I tend to think of trikatu as the sibling of triphala, which I wrote about here. Both are ayurvedic combinations of three herbs which tonify the digestive system. Triphala is for the later end of digestion, toning the intestines and aiding in regularity, while trikatu is for the beginning of the digestive process with firing up the stomach in order to digest food successfully. There is a difference in who should take these formulas though, as triphala is generally safe and helpful for all people while trikatu has a more narrow market it is suitable for. The combination of ginger, pipali (long pepper), and black pepper make it a fiery herbal combo that suits those who have weak digestion and low acid creation. In other words, if you have heartburn, this is not the herbal supplement for you. In ayurvedic terms, if you are a vata or especially kapha predominant person who tends towards coldness and wetness with bloating and a sense of stagnation in your stomach after a meal, then this could be for you. Pitta predominant people (say that three times fast!) should not take trikatu unless told to do so by an ayurvedic professional.
Trikatu is much less well known than triphala, at least here in the U.S., which makes sense since the modern U.S. lifestyle stokes pitta elements in such an overwhelming way that even vata or kapha predominant people can have pitta imbalances such as heartburn and inflammation 🔥. It can be found online though (I’ve never seen it sold at a brick and mortar) and some reputable companies I like are Himalaya and Organic India. It is always important to buy herbs from reputable companies as we have all heard of the herbal supplements marketed and sold out there which have little to none of the herbs in them that they are said to. Stick with quality and not the lowest price with herbs and considering herbs are generally not that expensive to begin with, it should be considered a small investment in yourself.
Take trikatu at the beginning of a meal, much like you would enzymes or bitters. You can even take trikatu up to a half hour before a meal with a large glass of water, but be sure the water is room temperature and not ice water. Ayurveda teaches that cold water reduces the digestive fire so that would be counterproductive.
If you have any experience with taking trikatu, let me know! I’d love to hear about it.
Ayurveda doesn’t shy way from talking about bodily functions. In fact, ask any Ayurvedic practitioner about elimination and chances are they will have a rather strong opinion and be able to give you a lengthy description on what it should like, how often it should be happening, and when it should be happening in relation to your meals. I’m not an Ayurvedic practitioner myself but one of my herbal teachers and mentors, Karta Purkh Singh Khalsa, was steeped in Ayurvedic herbalism so I do remember long class discussions on the subject. As for the looks, think of an overripe banana~ brown, in-tact, and buoyant. With timing, food should take about 18-24 hours to travel from one end of your digestive system (mouth) to the other. If the timing is shorter than that, you may not be getting all the nutrients out of your food. If it’s longer than that, you could be experiencing chronic toxic build-up. If you don’t know how long the process takes for you, eat something that you will recognize when it pops back out such as beets, which like to make quite the dramatic exit if you aren’t expecting the bright red color. (You’ve been forewarned.) Elimination should happen for every meal, so around three times a day is ideal.
One way to get things moving first thing in the morning is to drink a cup of lukewarm water with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. This can also be done at other times of the day, on an empty stomach, but first thing in the morning works best. It’s a nice morning ritual for general cleansing as well.
For occasional issues with constipation, there are two common herbs used traditionally as stimulant laxatives: senna and cascara sagrada. Both should only be used occasionally, because as with any stimulant laxative, herbal or otherwise, they lose effectiveness over time as they train the intestines to rely on the outside stimulation. They do normally produce results within hours of ingesting, (pills, teas, or tinctures), but keep in mind, they are not fixing the root of the problem. Herbalism works best when focused on balancing out health issues at their root, so although these herbs can get you through a rough patch, it’s important to dig deeper into the problem and make adjustments there, so look into the foods you are eating, the amount of water you are drinking, the amount of exercise you might be getting, etc.
