Medicine Stories

It is our ancestral inheritance to know and work with the plants growing around us. Tending to, nurturing, and gleaning nourishment and medicine from the land is a way of life that is available to us all, and is the most direct path to healing people and ecosystems alike. Let us remember. IN THE INTRO: Self and community sufficiency, wild foods, & plant friends IN THE INTERVIEW: The moment you realize that you can interact with the plants around you (and how odd it is that that’s surprising to modern humans) How plants helped Rosalee overcome a terminal and “incurable” autoimmune disease How her doctor reacted when she showed back up after curing herself The many ways to be an herbalist The best way to take herbal medicine isn’t as a tea or tincture, it’s to bring plants into your life Living deeply with the seasons (no matter where you live) Conscious stewardship of the land as an act of community healing Reciprocity and the many ways mindful, informed wildcrafting can support plants and ecosystems Violets! and incorporating story medicine into our medicine making Chickweed! delicious, nutritious pesto, vinegar, and more Foraging makes it so easy to get a much needed diversity of phytonutrients into our bodies Expanding our lens to the wider ecological relationships the plants we are working with are a part of Other ways to bring plants into your life when foraging isn’t possible or of interest What if everyone wildcrafted? We cannot buy ourselves into wellness, but we can nature ourselves there IN THE OUTRO: A genius way to freeze pesto (it’s not the ice cube tray method) LINKS (if listening on an app that doesn’t support links, find these at https://mythicmedicine.love/podcast): Order Wild Remedies now and get the amazing bonuses! Medicine Stories Patreon  My website MythicMedicine.love  Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz Medicine Stories Facebook group Mythic Medicine on Instagram Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes) Charles Eisenstein’s essay The Coronation, on the transformative potential of coronavirus (Charles was my guest on Episode 60, The Boundaries of the Unthinkable are Wavering) My pesto freezing Highlight on Instagram

As Slowness Medicine is being experienced by the collective consciousness on an unprecedented scale, we can more clearly than ever see that the frenetic pace of the human species under endless growth capitalism is the root cause of global ecosystem disruption (one consequence of which is the emergence and lightning fast spread of novel viral pathogens). From newly clear canal water in Venice to dolphins swimming closer than usual to Italy’s coast to record breaking breathable air in China, let’s embrace this opportunity to pause consciously, learn deeply, and critically rethink our approach to the many threats that face our planet and all who share it. IN THE INTRO: Coronavirus, planetary interconnectivity, and what stillness reveals IN THE INTERVIEW: Pushing the belief button: self confidence on the life path That underlying feeling so many of us have had that there has to be something other than the consumerist capitalist culture we were born into Ayana’s awakening to a life of questioning, seeking, and activism The role of the erotic in meeting overwhelm and hopelessness in these times Burning ourselves out will not save the earth Time plugged in v time in nature and the lie that we’ll be more productive if we’re hooked into technology 24/7 When we slow down, the earth slows down (literally) How the For The Wild podcast came to be (Ayana had no idea what she was doing at the beginning) and how the vision has evolved “My devotion is unwavering, but I’m very flexible with how I understand things” The cultural moment that we’re in is a spiritual crisis Rebuilding consent, trust, and reciprocity Planting a million redwoods and building a living library of species Striving to be successful while also staying small and slow and moving through the world with integrity LINKS: Matriarch Collective For The Wild website The 1 Million Redwoods Project Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) Specific For The Wild episodes mentioned- Dr. Bayo Akomolafe on Slowing Down in Urgent Times, Bronte Velez on The Pleasurable Surrender of White Supremacy and on The Necessity of Beauty, Dr. Max Liboiron on Reorienting Within a World of Plastic, Dr. Kyle Whyte of The Colonial Genesis of Climate Change    Specific Medicine Stories episodes mentioned- Planetary Intelligence, Ancestral Resonance, & the Perception of the Heart w/ Stephen Harrod Buhner and The Boundaries of the Unthinkable are Wavering w/ Charles Eisenstein My Coronavirus Highlight on Instagram For The Wild on Instagram For The Wild Patreon My website MythicMedicine.love  Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz Medicine Stories Facebook group Mythic Medicine on Instagram Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes) The Overstory (novel) by Richard Powers The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake (article in the Atlantic) by David Brooks  

