The Holistic Herbalism Podcast

We almost never do interviews, but our friend Anna Rósa is collaborating with The Lotus Flower to empower refugee women in Kurdistan to care for their own health, their families and communities, and to start herbal businesses to support themselves as they rebuild their lives. We are so excited to support her efforts, and we wanted to tell y’all all about it too! You can learn more about the collaboration here: Herbal Sisters Workshops for Women And you can find her fundraiser course here – all proceeds go to support the Herbal Sisters project! The Healing Power of Icelandic Herbs DISCOUNT CODE: Use code commonwealth to get 30% off the price! Valid until June 30th, 2023. If you enjoyed the episode, it helps us a lot if you subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Today’s herbs are sage & rosemary – two herbs whose botanical name Salvia indicates they can keep us “safe, healthy, and secure”, if we go with a literal translation. Sounds pretty good to us! And tastes good, too… Sage, Salvia officinalis, is the subject of a great many old sayings & adages, like “if a man would live for aye [forever], then should he eat sage in Maye” – or, “why should a man die while sage grows in his garden?” (We’d like to point out that sage is good for women and enbies too, just for the record!) Ryn’s personal favorite is this one: “Sage, make green the winter rain / charm the demons from my brain!” As a mental awakener and mind-sharpener, sage is hard to beat. It’s amazing for digestive sluggishness too, especially when that involves difficulty digesting fats. But don’t relegate it to food applications only – sage can be beautiful in formulae for cocktails or mocktails, bitters blends, and nervine elixirs. Rosemary, Salvia rosmarinus, was categorized in its own genus as Rosmarinus officinalis until 2017. Well, we’ve had six years to get used to it, and we’re aaaalmost there – but you should still know both names, because in a lot of good herbal books you’ll only find it under the older name. It’s an excellent cerebral circulatory stimulant, aromatic carminative, and hepatic stimulant herb. Rosemary is an herb for remembrance, also, as Shakespeare’s Ophelia tells us in Hamlet. See how much this herb has in common with sage? They go great together, or with lavender and other aromatic mints. Try them in concert with sweet herbs, too – a “sweet heat” blend of sage, rosemary, monarda, fennel, goji, and a pinch of licorice is one of Ryn’s favorites recently. Sage & rosemary are featured herbs in our Neurological & Emotional Health course. Although often when herbalists refer to “nervine” herbs, they mean relaxants and gentle sedatives, the term can also be applied to stimulants, like these two herbs. They can awaken and enliven nerve activity, and mental activity too. This course is a user’s guide to your nerves & your emotions – including the difficult and dark ones. We discuss holistic herbalism strategies for addressing both neurological & psychological health issues. It includes a lengthy discussion of herbal pain management strategies, too! Like all our offerings, these are self-paced online video courses, which come with free access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more! If you enjoyed the episode, it helps us a lot if you subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

In this period of Fallow Month (see previous episode), we're re-airing a couple of our favorite episodes from the archives. This one was originally episode #145, originally aired December 20th 2020. In this episode we explore the skills and disciplines necessary to conduct a successful self-experiment. Self-experimentation in this context might mean making changes to dietary, lifestyle, & movement habits; developing stress management skills; or trying out herbal medicines. First we address why and how self-experimentation can fall into self-justification, and how to avoid this. Then we highlight the skills of perception, reflection, and connection which are the bones of a good n=1 experiment, and share some key methods for developing them. Finally we talk about the practicalities that make this work go more smoothly, and share a few thoughts on how this all applies to clinical practice work as distinct from individual efforts. This is at the root of our work as herbalists, so we hope you’ll listen in! We teach herbalism online! When you sign up for any of our courses – including our FREE Herbal Study Tips course – you get access to twice-a-week live Q&A sessions, integrated discussion threads on every lesson, and a vibrant student community. Our courses are centered on video lessons you can watch at your own pace, and once you’ve bought a course you retain access to it (and any future updates!), forever. If you have a moment, it would help us a lot if you could subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen, so others can find it more easily. Thank you!! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

