jichaela and jarrie jann in jan francisco

nettles and geraniums growing in urban harmony!

dear Everybody,

last week Aralia Allheart and I went to California to visit our dear beautiful friend and herbal tattoo designer Sarah in San Francisco, land of handsome hippies and magical plants...

a jade island!

slide ranch garden!

wildcrafting featured in the in-flight magazine!
ferns, nettles, dandelions!

garlic mustard and morels!

chamomile in sidewalk cracks!

redwood grove!

xoxo

School

Hey Sisters & Brother!

I'm wondering if any of you have heard anything about The California School of Herbal Studies, or Columbine's School of Botanical Studies as far as Herbal Education. I am seriously considering applying to go back to school for herbs come spring and am curious as to if you have heard anything good or bad about either program...or if you have any better suggestions!

Love to you all. I miss you all so much and think of you often (near daily).

xo

Cranky Canker

So I got a canker sore. First time.

They're so terribly painful! And can last up to a month.

It just kept getting worse and worse, bigger and bigger. I brushed, used listerine multiple times a day (it helped dull the pain), and tried not to eat anything that would aggravate it.

And it just kept getting worse and worse.

Then, I thought I had pin worms. Eww. My anus was itching a little and it freaked me out. I started taking Yarrow for the pin worms because it spoke to me, and I read that Oregon Grape might help with the canker sore.

Turns out putting the Yarrow directly on the canker sore after brushing twice daily cleared it up in about 4 days. And it didn't hurt. I'm in love with Yarrow for so many reasons. Plus, I had my gentleman friend analyze a strip of scotch tape from my bum, I don't have pin worms!

Love and Miss You All. Anyone looking for a roomie?

XOXO

winter tea

a recipe for the most wonderful tea made by my teacher corinne.

an equal mix of cinnamon chips, rose hips, spruce tips, dried black elderberries
a little bit less of whole peppercorns, orange peel, a pinch of burdock

(she also puts some devil's club root bark in it but that's harder to find)

i hope everyone's fall is full of leaves and frost and the good kind of heartache.
p.s. you all are welcome to come visit me in olympiaaaa, always and whenever!

i laughed, i cried, i brushed my teeth with nettle tea

"an attitude of gratitude is the beginning of everything." --The Elders

last weekend i went to the southeast women's herbal conference in the beautiful and ancient blue ridge mountains. we registered under our first names, not our patriarchal patrilineage. there was much singing and merrymaking and drumming and walking and listening and laughing and tears. it was basically the herbaculture internship crammed in one weekend, but without the kitty crisis. the conference focused on

simple living
local plants
and
deep nourishment

"we are midwifing each other back into wholeness," we said.

i slept in a cozy tent nest beside a misty lake under a waning moon and woke to wild honking geese. i brushed my teeth with nettle tea. i dreamed of bright birds. i ate acorn/autumn olive/chinese chestnut/sweet potato cornbread. i awoke my venus. i danced around a fire. i slept past 7. i went to a class devoted to burdock root. i never considered a shower. i reconnected with old friends. i held burning mugwort over my leg three miles.

...and other secrets too sacred for a blog, even this one.

love to ally'all

Skullcap + Turtlehead

Skullcap only grows wild in the most beautiful, serene forest streams. Pretty much. Which is why it brings such a sense of peace to many people. This I think, having met the plant in it's native home.

Turtlehead sometimes grows nearby. Its flower is a turtle head - seriously. Sticking its tongue out. And it can be used medicinally - it gives people giggles. Giggleiferous. Haven't tried out my tincture yet... Check it.

summer time

in june, i started going to an herb class being taught by a really wonderful local herbalist, corinne boyer. there are five other people in the class and we meet every week at corinne and her partner's farm in shelton, wa, which is a rural town near olympia. it's sooooo beautiful, she has 40 acres of woods in which to wildcraft, a stream, pastures, the world's most charming milk cow...and i have been learning a lot! it has been keeping me really excited about the millions of ways to interact with and learn about herbs.
yesterday was one of my favorite classes. we learned about and made a bunch of different smoking blends, smoked them out of wooden pipes and drank cherry wine. i was really excited to learn that you can smoke almost any medicinal herb as a way of getting its benefits, and also that when smoking out of a tobacco-style pipe you don't need to inhale to get the benefit of the smoke, you can just puff on it and your mouth's mucous membranes will absorb the properties. which is wonderful for me, the world's most inelegant inhaler of smoke.
i was especially happy about my smoking blend cause everything in it was either wildcrafted by me or hand picked by someone i knew. it had our local and incredibly magical kind of mugwort (artemisia suksdorffi), sweet annie from the herb pharm, ceanothus leaves from williams, mullein from my classmate, and some hops from corinne's friend. it tasted really artemisian and bitter at first, with a magical sweet annie fragrance afterward.

i've also become totally enchanted with yarrow, a plant i never really noticed before, but it's everywhere here and so beautiful. the bitter, sweetly fetid smell is enchanting. i went wildcrafting in a prairie and found bright creamy white yarrow that smells like rotting honey and sunlight. some pink yarrow came up in my backyard too!
in addition to helping external bleeding, yarrow also has an affinity for all kinds of blood-related things, including cramps and stagnant blood. it is a really strongly purifying and healing and protecting plant. it is also one of those plants is a good example of how wise herbs are; it can both cause and stop the same symptoms, depending on who takes it and in what context. i think that is really magical. yarrow knows what it's doing in there. there's a string of seven bundles of yarrow drying next to my bed and it has made my little room feel like the coziest and witchiest spot.

i hope everyone is well, i miss you all like crazy.
<3