Modern medicine now recognizes the menstrual cycle as the fifth vital sign. By simply paying attention to what our periods are telling us, we greatly increase our body literacy and quickly regain the deep self knowledge that is our birthright. Whether you want to avoid pregnancy, optimize your chances for conception, or gain insight into the state of your health, cycle charting and fertility awareness is a safe, effective, and empowering choice. IN THE INTRO: Why rest is vital for bleeding bodies IN THE INTERVIEW: How Naturopathic medicine synchronistically found Dr. Elizabeth How getting pregnant despite being on hormonal contraceptives (HC) brought fertility awareness (FA) into her life Root cause healing v masking symptoms The deceptive history of the pill (it’s not your period, it’s a “withdrawal bleed” calculated for a specific psychological purpose) What HC actually does in the body is completely shut down communication between the ovaries and the brain, which has many consequences Millions of women have been told that the pill tricks the body into thinking you’re pregnant, but women’s bodies aren’t that dumb IUDs and inflammation There isn’t one hormone in the body that HC doesn’t effect; it creates full body dysregulation Common side effects of HC- including changing your physical anatomy down there (!) The adverse effects build the longer you’re on HC Dr. Elizabeth blows my mind and connects a lot of dots for me by explaining what happened to me when I got the depo provera shot at age 17 The menstrual cycle is now recognized by modern medicine as the fifth vital sign, and FA gives crucial insight into our overall health FA is *not* the rhythm method, and is 99.4% effective when used correctly A deep dive into what happens in the body each month during the menstrual cycle How FA both frees and empowers female bodied folk When our periods are used against us Tuning into and honoring our natural cycles of creativity and rest Breaking down the two key tracking methods of FA: cervical mucus and basal body temperature How long to chart before you rely solely on FA for birth control We aren’t raised to trust ourselves How charting your cycle and fertility signs can alert you to health problems that might otherwise go unnoticed, shine light on whether infertility is caused by lack of conception or by recurrent miscarriage, and help you know right away if you’ve gotten pregnant LINKS: Dr. Elizabeth Wade’s website Dr. Elizabeth on Instagram Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) My website MythicMedicine.love  Episode 20 of Medicine Stories- Herbalism, Menstruation, and Innate Knowing w/ Kami McBride Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz Medicine Stories Facebook group Mythic Medicine on Instagram Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes) (If you're seeing this on an app that doesn't support links, find this episode at https://mythicmedicine.love/ to get them)

These times call for potent healers. If you’re feeling the call of the plants, this episode is for you. IN THE INTRO: There is no right way to be an herbalist Guidance for navigating your unique plant path IN THE INTERVIEW: The soul’s need to connect with nature The most common mistake that newcomers to the plant path are likely to make Why an herb will help one person but not another The vital ecology of the human being Seeing beyond symptoms (and the insufficient approach of merely managing them) to the root cause of illness An overview of the four phases of herbalism: indigenous/folk, vitalist/energetic, molecular/biomedical, evolutionary/integrative “I’m woo to the max, but I’m also scientific to the max” Healing is open-ended and endless, and to know healing is to know life itself The (in)significance of the past when trying to heal forward The herbalist is first and foremost and forever a student of nature Plants are the living, healing intelligence of the earth The transference of healing intelligence from nature into the plant and then from the plant into the person We can understand health and disease simply by understanding nature Narrowing down possible herbal remedies to find the right remedy for the right person- what is the ecosystem behind the symptom? Why some people get overwhelmed when they start walking the plant path Perceiving with the heart v memorizing information (bodily understanding is superior to intellectual knowledge) My favorite personal health reference library Herbal medicine should be accessible to anyone and everyone Helping others using medicinal plants, and crafting the most potent herbal remedies IN THE OUTRO: My Top 5 Reasons to Be an Herbalist LINKS: The Vitalist Herbal Practitioner Program The Evolutionary Herbalism website The Plant Path Podcast Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) My website MythicMedicine.love  Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz Medicine Stories Facebook group Mythic Medicine on Instagram Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes) (If you're seeing this on an app that doesn't support links, find this episode at MythicMedicine.love to get them)  