In this period of Fallow Month (see previous episode), we're re-airing a couple of our favorite episodes from the archives. This one was originally episode #120, originally aired April 4th 2020. Previously, we've urged you to look at learning herbalism like learning a language or instrument – something that requires daily practice. This week, we’re sharing some specific practices you can do to build your herbal skills on a daily basis! You can take lessons in herbalism, and study to learn – but the key here is, a little bit each day is better than “a lot” which happens only rarely. Building a habit of reading a few pages of an herb book, watching a half hour video lesson, or listening to an audio lesson on your commute every day will serve you well. Another way is to make space to experience your herbs daily. Drink tea, take tincture, taste them, smell them. Even better, do this while you’re studying to enhance your learning, to root it in your body and give your mind a touchpoint to return to. This strengthens memory! A helpful motto (especially for those who are allergic to regimentation) is “Don’t miss an opportunity.” Whenever something new-to-you comes up, take the chance to come up with an herbal plan of resolution. First, learn all you can about what’s happening. Then, try to identify energetic patterns; that helps you select applicable herbal actions. Then you can come up with a set of herbs to do the job, and finally you can decide how those herbs will go to work – what preparations and formulations will best match the situation. (Then you start that cycle over again, to expand or refine!) It’s all about building habits – whether habits of daily activity, or habits of response to new events. Put those habits into place now, and your confidence and capability will grow every single day. Did we mention that studying individual herbs every day is a great habit to get into? With our Holistic Herbalism Materia Medica course, you can do just that! Each of the 90 herbs we cover in this course has a video lesson, plant profile document, and a quiz to test your knowledge. It teaches you much more than “just” the individual plants, too – key concepts in herbal energetics, medicine-making, and pathophysiology are woven into every lesson. Check it out, and watch the first video (all about ginger) for free! As always, please subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen, so others can find it more easily. Thank you!! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

In ancient agriculture, the farmers observed the need to let fields rest every year or two, so they could recover their fertility. Letting the fields lie fallow in this way actually yielded more food than trying to force them to grow every year. We can apply this same insight to the learning process. You cannot cram in more information forever, just by gritting your teeth and bearing down. Humans need time to process and integrate what we’ve learned. The best way to enhance that processing & integration is by getting out of your brain and into your body. Take time to practice what you’ve learned, to engage your senses and your hands. Dig, grow, tend; taste, smell, touch; make, try, play; share! Taking a fallow period to focus on the hands-on aspects of herbalism is one of our favorite tips for people who are learning. There are lots of ways to study, and lots of ways to enhance your learning. We’ve collected our best suggestions into a FREE COURSE for you: Herbal Study Tips! This fun course is designed to make all your learning – whether that’s with us, from other teachers, from books, or from the plants themselves – more exciting and effective. Like all our offerings, these are self-paced online video courses, which come with free access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more! If you enjoyed the episode, it helps us a lot if you subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Today we’re discussing the entire genus of Rubus plants! We focus most on blackberry & raspberry, because we know them best, but with 1400+ species found on every continent, there’s certainly a local Rubus to be found wherever you go. Blackberry (Rubus fruticosus) & raspberry (R. idaeus) leaf and root are excellent astringents. Not just for the pelvic organs, but also the intestines and urinary system, these herbs tonify tissues and eliminate stagnant fluids. Topically, they’re effective as wound washes, compresses, and pelvic soaks. They’re also nutritive, of course – berries and leaves both – with antioxidants and mineral content for all your systems. And remember: any astringent herb is also an emotional astringent, an herb who can help you “keep it together” … but especially the rose family herbs, like these! If all you’d heard (before today) about raspberry was that it’s “good for pregnancy”, you might want to check out