuana
Cannabis has been used as medicine for thousands of years and was once used within Western medicine too. Then prohibition changed everything. Cannabis became marijuana – a narcotic, a gateway drug, something associated with criminals and recreational users wanting to get high – while its long medicinal history became almost completely overshadowed by fear and stigma.
My own relationship with cannabis became very personal in March 2017 when I was diagnosed with grade 3 triple-negative breast cancer. I had watched my sister go through chemotherapy and sadly lose her life, so I decided chemotherapy and radiotherapy were not the path I wanted to take. I had surgery, which I felt coerced into, but alongside that I completely changed the way I lived. Nutrition, supplements, meditation, detoxification and cannabis oil all became part of the protocol I chose for myself.
I was told by my oncologist that if I refused chemotherapy I would be dead within a year. That was nine years ago.
Cannabis oil was a major part of my personal protocol, and I continue to use cannabis as part of the lifestyle I believe has helped me remain well. I can't turn my individual experience into a clinical trial or claim somebody else will have the same outcome, but neither will I erase cannabis from my story simply because it doesn't fit neatly into conventional medicine.
That experience led me to learn just how complex cannabis really is. The plant contains more than a hundred cannabinoids, with CBD and THC simply being the best known. THC produces the high; CBD doesn't.
Hemp is part of the cannabis family but naturally contains very little THC. It's the source of the CBD we use in My Way CBD, whereas the cannabis oil I used during my cancer journey is a high-THC, whole-plant preparation. Both come from the cannabis family, but they're very different medicines.
But what fascinated me most was discovering the endocannabinoid system (ECS). Every one of us has one, whether we've ever used cannabis or not, and our bodies naturally produce their own cannabinoids. The ECS helps regulate things such as sleep, mood, appetite, pain, stress and immune function. Learning that completely changed the way I looked at the plant and ultimately led me into the work I do today.
Cannabis also taught me something I've carried into everything I've learned about plant medicine since: the whole plant matters. Its different cannabinoids and natural components can work together, known as the entourage effect. Sometimes the power isn't in one isolated compound, but in what nature created as a whole.
And perhaps that's what makes cannabis such a perfect example of this entire article. A plant humans used medicinally for thousands of years became something generations were taught to fear, while all along our own bodies contained a system that helped explain our relationship with it.
The plant medicines already around us
When people hear the words plant medicine, they often imagine something exotic, but much of it is already sitting in our kitchens and cupboards. Ginger has been used for generations for nausea and digestion, turmeric for inflammation, garlic for cardiovascular and immune support, while chamomile, valerian and passionflower have long been associated with calming, relaxation and sleep.
Then there are plants such as ashwagandha, traditionally used to help the body cope with stress; milk thistle and dandelion, commonly associated with liver and digestive support; moringa, an incredibly nourishing plant used as both food and medicine; and black seed, which has a long history of traditional use across the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Some we eat, some we drink as teas, some work beautifully as tinctures or oils, and others are more conveniently taken as supplements.
What I love is how ordinary many of them are. We dig dandelions out of our gardens as weeds while herbalists have valued them for generations – I even put the flowers in my salads. We add ginger, turmeric and garlic to food without necessarily thinking about the fact that we're eating plants humans have worked with medicinally for centuries.
Passionflower, or Passiflora, is particularly personal to me. When I lived in Spain, it was simply one of those natural remedies people knew about. I used it myself for its calming effects and remember using a Passiflora tincture when my children were teething. I wasn't thinking about studies or how it worked; it was simply a natural remedy I knew and trusted.
And that's really the point. Plant medicine doesn't need to be complicated. You don't need to memorise hundreds of compounds or understand every mechanism. Start by learning about the plants, what generations before us used them for and how they can support the body. Once you do, you realise natural medicine isn't some strange world outside everyday life. It's been around us all along.
And then there are the mushrooms
Medicinal mushrooms are another enormous part of natural medicine, and despite suddenly appearing in supplements, coffees and health shops everywhere, they're certainly nothing new. Different cultures have used them for centuries, particularly across Asia, and different mushrooms have traditionally been valued for very different reasons.
Lion's mane has become particularly popular for memory, concentration and brain health; reishi for immunity, stress and relaxation; chaga for immunity, inflammation and general wellbeing; and cordyceps for energy, stamina and physical performance. Shiitake and maitake also remind us that the line between food and medicine isn't always as clear as we've made it – sometimes medicinal mushrooms can simply be eaten.
Turkey Tail is particularly interesting to me because I actually used to sell it through My Way until I had to remove it because of its regulatory status in Great Britain. It has a long history of traditional use, particularly across Asia, and is probably one of the best-known medicinal mushrooms for immune support. Yet under the UK's Novel Food rules, that history of use elsewhere isn't enough for it to be sold as a food in the UK without the required authorisation.
Of course I complied and removed it from my site, but “not authorised” doesn't mean “found to be dangerous.” It simply means it hasn't met the particular regulatory requirements needed to be sold in Great Britain. It's a perfect example of where generations of traditional knowledge can collide with a modern regulatory system that doesn't necessarily recognise that history in the same way.
