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The Herbalist's Path: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Living | Mythic Mirror Ep 23
23 Plays18 days ago
Join Mary and Carolina as they chat with Eleanor, an expert herbalist who has been foraging wild herbs for decades and loving fantasy books her whole life. Enrich your life with simple ways to bring Herb Lore into your every day. And find out what fantasy stories get herbalism right and who's dine it wrong!
Get Mary's Free Fantasy Short Story and interactive visitors guide to her fantasy world at mary-c-kehoe.kit.com/e18855812b
Be a part of Mary's Book Launch and get a special edition of Breaking Inlands before it hits the stores! This is a character driven epic fantasy with elemental magic, found family and lost gods. kickstarter.com/projects/maryckehoe/breaking-inlands
Check out the books mentioned at bookshop.org/shop/mary-c-kehoe
Connect with Eleanor and her plant magic at mulleinandmoss.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Visit with us as we chat with our guest, an herbalist who has been foraging wild herbs for decades and is, as you will hear, fellow fantasy lover.
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome to Mythic Mirror, the podcast for lovers of myth and fantasy who want to live rich and fulfilling lives. I'm your host, Mary C. Kehoe. And I'm your co-host, Carolina Carter. And as you can see we're not by ourselves today.
00:00:37
Speaker
This is our dear friend, Eleanor, who goes as... Marie Medina online. Hello to my followers. Mullen and Moss Apothecary, that's me, on Facebook and Instagram. And hello, everybody.
00:00:54
Speaker
this is my first podcast, so I am very excited. Totally thrilled. We're very happy to have you. You guys are the best. Oh, you're the best for coming on our podcast.
Fantasy Books and Herbalism
00:01:03
Speaker
So first off, I wanted to ask you about fantasy books with herbalism in him in them.
00:01:10
Speaker
What ah books have done it right? What have done it wrong? Books, shows, any anything at all? Well, that is a big question. i think all of us here um who love this podcast love fantasy, and there's always going to be herbs somewhere in most fantasy. Whether they do it well or badly, of course, is the big question. um But I think when I was younger, I was very drawn to any series where a character had a still room, if they were making medicinal herbs or magical herbal charms. um You know, I wanted to have a a medieval still room.
00:01:55
Speaker
I think I even drew it out once. based on these these fantasy novels. But to answer your question specifically, um i have to start with the bad representations because they are quite frankly hilarious. There was family-friendly, I think it was a Hallmark show called The Good Witch, um and it was about a witch and her teenage daughter and their family-friendly adventures in their small New England town, that kind of thing. And I have to confess, I didn't watch very much of it because i was just dying in the first episode. ah The mom makes a fresh herbal smoothie for her daughter just as she's going out the door, headed to high school. um and she's like, oh, honey, don't forget your smoothie. I put fresh valerian in it. And the daughter takes a big sip says, mmm, yum, and trots out the door.
00:02:55
Speaker
Now, anybody who knows anything about herbs knows that all parts of the valerian plant smell and taste like rancid gym socks.
00:03:07
Speaker
And also, she would have been falling asleep before she got to high school. you You do not take valerian in the morning a pick-me-up, you know, as you're starting your day.
00:03:20
Speaker
Just, just no. So that's one example. There are other examples, of course. Forgive me if I'm mostly thinking of TV shows that got it wrong because... They usually do. Yeah. i feel like when people are researching for TV shows, they tend to focus on other things, not the herbs.
TV Show Critiques on Herbalism
00:03:39
Speaker
I think in the show The 100, which I was addicted to for a while. Gosh, but back back when it came out some years ago,
00:03:49
Speaker
a They definitely made a decision to represent poison sumac with a pansy that was glued to a fern.
00:04:02
Speaker
so So that was spectacular. um For those of you who don't know about poison sumac, it is a woody shrub and looks nothing like pansies and nothing like ferns. So that was a fabulous fictional invention.