our Reproductive Health course! We discuss the whole range of human reproductive variability and herbal medicines to support all kinds of people. We even bust a few reproductive-health myths and herban legends. (Preview: vitex is not “a miracle herb for all women”!) Like all our offerings, this is a self-paced online video course, which comes with free access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more! If you enjoyed the episode, it helps us a lot if you subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Snow-delayed by a couple days, here’s our next episode! Today we’re talking about yellow dock and rose. Yellow dock (Rumex crispus) is also known as curly dock. We also like to work with broadleaf dock (R. obtusifolius) in all the same ways. These herbs can be tinctured or prepared as decoctions. They’re great help for constipation, and if you prepare it right, they can help some chronic diarrhea also. Docks can help skin issues because of the improvements they yield in digestive function and nutrient absorption; they’re classic herbs for working on the gut-skin axis. Roses (Rosa spp.) of many kinds are excellent for herbal remedies, though we do avoid Valentine’s roses since they’re usually heavily treated. The hips, flowers, leaves, and roots of rose all have medicinal attributes to offer. Are they “just another rose family astringent”, or something more? To us, the answer is simple: just smell it and you’ll know! Our Integumentary Health course features both yellow dock and rose, along with an array of other herbs who help the skin: burdock and calendula, of course, but also turmeric and echinacea, among others. Whatever the problem is – whether we call it eczema, psoriasis, or just “that troublesome patch of skin”, herbs can help! Topical applications for common herbs play a big role in this work, and we also dig into the effective herbs you can take orally to see results on the skin. Like all our offerings, this is a self-paced online video course, which comes with free access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more! If you enjoyed the episode, it helps us a lot if you subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Is it more accurate to say “I am an herbalist” or “I’m doing herbalism”? To us, if “herbalist” is an identity, a name, a noun – then you’re subject to imposter syndrome. Why? Because you’re treating it as something you can be, once and for all, based on a credential or status. But like all living and growing things, herbalist is a verb. If “herbalist” is a piece of paper you hang on the wall, or a pile of books you’ve read, it’s easy to feel defensive when you’re challenged. But when “herbalist” is a set of actions you do every day, then the evidence is right there to see. The basis for your claims and beliefs is right there, today and tomorrow. In herbalism as in few other arts of healing, we have the ability to follow this maxim: don’t suggest something to another person until you do it yourself. Get the direct experience: it’s where integrity lives! Not sure how to start? Check out our Herbal Study Tips! If you enjoyed the episode, it helps us a lot if you subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Today we’ve got two astringent herbs to discuss, though their similarities pretty much end with that quality. Rhodiola and staghorn sumac are our topic! Rhodiola rosea has been commercialized and popularized as an adaptogen and “antidepressant” herb. It’s quite warming, drying, and tonifying – really great if you need to row a viking ship across the North Atlantic… or if your day-to-day work life feels like that kind of marathon. It is an herb of extremes, and it can have adverse effects if you take too much. Working with corrigent herbs, taking breaks, and formulating thoughtfully can make this herb more appropriate for your system. Staghorn sumac, Rhus typhina = R. hirta, is extremely abundant – some even call it ‘invasive’! Cooling, drying, and quite tonifying (especially the leaves), sumac is a good friend. The berries make a nice sour red drink, and we like to make ‘red tea’ with sumac, hibiscus, rose hip, goji, and sometimes schisandra or elderberry. This is a great antioxidant-rich preparation which tastes great with a little honey; even kids like it! Sumac leaf is astringent enough to resolve diarrhea, serve in wound care, or help shrink swollen varicosities. Stressed and struggling? Trudging through your days? Check out our Neurological & Emotional Health course. This course is a user’s guide to your nerves & your emotions – including the difficult and dark ones. We discuss holistic herbalism strategies for addressing both neurological & psychological health issues. It includes a lengthy discussion of herbal pain management strategies, too! Like all our offerings, these are self-paced online video courses, which come with free access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more! If