Swedish Chai + Summer Deals

I just spent the past weekend in the beautiful wilds of Oregon dancing the days and nights away with magickal creatures of all varieties at the amazing Faerieworlds art and music festival! I came back to my seaside city feeling inspired and with some extra dirt and glitter packed in my bags (and, to be honest, tangled in my hair and between my toes). As some of us celebrate the week of the First Harvest in the Northern Hemisphere and late winter / early spring fire festivals in the Southern Hemisphere, I'm filling up on summer's glow as the promise of fall is just around the corner.

One of the ways I like to celebrate the early mornings and long, lazy nights of summer is with pots of chai. Chai is simply the word for tea in a number of cultures, though many of us are familiar with the Masala chai of South Asian fame. I love to make chai blends based on local flora, culturally-entwined spices, and my own take on whatever tea drinking culture I may find myself in. Some of my chai blends are created with longing-in-the-heart, as I dream of places I look forward to visiting. Sweden has captured my imagination in recent years and so I created a Swedish chai in exploratory tea anticipation of future journeys. The recipe is below along with some insight into the spices and herbs included in the blend. Enjoy!

Books have been written espousing the greatness of healing spices and what many consider dusty kitchen condiments are actually earthy jewels of wellness delight. Spices are healing foods that are easy to add to any meal and act as a fragrant passage for medicine to find its way through our mind, body, and spirit.

Cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) is an excellent spice for indigestion and calming upset stomachs. Like many spices, Cardamom also has aphrodisiac qualities.

Clove (Syzygium aromaticum), like many spices, aids with indigestion, but also has anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, and anesthetic qualities.

Cinnamon (Cinnamomum spp.) is a delicious blood sugar balancer and is also heart-healing, promoting healthy circulation, reducing hypertension, and possessing anti-clotting properties.

You can learn more about Elder, the Tree of Medicine + fiery Ginger in previous posts!

Connecting With Our Plant Allies

One of the most common emails I get (besides “Who are you and where do you come up with the names behind your products?! Zombie bait, what?!”) are ones that ask me about my path of becoming an herbologist and how to start working with herbs. I wrote about 10 ways to start your herbal studies, but I wanted to focus more in-depth on a subject central to the craft of the herbologist – cultivating our relationship with the plant medicine.

As I suggested in the previous post about herbal studies, I recommend starting with one herb. You do not have to work exclusively with only one herb, but choose to work with one herb consistently for an entire year. You should, though, spend at least some time working only with that herb in order to understand its full complexity. You may choose to work with an herb that you already feel a resonance with or something that you spot growing down the street from you. You may dream of an herb, study a plant that has a long history of significant use within your culture or choose an herb that may have a beneficial impact on a particular health imbalance. The importance of working with one herb regularly for an extended length of time is manifold:

• Many herbs are best able to impart their healing qualities over the long term when used consistently in small doses.
• Just as it takes time to build meaningful relationships with humyns, so too does it take time to build honest relationships with plants.
• If you are able to grow or find the herb in the wild, observing its physical journey through the year provides us with many lessons about its medicinal uses and magickal gifts.
• Finally, commitment is an excellent skill to be practiced by the herbologist.

In my own practice, both personal and professional, I work with a handful of herbs at a time, and while I enjoy a complex tea blend or a raw cacao concoction with multiple herbs dancing in wild harmony, when I am learning about a plant or dealing with a chronic health imbalance, I generally stick to one or two herbs. We are in the midst of an herb revival within North America, as well as many other parts of the western world, and that means that there is an abundance of information and access to a wide array of plant medicine. I tend to think that we will learn more about ourselves and the plant medicine we are interacting with if we treat our practice with the rhythm of a slow, regular tea time conversation as opposed to a social media aggregate of endless stream of herbs shuffling through our lives at a rapid pace.[1]

It is pleasurable and useful to recognize the affects of individual plant medicines on our mind, body, and spirit. Working with one or two herbs at a time allows for greater clarity and distinction between the subtleties of difference between herbs with similar healing qualities. Moving steadily in our relationship with plant medicines, we begin to build our knowledge of the energetic signatures of herbs along with their physical qualities. These energetic signatures combined with their physical qualities is one reason why one herb will be so successful for Person A, but seem to have little affect for Person B in a similar situation. Valerian (Valeriana officinalis), Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora), and Tulsi (Ocimum sanctum) are all remedies for migraines, for example, but each have unique energy signatures that affect our physical, emotional, and mental systems differently.

