Start a Slo-mance With Herbs

(Plus, a Recipe for Love Tea)

Image: Kranich17

Loooving you,

Is easy ‘cuz you’re beautiful…

You, yes, you. I’m talking to you!

I dare you to gaze at yourself in the mirror and sing this song.

Not feeling it?

(I feel for you!)

How ‘bout some help from a few friends first?

They’re totally legal (aw, no fun!) and yet they are potent mind- and heart-altering friends.

Ready to meet them?

I’m talkin’ ‘bout herbs.

Herbs to enhance love… for you.

And for others, if you so choose.

Recipe for LOVE, herbal blend

What you’ll need, dried herb, in parts by weight:

• 1 part Rose (Rosa species) petals

• 1 part Agrimony (Agrimonia species)

• 1/2 part Rose hips (Rosa species)

• 1/2 part Hawthorn (Crataegus species) berries

• (technically not a berry, but a pome, like an apple; aka, haw)

• 1/2 part Damiana (Turnera diffusa syn. aphrodisiaca) leaves

• 1/4 part Ginger (Zingiber officinale) rhizome

Be sure to acquire organically grown or ethically wildcrafted ingredients, please. For the love of you, and our Great Mama.

Weight out your dried herbs and mix well in a bowl by hand. Keep the blend stored in an air-tight glass container out of the sunlight.

Add 1 to 2 tablespoons of herbal blend per cup of boiling water, or 1/2 to 3/4 cup to 1 quart of boiling water. Cover and let steep for at least 20 minutes.

Strain and sip. Add honey to sweeten if you like (I do!).

You can also use this blend as a bath tea. Oh so good for the skin, the aura, the heart!

Simply strain a bigger batch (like a quart-sized one) directly into a tub of hot water and get in. Feel free to sing to yourself in there (I do!).

If you want to get more intimate with herbal allies – what I call having a Slo-mance with herbs – study them one at a time in my new course, INFUSE.

Love the plants to love yourself!

Healing plants are great teachers and great mirrors for us. They open us up, expand our awareness of the world, while also healing our hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits. Simply sitting with them has great healing power.

Steep yourself in the Magic & Medicine of the healing plant allies in INFUSE, a monthly immersion to deepen your relationship with these Wild Wise Green Ones.

Green Is in the Heart

This is the 4th post I’m sharing on the Communication of Color, particularly through the lens of the plant realm. You can find the previous posts here:

The Power of Red in Times of Disruption

Orange ya glad? How Orange Stimulates Joy

Yellow Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair

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Hello!

How are you doing?

By my count it’s day 72 of the “quarantine”* (or whatever you’d like to call it).

It’s also the 10th week of distance learning for my 7 year old, and his teachers are trying to keep it fresh. One of the teachers recently sprung an impromptu dance party on the class. She played “Groove Is in the Heart,” one of my favorite 90s hits by Deee-Lite. Maybe you know it (if not, or if you want to take a trip down memory lane, the video is below). Well, it took me back and got me moving, my heart pumping. And it got me thinking about the heart and about this week’s post about the color Green.

Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

Green is in the heart, according to the chakra system. The fourth chakra (Sanskrit: anahata for “unhurt,” “unbeaten,” or “unstruck”) lives at the heart center, the place where love, compassion, and caring are expressed. This is also where past hurts, jealousy, and relationship wounds live. When there is wounding in our hearts, we may have difficulty empathizing, we may find it difficult to be kind with ourselves and with others. There might be a lot of negative self talk or limits set around our perceived ability to express love. We may feel that the “grass is greener” on the other side, in other words we may be green with envy.

As Kermit says, it ain’t easy being green. Maybe that’s because many of us are living in our heads, cut off from our hearts. It’s always the right time to work on healing our hearts to nurture self love so that we can create a compassionate, loving society. I always look to the Earth for inspiration and guidance for healing. It’s a lovely synchronicity that Earth and Heart are anagrams in the English language.

The first thing I do when I feel disconnected from my heart is tap into the energy of the Earth. I bring awareness to my heart and then I let that awareness dive down through my body and into the soil. I let it continue to travel down through all of the layers of this magnificent planet right down to the core. The core is the heart (cuore, Italian for “heart”) and our Great Mother’s heart beats out the electromagnetic field to nurture us with her energy, and to shield us from the powerful rays of the Sun. Tap into that energy of fierce love and protection when your heart is aching and see what happens.