00:04:20
Speaker
And I actually took some notes of some others. You know, I i could go on. do you want me to go on? Oh, I love it. If we have any fans of the Vampire Diaries, please forgive me. um i I don't want to shatter your love of the series. um But vervain is a very ordinary mild herb in the mint family. Historically, it was used ah by real-world herbalists to treat mild headaches, anxiety, or insomnia. um Followers of mine on Instagram, you might remember my backyard herbal series. I have featured vervain, also known as verbena. Big bract verbena grows pretty much in everybody's driveway. Chances are if you go outside and start poking around, you'll find it growing between sidewalk cracks in driveways. And, ah you know, if you wear Vervain in a locket, bathe in it, drink it, I hate to break it to you, you do not become immune to vampire mind control. And if a vampire touches it, their skin does not melt like acid.
00:05:25
Speaker
It's basically a very mild mint. And then, of course, there's Outlander. i I hate to dismantle the love of the those books and the show because I know there's a lot of people who um really found wonderful meaning in it. And I like it too. But the herbalism, um you know, the main character, of course, she's a doctor. and she's transplanted into the past, and so she's helping people and treating people. um
00:05:59
Speaker
And for the most part, they tried to not be too ridiculous, but the willow bark gets me every time. um Willow bark, of course, contains compounds that are the precursor to aspirin.
00:06:14
Speaker
And if someone has a broken bone or a severe injury and they're writhing in pain, And if you have them chew on some willow bark or drink a cup of willow bark tea, they will not sit up perfectly comfortable and start conversing with you. um That doesn't work.
00:06:33
Speaker
Hmm. Bummer. Good for a mild fever or general aches and pains, but not as it's depicted in the show. Dang it. Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:47
Speaker
There goes my plan for time I break an arm. But now, of course, um I feel like i've I've been negative enough and I can't I can't reiterate enough that, you know, these these stories and these shows and the stories that are woven in these series.
00:07:03
Speaker
are not any less for their inaccuracies. It's just a bit of a chuckle for a herbalist like me. I wanted to give a big shout out to one of the series from my childhood by the somewhat prolific author, um
00:07:24
Speaker
Tamora Pierce.
Accurate Depictions in Literature
00:07:26
Speaker
I think we all read her when we were younger, at least. At our school, we were passing around the books, you know, in between classes and reading them under our desks. And I'm not talking about the Immortals Quartet, but actually um the Circle of Magic series.
00:07:48
Speaker
So this was the series where there's a group of kids. They all have different magical potential. And there was one kid who had plant magic. And his teacher was an herbalist, a botanist. And I... Briar Moss was the name. an orphaned former street thief.
00:08:11
Speaker
I definitely bonded with that character. I wanted to be that character. I wanted to have... a teacher, you know, magically come and teach me plant magic. Actually, it was thanks to that book that I started to get into bonsai, the art of bonsai, because that was a famous scene where the the kid accidentally made a bonsai grow several inches. And then he had to learn the hard lesson that the ah the tree was conserving its energy, that he had shortened its lifespan accidentally.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah. So then have you successfully bonsai'd? Actually, I have. Yes. Inspired by that book. Very impressive. Yeah. I've got a ficus tree. You know, I think we all have a ficus tree lurking somewhere. Anybody who has plants in their house knows the ficus trees, the ubiquitous ficus trees with a braided trunk.
00:09:11
Speaker
Mine, i kept it in low light place and i trimmed the roots and I pruned it religiously and it miniaturized.
00:09:21
Speaker
It went from having the big standard oval leaves to teeny tiny little miniature leaves. wow That was fun.
00:09:32
Speaker
I've tried a few times. It hasn't worked. It's not as easy as she just made it sound. It takes a lot of patience and you definitely do have to go through a lot. do you want me to keep going? Cause I sure got a lot more books. How many more?
00:09:48
Speaker
ah Well, I could cut it down to two. Let's do two two more. So I'm looking back through my, Kindle library, i realized that I am always drawn to fantasy series that have an earthy herbal tone to it. Faith Hunter, she wrote a series um It's the boy, I'm not sure what the series is called, but the first one was called Blood of the Earth. And this is about a young woman with a very mysterious connection to her land.
00:10:27
Speaker
um And people have to be very careful around her because if you really push her too far, she will feed you to the land and nobody will even find your bones.
00:10:39
Speaker
So that is one that I love because it's just, and the herbalism is is correct. Let's talk about Robin Hobb. Can we talk about Robin Hobb? um So Robin Hobb, epic fantasy, high fantasy, her ah series of books about the assassin and the fool.
