✺ ≋̱ black herbalism and the colonial wild fire
- Kiing Curry
- Jun 6
- 8 min read
we keep renaming the fire instead of discussing the burn.
On Da Left Hand Side of Mushrooms and Roses is the threshold plant wing of the Bespokecurry Cosmos. Through fungi tings and the Six Waters Cannabis Field Guide, this work explores consciousness plants, Black herbalism, embodiment, and community regulation beyond colonial wellness culture. Rather than asking what plants can do for us, these essays ask what relationships, responsibilities, and forms of care become possible when we approach plants as teachers, companions, and living ecosystems. This is a growing archive of field notes on fungi, cannabis, breath, fascia, food, freedom, and the communities we are still learning how to tend.
(purple image) Colonial wild fire fragments relationships. Mycelium restores them. The lesson hidden beneath the mushroom is not individual transformation but collective connection, communication, and mutual support.
(blue image) Cannabis is not a strain chart. It is an ecosystem. The Six Waters asks how a plant moves through the body, what systems it activates, and what forms of regulation, memory, movement, and integration emerge in relationship with it.
✺ ≋̱ black herbalism and the colonial wild fire
on healing, consciousness plants, and the communities we are failing to regulate
there is a language forming around Black healing that sounds soft.
regulated.
grounded.
intentional.
nervous system support.
cortisol reduction.
burnout recovery.
gentle healing.
and yet all around us
Black people are collapsing in public.
emotionally.
psychologically.
spiritually.
somatically.
so somewhere inside this conversation there is dishonesty.
who are we healing?
because we need to ask a harder question:
who exactly is being regulated?
and regulated for what?
because if the practices are working,
if the herbs are working,
if the healing spaces are working,
then why do so many people still move through the world like open wounds pretending to be functional?
there is a level of performance that has entered herbalism that nobody wants to name.
the herbs are real.
the plants are real.
the traditions are real.
but the relationship to them?
often fragmented.
because many people are still engaging healing through a colonial nervous system.
fast.
visible.
urgent.
extractive.
constantly producing.
constantly explaining.
constantly collapsing online in real time.
and none of that mirrors how plants actually grow.
seeds do not scream while sprouting.
roots do not announce themselves every hour.
mycelium does not build through performance.
plants understand pacing.
dormancy.
stillness.
seasons.
relationship to environment.
relationship to community.
but social media healing culture moves like colonial wild fire.
consuming everything.
spreading rapidly.
burning through the nervous system faster than the body can integrate.
and then people call the collapse healing.
what scares me is not that people are seeking help.
what scares me is how many people are publicly spiraling while holding herbs in their hands like branding objects instead of relational tools.
because somewhere along the way,
healing became content.
diagnosis became identity architecture.
collapse became visibility.
and wellness became another form of labor.
black herbalism and the silence around mental health
i say this as someone whose body forced me into deep listening.
and i do mean forced.
there was no neat pathway for me.
no clean Black herbal framework that could clearly explain:
neurodivergence
gut collapse
fascia activation
breath dysregulation
obsessive looping
sensory overwhelm
nervous system fragmentation
consciousness plants
pacing outside capitalism
embodied regulation beyond survival
i had to build the map while inside the fire.
and what i found was startling.
many spaces speaking about healing are not actually speaking honestly about mental health.
they soften everything into acceptable language:
cortisol
inflammation
stress
burnout
while avoiding the reality of what Black communities are actually experiencing:
dissociation
panic
suicidality
intrusive thought patterns
inherited terror
untreated neurodivergence
psychosis
emotional collapse
nervous system failure
we keep renaming the fire instead of discussing the burn.
naming the scramble is not the same as healing it
and now there is another pattern emerging.
people naming:
ADHD
autism
anxiety
neurodivergence
and stopping there.
or immediately handing the entire self over to western pharmaceutical management without ever learning:
pacing
embodiment
nervous system literacy
sensory regulation
body communication
environmental alignment
relational healing
the diagnosis becomes explanation.
sometimes even identity armor.
and then people begin weaponizing the very dysregulation they refuse to take accountability for.
recklessness becomes personality.
harm becomes “that’s just my ADHD.”
disrespect becomes neurodivergent exceptionalism.
and no.
absolutely not.
because even if the brain is scrambled,
you are still responsible for learning how your body moves through the world.
you are still responsible for understanding your impact.
you are still responsible for interrupting harm.
diagnosis without embodiment becomes another form of fragmentation.
and western medicine alone cannot teach what many Black people actually need:
relational regulation
pacing
sensory literacy
communal nervous system repair
connection to body rhythms
restoration beyond productivity
muting the self is not the same as understanding the self.
black sensitivity and the nervous system
there is also something many people still refuse to say plainly:
Black bodies are deeply sensitive bodies.
not weak.
not fragile.
sensitive.
attuned.
esponsive.
highly perceptive nervous systems shaped through generations of adaptation, survival, interruption, rhythm, sound, touch, labor, grief, migration, and environmental intensity.
colonialism did not erase that sensitivity.
it forced many Black people to disconnect from it in order to survive.
and because of that disconnection, many people no longer understand what body alignment actually feels like.
when herbs truly connect with the body, sensitivity increases.
the nervous system becomes more responsive.
the body begins communicating more clearly.
foods shift.
breath shifts.
sleep shifts.
sensory thresholds shift.
this is not dysfunction.
this is the body returning to itself.