you enjoyed the episode, it helps us a lot if you subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Today’s herbs from our apothecary shelf are self-heal and lungwort! Self-heal, Prunella vulgaris, is a lovely lymph-moving herb who we often find in woodland trails. You can find it in lots of places – “vulgaris” does mean “common”, after all – but you probably won’t find it very readily in commerce. It’s not the easiest plant to grow for profit, but thankfully it is easy to grow for yourself! And you may well want to: it’s an excellent wound-healer, lymph-mover, inflammation-reducer, and all-around alterative. (Also worth mentioning is the look-similar plant carpet bugle, Ajuga reptans, which has many of the same actions.) Lungwort, Pulmonaria officinalis, is an herb Katja likes to add to teas for flavor. It’s not a strong flavor, more of a base note to build on. Lungwort’s in the borage family but it does not have the dangerous types of pyrrolizidine alkaloids – that’s a relief! (Some plants in that family can be damaging to the liver, but not lungwort.) This is not only an herb for bringing moisture to the lungs, easing the elimination of mucous and soothing a cough; it’s also a nice mildly moistening herb to include for balancing the energetics of a formula. NB: don’t confuse this lungwort with Lobaria pulmonaria, a lichen which also has some respiratory actions (though of quite a different nature; the lichen is drying). Do you find studying herbalism to be overwhelming? Fret not! There are lots of ways to study, and lots of ways to enhance your learning. We’ve collected our favorites into a FREE COURSE for you: Herbal Study Tips! A few of our favorite tips? Learn like a cat (with lots of naps!), write up postcard-sized “scripts” for common explanations, choose an Herb of the Month, and claim teatime as a radical act of self-care and self-instruction. This free course is fun and designed to make all your learning – whether that’s with us, from other teachers, from books, or from the plants themselves – more exciting and effective. Like all our offerings, these are self-paced online video courses, which come with free access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more! If you enjoyed the episode, it helps us a lot if you subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Relaxants come in many varieties. Today we come to two herbs who relax tension patterns in the body, yet are quite different from one another. Pedicularis densiflora, P. canadensis, and P. groenlandica are just a few of the “louseworts”, also sometimes known as wood betony. We ourselves usually mean Stachys officinalis when we say “betony”, and east of the Rockies that’s usually how it goes. Both betonies release tension, though we think of Stachys as reaching the body via the mind, and Pedicularis as reaching the mind via the body. This is an herb you don’t need to take in high doses to get a good effect; even a touch in smoke is palpable. Solomon’s seal is Polygonatum biflorum or P. multiflorum, and in some contexts the species P. odoratum is similar enough. Just watch out for certain medicinal processing in some traditions, this can change the properties of the herb from its basic set of moistening, relaxant, and cooling. Sol’seal root is a good one to chew, or take in tincture; we do love it in water but reserve that for special occasions. Both of these herbs appear in our Musculoskeletal Health course as well as our Neurological & Emotional Health course. Whether you’re looking to release some physical tension, soften some emotional rigidity, or a bit of both, pedicularis & solomon’s seal can help you let go. Like all our offerings, these are self-paced online video courses, which come with free access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more! If you enjoyed the episode, it helps us a lot if you subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Our herbs this week are pine and plantain! A mighty tall tree and a humble herb of the packed earth. Pine trees come in many varieties. Around Boston we mainly find white pine (Pinus strobus) and red pine (Pinus resinosa), but many others are similar. Pine can help sustain energy and mood, so we consider it a stimulant – but not like coffee. Pine will help you stand steady, not make you jittery. We like to include a bit of twig along with the needles in our tea, as this gets a bit of resinous material in there as well. As Ryn can (and will, at any opportunity) tell you, pines are lovely to climb – if you can make it to the first branch, that is! Plantain – we’re talking about Plantago species, not the banana thing! – is an herb who loves paths and the people who make them. Whether the introduced and very common Plantago major or P. lanceolata, or the native-to-North-America purple-stemmed P. rugelii, this is a flexible and versatile herb. In this episode we focus on its capacity to help a uniquely modern