In this episode, Rebecca Burns speaks with Jenny Carden, a Medical Herbalist, Moorland Guide, Archivist and Archaeobotanist whose work brings together herbal medicine, archaeology, landscape and our relationship with the natural world.

Jenny shares how her own experience of chronic illness led her back outdoors, initially through looking for fungi and gradually through plants, herbal medicine and Dartmoor. She reflects on how moving slowly and looking closely offered a different way of being outside, where success was not measured by distance, speed or physical achievement.

The conversation explores archaeobotany and what ancient plant remains can reveal about how people used plants for food, medicine and care. Jenny discusses some of the archaeological discoveries that have stayed with her, and why bringing herbal knowledge into conversation with scientific and archaeological approaches can help us ask new questions about the past.

Jenny also explores the barriers that people living with chronic pain, fatigue and invisible illness can face when trying to spend time outdoors. From unpredictable energy levels and worries about keeping up with a group to the fear of being alone when your body feels unreliable, Jenny highlights how easily conventional ideas of outdoor recreation can exclude people.

Jenny discusses what a more accessible relationship with nature might look like: noticing mushrooms, learning one plant, exploring a hedgerow, sitting beneath a tree, walking somewhere with a level path, or choosing a woodland where the car remains close by.

Jenny also traces some of the history of herbal medicine, class and access to healthcare, from Nicholas Culpeper and working-class botanical medicine clubs to wider questions about whose knowledge is recognised and who has access to the landscapes that support health and wellbeing.

The conversation takes in Dartmoor, wild foods, preventative herbalism, Jenny’s Herbal Foundations course, overlooked plantation forests, map reading, social class, access to green space, and the pressure many of us feel to make even our leisure time productive.

Running throughout the episode is the idea of permission: permission to go slowly, to begin small, to engage with plants and landscapes in ways that suit your own body and circumstances, and to let your relationship with the outdoors look different from the version we are so often shown.

This is a conversation about finding your own way into relationship with the living world, one that feels safe, accessible, curious and genuinely supportive.

Links:

Instagram: @dartmoorherbalist

Website: dartmoorherbalist.co.uk

Therapeutic Landscapes: www.therapeutic-landscapes.org