Podcast 266: Gut-Heal Tea: Variations on a Theme

A quote attributed to Hippocrates says “all disease begins in the gut.” No surprise, then, that gut-heal tea is a major part of our practice! We work with this formula – or better said, this schema for creating individualized formulae – very, very often. It’s not only a ‘digestive’ blend, it’s also a nervine formula: it operates at the nexus between the digestive and nervous systems.

But we don’t prepare it the same way every time! Variation is essential to make a blend that best suits a person’s body and needs. Today’s episode of the Holistic Herbalism Podcast is all about this flexibility in formulation.

We can adjust the blend based on the person’s energetics, the desired actions of the herbs, and special affinities they have. While we must avoid creating a ‘kitchen sink’ of insufficiently intentional herbs, there’s plenty of room for addressing the specific patterns in each person.

Here are the specific versions of gut-heal tea formulae we explored in this episode:

“the original” gut-heal tea

• calendula (Calendula off.) flower
• plantain (Plantago major) leaf
• peppermint (Mentha piperita) leaf
• chamomile (Matricaria recutita) flower
• ginger (Zingiber officinale) rhizome
• fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) seed
• licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra) root

a gut-heal tea for the holidays

• 1 part calendula (Calendula off.)
• 1 part chamomile (Matricaria recutita)
• 1/2 part rose petals (Rosa spp.)
• 1/2 part yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
• 1 part damiana (Turnera diffusa)
• 1 part wood betony (Stachys off.)
• 1/2 part fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)
• 1/2+ part ginger (Zingiber off.)
• 5 or 6 cardamom pods (Elettaria cardamomum)

katja’s current gut-heal tea

• self-heal (Prunella vulgaris)
• chamomile (Matricaria recutita)
• betony (Stachys off.)
• catnip (Nepeta cataria)
• ginger (Zingiber off.)
• tulsi (Ocimum sanctum)

ryn’s current gut-heal tea

• yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
• saint john’s wort (Hypericum perforatum)
• centaury (Centaurium erythraea)
• peppermint (Mentha x piperita)
• ginger (Zingiber off.)
• plantain (Plantago major)
• catnip (Nepeta cataria)
• fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)
• rooibos (Aspalathus linearis)
• jiaogulan (Gynostemma pentaphyllum)
• gotu kola (Centella asiatica)
• lungwort (Pulmonaria off.)

We dive into gut-heal tea most fully in our Digestive Health course, though as you’ll understand after you’ve heard this episode, it’s also really relevant to Neurological & Emotional Health.

For more principles & strategies of formulation, check out our Fundamentals of Formulation course! And if you’re feeling a little uncertain about the individual herbs themselves, the Holistic Herbalism Materia Medica is where to begin.

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Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.

Episode Transcript

Katja (00:00:15):
Hi, I’m Katja.

Ryn (00:00:16):
And I’m Ryn.

Katja (00:00:17):
And we’re here at Commonwealth Holistic Herbalism in Boston, Massachusetts.

Ryn (00:00:20):
And on the internet everywhere thanks to the power of the podcast.

Katja (00:00:23):
Woohoo.

Ryn (00:00:24):
Yes. Well, today we’re going to talk about tea. Shocking behavior from us herbalists, right?

Katja (00:00:32):
Big surprise.

Ryn (00:00:33):
Right, yeah. And specifically we’re going to talk about what we call gut-heal, gut-heal tea. Pardon me.

Katja (00:00:39):
Easy for you to say.

Ryn (00:00:42):
Apparently not. Apparently not. Gut-heal tea, I figure if you ask basically any student who’s taken more than one course or more than a few lessons of a course with us what our favorite herbal formula is, they might mention gut-heal tea because it comes up a lot. And not just in your Digestive Health course, and not just in your Nutrition course, but in a lot of courses. Because all disease begins in the gut, right, Hippocrates? Right? Yeah.

Katja (00:01:11):
This topic came to mind because I was sending out a newsletter about okay, it’s the last week before holiday season really kicks off here in the United States. And that’s going to mean foods that maybe you don’t normally eat, and also stress that is maybe on top of your normal stress, and a bunch of other stuff. And so I was promoting some herbs or blends that could help get through the time that’s coming up. And as I was writing that, and as I was sitting down and thinking about what herbs would be most helpful for people going through the holidays because it’s stressful, and family relationships are hard, and all this stuff. And the first thing that I wrote about was gut-heal tea because that’s the center of everything. It’s like all the food that you don’t normally eat that you’re eating at the holidays. All the stress that is on top of your normal stress. All the everything twisted up into a ball, and you hold it in the middle of your guts. So, I’ve been really thinking about gut-heal tea and how to adjust it. And we say it as if it is one thing. It is never one thing. It’s always adjusted.

Ryn (00:02:39):
It’s kind of part of the point of today.

Katja (00:02:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because specifically I was thinking about how do we adjust it for the holiday season. But yeah, to talk about this even more broadly, how do we adjust it infinitely so that it fits exactly what you need right now?

Ryn (00:02:59):
Yeah. We keep coming back to the name gut-heal tea. Because you can call it tummy tea, or a digestive health blend, or whatever you want. That’s fine. But it’s your gut in all of the senses. It’s not only the organs of digestion. Do you know what I mean? Like you were talking about the nervine effects or the actions on your nerves, your emotions, the things that cramp up your gut that don’t maybe have to do with food poisoning. And those are central to the formula as well. So, we’ll get into actions and things that are included and the nature of what’s going on with this. But I want to lead with that. I think that’s really important to keep in mind. So yeah, you can call it whatever you want. I did have somebody once ask me what gutheal tea was. Because they had just seen it written down, and the letters were all squished together. So, you’ve got to make sure to put your hyphen in. Gut-heal is what we’re up to.

Katja (00:03:49):
Gutheal.

Ryn (00:03:51):
Gutheal tea. Yeah. I don’t know. Where’s the gutheal herb? I haven’t found that one yet. Okay, so…

Katja (00:03:57):
Language is such a funny thing.

Ryn (00:04:00):
And we’re a little obsessed, so you get to experience that too. So, that’s today’s topic: gut-heal tea and variations on it, how to create them, how to think about them. But before we get any further, let’s give you our reclaimer and remind you that we’re not doctors. We’re herbalists and holistic health educators.

Katja (00:04:16):
The idea is discussed in this podcast do not constitute medical advice. No state or federal authority licenses herbalists in the United States. So, these discussions are for educational purposes only.

Ryn (00:04:27):
We want to remind you that good health doesn’t mean the same thing for everyone. Good health doesn’t exist as some objective standard. It’s influenced by your individual needs, experiences, and goals. So, please keep in mind we’re not attempting to present a single, dogmatic right way that you should adhere to. And in today’s episode, that should be particularly obvious because it’s all about variations on the theme. Yeah.

Katja (00:04:49):
Everyone’s body is different. So, the things that we’re talking about may or may not apply directly to you. But we hope that they’ll give you some new information to think about and some ideas to research and experiment with further.

