Overcoming Depression

secretsoftheserpent

Waking up is hard to do. Sometimes depression sets in when you start waking up. I know it did for me. I was so depressed I almost took my own life. People also get depressed for other things too. With the holidays here some people get depressed at this time because some loved ones are no longer with them. We can simply get depressed. Social media has brought depression for people to a new high because people see the fantasy lives of others and think they cant live up to it. For someone who has been to the brink and back I will let you in on what helped me. Hopefully you can use it to overcome your depression.

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LEGAL ALERT: FDA sends warns 15 companies for allegedly selling CBD products that violate the FD&C Act (FDA)

Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

FDA sent warning letters to 15 companies for allegedly selling products containing cannabidiol (CBD) in ways that violate the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act). In a press release, the FDA stated that based on the lack of scientific information supporting the safety of CBD in food, it cannot conclude that CBD is generally recognized as safe (GRAS). Previously, the FDA had primarily maintained that CBD was prohibited in conventional food products because substantial clinical investigations were initiated and made public on a drug containing CBD. FDA continues to explore potential pathways for various types of CBD products to be lawfully marketed and plans to provide an update on its progress in the coming weeks.

FDA highlighted specific concerns in the warning letters, including:

Products intended to treat a disease or otherwise have a therapeutic or medical use, and any product (other than food) that is intended to…

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The Herbs and Spices of Thanksgiving! — Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

Originally posted on The Herb Society of America Blog: By Susan Leigh Anthony If we are lucky enough, most, if not all, of us have sat down to an annual Thanksgiving feast with our loved ones in late November. The house is filled with familiar aromas of the season that evoke a sense of warmth,…

via The Herbs and Spices of Thanksgiving! — Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

The Bee and the Machine: Moving Beyond Efficiency and towards Nature-Centeredness

The Druid's Garden

Animals have spirit!

Over the course of the last four centuries, the Western World has created a set of “unshakable” principles concerning the natural world: that nature is just another machine, that animals don’t feel and do not have souls, that plants and animals aren’t sentient. Descartes, writing in the 1600s during the early rise of mechanization, was one of the first to make this claim. He posited that animals are mechanical automata, that is, they are beings without souls, feelings, or pain. These same ideas were not limited to non-human life; we see the same kind of thinking being applied to justify slavery, genocide, colonialization, and a list of other atrocities. When we combine this kind of thinking with the economic ideas of “growth at all costs” and “efficiency”, we end up in the dystopian fiction we find ourselves living in right now. I want to take some time…

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First Moon of Winter 2019

Not Caring About What Others Think

secretsoftheserpent

People ask me all the time how they can get out of the habit of caring what others think. I have said before that if you are worried about what others think of you, your Magic can not be your own. You are letting others control your Magic. It does not matter if you are worried about what strangers think or worried about what people you know think, you need to stop. This post will show you how.

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Herbal Recipes for Thanksgiving – Urban Moonshine

Good Witches Homestead

It’s the time of year when many of the simple joys of life become the heart and center of this season; spending time with family and friends, the coziness of winter, warm fires, mugs of mulled wine, and lovingly prepared meals.

So much of herbalism is about celebrating the life and benefits of the plants, and the way they support us throughout the seasons. Autumn, especially around Thanksgiving, is our time to enjoy the gifts of this year’s harvest.

Classic holiday meals can be enhanced by adding herbs to support your health. These dishes are sure to be crowd-pleasers with your nearest and dearest.

Enjoy, and cheers to good health!

MEDICINAL HERBAL STUFFING

A classic holiday stuffing recipe made with rye bread and medicinal herbs and mushrooms.

Servings: fills two casserole dishes, about 15 servings.

INGREDIENTS:

1 loaf of good dark rye bread
1/2 cup sage, minced
1/2 cup rosemary,

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Is It Safe To Forage Frozen Mushrooms?

Greetings!

A wintry cold snap, even during the weeks of mid-autumn, can mean different things to different people.

To mushroom hunters, a cold snap any time of the year equates to one or more of the following:

—No mushrooms (Too cold to even bother checking.)
—Fewer mushrooms (Most of which are inedible.)
—Frozen mushrooms (Some of which are choice edible species.)

All three selections are valid, though it is the last option that I’d like to address in this email and in the following video.

You see, quite a few edible mushrooms survive and reproduce in cold temperatures. It is therefore not uncommon to find edible fungi frozen solid to their substrates.

Recently, I’ve received numerous questions regarding the practice of foraging frozen mushrooms.

Is it safe to do so? What if the mushroom has been on a tree for weeks? Does the freeze/thaw cycle alter its texture?

These are all great questions that I address in the following video. Additional topics discussed in the video include the ability of fungi to produce anti-freeze agents, the destructive effects of freezing on a cellular level, and lots more!

You can check out the brand new video here.

Also, I was recently invited to speak on the topic of mushrooms and gut health with Peggy Schirmer from Gut Feelings.

Fungi, as it turns out, aren’t just residents of forests, fields, parks, and lawns. They also reside on and inside each and every one of us.

In this interview, we discuss — among many things — the gut mycobiome. You can check out the interview here.

Thanks for reading and watching, and as always, thank you for your support!

-Adam Haritan

On Being a Minority Religion and Paths to Building Respect

The Druid's Garden

“I’m sorry, I’m unavailable to meet on that day.”

A pause, “well, why is that? This is an important meeting.”

“Because it is a major holiday for me, and I am taking a personal day to celebrate it.”

Another, longer pause. “Wait, your holiday is Halloween? That’s not a religious holiday.”

“No, my holiday is Samhain, which is a holiday dedicated to my ancestors. Modern Halloween traditions actually derived from this much older holiday.”

Another pause. “Can’t you celebrate it on another day?”

“No. The timing is critical to the celebration. Would I ask you to meet on Christmas or Easter?”

Another pause. “That’s not the same thing.”

The above interchange is a fairly common interaction fairly typical of my workplace experiences in being a minority religion, a druid, here in the USA. In fact, I had this exchange with someone just last week. Since this kind of thing seems…

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Wild & Slimy Edible Mushrooms (That Are Surprisingly Tasty!)

As the year draws to a close, the fungal kingdom participates in a kind of grand finale that is best experienced within a conifer forest.

Under dense canopies of pines, troops of ochre-colored mushrooms push their way through the soil. These particular fungi characteristically wear slimy coats adorned with seasonal debris including pine needles, unlucky insects, and additional forest offerings.

Such a performance is not to be missed, as many of these mushrooms are edible and among the last of the mycorrhizal fungi to appear in temperate climates before temperatures plummet and the ground freezes.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve made several trips to conifer-rich woodlands in order to witness this end-of-the-year fungal grand finale.

And on almost every occasion, slimy mushrooms were in no short supply.

If you’re interested in learning more about these wild edible mushrooms whose golden days are numbered, check out the brand new video!

I was recently invited to speak with the hosts of The Survival Show Podcast on the topic of wild mushrooms. In this episode, we cover the “foolproof four,” tips on getting started, whether or not mushrooms make great survival food, and lots more. Here are 3 ways to listen to the interview: