April Update (2024)
Hey, friends of from the soil,
Maintaining a commitment with a monthly newsletter over here! I'm hoping to always share information and sources that inspire, motivate and support you in your herb-loving ways. I appreciate those of you who drop me a little message after reading these, helps with the motivation to share herb mail each month..
It's been a time-poor month but fairly full of good things, back into study, community garden seasonal planting, turning 30, community organising, root harvests and drying, making new herbal infusion blends for the home, and straining a 10 month Fire Cider found at the back of a cupboard. Good flavour..
The herbal infusion I'm enjoying for respiratory and immune support, with ordered and homegrown herbs on hand includes Echinacea, Elderberry, Angelica, Turmeric, Marshmallow leaf, Mullein leaf, Ginger, Cinnamon, Licorice and a dash of Spearmint. Here is a really good mix of warming/stimulating herbs for the circulatory/immune system (Elderberry + Echinacea, + Roots), a light diaphoretic and spasmolytic in times of fever/congestion (Angelica), moistening demulcent herbs for dry and inflamed mucus membranes (Marshmallow/Mullein/Licorice) in the case of a dry cough/catarrh symptoms, and for added cooling and flavour (Spearmint). Too many herbs? Maybe.
What are you enjoying sipping as the weather shifts?
SHOP UPDATE
I'm stoked to share that after just a couple of months of re-opening the herb shop, some products are almost out of stock! Making homegrown medicines that follow the seasons is one of the most wonderful things to share with you all, so thank you to each person who has made an order to financially support me in making and growing more herbal preparations. Every order makes a difference.
As the roots have been dug up and the late Summer herbs go to seed, there's some new products coming soon (when I don't know), so please check back if you're hoping to find something to support you over the darker months.
Workshop: HERBALISTS FOR A FREE PALESTINE 🇵🇸
Fire Cider Community Medicine Making
⏰ Sunday 5th May 10-12pm
📍Cowaramup @growingplace_socialfarm
🌿Free event.
Rad Herb Australia is calling all herb lovers to support a Free Palestine, by calling for a ceasefire in Palestine and host medicine-making events, to open conversations and encourage each other to stay present with Palestine throughout a devastating genocide. We hold this, whilst making medicine and connecting with one another and the plant friends.
Calling on anyone who would like to be involved in this day, or help organise any materials, conversation topics or call to action. Please get involved in grassroots herbalism, any experience is welcome.
Materials required (please reply to this email if you’re able to bring something from below), any quantity:
Email fromthesoilherbal@gmail.com or the workshop address (Cowaramup, WA)
Collectivism and community building during these times have personally brought me a great deal of strength, hope, accountability and care. Inviting all that feel, to join in a morning of medicine-making, conversation, and possibility. Together, we will decide where to distribute these medicines and take one home for ourselves and households (please feel free to make a suggestion of any mutual aid projects nearby).
Thank you to Rad Nerb Australia or creating this event. If you’re not nearby, head to Rad Herbs latest post comment section as medicine making in other areas are being organised. Or host one!
Happy to share methods and recipes.
Please share.
Free Palestine. 🇵🇸
California Poppy and Lemon Balm Tincture (50ml) - 2 in stock
Nourishment of the nerves, a pairing of sweet and bitter nervine sedative and nervine trophorestorative herbs from my garden.
The two plants combined act to gently calm the nervous system, and support restoration of the system. California poppy gently relaxes the tension of smooth muscle, helping to ease cramping and spasms in the gut and uterus.
Use: aniexty, insomnia, panic attacks, emotional stress, sensitive hyperactive nervous systems, menstrual cramps, neuropathy (nerve damage), analgesic for toothache.
Contains: Homegrown California Poppy (Eschsholzia californica), Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis), 40% Alcohol.
Safety: Not safe for pregnancy or children. Does not contain op!um, but may have an addictive effect when used with other sedatives.
Community Herbalism + Land care
Online Course: Herb Circle with Wise Herbal Ways
After learning about their offering in a conversation with Rox Maderia and Nicole Rose from Solidarity Apothecary here, I'm motivated to sit with a plant again in a herbal immersion, as done with various teachers over the years, this time from our cosy homes, with a companion or two and with the guidance of a Herb Circle recording. I'm wondering if anyone here would like to join me in these monthly Herb Circles (pre-recorded) where we get together and immerse (with the video offering from Rox), monthly.As we experience very different seasons to Scotland, I think reaching out and asking for access to flipped seasons could work (that don't exactly match Noongar Boodjar, but may facilitate ancestral connection for those fellow Celtic ones out there looking to deepen connection in the darker months).
Rox is engaged in loads of solidarity work for in Scotland/Calais with refugees and communities across Britain, and this is one way to pay it forward and support Rad Herbalists.
Words about the Herb Circles from Rox:
"Communicating and learning directly from the plants themselves. We do this to connect back with our plant kin, reconnect with nature and take a deep dive into plant medicine.
Following the Celtic calendar, as the wheel turns, we will work with the energies of each new season as we journey to meet a new plant ally.
We will work with embodiment practices to learn how to connect with our body and to hear the plants speak through our bodies to teach us about them.
The journey with each plant includes meditations, embodied practices, crafts/recipes, live chat function to share (optional). You are then encouraged to work with that plant ally for the whole of the time til the next celtic seasonal point to deepen your knowledge of the plant, this can include researching and chatting in the live community chat. The meditations will be there for you to continue with guided sits through out the time.
Celebrate the Celtic calendar and turning of the wheel
Pre-recorded Plant Journey Meditations
Embodiment practices for each plant sit - somatic/breath/sound
Recipe to make deepen our connection
Develop a community to share the journey
Live chat to share and support each journey
Connection to the energies of the season
Podcasts with health experts
Videos/behind the scenes of the podcasts
Bonus materials to enhance your learning from the wisdom keepers"
Book: The Land in Our Bones by Layla K. Feghali
I've been waitinga while for this book and was so relieved it came in time for a weeks holiday. I'm doing my darn best to read and re-read most pages slowly, but it's real tempting to devour this amazing text.
Words via Layla about the book:
"herbal knowledge exists because of our ancestors' sovereign relationships to land, all over the globe. the land is mutually protected by the stewardship of care + culture these indigenous intimacies have ensured to keep us alive til this day. this book is a collection of my lineage’s knowledge in this light, stretching from syria, across lebanon, beloved palestine, jordan, the sinai + beyond.
this herbal book is an interrogation of colonialism + its ripples on the culture of our world. i re-map our lands: the crossroads between Africa + Asia. i lend a pathway towards return to the earth’s medicine + our lineage wisdom as a source of liberation + regeneration. a call back to stewardship + its power to repair. an ethnobotanical roadmap of life that persists. stories ancient + recent that weave us together. plantcestral possibilities homeward, earthward for the displaced + diasporic amongst us.
this is my contribution to re-membering our ancestors + sharing the medicine of our land, for its liberation + our own. a book of the love, places + life we defend, where + who we come from + how we will rebuild our worlds anew. my bow to Indigenous stewardship across this earth, towards deeper care for land + life every place we find ourselves. for our diasporas + the world’s. for the healing of our generations forward + back.
may it serve liberation + life."
You can find this book online via Booktopia, or through Layla's instagram page here.