This week I was invited to give a presentation at the Tamanend Herb Club in Southampton PA. We made Echinacea Tinctures and Immune Boosting Pastilles (aka cookie dough balls). It was SO MUCH FUN! The club was super engaged, asked lots of great questions, really had fun getting their hands dirty (so to speak) making the tincture and sampling the pastilles. A great time was had by all. If you live up that way you should check them out!
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Burn yourself? Put Lavender essential oil on it.
There, that's all you need to know. Now go and impress your family and friends, bakers and pizza makers, the clumsy and the accident prone. Really! That's all there is to it! Recently a friend was over for lunch, and the poor soul grabbed the lid of a pan that just came out of a 400 degree oven. Adding to the pain, they valiantly found a safe place to deposit the glass topper instead of dropping it on the floor, risking both lid and linoleum. While they ran for the cold water faucet, I ran for my essential oil tray. Several drops applied directly to the red skin, and again after lunch as we said our goodbyes, and my friend went home. The next day I called to check in. "How is EVERYONE not talking about this? Why don't they all know?? It's incredible!" No blister, no pain, and fast healing. Lavender is an analgesic- it takes away pain. It's also cooling, and stimulates cell regeneration to speed repair. That's a perfect trifecta for a burn remedy. I've used it many times, most often on myself, and always to great effect. People new to herbal medicine often want to know: What are the best herbs for my condition? Here’s the thing about herbs, though- they’re not FOR anything. They’re plants, alive like you and me. And just as you don’t exist for a specific reason, to do or be one certain thing all the time, plants don’t either. Herbs are like personalities- sometimes we match up, and sometimes we don’t. They are quiet and docile, growing and photosynthesizing and doing their thing- until we use them. Then, their chemicals and our chemicals, their energy and our energy, their life and our life mingle and interact and we have alchemy. They change us, and if we chose well they can heal us. Acute Care Our culture has come to understand medicine as a “lock and key” system- define the type of lock, the illness, and the right key will open it and release its symptoms. This works fine with acute or emergency care- a cast for a broken bone, an antibiotic for a severe infection, radiation or chemo or surgery (or all three) for cancer. Oftentimes herbs are great with acute care. Some herbs are so specific in their interactions with us it’s almost like they are just for that purpose. Keep in mind, though, even the most clear-cut person or plant has hidden depths. Echinacea is a great example of this. This lauded plant helps us fight off illness so well that many people pigeon-hole it as the cold and flu herb. If you examine the plant more carefully, by testing it yourself and reading what wise teachers have said, you’ll learn some surprising details, however.
Herbs that help acute conditions quickly often have straightforward energetics and actions, like many of their ‘modern medicine’ counterparts, but still their complexities must be understood to use them effectively. Even a well-known herb like Echinacea can’t be stuffed into a simple “colds and flu” category. Chronic Care Long-term healing with herbs introduces more layers of those complexities, and require a different understand of health. Have you tried to achieve “balance” or “happiness” lately? They’re moving targets, aren’t they? So is “health.” It means different things for different people, at different points in their lives. “Health” isn’t just an absence of disease, since we usually have something going with us. How we manage our changing states of injury and illness and repair and relapse reflects how we each expect our health to be. Chronic or recurring conditions are deeply rooted. Unlike modern medicine, which is focused on our comfort by easing symptoms, herbal medicine is going to address root causes- and that can be a very lengthy, uncomfortable process. Consider stress, the bane of our modern society. There is a whole class of herbal remedies called “nervines” that strengthen and support the nervous system, and relieve the burden of stress. But which to choose? It depends on the type of stress, the type of response you have, and the type of person you are. You may need protection from external influences, or from your own penchant for worry. Your