As you begin working with a chosen plant medicine (whether you chose them or they chose you), I offer the following considerations for your journey together, based on the idea of recognition, engagement, and kinship.

Recognition

• Recognize your needs.
  • What our your needs, wants, and desires in your relationship with the plant medicine?
  • Are you seeking a cure or kinship?
  • Recognize the plant’s needs.
    • What are the needs, wants, and desires of the plant both within and apart from the relationship you are seeking from it?
      • If you are growing the herb, what are its growing needs? How is it sustainably harvested and/or wildcrafted?
      • Create a supportive environment for the plant to express itself to you.
      • Be able to identify the physical and energetic characteristics of the plant as it grows, how it tastes, smells, and feels.

Engagement

• We must be accountable to our interdependence with the plant world and how we engage plant medicine is a reflection of our understanding of our interdependence.
• Maintain a willingness to experience the world from the plant’s perspective. In turn we are better able to empathize with those we serve as herbologists and healers.
• Engage with your plant ally every day, every night, whether greeting them in your garden, meditating with them, using them as internal or external medicine, and/or some other practice.
  • Learn about the historical, mythological, and modern uses of the plant medicine.
  • Sing sacred songs, draw, write poetry, dance, and engage in pleasurable experiences with your plant.
  • How do you and the plant make medicine?
    • When you harvest the herb, when do you do it, where do you do it, and how do you do it? When you purchase it, how do you do it, and from whom?
    • Try creating different types of medicines – from teas to tinctures – with the plant.

Kinship

• As you work with a plant ally, you become accountable to one another.
  • How do you remain honest with yourself and your plant ally on your healing journey?
  • How do you create sustainable structures of healing whether through the principles of permaculture, mindful wildcrafting, social justice organizing or similar practices of interconnectedness?
  • How do you honor the medicine of your plant ally?
    • Perhaps as a herbologist, storyteller, medicine-maker, teacher, ritual-facilitator, rabble-rouser, or heart-opener?

Each of us will engage our herbal practice with different insights, experiences, and personal skills that shape every aspect of our lives and relationships. As an herbologist, with my experiences as a Pagan, queer, feminist, multi-racial, tea-loving womyn living in the United States with the myriad of privileges I have and lack access to, my relationships with my plant allies is rooted in these experiences - a foundation of legacy and futuredreaming. The process of working with plant medicines is about learning the ways that I may help facilitate healing between plant and people and creature, but also is about my own personal journey and how I relate to the world within and around me.

I hope that your own journey with the plants of our ocean planet is sweet, challenging, ecstatic, luminous, and balancing, and that you grow in your own wild and greening healing energy.

Be well, clever friends!

[1] Can we take a moment to imagine the Twitter account or Tumblr of some of our favorite plant medicines? Hawthorn will always be posting the latest heart-warming video about puppies, while Cacao keeps posting an endless stream of abstract party photos involving a lot of nudity, and Elder’s stream would be sorta spooky, badass, and intriguing.

Herbs for Times of Tragedy

6/16/12 Addendum

Damn.

Since originally posting this blog it seems like America has become only more violent. But that would be disingenuous because, especially for communities like Black folk, Indigenous folk, Queer + Trans folk, Womyn folk, and the multitude of intersections of these identities, America has long been a relentlessly violent place. We're only just starting as a larger culture to acknowledge that it may be so.

But we haven't decided to reject and uproot the violence within our systems of power that allow for the incredible acts of everyday violence that goes unchecked and unchallenged. We haven't rejected but instead have continued to breed a culture of mass shootings to the point that we have grown numb as a people.

It makes sense to be angry and exhausted and worn-down and afraid and confused and grieving. It makes sense to be anxious and depressed and heart-broken. There is no magic pill to relieve us of the pain. As a community herbalist invested in the welfare of the web of folks I care for, I can offer to share with you what has been shared with me by our plant kindred who have an ability to remain kind to our confused species even when we don't seem to make any damn sense at all. These are not herbs that are meant to make you "tougher" or more "resilient" to the violence - they are meant to help us let the trauma pass through us so that we may know it but not let it rot our bones and spirits. These herbs offer to hold space, hold hearts, and give us the gentleness we all deserve. 