We cannot talk about collective health, planetary health, or the health of future generations, without talking about the health of mothers. As Rachelle says, “The dysfunction and disharmony within our human environments is manifesting through the vulnerable bodies of postpartum women. In fact it is through the bodies of mothers that humanity is being alerted to the urgency of our collective need for change.” IN THE INTRO: The reaction to my previous episode on parenting without a village IN THE INTERVIEW: Our culture is set up to fail new families/parents, and pathologizing the postpartum period overlooks the fact that it’s our social structures that are the cause of the immense emotional and psychological pain most postpartum mothers feel Mama- it’s not your fault New moms lose up to 700 hours of sleep during the first postpartum year The baseline of normal is that human babies need care 24/7 (your baby is not “high needs”), what’s not normal is living in isolated nuclear families Postpartum care cannot happen without community, and community is the one thing we are all lacking  Why it’s so hard, when it’s what we all deeply crave, to recreate the community living of our ancestors/how the colonial mindset keeps us mired in separation and distrust The pelvis as the seat of trauma for most every woman, and how we can begin to heal that How we feel in our pelvis is how we feel in our life- the connection between mental and pelvic health Intergenerational trauma and clearing the “bad medicine” that was embedded in the bodies of our female ancestors and passed down to us Anchoring in what we actually believe about ourselves, our bodies, this life Women are, and deeply feel, unsafe in our culture The incredible responsibility of raising girls (and boys tho!) in this culture, and how Rachelle and I navigate talking to them about the realities of patriarchy in an age appropriate way Teaching our kids to respect their inner authority first and foremost Reproductive and environmental justice are one and the same It’s time to grow up and do the work- our primary responsibility as adults on this planet at this time is to caretake life One simple way we can create community and support the parents of little ones If we can’t be resourced horizontally (by the folks around us), we can be resourced vertically (by our well ancestors) and by the land The sacrifices we make as mothers are a holy offering to life itself LINKS: The Innate Traditions website Innate Traditions on Instagram Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) Related podcast episode- Without a Village: Isolation, Honesty, and the Paradoxes of Modern Motherhood My website MythicMedicine.love  Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz Medicine Stories Facebook group Mythic Medicine on Instagram Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes) Mentioned in this episode: Vagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf I’m a 37-Year-Old Mom and I Spent Seven Days online as an 11-Year-Old Girl. Here’s What I Learned. A mom’s response to a stranger insisting her daughter speak to him (seems the original post is no longer available, this is a summary)

The old stories that have guided our recent ancestors are falling apart, and we live in a time of great upheaval and division as we grope for a new guiding mythology. Yet enfolded into this chaos are the seeds of deep and revolutionary change. Charles Eisenstein has a knack for expressing the thoughts and feelings that many of us born to these times have had but never articulated, and a brilliant capacity for elucidating a way forward. IN THE INTRO: Following your curiosity & finding lifelong teachers IN THE INTERVIEW: None of us fit in to the boxes our culture makes for us, and the story we’ve been handed down is no longer resonant Transitioning between paradigms, as the boundaries of the unthinkable begin to waver The initiation into love that is the environmental crisis A radical reframing of the climate debate (I so needed to hear this) Appreciating the complex physiology of the organs and tissues of the living earth, and realizing that we cannot reduce that complexity to the one metric of carbon emissions and offsets- “We can cut carbon emissions to zero, and the planet will still die of organ failure if we continue to degrade its organs” What we lose when we look at herbs, ecosystems, and anything/everything through a reductionist lense Bringing nuance and empathy back into our highly polarized culture, where folks are both sides (of any issue) are impervious to ever being wrong Holding our enemies in reverence (just channel Mr. Rogers) The legacy trauma of living in this culture, and how to minimize its impact on future generations What the germ theory of disease gets wrong, and why our inner ecosystems often play a larger role in our illness than the outer pathogens that get all the blame A new perspective on autoimmunity, self, and the story of separation  Shifting the war paradigm by which we often approach health Sacred economics: living in The Gift paradigm within our capitalist culture, and why Charles’ online courses are donation based The individual as a holographic map of the universe unfolding When you hold a question long enough, it will always bear a result IN THE OUTRO: Human hubris and the unforeseen consequences of thinking we can outsmart the vital life force (nature/evolution) How challenges to the immune system both initiate children