Herbal Womb Wisdom

Every culture has some relationship with bees, some stories, mythology, even deep reverence. There are goddess traditions centered around bees. Ancient Egypt considered bees to be keepers of the liminal space between life and death.

In these ways, honeybees could be considered healers in their own right. We so often center humans when we think of "healers" but what if we include other-than-human beings too? 

Toda...

I think we forget sometimes that heart and cardiovascular disease is actually the leading cause of death for women and folks with wombs. Like, for real.

And the thing about it is, there are some very simple things we can do that make a huge difference, and it's been shown that only between 3-12% of us are even doing those. Not to mention adding our herbal allies in. 

In this weeks episode I cover the heart as an ...

It's common for us to orient more to the parts of ourselves we love, feel proud of, or see as lighter or brighter.

But what about the parts that are messier, less easy-to-love, more challenging? We ALL have them, btw.

Most of us hide those parts where we can, we've learned how to move through the  world without outwardly expressing them a lot of the time, unless something comes up that triggers them.

Often...

A couple months ago my childhood bestie told me she was hosting a period party for her daughter, and I knew immediately I wanted to reach out to the facilitators to have them on the podcast.

Turns out, these two are the real deal. 

Erica Evans and Darcie Black are both Fertility Awareness Educators that work in the reproductive health field in different niches. Together, they host these "Body Talk" period parties...

Summer is often characterized by buoyancy, expansion, joy, creativity, vitality.

But there are times in our lives when we are feeling this life-giving energy of warmth around us and simultaneously navigating a deep season of grief.

This is what I speak to in today's episode. Some ways we might caretake our tender hearts in the peak of summertime, herbal allies for the journey, and more.

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One of the core pillars hormonal health - the dynamic healthy dance of our hormones - is a resilient nervous system.

I don't love using the word regulated, because that sounds like we're trying to neutralize or dampen our nervous system response, when what we really want is to grow our capacity to feel all the things fully, and complete the waves.

So what can we do yo cool and calm our frazzled, anxious, agitated syst...

It can be so common to feel the quickening of summertime and forget to slow down to truly savor the season.

Sometimes it feels almost impossible to find the quiet in all the expansive blossoming energy.

But if we don't slow down to pause, we miss the opportunity to more fully receive the gifts of the season. And we may end up more imbalanced during the peak and late summertime. Too hot, too dry, too fiery, too much.

So often we think of essential oils as the primary form of distillation from aromatic plants. But there is another form of water-based extraction through distillation that is commonly overlooked, and that's hydrosols.

Hydrosols are aromatic waters that capture both volatile oils and the water from the steaming process.

According to today's guest Emma Prescher, they really are a bridge between the energetic signature ...

(audio fixed! sorry y'all) The Ayurvedic concept of "ojas" can feel elusive, especially because it's a unique perspective on something that we might refer to as our deep inner well of resilience or the nourishment we can call upon when we are in a time of stress or strain. 

There's no real physical component we can point to from a western anatomy lens.

But it's an essential literal substance in the Ayurvedic para...

Traditional intact cultures, and systems like Ayurveda and TCM, all include not only physical and emotional healing but also speak to how the energetic layers of our beings impact our healing, too.

Whether it's tuning into the medicine of the wheel of the year like Summer Solstice (the expansive, invigorating sunlight) or the harmonious dance of Yin and Yang or the subtle energies from the Vedic lens of Sattva, Rajas and Tam...

Iron deficiency is incredibly common, and even more common during pregnancy where there is some level of physiologic anemia with all that blood dilution but it can definitely become too much. 

But what is really happening? Today's guest, Samantha Chandler, speaks to what minerals are doing in our bodies, and why she sees copper as a key ally to support our overall mineral balance, including iron available in our blood, ...

When cycle alchemist, Tere Marie Martini, first proposed speaking to the 4 P's (plants, planets, pussy & personal agency), I was already ALL IN.

By themselves, each of these topics is compelling, but when we combine them to explore how they can support us to become "whole ass human beings" it gets even more interesting.

What brings each of these seemingly divergent topics together is their cyclical nature. I woul...

Fascia is an extraordinary substance in our bodies that supports both structural integrity *and* fluidity. And it is a web that weaves throughout our entire form.

It has more nerve endings than our skin, responds to our hormones, tenses and relaxes, hydrates and dehydrates and can be a root of chronic pain and/or stuck energy.

It lines all of our organs and muscles and bones! And our endopelvic fascia (the fascia in o...

The sacred windows of our lives, whether postpartum or perimenopause or menarche or any significant transition, are portals of extra sensitivity.

In some ways, they are a gift in that we can almost recreate ourselves from the ground up, renewing, and discovering a new version of ourselves.

In other ways, they are tender, even vulnerable, times that require extra care and deep nourishment to replenish and rebuild from what is often mo...

In these wild times, so many of us are seeking meaningful ways to engage with our emotions in generative, life-giving ways. 

As women and female-bodied folks, we have commonly been socialized to dampen our intensity, our ferocity, our tenacity. 

To sit in patriarchal spaces that center the power of a leader on a pedestal versus the power of the circle itself.

But what can a different way look and feel like?

In today's rich co...

I had a conversation with a friend recently, and the topic of presence came up. Not from the lens of meditation so much as from the lens of what's helping us move through the wild terrain of life these days. 

We talked about how easy it is to get drawn into the past - distractions, addictions, spirals of longing, attachment to old stories, replaying what's already happened - or the future - worry, fear, anxiety, concern, respon...

From the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) lens, the first 40 days postpartum are a key time to deeply tend the body, mind and spirit after birth. 

According to today's guest, Madeline Ishmael, this time is characterized by a need to replenish both the blood and qi -- and while there are a number of ways to do this, she focuses largely on deeply nourishing foods in her practice.

She blends her western medical background as a pu...

So many of us feel deep grief, overwhelm and even lost in the midst of the ecological and upheaval we are facing collectively. It's not easy to know what to do, where to turn, what actions are meaningful and worth our time. 

The truth is our nervous systems are not made for the level of constant stimulation and overflowing awareness that we are being exposed to. We need to honor our capacity, and yet it is so hard to look away.

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It's officially Springtime here in the northern hemisphere, which means so many of our plant friends are returning!

Some of those wild weeds might be exactly the herbs that can help you as we transition from deep winter into the heat of summer.

But the term "spring tonic" can be confusing and vague, like what does that even mean?

And how can we effectively incorporate them into our lives -- which actions are mo...