Spring tonic herbs - getting rid of the grunge

Spring has finally sorta kinda sprung here, touch wood; Paul (my husband, hibernating partner through this long awful winter and faithful keeper of the fire to the point I think he deserves a medal) still has the the wood stove going at night and again in the morning to take the chill off, but the days are far, far better than they were. We had blizzards and ice storms in April! No fair!!

Anyhoo -

There's a blog I pop into once in a while where they're currently discussing the idea of cleansing toxins while losing weight. Because we store toxins in fat cells, when we lose weight, that crud all goes back into circulation; that can be nasty, and it's a very good reason NOT to lose weight too quickly. As I've been offering my 2 cents worth in comments there it's twigging my memory of all the really great options that we have available at this time of year for getting rid of what I like to call the grunge ..

Checking in, briefly.

It's still very much (goddamn) winter here. It's sunny, so that's nice, but it's been really freaking cold lately (-20C at night ffs!!).

The last few weeks of winter can be hard to take.

click to embiggen. or not.

So although I've got my kitchen table writing space back, I haven't quite regained the headspace, so to speak, that I need to write about "heartled wildcrafting, gardening and medicine making". When the world is one big glacier, writing and thinking about green things can set off some downright painful longings!

I'll probably be back at it when the river ice breaks up and the geese start to come back. Late April, maybe? We'll see. I'll still check comments and answer emails, of course. And those of you who follow my other blog might see me there once in a while.

Later, gang!

Pain relief, the doshas & lymph

It's a long story, but the short version is that I temporarily lost my writing space at the kitchen table. That's been resolved (inshallah) so let's get back on track, shall we? I missed you, did you miss me? When I don't write here, the emails dry up. I gets lonesome! 

lol.

This is a post I found half written in draft and finished today .. 

Here's another example of how different the treatment of pain from the herbalists' perspective is from what we're used to; there isn't really such a thing as an everyday, overall pain reliever - that I know of - in herbal medicine. It seems there's no equivalent to popping a Tylenol.

Medicine chest 5: herbs that reduce tension

I've written about the physical/emotional feedback system elsewhere, in a post I called "Got inflammation? Maybe you're angry."  You might want to go and read that post before you read this one ..

Essentially, the idea is that the effects of stressful emotional states aren't limited to the psychological, they reach into the body, too. The psychological signs of overload bypass our notice because we're just too focused elsewhere to pay attention; when that happens tension can settle into a joint or an organ or a system. It's a bit of a clusterfuck, too, because physical tension anywhere in the body can be so damn stressful!!

Relieving physical tension has the nifty side effect of helping us to think more clearly so we can get to the root of the problem, be it a physical or psychological issue (or both, it's often both). Herbal remedies really shine here because (for the most part) they're curative rather than palliative. I've never found that a steady diet of tylenol cleared anyone's mind .. lol.

Anyway, here are the allies I've found most useful for myself (and other people I've used as guinea pigs) ..

Want to see what winter looks like where we live?

A few days ago, this weird winter of ups and downs we're having provided us with one gorgeous day. The sun shone, the temperature shot up just past the freezing - well, melting - point and so of course we headed out for a ramble. Two rambles, in fact, with a gourmet lunch of poutine at the local general store cum diner in between. This post is about ramble #1.

The winding back roads through the hills and forests around our village are our favourite places in the whole wild world, bar none. Just for fun, Paul handed me his camera and I shot a few short videos as we drove. Now these are not in any way professional, so be warned. For the first one I didn't have my reading glasses so I couldn't see what I was shooting. You're looking through the filthy car windshield half the time (hey, it's winter, the car just will not stay clean, okay?). You're hearing the sound of the auto-focus on the camera. And the bright sun and snow make for some overexposure here and there. But there's some of our favourite tunes for you to tap your toe to, and a whole lot of fresh snow and forest scenery.

So if you like that kind of thing, have fun with these.

woops - monkey wrench in the works

Well, we had a good run for a while there, didn't we?

It looks like circumstances will be keeping me from posting here for a bit. Please take advantage of the index on the side bar if you're hankering for my writing (ha!) and I'll be back .. eventually.

What the heck is the Doctrine of Signatures? (link fixed)

Woops, little blog-hiccup there. The post you're looking for is on the top bar.