physical nervous system may need rebuilding. You may benefit from warming a cold, tense body, or you may need to cool down a hot head. You may need to ground your energy, or rise above what’s dragging you down. Choosing the right herb or combination can make you stress out even more! (Here we’re really entering the domain of the trained practitioner. All of us can become a competent Kitchen Herbalist, treating most minor issues at home and becoming confident in our self-care independence. But trial-and-error isn't always the most efficient strategy, especially when dealing with 'big things'.) This is why there’s no Herb for Stress, not even a Top 5 or Top 15. There are so many variables, so many considerations that influence how the herbs interact with you. If you don’t believe me, ask 5 people who have tried Valerian (usually “for sleep”) what they thought. Guaranteed, at least one of them will have had a bad reaction- it kept them up and alert all night long. Valerian helps a specific type of person with a certain type of sleep disturbance, and definitely doesn’t help anyone else! All this to say, herbs aren’t simply for our conditions. They are living entities that interact with us in sometimes unexpected ways. The more we understand both ourselves and the herbs, the better they can keep us healthy, but that is only because of who and what they already are themselves. Get to know them and respect them, and you can be healthy all your days. I’ve not had much training on drop doses, and I’ve been curious to learn more. I learned how to calculate “normal” tincture dosages during my time with Maia Toll, but the most I knew about smaller dosages came from only a few conversations about other herbalists who use them, and possibly using a drop on the wrist for sensitive people who can't stand a whole dose. I took a cue from the experiential learning that is part of Maia’s Sage School program and decided to test out some smaller doses on myself before doing research. This all started when I was trying to explain Homeopathy and Flower Essences and vibrational medicine. “It sounds like total BS but it works!” didn’t seem like enough; I wanted personal experience to back me up. On my kitchen counter I collected my potions- 3 Flower Essences, Milky Oat and Gotu Kola tinctures, and a high-mineral vinegar I made from wild edibles a Spring or two ago. (I chose these to help me rebuild mentally and physically, and to help me let go of some past baggage that kept weighing me down.) Using my metal water bottle, I first simply added a squirt of everything to my daily filling. Then, I was careful to never completely empty it before refilling. The idea is that the energy of the medicines remains in the water, and as long as you never drink all the water first you’ll have its "vibrations" in each refill. I said it sounded like BS! But this is exactly what I was testing out. After a few days I realized that every single time I “made” my water in the morning, I was overflowing the bottle and spilling some in my kitchen- on the floor, on the counter, everywhere but in the sink. How could I be suddenly so careless, when I didn’t usually spill things? I thought that perhaps the Earth wanted some and I said that aloud in frustration one morning. Immediately I had a different understanding- there was too much going into the bottle, like it was jumping out to escape overcrowding! It seemed ridiculous, yet I was totally sure. So I lowered the Flower Essences to 3 drops each day for the next week, and was more judicious with the amount from the two tincture droppers as well. The vinegar is in a pump bottle and the 6 squirts I had been using felt right, so I kept that up. I stopped spilling right away, and haven't since. The third week I lowered the Flower Essences further, to 1 drop each, and I added in a small dribble of Urban Moonshine’s Energy Tonic. I had been using that in the Fall but it is drying, and had become uncomfortable for me. Maybe, I reasoned, a little in all this water would balance out. After this third week I had my monthly acupuncture appointment. I always prep before our sessions, thinking back over the month and what I have to report to her. Really, there wasn’t much- nothing momentous had happened, sleep and digestion were fine, my month had been uneventful. The biggest thing was that Winter had suddenly broken and Spring was peeping around the corner, harkening change. She was a bit startled to feel how strong my pulses were. Weak Kidney energy had been a particular concern and she commented on how much more reserve she felt in