A Tribute to Steve Clavey

It’s 1999. My Year 9 Work Experience. I’m in a white shirt – trying to look as professional as a year 9 kid can look. My throat is in knots. I’m entering Steven Clavey’s Chinese Herbal Medicine Gynaecology clinic. And I’m nervous.

To know why I’m there at all, and why I’m nervous, you’ll need some context… 

You see… Steve was a bit of a mystical figure to my family. My older sister had been diagnosed with Endometriosis. Her debilitating period pain hadn’t responded in any positive way to the pill, hormonal implants or surgical procedures. Then, it was sorted by his herbs. And that didn’t make any sense to me.

When my sister came back from her first appointment with Steve, I poked fun – you didn’t have to pay someone for these sticks and twigs and bark – I could have got them from the backyard!

Cooking them smelt horrible, and when I teased her for the faces she made while drinking them, she dared me to try. I still remember that mouthful of herbs - more than 25 years on. I spit them straight into the sink.

I had assumed Chinese Herbal Medicine to be a fruitless, ridiculous, side quest. Hocus pocus. Until, it worked. The changes Steve had told her to expect, happened. Her periods got better. The colour returned to her face.

My own naïve judgment turned into disbelief which turned into curiosity. My tiny mind grappled with this unlikely reality – that these sticks and twigs and bark had trumped the power of modern medicine.

 *

Which leads me here. Year 9 Work Experience. Standing outside 126 Russell St, Melbourne. Lump in my throat.

I ascend stairs that creak so generously I’m not wholly confident they’ll hold me.

Steve’s is the kind of clinic you hear long before you see it. The rustling of paper bags. Punching of stamps. Ringing phone and answering machine. The metal clink of mortar and pestle. Gentle conversations and laughter. Tilly’s talking on the phone. More creaking floors. It’s a bustling, lively hive before you even see it’s wonder.

Taking the clinic in visually for the first time is breathtaking and wonderful.

Hundreds of herbs are organised onto floor-to-ceiling shelves that fill the length of the clinic. Traditional weighting scales are used with dexterity by the people behind the herb counter. There are books and tea pots and Chinese tea cups. A wall of manila folder case files so extensive it mirrors the huge wall of herbs that oppose it.

It’s the most fascinating thing I’ve ever seen.

Outside Steve’s consult room I help refill herb containers. I read their labels which indicate their flavour, organ systems they influence, their main functions. The herbs are alive with different textures and colours and shapes. I take notes. I understand none of it but am captivated. This place feels like magic.

Herb scripts appears from the back of Steve’s consult room. Sometimes including interesting linage references or notes which appear to benefit the staffs understanding. They’re taking notes too. Wearing aprons, the staff assemble the script herbs on a long bench and set about weighing them with the traditional scales they look effortless in operating.

Every patient receives a different collection of herbs. Some have lots of herbs, some only a few. Some recipes are more red overall, some look more yellow, some brown. Different scripts use the same herb at different dosages. There’s clearly a lot of science going on here I can’t see.

I have a go at the traditional weighing scales - they’re not at all as easy as they look. I clang weights and send things up and down too fast. The patients in the waiting room get to enjoy it all.

Some patients are new to the space and fascinated too, others have obviously been coming for a while and feel at home here.

When I get called into Steve’s consult room to observe consultations the depth of my wonder grows seeds everywhere.

Steve asks every women very specific questions. They’re often questions about topics western society generally considers taboo and not to be talked about. But that’s not a thing here. Details matter.

He asks about the colour and texture of each woman’s period, her pattern of bleeding, the nature of any pain and when it occurs. About appetite, digestion, bowel function and sleep. This is very through questioning and he makes it seem effortless.

It’s clear that all these details are somehow what allows each script to head in different directions.

He takes each woman’s pulse. Observes their tongue.

He educates them about things too. Draws pictures of the uterus, explains endometriosis, talks about concepts of ‘blood stagnation’ and ‘dampness’, encourages specific dietary or lifestyle changes that again, depend on the person.

When the patient leaves the consult room he encourages me towards the chair they were in. He asks me if I noticed the way they entered the room, their complexion, the force with which they closed the door, how many layers they were wearing, the volume of their voice when they were in the waiting room prior to the consultation. He is not only gaining information from what women say, but how they say it. With their words and with their whole body.

In that room, Steve teaches me the power and the art of genuine observation and inquiry.

The fact that someone’s complexion or tone of voice could influence their treatment for endometriosis or recurrent miscarriage…. Is there anything more strange and fascinating?

Over Yum Cha lunches with all the clinic staff, Steve explains the role of different flavours of herbs, the five elements, the concept of yin and yang.

He didn’t have to do any of this.

I was just a work experience kid quietly taking notes in the corner.

This was one of the formative experiences of my life. The world of Chinese Herbal Medicine opened up and drenched me in an intense hunger to learn more.

What he generously offered me through this time... I can’t find words for. What is gratitude beyond the possibility of being pulled into words. 

*

Present day. And those moments were 25 years ago.

Most days in clinic I find myself discerning between two patterns by using lines of inquiry Steve first taught me.

So many practitioners of Chinese Herbal Medicine in Australia have had their lives and careers forever shaped by this man. 

I am one of hundreds of Chinese Herbalists that have found their feet in his clinical space - a landing pad for so many to grow and learn and thrive.

Looking around at his memorial service, it’s clear that an entire generation of practitioners have benefited from his kindness, his wisdom and his knowledge.

His commitment to genuinely foster and nurture and guide and mentor students and practitioners is something I’ve not seen before or since.

He pulled this field together in the most meaningful way.

He taught us to respect linages and the history of the medicine.

His wisdom and encouragement and bread crumb trails have allowed so many to fall deeper in love with the science and the poetry of script writing.

Because he has shaped so many of us as practitioners, he continues to drive better patient outcomes even beyond his own lifetime.

It’s clear that no one has had a bigger imprint on Chinese Herbal Medicine in Australia than Steve. Perhaps no one ever will.

It was an absolute twist of fate that a hospital nurse referred my family into his care.  

That he let a work experience kid into his highly crafted, specialised way of being with patients is just one example of the generosity he owned that rippled wide.

To learn from him was to be changed by his teachings.

He changed my life.

Hundreds of practitioners would say the same.

Hundreds of his patients would say the same - my sister is one of them.

The ripples he’s created in a lifetime are unending.

Steve was the best of the best. The impact of his clinical work and mentorship leave an entire industry so much stronger for his existence. What are the words beyond gratitude?

His is the most genuine and honest of legacies.