What’s in Gut-Heal Tea? Vulneraries & Lymphatics: Calendula & Plantain

Ryn (00:05:01):
Finding your way to better health is both your right and your own personal responsibility. That doesn’t mean that you’re alone on the journey, and it doesn’t mean that you’re to blame for your current state of health. But it does mean that the final decision, when you’re considering any course of action, whether that’s discussed on the internet or prescribed by a physician, that’s always your choice to make. Yeah. So, what is a gut-heal tea? It’s not one thing. And even from the first times that we were using this phrase or talking about it in this way, it’s always been really, really important to us. But you have to start somewhere. So, one version that we wrote down back in 2012, which I suppose is actually 13 years ago now…

Katja (00:05:45):
That’s appalling.

Ryn (00:05:47):
We’re going to let that one pass. It started with calendula flowers. And then plantain leaf. That’s plantago of course, not the banana thing. Along with peppermint and chamomile, ginger and fennel, and a little bit of licorice.

Katja (00:06:05):
Did you… Did I type peppermint in there? No, you went back and added it.

Ryn (00:06:10):
I like the peppermint in there. You don’t have to include peppermint if you don’t love it.

Katja (00:06:15):
I was like, no, no, no, wait. This file has changed. There was no peppermint. Listen, I think I’m the only herbalist on the planet who doesn’t like peppermint, but I don’t like peppermint.

Ryn (00:06:24):
You barely like spearmint.

Katja (00:06:25):
Yeah.

Ryn (00:06:26):
Your favorite minty mint is pennyroyal.

Katja (00:06:29):
Yes. I do like pennyroyal quite a lot.

Ryn (00:06:31):
Which could totally go in that spot.

Katja (00:06:32):
It’s very tasty, yeah. But okay. But the reason that that stuck out to me, the peppermint addition, is not because I don’t like peppermint, although I don’t. But we have here three sets of pairs. And now we kind of do have… Well, no, the peppermint is just sort of hanging out there, so that’s okay. We’ll come back to the peppermint. But we have these pairs. So, I want to start with the calendula and plantain. They are the vulnerary action. Vulnerary is an old word that means to heal skin. And remember that the inside of your digestive tract is just made of skin. Okay. It’s skin with a fancy mucus lining on top of it, but it’s the same kind of cell that you have on your skin outside of you. The skin outside of you is your epithelium. And your skin on the inside of you is your endothelium.

Ryn (00:07:33):
So, vulnerary is about healing in the same way that to be vulnerable is to be able to get injured, right? So yeah, vulnerary, healing.

Katja (00:07:44):
Yeah. So, those plants are addressing actual physical irritation and any kind of physical damage. Whether that is ulcerative colitis, like really big deal kind of damage. Or just I ate some really cruddy stuff, and you know.

Ryn (00:08:09):
Well, it’s both literal wounds like an ulcer like you’re talking about, whether that’s in the stomach, or down in the colon, or wherever it happens to occur. So, that kind of wound. But these herbs are also handy for inflammatory disruptions to the integrity of your intestinal lining and the membranes there.

Katja (00:08:30):
Like inflammatory damage is where I wanted to land with that. And so, inflammatory damage is not necessarily an ulcer, although ultimately you could end up that way. But, but it could just be a result of a super sugary or a deep-fried kind of meal where there’s a lot of ingredients that are pro-inflammatory in what you ate.

Ryn (00:09:00):
Oh, so we’re at the carnival.

Katja (00:09:01):
We are, yes.

Ryn (00:09:02):
We’re at the carnival. We’re having fried dough.

Katja (00:09:05):
Yeah, that’s exactly right.

Ryn (00:09:06):
Ah, yes.

Katja (00:09:08):
Yeah. And so, even I want to be clear that vulneraries can be helpful in serious situations. But you get small damage, and it can be from eating foods that are not suited for you but were delicious. It could even be from taking NSAIDs, like ibuprofen or something. And even just after one dose, you get small damage.

Ryn (00:09:36):
And I mean, the gut lining has evolved to shed and to regrow fast, like much more rapidly than most other tissues in your body, right? One way to think about this is where do you get real trouble when you go on a chemotherapy drug? Because those are going to attack and cause damage most to cells that are rapidly dividing. They’re trying to target the cancer, but they’re also going to give some effects in your digestive system. And so people get the nausea, and the discomfort, and loss of hunger, and all of that kind of thing. They get hair loss. They get other issues like that. So, any place where there are cells that are going to divide rapidly under normal conditions, under chemo you’re going to get a lot of discomfort there. Anyway, just to say your whole intestinal lining has to do that all the time. That’s part of its normal habit in life. But if there’s ongoing inflammation, then that growing of new healthy cells is going to be disrupted. And these herbs are going to help to enhance that process again and make it to work well.

Carminatives: Peppermint (Catnip) & Chamomile, Ginger & Fennel

Katja (00:10:40):
So, these two are vulneraries here. These are dealing with the physical structure of the gut. And that’s not all they can do. Both calendula and plantain also help your liver, help lots of other things. Help move lymphatic fluids, which your guts have lymph nodes just all twisted around every part of the digestive tract. Right. Which makes sense because this is a very large interface with the outside world, and so you want your immune responders to be right there.

Ryn (00:11:15):
Yeah. So, particularly the calendula there is a really excellent lymphatic. And I mean, when you take it as tea it’s especially excellent among the lymphatics for your belly, right? Yeah.

Katja (00:11:27):
All right. So, that’s a pair there that’s doing primarily that vulnerary work. And then we get bonus effects as well. Then we have…

Ryn (00:11:38):
It’s kind of a trio of carminatives now, right? Peppermint, chamomile, ginger together.

Katja (00:11:43):
Yes. And, you know, was catnip originally in there?

Ryn (00:11:49):
Catnip is in there whenever I make gut-heal tea.

Katja (00:11:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so you could swap the catnip with the peppermint. And I feel like more frequently we do that, but that might just be because I don’t like peppermint. But the chamomile and the catnip I see as a pair also because they are relaxing crampiness, tension, et cetera. And in this pairing they are like the upper digestive and the lower digestive. So, when you have tension in the stomach or tension moving up into the esophagus. So, this could be heartburn that’s triggered from stress, or nervousness, or anxiety. Or even nausea that comes from anxiety or just general unsettledness that’s up in the digestive tract. And then the chamomile is lower. It’s like in the gut part of your digestive tract. So, if you have cramping after you eat or just discomfort after you eat, then that’s where I’m feeling the chamomile, right, in that lower part. And so these two are giving you that relaxing action.

Ryn (00:13:11):
Really. The peppermint, the catnip, chamomile, ginger, they all have that relaxant quality to them. And really when we use this word carminative, sometimes people will just reduce that to well, that warms up digestion. But that’s half the story. Carminatives are warming and relaxant to digestive organs. So, when you have tension, cramping, spasms going on, you want carminatives. The two actions travel together. You warm up the tissue, just like you warm up a muscle that’s tense, right? You warm it up, and it releases. So, these are all really helpful for that purpose. Yeah.