There is an herbal combination called triphala that can be taken long-term to enhance intestinal health and kick constipation to the curb (as long as the root of the issue is also properly addressed.) Triphala is a combination of three herbs: Amla, Haritaki, and Bibhitaki. These three herbs each have special benefits for the three doshas, Pitta, Vata, and Kapha, therefore when they are all together they are considered tri-doshic, meaning good for all three doshas. (You can take a dosha quiz here to find your personal doshic profile.) This tri-doshic quality is one of the reasons it is one of the most well-known and popularly used Ayurvedic formulations of all time. In fact, it has been around for over 2,000 years and still going strong. This combination might take longer to work than the herbs above, but within 24 hours elimination should occur and you don’t need to worry about taking it for an extended amount of time. Although it’s a relatively safe formula for most people, Banyan Botanicals lists these cautions: “Contraindications can include diarrhea, dysentery, and if you are pregnant or nursing. There are no known drug interactions with the herbs that make up triphala.1, 6 Some studies do report findings that would advise caution in people taking blood-thinning medicines,7, 8 as triphala may affect platelet function. From an Ayurvedic perspective, if your stools are dry and hard, consider using haritaki in place of triphala.” (Banyan Botanicals)
When I worked at health food stores, the box of tea that was far and away the top seller was Smooth Move by Traditional Medicinals, which, as you might have guessed, is for constipation. It has senna plus other herbs that support the digestive system, and is only supposed to be for occasional use only. They have a couple of different flavors for the teas and also capsules.
As with many health issues, making sure you are drinking plenty of water, eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, and actively moving your body everyday will get you far on your path towards optimal health. Herbs offer another level of support in those health, body, and life goals.
Wishing you health, happiness, and at least one herbal ally in your life.
Making your own body oils is a great way to customize your base oil blend and your essential oil blend. Ayurvedic tradition advises massaging yourself with oil daily as a way to ground yourself and calm out-of-balance doshas. In Ayurveda, there are three doshas that govern all things~ the seasons, the time of individual lives (youth, adulthood, old age), and our own bodies, minds, and spirits. The three doshas are Vata, Pitta, and Kapha, and there are online quizzes to help you determine your dosha profile. I like this one because it gives you your results immediately but you can take several and compare them. They will probably all be slightly different but should give you an idea of your personal profile. When you think about your dosha makeup, it is best to think of what you were like as a kid, because imbalances build up and your current state might not match your fundamental dosha profile. It’s important to understand that we all have all three aspects in us, it’s just that one or two will generally be more predominant. Think of a number scale of 1-10. One person might be 3 parts Vata, 5 parts Pitta, and 2 parts Kapha. Another person will be 4 parts Vata, 2 parts Vata, and 4 parts Kapha. Why does it matter then? It matters because the aspects that are predominant are the ones most likely to get out of balance. Any dosha can be out of balance, but if you are predominantly Pitta for example, it is more likely that your Pitta dosha will be out of balance, meaning Pitta type problems (such as inflammation). When a dosha is out of balance, it means it needs to be calmed, and since each dosha responds differently to various foods, herbs, activities, etc, so it is important to know what your personal profile is and what might be acting out of balance.
Beyond Ayurveda, body oils are also just a great way to indulge in aromatherapy for health, well-being, and the pure pleasure of the scent. You can base your essential oil blend on mental/emotional needs, chakras, moods, or simply for the perfumery. For a base oil, you can use sweet almond oil, grapeseed oil, castor oil, jojoba oil, apricot kernel oil, or sesame seed oil either singly or blending them. Personally, I like to blend 2 or 3 oils together and often use an herbal oil as one of the oils in the blend, such as rose oil. I usually reuse a 3.4 oz dark glass bottle but you can use any size glass bottle that you have. The size I use lasts about a month with morning and night use. Dark glass is best but as long as you keep it out of light and heat it should be fine.
I use three 1/8 cups + one 1/16 cup of base oil for my 3.4 fl oz bottle. For example: 1/8 cup herbal oil, 1/8 cup almond oil, 1/8 cup grapeseed oil and 1/16 cup apricot kernel oil.Fill your bottle with the base oils you are using, leaving room for the essential oils. Add in the essential oils, using 30-40 drops per ounce of base oil. You can add more if you know you tolerate essential oils well, but if you are just beginning to work with them, stay on the lower end (30 drops per ounce). For example, in my 3.4 fl. oz. bottle, I add between 100-120 drops of essential oils. You don’t need a lot of essential oils to get their benefits, so don’t worry that you don’t have ‘enough’. They are subtle but dependable workers and they will always do their job. Also keep in mind that no matter how strong you make your oil, the scent will not last as long as chemical fragrances so reapplying throughout the day is a good option. You aren’t going to want to put body oil all over yourself during the day though because oil stains clothing and it’s just not feasible, so if you want the scent to be around you all day then I advise making a smaller container as perfume that you can apply to your pulse points throughout the day. If you want to learn how to make perfumes with essential oils, either in an oil base, alcohol base, or as a solid perfume, then please check out my course in exactly that, which also has guidelines on blending for different purposes (health or scent), why chemical fragrances are bad for us and bad for the earth, and why blending with top notes, middle notes, and base notes matters. Another option for a hit of the scent during the day would be to make a body spray that you can dose yourself with when the mood hits.