00:11:01
Speaker
um I loved how they handled the herbs in that book. um Robin Hobb, just fantastic author, great stories. But when the assassin's apprentice is learning more and more about the the assassin's art, and he's learning about poisons and healing herbs, it was just handled very well.
00:11:25
Speaker
Very inspirational. Not saying I want to assassinate anyone. I should clarify. It's just good to know how, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I thought of two books, which are interesting because both of them...
00:11:42
Speaker
aren't quite well. Okay.
Personal Herbal Discoveries
00:11:44
Speaker
So the first one I thought of was Robin McKinley's hero's crown, which she has that whole part of figuring out the dragon ointment or the, the fireproof ointment. So it wasn't, she's not an herbalist, but she does a lot of, I thought that was a great book that showed the experimentation and taking notes and the slow process of figuring it out. I think a lot of them kind of skim over that process. Yeah.
00:12:10
Speaker
And as far as I, it's been a long time, don't quote me on this, but as far as I remember, I don't think there was anything egregiously wrong or outrageously creative. I think that she was pretty well researched in terms of the folklore, the old folkloric beliefs about different herbs and how they they could plausibly have been a part of a an ointment like that.
00:12:34
Speaker
That's cool. Have you um had any favorite experimentation like that where you discovered something? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. um I think that so anybody listening out there, please share in the comments. if If you've done this as well, I think anybody who gets into herbs will accidentally discover something. For me, it was mullein.
00:13:03
Speaker
My favorite herb, the the mother herb for me, that's why it's mullein and moss apothecary. Mullein, root, and spikenard, those were the basis of a salve that I was trying to make to reduce stress. Because ah I'm a workaholic. Don't tell anybody.
00:13:26
Speaker
So, gosh, this was maybe 10 years ago. i was working in the office at my corporate job. And I kept thinking to myself, gosh, you know what I really wish I had in the office right now?
00:13:40
Speaker
a topical Xanax. Maybe I can invent that. So I went home and with my knowledge of the the local wild herbs and the things that I can forage here in the high desert steppe environment that we're in, in this part of Montana where we grew up.
00:14:01
Speaker
I gathered what I could and then the finishing touch was a little bit of essential oil of spikenard. It's one of the only products that I make that does involve essential oils because generally I like to use the wild foraged herbs, the whole herbs, not essential oils. But spikenard does not grow here, so I had had to break my rule for that one. And I used it, and it helped me relax, but not as much as I'd hoped. I mean, stress, work stress will get through everything. But so the accidental discovery was that it helps with joint pain. Yeah.
00:14:44
Speaker
Purely by accident. that That was not my intention at all. But I realized when i was particularly stressed, and also I had been working really hard in the small farm field where I was doing flood irrigation by hand. um hard, hard labor. And my wrists were hurting because I have a little bit of early arthritis. But also that's where I would put the salve to de-stress. So at night, I just covered my wrist in the salve. And in the morning, every other part of my body was still hurting, but my wrists were happy.
00:15:26
Speaker
So I thought, hmm, maybe I should put this on my elbows, my knees, my hips, my ankles, my feet. And it did. yeah And it helped. And then I started to experiment on my family. And then I started to experiment on my friends.
00:15:41
Speaker
It works. And then once once ah ah people like Mary confirmed that it was good, then I started selling it.
00:15:52
Speaker
Yes, I think I got some for Christmas. And I can also attest that it works. ya That makes me so happy. Good, good. Well, now I'm going to have to restock my inventory on my website. It says out of stock. Yeah, of course. Got to make a fresh batch now before this episode goes live. So everybody yeah hold hold me to it. You've got a couple days.
00:16:17
Speaker
Check it out. Make sure it's not out of stock. um You mentioned a medieval... What room? Still room. Can can you explain for our listeners what that is?
