The Gilded Leaf 🌿

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thegildedleaf.substack.com/subscribe We made it. Seven chakras. Many herbs. One long, slow, beautiful climb — and today we arrive at the crown. In this final episode of the chakra series, I walk back through every energy center we’ve visited together — from the root’s question of s...

This week on The Gilded Leaf, I rise with you into the sixth chakra and sit with the quiet power of the third eye — not as a trick or a spectacle, but as the place in me that knows what’s true long before language finds it. I pour a cup of mugwort herbal blend, my favorite dreaming herb, and let its wild, silvery scent curl up around us as I tell the story of Alaska winters, ink‑dark skies, and th...

In this episode of The Gilded Leaf Chakra Series, we arrive at the throat — the place where truth travels from the chest to the lips. Over a cup of peppermint and a warm throat blend, I trace the long path of finding my voice: from growing up the youngest in a house of writers, to swallowed words and over-explaining, to the quieter power of speaking honestly without abandoning herself. Together we...

In this episode of The Gilded Leaf — Chakra Series, we arrive at the heart chakra: the bridge between the body’s lived stories and the quieter spiritual currents beneath them. We briefly revisit the root, sacral, and solar plexus — where the body has been learning safety, emotional flow, and personal power — before settling into the heart as the place where survival and identity begin to open towa...

In this episode of The Gilded Leaf — Chakra Series, we arrive at the solar plexus: the fiery center of self-esteem, will, and personal power. We briefly revisit the root and sacral chakras — where the body has been learning safety and emotional flow — before stepping into the place where desire becomes decision. We talk about the quiet ways many of us, especially women, are socialized to be pleasa...

In this episode of The Gilded Leaf , I reflect on a past relationship that didn’t end because love was absent — it ended because growth changed the shape of what I could tolerate. This isn’t a story about blame or heartbreak. It’s about nervous system evolution. About what happens when you stop over-functioning in the name of connection. About the quiet moment when clarity arrives and you realize:...

In this episode of The Gilded Leaf, I explore the second chakra as a place of pleasure, creativity, and emotional truth—approaching it with reverence, warmth, and a little well-earned humor. This is a conversation about desire before it becomes story, before it’s labeled or judged, and about learning to trust the body’s quiet yes. With a sensual but grounded lens, I reflect on intimacy, self-trust...

🌿 Episode One — The Root Chakra: Safety, Belonging, and the Right to Be Here In this first episode, I’m opening a seven-part series exploring the chakras as a way of understanding emotional life, nervous system states, and the slow work of becoming—not as something to fix or ascend, but as a way of listening more carefully to how the body holds experience. We begin at the root, the place connecte...

In this episode of 🌿 The Gilded Leaf , I explore the place yogis sometimes call “the bad sit”—the hips—and what it means when they start speaking up during times of transition. This is a conversation about how fear, uncertainty, and the act of moving forward live not just in the mind, but in the body itself. I reflect on my own experience of hip pain as a visceral response to standing at the edge...

In this episode of The Gilded Leaf , I explore what happens when we stop trying to heal, fix, or explain ourselves—and instead choose to stay present with what’s here. This is a conversation about shadow not as something broken, but as something unfinished. About the parts of us that don’t want solutions yet, only acknowledgement. Drawing from plant wisdom and somatic awareness, this episode gentl...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thegildedleaf.substack.com/subscribe

friendly reminder This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thegildedleaf.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thegildedleaf.substack.com In this episode of The Gilded Leaf , I share the plant that met me exactly where I was— Tulsi, Holy Basil —during a week marked by anxiety, overwhelm, and an unexpected moment at work that shook me more deeply than I expected. As a mother to a teenager, and as someone who navigates life with a busy, ADHD mind,...

Welcome to The Gilded Leaf. In this first welcome episode, I share the heart behind this space — why it was created, who it’s for, and what we’ll be practicing together. We explore: What “internal climate” means in Traditional Chinese Medicine• How chronic stress shows up as heat, depletion, and stagnation• Why overwhelm is physiology — not personal failure• How medicinal plants gently collaborate...