Commonwealth Podcast For Holistic Herbalism

Climate change affects everyone, and that includes the plants. Medicinal herbs and food plants growing across the world are changing, moving – and sometimes, struggling or dying – as a result of the changing climate. As herbalists, and as stewards of medicinal plants, we need to recognize these shifts and respond in ways that will help protect & sustain our herbal allies as much as possible.Three steps any herbalist can take in this effort include:Observe & recognize the changes in the local wild plant populations, and stop wild harvesting early when you see signs of stress.Cultivate & steward the plants you depend on, so that you can harvest without impacting the wild populations.Work with the new plants – often designated as “invasive” – who are coming in with the changing climate. Many of these are potent medicinals, and they’re so abundant that it’s safe to harvest them freely without worrying about damaging the population.Changing our habits – of harvesting behavior, and even of perception –

This is #3 in our series on herbalism & climate change! Fires are most devastating where they occur, but the smoke and particulates they release into the air affects vast areas of space. So it’s good for all of us to be aware of the problem and have practical solutions to protect ourselves.In addition to practical DIY methods for improving air quality in the home, herbs can be very helpful. Some of the herbal actions & specific herbs discussed in this episode include:gentle herbs for steaming – chamomile, lavender, mintdemulcent herbs to protect mucous membranes and maintain hydration – marshmallow, mullein, linden, violet, fennel, licorice, pleurisy root, purslane, okraexpectorants to get mucous out of the lungs – mullein, horehound, hyssop, elecampanerespiratory relaxants for tense lungs & constricted airways – fennel, mullein, lobelianervine herbs to cope with the stress of fires – lobelia, blue vervain, linden, hawthorn, goldenrodadaptogens for long-term stress resilience – codonopsis, jiaogul

This week we continue our series on herbalism & climate change. Flooding causes great devastation, and it also brings many risks. Foremost among these are isues of pathogenic load: mold, bacteria, and other pathogens spread through flood waters. Minor wounds can easily get infected, breathing in the spores of mold can make one sick, and it’s difficult to avoid introducing germs to the digestive system in these conditions.Herbs can help. Antimicrobial herbs can be taken to protect against infection or fight off infection in all these areas of the body. Knowing the right method for applying or ingesting your herbs is critical to success here. Sometimes an herbal steam you inhale is much more important than herbs you eat or drink.When it comes to herbs, their antimicrobial abilities are many & varied. Each plant (or group of similar plants) has a different set of chemicals to offer to the effort than all the others. Here are just a few key categories of antimicrobial herbs which may be helpful after a fl

This episode begins a series on herbalism & climate change. Heatwaves have struck the US and many places throughout the world, and all signs indicate this is going to be our “new normal”. Climate change affects everyone and requires us to recognize our interdependence. We need to cultivate community care as a social ethic & public good before and until it becomes necessary as a disaster response. Herbalism offers a great deal to us in this regard.Heat is dangerous. Heat with high humidity, even more so. Learning and sharing low-cost, low-energy methods for cooling your house, your body, and your pets is a great way to prepare and to help others near you. But herbs can help in particular ways, too:demulcents to improve hydration (especially with a bit of sweet added: honey, maple syrup, or – yep – even sugar)mineral-rich nutritive herbs for mineral repletion… more than just “electrolytes”, trace minerals toorelaxing & cooling diaphoretics to open the pores and allow release of heatrefrigerants to h

Recently it seems like there’s been a proliferation of hop-flavored beverages on the market. Not just beer, but also sodas, fizzy waters, and other gently bitter elixirs are competing for attention with kombucha and fancy herbal infusions. This seems like a good thing to us – more people getting some bitters in their lives couldn’t hurt! But it also brought to mind this week’s topic: a common warning herbalists make, that there’s potential for cases where hops cause depression, or worsen it.This can absolutely be true in some cases, and we ourselves regularly pass on this caution! But as with most things in herbalism, it’s not so cut-and-dried as it seems at first. In this episode we’ll discuss historical and contemporary info sources on the subject, and try to get a more nuanced perspective. In certain situations, the cold and sedative nature of hops does make it contraindicated for depression. But in others, the term ‘depression’ is used as a catch-all for a variety of mental states, some of which hops can