While the following is only a short list of suggestions, see my ongoing list of grief-related resources and writings.

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Hiya, everyone,

Given the recent events in Boston, I was reminded that I have wanted to start a community conversation about herbs in times of tragedy. In my own practice I work with lots of folks who are recovering from various levels of violence and trauma in their background, so I have certain herbs (including flower and gem essences) that I find myself reaching for often. In general, I reach for adaptogens (such as Tulsi Ocimum sanctum) and nervines (like Oats Avena sativa) for dealing with the impact of trauma. I think Bach's Rescue Remedy is an excellent in-the-moment aid and I usually keep a small bottle on me. The remedies I use range depending on the circumstances as well as when I use them, but Rose (Rosa spp.), Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca), Elder Berry and Flower (Sambucus nigra), Black Cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa) have all been useful. For those who hearts are hurting right now, consider inviting in Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) in as a tea, tincture, glycerite or powder.

For herbalists, street medics, birthworkers, social workers, and others who find themselves working on the edges, I always recommend knowing what plants are your allies - the ones who have your heart when things get really tough - and to develop a sacred relationship with them before the hard times come.

What other herbs have folks used? I look forward to learning about other folk's herb allies and the way we support our communities when they are in pain. 

Be well, be tender, and reach out to those around you.

The Moon is calling, the herbs are singing, we're sharing our dream!

I feel grateful and awe-struck to be able to put this work out into the world and to invite so many beautiful and clever souls into a circle of learning and magick! I have designed the course that I was looking for years ago - a place to dig deep into the world of herbology, revel in mystery, take delight in our ability to heal, and embrace the enchantment of our lives and worlds.

The circle is forming, the web is singing, and the Moon is calling our names...

I hope to see you at the Lunar Apothecary!

P. S. Keep reading for a special Early Moon discount! 

The Lunar Apothecary is for the brave, the odd, the curious, the moongazers, and midnight gardeners. Come if you are ready to experience a world of Moon medicine and magick, where we seek to know “As Above, So Below” in our herbal practice. If you are drawn to live your life by the pace of Lunar tide, recognizing your inner changes with the changing face of the moon – come meet us in the garden at midnight. If you want to learn to make herbal remedies and formulations both medicinal and magickal – join our circle. If you are intrigued by the world of medicinal astrology and its important legacy in Western Herbalism – sit down for a cup of moon-blessed tea with us.

We have space for you, clever friend, if you’re ready to answer the call.

Expect to work with lunar plants in new ways, incorporating the written and spoken word to better understand the influence of the Moon in your life, herbal practice, and medicine-making.

Expect to learn in a way that recognizes enchantment as a tool of healing. Whether crafting charms or brewing tinctures, both are given equal reverence and attention.

Expect to change and shift, opening yourself up to the cleansing and compassionate power of lunar herbology.

Expect to embrace all that is dark and beautiful, night-filled and starry, to fully experience the rich spectrum of a life lived not just for the bright expanse of day, but the healing mantle of night.

The Moon is rising – are you ready to join our circle?

◇ ☾ ◇ ☾ ◇ ☾ ◇ DETAILS ◇ ☾ ◇ ☾ ◇ ☾ ◇

The Lunar Apothecary is a twelve week ecourse for ☾ women ☾ composed of weekly newsletters, pdf books, hand-drawn goodies, and guided meditations. You’ll be invited to join an exclusive online circle with your fellow Lunar apothecarians and I’ll be present to answer questions and offer weekly guidance.

Weekly:

• Moonwise: The Lunar Apothecary Newsletter
  • Full of Lunar inspiration for the coming week and guidance about the current moon phase
• Guided Journal Exercises
• The Mansions of the Moon Guide
  • Exploring the ancient Lunar Zodiac
• The Celestial Wheel : The Moon + The Zodiac
  • Exploring the twelve signs of the Solar Zodiac and Lunar Herbology

Monthly:

• The Lunar Compass : Nightly, Weekly, + Monthly Calendar
• Herbal Moon Ritual / Amulet / Charm
• Medicine-Making Tutorials (Twice Monthly!)
  • Teas
  • Extracts
  • Flower, Gem, + Moon Essences
  • Lunar Dreaming
  • Basic Lunar Aromatherapy
  • The Basics of Formulation

BONUSES!