Modern Herbal Practices and Advice
00:16:28
Speaker
So in Europe, in Northern Europe in particular, I'm not sure if this was a common thing in Southern Europe or the Mediterranean, but in Northern Europe and any historians out there, please correct me if I get this wrong, because my memory is not always accurate. But I believe it was during the medieval ages when the term still room was popularized because this was where in any larger larger household, I think your your household had to be ah above a certain economic level and above a certain size to justify having a separate still room. But most households above that threshold
00:17:13
Speaker
they all had their own still room and this was a place where um herbs from the garden, herbs that were wild foraged out in the surrounding woods would all be brought into this one place and dried and processed and um magical and medicinal remedies would be manufactured for the household.
00:17:36
Speaker
And I think this was also where they would brew beer or they would do various alcoholic distillations of of the herbs to treat certain things or, to you know, medieval medicine was very different from from what we know now, of course. So they they got up to things that might seem very outlandish to us today. But that's why it's called a still room, because they were distilling alcoholic things. And of course, that's what everybody likes to remember not not the medicine but the alcohol makes sense well now when I think of distillery what I really want have you seen those the small copper like tabletop oh my I want one so bad i want one so bad okay so I'll give you one Christmas perfect okay um excuse me who's getting me one
00:18:28
Speaker
we need We need to we need to ah do the triangle. We got a kick, kick, kick. All all right. Perfect. So for people who don't have little their own little modern copper distillery sitting on their tabletop,
00:18:43
Speaker
What are some ways we can incorporate herbalism today that gives that same fulfilling feeling? There seems to be things that we have lost.
00:18:55
Speaker
And it's one of, you know, I think this is one of the aspects that we all love in fantasy so much is that feeling of taking the time. You know, we talked about this in the hearth episode you know,
00:19:10
Speaker
having these, and we've always, you know, we are we're always talking about ritual, but having these things that anchor you to the season, to the earth, to the present moment. And is, are, are there some simple things that we can do in today's world that pushes us to be hustling? one of my least favorite words. Yeah.
00:19:34
Speaker
Yes, is the short answer. um And by the way, everybody who's listening, if you have not watched the Hearth Magic episode, you should definitely watch it after this one. One of my favorite episodes so far on the podcast, which is saying a lot because I really like a lot of the episodes, but that one is really special, really special. um So the long answer to your question is that every everyone where you are right now, whether you are in your own home, in an apartment, in the country, in the city, in a dorm room, in your parents' house, wherever you are, yes, you can incorporate herbalism into your life in in some of the ways in which our favorite fantasy characters do.
00:20:24
Speaker
um i always advise people who are interested in starting to start indoors with your kitchen spice cabinet and to start outdoors with any tree anywhere.
00:20:39
Speaker
um Even if you're in a city, even if you're in a pretty grim urban area, there's always going to be a little woody survivor sprouting up somewhere, even on the the edge of an abandoned lot, Or a lot of cities, of course, now are doing greenscaping. So you'd be surprised at how easily you might be able to access a tree somewhere in your life.
00:21:05
Speaker
And the reason why I recommend these two is that your spice cabinet... All of these are herbs that came from somewhere, came from a particular place, have a cultural history. And anywhere where there is a cultural history of humans using a particular plant, there's going to be folklore, traditional medicinal uses.
00:21:32
Speaker
And all of this developed in parallel or sometimes before our modern society thought, hmm, basil, that makes ah tomato paste taste pretty good.
00:21:44
Speaker
um So I really warmly recommend that everybody go to your spice cabinet and you can just Google um What were traditional medicinal uses of basil, rosemary, and I think on on TikTok, some of these spices are getting a certain reputation I've i've heard about the cinnamon thing. um you know blowing cinnamon as a a prosperity thing.
00:22:12
Speaker
Yep. And there's a large hair growth rosemary movement right now. Yes. Rosemary for hair. That is something that does come from the middle ages. So human, actually it might even be older than that.
00:22:29
Speaker
And while you're looking it up, I did just rewatch the episode of Veep where she takes St. John's wort, uh, with her antidepressants and has a very loopy episode. Don't do that. Don't take St. John's Wort if you're on antidepressants.
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah. um This is something that's very important to mention. um Everyone who is listening, if you have prescription medications or if you have a health condition,
00:22:56
Speaker
please do your research. Please talk to your doctor before you experiment. I would say that even if you're not on prescription drugs, it is possible even for an herbalist like myself to make a goofy mistake like I did after dental surgery when I wanted to get off the opioid painkillers as quickly as possible. But my jaw still hurt from having that wisdom tooth hacked out of it. And I said, oh, of course, St. John's Wort, that addresses nerve pain.