Ryn’s got a toothache this week, so this seems like a great time to teach about herbs for toothaches! When your tooth hurts, you want to relieve the pain, and you want to make sure you prevent or manage any infection. Fortunately, herbs are great at both of these jobs!Spilanthes & kava are great for relieving pain. Spilanthes also increases localized immune activity. Berberine-bearing herbs like goldenseal and barberry are fantastic at fighting pathogenic microbes, and kava’s no slouch there either. A rotation of these plants serves well to address both the pain and the possibility of infection.These would all be good friends to have on hand – we like them as tinctures for this job. That way, you’ve got some herbs for toothaches in the home first aid kit, in case one strikes.Herbs discussed include: spilanthes, prickly ash, echinacea, goldthread, goldenseal, barberry, kava, meadowsweet, willow, sage, clove, star anise, myrrh, propolis.Dental health issues like toothache are covered in our Digestive Health

Seaweeds are really talented. Like, really talented! They can help out with such a wide array of problems that you might feel a little skeptical at first. “Come on, how could seaweeds fix everything on that list?? I mean… what do high blood pressure, osteoporosis, and leaky gut syndrome even have in common, anyway?”We understand the skepticism! But the truth is, seaweeds really can help out with a ton of different troubles. How? They’re addressing core deficiencies and needs of the body, that’s how. Complex, sea-balanced mineral nutrition gives your body the opportunity to resolve much more than low calcium levels. Immune-modulating polysaccharides improve not only your defense against pathogens, but also your gut flora microbiome composition, and your levels of systemic inflammation. These core-level supports explain why seaweed can help out with such a wide array of issues.So while it’s not literally true that seaweeds fix everything that might go wrong in a human body, they sure can help with a lot! Listen

“Take a breath, it’ll help!” You’ve heard it before. But what if breathing is difficult or constrained? Breathwork is the answer.Breathing is like any other movement: there are ways to build efficiency and resilience through practice. Simple exercises can get you breathing deeper, and give you a visceral massage or “inside yoga”. And there are herbs for breath work, too! They can remove the obstacles to deep breathing and help to enhance your practice.In this episode we’ll share some simple breathwork practices for you to explore. Then we’ll highlight three favorite herbs we turn to for help enhancing our breathing exercises: lobelia (Lobelia inflata), New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae), & elecampane (Inula helenium).Mentioned in this episode:New England aster monograph, jim mcdonaldBreathing Easy Much Faster With New England Aster, Kristine BrownOur Respiratory Health course includes more discussion of the importance of breathing, as well as key herbs to work with and methods for targeting

Whenever we choose herbs for health issues, we work to match the qualities of the herbs to the state of the body. These three plants we work with as herbs for seasonal allergies are each drying in nature. So, if you run dry or have dry symptoms, then make sure to pair them with something moistening like marshmallow or violet. But if you’re on the watery side, these will be a great help!Nettle (Urtica dioica) is a superstar plant with a variety of beneficial effects. Not all of them are available in every format – but the good news for allergy sufferers is, any preparation of nettle will do the trick! Tincture, tea, capsules, powders – any way you get nettle into you will reduce histamine expressions and reduce symptom severity.Eyebright (Euphrasia off.) is another powerful “antihistaminic” herb, and is famously helpful when the eyes are red, itchy, and watery. Tincture’s a great way to work with eyebright, and supplements of this herb are also quite good.Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea) is another of our favor

Herbal tattoo care starts a while before your appointment. You’ve got to prepare the skin in advance, get hydrated, and ideally do a little work to keep inflammation down in the lead-up time. You want that skin to be in the best possible shape before you get work done. You might even want to get some test spots done, if you have very reactive skin.We don’t actually like to throw a ton of different plants together in our herbal tattoo care preparations. Instead there are just a few excellent, simple preparations we turn to again and again. Rosewater is a beautiful light astringent & refrigerant, toning and cooling the skin. A honey salve or other light, simple salve is protective & soothing. We might try a chamomile compress as well. But we’re not going to come at the tattoo with strong vulnerary herbs or lymph-moving plants, because these might actually interfere with the healing process and the settling-in of the ink. So let’s keep it simple!Mentioned in this episode:Physio-Medical Therapeutics, Mate