There are a lot of beautiful treasures from the Earth (aka, stones) to sit with when you are needing a boost of heart energy. You can call on their energy if you don’t have them on hand. Do your best to obtain them from a sustainable source if you seek to sit with them physically. Here are a few that resonate with the heart: green calcite, malachite, moss agate, tree agate, green garnet, fuchsite, fluorite, and chrysocolla. Pink is another heart centered color and stones that feature pink also light up the heart, including rose quartz, pink calcite, rhodonite, rhodochrosite, and ruby in zoisite (which also features green). I find it interesting that pink and green vibrate on a similar frequency - my dad and son are both color blind (deuteranopic) and sometimes have trouble differentiating colors in the pink-green color range, depending on the value.

And of course, the plants! Just being outside communing with the green ones is enough to restore some balance to the heart. If I’m feeling a little stuck or fatigued, simply looking out my apartment window at the lushly leafed-out trees gives me a little boost of heart energy and refreshes my spirit. Houseplants could do the same.

There are so many beautiful herbs that resonate with the heart, some more specifically than others. Many of them feature the colors green, pink, or red prominently. Green often indicates nourishing and cleansing, while red and pink speak to the blood and the heart, both physically and energetically. Here are just a few lovely green allies that soothe the heart.

Hawthorn (Crataegus species)

She’s a fiercely protective tree whose leaves, flowers, and fruit are most often employed for healing the physical and energetic heart. The berries help break down fat in the blood and digestive tract, and the fruit, leaves, and flowers lower blood cholesterol, regulate the heart rate, and balance blood pressure Her sharp thorns are also a signature for her protective nature and her action on the heart.

Beach rose (Rosa rugosa)

Rose (Rosa species)

Swoon! Rose has my heart all a-flutter. We know her well for her love-invoking abilities, her renown as a romance enhancer, her transportive perfume. Rose is also a protector of the heart being antioxidant and cooling to the blood. Her thorns – technically prickles – like the thorns of Hawthorn, are another signature of her cardio-protective properties.

Black Cherry (Prunus serotina)

Black Cherry (Prunus serotina)

The flowers of most cherry species have a gentle soporific quality and the bark of P. serotina in particular is used traditionally to induce sleep, often where there is a cough that keeps one up at night. Like Hawthorn, black cherry regulates the heart’s rhythm and helps lower blood pressure.

Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca)

This gorgeous bitter mint is well known for its heart regulating properties. It’s even right there in the species name, cardiaca. Motherwort alleviates hypertension and heart palpitations while soothing the nervous system. One of the signatures of this plant is the way the leaves grow in a rhythmic or syncopated pattern up the stem. (Thank you Julia Graves for sharing that signature)

My favorite perch, in Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus)

Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus)

One of my favorite trees, Eastern White Pine soothes the heart’s rhythm and brings peace to the nerves. Like Motherwort, the signature is in the syncopated pattern of the whorled branches. Simple spending time with this tree offers a reassurance that everything is going to be okay.

Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica)

Deeply nourishing and restorative Stinging Nettle is like the magnet in our heart’s compass leading us to our True North. Rich in chlorophyll, plant proteins, and other compounds that balance our bodies in just about all of the ways, this plant is a great foundational herb. It has been relied upon for millennia for its life-sustaining properties, notably by ascetic monks living in caves, like Milarepa, who turned green from consuming so much of the stuff.

Unfurling heart-shaped leaves of Violet (Viola sororia)

Violet (Viola species)

This forest-edge-dwelling cutie emerges in spring to wake our hearts up to the season of new beginnings. Drinking the leaves daily for a few consecutive weeks helps to cleanse the blood and nourish the body. Heart-shaped leaves tip us off to this plant’s ability to ease a grieving heart.

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*The quarantine, La Quarantena, a term coined by Venetians during the Black Death is derived from the 40 days (quaranta giorni) of isolation of a ship’s crew and cargo to prevent the spread of disease. Our quaranta giorni has now reached settantadue and will likely continue a few more settimana before we shift to a new stage of coming out of our bubbles.

In next week’s post we’ll move on up the rainbow body to the color Blue. Stay tuned…

Herbal Resources for the Budding Herbalist

Are you just starting out on your herbal journey? Or maybe you’ve been on the path a while and are looking for some new herbal inspiration to add to your repertoire?

In either case, I want to share with you some of my favorite go-to herbal resources, from books and blogs to farmers and suppliers. Where possible, I link directly to the websites of the authors or publishers of books (as opposed to corporate giant sellers), otherwise I post a link to Thriftbooks. All recommendations are completely unsolicited and I receive no compensation for the links – these are just books and folks who’s perspectives I admire and appreciate.

If you are looking to purchase bulk dried herbs, jump here.

