I had a doctor, back in New York, who wanted me to snort salt water out of my hand to help relieve my allergies. I thought she was crazy. Then I got into herbal medicine and when I kicked all my anti histamines I was introduced to the idea of a neti pot. While a little odd and worrisome at first, I still found it less off-putting than snorting water from my hand!

For those of you who aren’t familiar, a neti pot is a nifty little device that allows you to rinse allergens etc out of your nose and sinuses with warm salt water. There are various styles of neti pots…some look like a cross between a gravy boat and a tea pot and some are basically a squeeze bottle. I prefer the ceramic but will use the squeeze bottle when my nose is clogged with a cold.

Fast forward to now, and I am still using a neti pot. Unfortunately, I have had to resort to some over the counter or allergy meds at times the past couple of years, but I really do feel the difference when I don’t use the neti pot every day. And when I have a cold, flushing out my sinuses really helps the cold move along faster because salt is anti bacterial (it also helps stop a nose bleed pretty fast). Note: You want to make sure you either use distilled water or boil the water you use. (I use filtered and bottled water).

I bought my first neti pot HERE but it was sort of pricy. It was also a little work of pottery art, which I adored. And me being me, I went a little berserk and bought a Himalayan salt lamp, salt inhaler (etc) too. All of which helped but the Himalayan salt isn’t always necessary. Sometimes, I buy fine sea salt (without any anti-caking agents), and add a little pinch of baking soda, which can be much more cost effective. Lately I’ve been getting the little bags of neti pot salt and adding this additive.

XO

Once again, one of my old blog posts came to mind. This time, it is one that I wrote while preparing to leave New York for Iona…though I’m not sure I had announced that to the world yet, lol.

This time, it’s in the wake of trying to get my wellness business going. I write this while waiting for some oils and wax to set before turning it all into some healing cream

I have the tendency to have a lot of ideas at once and then get overwhelmed. Back when I wrote the original blog I had heard a phrase, “The only way to eat an elephant, is one bite at a time.” More recently, my friend Grady used the analogy of if he is looking at a street scene he created in his mind, instead of concentrating on the whole scene, he will try and zoom in on one of the buildings, then on one brick in the wall of the building. So lately I have been trying to focus on my bricks and see how they stack up, so to speak.

I have been slowly building my product list, services, and class ideas…sharing my knowledge on here, as well as volunteering at the MLK Health Center & Pharmacy. I have been writing an article here and there for Heliopolis, Like this one for Cuban Liquor and this one for The MLK Health Center.

I also try to learn as much as possible and ground myself with friends and through classes and events at The Peace of Mind Center. And I feed my chakras and soul with music by singing in the church choir and local opera chorus.

Of course, I also need to take care of myself through all of this building. So I TRY to do meditation and yoga…even if it’s a little bit here and there. After all, buildings need strong foundations.

XO

Fire Cider is an immune-boosting folk remedy that herbalists have been making for a very long time. I learned how to make a basic fire cider during my apprenticeship. It’s a wonderful tonic to have around during cold and flu season.

A basic fire cider is made of various antibacterial/antiviral (hot) ingredients such as horseradish, ginger, garlic, onions, and cayenne pepper.

This is the recipe for my most current batch. As you get familiar with these recipes and ingredients, you can get creative and add other things to make the batch truly local and your own!

Just a note…my grater was giving me issues, so the above photos has a lot of chopped ingredients…grating will break the elements down better and put more medicine into the cider…

• 1/2 cup grated ginger root
• 1/2 cup grated horseradish root
• 1 chopped medium onion
• 10 cloves of crushed garlic
• 2 chopped jalapeño peppers
• 1 Lemon (zest and juice)
• 2 T dried rosemary leaves
• 1 T turmeric powder or 2 freshly grated root
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne powder
• Raw unfiltered apple cider vinegar
• Raw honey

Add all ingredients, except honey, to a quart sized mason jar and cover with AC Vinegar. Let sit for at least 8 weeks, strain out elements and sweeten to taste with honey.

Ginger aids digestion, infections and nausea and soothes inflammation…

Horseradish soothes sinus congestion and headaches…

Apple Cider Vinegar is a very common medicinal base. It is packed with good stuff, helps digestion, inflammation, kills bacteria…

Onion is antiviral, anti bacterial, packed with vitamin C…

Garlic is antimicrobial, antibacterial, expectorant, stimulating, warming (diaphoretic…makes you sweat)…

Jalapeno Peppers are a great nasal decongestant, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory…

Lemon has vitamin C and aids digestion…

Rosemary is anti-inflammatory, helps depression, antioxidant, and antimicrobial…

Turmeric is an anti-inflammatory, aids digestion, helps with depression…

Cayenne Pepper helps alleviate congestion, gets circulation moving, alleviates pain and inflammation.