The best times for body oil application are upon waking and before going to sleep, so I often make up a day blend and relaxing night blend. For the day time some good uplifting scents are: bergamot, clary sage, and frankincense, which is actually a great anti-depressant blend. Citrus essential oils such as orange, lemon, grapefruit, and lime, are good for joyful energy and are often part of weight loss blends because of that. Citrus essential oils can increase photo-sensitivity, though so do be careful if you are in a sunny part of the world and be sure to wear your sunscreen with citrus oils. Rosemary is stimulating for the mind and traditionally used to aide memory, and it blends well with orange for confident energy and clear thinking. Although lavender is a relaxing scent, it is also the most blend-able essential oil and can combine with just about any of the other essential oils, either for day or night. In a bedtime blend I always include lavender and a wood, such as sandalwood or cedar. The wood oils have a lovely grounding ability which can work for daytime too, especially if you tend to feel scattered. Just like the tea, chamomile essential oil is calming and relaxing and perfect for a night blend, and neroli is a traditional anti-anxiety scent. In fact, neroli blossoms used to be used in bridal bouquets for their anti-anxiety action so it’s a great choice for day or night. By the way, neroli and sandalwood can be bought premixed with jojoba oil for a more affordable purchasing option since those two are rather expensive.
When in doubt, just follow your nose because whatever you like best is going to keep you motivated to use it, and feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Body oils are a great way to moisturize your skin with the purest, greenest, and healthiest ingredients possible, plus you get to customize the scent for your own personal needs and tastes. Have fun with it and keep in mind that you can pour some body oil into your bath, or use it as massage oil, or even give body oils as gifts. Please share with anyone who might be interested and if you haven’t already, subscribe for more wellness posts like this one.
The other day an acquaintance asked me how long I’d been interested in herbs, and I went into a rambling story of formal and informal studies that were in no way chronological (nor coherent most likely), and it made me realize that I haven’t actually thought through my personal herbal journey, which means I also haven’t shared it here and that just seems wrong. So, the following is my attempt to write down this very organic path that I’ve traveled so far and give some links if anyone else is looking to study herbs and wants to move beyond books and websites.
Although I was the kind of kid who liked to play outside, I was really more of an animal lover than a plant lover, who declared I wanted to be “Caterpillar Queen” when I grew up and was intent on going to ‘dog heaven’ instead of human heaven. (When you grow up Catholic, you think quite a bit about the logistics of heaven.) My favorite thing to do indoors though, was when my sister and I would get out big bowls and mixing spoons and combine all the good smelling products in the house to make ‘perfume.’ This appalled my now ex-husband until he understood we weren’t using things like vinegar and baking soda, but instead used all the shampoos, conditioners, liquid soaps, perfumes, after-sun gels, lotions, body sprays, anything scented, and poured them all together. It was great fun to make these concoctions though of course it was all pretend play, and now that I think about it, we probably are indeed lucky we never caused a bad chemical reaction in our reckless mixing. (That would have been one cacophonous-scented blast.)
In high school I was drawn to the local natural foods store and would buy small amounts of herbs from the bulk bins to try as tea, as well as books about natural products and natural living. I honestly don’t remember why or how it all started because it wasn’t something we grew up talking about as a family philosophy or anything. The natural world, and herbs in particular, just resonated with me in a way that was impossible to ignore. It might have had something to do with the fact that I never really felt well, always a headache, constantly tired, always a “nervous stomach”, and the world of herbs and other naturals offered promises of health and well-being while modern medicine seemed stark, rigid, mildly toxic. and lacking creativity. And the natural things did help, especially the cleanses, but it wasn’t until I went off gluten that I got the biggest uptick in health and well-being. With my herbal books I learned to make natural masks and full-on facials with ingredients found in the kitchen, which was very reminiscent of the pretend play my sister and I did as younger children.