• o Guided Moon Meditations
  • Five 30 minute audio recordings of guided meditations including building your own sacred lunar space + meeting your lunar plant ally
• eBooks:
  • Moonrite: Creating Nightly, Weekly, and Monthly Lunar Rituals + Celebrations
    • Developing a Lunar spiritual practice for yourself and your community, including a guide for hosting Moon Tent Revivals full of herbal magick + medicine!
  • Moonlight: Using Moon Signs to Guide Medicine-Making + Healing
• Growing + Harvesting Plants by the Moon Illustrated Chart
• An annotated bibliography for further reading and explorations
• All the materials from the Lunar Apothecary are yours to keep and use and learn from and love forever.

Start Date: May 1. Space and sliding admissions will be limited, so to secure your seat at the circle sign up early!

Early Moon Special : ENROLL by Monday, April 8 and receive 15% off with the coupon code "EARLYWORTMOON" 

Source of Strength : Herbs for Birthworkers

As an herbologist who has been involved in the birthworker world for many years and is partnered with a midwifery student, I work with a lot of birthworkers in my practice. The needs of on-call birthworkers require herbs that hold a certain quality of flexibility and adaptability that reflect the often unpredictable hours and demands of the birth world. We need herbs to lend us strength when negotiating overculture systems of health that don’t always respect our holistic models of care. Or herbs that remind us to take care of ourselves in the same ways we compassionately tend to our clients. Herbs are excellent allies for birthworkers and when used conscientiously and consistently they can be very effective remedies.

First, a very quick breakdown of general self-care:

• Eat Well
• Sleep Well
• Love What You Do
• Love Who You You Do It With
• And Love All that is You 

Assess and redress any shortcomings on the list above – always strive for surplus love.

We’ll begin our series of Herbs for Birthworkers with a brilliant group of herbs that are known as adaptogens. Adaptogens are herbs that help us to adapt - especially to stressful situations. Birthworkers, at our best, could be called the adaptogens of the birth team.

Adaptogens are fantastic daily tonics as their healing qualities are best experienced over a long period of time helping the body to find balance and build up its reserves of strength and adaptability. For birthworkers, in particular, adaptogens help us to be present by supporting flexibility in all of our body systems, which is needed when you’ve had three hours of sleep in the past 24 hours and you’ve just been called to your next birth. And you can’t find your shoes. Or the car keys.

Let’s begin!

Part I : Adaptogens

YARROW Achillea millefolium

Yarrow is an exceptionally useful herb for healers. Known as the “Wounded Warrior, Wounded Healer,”[1] Yarrow is for those folks who are always on call – the ones who are the first in and the last out in any endeavor and who are prone to ignore health needs until they are lying flat on their backs.  The lesson of Yarrow is to follow our own good advice and health recommendations for vital living, healing, and resting that we share with so many others in our practices as birthworkers and healers.

If you generally present as the most strong and able in the room, but often feel the most sensitive and bruised, Yarrow is your ally. If you push yourself to the limit when it comes to serving others, Yarrow is a great herb to incorporate into your daily life. In and out of hospital settings filled with all sorts of viruses, intense chemicals, harsh lighting, and other environmental pollutants, Yarrow is for you. Find yourself missing meals or eating at odd hours of the night and early morning? Yarrow is a bitter herb that aids digestion and should be considered.

Yarrow is an everyday tonic with the skills of a crisis manager. It helps those who feel they must always be the strongest to be able to express their vulnerabilities in ways that restore true fortitude.

How To Use Yarrow:

As a bitter-tasting herb, I usually recommend Yarrow as a tincture, either extracted in alcohol or glycerine, for daily use. Consider 1 – 10 drops up to three times daily. For situations of acute indigestion or fever, a hot tea of Yarrow hourly is best. Learn how to make a medicinal cup of tea here.