Honey kills germs, yet is also hydrating, full of nutrients, immune boosting and, if local, helps with seasonal allergies.

You can use fire cider as a daily tonic to keep your immune system strong by taking a few teaspoons straight or in hot water. You can also use it as a medicine when sick, of course. You can also cook with it!

I volunteered at the Fall Health Fest in Highland at The MLK Center and Pharmacy last Saturday morning! While there, I shared one of the first medicinal herbal teas I learned as an Apprentice. In fact…I think it was even before I entered my apprenticeship! I had first dipped my toe into the herbal waters when my teacher, Robin Rose Bennett, held a class series titled, The Art of Herbal Medicine Making at The Open Center in New York City. I had begun getting emails about this course and a little voice inside my head kept prompting me to pay the $125 and dive in. It ended up changing the course of my life.

Sassafras & Mullein Tea

In the interest of using what I had…I put about 1 cup of mullein leaves in a half gallon jar, sprinkled some gumbo file powder in with it, added a few chunks of Sassafras bark, topped it with boiling water and steeped, covered, for about 8 hours.

I figured, being in Louisiana, most people would have gumbo file in their cupboard. You just want to make sure that the gumbo file is only sassafras leaves. I was also taught to buy the best that you can afford, as an apprentice.

I turn to Sassafras a lot. It is delicious (tastes sort of root beer-esque) and has spirit lifting qualities. It helps keep your mood happy during the change in season or during difficult times in your life (even the tree is amusing to look at with it’s charming goofiness of having 3 different shaped leaves…). Some other health benefits of Sassafras include: Improved urinary tract health, Reduced symptoms of arthritis, Clearer skin and eyes, and Improved Digestion.

Mullein is a wonderful herb for supporting the lungs! I used to make a tea blend with Nettles, Red Clover and Oat straw, in which I would sometimes add various respiratory supporting herbs for my slight asthma….mullein being one of them. You can even inhale the smoke to help with asthma attacks. It has expectorant and astringent properties and contains mucilage which coats and soothes irritated mucus membranes. Mullein also has anti inflammatory and antibacterial properties…you can even make an oil from it, combined with garlic, to treat ear infections!

This is a wonderful infusion to enjoy during the change of season due to its support of the respiratory system, as well as its mood boosting properties.

Of course, is all just the tip of the iceberg with Sassafras and Mullein, but I hope you are intrigued enough to dive in deeper and or try them out yourself!

It has been made abundantly clear to me that when I get away from my herbal and personal care routines, I tend to get off track. When I was volunteering at the Abbey in Scotland, one of the things I missed was my herbal medicine making…and then again when I became immersed in switching lifestyles and going back to school in Louisiana. It is very difficult to maintain personal care when your main objective is surviving!

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When I was in Scotland, I didn’t really have the proper place for it all, nor the equipment. While in New York I had accrued quite the collection of herbs, medicines and jars to brew it all up in. While on Iona, the first time I felt anything akin to homesickness was when I had a bad cold and no herbs to treat it with. And when I first came down to Louisiana, I was just so busy with school and part time jobs etc.

While on Iona, I got back on track by taking the opportunity to organize and facilitate an herbal discussion with the staff. Preparing for it really made me see how much knowledge I have, and how much I enjoy sharing it! Coincidentally, I was working within the Programme team at the time and I was able to use the staff session material to run a session with the guests a few days later. I was nervous leading up to it, but once I sat down in the circle it felt completely natural! It ended up being a really relaxed herbal discussion and the guests seemed really interested. Some of them even shared their own, personal, experiences with natural healing. I learned a few things too! It gave me a glimpse of my path and soul work.

More recently, I have established my own kitchen once again and self care routine. I have also re opened my Etsy shop, making self care products for the public, and I have been volunteering at the MLK Health Center and Pharmacy. Right now I am in the process of creating some classes…like the ones I led in Scotland…with expanded content.

One of the things I shared in that first circle was a jar of garlic honey. It’s such a quick and easy medicine to make…and we had everything I needed right in the Abbey kitchen at the time…empty jar included. The photo of the jar above came in handy more than once before I had to leave the island and not a drop was left!