me. This was strong evidence that the small doses, repeatedly diluted in water, were working to rebuild me! She even nodded gravely and said, “Impressive!” with a smile. She then proceeded to give me a Spring Liver treatment which was good and painful, since she got to needle all my most tender points. A few days after my treatment I started dreaming vividly, and realized I hadn’t done so for quite a while, at least several months. On that same day my intestines woke up and started gurgling madly, and I again realized I had missed out on any inside noises for a while. It seems I am restored enough that the Liver treatment was allowing me to ‘let go’ of more than just emotional baggage. My body is waking up from its Winter hibernation and is doing its own version of Spring Cleaning. So after several weeks of experimenting with tiny doses and ‘vibrational’ or ‘energetic’ medicine, I’m in. I can’t tell you why this works, or how. But I’ve seen better success with this method over the last month than I have in the past, using larger doses several times a day for the same amount of time for chronic issues. Today I started a project I’ve been dreading, and it really wasn’t all that bad! I love it when that happens. Plantago is a super common lawn and garden ‘weed’, commonly known as Plantain. But not like the banana! It comes in 2 types around here, P. major or the Broad Leaf variety, and P. lanceolata or Narrow Leaf. Believe me, you’ve seen this plant. P. lanceolata has an annoying little stalk with a cone-shaped head on it, which produces tiny flowers. This stalk is very tough and very flexible- it bends double when the lawnmower pushes on it, and springs back up once the blades are past. Hence, it is a bane for ‘perfect lawn’ people. P. major also has a stalk, but this one produces flowers along the length of it. Last year I cultivated this wild plant in my garden, weeding around certain plants and encouraging them to grow big and lush. This year the flower stalks were huge- some grew 6 inches long or more. After they flowered, they started producing seeds. The seed pods started out small and green, and as they matured turned a dusky purple. Once most of the stalk was purple, I harvested it near the ground. Many of the stalks were beginning to turn brown where they joined the leaves at the basal rosette when I harvested. The stalks were left to dry on a sheet of paper to catch seeds, then I stripped them into a jar. I just stuck the stalk upside down in a jar, pinched the end of it with my fingers and pulled to ‘strip’ off the seeds and their husks. This is where the project sat for the last few months. There was a lot of husks and chaff in the jar, and I don’t have seed screens. How was I going to separate them? Finally today, I sat down with some tools. In the end, this is what worked the best- and it was easy too! First, a spoonful of seeds and husks went into a wire strainer with a large-ish mesh. That was over a metal bowl, and I shook it to separate the loose seeds. Then that spoonful went into a mortar. I used a clay one with grooves and a wooden pestle. A few turns and lots of seeds had been broken out of their pods, so it all went back into the strainer. Another grind or two and the strainer was full of empty seed husks, which I threw out. A spoonful at a time, the seeds were sifted into the metal bowl, along with a considerable amount of chaff. Then came the fun part. I took the bowl outside, shook it to settle the seeds and bring the chaff to the top, and very gently blew on the bowl. The chaff puffed up and blew away. I took a deep breath and blew in a steady stream, turning the bowl and disturbing the seeds, which curved up the sides of the bowl and fell back in. I got lots of chaff on my glasses and in my hair but it wasn’t in the bowl anymore! I got a little carried away and ended up blowing too hard and losing some of the seeds. Next time, I’ll remember to stay very gentle and let it take a little longer, and maybe use a deeper bowl. But now I have a half pint jar of Plantain seeds ready for eating! I’m going to sprinkle them on things like poppy seeds, and make a gomaiso-like blend with toasted Milk Thistle and Nettle and something else, maybe Thyme. Dulse would be good but I’m out… I read somewhere that these seeds are very high in B vitamins so I want to do some more research, but I’m pleased with my harvest. Do you trust your instincts, the little voice that makes every fiber in you vibrate “YES!” or “NO!”? Do you trust it all the time, unconditionally? Or do you second guess your gut? And are you ever wrong?