Katja (00:13:49):
All right. And then I’m going to put the ginger and the fennel together as a pair because these are much more strongly warming. Now ginger and fennel still have strong relaxant action. And even if we look at both of these pairs, the catnip or peppermint, chamomile, ginger, and fennel, and we take those two pairs and make them like a quad, we also are getting nervous system relaxant action. We’re getting full-body anti-spasmodic action. But if we stick with the ginger and the fennel, these are much more strongly warming, more strongly carminative. They are moving plants. And so if you’ve had a big meal, and it’s kind of stuck, whether it is stuck with bloating, stuck with gas, just plain old stuck and feeling like it’s not moving in your guts. This warmth is not just warming up the digestive fire, the ability to burn up the food into energy. But also warming up the movement of the system so that nothing’s getting stuck in there.

Ryn (00:15:06):
Yeah, right. And you know, with catnip and chamomile, you may know them already, or you may know them primarily as herbs for nerves, herbs for your emotions. Herbs for anxiety, some people might say. And they absolutely can help with those things. But they’re also very firmly in that camp of herbs that are there to help out your digestive discomforts, right? You take this after a big meal. Even at a lot of restaurants they’ll have, well, at least chamomile available. Maybe not catnip. But the thing about ginger and fennel is that they can also touch your emotions. And I feel like that’s most palpable for people that are the most cold, right? So, we absolutely have students or clients who are like you know, I work with fennel. And I know that it warms up my belly, and that feels good and everything. But really it’s the way it makes my heart, my brain start to feel that I keep coming back to it for. And so that’s kind of leading into a theme we’re going to weave through here today. That constitutional matching or matching up the energetics of the herbs is a real critical part of how you’re going to construct your formula. And it’s a way that you can touch on multiple systems or symptoms simultaneously. Yeah.

Demulcents: Licorice & Fennel

Katja (00:16:19):
Yeah. All right. And then this, the licorice is sort of hanging out there by itself.

Ryn (00:16:25):
Well, licorice and fennel together are sweet demulcent.

Katja (00:16:28):
It’s true, yeah. We can put them. And not everyone would need these. Demulcent is moistening. And so a person who has a lot of dryness, especially in the digestive tract, then that’s going to be very soothing. And the fennel is going to serve that purpose as well. But you could put marshmallow in there. You could put linden in there. You could put any of the moistening herbs in. Licorice has the curse and benefit of being super-duper sweet. And so for a lot of people, the licorice is going to make this blend taste good and be very appealing. And then for other people it will not taste good because of the licorice.

Ryn (00:17:13):
It’s sweet, and it’s a particular kind of sweet. And it’s not everyone’s favorite kind, that’s for sure.

Katja (00:17:20):
But recognizing that it is filling that moistening role., And the fennel is doing that too, but the licorice is doing it a little stronger. And so it doesn’t have to be licorice. It could be any of the demulcent plants. And that’s really where we’re going with all of this. By explaining the function of these pairs and the purpose, the reason for including them, this formula has become algebra. You could recreate this formula with none of these herbs and have a formula that would do exactly the same work. It would do it a little bit differently. But you could absolutely do the same job by just saying okay, I’m going to need some vulneraries. Bonus if they’ve also got some liver or lymphatic action.

Ryn (00:18:11):
Self-heal.

Katja (00:18:12):
Yeah. Self-heal would be perfect there. I’m going to need some relaxant herbs, bonus if they’re a little bit warming. And then oh, I’m going to need some carminative, actually warming herbs. And then depending on the person, oh, I also might need some moistening action here. Listen, depending on the person, you might want some astringent action in there.

Adjusting the Formula for Constitution or Medications

Ryn (00:18:36):
It’s true. Yeah. So, you’re getting the sense that it’s flexible, that it’s modular. That we start with the actions that we want. I want vulneraries. I want carminatives. I might want demulcents. I might want bitters. I’m almost always going to want some lymphatics. And I’m going to be particularly interested in herbs that combine any of those with some nervine effect. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, another couple of thoughts on ways that we can adjust this. One of them is just based on what’s the dominant factor for this person’s constitution, right? And with that we’re thinking about hot versus cold, moist versus dry. We can talk about tense versus lax as well. But let’s just say if somebody runs really cold, we could keep the original formula we had there and say yep, calendula, plantain, catnip, chamomile. And we’re just going to get extra of the ginger and the fennel because you run cold. These herbs are warming. We dial ’em up. Really simple, right? Likewise if they were hot, we could reduce those down a little bit. Maybe we add some particular cooling herbs to the mix. Maybe we put in rose petals, right?

Katja (00:19:46):
Or this is the time for peppermint.

Ryn (00:19:48):
Peppermint is pretty good, yeah. We could put in hibiscus. It’s a nice cooling plant, right?

Katja (00:19:53):
Peach leaf could go in there, especially if the person had nausea as part of their digestive profile. They were hot, and they had a tendency towards nausea.

Ryn (00:20:03):
You were just talking about how if they’re dry, or if we want more demulcent action for them. Then we either increase the licorice or the fennel, or we put in the mucilaginous demulcent herbs, the marshmallow, linden, violet, sassafras leaf. These kinds of things can be real nice there. And on the other hand if they’re running moist, then we might just leave those out entirely. And if they’re really moist, we might say okay, well let’s dial up the herbs that have a drying impact. We’ll get you more calendula. We’ll throw some maybe not dandelion leaf because now we’re drifting away from the center of the action here.

Katja (00:20:42):
But it could be let’s say this person is really damp and has also some stagnation. We could toss some lady’s mantle into this blend with the calendula.

Ryn (00:20:50):
Yeah. Lady’s mantle would be nice. That does have some nice vulnerary effect. Also good would be goldenrod. Goldenrod is an amazing vulnerary. In its botanical name Solidago, that’s to soli-dify again. It’s another description of a healing process. Yeah, yeah. Goldenrod’s really nice, actually.

Katja (00:21:13):
It’s just funny because that’s nowhere in our notes. We had something. We’re like don’t forget to say this one. Don’t forget to say that one. But we can’t even get through it without being like oh wait, and also let’s add this one. And I think that’s great because every formula should be that. No formula should ever be set in stone. In fact, it shouldn’t even be written in pen. Don’t write it with a Sharpie. Write your formulas in pencil. Or write them in pen if you want to because you happen to have a pen that you like a lot. But then just write a lot of variations. It is such a good exercise to do this, not just because that way you get exactly what you need in that moment. But what if you just ran out of your favorite thing? This is just such a good way to push yourself to learn more. Okay. Sorry for the little motivational speech there.