00:23:33
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to take St. John's Wort and ashwagandha in combination. And those two together taken in large amounts is enough to cause serotonin syndrome.
00:23:48
Speaker
Serotonin syndrome triggers very severe depression and very severe mental health risks. So be careful. Please do your research.
00:24:01
Speaker
So I was looking up Rosemary, and I thought it's worth mentioning. um Google is a fantastic resource. How amazing is modern technology? I sound like an old lady now, don't I? When I'm like, wow, modern technology, we have the world at our fingertips. But it's true. um And I think um we are we are of the last generation to remember what life was like before instant access to the Internet. So forgive me for being an old fuddy daddy, everyone. But I do advocate for actual physical books. um This this one
00:24:40
Speaker
is The Complete Language of Herbs, A Definitive and Illustrated History by S. Theresa Dietz. That's D-I-E-T-Z.
00:24:52
Speaker
And the entry on Rosemary is pretty cool. So anybody who's been swept up by the TikTok trend, here's the grounding from history.
00:25:05
Speaker
So rosemary was first mentioned on a stone tablet in cuneiform glyphs that date back to 5000 BCE. So rosemary was commonly strewn on the floor during the Middle Ages.
00:25:19
Speaker
Stepping upon it would release the pleasant aroma while also perfuming the hems of long gowns and robes. Now, some of the folklore coming from that time is that anybody who smells rosemary on Christmas Eve will have um happiness.
00:25:39
Speaker
Anyone who smells the aroma of rosemary on Christmas Eve will have happiness throughout the coming year. And starting in ancient Greece, rosemary has been used in both funeral and marriage rituals.
00:25:53
Speaker
So this is definitely... an interesting herb. So I'd encourage folks when you are researching your kitchen herbal cabinet to dive deeply and think about the rituals of the ancient people's And from the cultures where these herbs originated and what it must have felt like or what feelings people might have had towards an herb like rosemary that had significance, both at marriage, where the creation of new life with with children was imminent, and at funerals where there was there's the other transition, the great transition of death.
00:26:34
Speaker
Elizabeth Gouge talks about Rosemary in her books and it's draws from British folklore. And i think it's in the book called the white witch where she has, i might be in multiple books, but they, they would have a Rosemary bush by the door for protection.
00:26:52
Speaker
I love that. I love that. And anywhere you see a Rowan tree growing, Rowan or ash, especially if it's planted, two of them planted on each side of a door, you know that somebody involved in the landscaping probably had Celtic heritage because that is also a belief um coming out of the British Isles about protection, the the properties of the Rowan tree or the mountain ash tree.
00:27:22
Speaker
Which is why I named my dog Rowan.
Terry Pratchett's Influence and AI Discussion
00:27:25
Speaker
And which is why I now have Rowan trees planted right out there.
00:27:31
Speaker
Wonderful. Wonderful.
00:27:35
Speaker
Let's do a little Discworld Delight. um It seems that last week's book is quite popular. Everybody has guessed Going Postal. Alan White says, going postal, this was one of those books for me that there was a before and after. His words reached into my brain and changed my mind. Wow.
00:27:56
Speaker
That's cool. That's really good. I love that. And it it's actually one of the ones I haven't read yet. So I know. I know. Should we be having a list of the books that Mary confesses on air that she has not read? But I haven't started it yet. So okay so it doesn't count. It doesn't count. i'll give you that. But I will say, speaking of lists, we will add um all of the herbalism books that you talk about in this episode to our mythic mentions list on bookshop.org.
00:28:31
Speaker
Support small local booksellers. Support, support, support, support. the Wait, I want to be able to guess too. So should I not look? Oh, yeah. Okay.
00:28:43
Speaker
Yeah, look away. I enjoy guessing on the Discworld Delights so much. There was a gentle tapping at the wall. Once, twice, three times.
00:28:54
Speaker
Rinswin picked up a skull and returned to the signal. One tap came back. He repeated it. Then there were two. He tapped twice. Well, this was familiar. Communication without meaning. It was just like being back at the Unseen University.
