Medicine Stories

“I pray to the dead to help me remember who I am while I’m still alive.” To be in relationship with those who’ve gone before us is a deeply human way of being. Our ancestors knew that the “departed” never left, and that they answer when called. The way modern Western people conceive of the dead is a deviation that discards millennia of human knowing. Let us pray to the ancestors to help us sober up from civilization, remember what we’ve always known, and reclaim the long story of the soul. RESOURCES: Perdita’s website Take Back the Magic Medicine Stories Patreon (book giveaway & course coupon code) Life Everlasting: The Animal Way of Death by Bernd Heinrich Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth’s Extinct Worlds by Thomas Halliday Waking Up to the Dark by Clark Strand My podcast about my mother’s passing What I’d Be Without You: My Mother’s Life, Death, and Legacy of Love The Madonna Secret, a novel by Sophie Strand Perdita and her husband Clark Strand’s website The Way of the Rose Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? Our website & herbal medicines MythicMedicine.love Mythic Medicine on Instagram Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

It is estimated that half of all Americans have chronic health issues, and yet these conditions are new to the human species. What has happened? And how does an afflicted individual navigate a medical system that dismisses them and offers little help, embedded within a culture obsessed with self improvement and the hero’s journey of triumph? Sarah and I talk about the multifactorial nature of chronic illness and what has changed between generations, walking the fine line between self-responsibility and acknowledging that we’re all embedded in toxic systems that are out of our control, navigating the mythic underworld of autoimmune and chronic illness, and telling our stories without the need for a heroic ending. Sarah’s website Medicine Stories Patreon (enter the book giveaway by 12/14) Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? Whitney Dafoe’s website Medicine Stories episode w/ Sophie Strand Synchronicity Reveals Our Ecological Niche The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness by Maureen Murdock My post about my father’s life and death My website MythicMedicine.love  Mythic Medicine on Instagram Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Healing is communal. Settle in softly for this wide-ranging conversation with my most requested guest. Sophie and I talk chronic illness and trauma, diagnosis as blessing and as hex, the theater of medicine, the aquatic nature of memory, and the entanglements of time. RESOURCES: Sophie on Instagram Sophie’s newsletter Make Me Good Soil Sophie’s books and more The Lady’s Handbook for her Mysterious Illness by Sarah Ramey ACE- Adverse Childhood Experiences quiz The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van den Kolk (giant trigger warning; read the book below instead) Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice by Rupa Marya and Raj Patel Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious by Erik Wargo The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy by Barbara Ehrenreich The Emerald (a podcast beloved by both me & Sophie) Read The Ones That Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K Le Guin Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics & the Entanglement of Matter & Meaning by Karen Barad Time, As a Symptom by Joanna Newsom (lyrics here) My blog post Ancestral Voices, women’s Weariness, and the Illusion of Linear Time What I’d Be Without You: My Mother’s Life, Death, and Legacy of Love   Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? My website MythicMedicine.love  Mythic Medicine on Instagram Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

The sun rules the rhythms and the well-being of all life on Earth, and humans are no exception to this rule. With the very recent (evolutionarily speaking) advent of indoor living and the even more recent advent of indoor lighting, we have inadvertently shut down the vital communication between sunlight and our cells. This is as upstream as it gets when it comes to health, and when we come back into relationship with the sun all manner of issues (insomnia, obesity, infertility, and so much more) can resolve. Let’s talk about the science behind circadian rhythm and practical ways to heal with sunlight. Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) Sarah's links- Free Guide: Building Your Perfect Quantum Day - https://www.sarahkleinerwellness.com/pl/2147664711 FAQ Guide - https://www.sarahkleinerwellness.com/faq-skw Courses - https://sarah-kleiner.mykajabi.com/store (code PODCAST for 10% off any course!) Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sarahkleinerwellness Podcast -https://anchor.fm/sarahkleinerwellness Website - https://sarahkleinerwellness.com YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd1xxofTziySu0F9oG7G67g More links- The Human Cosmos: Civilization & the Stars by Jo Marchant Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? My website MythicMedicine.love  Mythic Medicine on Instagram Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes) Related Medicine Stories episodes:  Harvesting Light: The Alchemy of Sun & Human w/ Nadine Artemis Liquid Crystal: Water, Memory, Consciousness, and Health w/ Dr. Carly Nuday Life’s Sacred Matrix: How To Be a Truly Hydrated Water Keeper w/ Isabel Friend The Living Matrix of Fascia & the Resonance of the Heart w/ Lindsay Courcelle    