Right after college (English major) I worked at the natural foods store where I had once shopped, and started an herbal correspondence course with Wild Rose College. It was a great program that made me study a bit of anatomy, the healing process, iridology, and more (besides the herbs) and it wasn’t easy, so check out their programs if you are interested. At that time the natural foods store also had an employee education program that most people ignored but I dove in and loved it so vocally that I was given it to run when the coordinator couldn’t do it anymore. I felt like the luckiest person ever to have all that great free educational material about vitamins, minerals, oils, herbs, homeopathy, and so much more.
Then I had an herbal internship with herbalist Michael Pilarski who primarily wildcrafted herbs, made medicine with those herbs, and is a well-known authority on permaculture. I enjoyed the medicine-making days the most and also got to attend herbal classes and a conference while interning with him. It was a great learning experience.
I later worked for a natural foods and products distributor which meant more education and insight into the industry as well as the natural products themselves. It definitely helped to already have a strong herbal background as I remember very clearly going into a shop on Whidbey Island where the skeptical owner handed me a cup of herbal tea which I immediately identified as burdock and I won her over. (I was in sales/customer service which sometimes drew people who knew nothing about the actual products.) Plus, if you know what burdock tastes like, it’s kind of an acquired taste. Thank goodness it was an herb I was familiar with because there are so many herbs out there it’s not possible to know them all and that was the quickest way to earn trust ever!
While working for the distributor I went through a year-long herbal certificate program at Bellevue College which was run by Karta Purkh Singh Khalsa. He has moved from the Seattle area now but was the president of the American Herbalists Guild for several years recently and has online courses mainly for people interested in using herbs professionally, but also classes for people just interested in a specific topic, such as Ayurveda. I believe he even still has some in-person programs like the kind I went through, so if you are interested in online or in-person classes, check out his website. I then had an internship with him for a couple of months where again my favorite aspect of it was making Ayurvedic kits to be used for spa-type rituals and panchakarma.
Afterwards, I started making my own herbal bath and body products with the name Dragonlily Herbs as well as giving classes in making herbal products. That did not last long though as first one baby and then quickly two took over all my time and energy. (And going back to school to get my MA in TESOL.) Now that the boys are older, I guess this is really just my second iteration of Dragonlily, with the addition of making my Luddite-soul fully embrace the online world.
Over the years I’ve also taken several other herbal classes about things I was specifically interested in such as the digestive system, thyroid, essential oils, skin herbs, and herbal crafting. Now that I’ve written all that down, I feel like I really should know a lot more than I do but there’s so much herbal knowledge out there from all different traditions and cultures that it’s hard not to constantly feel like what is left to learn is a vast ocean compared to what I already know. I’ve got a studious streak though so that endless learning aspect suits me just fine.
The links above to KP Khalsa’s site and the AHG will help if you happen to be looking for classes. Also Bastyr University and the American Botanical Council are good places to visit as well. I have some herbal classes in the works myself, both in-person and online, that will focus on my favorite part of herbalism~ medicine-making and bath and body crafting. If you are interested, let me know what you most want covered. The focus will be on simplicity, beauty, and health, with an emphasis on the kinds of products that used to be part of everyone’s daily life before mass-market, chemical-laden commercialization became the norm. We deserve to hang on to our roots and customize our own health and body care as only our own selves possibly could. (Now that’s self-care!)
More on that soon, but in the meantime, could you do me a quick favor? I’ve made a short survey and I’d really appreciate your feedback~ it is just three short questions and I promise it’ll take less than one minute.
Thank you so much! I would love to hear what drew you to herbs and where you are on your own herbal journey. Looking forward to hearing from you and best health to you and yours. Please subscribe for weekly posts about herbs, natural health, and green beauty, and please share this with anyone who might be interested.
As I said in my last post, adaptogens are herbs that help our bodies respond to stress. I like to think of them as ‘slow health’ workers, akin to the slow foods movement, where you are thinking strategically about long-term health goals and supporting those goals through small daily doses of herbs that help get the body out of ‘fight or flight’ mode and into a healthier zone. We want our bodies to be relaxed so imbalances can be addressed before they turn into illnesses. The demands of modern life are such that if we don’t consciously address the pace, stress, overwhelm, and information overload, we can get caught in a continuous day-in and day-out stress mode cycle, which is definitely not a thriving place for our health and well-being. We hear a lot about self care lately and that very often translates into hot baths or massages which are great things to do, but we also have herbal allies to keep it real on a daily basis, keep us healthy long-term, and remind us that there are no prizes for being the most stressed out.
