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Companionship as Healer?
Sharing our whole self with someone else is risky. It requires boldness and daring to reveal our so-called imperfections, our fears, our longings, our locked away stories. Those parts of self we are taught to hide away from the world. The older I get the more I learn...
Healing Grief
Healing Grief: Natrum Muriaticum I share the following personal story so you can learn how, and when, to use this remedy yourself. Keep it close at hand. The times we're in call for it. When I was 21 years old, my father unexpectedly died 10 days after my birthday. He...
Simple Aloe Vera Skin Spray
While I don't really burn when exposed to the sun, many members of my friends and family do. I wish I could credit who I learned this recipe from - It might be that I read a version of this from Rosemary Gladstar or James Green decades ago. Nonetheless, this is a...
Wild Rose honey & more heavenly recipes
Roses. I love them more than I can say. There are over 2,800 plants in the Rosaceae family just a few you might recognize are: peaches, plums, almonds, apricots, cherries, strawberries, quince, hawthorn, rowan, blackberries, raspberries, Lady's Mantle, Ocean spray....
Lilac Blossom Cordial
Nothing says spring to me like the scent of lilac blossoms. They remind me of the sweetness of childhood, my mother's birthday, and the hope and renewal that spring rains can bring. The fragrance so heady and delicious I've always want to eat them - and you can! While...
Nettles: Magic, Myth & Medicine
As we near the spring Equinox and the pagan holiday Ostara the nettles beckon me from the field behind my home. Ostara, or spring equinox, is the holiday celebrating birth and renewal as the sun warms the earth and coaxes the plants upward towards the sun to receive...
How to Make Sauerkraut
Making your own sauerkraut is easy. All you need is one cabbage, some salt, and a container. That's it. Truly. I love making traditional foods like sauerkraut because it connects me to all the millions of people before us who've relied on simple technologies such as...
Castor Oil Packs
A Castor Oil Pack is a wonderful home remedy that's fairly easy to apply. Castor oil is derived from the Castor bean (Ricinus communis) and has a long medicinal history dating back to ancient Egypt. The plant was mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus, an ancient Egyptian...
Herbal Skin Cancer Treatment
This recipe is from traditional healers of Mexico, who shared it with Stephen Harrod Buhner who shared this publicly on Facebook and in his (incredible) book, Sacred and Healing Beers. Everything Buhner writes is extraordinary. He's a prolific, and poetic writer....
Herbs & Homeopathy for a Cats Injury
About a month ago, my very sweet cat, Leo, came home with a serious wound on his tail: It was an open, bloody, angry sore. His tail was swollen and extremely tender to touch. The wound looked deep. I took him to the vet because I wanted to make sure there was no...
Elderberry Medicine
The first herb to initiate me into the secret world of magic and herbal medicine was the Elder tree (Sambucus nigra). I was twelve years old, and it was the first summer at my grandparents new home in rural Ontario. My grandfather called me out to the backyard to...
Hawthorn: medicine for the Heart
This weekend I went for a beautiful sunny walk to harvest one of my all-time favourite berries: hawthorn. Where I live, the berries are plump, bright red, and oh so abundant. While there are many species of hawthorn, the species most commonly found here in...
Fire Cider: An Easy-to-make homemade respiratory tonic
Many decades ago, the renowned herbalist Rosemary Gladstar coined the term "Fire Cider" for a simple home made respiratory tonic using easy to find kitchen ingredients and apple cider vinegar (recipe below). When I was in herbal school in the late 1990's, I learned it...
Naturally fermented pickles – Vinegar Free
This is by far the most frequently asked-for recipe in my repertoire - how to make dill-garlic pickles, without vinegar. Naturally fermented (aka cultured) pickles produce the most delicious sour flavour that is full of naturally occurring good bacteria. The pickles...
A flower for first aid, swollen glands, yeast infections and more
This is the time of year where I'm reaping the benefits of my harvest. Not to say harvest season is over - in a lot of ways it's just begun! But I harvest most of my flowers between April (when dandelion begins) through July, when the sun is the strongest. Right now,...
An Antiviral Herb that Uplifts the Spirits
July is a busy month of harvesting fresh plants, both wild and cultivated. One of my favourite herbs of the season is St. John's Wort, the latin name Hypericum perforatum. This bright little yellow flower is named after St. John the Baptist, a holiday...
A remedy for Uncertain Times: Ignatia for Heartbreak, loss, and grief
Wise sages throughout history have been known to say nature provides humans with all the medicine we may need for every illness. While it may be so that we haven't yet decoded all of Nature's elixirs - or perhaps we've collectively lost much of this wisdom through our...
Resiliency Through The Flu
(note: cough & cold syrup recipe at the bottom of this post!) Have you been overwhelmed with the social anxiety surrounding this season's flu epidemic? Recently I was at the hospital visiting some patients and I felt like I walked into a movie set for the Plague:...
Castor Oil Packs
A Castor Oil Pack is a wonderful home remedy and fairly easy to apply. Castor oil is derived from the Castor bean (Ricinus communis) and has a long medicinal history dating back to ancient Egypt. The plant was mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus, an ancient Egyptian...
Culturing Vegetables
Culturing vegetables is not a new thing. While it seems they’ve popped up as the latest health food trend these last few years (think Kombucha) and are now known as “specialty” foods often with specialty price tags, they used to be known as food for the poor. Yes,...