Ryn (00:22:09):
Yeah. That’s good. All right. So look, there’s other reasons that we are going to alter the formula. One of them could be because of medications or health conditions that are going on for the person. So, if we have somebody with hypertension and a lot of fluid retention on the body, a lot of dampness, that’s not a great person to give licorice to. Licorice, especially in large amounts, it can exacerbate those issues. It can cause the body to retain more water. And we wouldn’t really want to do that. So in that case, we can just leave the licorice out. We could swap it out with another herb. Maybe they’re retaining water, but they have some spots of dryness. Like maybe they specifically have digestive dryness, and we want to keep a little bit of lubrication through there. Fennel is fantastic. We could go with linden. That would be great.

Katja (00:22:56):
Digestive dryness would show up as constipation.

Ryn (00:23:00):
Yeah. Rabbit pellet poops is a simple way to sum that up, or just a lot of straining, a lot of dryness. Yeah, okay. So, that might happen. Okay. There’s an herb that I love to include, but it’s kind of forbidden with caveats if they’re on a lot of pharmaceutical medications, or if they’re on particular pharmaceuticals that interact with it. Can you guess what I’m talking about? Yes, you can. It was St. John’s wort. Good job.

Katja (00:23:27):
Yeah. That’s going to get you… That’s going to really dial up the impact on the liver in a positive way. But you also get the vulnerary action on the whole length of the digestive tract. And so much stimulation to the enteric nervous system, which is the part of your nervous system that is in your guts. You have like a whole extra brain in your guts. And so the actions of St. John’s wort are really helping that to function properly. And so now if you’re thinking about… If your mind is making connections to the vagus nerve, you’re not wrong because all of this is connected. And the vagus nerve is so directly intertwined with the ability to digest food at all and to get into that rest and digest state. And so if that is a problem for you, if that’s a struggle. If you are always in that heightened tension place, and it’s hard for you to get into that more relaxed space where it’s easier to digest your food. Then St. John’s work might be something that you add, but only if you’re not taking a bunch of pharmaceuticals. And usually people will say blood thinners, but because of the way that I built this example, psychiatric meds are a real specific one there. If you take psychiatric meds, and you take St. John’s wort, that can cause withdrawal symptoms from the psychiatric meds, and that can be very uncomfortable. So, just to know that that is a place to avoid.

Ryn (00:25:09):
Right, right.

Katja (00:25:13):
Oh, and then if you were avoiding that, but you also need that action. You’re like but hold on. Now what am I going to do about this whole enteric nervous system tension going on? Okay, well, chamomile is going to be helpful there, but also calamus is going to be super helpful there. And both are safe if you have psychiatric drugs in the mix.

Ryn (00:25:34):
Yeah, for sure. And also it’s worth saying that a clinical herbalist can help you to get specific clarity about whether the actual drugs that an actual person is taking are going to have that interaction with St. John’s wort. You know, the first line on St. John’s wort and drug interactions is just avoid them. Just always avoid them, right? Just don’t take that.

Katja (00:25:54):
Just because that’s the safest.

Beneficial Bitters

Ryn (00:25:56):
Safest, simplest, easiest to remember, right? In the real world you can go further, and you can be like well, let’s look at this particular drug, and how it’s metabolized, and whether it goes through the pathway that St. John’s wort touches on. And all of that kind of analysis can get you further. Another note to think of is that if you want several of the effects of St. John’s wort but not the drug interaction, you can go with yarrow. Yarrow is a nice liver activator. It’s a nice wound healer. It has similar energetics to St. John’s wort being a little drying and a little tonifying. And so that’s a nice swap if you’re looking for one there. Yeah. And with both St. John’s wort and yarrow, we’re introducing the idea of having bitter elements in your gut-heal tea. Which I do like to do whenever possible. And possible might include most importantly it’s not going to make the person stop drinking their tea.

Katja (00:26:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ryn (00:26:53):
Because it’s very important. This only works if you drink it. And generally we want people to be drinking like a quart per day or more. So, it’s got to be acceptable to them. But St. John’s wort isn’t such an intense bitter. It’s a pretty mild one, often very acceptable. Yarrow’s a little more bitter than that. And you can go further. You can go to my good old friend centaury if you want to have a powerful representation of bitter in your formula. Think about parts and proportions, right? Maybe you don’t put a full handful of centaury into there.

Katja (00:27:23):
Yeah. Maybe like one or two spoonsful is going to be plenty.

Ryn (00:27:26):
And then also be thinking about how many other herbs you’ve got, and how much other flavor activation you’ve got going on. If we take something like peppermint and chamomile and ginger and fennel, that’s a lot of different flavors happening all at once. And the bitter’s going to kind of slide in there not quite as noticeable, not quite as forward. Yeah.

Katja (00:27:49):
So, if you’re like wow, I understand that bitters would be very helpful for me, but I just cannot with the flavor. That would be one way to work yourself towards it. A lot of herbs that have strong flavor, and then just a little bit of the bitter herbs so that it’s really just in the background, and you really don’t notice it very much. And then slowly over time you can increase it. And you can increase it by a tiny bit every time. But that’s just building up your tolerance is not the word I want, so I’m going to say the sentence. It’s building up your tolerance to bitter, but it’s not exactly the word that I want. I really want the word familiarity and comfort. Because tolerance implies that it’s something that you need to build up tolerance to, and that’s not actually true. It’s that we need to build comfort because bitter used to be like a much more normal part of our lives. And by used to be, I mean evolutionarily, and we’ve like bred it out of our food basically. Even vegetables just like carrots used to not be as sweet as they are today. And we used to eat vegetables that had bitter flavors. Or cucumbers used to have bitterness in them. And we just don’t have those flavors nearly as often anymore. You kind of have to… Either it’s like coffee or beer is basically where you get bitter today. And so, at least with coffee we pour a ton of sugar into it then. Not so much beer, I guess we don’t really put sugar in our beer.

Ryn (00:29:36):
There’s some. There’s like cake stouts and things, I don’t know. I can’t drink ’em anymore. But anyway, yeah.

Katja (00:29:44):
So, it isn’t that we’ve lost our tolerance to bitter. It’s that we’ve lost our comfort. We’ve lost our familiarity with bitter.

Ryn (00:29:55):
Right. And I mean bitter’s another entire topic to itself about that nexus between digestive efficacy and emotional state. I mean, like the bitter constituents, they’re activating certain receptors on nerves and triggering responses there. So, it’s never been true that these are just digestive herbs. And so they slot right into this kind of a formula with the kind of goals that we have, the kind of purposes, the places we’re trying to work really, really cleanly. It’s worth saying that chamomile, if it’s steeped for a good, long time, and if there’s enough of it in the mix, that can contribute a little bit of bitterness to the formula.

Katja (00:30:34):
If you’re new to bitter, then you might feel that it’s quite a lot of bitterness. And that’s a really good starting point also.

Ryn (00:30:44):
Another one is sage. So, sage has a bitter flavor to it again, especially if it’s steeped for a long time. But it also has, of course, the aromatics, the dominant smell of sage. And sage is another one to consider here with a kind of like little special feature to it. Which is if the person is having a lot of trouble digesting fats, oils, lipids in general, then sage is particularly helpful and a really, really good one to include in their gut-heal tea. Yeah. All right.