into their next level of unfolding and prevent later chronic disease The polarization in the vaccine conversation, cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias, and exploring what it would take for me to change my mind on the issue A short exploration of and some resources for learning more about the harmful consequences of praise, rewards, and punishments when raising kids LINKS: CharlesEisenstein.org Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) My website MythicMedicine.love  Some of Charles’ related essays: Reuniting the Self: Autoimmunity, Obesity, and the Ecology of Health, We Are Unlimited Potential: A Talk with Joseph Chilton Pearce, In a Rhino, Everything Video of me expanding on how we can’t outsmart nature and how modern medicine is pushing pathogens to evolve Miller’s Review of Critical Vaccine Studies by Neil Z. Miller Vaccines, Autoimmunity, and the Changing Nature of Childhood Illness by Dr. Thomas Cowan @EchoUnafraid’s vaccine cognitive dissonance Instagram post Related past episode of this podcast: 57. Own Your Self: Radical Healing, Rooted Health w/ Dr. Kelly Brogan and 30. The Innate Intelligence of the Immune System w/ Cilla Whatcott Alfie Kohn’s website Article- Praise Not Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz Medicine Stories Facebook group Mythic Medicine on Instagram Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

My favorite herb book has been out of print for decades, but is now available again! In celebration, I had the extreme honor of interviewing the author. We talk about weaving enchantment and changing our inner states through language, the opposing paradigms of holistic, herbal healing and modern, mechanical medicine, how resting and rooting down in the darkness creates space for creativity and wholeness, and so much more. IN THE INTRO: Slowness Medicine Herbal Rituals IN THE INTERVIEW: The role of story in our human lives  Remembering, rather than learning, ancient herbal knowledge How Judith decided, after a violating experience in a doctor’s office at a very young age, to take her health into her own hands Why the mechanical medicine system is trauma producing to the creatures that we are Growing up in Brooklyn, living in NYC as an adult, and being a city herbalist Widening the lens by learning about the animals is the ecosystems where our plant friends live How our senses and capacities become stunted when we don’t engage in ancestral human practices, and instead spend all our time in the narrowness of digital technology Mycelium as both the neurons and the fascia of the earth Morphic resonance between similar tissue types in the body Anecdotes and subjective experience are data to be trusted How Herbal Rituals came to be Changing states and casting spells of enchantment with words Along with species and ecosystem loss, we are also losing the capacity to retain certain states of consciousness The story of healing told by modern medicine does not actually lend itself to healing Radical, empowered self health care Our bodies and herbs are meant to be together Rooting and slowing down- viewing the dark time of the year (or day) as the beginning of a new cycle Our culture doesn’t support descent into inner realms The magic of mugwort Smoke medicine as an instant nervous system reset, and how burning mugwort helped Judith remember her life path Taking in a plant’s medicine via the skin, just by touching it Growing and deepening through life’s challenges LINKS: Buy the world's most beautifully written herb book Herbal Rituals  Judith’s website Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) The Overstory by Richard Powers On Being interview with author Robert Macfarlane (Judith mentioned the author, I found the interview and wanted to share it here): The Hidden Human Depths of the Underland My website MythicMedicine.love  Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz Medicine Stories Facebook group Mythic Medicine on Instagram Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Poisonous plants have long been misunderstood and even forbidden, yet they hold a special medicinal power. Let’s do as our ancestors did and carefully, respectfully ally ourselves with this potent family of healing herbs. IN THE INTRO: Poisonous plants, visionary journeys, and Samhain/Halloween witches IN THE INTERVIEW: How trees and plants companioned Kathryn through her dark and disconnected teen years, led to her meditation practice and relationship with wrathful deities, and eventually brought her to the poison plant path Safety: we are not talking about ingesting these plants, but working with their spirits Making space to integrate traumatic experiences My recent experience with belladonna What happens when many people all tune in to the same plant spirit The effects of deliriant plants How (not) to work with datura, a gateway plant into underworld/angelic work How the scent of plants can bring us into deeper relationship with them Gender, pronouns, and plants Reclaiming lost visionary lineages Being aware of projecting our desires and our wounds onto plants When plant knowledge transmissions get broken through the ages When Amanita muscaria came to Kathryn in a dream Exploring the myth of