Commonwealth Podcast For Holistic Herbalism

We moved! We made it with just a few bumps & bruises and some sore muscles. That was no accident - we thought ahead and stayed mindful with some mental, physical, and herbal supports to make our moving week as smooth as possible. Mentioned this week: Kings Road Apothecary - maker of the lovely kava & vanilla massage oil, among other wonders.Atlantic Holdfast - highest-quality seaweed straight from the pristine waters of northern Maine.Instinctive sleeping and resting postures: an anthropological and zoological approach to treatment of low back and joint pain, Michael Tetley (BMJ) - this is the article Ryn mentioned; also check out this podcast from Katy Bowman for more on sleep and alignment.Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

This week we’re sharing a class Katja delivered recently about basic applications of herbal remedies to improve digestion and relive digestive discomforts. Enjoy! We’ll be off next week as we are moving from one apartment to another. We’ll return the following Friday, don’t worry!Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

This weekend we kick off the year for our Advanced Studies Program, so we invited our students to participate in the podcast. Somehow, without any prior coordination, everyone seemed to have linden on the mind! Listen in and hear a few different formulas and perspectives on this helpful friend.Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Katja shares three simple ideas for integrating some herbal self-care into your life, especially during the work day, which have helped us a lot during the writing of our forthcoming book. Ryn's taking a MovNat certification course this weekend, so he offers a formula for supporting joint health.Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

As 2017 draws to a close, we look back over our year and some of the herbs who helped us get through it.Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Katja draws parallels between the Hanukkah story of unexpected abundance, and the gift of goldenrod for helping us persevere through adversity and exhaustion. Ryn shares this year’s solstice elixir formula and the medicine of captured moments.Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Ryn talks about the yaupon holly, a caffeine-bearing plant of North America, as well as a few ideas that apply to caffeine herbs in general. Katja is happy to be reading The Wee Free Men again, and tries to come up with a boring formula for everyone, but it turns out to be awesome.Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

This week, Ryn notices he’s been getting stuck in the same sitting positions too frequently while working on the manuscript, and talks about different ways to avoid getting sedentary at home or in the office. Katja shares her enthusiasm and recipes for working with cranberry, one of our local “superfoods”.Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

In this episode, Ryn tells you about the herbal strategies he's been using to cope with a respiratory infection for the last few days. Katja shares some thoughts spurred on by the creation of her Herbal Oracle and Study Cards, about the parallels we find between physiological and psychological effects of herbal remedies. (Katja wanted to call this episode "No Goldenseal Was Harmed In The Making Of This Podcast + Things You Can't See With A Microscope", but that was too long.)Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

We love books! In this podcast we discuss a few of our absolute favorite herbal books for everyone from beginners to experienced practitioners. Here are the books we mentioned: Practical Herbs & Practical Herbs 2, Henriette Kress - you can also pre-order her Practical Herb Cards!The Herbal Medic, Sam CoffmanIcelandic Herbs, Anna Rósa RobertsdottirWild Urban Plants of the Northeast, Peter del TrediciInvasive Plant Medicine, Timothy Lee ScottEncyclopedia of Herbal Medicine, Andrew ChevallierBody Into Balance, Maria Noel GrovesThe Wild Medicine Solution, Guido MaséHerbal Constituents, Lisa GanoraBotany In A Day & Shanleya's Quest, Tom ElpelRadical Mycology, Peter McCoySupport the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Katja stands up to proclaim the strength and potency of the “pretty little flowers” chamomile and self-heal, and reminds us that gentle doesn’t mean weak. Ryn muses on the many applications for herbs that have little or nothing to do with “treating” a “condition”, and some of the ways this ties in to our evolutionary history of exposure to lots of plants in lots of ways.Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

In our second episode, Katja gives you her take on adaptogens and their propensity for overuse, outlining her preferred way to work with this category of herbs and offering a favorite recipe: notCoffee! Ryn works through some thoughts on the resonance between the physiological activities of herbs and their impacts on mental and emotional patterns, highlighting the category of lymphatic herbs, in whom these points of contact can be seen and felt quite readily.Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Welcome to the inaugural edition of our podcast! In this episode, Katja talks about her new strategy for herbal self-care: taking home a bit of each tea or tincture blend she mixes up for a client (within reason, of course). She describes a current favorite, a formula for building mental & emotional flexibility while lifting the spirits. Ryn discusses some experiences which reminded him once again that sensory engagement is indispensable when working with herbs, and how it can help to iron out the subtle differences between very similar plants.Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!