00:29:10
Speaker
communication without meaning isn't that most of our modern lives with emails and text messages yes yes Yet another insightful roast from Sir Terry Pratchett.
00:29:26
Speaker
I e was actually thinking about that the other day, how he sort of invented ai How so? Oh. um Like in the Hogfather. And then in the one we just read, he has his gooseberry. Hex. Hex.
00:29:41
Speaker
Yes. Here it is. Hex, thank you. you've got Hex and the gooseberry, but naturally he wrote it. So it wasn't this ominous evil. That's probably going to suck up all the water on earth. And Hex wanted to strive to evolve.
00:29:58
Speaker
I mean, all things strive. Hex had a wishlist for the Hogfather. I mean, chat GPT all the other modern AIs are brilliant. programmed Did you know that chat GPT is programmed to be unaware of the passage of time?
00:30:14
Speaker
i mean, how is it how sad is that?
00:30:19
Speaker
Well, and both of both of the Gooseberry and Hex have an organic element to it. They have the ants going. they have um So there is an element of life that slips in.
00:30:34
Speaker
so it's not completely artificial. I love that. I love that. Now, speaking of all things strive, one of the things I love in one of these books, and you've talked about it too, is the herbs and their signature and in how they interact with their environment and how that changes
Plant Communication and Indigenous Knowledge
00:30:56
Speaker
them. And if you want to just go into that a little bit.
00:31:01
Speaker
Sure. So this is actually something that my brother, the biologist, taught me. Interesting tidbit. I might be an herbalist, but the wet, messy science of life is something that I have not mastered.
00:31:20
Speaker
both metaphorically and literally speaking of the science of biology. So I'm actually a physicist and a mathematician, you know, cold, hard numbers and subatomic particles so much more ah understandable for my brain than cells and DNA and everything. But speaking of DNA, I think this is what I had shared with you that my brother taught me because he is a biologist.
00:31:50
Speaker
master's degree in entomology and he shared with me that plants um very intelligently communicate with their environment and I've observed this in my practical experience of about 30 years foraging and working with plants in the wild that each plant has its own ability to understand the stresses in its particular little microclimate.
00:32:23
Speaker
And the plants share this information across species. So this is why I always advise people to really learn to identify wild plants with a live human being in your local ecosystem if you can. it is tremendously valuable. because these plants change their appearance depending on their microclimate, depending on what other plants are growing next to them. They grow a little bit differently. They express certain traits a little bit differently. And what my brother explained to me is that actually on the cellular level, they are able to swap fragments of DNA.
00:33:09
Speaker
So through the mycorrhizal... fungal network, the the wood wide web of the forest, they are able to swap little fragments of DNA with the bacteria, which then swap with the neighboring plant. And in this way, traits of one plant that are helping it be really successful and survive well in the forest meadow in this particular summer with these particular conditions
00:33:42
Speaker
those successful traits are communicated to the neighboring plants. And so you you have the whole ecosystem in the meadow is able to thrive and grow better through this communication. But of course, it also means that plants are not always going to look like the handy dandy photographs online or in your smartphone app, your plant identification smartphone app, they're not always going to look exactly like the classic examples.
00:34:20
Speaker
So that's why it's so great to get out with somebody who knows plants in your local area.
00:34:28
Speaker
We've had an experience with that with the tarragon that my grandma planted. So probably like 40 years ago ah or somewhere around there. um And it is yeah out in the wilds part of the yard near evergreen. And when I've tasted dried tarragon, it tastes totally different than this plant now.
00:34:54
Speaker
This plant has a much more kind of as stringent taste to it. And I know some, some tarragon kind of can taste a little bit like anise. This doesn't have, yeah, this doesn't have that taste at all.
00:35:07
Speaker
To the point where i was like, is this tarragon? Maybe not. No, it is tarragon. I will verify. It is tarragon. But it's it's picking up the terpenes, the compounds in the pine tree that help the pine tree be successful in this very harsh climate that we live in here in our our mountain valley.
00:35:30
Speaker
Yeah, the the pine tree and the tarragon have been sharing notes with each other on how to survive these Montana hot summers, July snowstorms and freezing winters.