Today’s episode is a little different from our usual. We’re sharing a listen-along plant sit meditation! You can take this episode with you to sit outside with a plant, and we’ll guide you through the meditation practice.Plant sit meditations are an excellent way to develop your powers of observation and your awareness skills. Plants have a lot to teach us, and this is one way to learn directly from the plants themselves. When we slow down, take time, and devote our attention to a single plant, we can gain a much deeper appreciation for that plant and its medicines.Many people experience this connection as a communication direct from the plants. Others find it helpful to “get in the plant’s skin” and imagine what it would be like to live as that plant. However you experience it, nature-based meditations like this one are a great way to expand your understanding of an herb and its place in the ecosystem. And you just might gain some insights into your own place in that ecosystem, while you’re at it.Plant sit m

Have you heard that black cohosh is “for menopause”? Or that red clover is a “natural estrogen replacement”? Or that saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) is “for men” or “for BPH”?Herbs are not gendered, and they’re not “for” conditions. They have qualities and actions, and they act in context – the context of each individual body. Herbs act on particular types of tissue, and it turns out that in the reproductive system, the various forms and functions mask a deeper similarity, a more fundamental identity. Saw palmetto doesn’t check your chromosomes or your estrogen/testosterone ratio before it goes to work in your system: it acts on the pelvic floor organs, regardless of their shape.In this episode we deconstruct saw palmetto’s famous ability to help out with BPH, widening our scope to consider other patterns of pelvic stagnation and atrophy this herb can help us correct. We even look outside the reproductive system entirely, noting historical precedent for this herb as a digestive tonic and respiratory expectorant

Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), also known as alehoof, creeping charlie, and gill-over-the-ground, is one of our favorite herbs to gather in early spring. We like to prepare a tincture of it in brandy, and we work with it for troubles in the ear-nose-throat. It helps a lot with tinnitus and with difficulty hearing that comes from stagnant fluid in the ears.Here are just a few comments on this ability of ground ivy, over a 300-year span:Botanologia, or The English Herbal, written by William Salmon in 1710, says about ground ivy that “It is bitter, cleansing and opening the Obstructions of the Viscera: put into the Ears, it helps the Noise in them, as also their Ringing and Deafness.”Health from British Wild Herbs, written by Richard Lawrence Hool in 1918, noted that “The expressed juice of Ground Ivy is a specific for deafness.”Writing in 2012, Henriette Kress in her post Herb of the Week: Ground Ivy writes that “It’s one of the few herbs that can touch noise-induced tinnitus. A lot of people read my first bo

Herb of the Month is one of our most powerful learning methods for students of herbalism – and honestly, it’s great for experienced practitioners too! It’s deceptively simple: just choose an herb and work with it extensively every day for a month, in as many ways as you can come up with. At the same time, research the herb as far and wide as you can. In this way you can foreground your own direct experience with the plant, while also exploring the variety of possibilities the herb presents to you.Some of our most important herbal allies are developed through an Herb of the Month practice! Very frequently, there are aspects of an herb’s qualities, actions, and nuances that can only be appreciated through visceral exposure. Just reading the words on paper, or hearing them in a recording (or classroom), doesn’t set up the same kind of sense-memory. Herbalism starts, after all, with the plants – not with their names, or lists of their chemicals, or their precise categorization according to an ancient schema. Herb

We’re discussing the notion of amphoteric herbs today, because it’s the Spring equinox and we’re thinking about balance. The term amphoteric is orginally a chemistry term meaning “having characteristics of both an acid and a base”. Herbalists use the word to mean an herb that has a balancing activity, one that is capable of acting in ways that seem opposite, depending on the context in which it’s taken.But to understand how amphoteric herbs could be balancers in this way, first we need to investigate the concept of balance a little bit. What does it mean to find balance, or stay balanced? What does it mean that we’re all seeking balance? How can the experience of building physical balance skills teach us about finding mental & emotional balance? And of course: how can herbs help us find it, and maintain it?Herbs discussed include: tulsi, bladderwrack, nettle, chamomile, solomon’s seal, ashwagandha, licorice, calamus, hawthorn.We’ve been thinking about balance a lot lately – not just because of equinox, bu

