Getting Started in Herbal Pharmacy: A Review of James Green’s Classic Guide

Making herbal medicine — the alchemy of transforming living medicinal plants into healing remedies — is one of the most empowering parts of the plant path. In this post, I’ll share my thoughts on The Herbal Medicine-Maker’s Handbook by James Green, a classic and comprehensive guide to the art and craft of herbal pharmacy. Whether […]

A Practitioner’s Guide to Topical Herbal Remedies

What do you think of when you hear “topical herbs”? Chances are, you think about putting herbs on your skin, perhaps in the form of creams, salves, or poultices.  But this is only one type of topical application.  In herbal medicine, topical use is much broader than applying medicine to the skin (though this is […]

Anatomy of a Formula

Materia Medica

Have you been studying herbs for a while, but you still feel unsure about how to combine them into an effective formula?  Or maybe you’re newer to herbalism and ready to dive into the art and science of formulation? Formulation is one of my favorite parts of herbal medicine, so I’m excited to kick off […]

Planetary Sympathy and Astrotherapeutics

Most traditions of herbal medicine across the world use the fundamental principle of antipathetic medicine in their approach to therapeutics. But in the practice of alchemical medicine—based on Paracelsianism— and in astro-herbalism, another approach is commonly used: sympathetic medicine. In this episode, we’ll explore some of the principles of sympathetic medicine, how it differs from […]