I do, and I have been wrong, and I’ve also been so right. What is this gut that we can put such faith in? We could talk about your enteric brain, a second nervous system in your digestive system whose "aberrations are responsible for a lot of suffering." Or we could mention the plethora of traditions that employ digestive metaphors to the gut. Just look at ours- Butterflies in the stomach Something negative eating away at you I’ll have to digest that idea and get back to you Gut instincts But really, when we get down to it, a gut feeling is a whole body experience, that doesn’t have to be very logical, and that has been responsible for at least a few adventures in all our lives. Our experiences play into our gut feelings. We meet people and learn about them, which informs us when we next meet people. We have accidents or terrifying near-misses driving cars, which inform us the next time we’re in traffic. Our brain also plays into this, very often in a negative manner. Giving ourselves time to think about a choice or a situation or whatever has frequently led me to a wrong decision (or what I’m now calling “learning opportunities!”) My emotions seem to spend a lot of time in direct conflict with my instincts- or rather, I notice this conflict more clearly after my instinct has been overruled. I find it pretty easy to think about and analyze my feelings, but find it very hard to stop long enough to clearly analyze my instincts. This difficulty comes up most when my instinct is telling me something I don’t want to hear. When I’m all in agreement- head, heart and gut- it’s no problem. But when my gut throws up a red flag, it’s easy to let my feelings and my thinking trample it. But here’s the fabulous part- we can practice using our instincts! Start in small, non-important ways to ‘get the feel of it’: Think about conversations from your day- did you said something without thinking that turned out to be the perfect thing to say? Sit at a red light and try to guess who will start picking their nose. On the Witch Camp forum there's been a thread discussing Intuition. One Camper said, "just close your eyes and notice what comes up... Once you think you've got something, notice if your body relaxes or tenses. That will be a clue. Feeling a lightness in your energy might also give you a clue. Eventually you'll find a pattern." Work your way up to bigger things: When you’re walking, spend some time focused on your gut, and turn down a side street or take a different path just because you felt something. Then notice what’s around you, and maybe you’ll see something new or exciting. When you’re thinking of a friend, call them or send them an email. Or try to anticipate what the next person you see will say to you. Start noticing all the happy coincidences around you, and know nothing is a coincidence. Your instincts already knew! Edit: The day after posting, I came across this in one of my favorite blogs, Remedial Eating. Spidey sense indeed- it seems the instinct to think about our instincts right now is widespread. Coincidence? "It is hard to know, sometimes, when to retreat, and when to plow ahead. When to double down, give it your all, go Nike *rah-rah* and just do it. And when to mindfully step away. I tend to be all about noses and grindstones, packing it in, piling it high, but am learning, I think (I hope), to trust my Spidey sense a nudge more. At least to tune in. At least not to turn it off, swiftly and automatically. Progress."
So what can you do on such a day? Especially when you're chained to a desk and can't just cozy up on the couch, with book, blanket, and a hot mug of something handy. First: get outside. "But, Crazy Lady, it's raining!," you cry. So what? Do you think you'll melt like the Wicked Witch of the West? Get outside at high noon and get some rain on your face. The number one best thing I ever learned about indoor gardening is that even on a bad day (like today) plants get more light than they would on a sunny day in front of a window. Top-down light is good for us all. Next is fish oil. Vitamin D has lots of effects, including mood and seasonal resilience. When the Autumnal Equinox hits, I start supplementing with fish oil. Depending on how much I'll be outside that day I take 1500-2000 IU- for me, that's 3-4 capsules. (I also have poor reactions to the season shift, so I supplement up to the full 2000 IU my Naturopath teacher recommended for daily life. Any extra from exposure or diet is a bonus.) Now, indoor light sources. I don't have a sun lamp, but I do use salt lamps. I have 2 votive holders that grace my living room, and one larger chunk with a night light bulb inside in my bedroom. It's plugged into an IKEA timer so that I wake