Ada Thilen (1852-1933) Reading

Enjoy!

And do share in the comments if you have your own favorites, too!

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Favorite Herbals (in no particular order)

Northeast Medicinal Plants by Liz Neves

• I would be remiss to omit my own book from this list! It’s a super user-friendly field guide to medicinal plants that grow wild in northeastern North America. Even more - it includes instructions on how to make a wide variety of medicinal preparations, how to ethically harvest from the wild, and where and when to find specific herbs at their peak.

Iwígara by Enrique Salmón

• A beautiful guide to native or naturalized plants and the relationships people native to Turtle Island (North America) have with them.

The Earthwise Herbal series from Matthew Wood

• Two book series featuring in depth profiles on a broad range of herbs used traditionally in the “old world” (Europe, Asia) and the “new world” (the Americas).

Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health by Rosemary Gladstar

• One of the first herbal books I acquired and still love dearly. Rosemary Gladstar is like an herbal fairy godmother who brings herbal medicine down to earth and super accessible.

The Gift of Healing Herbs by Robin Rose Bennett

• An excellent, comprehensive herbal from one of my first teachers.

The Complete Women’s Herbal by Anne McIntyre

• Great resource for folks who either once had or still have uteruses.

The Yoga of Herbs by Vasant Lad and David Frawley

• An Ayurvedic perspective on a wide range of herbs from two master herbalists.

Planetary Herbology by Michael Tierra

• An Eastern perspective on herbs from a west coast herbalist.

Chinese Herbal Medicine: Materia Medica by Dan Bensky, Steve Clavey, Erich Stöger, with Andrew Gamble

• A deep dive into the herbs most often used in Chinese Medicine.

Plants Have So Much to Give Us, All We Have to Do Is Ask by Mary Siisip Geniusz, Edited by Wendy Makoons Geniusz

• Late great Native herbalist Keewaydinoquay Peschel is a big influence on this herbal in the Anishinaabe tradition, being a direct teacher to the author.

Working the Roots by Michele E. Lee

• One of the few herbals steeped in African American tradition.

Native Plants, Native Healing by Tis Mal Crow

• A nice concise guide to Muskogee Herbal Medicine.

Native American Ethnobotany by Daniel E. Moerman

• An encyclopedic volume documenting the herbal knowledge of indigenous people of North America.

Dandelion blooms (Taraxacum officinale)

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Favorite Herbal Specialty Books

The Language of Plants by Julia Graves

• An amazing resource on the Doctrine of Signatures, the language that plants speak to us that reveals their medicinal gifts.

Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year by Susan Weed

• A classic herbal for pregnancy that is still relevant today.

Herbs for Children’s Health by Rosemary Gladstar

• A lovely basic herbal for common children’s ailments.

Naturally Healthy Babies and Children by Aviva Romm

• A trusted guide I turned to often when my son was a babe.

Herbal Antibiotics and Herbal Antivirals by Stephen Harrod Buhner

• Excellent, deeply researched resources on antibacterial and antiviral herbs.

Adaptogens by David Winston with Steven Maimes

• Just about everything you need to know about adaptogens, plants that help the body adapt to stress.

Invasive Plant Medicine by Timothy Lee Scott

• Yes! Let’s celebrate the gifts of the abundant weeds! That’s just what this book does and I’m grateful.

Planting the Future edited by Rosemary Gladstar and Pamela Hirsch

• And on the flip side, let’s also celebrate the native plants of North America that call for us to steward wild and mindfully cultivated spaces. A beautiful honoring of native medicinal plants.

Pharmako/Poeia by Dale Pendell

• A fascinating look at plants with a poetic and alchemical bent. One of a series, I haven’t yet had the pleasure to read its companions. I haven’t read it in a while, but adding this here makes me want to revisit it!

Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash

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Favorite Books About Herbal Spirituality

Plant Spirit Healing by Pam Montgomery

• A beautiful guide for connecting with plants on the spiritual level.

Plant Spirit Medicine by Eliot Cowan

• A shamanic treatise on our deep connection with plant spirits.

The Secret Teachings of Plants and Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm by Stephen Harrod Buhner

• A poetic and practical duo of books. Get ready to have your heart sing with the plants!

Healing Magic by Robin Rose Bennett

• A fun, witchy approach to honoring the plants and the wild Earth.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

• A profoundly poetic love song to life with deep botanical and indigenous wisdom.

Image by Romany Soup

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Favorite Field Guides

Botany in a Day by Thomas J. Elpel

• An excellent way to learn how to identify plants based on the patterns found in their forms.

