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Setting New Year’s Intentions
This year, I invite you to set aside New Year’s resolutions. That’s right. Toss ’em aside. Instead, I invite you to set New Year’s intentions. Yes, this may sound like one and the same: but the distinction lies in the dictionary and is mirrored all around us in the mass media. The definition of “resolution” includes one’s resolve to make change – a valiant virtue, indeed – and concurrently, also indicates the act of resolving a problem – emphasizing we are starting from a problem, rather than focusing on the solution we hope to birth. This view of the world is echoed throughout mainstream magazines, movies, and music, where even…
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Preparing for Winter Solstice
“There is a tendency to want to hurry from autumn to spring, to avoid the long dark days that winter brings. Many people do not like constant days bereft of light and months filled with colder temperatures. They struggle with the bleakness of land and the emptiness of trees. Their eyes and hearts seek color. Their spirits tire of tasting the endless gray skies. There is great rejoicing in the thought that light and warmth will soon be filling more and more of each new day. “But winter darkness has a positive side to it. As we gather to celebrate the first turn from winter to spring, we are invited…
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Herbal Healing Gift Recipes
We had a wonderful time at our first Herbal Holiday Giftmaking Playshop of the 2014 season. A beautiful group joined us, including a bright eleven-years-young herbalist-in-the-making, came to gather for an evening of herbal craft and fellowship. We made herbal sachets, herbal tea blends, herbal seasoning blends, mulling spices, simmering scents, bath salts, and one of everyone’s favorites, aromatherapy sprays. Aromatherapy sprays are simple to create and versatile to share! One of our favorite essential oil spray recipes is an all purpose holiday scent to inspire, uplift, and relax all at the same time. It brings in a holiday scent to any room with a cinnamon base, while citrus notes…
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Making Your Own Herbal Tinctures
From our Roots of Herbalism Home Study video, we explore Tinctures today – how to make your own concentrated, liquid herbal extracts using alcohol like brandy or vodka, vegetable glycerine, or apple cider vinegar. In today’s video, we explore making tinctures using the Simpler’s method. If you enjoy this video, you can learn more about tinctures in our Roots of Herbalism class. The next live session will be held November 14 & 15 in Orlando, and we also offer the course as a home study curriculum. Register for our November live course using the code ROOTSDISCOUNT before November 5th and receive a $50 discount off tuition PLUS Rosemary Gladstar’s book…
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Outreach continues at Coleman Correctional Complex
In 2014, we are proud to have continued our outreach program at the Coleman Correctional Complex, reaching hundreds of female inmates with empowering herbal health education. This service program has been a solely volunteer effort among many of our team members, and has provided immense benefit to the women it reaches.
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Water Prayers
Herbalist Emily Ruff brings her reflections on the healing powers of water, and the power of focusing our collective energy on gratitude and healing the Earth’s waters, in this video from a spring atop Sage Mountain in Vermont. Looking for more information on Water Justice after watching this video? Visit www.FoodandWaterWatch.org. One of our favorite groups, Rising Appalachia, recently shared a new song in collaboration with The Dogon Lights that celebrates the beauty, mystery, and healing power of water. “Water she gathers on solid ground Water a memory yet to be found Water she wanders through my bones Water she dances, dances alone Water, Water Flowing rivers what I call…
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Flower Essences for Emotional Wellness
What are Bach Flower Remedies? Bach Flower Essences are potentized liquid preparations that convey a distinct electromagnetic impression from individual flower species that promote emotional balance and harmony. The original system, designed by Dr. Edward Bach in Wales, included 38 Bach Flower Remedies, and each one of them is aimed at a different state of mind or emotion. They do not treat physical illness directly, but by restoring harmony to the mind they allow the body’s natural defenses to work more easily This means that people can quite literally heal themselves. Dr Bach worked in the first three decades of our century. Today there are things in our lives that…
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Don’t compost it, cook it up! Baking bread with juice pulp
A simple recipe to transform the leftovers from juicing into a delicious and hearty bread.
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A Fiery Conversation
On Saturday January 25, I taught my Roots of Herbalism students the health virtues of cayenne, garlic, and ginger as part of the Materia Medica section for their weekend class. My long-time favorite combination of this “holy trinity” of healing herbs is Fire Cider, a delicious remedy steeped in apple cider vinegar with variations of other warming, spicy allies like turmeric, horseradish, or onion. It moves energy into and pathogens out of the body, boasting reliable results in preventing illness and shortening the duration of infection and congestion. This preparation of these strong-personality herbs is ideal, because they can often be aggressively strong to taste raw when I’m feeling down…
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