Persephone The dose makes the medicine/poison- the poisonous plants used in modern medicine, and the different mechanisms of action by which they can harm LINKS: Kathryn’s website Ben Vierling art website Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) Poisonous Plant Book Recommendations-  Pharmako Gnosis: Plant Teachers and the Poison Path by Dale Pendell Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants: Ethnopharmacology and its Applications by Christian Ratsch and Albert Hoffman Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants by Claudia Muller-Ebeling, Christian Ratsch, and Wolf Storl Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers by Richard Evans Schultes, Christian Ratsch, and Albert Hoffman  Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart Malleus Maleficarum Hammer of the Witches on the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast Witches & Witch-Hunts: A Global History by Wolfgang Behringer My website MythicMedicine.love  Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz Medicine Stories Facebook group Mythic Medicine on Instagram Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Owen never thought he’d be a dad, neither of us planned on getting married, and we had no idea that our love for plants would play such a big role in sustaining our relationship. Here’s a peek into how we make our lives together work... IN THE INTRO: Elderberry & Motherwort Three things that make our marriage work IN THE INTERVIEW: How we met and then, six years later, got together (St. John’s Wort oil played a role) Why we pretended we weren’t falling in love even when we clearly were What we were doing before we got together, and how we’ve changed and grown together How Owen, who never thought he’d have kids, transitioned first into the role of stepdad and then new father How we find balance and prioritize our marriage while sharing kids, land, a home, and a business (spoiler alert: we don’t) What roles we each take on within the family and the business Ramblings on getting married and raising kids in middle age Parenting a teenager and a threenager Adulting, we hate it but it brings us closer Our reaction to our unexpected pregnancy How we became homeowners and married people, two things we never envisioned for ourselves What’s growing in our gardens, what tending our land looks like Sustainable wildcrafting (and pivoting away from wildcrafting) Why plant communication has been heavy for Owen lately What Owen thinks about my activism around the issue of vaccine mandates Civil uprising is the only option left to us on so many fronts, so many issues, as big businesses continue to destroy environmental and human health in the name of profit What we’ve learned from our fights Envisioning the future of our business and family LINKS: Our website MythicMedicine.love (herbal medicines & more!) Medicine Stories Patreon  Amber’s/Mythic Medicine’s Instagram Owen’s Instagram Take our fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? quiz Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Empaths are trending right now; let’s dig beneath the surface into what it really means to be empathic and/or to have a highly sensitive nervous system, and then talk about the plant and fungal allies that can help us to relax, recalibrate, and ground. IN THE INTRO: The difference between empathic and highly sensitive people High sensitivity is an evolutionary adaptation Ritual is remembering IN THE INTERVIEW: Part I, Lola interviews me: How I came to walk the plant path My experience as a vegan postpartum woman What fat does for our bodies- resilience and deep nourishment- and why it’s extra important for Highly Sensitive People Remembering the intelligence that is woven throughout every cell in our body (not just the brain) Overcoming the empathic tendency to shut everything out Healing the legacy of highly sensitive/empathic ancestors making harmful decisions in an endeavor to self medicate How psychedelics can help heal and empower HSPs Reishi as an ally The importance of touching something before ingesting it Practicing the felt sense of our food Making a game of tuning into and experimenting with changing the aperture of your sensory gating channels Knowing your strength as an empathic person  Part II, I interview Lola: How Lola came into relationship with psilocybin mushrooms Time is the most persistent illusion Knowing that all is well, not as a bypass, but as the deeper reality of nature The stark difference between altering your consciousness recreationally and doing so ceremonially Tracing the motherline to find the medicine that belongs to you Being deep in an ancient cave with the bones of your ancestors Psychedelics, neurogenesis, and healing trauma LINKS: Lola’s website Empath to Power podcast Foundations of Ritual online course with Daniel Foor The Highly Sensitive Person by Dr. Elaine Aron How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia by Paul Devereaux  Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) My website MythicMedicine.love  Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz Medicine Stories Facebook group Mythic Medicine on Instagram Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)