You can take adaptogens in pill form, tinctures, teas (herbal infusions), or as powders. In powder form, you are getting the whole herb and nothing else, which is a nice way to do it. I like to add one of my adaptogen powder mixes into coffee or tea, and the other mix I make, which currently includes Eleuthro and Rhodiola, I put into smoothies for my family and myself. You can also mix them into juice or just water, or add them to foods such as yogurt or cereal. It’s best to start with just a 1/2 teaspoon per day of an herbal powder, then add another 1/2 teaspoon later in the day once the first half teaspoon is perfectly tolerated. More can be added in time if desired, but adding too much too fast is a recipe for digestive issues and that will only add stress, not help it. Concentrating on being consistent is more important than how much you take because only a small amount is needed if taken over a long period of time.
All this is to say, that adaptogens are abundant in numbers, available in ready-made products, and easy to incorporate into daily life so there is no reason not to make a conscious choice to have them in whatever way works best for you. Don’t let stress mode become your everyday mode and if it already is, then know you can make choices to get to a healthier space. You deserve it. The holidays are fast approaching so this just might be the perfect time to start building up your body’s stress response for the better. Please subscribe for weekly posts about herbs, natural health, and green beauty, and please share this with anyone who might be interested. Please subscribe for weekly posts about herbs, natural health, and green beauty, and please share this with anyone who might be interested.
It’s funny, now that I’ve entered my 40s a new conversation has become common among my friends~ worry about thinning hair. I’ve been dealing with grays for a couple of decades so that isn’t new, but the realization that all that ‘dealing’ with grays might cause hair thinning was partially what led me to switch to henna and other herbs instead of conventional dying. (More on that in another post.) Other friends have the same issue, and certainly hair thinning isn’t just related to heavy processing, it’s a part of aging just like wrinkles and wisdom, and it’s often men who have that issue earliest and most severe, though women suffer with hair loss too. There are things you can do, whether you want to work from the inside-out, or outside-in, or attack hair loss from both sides and hopefully stop it in its tracks or at least minimize it. Taking action sends the message to yourself that you have some control so that alone alleviates some stress over the situation, and everyone knows that stress contributes to all things bad, including hair loss and graying.
The first and most basic thing is to make sure you are getting enough B vitamins. B vitamins are water soluble, meaning they don’t accumulate in your body like vitamins A and E, so it’s important to get Bs everyday. Vegetarians and vegans especially need to supplement with B12, and I’d say a total B with added B12 because all the Bs are together under “B” because they need each other to work together. That’s why there is B1, Folic Acid, B12, niacin, etc in a total B supplement. B vitamins are also essential in stress and anxiety regulation, as well as energy production, so they are pretty important in how you feel on a day to day basis. There is sound science around B12 and graying hair and hair loss, but I’ll let you read about that elsewhere and just continue on here with some other things you can do for prevention and recovery.
Collagen has become an important ingredient lately in the beauty nutrients arena. Collagen, which you can read much more about by clicking that link, not only is important for healthy hair, it’s important for healthy skin, nails, and bones. There are quite a few products that incorporate collagen into their recipes so it’s easy to find something that works for you. Neocell makes these delicious chews which is a nice way to take a supplement if you are sick of pills. Biosil is a popular supplement that is a collagen booster, and you can read about the difference on their website. It comes in caps or powder, has great reviews, and has been featured in Vogue recently in an article on growing out hair.
Hair, Skin, and Nails is a classic beauty multivitamin which has been around for ages. If you want to just know that your multi is helping you achieve your beauty goals, Futurebiotics has you covered. I love that they have one specifically for men too. That might be a nice stocking stuffer for anyone trying to get their guy to take a daily vitamin for his New Year’s resolution. There are good formulas from other reputable brands as well, like Megafood’s.