Katja (00:31:15):
So, that is like a beginner of variation on gut-heal tea. And all of that is the stuff that you needed to hear so that we could say the rest of the stuff.

Ryn (00:31:30):
Some variations, some other constructions. And you’re going to hear some recurrent herbs from that original list coming back through here. Partly because they’re our favorites, and some like ginger because oh man, what would we do without ginger in our lives?

Katja (00:31:45):
Well, okay. We would be sad, but then we would cardamom, or cinnamon, or even black pepper.

Ryn (00:31:51):
Or calamus or for some of us turmeric.

Katja (00:31:54):
Yep.

Ryn (00:31:55):
Or galangal if you want to get the Zingiberaceae family reunion situation going on.

Adjusting the Formula for the Gut-Nervous System Connection

Katja (00:32:00):
Yeah, totally. Okay. So, in the newsletter that I sent out this week about herbs to help you get through the holiday season, like I said, gut-heal was the first thing. But there was a very strong emotional component because of this connection between our ability to digest and our nervous state, our enteric nervous system, our emotional health overall. And so the variation that I gave in the newsletter was one part calendula, one part chamomile, half a part rose, half a part yarrow, one part damiana, one part wood betony, one half part fennel, a half a part ginger – unless you want more – and some cardamom pods.

Ryn (00:32:55):
Like five or six of them. Well,

Katja (00:32:57):
Yeah, depending, yeah. If you’re making like a quart or a teapot, then yeah, like five or six. Okay. So, what do we have going on here? We have that calendula still in that vulnerary place, plus we’re getting the movement, especially the lymphatic movement. We have chamomile who also has vulnerary action by the way. But it’s in that relaxing place. We kept the fennel, we kept the ginger still doing that warming moving action and added in cardamom as one more of the warming, moving herbs. All right. And now we’ve got this chunk in the middle. So, all of those, rose, yarrow, damiana, and betony are nervous system hmm. I was going to say are nervous system plants. Of course, we cannot put herbs in boxes like that because all of those are working across many systems.

Ryn (00:33:59):
It’s okay. It’s not a folder, it’s a tag.

Katja (00:34:01):
Yes, yes, yes. This is the Gmail organizational system of herbalism.

Ryn (00:34:07):
Yeah, totally. Right. So, these are nervines. And when I look at that list, I’m like oh yeah. This is for people who are going to be in a social situation that’s giving them some stress. They want to get a little armor, they want to have a little inner relaxation. They want to keep things moving and flowing so they don’t get stuck in any particular emotional state for too long. And they want to stay in the body. Got it.

Katja (00:34:31):
Yes, exactly.

Ryn (00:34:32):
So, if rose, yarrow, damiana, and betony says that all to you, then cool. We’re on the same page. If not, then let’s explain a little bit.

Katja (00:34:39):
Right. So, rose and yarrow both can do many amazing things. But they are here in this capacity to provide protective feelings for emotional health. So, if you are feeling thin-skinned, which you might be feeling because you are really stressed. And you have to go into a situation where maybe you know you don’t agree with everyone at the table. Or you are feeling thin-skinned because you know that the people at the table are going to assert a lot of ideas that don’t feel good to you, and you need some armor, right? Like thin-skinned could be because you’ve been worn down. Or it could be no, actually my skin is fine. It’s just that I need extra armor to be around these people, right? Like either,

Ryn (00:35:32):
Yeah. There’s something tingling in the back of my mind here about well, maybe you’re sunburnt. And it’s because you’ve been under a bright, million-watt spotlight. Or that’s how you feel in this social situation. Because rose petals and yarrow as a topical spray is pretty nice for literal sunburn. It’s also pretty nice for this sort of metaphorical image I’m putting up.

Katja (00:35:56):
Yeah. Especially if you are a little introverted. And then you feel like you’re going into a family situation where you’re yeah, going to be under the spotlight, and that does not feel comfortable for you. We can relate. So, yeah. Even if you just feel like maybe you work from home, maybe whatever. And just being in a crowd makes you feel like oh my goodness, there’s just so many people around me, right? Yes. We can relate. The rose and yarrow together are really helping with that a lot.

Ryn (00:36:33):
I love this pairing you have of damiana and betony. We put that in here and there in different blends. But I feel like today I am – I don’t know – thinking about it or seeing it differently. Because in a lot of situations with betony it’s about trying to create a little bit of a stillness. Because you have a mind that won’t stay settled, and particularly it won’t stay settled in your body. Betony is an herb we call on really frequently for people who spend all day in the computer because their consciousness has moved out of their body. It’s all stuck in the head and in the brain maybe, or it’s just literally in the screen. You got to pull it back out, put it back in through here, and then bring it down to your solar plexus area if you can. And betony helps you do that, right? So, it’s a form of stillness. And then on the other hand, damiana is about movement. It’s on a physical level about circulation to the periphery and up to the surface. So, cold hands and feet, loss of feeling in the skin, damiana is amazing for those things. But I feel like the pairing of them is sort of like you want to have an appropriate amount of stillness, but you don’t want to be stuck either, right? And having both of these forces in the body at the same time is a really nice balance.

Katja (00:37:46):
Yeah. Especially if your mechanism for dealing with stressful interactions is dissociation. There doesn’t have to be a computer present. Just like it’s hard to be in a group of people, and so you are out of your body pretty quickly. Damiana helps you feel your periphery and helps you understand where are you in space. Where is your container? And wood betony helps you stay in there and feel safe doing it. And so you can feel your boundaries, and you can feel where to stay in you.

Ryn (00:38:29):
It’s making me think of practices. Like for a while I was taking some Tai Chi courses or classes, and there would be standing practice in some of them. And in standing practice you might adopt a posture. Or it could just be literal, just stand there, hands by your sides, whatever. But a lot of the work you would be doing for that five minutes or 10 minutes or whatever would be to feel what’s happening inside. So, you can talk about Qi, and you can talk about energy movement and whatever. But it’s about yeah, I’m in position, but I’m paying attention to what’s moving within me. And I feel like damiana and betony would be a really nice complement for that kind of meditation.

Katja (00:39:08):
That kind of meditation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ryn (00:39:11):
Ooh, I like that.

Katja (00:39:14):
All right. So, this is where I was going with a tea to just kind of keep you grounded throughout the holiday season. If you are a person who doesn’t feel the need for armor, but you do get really down, then tulsi could be a good swap. You could put a part of tulsi into there instead of the rose and yarrow. And you would end up with a more uplifting but less guarded or less armored kind of position. You could put the tulsi in there and the rose and yarrow if you’re like no, I need all of that, please. You absolutely could do that. Yeah. And taking the rose and yarrow out will remove some bitterness. And so adding tulsi will bring in a little zingier flavor. It’s minty, but it’s on the basil-spearmint side of mint, not on the peppermint side of mint. And so also if you’re looking for some flavor adjustments, tulsi could be a good swap.

