Hey David, good seeing you at IHS last month! It was nice to get some time to chat. Question for you on Lavender. Some sources say its warming, others say its cooling. Seems like one of those mixed bags to me as it clearly is quite aromatic (warm) but also pretty bitter (cool). Obviously its cooling topically (burns and all that). Cook talks about it as a diffusive and a stimulant, which seems to me in a more 4-fold energetic model of hot cold wet dry might be considered warming. Could these discrepancies be remedied by understanding it as a "cooling stimulant"?? I tend to run a bit hot and i've never felt it heat me up that much, so I was surprised to see that Gerard notes it as "hot in the 3rd degree." It just sure gets confusing when everyone says opposite things. Curious your experience. Thanks!

I agree, I enjoyed getting to visit a bit, I do wish we had more time, I think there are many very interesting conversations to be had. I consider Lavender to be cool, dry, bitter and fragrant. Many of the highly aromatic herbs a case can be made for them being warming or cooling, If someone says Lavender is warming I understand why they would think so and cannot say with any certainty whether I am correct or they are. In TCM there are certain herbs (again highly aromatic) where there is confusion or disagreement even after 1000’s of years as to whether they are warming or cooling. In some case perhaps they may have the ability to be either in some tissues or situations. I wonder if it is possible that a few herbs are temperature amphoterics, that can be either as needed ?

Ahh a temperature amphoteric! I've never considered that... very good food for thought. Thanks for this David. So then when you use it for headaches (if you do that is) I'm assuming you'd find it useful for the hot, explosive, excess type headaches, red face etc. patterns? Liver fire rising too maybe? Thomas Garran speaks to it quite a bit for Liver patterns, but describes it mostly as for wind which makes sense as a relaxant/spasmolytic etc. It's kind of a relief to hear though that discrepancies amongst herbalists are normal, I sometimes get a little confused and think well these folks really know what they're talking about even though they're saying opposite things, maybe there's a way to bring it together. Sometimes I think perhaps differences in when a certain property emerges (perhaps cooling initially and heating later) or in differing organ systems (maybe cools the gut but warms the circulation) etc. etc. Anyways, thanks for your answer it's helpful. Yeah I wish we'd had more time to chat too, perhaps in a more settled space. I feel like I could pick your brain for a long time and likely lead down some very interesting conversations in all sorts of different directions!! Thank you good sir!