Body into Balance by Maria Noël Groves

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Best audience for Body into Balance: An Herbal Guide to Holistic Self-Care:

Beginning to Moderate Herbalists, especially those who want to connect the basics of how each body system works with their herbal choices.

Candace said: If you haven’t taken a good look at how the human body operates (or have forgotten what you learned in High School Health Class!) or you’re just starting out on your Herbal Study path, Body into Balance promises to be a most enlightening read.

I loved Maria Noël Groves’ practical, empowering take on blending herbal treatments and natural therapies with conventional wisdom and medicine for the best possible outcome. Her emphasis in this book is on helping readers understand how the body works and what factors can contribute to disease and imbalance. Her herbal suggestions are sound and well-researched with a wide enough range of potency to offer beginners and those with moderate experience plenty of room to experiment and grow in their practice.

While she touches on the energetics and spiritual levels of herbalism here and there, her approach is solidly grounded in the science behind how each herb works to create a state of balance without being overwhelmingly steeped in complex “latinish” phraseology that can make your head spin. For me, Body into Balance was a fun and easy read and a terrific refresher in the basics of the physical human-plant connection.

Groves’ formulas are practical and reasonable, even for folk who have limited access to natural, organic, and what we on the West Coast consider normal but so many others consider “alternative” ingredients. She offers plenty of suggestions for altering each recipe based on what’s available and appropriate to your situation, which I much appreciate. I would have loved to have started my own herbal path with the practical, grounded approach Groves takes in Body into Balance.

Sue said: Body into Balance is a beautiful book. It draws the reader in with dappled watercolors, stunning photos of herbal displays and beguiling text editing. All this work from a talented crew serves the author well.

Initially, I thought this was just another pretty herb book. I have read so many over the years. It was clear from the reading that this book had more than meets the eye. Groves knows how the body works which is rare among published herbalists. More importantly, she gives clear descriptions of vital body systems that normally are skimmed over in other herb books. She craftily sprinkles this knowledge over the chapters on the body systems in bite-sized chunks.

Groves has useful charts and interesting inserts that kept even my attention. It is clearly a book for the beginning or moderately experienced herbalist. It is part of the new generation of finely researched yet user-friendly herb books that we at The Practical Herbalist are happy to see in book stores these days.

My suggestion is that for those of us who have studied herbs for decades, go through your herb intro books and give them to eager herb students whilst replacing their bulk with this updated book. It will give your students the same thrill you had when discovering those gems. It will condense your library with one book that has easier to access information. The best part? All that extra space gives you more room to fill with other coveted books! Win-win!

The bottom line: We give Body into Balance by Maria Noël Groves a 2 thumbs up.

If you’re planning to buy this book, click on the link here and Bookshop.org will donate a bit of the sale to The Practical Herbalist. We thank you in advance for your support of our site and our passion for practicality in herbalism.

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