problem: the impacts on our bodies of pharmaceuticals, especially NSAIDs. At the gut lining and the liver, plantain helps resolve the damage these sometimes-necessary medications can cause. And this from a very safe plant, with no known drug interactions! Our Integumentary Health course features pine and plantain several times, along with an array of other herbs who help the skin: burdock and calendula, of course, but also turmeric and echinacea, among others. Whatever the problem is – whether we call it eczema, psoriasis, or just “that troublesome patch of skin”, herbs can help! Topical applications for common herbs play a big role in this work, and we also dig into the effective herbs you can take orally to see results on the skin. Like all our offerings, this is a self-paced online video course, which comes with free access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more! If you enjoyed the episode, it helps us a lot if you subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

A seaweed and a vine-flower, how are they alike? We started out this episode feeling like these two herbs were completely different from one another. By the time we got to the end, though, we found a unifying quality or two. Dulse, whose Latin name is Palmaria palmata, is our favorite choice for those who are new to seaweeds. It has a mild flavor, isn’t too ‘fishy’ or too ‘slimy’. It may not exactly be “bacon of the sea”, but it sure does add a nice salty & umami flavor to dishes! Dulse is also a great provider of minerals (but not too much iodine, so don’t worry). Its nourishing qualities support us in a very grounded way, at the mineral levels of bone, muscle, and nerve health. In archetypal terms, it is an “earth of water” herb. Passiflora incarnata is the botanical name for passionflower. This is an astonishingly beautiful flower – make a web search to check out some photos, you’ll see what we mean. (Oh, and don’t neglect ‘passionflower UV light’ as a search term: see what it looks like to bees!) It’s an excellent plant to sit with for meditation – and it can help you move into a more meditative state of mind, too. Famously helpful in sleep formulae, passionflower helps rein in the spinning, anxous mind, and brings it inward and downward. If you’re comfortable with elemental language, it might make sense to look at this herb as embodying the “earth of air.” If you’re having trouble sleeping, if anxiety is keeping you up at night, we’ve got a plan for that. Our short course, Holistic Help for Better Sleep, teaches you key strategies for lengthening and deepening your rest each night. You’ll also meet our favorite herbs to help with sleep disturbances and insomnia, and how to choose the right herbs for your own personal sleep needs. What’s more, you receive everything that comes with enrollment in our courses, including: lifetime access to current & future course material, twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more! If you have a moment, it would help us a lot if you could subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Today’s herbs are two excellent friends to the human nervous & emotional systems. Tulsi and evening primrose are both nervines, and although they are rather different from one another, they fit together nicely. Tulsi or ‘holy basil’, Ocimum sanctum aka O. tenuiflorum, has featured on our podcast many times previously: as a supportive herb for psychological first aid, sugar cravings, trauma recovery, and cognitive maintenance, among other things! It’s truly a multifaceted herb who can help many of us. Evening primrose, Oenothera biennis, is an herb we find very helpful for ‘frazzled’ anxious feelings, whether those have arisen in response to stressors, in the process of quitting smoking, or simply as an extension of a dry, tense constitution. It’s not so easy to find for sale, but it’s very easy to grow your own! We also have a few comments in this episode about a relative of evening primrose called Circaea lutetiana, the “enchanter’s nightshade”. This plant isn’t actually a nightshade, and its primary enchantments have to do with its leaf shapes and seed dispersal strategies, more than its actions or chemistry. If you want to learn a fun new word today, let us propose “zoochory” as a candidate! Tulsi & evening primrose both make appearances in our Neurological & Emotional Health course. This course is a user’s guide to your nerves & your emotions – including the difficult and dark ones. We discuss holistic herbalism strategies for addressing both neurological & psychological health issues. It includes a lengthy discussion of herbal pain management strategies, too! In addition, you receive everything that comes with enrollment in our courses, including: lifetime access to current & future course material, twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more! If you have a moment, it would help us a lot if you could subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Happy new year everyone! May 2023 be an herb-filled year for all of us! Monarda species plants are sometimes known as bee balm, wild bergamot, horsemint, or a variety of other names, but we usually just call them monarda. These lovely mint-family members produce an abundance of hot, “sharp” aromatics which are extraordinarily helpful in infectious respiratory issues. Monarda is fantastic in a steam, but teas and tinctures are also very effective ways to work with this herb. If the intensity is a bit too much, or if you have a dry constitution, try formulating with some demulcents such as fennel, licorice, lungwort, or marshmallow. Catnip is well-known to many, yet underappreciated. Nepeta cataria is not only for felines – although it is indeed quite good for them to have a little catnip, regularly! For humans, catnip is an excellent relaxant. It works this way in the digestion (releasing cramps and upward-rising heat or nausea), in the skin (as a relaxant diaphoretic), and in the emotions (as a soothing and calming remedy). It’s easy to grow your own, and it’s quite safe even for young children or for elders. No matter your level of experience or training, it’s always helpful to study the herbs in depth! Our comprehensive presentation of herbal allies is in our Holistic Herbalism Materia Medica course. It includes detailed profiles of 100 medicinal herbs! Plus, you get everything that comes with enrollment in our courses: twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, discussion threads integrated in each lesson, guides & quizzes, and more. Two tuition options are available, including a monthly payment plan. If you have a moment, it would help us a lot if you could subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

20% OFF ALL COURSES & PROGRAMS FOR THE ENTIRE MONTH OF DECEMBER – USE CODE DECEMBER2022 AT CHECKOUT! Today we’re profiling a few of our favorite “minty” mints! We discuss spearmint, peppermint, & pennyroyal. Spearmint (Mentha spicata) has a light flavor and impression, with moderate menthol content. It’s gotten a lot of attention in herbal circles for potential impacts on elevated androgen levels in certain circumstances, but is this generalizable? We’re not convinced. We see spearmint as a relaxant and soothing herb first and foremost. Peppermint, on the other hand, is quite stimulating! In part this is due to stronger menthol content and concomitant strength as a relaxant. Cerebral circulation benefits from this combination, and peppermint can help brain fog in many cases. It’s important to be clear that products made with peppermint essential oil are not the same as drinking EO in water (which we advise against very adamantly). With pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium) it’s even more important to stick to tea rather than the EO. Cases exist of fatalities due to ingesting the EO, in an attempted herbal abortion. This is not going to work, and it is dangerous: don’t do it! But, that doesn’t mean a single cup of pennyroyal tea will cause an abortion, either… As a tea the herb is an effective pelvic circulatory stimulant & relaxant. If peppermint is helpful for brain fog, then pennyroyal is helpful for “uterus fog”! 20% OFF ALL COURSES & PROGRAMS FOR THE ENTIRE MONTH OF DECEMBER – USE CODE DECEMBER2022 AT CHECKOUT! If you have a moment, it would help us a lot if you could subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Tonight we’re talking about two of our favorite herbs, and two of the tastier herbs in our materia medica. Goji berry, Lycium barbarum / L. chinense, is an excellent post-workout adaptogen. It’s a very good herb to consume as food, whether a simple handful of dried berries, included in a trail mix, cooked into rice, or decocted into dissolution in a broth. It is famous as an herb for building Blood in TCM, and also for supporting blood vessels from the perspective of modern phytochemistry. Chamomile – and we’re talking primarily about “German” chamomile, Matricaria recutita – is quite possibly the herb we mention most often! It’s definitely a favorite, with its light relaxant aromatics and its deep antispasmodic bitters. Chamomile is a panacea of nuances: depending on how you prepare and apply it, it can serve a myriad of different functions. These quick plant profiles were done off-the-cuff & on-the-spot. If you enjoyed them, we have more! Our organized & comprehensive presentation of our herbal allies is in the Holistic Herbalism Materia Medica course. We have detailed profiles of 90 medicinal herbs! Plus you get everything that comes with enrollment in our courses: twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, discussion threads integrated in each lesson, guides & quizzes, and more. If you have a moment, it would help us a lot if you could subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