Still working from the inside out, there are herbs that are traditionally known to help hair stay vibrant, thick, youthful, and even to prevent graying and reverse graying. I can’t guarantee results with the gray reversal because it seems to really depend on the person, but two things can be said about these herbs in regards to that~ 1. it takes time to work. Don’t expect results for months, possibly even 6 months, and 2. even if they don’t reverse graying, they will make your hair healthier, thicker, and more youthful and help to prevent more grays. Not bad side effects, eh? If you know anything about herbs you probably already know one of them which I’m referencing: Fo ti. This herb comes from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and is an adaptogen with anti-aging effects on the entire body. It is traditionally used for longevity, disease prevention, and beauty, including beautiful hair. Also known as He/ho Shou Wu, which means roughly ‘Mr. Ho’s black hair’ because of the legend of a weak man (Mr. Ho or He) returning to vitality with the help of the herb, including his hair going back to black. Adaptogens are a group of herbs that not only all have wide reaching positive benefits including stress management and overall system balancing, they are also in that category because they are generally beneficial for all people without a great risk of harm. That said, they are also herbs to be taken in small doses over a long period of time, and as I’ve said before, keep in mind that herbs have fiber and adding them into your daily diet is something to be done with a light hand, else you might encounter digestive issues. Our bodies get used to the amount of fiber they generally have, and will get used to having more daily fiber, but it needs to be done slowly, especially in the case of Fo-ti. I’ll tell you how I take it below, after I introduce the other hair herb.
The Ayurvedic tradition gives us another herb known to reverse graying or at the very least, provide it with nutrients to increase its youthful thickness and luster. Amla is also an adaptogen with wide-ranging benefits, but specifically for hair, you can not only take it internally, you can also make a hair mask of the powdered Amla to invigorate your hair externally. It’s especially good on curls and texture, which is something I like to do when I henna my roots because it revitalizes the curl while henna can somewhat relax it. Internally, I take it by making a blend of Amla powder and Fo-ti powder and put a 1/2 teaspoon into my coffee in the morning and another 1/2 teaspoon in tea or coffee in the afternoon. I barely taste it and enjoy the earthiness, but if it bothers you, milk and/or a sweetener can be added, or throw it in a smoothie or mix it with juice. This is important: more does not make it work faster so start with just a 1/2 teaspoon and work up to two 1/2 teaspoons per day if you desire.
Working externally, a lot has been said about castor oil. If you want to fiddle with ingredients and concoct something more or less complicated, pinterest has you covered. If simple is more your style, put some castor oil in a dropper bottle and make your way around your head, rubbing it in gently, sleep with it and in the morning wash it out. Once or twice a week seems to be the recommended amount of doing this, with again, more not being better, but honestly I haven’t tried it yet because it also makes your hair grow faster and that’s not something I’m currently desiring.
Bottle of 2 oz. Castor oil with 5 drops of Rosemary Essential Oil with a dropperIf I were to use castor oil for thickness, the only thing I’d add into it is Rosemary essential oil. Rosemary is of course a stimulant oil so I wouldn’t add more than a drop in if I intended to sleep with it, but it’s the best known essential oil for stimulating hair growth. There are many ways to incorporate Rosemary into your hair routine, including Rosemary hydrosol which can just be sprayed on your hair (aim for the roots) or adding Rosemary essential oil to your (all natural) shampoo, conditioner, and gel or mousse. Rosemary boosts memory and helps with brain fog as well, so don’t be surprised if your brain gets a boost along with your hair. I actually start every day with diffusing Rosemary and Orange essential oils to wake my sons’ brains up for school (and my own brain too!) with happy stimulation.
As mentioned above, stress also plays a role in hair health just as it plays a role in overall health, so in the next post there will be more ways to combat stress and a little hint, you’ll be hearing more about adaptogens. In the meantime, why not make yourself some chakra oils and spend a few moments every day putting energy back into yourself. You deserve to be your healthiest self. Please share this with anyone you know who might be looking for some help with thinning and/or graying hair because we need to feel confident about taking action for our own best selves~ body, and mind, and to know we have options. I’ve read that November is men’s health month so especially pass this along to your favorite guys if it might be something that would interest them. The truth is, hair is important to how we feel, our self-esteem, and our self-concept, so let’s give it some love and care.
Please subscribe for weekly posts about herbs, natural health, and green beauty, and please share this with anyone who might be interested.
Ayurveda has been around for over 4,000 years and the herbs and herbal combinations are still popular today. Now that’s staying power! It must be for a good reason….and it is. These formulas have withstood the test of time by being effective, gentle, and reliable. Check out this infographic from Delicious Living in partnership with Himalaya Herbals to see if anything rings true for your unique needs and health goals. Personally I love Ayurvedic adaptogens, digestive combinations, and of course turmeric for its amazing array of benefits. I’ll show you exactly how I use those on a daily basis in my upcoming posts. Stay tuned by subscribing!