And if Turkey Tail shows us how complicated the regulation of medicinal mushrooms can become, another mushroom takes us into completely different territory, psilocybin.
Psilocybin: When a “drug” becomes medicine again
Most people of my generation weren't taught about psilocybin as medicine. We were taught about magic mushrooms. Drugs, hallucinations, illegality, danger.
What we rarely knew was that psychedelics had been the subject of psychiatric research decades earlier before the political and legal climate surrounding them changed dramatically during the 1960s and 1970s. Research became severely restricted, and for decades psychedelics were largely pushed outside mainstream medicine.
Now the research is reopening. Psilocybin, a naturally occurring psychedelic compound found in numerous mushroom species, is being studied in depression, addiction, end-of-life distress and other areas of mental health.
And I think this is where plant medicine begins forcing us to ask much bigger questions about what healing actually means. A conventional antidepressant is generally taken repeatedly to alter symptoms over time. Psychedelic-assisted approaches are exploring something completely different: whether one or a small number of carefully supported experiences might change the way somebody relates to themselves, their memories, their behaviours or their pain.
That fascinates me because mental health is not simply about brain chemistry. Human beings have histories. We have relationships, grief, childhoods, fears, beliefs and trauma. And trauma, in particular, can live far beyond the event that created it.
Trauma, psychedelics, and going back to the root
Trauma isn't simply a bad memory. Imagine stepping into the road and seeing a car speeding towards you. Your body reacts before you've had time to think – your heart races, adrenaline surges and you jump out of the way. That's fight or flight doing exactly what it was designed to do.
The problem comes when the danger has gone but the body continues behaving as though it could return at any moment. An experience may have happened years ago, yet certain sounds, places, people or situations can bring that survival response straight back. The thinking mind knows the danger has passed, while the nervous system can behave as though it hasn't.
Unresolved trauma can then show up throughout our lives – in our relationships, behaviours, addictions, anxiety, sleep and emotional reactions. And this is where psychedelics become particularly interesting.
They don't erase trauma or offer a magical shortcut to healing. But they can temporarily change the way somebody experiences themselves, their memories and their emotions, potentially allowing them to approach things that might otherwise feel impossible to face.
The experience itself isn't necessarily the healing; what happens afterwards matters too. But the possibility of getting underneath the suffering rather than continually suppressing its symptoms deserves serious attention.
Because how many people are taking something for anxiety, depression, insomnia or addiction without anybody ever asking what happened to them in the first place?
Plant ceremony: Something we almost forgot
Traditional plant medicine hasn't always been about taking something and carrying on with your day. In many cultures, powerful medicines have been used ceremonially, with preparation, intention, music, prayer, community and time afterwards to process the experience. The medicine wasn't separated from everything surrounding it; the whole experience mattered.
Human beings have always used rituals around important moments in life, and one tradition from Brazil particularly fascinates me. Within Santo Daime, where ayahuasca is used as a sacrament, it can form part of the wedding ceremony itself. The bride and groom drink the medicine, each offering it to the other, as they make their commitment to share their lives and build a family together.
I find the idea behind that incredibly powerful. Imagine beginning a marriage having first been asked to truly look at yourself – your wounds, your patterns, your fears and everything you might otherwise unconsciously carry into the relationship you're about to build.
That's what I find so beautiful about ceremony. The medicine isn't simply something you take. It's being used to mark one of the biggest transitions of your life with intention, reflection and a commitment to enter it consciously.
Ayahuasca: Meeting Grandmother Aya
Ayahuasca deserves far more than being described as simply another psychedelic. This Amazonian plant medicine has been used ceremonially for generations and is traditionally made by combining the Banisteriopsis caapi vine with a DMT-containing plant, commonly Psychotria viridis. But anyone who has worked with ayahuasca will understand why reducing it to its chemistry completely misses the point.
She's often affectionately referred to as Grandmother Aya, and having sat with her eight times myself, I understand why. There is something very different about the way people describe their relationship with this medicine. Rather than simply feeling as though they've “taken something,” people can experience it as being shown, challenged, confronted or guided through parts of themselves they may have spent years avoiding.
Ayahuasca can take you deeply inward. Memories can surface, emotions can pour out, patterns can suddenly make sense and experiences you thought you'd buried years ago can appear from a completely different perspective. It can also be incredibly physical.
Nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea are common and, within many traditional settings, this purging is viewed as part of the experience rather than simply an unwanted side effect.
And this is exactly why I would never talk about ayahuasca casually or suggest somebody simply finds a retreat and gives it a go. Who facilitates the ceremony matters enormously. A responsible facilitator should understand exactly what they're serving, screen participants beforehand, ask about physical and mental health and medications, know who shouldn't participate, provide adequate support throughout the ceremony and know what to do if something goes wrong. Certain medications and health conditions can create genuine risks.
There has also been frightening press surrounding deaths associated with ayahuasca ceremonies. Those reports shouldn't simply be ignored, but they need context.