This week we highlight lavender & motherwort! Lavandula angustifolia (and many other Lavandula species), a well-known scent to everyone, recognizable and soothing. Lavender relaxes and releases tension. It has a warmth to it, which is more noticeable the more you take or the longer you take it. The flowers are the part that are most popular and available, but we also love to work with lavender leaf! It’s more astringent and less “floral” than the flowers are, and makes a lovely tea. Leonurus cardiaca is a lion-hearted plant with strong protection for its “babies”, the seeds. Motherwort soothes the human heart and releases tension, draining excess heat. It can also relax the pelvic organs, and because of this, help bring on menstrual flow that is restricted by tension. Despite warnings you may see, motherwort is quite safe even for a pregnant human, at the common dose strengths of Western/American herbal practice. Lavender & motherwort both feature prominently in our Neurological & Emotional Health course. This course is a user’s guide to your nerves & your emotions – including the difficult and dark ones. We discuss holistic herbalism strategies for addressing both neurological & psychological health issues. It includes a lengthy discussion of herbal pain management strategies, too! In addition, you receive everything that comes with enrollment in our courses, including: lifetime access to current & future course material, twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more! If you have a moment, it would help us a lot if you could subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

We’re back to our apothecary shelf herb profile tour! This week we have a pair of herbs who both support respiratory function. They demonstrate two types of heat: pungency and the hot aromatics. The root of elecampane, Inula helenium, taste in a way we fondly refer to as “peppery mud”. This herb is fantastic for cold, damp lung conditions. When you feel like you’d need a shovel to get all the phlegm out of your lungs, look to elecampane for help. Inula is also an excellent digestive herb, and these effects are most comprehensive when it’s taken as a decoction. The leaves and, especially, the berries of juniper (Juniperus communis) are bright with warm, airy aromatic movement. Simply holding a berry in your mouth and letting its vapors pervade your sinuses & lungs is an old trick from the Nature Cure movment. Today it’s a good habit for when you’re traveling or in a large group of humans! Juniper’s an excellent urinary antiseptic also, and for Katja, it’s a standout emotional support herb. Our Respiratory Health course includes more discussion of elecampane & juniper, as well as other key herbs to work with, and methods for targeting herbal remedies to the sinuses & lungs. Asthma, cold/flu/corona, COPD, and other troubles are covered in detail. Plus, you get everything that comes with enrollment in our courses. That includes: lifetime access to current & future course material, twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, a buzzing student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more! If you have a moment, it would help us a lot if you could subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

We’re almost moved! This week our episode is about the herbs we’ve kept on the shelves so that we have them available every day. These are plants that are helping us get through the physical exertion, dust!, and stress of packing & moving. We talk all about why we love them in this episode, and some formulae for infusions & decoctions we’ve been drinking to keep steady. We also discuss in this episode the possibilities for formulation with the herbs we’ve kept on hand. There are lots of different ways to put them together to address different health issues. These exercises in flexible formulation, and in making do with what you have on hand, are central to our practice of herbalism. Learning herbalism, to us, isn’t about rare or ‘exotic’ plants, expensive remedies, superfoods, and complicated protocols. It’s much more about learning to work with herbs in an agile, responsive way – and about appreciating the breadth of their potential. Here are the herbs we kept on hand: The best way to build that flexibility & agility into your own understanding of herbs is to study them in depth! Our comprehensive presentation of herbal allies is in our Holistic Herbalism Materia Medica course. It includes detailed profiles of 90 medicinal herbs! Plus, you get everything that comes with enrollment in our courses: twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, discussion threads integrated in each lesson, guides & quizzes, and more. Two tuition options are available, including a monthly payment plan. If you have a moment, it would help us a lot if you could subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!! Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas. Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!