Native Plant Trust’s Go Botany

• Key out plants based on their physical characteristics and learn where they grow, specific to New England.

USDA Plants

• Discover the range of plants, their taxonomic classification, as well as their conservation status.

Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide

• A classic guide for identifying plants in the wild - the downside is your key to IDing success is that the plant in question is in flower.

Peterson’s Field Guide to Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants and Herbs by Steven Foster

• A comprehensive field guide that includes full color photography and documented uses of herbs that grow in eastern and central regions of North America.

Cleavers (Galium aparine)

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Favorite Blogs & Herbalist Sites

Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine

• Juliet Blankespoor and Co. post amazingly comprehensive plant profiles, recipes, and more.

Enchanter’s Green

• I love Kiva Rose Hardin’s perspective on herbs and her well researched and experience-based herbal profiles.

HerbCraft

• Jim McDonald offers some great videos and posts on a variety of native and introduced herbs.

Northeast School of Botanical Medicine

• 7Song has a wonderfully in-depth knowledge of botany and herbal medicine based on 20 years of experience.

School of Evolutionary Herbalism

• Sajah Popham offers a wealth of herbal knowledge based in alchemy, astrology, and herbal wisdom traditions from around the world.

Sassafras in bloom (Sassafras albidum)

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FAVORITE FARMS & HERB SUPPLIERS

Frontier Co-op

• When all other places are out of stock, I turn to Frontier.

Healing Spirits Herb Farm

• Organic and biodynamic herb farm in the Finger Lakes region of NY that’s been around since the early 1980s.

Jeans Green’s

• One-stop-shop for most of your herbal medicine making needs.

Local Harvest

• Find local herbs, CSAs, food, and more locally grown products in your neck of the woods.

Maine Seaweed

• Larch Hansen, the Seaweed Man, is one of the kindest, most heart-centered folks. He’s been hand harvesting seaweed from the Atlantic Ocean for the last 40 years and counting. I recommend signing up for his very thoughtful newsletter.

Mountain Rose Herbs

• Many folks go-to for bulk herbs, me included!

Sawmill Herb Farm

• Susan Pincus is an amazing human who grows organic herbs for the Northeast region - this is where the herbs for my classes comes from!

Herbs from Sawmill Herb Farm

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A Selection of Favorite Herbal Artisans

Since I make most of my own herbal medicine, I don’t often have a need to purchase herbal products - though I do love to support friends and earth-conscious artisans who lovingly craft herbal medicine in small batches for market. Here are some of my favorites.

Dropping Seeds

• Looking for an herbal smoke blend to chill you out or help you kick a tobacco habit? Friends Johanna & SirRoan make a whole line of smoke blends that can also be made into tea for sipping or bathing.

Furnace Creek Farm

• A seller at our local greenmarket, FCF makes delicious herbal elixirs, pre-prepped tisanes, and other wonderful herbal products. I recommend the candied elecampane in particular for these times!

Gather Perfume

• Swoon-worthy scents for your sensual pleasure - from the very practical salve & skincare to indulgent perfumes.

Linden Tree Herbals

• Michigan-based, woman-run company that makes vibrant tisane blends, salves, and more herbal goodies.

Ostara Apothecary

• Friend and collaborator, Jordan Catherine Pagán handcrafts beautiful herbal elixirs and flower essences for your psycho-spiritual needs. She also offers private energy healing and breathwork sessions, which I highly recommend at this time!

The Root Circle

• Herbalist Lisa Fazio, based in the Adirondacks, crafts herbal tinctures, salves, bioregional incense, and more.

Tweenfontein Herb Farm

• New Paltz based Tweefontein Herb Farm uses biodynamic and permaculture principles in their herb growing and has a line of herbal elixirs, fire cider, and more.

Wild Carrot, aka, Queen Anne’s Lace
(Daucus carota)

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NYC-based Herb Shops

Flower Power

• The Original NYC herbal apothecary.

MINKA Brooklyn

• In addition to offering membership-based online mystical curriculum, MINKA now offers bulk herbs and herbal products (including some that I make), available for pickup or delivery.

Radicle Herb Shop

• Atlantic Avenue herb shop accepting pre-orders for pickup and delivery.

Remedies Herb Shop

• Brooklyn herb shop open for pickups and deliveries.

Sacred Vibes

• Karen Rose offers herbal consultations as well as a range of herbal formulations for a variety of needs.

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COVID-19 Herbal Resources

While there is currently no cure for COVID-19, the following resources may offer herbal guidance to lessen symptoms or shore up the immune system to better weather infection.