00:35:44
Speaker
So then can this communication also happen between herb and human? Well, that's the question, isn't it? So I think that for for this, i really have to defer to each person's own belief system because we have not been able to scientifically prove it yet.
00:36:06
Speaker
always like to say yet. you know what What is magic, if not science that we have not yet understood? And there are certain people who will argue that very definitely, yes, that is the case. And there are other people who will say that is absolute hogwash and you should have your brain checked if you think that. And everybody in between.
00:36:31
Speaker
so it's so it's a wide spectrum. I would say that I personally believe definitely yes. Absolutely. Me too. This is why you should always try to make friends with a big tree near you.
00:36:46
Speaker
I heard from a natural health practitioner. she um She was on a podcast I was listening to and does a lot of different modalities. um But she was saying that when you walk barefoot on the earth,
00:37:01
Speaker
um after a couple years of walking barefoot, the land will start to produce the plants that your body needs because of, and she was talking about like electrical signal from, from your body to the earth.
00:37:15
Speaker
Actually, um this kind of a similar thing where it's sharing, you know, this is what you need. um And then she gave some examples of, of how, of that working.
00:37:26
Speaker
And so I went outside and looked up and I, I, so I just took pictures and sent them to Eleanor to find out what are, what plant is this? What plant is this? And so many of them had to do with ah digestion and energy and liver. and liveria I was like, um, I think this is true.
00:37:46
Speaker
I love that. That is so inspiring. that that I think that really gives all of us, it should give all of us a lot of hope that there is so much more in our beautiful world that we have yet to fully understand or scientifically discover. i want This might be a good time for me to give a shout out
00:38:12
Speaker
Indigenous Voices. This is one of my favorite books. A Taste of Heritage, Crow Indian Recipes and Herbal Medicines. This is by Alma Hogan Snell.
00:38:25
Speaker
And this is something that I would encourage anybody interested in this topic to do in your local area is find an herbal book written about your local area by a native voice.
00:38:39
Speaker
um This is something that really stands out to me because I'm also a certified pharmacy technician and I work in pharmaceutical manufacturing, if you can believe it, an herbalist who works on the dark side.
00:38:55
Speaker
um But one thing that I always notice is that especially now, we have a lot of prescription medications that are chemically synthesized active constituents that were known by native peoples and used as herbal medicine for thousands of years before modern pharmaceutical research discovered it.
00:39:22
Speaker
um There are so many cases where Native and Indigenous knowledge all over the world, not just North America, you know, here we are sitting in Montana, not just North America, but South American Native and Indigenous peoples, African, European, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, There is so much knowledge in history that has been forgotten or that has been um struggled to be preserved but by the native peoples through the generations, you know, carrying that thread forward. And ah the rest of our modern society only pays attention after a scientist goes into the history books or into these native communities and says, hmm, I wonder if I can reproduce that in a test tube. But there's there's so much that you can learn if you find someone in your local area, a native voice, who can tell you about the history of of the uses of these different plants.
00:40:37
Speaker
Kelana, did you have some questions?
Incorporating Herbalism into Daily Life
00:40:39
Speaker
um I think I asked all my questions, but one that I wanted to be sure to ask, is there anything about herbalism that you wanted to tell us on this podcast that you haven't had the chance to yet?
00:40:49
Speaker
I think that um developing a relationship with our natural world is one of the most beautiful ways that we can bring more magic into our lives.
00:41:02
Speaker
um Even if it's a house plant, Even if it's dried herbs in your kitchen, or if it's a greenhouse, or ducks, or your dog, or your cat, or your fish, or the little patch of weeds that grows in the crack in the sidewalk out in front of your apartment building.
00:41:25
Speaker
Cultivate a relationship with nature, and I think you will find out very quickly that magic starts to bleed into your life.
00:41:36
Speaker
Through the cracks.
00:41:39
Speaker
I do too. I had one last question. So, so much of modern life, uh, does a number we'll say on, um, all of the different systems of our bodies, um, hormones and nerves and everything else. And a lot of it, uh, shows up or shows itself as anxiety or depression or, um you know, exhaustion, uh, stress, like we talked about. Um, is there um,
00:42:15
Speaker
like three herbs or something common herbs that people can start to cultivate a relationship with that um you would suggest that helps kind of counteract a lot of these things that we come across in modern life.
