Nurturing the Wild Heart

St. John's Wort (Hypericum spp.) Anyone who knows me knows my biggest plant ally is St. John's Wort! I still remember the first time I really met this plant. I was on a plant walk with my class at Appalachia School for Holistic Herbalism. There in the middle of the trail was this plant saying, "Look at me all sunny and shiny!" Our teacher, Mateo, taught us how when you crush the flowers and leaves it will stain your hands red. The unopened flower buds have a ton of red juice in them! Using the doctrine of signatures, when a plant looks like what it is good for, that staining shows us it may be used to treat bleeding and the blood. The pin hole dots on the leaves and flowers also signify the treatment of wounds. It is well known for this powerful healing of cuts, scraps, bites, and bruises.  This leaf really looks like a bruise. Here you can see the tiny pin holes in the leaves. Lots of people use it for treatment of depression and SAD but I ...

Gladiolas from the kids' garden Today was a beautiful solstice day! I love to roll with the seasons so I like to celebrate each of them in some way. So today we all started in the gardens! It has been unusually hot here for the month of June but some nice thunderstorms in the evenings lately have been helping to keep the plants happy! My youngest talking to the bees this morning on the Bee Balm  We had so much fun relaxing together! My husband and I drinking coffee, while laughing at one of our dogs, watching the birds, and doing a little pruning and harvesting. Harvest from the herb garden   The best part of the day was a short hike at Medoc Mountain. One of our favorite places to hike around here. It is always gorgeous out there! A brilliant blue dragonfly who wanted his picture taken!   My oldest, that was recently diagnosed with Crohn's disease, loves to hike but since her flare up she has been very fearful to attempt it. She did...

Winter Solstice Sun Yesterday was the Winter Solstice. The darkest day of the year. The day for me started out like any ordinary day. Coffee, breakfast, and a brief check of what is going on in the world.  I will say I do not watch a lot of news or keep up on things. Maybe this is naive of me, but when I personally watch too much I feel overwhelmed and fearful. After all, most of the things on the news these days is scary and negative. Not to mention most of it is opinion driven so you can't trust it to be completely true anymore anyway. So I was scrolling through Facebook and headlines and I saw so much negativity. Even from people who are normally pretty positive. So I closed my computer and the family and I went into the woods. My oldest and I with a beautiful Cedar This day is the darkest, but that doesn't mean the bleakest. That big, bright Sun was shining so brightly as we stopped for a rest that I couldn't help but think that even though the worl...