Suuzi has been one of my best friends for 15 years, and our lives have taken parallel tracks recently- deeply interested in health & natural living for decades, we have nevertheless both found ourselves in total burnout at the edge of collapse in our early 40s. We share what got us here (and the irony that so much of it is doing things we truly believed were making us healthy), the current state of our metabolic/thyroid/mineral health, and our paths going forward. We hope this inspires others feeling stuck and confused- despite tremendous effort to be healthy- to quiet the outside noise, self attune, and more deeply understand your own biochemistry. Dr. Suuzi Hazen is a wife, mother, farmer and founder of Mother's Best Liver Pills. She holds a doctoral degree in TCM, graduating in 2009 from ICTCM Vancouver. Suuzi completed extensive internships in Anhui Hospital of TCM in Hefei, China. She also interned with Dr. Katrine Heigelmann (Victoria), and Dr. David Li Lam (Vancouver). She brings a grounded yet radical, no-nonsense perspective to ancestral health and wellness. Video of Niecia interpreting my recent HTMA results is at the Medicine Stories Patreon Dr. Suuzi on Instagram Mother’s Best Liver Pills Sena Maria’s post on Why Your Healing Work Isn’t Moving the Needle Sarah Kleiner Wellness on Instagram Niecia’s post of Alison Luterman’s poem What Is Mineral Balancing? Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? Related previous episodes: Returning the Mother to Herself: Our Nourishment Shapes How We Receive Life - Niecia Nelson The Mineral Matrix & the Motherline That Made You - Hamid Jabbar Elemental Interbeing, Food Information Overwhelm, and Cell Deep Nourishment for Women - Kymber Maulden Your Cycle, Your Self: Period Empowerment, Fertility Awareness, & the Risks of Hormonal Birth Control - Dr. Elizabeth Wade My website MythicMedicine.love   Mythic Medicine on Instagram Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

We can’t talk about fascia, the connective tissue that touches every single cell in the body, without talking about water, memory, and the quantum information that travels along this network at speeds 1000x faster than biochemical/neuronal signaling. When we bring tactile witnessing to our fascia through presence and touch, mountains move. Get ready to have your mind blown and, if you’re anything like me, to spend the rest of your life diving deeper into these subjects. Lindsay on Instagram Amber on Instagram Lindsay’s website Medicine Stories Patreon- Two bonuses for this episode: 1. Singing w/ the Ancestors- an extended conversation w/ Lindsay about the resonance of the human voice, making pilgrimage to ancestral lands, connecting with the Earth by breathing with plants, calling in our dreams, and the landscapes that our bodies recognize. 2. Holy Witness: The Story of My 101 Year Old Grandmother's Beautiful Death- My sister and I were touching our grandmother as she left her body on my mom’s, her daughter's, birthday. My six year old daughter was in the room as well. It was peaceful, sacred, and offered healing in light of how my mom died in such a shocking and unexpected way. Plus 5 years of podcast bonuses & resources related to herbalism, ancestry, health, and much more! Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? Lymph Love Club w/ Leah Levitan on Instagram Interoception: The Emotional Side of Trauma video w/ Dr. Emily Splichal  Strolling Under the Skin- visceral surgery fascia video Human Garage on Instagram John Barnes Myofascial Release Healing is Voltage by Jerry Tennant Carrie B Wellness on Instagram The HeartMath Institute  Plant Spirit Healing: A Guide to Working w/ Consciousness by Pam Montgomery The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature by Stephen Buhner The Resonance Effect: How Frequency Specific Microcurrent is Changing Medicine by Carolyn McMakin Dr. Catherine Clinton on Instagram My website MythicMedicine.love  Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Our modern disconnection from land and lineage mirrors the culturally normal- but biologically abnormal- separation between mother and baby, parents and children. The consequences of these intertwined attachment wounds are vast. But many of us are dreaming into a different way forward. Let us speak truthfully about what isn’t working, divest from the systems that break our sacred bonds to the Earth and to one another, and heal into the wholeness that is our ancestral inheritance. Aimee’s website The Stoned Chrysalis Aimee on Instagram Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? Reclaiming Childbirth as a Rite of Passage: Weaving Ancient Wisdom w/ Modern Knowledge by Rachel Reed Related Medicine Stories episodes-  Healing Our Indigenous European Ancestors w/ Lyla June Maternal Mammalian Ecstasy: The Ancient Hormonal Blueprint for Optimal Birth & Bonding w/ Sarah Buckley Decolonizing the Mind: You Belong to Your Ancestors w/ Tamira Cousett Revillaging: Maternal, Cultural, and Planetary Wellness are One w/ Rachelle Garcia Seliga Learning is Innate: Ancestral Childhood, Unschooling, and Healing w/ Akilah Richards Nature’s Ancient Design: Exalting Life by Honoring the Physiologic Truths of Childbearing w/ Rachelle Garcia Seliga   My website MythicMedicine.love  Mythic Medicine on Instagram Instagram Medicine Stories Facebook group Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