• Bunce, Larken. COVID-19 Resources for Herbalists and Community Health Workers

• O’Donoghue, Seán Pádraig. Thoughts on COVID-19

• Wood Buzzard, Heather. COVID-19 Herbal Resource Hub

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Photo by Katherine Hanlon on Unsplash

Have an herbal resource you’d like to share? Leave it in the comments!

And don’t forget to pre-order my new book, coming out in June: Northeast Medicinal Plants: Identify, Harvest, and Use 111 Wild Herbs for Health and Wellness (Timber Press).

food.curated feed your dreams

I’m super grateful to dear friend and fantastic filmmaker Liza de Guia for featuring me (once again) in her series, Food.Curated.

In this video I share a bit about the herbs I use to enhance dreaming and you’ll get a peek at what the monthly dream circle looks like.

Mine is the third segment but please watch the full episode to meet passionate food artisans Divya of Divya’s Kitchen and Tommaso from D’Abruzzo. Enjoy!

simple herbal vinegars

I've had an interest in the idea of traditional healing ways for as long as I can remember, but it wasn't until 2008 that I began my path to understanding what that kind of healing really is. One of the first herbalism classes I took was the Art of Herbal Medicine Making with Robin Rose Bennett, Wise Woman herbalist based in NJ. (If you're curious about making your own herbal medicines, I highly recommend this class.) Before meeting Robin, I don't think I realized I could make my own medicine – at the time I relied on whatever I could get from a health food store.

Making your own herbal medicine has a multitude of benefits. It's empowering, it's cost-effective, and it really comes in handy when you're suffering from an easy-to-ease ailment (minor wounds, muscle aches, colds, sunburn, etc.). And it's also really darn simple to do. One of the simplest ways of getting healing herbs into your body is to cook with them. Another way to do this is to make an herbal vinegar. 

Super simple herbal vinegar recipe

1. Figure out how much vinegar you'd like. But don't worry too much. If you have extra you can share it with friends. 

2. Get your ingredients: good quality organic vinegar (I like apple cider vinegar best), herbs (fresh or dried).

3. Get your equipment: a clean glass jar with a plastic lid or some waxed paper if you've got a metal lid. A clean bottle to store your finished product in. A narrow funnel.

4. If you're using fresh herbs, fill the entire jar with small bits of your herb of choice (below is a list of good ones to start with). The best way to prepare the herb is to tear it up with your hands, so you get good and familiar with it. And if you want to put good energy into your medicine, sing while you make it. Or at the very least hum. Or think happy thoughts. 

If you're using dried herbs, fill the jar about halfway.

5. Now fill the jar all the way up with your vinegar. Give the mixture a few stirs with a chopstick or spoon to be sure all the air bubbles are out. Then put on your cap. If it's metal, put some waxed paper under the cap to prevent corrosion. Give the jar a couple of good shakes. Do this daily if you can, for at least 2 weeks (and up to 6 weeks or more). 

6. You can taste the vinegar periodically to see if it's to your liking. When it's all good and infused, strain off the vinegar and use a funnel to pour the finished product into a lovely glass bottle. You could also use the vinegar with the herb bits in it – it's up to you.

infusing herbs in an old peanut butter jar

Herbs to infuse

Here's a short list of herbs you could infuse in vinegar, along with some of their actions. Stick with one if this is your first time. If you're feeling adventurous, combine 2 or 3.

• Dandelion leaf (Taraxacum officinale) – diuretic, digestive
• Nettles (Urtica dioica) – nourishing, tonic
• Mugwort* (Artemisia vulgaris) – digestive, emmenagogue
• Parsley* (Petroselinum crispum) - nourishing, digestive
• Thyme (Thymus vulgaris) – digestive, antimicrobial
• Lavender† (Lavandula spp.) – calming, antimicrobial

*Not recommended for use in pregnancy. Parsley is generally okay in small doses in food, but not large medicinal doses.

† Use lavender sparingly, it can be overwhelming. Fill the jar only about 1/8 of the way with lavender buds and infuse for 1 to 2 weeks.

You can also use herbal vinegars topically, as a skin toner or hair rinse. Some herbs that are great for this application are: chamomile, rose, lavender, rosemary, and nettles.

Make a spring tonic vinegar with Gathering Ground!

This coming Sunday, January 31, we're hosting a gathering in Prospect Park to celebrate the midway point between winter and spring. Yes, winter is almost half over! We'll be making an herb-infused vinegar that makes a great spring tonic. Just bring a jar and join us!

Gathering Ground spring registration is open!