The Holistic Herbalism Podcast

This episode begins a series on herbalism & climate change. Heatwaves have struck the US and many places throughout the world, and all signs indicate this is going to be our “new normal”. Climate change affects everyone and requires us to recognize our interdependence. We need to cultivate community care as a social ethic & public good before and until it becomes necessary as a disaster re...

Recently it seems like there’s been a proliferation of hop-flavored beverages on the market. Not just beer, but also sodas, fizzy waters, and other gently bitter elixirs are competing for attention with kombucha and fancy herbal infusions. This seems like a good thing to us – more people getting some bitters in their lives couldn’t hurt! But it also brought to mind this week’s topic: a common warn...

Ryn’s got a toothache this week, so this seems like a great time to teach about herbs for toothaches! When your tooth hurts, you want to relieve the pain, and you want to make sure you prevent or manage any infection. Fortunately, herbs are great at both of these jobs! Spilanthes & kava are great for relieving pain. Spilanthes also increases localized immune activity. Berberine-bearing herbs l...

Seaweeds are really talented. Like, really talented! They can help out with such a wide array of problems that you might feel a little skeptical at first. “Come on, how could seaweeds fix everything on that list?? I mean… what do high blood pressure, osteoporosis, and leaky gut syndrome even have in common, anyway?” We understand the skepticism! But the truth is, seaweeds really can help out with...

“Take a breath, it’ll help!” You’ve heard it before. But what if breathing is difficult or constrained? Breathwork is the answer. Breathing is like any other movement: there are ways to build efficiency and resilience through practice. Simple exercises can get you breathing deeper, and give you a visceral massage or “inside yoga”. And there are herbs for breath work, too! They can remove the obsta...

Whenever we choose herbs for health issues, we work to match the qualities of the herbs to the state of the body. These three plants we work with as herbs for seasonal allergies are each drying in nature. So, if you run dry or have dry symptoms, then make sure to pair them with something moistening like marshmallow or violet. But if you’re on the watery side, these will be a great help! Nettle ( U...

Herbal tattoo care starts a while before your appointment. You’ve got to prepare the skin in advance, get hydrated, and ideally do a little work to keep inflammation down in the lead-up time. You want that skin to be in the best possible shape before you get work done. You might even want to get some test spots done, if you have very reactive skin. We don’t actually like to throw a ton of differen...

Today’s episode is a little different from our usual. We’re sharing a listen-along plant sit meditation! You can take this episode with you to sit outside with a plant, and we’ll guide you through the meditation practice. Plant sit meditations are an excellent way to develop your powers of observation and your awareness skills. Plants have a lot to teach us, and this is one way to learn directly f...

Have you heard that black cohosh is “for menopause”? Or that red clover is a “natural estrogen replacement”? Or that saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) is “for men” or “for BPH”? Herbs are not gendered, and they’re not “for” conditions. They have qualities and actions, and they act in context – the context of each individual body. Herbs act on particular types of tissue, and it turns out that in the re...

Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), also known as alehoof, creeping charlie, and gill-over-the-ground, is one of our favorite herbs to gather in early spring. We like to prepare a tincture of it in brandy, and we work with it for troubles in the ear-nose-throat. It helps a lot with tinnitus and with difficulty hearing that comes from stagnant fluid in the ears. Here are just a few comments on this ab...

Herb of the Month is one of our most powerful learning methods for students of herbalism – and honestly, it’s great for experienced practitioners too! It’s deceptively simple: just choose an herb and work with it extensively every day for a month, in as many ways as you can come up with. At the same time, research the herb as far and wide as you can. In this way you can foreground your own direct...

We’re discussing the notion of amphoteric herbs today, because it’s the Spring equinox and we’re thinking about balance. The term amphoteric is orginally a chemistry term meaning “having characteristics of both an acid and a base”. Herbalists use the word to mean an herb that has a balancing activity, one that is capable of acting in ways that seem opposite, depending on the context in which it’s...

In this episode we share a simple technique for enhancing herbal salves with tinctures. Lots of herbalists like to put essential oils in their salves, and we’re no exception – but we also want to have other methods for increasing potency. Essential oils can be costly, and they have sustainability issues in a lot of cases. Combining alcohol extracts (herbal tinctures) with oil extracts is a great w...