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In a lot of ways, herb usage hasn’t changed that much. We still use herbs on our foods to make them taste better and be more digestible, and we drink herbal infusions for their taste and health properties as well. Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, and Naturopathic doctors rely on herbs even today for balancing out bodily systems, and other health advisors such as nutritionists and massage therapists sometimes use herbs to produce certain specific effects in the body. Modern doctors on the other hand do not study herbs nor nutrition (for the most part), and pharmaceutical drugs have taken over as the one size fits all band-aide for almost any illness or ailment. Now modern medicine has its place and I absolutely do not fault doctors for not studying herbs and nutrition and for relying on drugs, because they have their own body of knowledge to learn and it’s incredibly important. No one wants to go back to leaches and non-medicated surgery I’m sure! But we need to remember our roots, (and our seeds, and our leaves), and know that often there are things we can do to help ourselves that don’t require pharmaceuticals with scary side-effects, nor a ton of money or effort. People used to know which herbs cured what in their own little communities, and they ate simple seasonal food because they had to, back when all food was organic and non-gmo. They also used herbs daily in other practical and even spiritual ways as well, to bless their homes and keep out ‘evil’, to keep vermin out of the house or out of their bedding, to help with bad smells of both house and body, and to beautify their surroundings and themselves. Many still do these things, and more, because herbs have never left our sides, they have weaved through our humanity over time and provided a vine of ancient memory we can tap into and remind ourselves of our humanness, despite our chronic phone addictions and race towards a more and more technologically advanced world. We are still people who eat, who get sick, who enjoy beauty, who fight the signs of aging, who want to connect with the world beyond the screen and breathe clean air, drink clean water, and resonate with the plants, animals, and people in our world. We are local beings and yet we are the first humans on earth to collectively live international lives through screens and keyboards. In this time of major transition, we need to remember that herbs were the first medicines, food was once all organic, and we still need this earth and her goods way more than she needs us. Let’s be good to ourselves, and good to the earth, and take a moment every day to remember that the natural world is still all around us, waiting for us to engage.
This is the role of the herbalist in today’s world, as I see it. We are here to remind others to stay connected to the earth and all its inhabitants, green or furry, scaly or funny, these are the connections that will support our health and well-being as we age and grow. Some herbalists concentrate on knowing all the herbs out there and their uses, others concentrate on a smaller set and understanding them inside and out, while still other herbalists concentrate on client consultation, and others are the makers who turn plants into medicine. I’ve worked with an herbalist who mostly wild-crafted herbs and also did a bit of medicine making, and another herbalist who taught and wrote about herbs as well as saw private clients. Personally I’ve taught classes, written about herbs, and I love making herbal elixirs of all sorts, and I have tried growing them with varying degrees of success. I’ve also worked in the natural foods and products industry where many know more than the average person about herbs and use that knowledge purely for personal and family use while others used it to set up their own stores or to consult customers on the floor. We all have our specialties and with modern-day access to global knowledge and traditions, the herbalists of today have an abundance of options when it comes to their personal practice. The things that do not vary though, are the respect for the plants and the earth, the understanding that our ancestors had intelligence that is often overlooked today, and a deep love for herbs and all that they offer in terms of health, beauty, and well-being. I am so excited to share this space with you and I encourage you to seek out the herbalists in your own communities. You might be surprised at the expertise you find and the local products available to you. I hope to get a list going here with local information for everywhere in the world, but that’s going to take your help. If you are an herbalist or know of a great herbal resource, please contact me via the contact page or comment below so we can start gathering resources together. Also, please follow this blog by subscribing because this is just the beginning~ there is so much more to share in terms of optimal health and beauty and I have a feeling we are going to gather a great community here. Please subscribe for weekly posts about herbs, natural health, and green beauty, and please share this with anyone who might be interested.
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It’s funny, now that I’ve entered my 40s a new conversation has become common among my friends~ worry about thinning hair. I’ve been dealing with grays for a couple of decades so that isn’t new, but the realization that all that ‘dealing’ with grays might cause hair thinning was partially what led me to switch to ![WP_20171104_16_34_49_Pro[1]](https://i0.wp.com/botanicalalchemyandapothecary.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/WP_20171104_16_34_49_Pro1-1692397347-1509839813689.jpg?w=433&h=388&ssl=1 "WP_20171104_16_34_49_Pro[1]")
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