Real Herbal Healthcare
Five Essential Herbs to Carry With You
Here are five herbal preparations that are some of the most essential to supporting everyday health issues. Carrying these five herbs around with you may just change your life, improving your self-reliance, herbal and health know-how, and your ability to care for yourself and your family with safe, effective herbal helpers. Don't be caught without them!
Weeds at Our Feet: What Do They Mean?
Living in the Wise Woman Way In my heart, the practice of the Wise Woman Tradition is an ancestral health-affirming belief that passes down from generation to generation even in...
The Role of Invasive Herbal Preparations: Kudzu, Mimosa, Wild Rose...Plantain? Dandelion?
Within our materia medica of common 'weedy' beneficial plants native to the Appalachian mountains where we are based, you will also find a sprinkling of so-called invasive plants which are not native...
One Herb at a Time: Simpling Herbs vs. Herbal Formulas
Using simples in appropriate situations is a fun and effective way to create herbal preparations that you have a deep, intimate, and powerful relationship with. Using a single herb at a time allows for a deeper understanding of the individual characteristics and actions of each herb. The more you use a particular herb, the more you become familiar with its unique qualities and how it works. This approach also simplifies the process of matching bodily signals to specific herbs.
A Day in the Life of a Wildcrafter: Hawthorne
My hawthorne berries are growing plump and ruby at the top of this 5000 foot mountain, and I am still in the bottom lowlands, a mere 3000 feet or so...
Can Plants Predict the Future?
When my herb teacher, a fourth generation herbalist, was still a young child in the foothills of the Alabama Appalachians, she learned to use plants to predict the patterns of...
Four Wise Women Who Are Changing the World of Herbalism
We’d like to highlight four of the wisest women we know and share how they are doing their part to spread plant love and optimum nourishment of the body and...
Reciprocal Wildcrafting: Unexpected Gifts of the Forest
While walking in the forest recently with the kids, we found several of Earth’s bountiful treasures: whimsical witch hazel flower and a few lucky buckeye (Aesculus spp.) pictured here. We see the remains of summer’s leftover reishi (Ganoderma spp.) and lingering dried oyster mushrooms, along with so many other green and brown gifts of the forest.
Autumn Equinox – Harvest Time!
The cooling nights reminds us it’s time to get the last of our harvest in or move those sun-loving planters inside soon. Many get so excited to plant in spring, but autumn is a great time to plant perennials, giving the plants an opportunity to get roots firmly grounded before having to express energy in the spring.
Summer Solstice Rituals and Scratching the Poison Ivy Itch
For many, the summer solstice is about celebrating the sun and everything that it so graciously beams upon us: fully ripe strawberries, darkening freckles, St. John's wort oil (which is best to make right around the summer solstice when the plant is in bud and at its peak).
Finding the Light This Winter
Staying healthy means staying in harmony with the energy of the season. The Tiajitu – the yin/yang symbol pictured to the right – is a map for this. It shows...
Embracing the Darkness
The time of year stretching from Sahmain to Winter Solstice is a dark and often intense time, as the seasons of light turn to seasons of dark. The nights are growing longer, and the dark evenings come early. I so treasure the darkness this time of year and the quiet it brings.
