December Update
Hey friends of from the soil,
This year has gotten very herbal. I've knocked another 6 units of my herbal degree, expanded the herb garden, welcomed new herbs, re-opened my online herb shop, launched a Community Supported Herbalism subscription box, supplemented some of my learning in awesome community with Now & Then Herb School & The Root Network, and sipped and packed tea at a wonderful local tea shop in Cowaramup, talking herbs whenever possible.
While it's time for some rest and regeneration, the herb garden will not be slowing down, so it's regular harvesting and processing of herbs over the next few months. Heaps of new formulations are macerating away in preparation for adding to the shop in January. Herbs that support the skin, rest, nervous systems, gut, respiratory tract and hearts/souls are making themselves very abundant in the garden this year.
Thank you for all your love, orders, words of support, reviews, and attendance at workshops this year. Each order truly makes my day and brings me purpose and encouragement to keep going.
A small note that I've slowed down on the workshops while engaging as a student. I hope to offer more courses as I near the end of my studies in late 2025-26. If you're eager for some herbal learning, check out Taj's awesome online courses at Botanical Education.
For now, please get in touch if there are any herbal resources, questions about making, or products you'd like to see in my shop, or just to talk herbs.
SHOP UPDATE
There's just THREE Seasonal Herbal Medicine Boxes available to pre-order before January 4th.
In the spirit of community care, these boxes are 'sliding scale' priced, so you can pay what's accessible to you.
Box includes 4 herbal medicines, all grown and made here in Cowaramup, with a range of herbal formulations and preparations to support you throughout the season.
A fresh batch of Lavender & Chamomile salve is up on the website, it smells really sweet (ultra floral honey) and has been handy to lather on the skin after tomato pruning flagellation, post swim, on bug bites and dry lips.
Milky Oat Nerve Tincture (50ml) - 3 in stock
Oat seed harvested at the ‘milky’ stage is a moistening, sweet nutritional herb, considered a ‘tonic’ for the nervous system.
Classed a nervine trophorestorative, Milky Oat is medicine for modern times, aka late-stage capitalism days, multiple ongoing genocides and climate grief, where our collective ‘systems’ are feeling the immensity of the times.
Use to support tired nervous systems, periods of stress, melancholy, difficulty sleeping, occipital headache, nervous digestion, menstrual headache, recovery from illness, and concentration and focus.
Dosage and safety at website.
Community Herbalism + Land care
Podcast: The Herbal Highway
A fellow herbalist and friend recommended this podcast to me recently, and there's some real great conversations and explorations. I really love one of the hosts Renée Camila - her approach to herbalism is rooted in personal connection with land and the herbs, sitting with the complexities of practising herbalism on stolen land, and re connection with your own ancestral lineages and traditions of folk herbalism.
Good luck, there's over 900 episodes! I liked the episodes 'Rethinking Invasive Plants' and 'Yarrow and Boundaries'.
Link here.
Book: Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici
I've had this book on my reading list for a long time and I've recently started it. I reckon it's a 'must read' for those interested in the intersections of body politics, women and the bruality of colonisation and capitalism.
Bio:
A cult classic since its publication in the early years of this century, Caliban and the Witch is Silvia Federici's history of the body in the transition to capitalism. Moving from the peasant revolts of the late Middle Ages through the European witch-hunts, the rise of scientific rationalism and the colonisation of the Americas, it gives a panoramic account of the often horrific violence with which the unruly human material of pre-capitalist societies was transformed into a set of predictable and controllable mechanisms. It is a study of indigenous traditions crushed, of the enclosure of women's reproductive powers within the nuclear family, and of how our modern world was forged in blood.
You can find a copy here.