Ryn (00:40:24):
If you love rosemary, that has a similar set of effects to what you’re talking about here.

Katja (00:40:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could put that in there too.

Katja’s Personalized Formula

Ryn (00:40:31):
Yeah. All right. Well, okay. So, some other ways to think about variations on your gut-heal theme are really personal actually. And so we’re going to share a couple of personal versions of gut-heal or gut-heal plus that we’ve been working with recently and talk about how they’re targeted to our particular needs. So, for you you’re going to want to be listening to this and thinking about okay, so in what ways is my constitution like what’s being described? In what ways are my patterns like that or variant from that? And also take this discussion as a way to build and be like okay. These are the elements that are being considered, and the way that they’re being put into the mix and balanced against each other. How am I going to apply that same concept to my own formulation?

Katja (00:41:18):
So, okay. The gut-heal version that I’ve been working with a lot lately is self-heal, chamomile, betony, catnip, ginger, and tulsi. And interesting that although there is vulnerary action in there, there’s not a lot of it. You know, I’ve done vulnerary work on my gut for a couple of decades now. And so I feel like I don’t need to position that super far forward, but I do need to be positioning lymphatic action.

Ryn (00:41:57):
And I just want to interrupt for a second and say that could change if a lot of your circumstances changed. Like if we got knocked out of our house by some kind of meteor, and we were living in places where we didn’t have the kind of control over our diets the way that we maintain. Then suddenly the gut vulnerary herbs would be incredibly important to you.

Katja (00:42:17):
Super, super important, yes.

Ryn (00:42:18):
Really, really critical.

Katja (00:42:19):
Yeah. Because although on one hand I’ve done a lot of work on my guts. On the other hand I don’t have a lot of margin of error. So, if my food changed significantly, then I would have to change this blend significantly to compensate for that.

Ryn (00:42:38):
And just as a little side note here, when people talk about an herb being personalized, that’s personalized to a person at a time. Both are important. So, even if you make the best personalized version of anything for yourself, it might need to change later because you’re going to change.

Katja (00:42:54):
And your situation is going to, right? Exactly. All right. So, when you look at this, what you really see is lymphatic action and a bunch of nervines, like a lot of enteric nervous system work is going on there.

Ryn (00:43:11):
Qualities-wise, right? Warmth from ginger and tulsi, some from chamomile, even a tiny bit from betony, right? So, on the warming side, rather than cooling. There is no moistening herb here.

Katja (00:43:23):
No.

Ryn (00:43:24):
This has a couple of diuretics kicking in it, right? So, this is a drying formula. And there’s an interesting balance of tonification and relaxation. But I think the overall is towards a relaxant effect.

Katja (00:43:38):
Yeah. Relaxant and uplifted and seated. Not seated like I’m in a chair. But all right, for any of y’all that are tech-inclined out there, remember when we used to build our own computers? And you would have the different cards that you would put in, and they had all the little connection points? And you had to fit them into the connector, but they didn’t go in super smooth. And you had to kind of wiggle them and push down until they were fully seated. And anytime that I think about the kind of action of wood betony, I am really thinking about the physical sensation of putting a card into a slot in the computer. Like when you’re building a computer and really seating it fully in there so that the connection is secure. And sorry, that’s just my background. But that’s how it feels in my body also. When I get dissociative, when I am like not in here and having trouble being present, I feel like that. I feel like I’m not fully seated in my body. The connection is not complete. And so there’s a lot of relax me so that I can complete that connection into myself, my presence, my physical awareness of the space-time continuum. Yeah. And the thing is that that feeling of being unseated, which is the feeling of dissociation. It’s just that for me, the way that I relate to that feeling is through… No, she’s not autistic at all. She is, y’all. The way that I relate to it is through that feeling of the computer parts clicking together. But that feeling of unseatedness creates anxiety, creates emotional discomfort. Because you’re like I’m not fully in here. I’m not out. I can neither escape, nor can I be comfortable. And so it’s just like a grinding of gears. And so allowing enough relaxation for yourself to fully plant.

Ryn (00:46:32):
Yeah.

Katja (00:46:34):
Allows everything to click into place. And now ah, okay. I am here. I have arrived. My body’s been here for a while, and the rest of me too, but now we’re all here together. Yeah.

Ryn (00:46:44):
Yeah. And some of that I think is coming from, I guess, we could say that you have a very mature relationship with chamomile in particular, with betony, with self-heal, really with all of these. But several of these are herbs where you’ve taken months at a time to work with them intently. Like doing herb of herb of the season with betony.

Katja (00:47:06):
I kind of feel like…

Ryn (00:47:08):
I mean, betony might have been a year or two, yeah.

Katja (00:47:10):
I feel like years, yeah, where very intensive work with variations on this theme. For a while it was betony, tulsi, rose, and a little spearmint. I think that was definitely a couple years where I was just like every day just like Garfield. You know Garfield with the coffee mug. And he was just flopped over on the table, but the coffee mug was out. And he was just like give me the coffee before I can function. Okay, except it was that blend. And it didn’t have a name, it just had a picture. And it was that, yeah.

Ryn (00:47:45):
Yeah. So yeah. So, this has been your version of gut-heal tea lately. And like you said, it’s tailored to what your particular guts particularly need.

Katja (00:47:54):
I think though that I’m feeling really inspired today to toss damiana into this mix though. I think that’s happening as soon as we’re done filming.

Ryn’s Personalized Fomula

Ryn (00:48:06):
Nice. All right. So, I’ve been I’ve been expanding gut-heal for a while. And there’s a version of it that I’ve been drinking for a few months now actually. And my bottle got empty, and I need to reconstruct it again later today. So, this one had a lot of ingredients. Let me give the list. It had yarrow, St. John’s wort and centaury, with ginger and plantain and peppermint, and then also fennel, jiaogulan, gotu kola, catnip, and rooibos, and then also lungwort.

Katja (00:48:43):
So, this is the Pulmonaria lungwort.

Ryn (00:48:45):
Right. The Pulmonaria lungwort. Oh. And in case we didn’t mention it earlier, every time we’ve said betony in this episode, we’re talking about the botanical Stachys officinalis, synonym, Betonica officinalis. Yeah. Okay. So, my formula has a bunch, right? Some of these are familiar from kind of classic gut-heal, your ginger, plantain, peppermint, fennel, catnip. Those I think we’ve kind of discussed already. The St. John’s wort we talked about for a while as well, that vulnerary effect, a little extra liver action. And then centaury as that stronger bitter. You can see I’ve got three prominently bitter herbs in there. I’m not afraid. I like it. And the particular taste of the type of bitter that centaury has, it always comes through, even just like a little pinch. I’ve tried for years to sneak some into our tea blends together. She always knows. It’s not going to work. But you don’t need a ton of it. A smaller amount than all of the others goes in. But I can catch the taste of it, and it makes me feel happy. It’s familiar, it’s comforting, right?

