An Introduction to Herbal Actions

Herbal actions — it doesn’t sound nearly as exciting or sexy as botanical monographs or the latest cure-all, does it? I’m aware that a fair number of beginning and intermediate herbalists tend to gloss over this particular subject, probably in part because of the typically vague and boring explanations given in many books and classes. What you may not realize [...]

Sweetbriar by the River: A Romance in Pictures and Rose Elixir Recipe

If I were a plant, I would be this particular plant. Not just a general Rose, but wild New Mexico Rose growing on the lush banks of the Gila’s riparian forest. Not only because the flower is exquisitely, delicately beautiful but because the Wild Rose is tough and tenacious, living through flash floods, long droughts and even cattle grazing. She [...]

Common Sense Tips for Practicing as a Village Herbalist

Common Sense Tips for Practicing as a Village Herbalist

Here you’ll find a few pointers for both neophyte and tenured herbalists practicing in rural areas based on my own experience. Seeing as my community is a tiny village in the mountains of New Mexico, I have neither office nor herb store nearby so I am my own walking dispensatory and workspace most [...]

Flowers From the FaeryGrounds: The Enchantment of Beebalm

Flowers From the FaeryGrounds: The Enchantment of Beebalm
Monsoon season is a magical time in the Southwest. The air grows heavy, the clouds roll in and the thunder rumbles across the mountains. Within days of the arrival of the first storms, the golds and sages of the semi-arid woodlands, grasslands and meadows erupt into a riot of vibrant wildflowers and lush green [...]

The Sensory Continuum in Herbal Energetics

The Sensory Continuum in Herbal Energetics
Before you can even begin to understand energetic terms like stimulating and relaxing, cooling and heating, moistening and drying, you need to realize that we are not speaking in terms of dichotomous polarities. Rather that viewing different herbs and herbal actions as opposites, realize they are actually dynamic continuums.
A continuum is “a continuous sequence in [...]

Human & Herbal Energetics: Stimulant & Relaxant

Human & Herbal Energetics: Stimulant & Relaxant

Stimulating
Tthe typical definition of stimulate is something like “to encourage or cause increased activity in a state or process”. In vitalist herbalism, as defined by Paul Bergner and the Physiomedicalists of the early 1900’s, it is  “the increase of vital expression in a tissue or organ”.
Let’s be clear, this is not just cocaine, methamphetamines, and [...]

Sweet Medicine: An Overview of Honeyed Healing and Sensory Delight

Sweet Medicine:
An Overview of Honeyed Healing and Sensory Delight

The taste of a drop of rich wildflower honey, a lick of peach elixir or a sip of spice infused cordial is sensual, comforting and ecstatic all at once. Humans crave and love all things sweet, and while it’s clear that this is the taste most easily overdone and abused, it still retains [...]

Dispelling the Myth: Cherry Leaf Tea

Dispelling the Myth: Cherry Leaf Tea

Open the herbal book nearest to you, pretty much ANY herb book. Find the section on wild cherry or chokecherry, if there is one. Now check out the contradictions or warnings. It will almost certainly command you in very authoritative tones to NEVER EVER, NOT EVER consume cherry leaves or YOU WILL SURELY DIE. Poisonous, toxic, [...]

The Elder Mother’s Pantry: An Herbal Materia Medica for Influenza and Other Cold-Weather Ailments

The Elder Mother’s Pantry:
An Herbal Materia Medica for Influenza and Other Cold-Weather Ailments

As the colder weather begins to move into the northerly reaches and higher eleveations of the Western hemisphere, there’s been much talk of the dreaded H1N1 as well as other virulent strains of cold and flu. The most important action you can take this is preventative in nature, including [...]

Blue Mountain Tea: A Sunny Medicine for Cloudy Days

Blue Mountain Tea: A Sunny Medicine for Cloudy Days

Common Names: Goldenrod, Blue Mountain Tea, Liberty Tea
Botanical Name: Solidago spp.
Taste & Impression: Bitter, Aromatic, Astringent, sl. diffusive
Energetics: Warm, Dry
Parts Used: Flowers & Flower Buds, Leaves, Roots
Actions: digestive bitter, alterative, stimulant and relaxant nervine, diaphoretic, astringent, digestive aromatic (and carminative), diuretic, vulnerary, anti-inflammatory, bacteria-balancing (often termed anti-infective)
Specific Indications: Red, inflamed eyes, “bad [...]