In this episode we share a simple technique for enhancing herbal salves with tinctures. Lots of herbalists like to put essential oils in their salves, and we’re no exception – but we also want to have other methods for increasing potency. Essential oils can be costly, and they have sustainability issues in a lot of cases.Combining alcohol extracts (herbal tinctures) with oil extracts is a great way to maximize constituent availability in your finished product. We have two methods for you today. One method involves combining pre-made salves & tinctures to bring their powers together. The other method is a two-step extraction process to make sure you get the full range of constituents from a given herb. Both are easy and can be done right at home!You’ll find a mini crockpot super helpful for this work. They’re handy and not too expensive.Herbs discussed include: cayenne, solomon’s seal, kava, st john’s wort.Not feeling confident about your basic herbal salve-making abilities, let alone powered-up salves lik

We’re lucky that nowadays there are a lot of herb suppliers, so it’s convenient to purchase the majority of your herbs – especially if you live in a place where you don’t really have space to grow a garden. But there’s something really special about working with herbs that you’ve grown yourself. And, some herbs are really quite easy to grow – like calendula. So now that spring is on the way, let’s make a plan to grow your own calendula this year!Calendula is easy to grow from seed, so it’s a great choice for new gardeners. The herb isn’t too picky about growing conditions, though it does want to get a good amount of sunlight every day. A large pot or a bucket of soil on the porch, or a window box, will do just fine for growing calendula.It’s a very productive plant. You can harvest flower heads every day, and every day the plant will make new ones! So even from a small patch, you can gather enough medicine to be useful.Once you’ve grown it, you can make some herbal remedies with calendula. It’s an excellent l

This week we’re sharing a formula for an herbal cold sore remedy – a soft salve or balm that can be applied right on the sores. It’s going to serve as a jumping-off point for discussing flexible formulation. That’s the answer to the question “what can I do if I don’t have one – or any! – of the herbs in the formula as written?” If you can answer this question, you’ll be much more adaptable when you run out of herbs or when you’re away from your home apothecary.We start out with the formula we published in our book Herbal Medicine for Beginners, then we break it down from the perspective of herbal actions. After identifying the herbs that contribute vulnerary, antimicrobial, lymphatic, and nervine actions to the remedy, we can come up with substitutions that would fill similar roles.Here’s the formula as we presented it in our book, for comparison:Cold Sore BalmMakes 5 ounces (about a 3-month supply)This gentle salve is very soothing to irritated cold sores, and helps reduce inflammation while making your body

When you go to the store and buy an herbal supplement, what are you getting? It might be a capsule of powdered herb, but this is less and less common nowadays. An herbal supplement is usually some type of extract from the plant – and we herbalists make lots of extracts ourselves, like teas, tinctures, salves, etc. The difference is in the methods and materials used to make the extract, which can be quite enormous.These extracts may also be concentrated in a variety of ways. Again, this is something herbalists can do at home: cooking down a decoction or evaporating some alcohol off of a tincture are both forms of concentration. Many commercial extracts are also standardized to deliver a defined amount of a particular constituent (or group). And on the far end, some herbal supplements are actually isolated constituents, single chemicals which originated in the plant but are now being taken on their own. This is closer to pharmaceutical medicine than herbalism, if you ask us!Each of these types of preparation wi

The “wellness” space online is saturated with One Weird Tricks and Simple Easy Solutions that promise to make you perfect. Perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect body fat percentage – all this and more for 5 easy payments of $39.99… it’s a trick. Even when it’s sincere, when people really believe they’ve found the one thing that’ll work for everyone, it’s still misleading.None of us are perfect, nor can we be. Recognizing this helps us avoid scams and cults, but also helps us be more compassionate with others and offer more helpful advice. There are many ways to be healthy and many ways to get there. Don’t accept someone else’s standards of health, beauty, or fulfillment – explore, experiment, and develop your own.Does that sound hard, that mental & emotional shift? Don’t worry: it is hard! And that’s ok! It’s hard for everyone. You don’t have to be perfect in your comfort-with-imperfection, either.