Nurturing the Wild Heart

I wanted this year to start off with a bang. I thought in the form of herbal wonders but I was mistaken. I wanted to post once a month at least here. Then the flu happened, the loss of our dogs, hospitalization with pneumonia, severe kidney infection, and sepsis, bouts of SEVERE anxiety, car issues, dental issues, bladder stones, sleep studies, abnormal paps, and the loss of my husbands job. Through all this I have managed to keep it together by always finding the golden lining in everything. Trying to not turn away from the light and fall into the shadows. It has been hard. But I am blessed with a bunch of beautiful friends and an amazing family to support me. THANK YOU  TO ALL OF YOU!!! Seriously, I could not have made it this far without you. My "I will always be a woman" mimosa This brings me to what happened on Thursday. I had an abnormal pap a few months ago followed by a biopsy. It came back with severe cervical dysplasia. So the doctor was going to do the LEE...

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 ...

I took some time off from everything while we were in the big city. I felt oppressed and fearful there and it was hard to find inspiration and even a desire to come out of my hidy hole to play and chat with my plant family. Then we had an opportunity fall right in our laps which placed us right back in the mountains of NC that we LOVE so very much! We are laying down roots so we have called our new house Root House!  My youngest introducing Root House <3 I am still a bit overwhelmed with homeschooling our kids and trying to find time to dive head first into every topic that interests me (there are a lot of them), but I have been finding time where I can to go out and play. This weekend we went hiking and had so much fun creek stomping and digging roots!  I set out for the hike with the intention of finding Yellow Root ( Xanthorhiza simplicissima ) and Bloodroot ( Sanguinaria canadensis ). I had almost used up all my Yellow Root tincture I had made a few yea...

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...

Lamb's Quarters (Chenopodium album) Lamb's Quarters was one of the first wild weeds I ever tried. I was attending Appalachia School of Holistic Herbalism in the lovely mountains of NC. We had all met for class at the home of our school's director that she lovingly named Soulflower Botanical Sanctuary. As we were harvesting herbs in her garden she pointed out that we should gather a good basket of the young tops of the Lamb's Quarters. She had the regular kind and the most beautiful magenta colored  ones too! It is super fairy fun to take the magenta or light green powder from the young leaves and rub it on your cheeks. Instant natural glitter!! They tasted like Spinach and Sweet Peas all rolled together. Needless to say, it was the trigger for a love affair with weeds I never knew I could have.  The light color on the top leaves is the powdery "fairy dust" Lamb's Quarters is also called Pigweed and is in the Goosefoot family. That is a who...

So much has been happening lately that I haven't found time to post. So I will give you a run down of all the excitement and hopefully be able to get back to a nice schedule from here on out! Florida Herbal Conference 2015   My Favorite Class Room The center of it all! At the end of February I was lucky to attend the  Florida Herbal Conference  thanks to some dear friends. I helped them run their booth, Earthen Moon , and they helped me get my ticket. It was a blast and a well needed break from the daily mom stuff. There were so many amazing classes it was hard to pick exactly which ones I wanted to attend. My favorites were To Hold Quiet with Kate Taluga, Iris Evaluation with Joanna Helms, Breaking Addictions with Leslie Williams, Inter-species Telepathic Communication with Ellen Kamhi, Planting Sacred Relationships with Willow LaMonte, and Scientific Validation of Botanical Medicine with Ellen Kamhi. Ok well that was all the classes I took and ...