Katja (00:49:56):
Ryn very early on in his life as an herbalist decided to do centaury as an herb of the month and drank a whole quart of straight centaury tea every day for a month. And then just kept doing it. And I was like I don’t know how you’re doing that. But yeah.

Ryn (00:50:15):
It was good. Yeah. It’s better if you put warming herbs with it. Well, at least for me because I can do that melancholic classic thing of getting too chilled out and then getting really frustrated about it. Chilled out not in the relaxed sense. Chilled out in the shivering sense. Yeah. But you know, in this formula as I have it here, the ginger has warmth. The fennel has warmth. The rooibos brings in a little bit of warmth. Rooibos is an herb that is really, really excellent for me. I love the flavor of it, that kind of vanilla element that comes through. That goes so nicely with ginger. That goes so nicely with catnip and a lot of things really. But then rooibos also actions-wise, it has a nice relaxant effect on digestive tension. And there’s really a lot of that in this blend between rooibos, catnip, ginger. Peppermint is a really strong digestive relaxant. Fennel. I need that effect, and this formula gives it to me. Yeah. A couple of these herbs need a little more discussion though. So, jiaogulan is a little bit moistening. And that’s helpful because I do run dry. And with these bitters in here, I need some moistening herbs, right? So, the fennel, the jiaogulan, the lungwort, to some extent the plantain, and even to some extent the gotu kola, they’re working against that drying influence. But jiaogulan is also an adaptogen. And I think for a lot of people, tulsi would be a good swap for jiaogulan here. But I really like this one. It’s a nice, stabilizing adaptogen. It’s not one that’s outright stimulant in nature. It’s more restorative.

Katja (00:51:51):
I, I think of jiaogulan in contrast to goldenrod, actually, because jiaogulan is like a long-haul herb. It’s like an endurance herb and moistening. And although goldenrod is not listed as an adaptogen, it also has that endurance action, especially emotionally. But then it is very drying. So, although I do like jiaogulan sometimes, it’s a little too moistening for me to drink regularly. And so yeah. So, that kind of juxtaposition there.

Ryn (00:52:37):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That’s cool. The gotu kola is in this blend. And with this one in the lungwort we kind of need to talk about. Because when you look at the list of herbs: yarrow, St. John’s wort, centaury, ginger, plantain, peppermint, fennel, catnip, rooibos, and then you get to jiaogulan, gotu kola, lungwort. The last two there, you’re like hang on. What happened? Because along the way you’ve been doing gut, you’ve been doing nerves, everything’s making sense. But then you get into gotu kola and okay, nerves, yeah. That’s got the connection over on that side of things because it’s a nice nervous trophorestorative. And it’s supportive to brain function and things like that. But then on the other side of the gotu kola is the musculoskeletal aspects of it. And that is part of the reason I included it in here. Because I have dry joints. And I can get susceptible to sprains and all of that kind of stuff. And a little bit of gotu kola every day helps those tissues to be more resilient.

Katja (00:53:34):
You know, there is also some vulnerary action there as well.

Ryn (00:53:39):
It’s true, yeah.

Katja (00:53:40):
It’s not like the first thing people think of. But it is there. And traditionally that is a way to work with it as well. Usually that’s a topical.

Ryn (00:53:52):
For wound care salves and that kind of thing.

Katja (00:53:53):
Yeah. Usually that’s a topical application, but your digestive tract is topical.

Ryn (00:53:58):
Yeah. So, that one slots in pretty cleanly. And then the lungwort, somebody might be like hang on, Ryn. Are you doing a kitchen sink herbalism formula? Are you just throwing in every herb you like? Like slow down a little. But I’ve got an argument for it. Which is that yeah, lungwort, Pulmonaria officinalis, is most famous as a lung herb. It’s kind of there in the name. You can see how that happens, right? But it is like many herbs that can support the lungs through a moistening effect. It does have a broader systemic moistening action as well. It is an herb that I would consider demulcent and systemically moistening. And because I need to have some of those in my mix, this is a nice inclusion. I could have gone with marshmallow leaf, and it would’ve been a really similar situation, right? But I like lungwort, and it’s fun. And I thought it would fit in here nicely, so I like that. But again, with that one and with the gotu kola we can…

Katja (00:54:59):
And kind of the jiaogulan also.

Ryn (00:55:00):
Kind of the jiaogulan. The way to think about them here is that they do have actions and qualities that connect to the core of my formula. The main things that I’m trying to accomplish: that gut-nerve nexus that we have here in the middle of our being. They have actions that are relevant to that, and then they have some others as well. So, in general, anytime we’re thinking about formulation, we want to make sure that we have a clear intent and that all of the herbs in the formula are going to serve that intent in one way or another. They’re directly going to accomplish it. They’re going to be a supportive action to it. They’re going to catalyze some kind of effect that makes it work more efficiently. Cool.

Adjusting the Formula for the Person & the Moment

Katja (00:55:41):
I was going to say that if a student turned in this as a formula, I would push back. I would want to see quite a bit of detail about why this formula makes sense for the work that they want to do. And you should think that too. Don’t just accept oh, this is Ryn’s digestive formula because this formula would not make sense for somebody else. This formula did not come fully formed, right? It started with a core, and then many adjustments were made over months. Actually, honestly, I kind of think you’ve been doing this in that jar with the green lid I think it’s been almost a year that you’ve been drinking this. And so really recognizing that if you just started from here, it really would look like you were throwing in the kitchen sink. And these herbs don’t all make sense for another body necessarily. But over time with experimentation and really getting something dialed into a specific effect that you’re trying to create in your own physical and emotional state. And this is very much a physical and emotional blend. And so, okay. You’re getting that physical base and then getting that emotional work dialed in on top of it. Sometimes you have to spend a while with the foundation and then add in the extra work that you want to get done so that you figure out clearly what works for you to get the effect that you need. And I think the same is true, even though my formula right now is much shorter. The same is true there too. That is not a universal formula that would be great for all people. It makes a lot of sense for my particular… Now, if you also were resonating with all the things I said. And you run damp with kind of sluggish digestion, but also your guts are a tank, kind of like both of those things at the same time. You don’t get nauseous immediately when you eat stuff. But everything is a little sluggish, and it doesn’t take much to tip it over. Okay. If those are your energetics, and you related to all the stuff, okay. This could be a good starting point. But don’t just drink it because Katja drinks it. And the same thing with Ryn’s, but I think it’s much more obvious in Ryn’s because it’s so much longer.

