A New Tea for Two!

We are proud to present the latest in our pregnancy and postpartum tea series: Sweet Nectar Milk Blend. A tea to support breastfeeding, Sweet Nectar Milk Blend combines of galactagogue, nutritious, and nervine herbs.  Sweet Nectar Milk Blend encourages the production of milk by stimulating milk flow, providing the body with nutrients, and calming and relaxing mama by supporting the nervous system.

For breast feeding success, we always encourage new families to seek advice and guidance for proper breastfeeding techniques from a midwife or lactation consultant.  Learning how to breastfeed correctly will be the first and biggest benefit to successfully breastfeeding.

Sweet Nectar Milk Blend includes:

FENNEL Foeniculum vulgare: A yummy galactagogue that has long been used in postpartum blends to encourage milk flow.

FENUGREEK Trigonella foenumgraecum: Another classic galactagogue, Fenugreek is also anti-inflammatory which can be very helpful to reduce any swelling or pain.

RASPBERRY LEAF Rubus idaeus: Full of vitamins and minerals to relax, strengthen and restore the body such as vitamin E, calcium, magnesium, manganese, potassium, it also increases colostrum in the milk when used during pregnancy.

NETTLES Urtica dioica: Nettles are full of iron, vitamin E, vitamin C, vitamin K, vitamin B, calcium, just to name a few of this green beauty’s constituents.  Very nutritious, indeed!

LEMON BALM Melissa officinalis: Helps mamas adapt to change, alleviates frustration, and soothes the nerves.

ALFALFA Medicago sativa: Stimulates lactation and increases the quality of breast milk while providing vitamins and minerals such as vitamin C, calcium, iron, and zinc.

CARAWAY Carum carvi: A galactagogue that also provides calcium and iron to the body.

ANISE Pimpinella anisum: Another galactagogue, Anise is also said to promote youthfulness and prevent nightmares.  Lovely!

Visit our S H O P to purchase Sweet Nectar Milk Blend and our other pregnancy and postpartum series tea blends.

Last Day for Winter Teas!

As the Yule season dozes off behind us and we begin the slow stretch towards spring, our Star of Yule Tea Blend and Winter Remedy Kits shall be retired for the year.  Today is the last day to place your order for our winter teas and kits at our S H O P.

But never fear, our tea time treasures, we'll be premiering new teas in the next few days to delight your senses and keep you healthy!

Holy Herb of the West: Yerba Santa

flowersociety.org

The sweet tasting Yerba Santa is said to enhance beauty and be useful in spells of glamoury and illusion. In addition to its ability to magickally alter the appearance of clever sorcerers, Yerba Santa is said to protect the wearer from illness and disease when worn around the neck.  Place it on your altar as a sacred offering.  Call them Bear's Weed, Holy Herb, Mountain Balm or Tar Weed there are many more ways than wearing our purple-flowered friend about our neck to improve our health.

Yerba Santa is an excellent herbal ally for the cold parts of the year when stuffed-up noses and congested chests are passed around like holiday gifts.  'Tis the season for giving (along with all other three seasons, but that's a bit beyond the point)!  Yerba Santa is an excellent remedy for a wet cold - one that is mucousy, sniffling, and has a cough.  As an astringent and decongestant, Yerba Santa dries up excess mucous by normalizing excess mucous secretion.  Normalizing mucous secretion means that you won't have to go back and forth between too much and too little secretion leading to being too dried out and equally uncomfortable.  In addition to its powers of mucous normalization, Yerba Santa is antimicrobial and antiseptic.

In addition to colds and because Yerba Santa strengthens capillaries and stimulates the cilia of the lungs, is appropriate for treating other respiratory conditions such as asmtha, hayfever, and sinus congestion.  It is also useful for digestive complaints because it normalizes mucous secretions in the gut.  The leaves can also be chewed to quench thirst.

flowersociety.org

Topically Yerba Santa can be used in poultices for broken bones, bruises, fever, insect bites, poison oak and ivy, rash, acne, sprains and sores.  Pretty darn useful.

I keep a small bottle of Yerba Santa tincture on me most days to help prevent asthma attacks brought on by environmental pollutants.  During a series of extensive fires outside L.A. a few summers ago the city became covered in a thick sky of ash.  I took Yerba Santa daily to help strengthen my lungs against the added environmental pollutant stress being put on my body.  It worked wonderfully and has been a well-loved herbal ally in my traveling apothecary ever since.  You can also use the leaves in a steam for clearing up congestion and opening the lung passageways.

A Winter's Respite

La Befana

As the wheel turns to the darkest part of the year, we begin to slow down at the Apothecary.  In honor of that slowing, this will be our last blog post until just before La Befana travels throughout the land delivering her gifts.  Though, we'll be checking our email (wortsandcunning [at] gmail [dot] com) and comments every once and a while if you have very important something to say.  Also, our shop will be open until December 19th until we go on break until our little shop break until December 28th.

Before we go we would like to say "Thank you!" to everyone for making our first few months online such wonderful ones - may there be many more months of knowing and growing and gleaming!

Be well and warm and close to the ones you love this darkening season (or hot and at the beach if you're down under) and we'll meet you behind the bristles of La Befana's broom.

More Stars for More Merriment

As with any part of the year, whether you are tired, invigorated, flabbergasted, illuminated, joyful, disgruntled or bursting with any other exuberant expression of emotional being-ness, we hope that you'll always have time to drink deep the incredible (tea)cup of life that we're all experiencing.

All that said, we are simply tea-sellers at the end of the day and we would like you to know that we've more stars to light your way.  Our Star of Yule Tea Blend is now available in our standard 3 ounce size in our little online shop. You can still find it in our Winter Remedy Kits, too, in a smart-looking 1 ounce tin (who doesn't want to look clever?).