We’re lucky that nowadays there are a lot of herb suppliers, so it’s convenient to purchase the majority of your herbs – especially if you live in a place where you don’t really have space to grow a garden. But there’s something really special about working with herbs that you’ve grown yourself. And, some herbs are really quite easy to grow – like calendula. So now that spring is on the way, let’s...

This week we’re sharing a formula for an herbal cold sore remedy – a soft salve or balm that can be applied right on the sores. It’s going to serve as a jumping-off point for discussing flexible formulation. That’s the answer to the question “what can I do if I don’t have one – or any! – of the herbs in the formula as written?” If you can answer this question, you’ll be much more adaptable when yo...

When you go to the store and buy an herbal supplement, what are you getting? It might be a capsule of powdered herb, but this is less and less common nowadays. An herbal supplement is usually some type of extract from the plant – and we herbalists make lots of extracts ourselves, like teas, tinctures, salves, etc. The difference is in the methods and materials used to make the extract, which can b...

The “wellness” space online is saturated with One Weird Tricks and Simple Easy Solutions that promise to make you perfect. Perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect body fat percentage – all this and more for 5 easy payments of $39.99… it’s a trick. Even when it’s sincere, when people really believe they’ve found the one thing that’ll work for everyone, it’s still misleading. None of us are perfect, nor...

When you’re dealing with a skin problem, it’s good to come at it from both directions: internal and external. Today we’re focusing on the external remedies, highlighting some of our favorite ways to work with topical herbs for acne. Steam is a great way to deliver aromatic herbal constituents to the whole surface of the face, and as the warmth opens the pores, these can get deeper in to the skin....

When you think about where to find excellent herbs, where does your mind go first – the forest? The farmer’s market? Ye Olde Herbe Shoppe, perhaps? Let us make a suggestion: you can find a bunch of great herbs at the supermarket! Grocery store herbs are nothing to sneeze at (but if you can’t stop sneezing, consider a basil steam). You can find herbs in the produce section, the tea aisle, and the s...

An herbalist’s dog is going to get some herbs in her dinner every now and then. Our dog Elsie sure does! Choosing herbs for dogs doesn’t need to be complicated or difficult, and there are a lot of them that can help a pup feel her best. In this episode we highlight four herbs we give to our own puppa: Seaweeds for nourishment, joint support, and immune resilience-building. Solomon’s seal for prote...

It has been a rough few… weeks? Years? Well, a while, anyway! In the last month more than ever, people have been asking us how to get some space, how to find ways to feel grounded, how to find some calm. So we thought, maybe it would be good to share the things that we are doing to get through the days. Being an herbalist doesn’t mean you never get sick, and it doesn’t mean you never have emotiona...

In this episode we explore the skills and disciplines necessary to conduct a successful self-experiment. Self-experimentation in this context might mean making changes to dietary, lifestyle, & movement habits; developing stress management skills; or trying out herbal medicines. First we address why and how self-experimentation can fall into self-justification, and how to avoid this. Then we hi...

This week we take another look at COVID-19 and its long-term effects. First, we check in on what have been our top 5 herbal interventions for COVID: Herbal steams – with aromatic herbs, to fight infection and stimulate local immune activity in the respiratory tract Garlic & thyme tea – for a strong immune-stimulating and lung-warming effect Elecampane decoction – an ounce or two every hour dur...

Dreaming matters: it’s a critical part of our identity-building and experience-processing work, and vital to our ability to regulate our emotions. But not all dreams are good. When nightmares happen, especially if they happen chronically, they can make dreaming itself feel unsafe. But never fear: when we need help we can always turn to herbs, and nightmares are no exception. In this episode we pre...

Yes, they are herbs too! Medicinal mushrooms are an important part of our herbal practice, but it looks like we haven’t profiled them on the podcast before today – so it’s time to correct that lapse. In this episode we’ll look at some of the key activities of four of our favorite fungi: shiitake (Lentinula edodes), maitake (Grifola frondosa), reishi (Ganoderma lucidum) , and lion’s mane (Hericium...