up to its glow every morning. In addition, I have a cute little one that plugs into a USB outlet on my computer. All these salt lamps provide a warm glow that is helping to positively ionize the air, or so I've read. They make me feel warm and happy for sure. Now, some herbal resources. St. John's Wort and Lemon Balm are classic remedies for seasonal funks. You can take them in many forms. My favorite is a St. John's Wort tincture made by Greenbrier Herbalist Sharon Moncrief (you can contact her directly, or visit Herbiary in Philadelphia or Asheville NC- she doesn't sell online.) It is seriously the darkest, richest SJW tincture I've ever seen, or made. And 2 summers ago I made a Lemon Balm elixir that is just pure joy- a big jar full of Lemon Balm leaves and a big handful of Lemon Verbena for flavor, 1/4 honey and fill the rest with good brandy. Wowsers. Dried Lemon Balm and SJW never have the same oomph as fresh, so you're better served to take or make a potion created with the fresh herb, when the sun was high and so was the temperature. In fact, I've heard that St John's Wort flowers at the height of summer to use in the depths of winter. I also supplement with Vitamin D in Fish Oil from about September through at least April. I currently have Spectrum brand with 500 IU Vitamin D per capsule, and I'll take 3 or 4 a day. Once that bottle runs out, I'm going to try Green Pastures brand- it doesn't have standardized levels of D but it is a fermented product (i.e, good for digestion!) and my teachers have talked about it often and positively, so that's next on my list. Sometimes dreary just means cold to me. Any tea with cinnamon, ginger, cloves, cardamom- all the good baking spices- help me too. Mulled apple cider, Chai, Tazo's Lemongrass Ginger, or a cup of dried ginger that has been simmered about 20 minutes so it's super-crazy strong are my go-to's. I just read about doing the same long simmer with a couple of cinnamon sticks instead, and I can't wait to try that. My final suggestion is to move. Get up out of the chair, get away from the cold, blue light computer screens put out, and move around. Walk around the building, go someplace quiet with your headphones and have a little impromptu mini dance party by yourself, touch your toes and lift your knees. When the weather is stagnant, wet and torpid and miserable, the same is exacerbated in you. Shake things up and change your own personal environment! One of the first things I learned from my teacher Maia Toll was the importance of balancing Head, Heart and Hand work. To do brain work that makes you think, heart work that feeds your soul, and hand work that connects you with the plants.
This time, when I made a batch of Herb Bites, I decided to expand on the Heart theme and include all 3 of these ‘ingredients.’ The Base Again, I used about half a container of Tahini, both for flavor and for its trace minerals, and a good dollop of Molasses- I like its rich flavor, and its mineral and Iron components are a bonus. This time I added a tablespoon of Chia seeds too. The Herbs Gotu Kola and Bacopa are Eastern herbs traditionally used to improve mental clarity and memory- here’s the Head healing. Astragalus improves vitality, Horsetail’s high silica content has been helping my cuticles, and Red Raspberry Leaf is very nutritive. A tablespoon of each powder went into the bowl, as did 3 tablespoons of that beautiful Rose powder too, for Heart medicine, to give a good cookie dough consistency that just held together. Are you counting? That’s 8 tablespoons total, or 24 teaspoons. I made smaller bites this time, 33 of them. This means there’s about ¾ teaspoon herb in each bite, so 2 is a good dose per day. I also sprinkled them with a little extra rose powder, since it’s pretty! The Hand work was mixing and rolling and sprinkling, but I’m also being very mindful each time I eat a Bite to thank myself for the work. Too often I cook and gobble and move on, when really it’s important to honor my effort as I would any other person who did something for me. One good thing that has come of my teacher closing her Chestnut Hill shop is that everything went on sale! I picked up Matthew Wood’s 2 volume set, The Earthwise Herbal and just happened to come across this (remember, I don’t believe in coincidences!):