MACA Lepidium meyenii

Maca is a generous little tuber native to the Andean Mountains of Bolivia and Peru. Thriving in such a high altitude and harsh climate, Maca is a tremendously sturdy plant that has adaptogenic, restorative, and aphrodisiac qualities.

Another herb for folks who work long (and odd) hours, Maca is an adrenal tonic, helping folks step back from the verge of burnout so many birthworkers find themselves looking at the edge of. Maca restores our vital reserves, supporting our adrenals with alkaloids that have a beneficial affect on our hypothalamus-pituitary axis, and feeds our bodies with multiple vitamins and minerals including B vitamins, iron, zinc, fatty acids, and amino acids.

Attending long births or have you been overdoing it for too long? Get yourself some Maca. Feeling weak and overexposed? Maca may be your mate. Are you exhausted? Hi there, my name is Maca.

On an emotional level, Maca reconnects our heart to our core strength, helping us to continue on as powerful, present, and compassionate in all we do.

How To Use Maca:

Maca has a malty taste that many folks find to be quite pleasant which is why I generally recommend it in powdered form for daily use. Simply mix 1 teaspoon – 1 tablespoon of Maca into your smoothies, juices, cereals or syrups and enjoy. Maca can also be taken as an extract, 1 – 10 drops daily up to three times a day. Alternatively, Maca is easy to find at health food stores in capsules and might be the most convenient way for some folks. The benefits of Maca are best experienced over long-term usage, so consistent use is important.

TULSI Ocimum sanctum

Tulsi, also known as Sacred Basil, is a no-nonsense, up-in-your-aura, fire-breather of an herb. Tulsi is dragon medicine, old world basilisk herbology and one of its greatest gifts is the relentless pursuit of what-is-good-for-you. So if you have a habit that’s not serving you (like eating mindlessly, talking mean to yourself or refusing to acknowledge the wisdom of what you have to offer the world), Tulsi’s going to burn it up and rebirth you from the ashes.

In addition to being an adaptogen, Tulsi is a digestive aid, stoking our inner digestive fires. The herb moves heat through the body, which if you find yourself often in cold, sterile hospitals, or are generally someone who tends to be colder, Tulsi is helpful. Tulsi is also gently detoxifying, helping to remove harmful substances from the body. As an incredibly intelligent herb, Tulsi relaxes when we need to be soothed and enlivens when we need stimulation. Clever herb, that Tulsi.

Find yourself feeling cold and sluggish after a birth? Try Tulsi. Feeling stagnant and lacking direction? Tell Tulsi about it. If you are a bit odd, spiritually-inclined, and worried that you may be slightly broken, Tulsi is an ally and will help you find strengths in the cracks and crevices.

Tulsi helps us release that which no longer serves us and take up only that which feeds our deepest needs.

How To Use Tulsi:

My absolute favorite way to experience Tulsi is as a glycerite. Tulsi tea is delicious, whether from the fresh or dried herb, and the herb can be incorporated into juices, smoothies, and general food preparations (it is a Basil, so use it as you would Basil in cooking). If taking as an extract, whether glycerite or alcohol-based, 1 – 3 drops up to three times daily is a great daily tonic.

Next time we’ll be exploring Nervines!

♦ ☆ ♦ ☆ ♦ ☆ ♦ ☆ ♦ ☆ ♦ ☆ ♦ ☆ ♦ ☆ ♦ ☆ ♦ ☆ ♦ ☆ ♦ ☆ ♦ ☆ ♦

Interested in learning more about incorporating herbology into your daily life?

Check out my how-to section for more free tutorials and support the work of ecstatic herbology for the masses by purchasing a fine copy of my ebook, Morning Mischief: Fully Enchanted Herbal Recipes for Delicious Awakenings + Resolute Magnificence. Yup, it is chock-full of color, cleverness, unicorns, and it’ll inspire you to integrate herbal healing into your daily routine!

Contact me at wortsandcunning {at} gmail {dot} com for more information on private consulations, workshops, and teaching. Be sure to browse the shelves of my Apothecary at Poppy Swap or Etsy for remedies for you and your clients.

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[1] Wood, Matthew. The Earthwise Herbal: A Complete Guide to New World Medicinal Plants. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2009.