It’s so easy to make. All you have to do is chop up a bunch of garlic (the smaller the pieces, the stronger the medicine…and garlic taste) and then cover it with honey. Let it steep for at least 30 minutes before using. Obviously, the longer it sits the better…but if you’re unwell, you won’t want to wait too long! I usually fill the jar about a quarter full with the garlic.

Garlic honey is wonderful when you feel a cold coming on, or when you are already sick. Sometimes I use it to sweeten some sage or thyme tea!


Some fun facts about garlic and honey and why they are good for you:

Garlic – It’s a diaphoretic (makes you sweat), diuretic, expectorant, stimulant, antiseptic, antiviral and antispasmodic. Heals wounds, aides digestion. Great for colds! It keeps the respiratory system nice and warm…(I eat it raw when I’m sick…much to my Iona roommates dismay! Sorry, guys!)

Honey – It’s hydrating and anti-bacterial. Immune boosting. Great for coughs (anti-inflammatory), allergies (if raw and local), skin (masks and cuts and scrapes). A drink of apple cir vinegar and honey is good for digestion and joints…flushes out the system.


It’s one of the first herbal medicines I learned to make. I remember how excited I was when I learned how simple it was to put together. It’s become a staple in my kitchen! I also love the way it tastes. 😉
XO

When I was an herbal apprentice, we chose a plant to work with every year. We even did a meditation to connect to which plant would be that year’s ally. My first plant ally was Mugwort (Artemisia Vulgaris).

Mugwort/Artemesia (also known as Cronewort, Common Wormwood, Wild Wormwood) is named for the Greek Goddess Artemis, and is well known as a powerful women’s herb (used for menstruation, childbirth, menopause).

It is also a wonderful herb for arthritis and joint pain, and as a bitter for aid to the digestive system. In the past I have infused apple cider vinegar with mugwort and taken it for acid reflux.

 

Mugwort is also a wonderful plant for protection and prophecy, meditation, dream recall, psychic powers and lucid dreaming.

Back in the day brewers used Mugwort to make a beer! I have actually done this, and it was some super powerful stuff. Now that I am allergic to gluten, I should maybe pick brewing back up as a hobby and do herbal beers!

My personal experience with Mugwort has been with introducing and then re-introducing magic into my life. The above photo is of two oil blends (from Phoenix Botanicals) I won in a contest last Halloween. I had started dipping my toes back into my herbal practice and entered the contest on a whim (I rarely win contests), and voila…back on the magical road.

It has definitely helped with dreaming and dream recall, and meditation. When I was an apprentice, I took some Artemisia tincture with me to Scotland (Iona) and it definitely helped make the experience more magical…that was in October, when the veil is thin.

I highly recommend Artemisia as a first herbal ally. She’ll lay a wonderfully magical foundation to build your practice on.

I have decided to talk about my recent acceptance of juicing.  I don’t agree with extreme diets, like juice cleanses, but I have found that with my busy schedule I was not getting enough veggies in my body and the results were starting to pile up. Sometimes we get so used to feeling poorly, that we don’t realize anything is amiss!

Lately I have been doing a loose sort of intermittent fasting because I find that my digestive system runs more efficiently when I do. Eating less overall, though, reduces the amount of veggies and fruits I consume. I also tend to eat lunch at work or on the run during the week, which impacts veggie consumption. Not eating breakfast also makes taking certain vitamins difficult because they either won’t absorb properly or make me feel nauseous.

One of the reasons I don’t want to adapt a strict juicing lifestyle is that I don’t feel satisfied replacing meals (specifically protein) with just juice (I realize this is a funny thing to say since I am, in effect, replacing breakfast with juice). The other is that a lot of juices contain as much sugar as soda, and my body does not tolerate sugar well these days. So I must be mindful of what’s in the juice. Store bought juices tend to be really high in sugar and contain preservatives, for the most part, to keep them shelf stable. And lets face it…the more natural, stripped down juices are not stripped down in price.

A little while back I had some tired spinach and some no sugar added green juice from the grocery store. I added them to a blender with some grapefruit and some other things I had languishing in the fridge…like some poor avocados (a healthy fat) I had forgotten about. I mixed in a little local honey and some fresh mint and voila…pretty tasty. When I drank it, I noticed a distinct energy surge lol. It was like my body was applauding me :D.

Since then I have been pretty good about doing this and having fun with the variety. It has been a great way to use up some of the powders and herbs I have bought, with good intent, to use in other things. The photo above is strawberries, ginger, turmeric and fresh mint.