beauty without embodiment
there is also a deep fracture between Black beauty practices and Black herbalism that nobody wants to discuss honestly.
because how are we speaking about healing while disconnected from the body completely?
fake nails covering brittle nails.
protective styling attached to inflamed scalps.
constant external maintenance with no internal restoration.
the body withering beneath the presentation.
and none of this is about shame.
it is about honesty.
because beauty without embodiment eventually becomes another form of dissociation.
another shell.
another performance of wellness while the nervous system quietly collapses underneath it.
where are the conversations around:
herbs for nail restoration
scalp inflammation
fascia tension in beauty labor
sensory overload in salon culture
nervous system depletion from constant performance
hair practices connected to body regulation
where is the integration?
because right now most beauty and herbal spaces still remain separated by aesthetics instead of connected through embodiment.
alcoholism and the refusal to name it
and then there is alcohol.
the quiet epidemic nobody wants to discuss directly because it has become normalized inside so many Black social spaces.
spiked tonics.
spiked herbal waters.
spiked nervous systems.
using alcohol to soften emotional collapse while simultaneously speaking the language of healing.
and again:
this is not moral judgment.
it is pattern recognition.
because alcohol often functions as managed dissociation inside communities already struggling with regulation.
and many people cannot yet distinguish:
relaxation from
nervous system numbing.
that distinction matters.
especially when discussing herbalism honestly.
because some substances deepen body communication.
and some interrupt it.
the refusal of consciousness plants
and this is where i begin pushing against modern Black herbalism.
not because i reject it.
because i believe it deserves more honesty than it is currently allowing itself.
there is a visible refusal around cannabis, fungi, and other consciousness plants in many Black herbal spaces.
and i understand why.
the war on drugs was real.
surveillance was and is real.
criminalization was and is real.
families destroyed were real.
state violence was and is real.
Black bodies learned to fear altered states because the consequences attached to them were materially devastating.
the body remembers this.
but i also believe something else happened.
somewhere inside that survival response, we began limiting healing itself.
herbalism became heavily centered around:
regulation
stabilization
survival
functionality
which makes sense for oppressed people.
but survival alone cannot carry liberation.
because eventually we have to ask:
what happens when healing only teaches people how to endure collapse more efficiently?
what happens when the body is calmer but still disconnected from itself?
what happens when herbs help people continue functioning inside systems that are actively destroying them?
consciousness plants and communal healing
this is where consciousness plants become important.
not recreationally.
not aesthetically.
not performatively.
but relationally.
because fungi and cannabis do something many healing spaces still avoid: they interrupt.
they reveal pacing.
they expose loops.
they surface grief.
they illuminate dissociation.
they make visible the relationship between body and mind.
and importantly:
they force confrontation with how disconnected many of us actually are from ourselves.
and no, i am not arguing that everyone should immediately start taking mushrooms.
capacity matters.
relationship matters.
dosage matters.
integration matters.
psychosis risk is real.
destabilization is real.
these plants are not toys.
but neither is the level of communal collapse currently happening around us.
what concerns me is that i rarely hear honest conversations around:
sustained dosing practices
cost accessibility
companion herbs
nervous system pacing
integration support
Black mental health realities
communal healing infrastructure
everything becomes individualized.
personal brands.
personal healing journeys.
personal wellness aesthetics.
but historically Black herbalism was not individual enterprise.
it was communal survival infrastructure.
knowledge shared so people could live.
and yes, i absolutely believe early Black herbalists in america encountered cannabis and consciousness plants through Indigenous exchange and diasporic practice.
i do not believe our ancestors were as disconnected from altered plant consciousness as modern respectability politics would like us to think.
i think fragmentation happened.
i think fear happened.
i think colonial interruption happened.
and now many people inherit the fear without inheriting the relationship.
what our children are inheriting
and this is the part that concerns me most.
because we are still withholding information from Black children rooted in fear of the state.
still teaching silence around:
consciousness
altered perception
nervous system difference
emotional complexity
embodiment
plant relationship
while simultaneously watching younger generations collapse under levels of mental fragmentation we can no longer ignore.
our children need more than survival.
they need:
nervous system literacy
emotional literacy
body literacy
relational literacy
honest conversations around consciousness and regulation
healing practices that move beyond punishment and suppression
because what is currently happening is not working.
returning to the body
what i know for sure is this:
my own body did not begin healing deeply until i stopped trying to manage symptoms in isolation and began learning the language my body was actually speaking.
that required:
fungi
cannabis
breath work
fascia release
music
stretching
pacing
gut listening
slowing down
grieving
silence
interruption
not optimization.
not productivity.
not becoming more functional for capitalism.
and this is the part many healing spaces still refuse to confront:
some healing will make you less compatible with the systems harming you.
that is not dysfunction.
that is awareness.
because healing is not supposed to return us to performance.
it is supposed to return us to ourselves.
and honestly?
i think many people are terrified of what happens after that.
i know i was.
restoring the relationship
the Bespokecurry cosmos is intentionally restoring consciousness and threshold plants back into Black herbalism practice.
not as spectacle. not as performance. not as escape.
but as relational tools for:
embodiment
nervous system literacy
communal healing
sensory restoration
liberation beyond survival
because Black healing deserves more than regulation alone.
it deserves the right to reconnect the body, the mind, the spirit, and the nervous system fully.
the relationship was interrupted.
that does not mean it cannot be remembered.
✺ ≋̱ black herbalism and the colonial wild fire
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