“The tradition is very precise in associating the rose with the heart and the eyes. By comparison, hawthorn, the tree of the faeries, is associated with the heart and the tongue.” (Emphasis in original) He also speaks to traditions of rose petals healing sight and nonmaterial vision. Several months ago I started experiencing eye strain when I started reading more online. My teacher suggested I try Blueberry Solid Extract, and gave me a half-jar she had in the back of her fridge to get started. On a whim, she gave me most of a jar of Hawthorne Solid Extract too. It also strengthens the cardiovascular system, though not as specifically to the eyes as Blueberry, and she didn’t need it anymore so suggested it couldn’t hurt. Hawthorne is also a classic heart herb, of grief and loss, and since I was going through some personal loss at the time I saw it as a double-whammy. Rose is another classic herb of the heart, more along the lines of love and passion. One of our practice clients last year was given Avena Botanical’s Rose Petal Elixir and she almost immediately stopped taking it. We theorized, based on her condition and reaction, that it had too profound an effect on her heart, opening her more than she was prepared to allow. As I was finishing my latest jar of Hawthorne, I had been thinking that I didn’t really need that remedy anymore. It’s the perfect time to move onto Rose now. Hawthorne helped me express my loss and not let it stagnate in my soul. I’m ready to open my eyes and my heart to the world again, and let warm loving people in. Last night I made herb balls, a favorite medicinal food. To half a container of tahini (8oz, I guess?) I added the last of my molasses, maybe ¼ cup? (Tahini is high in micronutrients and trace minerals, and molasses is also high in minerals and Iron.) I mixed in 4 tablespoons of powdered Rose petals, 1 tablespoon of powdered Gotu Kola (to help my crazy unfocused brain stay on track) and 1 tablespoon powdered Horsetail (high in silica, I’ve been getting lots of hang nails.) This gave me a nice cookie dough consistency, and I rolled it into 18 balls. 18 balls divided by 18 teaspoons of herbs (1 tablespoon is 3 teaspoons) makes a nice even 1 teaspoon per ball. My dosage is 1-2 per day. Let’s see how I feel in about a week and a half! Natural Support During the Changing of the Seasons Autumn is a beautiful time in Pennsylvania, full of color and smells and textures. The sunlight is already changing by mid-August, a reminder that at the Summer Solstice, the sun came as close as possible and we began our descent toward Winter. The air changes, becoming dryer and crisper and full of stories about ripening and harvesting and dying. The insects and birds change their tunes, too, and even the thunderstorms seem less enthusiastic without their hot, humid, summertime energy. These changes outside bring changes to my inside as well, and not all of them are welcome! While ANY drop in the humidity is wonderful, it immediately signals dry hands and lips. Then too, the very fact that the air isn’t oppressive and stifling anymore encourages me to get out and work more, do more, to prepare for the future and to maximize my present. My birthday is in early September, so I have a clear marker as I think back over the years and see that, consistently, this time of year always brings upheavals, major shifts, and nostalgia to my world. In the spirit of all these changes, all these signals that time is moving on again after the long, lazy(ish) days of summer, here are my Five Favorite Fall Fixes: 1. Oil As Miss Celine, Emily’s ancient stylist, shared on Gilmore Girls, “Olive oil on the inside, ahnnnd on the outside!” Personally, coconut oil serves me well. I like how it tastes, and how it absorbs into my skin. I use it as a deodorant, as a moisturizer, and as a cooking oil because it has a higher smoke point than olive so it’s harder to burn. I also keep a small plastic jar in my shower and oil cleanse my face a few times a month. It'a amazing Anytime the weather turns dryer, I start upping my oil intake. I’ll add a dollop of coconut to a mug of tea, or make popcorn with it. I splash good olive on all sorts of dishes as a dressing. The local Home Goods sells metal, cylindrical containers of nice, fancy oils like Toasted Hazelnut and Grapeseed, that make their way into all sorts of meals. Good quality fish oils also make daily appearances and do a LOT for me and my mood! Avocado counts too, and I love to make a quick mash with lemon and Tulsi as a side salad or spread on top of anything that will hold it. 2. Roots Grounding, nourishing, strengthening- root vegetables give us all the same qualities they need to do their rooty jobs. In Ayurveda, sweet tastes are building, and roots are classic examples of sweet. Plus, they cook up so soft and warm and delicious, in a heavy, substantial way that just isn’t desirable when it’s warmer outside. In addition to common vegetables like beets, carrots, sweet potatoes, rutabagas,etc, I like herbal root powders as well. Marshmallow root powder, combined with honey and bananas and coconut butter and sesame seeds is