podcast

Creating this community garden, and teaching families in your area how to grow food and look out for each other – that is abolition. We’re humanizing people again, and working for community health and ecological health, and all of those things are completely opposite to what the prison-industrial complex is trying to do. So in…

Where does loosestrife belong? Is barberry a badberry? And what’s with all the knotweed everywhere?! Most folks will tell you it’s simple: “These are invasive plants. They’re bullies, who take over an area and crowd out “native” plants! They need to be pulled out, root and branch! No use for ’em – not a good…

Your skin is your largest organ, and it’s your presentation to the world – so it’s important to take care of it! It’s not just vanity. For most purposes, a simple daily routine will do the job. In this episode Katja shares her own personal daily routine, and then we discuss how to work with…

Sweet herbs aren’t only flavoring agents – there’s real medicine in there. When an herb has a sweet flavor, that gives you information about the way it will affect the body. These herbs tend to be moistening, building, and restorative. They’re great for correcting dry, atrophied, or depleted states of health, whether those are constitutional…

This week we’re talking about something a bit different for us. If you’re a regular listener, you know we’re very interested in science and in the historical & traditional ways of working with plants. But there’s a side of plant medicine we don’t talk about too often, and that’s the spiritual & ritual side. The…

Coffee is surely America’s favorite herb. So many people rely on it as part of their morning ritual, and it’s easy to see why! The aroma, the flavor, the stimulation – there’s a lot to like. But what if caffeine gives you the jitters, or rumbly guts? You can go with simple decaf, but even…

The lymphatic system is criminally underestimated! It’s intimately tied to the function of your circulatory system, your digestive function, your immune responsiveness – pretty much everything. Conventional medicine doesn’t have much to offer in the way of pharmaceuticals to alter lymphatic activity, but fortunately there are a number of excellent lymphatic herbs that can do…

An herbal smoking blend may not sound like your cup of tea – and it isn’t! – but it’s still an effective method of working with medicinal plants. When smoked, herbs have rapid effects on the lungs and the central nervous system, including antimicrobial, astringent, relaxant, and nervine or anxiety-reducing activities. This traditional practice is…

If you’re an herbalist and you marry an herbalist, well, you’re going to need some special wedding herbs! We sure did. We loved the idea (and the herbs themselves) so much, we got them tattooed on us right after our honeymoon! Not all herbalism is about what you drink & “take”! In this episode we’re…

Cancer is not as rare as we once thought. Recent research has discovered that even healthy cells can contain potentially cancerous mutations, and that this is a normal occurrence in healthy individuals. As holistic herbalists, this conclusion doesn’t actually surprise us much! We’ve long taught that precancerous changes in cells are a normal part of…

Boston’s homegrown local herb conference, Herbstalk, is next weekend, and the plant of the year is stinging nettle! In honor of this, we wanted to make an episode focusing on this keystone plant. In this episode we share some of our favorite ways to make simple nettle herbal formulas, starting by pairing it with a…

When we talk about “heroic” medical interventions, we mean the high-potency, high-risk (and potentially high-reward) tools that define conventional medicine. Pharmaceuticals, surgeries, cutting-edge experimental procedures – that kind of thing. While these kinds of treatments tend to get all the credit, they depend for a large part of their success on unglamorous, workaday support. A…