Ryn (00:58:25):
Yeah. And also we didn’t mention proportions in our discussions of these, right? I mean, like I was talking about yeah, less centaury than the others. But when I put this together, each batch is slightly different. It’s like oh, you know what? Lately I’ve been having a little more cramping, and so I want to get extra relaxant effect. I’m going to dial up the peppermint in here. I’m going to put in a little extra ginger. Or if it’s like you know, I have had a cough for a while. I want to get more lungwort this time. More plantago is going to go into there. There can be ways that we address that. But adjustments to the proportions of the herbs in here is an excellent way to be real targeted about the energetics. How warming do I want it to be? I know it’s on that side of the scale, but there’s a whole range over there, right? So, how far are we going to go? How much ginger are we going to put in? How moistening versus how drying do I want this to be today? Like which herbs do I put in? How much of each one? We can dial that in. And so like you’ve been saying, if this was presented as if this is a general formula for your guts and nerves, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense on its own. But for me specifically at this time, this is really, really helpful. It does the job.

Katja (00:59:45):
Yeah. So, that’s actually the whole point here is that we can start with that original algebraic formula. Like you don’t even have to plug in the original herbs. You can just work with the algebra: the vulneraries, the relaxants, the carminatives, the demulcent if you need them, or astringents if you need them. And you can start off with that concept and then be plugging things in that meet your needs right now. And it can be extremely specific. Okay yes, you can also make a general one to serve at a dinner party. And like this is going to be pretty good for most people kind of a situation, absolutely. But that would not be the formula that Ryn’s drinking right now. That would be the formula that was in the newsletter earlier in the episode. And so any point along the way you can get increasingly more specific for exactly what you need right now or for exactly what someone who you’re working with needs. And always remembering that right now is the end of that sentence, exactly what you need right now. Because next week it could be different. You might be like I am working on longstanding patterns in my physical or emotional body or the join of my physical and emotional body. And so I’m actually going to work with this blend over time. That’s valid and good. But even for a blend that you work with over time, still be checking in because today you might need a little extra ginger or a little… you know?

Ryn (01:01:25):
And those changes tend to be in the proportions or in one ingredient or two that gets swapped out, or changed, or just eliminated, or whatever. Generally what’s going to happen is you’re going to develop a core group that are your best friends, and you’re going to want them all the time, right? And then who hangs out with them at any given moment is going to push your formula in one direction or another. It’s going to emphasize one action or another. And you’re going to have that level of flexibility on top of some consistency. Yeah. Cool.

Katja (01:01:58):
All right. Well, hopefully that was interesting to follow. And hopefully you were in your mind thinking about herbs that are suitable for you, your situation right now, your body. But if you were out there thinking boy, I need to learn a lot more about digestive herbs, we have a course for you. It’s the Digestive Health course. And it will help you with all the different aspects of digestion, top to bottom, and strategies for long-term and immediate-term reparation of the gut. Repairing, rebuilding, re… Whatever. Resolving.

Ryn (01:02:44):
Resolving. Re… Yeah. It’s great.

Katja (01:02:47):
It’s great. But don’t stop there because the stuff that we worked with today also includes material from the Neurological and Emotional Health course, the Formulation course, even the Materia Medica course.

Ryn (01:03:01):
Right. Because in the end, formulation requires a decent deep knowledge of each herb you want to put in your formula, right? Ideally you want to understand that herb as an individual before or at least alongside working with it in a combination. Yeah.

Katja (01:03:18):
Yeah. So, you’ll find all of those courses at our website online.commonwealthherbs.com. And you will find bundles. There is the Community Herbalist program as a bundle. And that’s all the body systems plus understanding Energetics, plus Formulation, plus Nutrition. And getting all that together is going to help you to take care of yourself in real world situations and your family, your household, your friends, your community for all the things that come up from day-to-day. The Materia, oh, the Materia Medica course is part of the Family Herbalist program, but they’re best if you do them together. Because the Materia Medica is that deep dive on each herb individually and every aspect of that herb’s personality. Whereas in the Community courses, we’re deep diving on parts or functions in the body and each herb as it relates to that function. So, when you do them together, you’re getting the full spectrum of any given herb and the deep application in one particular system of that herb.

Ryn (01:04:37):
Yeah, that’s true. They really were originally meant to all be together at once. And that’s the best way to do it. But you can also take them a la carte. You can say well, I’m just going to dive into this one course right now and see what happens there. That’s totally an option as well. All of our courses come with a bunch of cool stuff,. So that includes you get free access to Q&A sessions with us twice a week. You get lifetime access to your course material and also any other stuff that we add to that course later on. That pops right into there for you, and you keep it as long as the internet has the lights turned on. Every course lesson that you look at has a little button up top that opens up a discussion thread. And you can pop in some questions right there, and our faculty will get an answer back to you within a day. We also have a discussion community for all of the students to share things like this is my personal version of gut-heal tea that I’ve been taking this week, and it’s been really helpful for me. Or this is a success I had at a holiday party giving some people some herbal syrups as a gift or any cool thing like that.

Katja (01:05:41):
In the student community we also work on challenges together to help everybody just push their knowledge forward. And right now for the whole month of November the challenge that we’ve been working on is to write your own book. I don’t know if you saw that article that went around that said 82% of all herbalism books are AI slop. But I’m surprised it was only 82% and not more.

Ryn (01:06:08):
I mean, yeah.

Katja (01:06:09):
So, in response to everyone talking about that, I was like listen, the real answer is write your own book. You are not going to sell this book to other people. This is your book for you specifically tailored to what you need to do for your family and your community. And so we’ve been working step-by-step on okay, well what do you need to have in your book? And then where are you going to get the information that you know is reliable so that you can put in there, so that you have just one volume that you can toss in a backpack if you need to or whatever else that has all the stuff that you need to remember for all of your family and friends. And it’s been really fun. Next week we should wrap up that project. But all of it is step-by-step in the herbal activity calendar, which you also get access to. And so if you are hearing this episode, and it’s four years from now. Just go back to November 3rd, 2025, because that’s when the write your own book activity started. And throughout the month of November you’ll see that there are activities on how to structure your book, how to do all the different steps and get everything that you need in there. So that you have a book you can trust with information that you know is correct, and it can be a reference for you forever.

Ryn (01:07:28):
Yeah. The herbal activity calendar thing is really cool. It’s one of the many ways that we try to get you all to step away from your computer, and to go to the herbs, and to make things, and to write things, and to play with things. Because we want you to learn herbalism, and we want you to actually learn it, right?

Katja (01:07:45):
With your hands.

Ryn (01:07:46):
Yeah. With your tongue, with your stomach. And so, we’ve kind of built our programs around that idea that we can speak directly to you, and you can also go and get your hands right on the plants. All right. So, that’s going to be it for this episode. We’ll be back soon.

Katja (01:08:04):
Oh. Wait, wait, wait. We should tell them the website one more time.

Ryn (01:08:07):
Oh yeah.

Katja (01:08:09):
It is… Are you ready? Online.commonwealthherbs.com. Get all of the courses you need from a source you can trust. Listen, you’re listening to this podcast. You’re still listening. You haven’t turned us off yet. Go get some classes. Let’s do this. Let’s make this real. Yeah.

Ryn (01:08:28):
All right everybody. That’s it for this time. We’ll be back soon. Until then take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. And drink some gut-heal tea. All right.

Katja (01:08:38):
Bye-bye.