one of my favorite breakfasts. I sprinkle Licorice root powder into hot chocolate, or on a Mediterranean style rice pilaf with raisins and cinnamon. Dandelion root is a wonderful way to nourish the liver, especially as it works harder with denser fall foods, and I keep a jar of Dandy Blend at my desk for when I can’t simmer a proper tea for 10 minutes or so. 3. Adaptogens Adaptogens are a class of herbs that help your body respond to stress and the environment in non-specific ways, rather than hitting one body system directly. They commonly have immune, nervous system, adrenal, and digestive effects that are calming, normalizing, or nourishing. Many of these herbs are familiar to areas like Northern China and Siberia, so we Westerners are only learning of them recently because, seriously, their research is only recently being translated out of Russian and Chinese! It shows how ingrained the internet is in my understanding of the world, that I was surprised that not everything is available in every language, or at least the major ones. That’s slightly embarrassing... Several of Ayurveda’s popular herbs are also considered in terms of their ‘adaptogenic’ qualities and are expanding the materia medica available to us. Eleuthero, Rhodioa, Ashwaghanda, Amla, Ginseng, Astragalus, Tulsi- these are all adaptogens. Each has its own personality, there's never "One Perfect Herb For [enter your condition], and David Winston’s Adaptogens is a good starting point for learning about each. Another great resource is Avena Botanicals youTube videos on specific herbs, like Ashwaghanda or Tulsi (aka Sacred Basil). 4. Bones In my view, quality care, quality lives, and quality slaughter leads to quality animal products, and I shop for my meat, bones, and raw dairy at a local family farm. Bones, specifically in the form of bone broth, are a wonderful, rich source of gelatine, that softens and protects my digestive system. I traditionally am very dry and cold, so in the winter I suffer even more. I usually use chicken or turkey bones to make soup, or to cook rice or grains. But in the dead of winter, I will make a beef broth in the crockpot that simmers non-stop. I have a mug straight up in the morning, and at least one more during the afternoon or evening. Every time I take out a mugfull, I add a mug of water back and just keep it going. Usually, I just use water and a shin bone, and it lasts several days before starting to chip and losing flavor. If I have veggie trimmings or a Reishi mushroom piece I will throw them in too. A splash of Apple Cider Vinegar helps pull minerals out of all bones and into the broth, as well. 5. Wool and silk Fall is a sensory experience! The smell of crisp leaves, ripe apples, frosty mornings, the crinkle of your nose in the dry chill, the whisper of cool breezes on your face, the comforting feeling of a down quilt in the morning. I knitted a long striped cowl scarf out of some yarns I found in a clearance bin. They are mixtures of merino wool, cashmere, and raw silk, and the smell of those fibers just says AUTUMN! to my nose. A wool jacket, a silk undershirt- I just love love love it. Fall is a chance for me to really change things “on the inside, and on the outside” and prepare my body and my mind for true winter, true cold and short days and staying in more. Let it serve as an actual transition between the energy and exuberance that is possible in summertime, and the quieter, slower, indrawn resting that marks nature in winter. *Please note, some links are to my Amazon Affiliate Account, where I'll earn a few cents off any purchase you make. Thanks! |
Fun Fact: I'm an herbalist and a movement coach. Not a doctor, or a pharmacist, and not pretending to be one on TV.
This is a public space, so my writing reflects my experiences and I try to stay general enough so it might relate to you. This does not constitute medical advice, and I encourage you to discuss concerns with your doctor. Remember, however, that the final say in your wellness decisions are always yours- you have the power to choose, you are the boss of you. And, some of my posts may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through them I'll earn a few cents. Thank you for supporting my work. This website is provided for educational and informational purposes only and is not medical, mental health or healthcare advice. The information presented here is not intended to diagnose, treat, heal, cure or prevent any illness, medical condition or mental or emotional condition. Working with us is not a guarantee of any results. Paula Billig owns all copyrights to the materials presented here unless otherwise noted. Categories
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