How we eat (not just *what* we eat) is how we receive life, and our state of nourishment determines everything from our fertility to how we perceive the passage of time. Disembodiment and dietary confusion run amok, but beneath the noise is the quiet wisdom of our biology. When we create safety in our systems we allow ourselves to sink into the spaciousness that we crave. Let us slow down, expand our sensory gating channels, and bathe our every cell in nourishment from the deepest source. Patreon bonuses: Extended conversation w/ Niecia about restrictive eating and purifying the channel of lack, orienting our lives to nourish our childrens childrens children, and much more A recording of me sharing personal stories, my experience of motherhood & nourishment, plus my favorite parenting resource Niecia’s Instagram account I Am Altar Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter Levine My website MythicMedicine.love  Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? Mythic Medicine on Instagram Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Kids today face more challenges- and are showing more signs of distress- than ever before. Parents must learn to effectively co-regulate, repair when things go awry, and create the right environments for our children (be they dandelions, orchids, or somewhere in between). When trending cultural ideologies come to replace ancient biological reality, we must refuse to check our brains at the door and do all that we can to protect childhood. It is the only compassionate, fair, and kind thing to do. Wrongthink: Beliefs or opinions that run contrary to the prevailing orthodoxy; related to thoughtcrime, doublespeak, and other Orwellian concepts. RESOURCES: Teva’s website Teva’s Substack Teva on Instagram Teva’s Amazon Shop (tools for neurodivergent kids) Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) My website MythicMedicine.love  Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? Medicine Stories Facebook group Mythic Medicine on Instagram Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

The plants have so much more to teach us than what has been written down by others; there is another level of wisdom that can only be accessed by direct communication with the living Earth. When we cultivate an embodied knowing of the natural world we realize that we don’t need any special gifts or gurus or long lists of memorized plant constituents to mediate our relationship with our more-than-human kin. A nervous system and an open heart are all that’s needed. Let us open our channels of perception and reclaim our ancestral birthright to be in direct communication with our mother planet and those we share it with. RESOURCES: Kami’s free workshop: Plant Communication Inspiration & Stories Kami’s webinar: Your Personal Plant Communication Experience Kami’s online course: Plant Wisdom: Activate Your Plant Communication Skills Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? My website MythicMedicine.love  Mythic Medicine on Instagram Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes) Stephen Buhner’s Facebook post about entering hospice Previous episode with Stephen Buhner Planetary Intelligence, Ancestral Resonance, and the Perception of the Heart Previous episode with Sajah Popham True Holistic Healing: Bridging Plant and Human Consciousness Previous episode with Sajah Popham Called to the Plant Path: Herbal Myths, Healing Forward, and Human Ecology  WildOmen.com