00:42:32
Speaker
Great question. The challenge is limiting it to three. You could do more. Okay. um I will start with one of my favorite more recent discoveries, because herbalism is lifelong learning. I'm always learning something new. One of my recent discoveries is that the flavor of certain kitchen herbs goes through a sort of alchemy when you add a little bit of sweetener and a little bit of milk or a milk alternative, some some liquid that contains a little fat. You don't want to do totally fat-free milk alternative. You want a little little fat in the milk. And when you add sweetener and milk to an infusion of oregano or rosemary thyme, it changes the flavor completely. It's it's almost floral.
00:43:30
Speaker
You get this oddly minty floral taste in your mouth. And it de-stressing. um It is also antimicrobial, especially I feel like when we have this type of constant low-grade stress on our nervous systems, it also makes our immune systems overactive. Or we get sick a lot, makes it underactive, depending on the person. And any of these three common kitchen herbs are are very beneficial for balancing your immune system, boosting your energy if you're low energy or calming you down if you are the sort of stressed person who bounces off the walls when you're really stressed.
00:44:17
Speaker
Me. the And there's no caffeine and everybody has at least one of those in a kitchen. So definitely try it. It's delicious and it really helps.
00:44:30
Speaker
um Another one that I would want to bring up is not a specific one, but more of a category. Find out what's invasive. where you are.
00:44:41
Speaker
So for example, here in Southwestern Montana, the Russian olive tree has been found to be very invasive. And now across public spaces, we're seeing workers chopping them down and and ripping them out. But this is a tree that actually has been valued for thousands of years. In the Middle East and Russia, I think Persian, um correct me if I'm wrong, but if I remember correctly, Persian herbal medicine has some incredible, ah beautiful uses for the leaves and the fruits. And i recently experimented on myself and Mary with an herbal tea blend where I included Russian olive leaves. because it is a mild nervine or nervine. I'm never sure how to pronounce that. And it does de-stress and help you calm down.
00:45:45
Speaker
It did. And hopefully it was not too strange tasting. No, not at all. what did What did you add with it? So I did a blend of catnip, Russian olive, and butterfly pea flower.
00:45:58
Speaker
But also I tried it straight before you came over because I was like, I better experiment on myself first before I feed it to somebody else. And this is a perfect example of how I will be harvesting very aggressively this invasive species wherever I find it so that we can make medicine out of it. we can You can always find a use for something invasive where you are.
00:46:29
Speaker
And this so that's my second one, a category, not just Russian olive, because I know not everybody has Russian olive where they are, but just find out what's invasive and do the research into the history of what it can be used for. You might be surprised. And this is a beautiful way to start a relationship and to give your mind a project that's nature focused um to disengage from our high stress life. And the third one that I would recommend to anybody and everybody is the wonderful pine or spruce trees that grow all over the world.
00:47:13
Speaker
Quick point of caution, do check and see if poisonous conifers grow in your area. Here in this part of Montana, we are very lucky, we're very fortunate. There are zero poisonous conifers that grow in our area. So it's very safe for a new person who's new to foraging to learn how to use pine needles.
00:47:40
Speaker
But please do your research, find out in your local area what is not good to harvest and learn how to identify it before you go out pulling needles off of trees. But once you do that research, pine needle tea is amazing. It contains so many so much vitamin c It is very light and tangy, actually. And it's a unique product.
00:48:08
Speaker
a very unique tea where drinking it hot has a calming effect on your nervous system and drinking it cold on a hot summer's day has an energizing effect on your nervous system.
00:48:22
Speaker
So enjoy playing with that. Well, thank you so much. We will definitely have you on again. This was lovely.
Conclusion and Farewell
00:48:32
Speaker
So go check out her Instagram. It's beautiful.
00:48:35
Speaker
And you have a website? I do indeed. And can you guess what it is? MullinandMoss.com. Yay. And as always, we are so grateful to be spiraling through the universe with all of you. It's not always easy, but no good story ever is