Another healthy practice I had let slide was my kombucha. I had a less than stellar batch on the counter, so used that as my base liquid and it was so good! Another healthy thing (fermented food) in my body!

Keeping my dishes washed in a timely fashion can tend to be a challenge for me, so my increased blender use will be an issue…lol. The blender method, by the way, is so much better than a juicer…in my opinion…because you get the whole vegetable and fruit. All the skin and fiber and vitamins, minerals, etc. The sugar factor is also an issue, so mostly greens and low sugar fruits…like berries. I’m also a fairly lazy cook and herbalist…so the less chopping the better…whole berries and leafy greens…huzzah!

This week I used blueberries and English cucumber…and I am going to start putting more herbs etc into them. Watch me get all herbalist with this…

Wish me luck!

I originally posted this on the 21st of November 2011, but the subject of my/our essence keeps coming up lately. I have been doing a lot of inner work this year, but the self help industry basically tells us that there is something wrong with us. This doesn’t sit well with me. As a wellness coach I focus on the fact that we don’t need “fixing.” We need healing, self love and compassion.

I’ve also learned that true healing is basically the process of unraveling…time and time again…back to our essence.

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about “essence.” What my essence is and just staying put there. It feels pretty good to take up residence there because, after all, that’s where everything is born…

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I’ve been doing this by taking part in all the things I love. Whether it be cooking, attempting to make beer, going on a photo shoot, knitting, re-stringing and tuning my violin, singing, working on art projects or daydreaming about the future. I’m finding that I feel more and more at home in my skin. It also shows me where I’m headed.

Whatcould be better? I think I’ll stay here for a bit…

Before the World Was Made
by W.B. Yeats

If I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity’s displayed:
I’m looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.

What if I look upon a man
As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while
And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel
Or that he is betrayed?
I’d have him love the thing that was
Before the world was made.


XO

Inflammation has been a pretty big focus in my life for the past year. I was found to be allergic to Gluten last April/May and have also been keeping tabs on my auto immune levels. Arthritis is present in my family and my Father had lupus so I am trying to keep as healthy as possible, as naturally as possible.

Inflammation is probably one of the biggest causes of illness. It can come from so many sources: Food, Stress……

Recently I spoke to my friends at the MLK Center about foods they can incorporate into their diets that will help fight inflammation. I need to be better at this as well, for my own sake!

1. Turmeric is a root native to India. It is full of carotenoids, curcuminoids, and essential oils called ‘tumerones. Many studies on curcumin, the active ingredient of turmeric, have shown that it is more effective at reducing inflammation than NSAIDs such as aspirin and ibuprofen.
2. Ginger is a relative of turmeric. It has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years to treat digestive upset, nausea, diarrhea, arthritis and heart conditions. Add ginger to recipes where you might use garlic or another pungent spice, such as stir-fries and marinades.
3. Blueberries are packed vitamin C, which can limit the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines, a type of protein that can worsen disease. Blueberries can also lower your risk for heart disease and cancer, and their anti-inflammatory benefits extend to warding off other chronic conditions caused by systemic inflammation, including autoimmune disease.
4. Salmon is full Omega-3s, which support a balanced immune response. Studies have shown the benefit of fish oil supplementation in patients with inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, psoriasis, lupus, multiple sclerosis and migraines. Supplementing with fish oil can decrease disease symptoms and flare-ups, and reduce dependence on anti-inflammatory medications.
5. Avocados are high in monounsaturated fat, particularly oleic acid, which studies have shown to reduce biomarkers of inflammation. Unlike most fruits, they are a good source of vitamin E, a micronutrient that has anti-inflammatory effects and is linked to decreased risk of joint damage in osteoarthritic patients. Adding avocado to a meal will help you fight inflammation for hours after eating.
6. Leafy Greens Dietary nitrate, found in leafy green vegetables and beets, has been shown to have the potential to reduce inflammation and arterial stiffness, which in turn reduces your risk of stroke and coronary heart disease. Leafy greens–such as kale, spinach, broccoli, collards, and arugula–are also brimming with vitamins A, D, E, and K, all of which have anti-inflammatory benefits and are necessary for optimal health.
7. Bone Broth is a natural source of glucosamine and is high in the anti-inflammatory amino acids glycine and proline, which help to reduce joint pain caused by inflammation. It has also been found to mitigate the symptoms of upper respiratory infections.The collagen in bone broth helps repair your gut lining, improves detoxification and liver function, encourages optimal bone mineral density, and supports healthy hair and nail growth.

*Original Source: 7 Foods That Fight Inflammation by Amy Myers MD