podcast

“Take a breath, it’ll help!” You’ve heard it before. But what if breathing is difficult or constrained? Breathwork is the answer. Breathing is like any other movement: there are ways to build efficiency and resilience through practice. Simple exercises can get you breathing deeper, and give you a visceral massage or “inside yoga”. And there…

Whenever we choose herbs for health issues, we work to match the qualities of the herbs to the state of the body. These three plants we work with as herbs for seasonal allergies are each drying in nature. So, if you run dry or have dry symptoms, then make sure to pair them with something…

Herbal tattoo care starts a while before your appointment. You’ve got to prepare the skin in advance, get hydrated, and ideally do a little work to keep inflammation down in the lead-up time. You want that skin to be in the best possible shape before you get work done. You might even want to get…

Today’s episode is a little different from our usual. We’re sharing a listen-along plant sit meditation! You can take this episode with you to sit outside with a plant, and we’ll guide you through the meditation practice. Plant sit meditations are an excellent way to develop your powers of observation and your awareness skills. Plants…

Have you heard that black cohosh is “for menopause”? Or that red clover is a “natural estrogen replacement”? Or that saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) is “for men” or “for BPH”? Herbs are not gendered, and they’re not “for” conditions. They have qualities and actions, and they act in context – the context of each individual…

Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), also known as alehoof, creeping charlie, and gill-over-the-ground, is one of our favorite herbs to gather in early spring. We like to prepare a tincture of it in brandy, and we work with it for troubles in the ear-nose-throat. It helps a lot with tinnitus and with difficulty hearing that comes…

Herb of the Month is one of our most powerful learning methods for students of herbalism – and honestly, it’s great for experienced practitioners too! It’s deceptively simple: just choose an herb and work with it extensively every day for a month, in as many ways as you can come up with. At the same…

We’re discussing the notion of amphoteric herbs today, because it’s the Spring equinox and we’re thinking about balance. The term amphoteric is orginally a chemistry term meaning “having characteristics of both an acid and a base”. Herbalists use the word to mean an herb that has a balancing activity, one that is capable of acting…

In this episode we share a simple technique for enhancing herbal salves with tinctures. Lots of herbalists like to put essential oils in their salves, and we’re no exception – but we also want to have other methods for increasing potency. Essential oils can be costly, and they have sustainability issues in a lot of…

We’re lucky that nowadays there are a lot of herb suppliers, so it’s convenient to purchase the majority of your herbs – especially if you live in a place where you don’t really have space to grow a garden. But there’s something really special about working with herbs that you’ve grown yourself. And, some herbs…

This week we’re sharing a formula for an herbal cold sore remedy – a soft salve or balm that can be applied right on the sores. It’s going to serve as a jumping-off point for discussing flexible formulation. That’s the answer to the question “what can I do if I don’t have one – or…

When you go to the store and buy an herbal supplement, what are you getting? It might be a capsule of powdered herb, but this is less and less common nowadays. An herbal supplement is usually some type of extract from the plant – and we herbalists make lots of extracts ourselves, like teas, tinctures,…