Investigations have found cases involving other substances or plants, underlying health problems, accidents and inadequate supervision, while a comprehensive review by the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research, and Service found no forensic evidence establishing fatal poisoning from the traditional ayahuasca brew itself. That doesn't make ayahuasca risk-free. It makes choosing an experienced, responsible facilitator and a properly run ceremony even more important.
And then there is my own relationship with Grandmother Aya.
I've personally sat in eight ayahuasca ceremonies since 2019, using those experiences as part of my journey into unresolved childhood trauma. Does eight ayahuasca ceremonies make me some kind of spiritual guru? Absolutely not. But it does mean I'm talking from personal experience rather than something I've simply read about.
For me, trauma became an important part of how I made sense of my breast cancer diagnosis. I came to believe I'd carried experiences and emotions subconsciously for decades, and ayahuasca gave me access to parts of myself I hadn't previously been able to reach. It helped me confront childhood experiences, recognise patterns that had followed me into adulthood and begin freeing myself from some of the emotional shackles I'd carried for years.
No two ceremonies of mine have ever been the same. Ayahuasca can be beautiful, confronting, physical, emotional, confusing, spiritual, terrifying and profound – sometimes several of those things in the same night. And nobody should tell another person what the medicine is going to show them, because the moment they do, they've already planted an expectation.
You don't go into ceremony knowing what Grandmother Aya will show you. And perhaps that's precisely why so many people describe the experience as meeting a teacher rather than simply taking a psychedelic.
Cacao: Plant ceremony doesn’t have to mean psychedelics
I've also experienced cacao ceremony, which sits at a much gentler end of this spectrum. Cacao isn't a psychedelic and doesn't send somebody into the kind of altered state associated with ayahuasca or psilocybin.
The ceremonial element is different. People come together, they slow down. There may be meditation, music, breathwork, movement, conversation or reflection. The plant becomes part of creating intentional space.
Cacao has deep roots in Mesoamerican cultures, although we should be careful not to pretend every modern Western cacao circle is a continuation of an ancient Indigenous ceremony. Traditions evolve, and modern practices often combine different influences. For me, its inclusion here demonstrates that plant medicine can involve our relationship with a plant as well as simply its active compounds.
Peyote, San Pedro, and mescaline
Mescaline occurs naturally in several cacti, most famously peyote and San Pedro, and can profoundly alter perception, emotion and consciousness. Peyote needs particular respect because its ceremonial use is deeply connected to Indigenous traditions, especially in North America, and the cactus grows extremely slowly. As Western interest in psychedelics increases, we cannot simply descend upon sacred medicines, commercialise them and ignore the communities that protected their use for generations.
Plant medicine without respect for the people and ecosystems from which that medicine comes isn't much of a return to nature at all.
Iboga: Extraordinary potential with serious risks
Iboga, from the West Central African shrub Tabernanthe iboga, occupies another completely different space and has deep significance within Bwiti traditions. Its best-known psychoactive compound, ibogaine, has attracted attention particularly around addiction and opioid withdrawal. People have described extraordinarily intense, introspective experiences in which memories, behaviour and personal history become impossible to avoid.
But iboga also demonstrates why "natural" should never become another word for harmless. Ibogaine can interfere with the heart's electrical activity and has been associated with dangerous arrhythmias and deaths. Anyone considering it needs proper medical screening and experienced support throughout the ceremony.
Respecting plant medicine means respecting its power, including the parts that have the potential to harm us.
DMT and the mystery of consciousness
Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is one of the most fascinating substances found in nature. It occurs naturally in numerous plants, forms part of ayahuasca and, perhaps most remarkably, our own bodies naturally produce it too.
DMT has long been linked with profound human experiences including birth, near-death experiences and the final moments before death. There are theories that our naturally produced DMT may play a role in these states, although exactly what happens remains a mystery.
Then there's breathwork, where people can reach extraordinary altered states through breathing alone – experiencing visions, emotional release or something deeply spiritual. Again, DMT has been linked to these experiences, but there is still much we don't understand.
And I'm comfortable with that. We don't have to understand every mystery before we're allowed to be fascinated by it.
The fact that something capable of profoundly altering human consciousness exists in nature and is naturally produced within our own bodies is extraordinary enough.
Plant medicine never left us
After everything I've covered here, perhaps the biggest question is how we ever became convinced that nature was the alternative in the first place.
Cannabis didn't stop being medicinal when governments prohibited it. Psilocybin mushrooms didn't stop affecting the human mind when they became illegal. Dandelion didn't stop being useful because we started calling it a weed.
Nature didn't change, we did. The plants never stopped growing and the mushrooms never disappeared.
Plant medicine never left us – we left it.
And maybe it's time we found our way back home.
Read more from Dee Mani
Dee Mani, Natural Health Consultant, Best-Selling Author & Founder, My Way CBD
Dee Mani is a Natural Health Consultant, bestselling author and founder of the award-winning My Way CBD. With a professional background in pharmaceuticals and a personal journey that reshaped her approach to health following a breast cancer diagnosis in 2017, Dee is dedicated to educating and empowering others through nutrition, lifestyle and evidence-informed natural therapies.
