Aromatic Plants & Resins as Medicine
A little clay pot holding a single coal burns some homemade incense, wafting a rich scent of frankincense and myrrh into the dry air. I feel a sense of clearness as I take a deep breath in, feeling the herbs penetrate my lungs and pierce deep into my spirit. A sense of calm washes over me…
The Holistic Properties of Valerian
Valerian (Valeriana officinalis) is one of those herbs that a lot of people are aware of, especially in regards to its usage as a remedy for sleep. But why does Valerian help us sleep? What are the underlying properties that lend to this popularized usage? And what else can Valerian be used for? In this…
Osha (Ligusticum grayi) profile
Osha is one of our great remedies from North American herbalism with a potent and powerful influence upon the respiratory system. A lot of people reach for it immediately whenever they come down with type of respiratory tract infection, but it’s important to consider the energetics of the plant and match it to the state…
Elderberry- Not just an immune stimulant!!
Everyone into herbs knows that Elderberry is one of our best medicinal plants for acute treatment of coughs, colds and flues… but what else is this plant up to? Anytime a plant is pigeonholed into a singular category we oftentimes start overlooking other ways that it can be used. Like all brightly colored berries, Elderberry…
How to use Corn Silk as an Herbal Medicine
Most people merely think of Corn as strictly a food plant, but often fail to realize that there is a medicinal component of it as well! So when you shuck your Corn, don’t forget to save the long threads on the inside of the husk- what we call Corn Silk. It has a pretty simple and straightforward medicinal…
The One Herb Formula
Sometimes when I walk through the grocery store, I’ll pick up a bottle off of the many shelves of herbal supplements and check out what their formulas look like. I like to see how people think through, or in many cases, don’t think through how to put an herbal formula together. Most of the time,…
7 Plants, 7 Planets (Renaissance Medicine Conference 2016)
I get asked all the time “how do you determine a relationship between a plant and a planet?” It’s a great question, and one I’ve asked myself and many others over the years- and most of the answers I got were “look it up in a book.” That just didn’t cut it for me. So…
Prebiotic Herbs and Gut Restoration
So I was drinking my tea the other morning and thinking about my last video I did talking about digestive health and I realized that my tea was a great example of a particular and often overlooked method of gut healing with herbs: prebiotics. With all the overuse of antibiotics and leaky gut syndrome, we all tend…
Community Monographs (you definitely want to check this one out!!)
So during our newest 3-part video series, I issued a challenge to the Evolutionary Herbalism community to pick a plant… any plant…. and do a monograph writeup based on the 5 key elements of how to use an herb holistically. This framework includes researching and directly experiencing: 1) the taste of the herb, 2) the actions,…
Alchemical Herb Profile: Red Root (Ceanothus cuneatus)
Red Root, or commonly called “Buckbrush” around here – is a wild shrubby plant that flourishes all around the hills where we live. Though this variety of Ceanothus is poky, dense, and hardy – not the most welcoming looking plant around – it exudes the most sweet, heavenly fragrance throughout the forest while its fluffy…
