HSA Webinar: Herbal Hues

by Sasha Duerr

Sasha Duerr is an artist, designer and educator who works with plant-based color and natural palettes. Join her this Thursday, August 26 at 3pm Eastern as she explores creating natural dyes.
Our webinars are free toThe Herb Society of America members and $5.00 for guests. Become a member today, and enjoy all of our webinars for free along with access to the webinar library with over fifty program titles. To register, visit www.HerbSociety.org/hsa-learn/hsa-webinars/

For those who love color AND plants, natural dyes connect you instantly to a vast range of artisanal hues that are truly vital, vibrant, and inherently meaningful through the ingredients themselves.

Plant-based palettes tell stories that are inherent to places, people, and the plants, and plant-based colors can be conjured seasonally from weeds, yard waste, florals, and food. There is an intertwined overlap with natural colors that are awe-inspiring and a…

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Cultivating Resilience as a Physical and Spiritual Practice

The Druid's Garden

Staghorn Sumac: A tree that teaches us about resilience

Resilience is a term I first learned as a permaculture practitioner–resilient ecosystems are those that are able to withstand hardship, recover quickly when faced with difficulty, and had a capacity to endure. In other words, a resilient ecosystem can withstand drought, flooding, or other difficulties by being adaptable, flexible, and having redundancies. Which of course, is so critical in today’s ever-changing world fraught with climate change and instability. Resilient plants are the often-maligned weeds: those weeds who take every opportunity to grow: who find a crack in the sidewalk and take root, who immediately start to grow after disruption, or who outcompete less resilient plants. They are able to be like weeds or opportunistic species, taking advantage of new opportunities, finding niches, and gracefully adapting to change. Think of the dandelion here, growing up through cracks in the sidewalk. This same…

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Our Minds Limit Science

Potemkin Nation — Potemkin Nation | Ecosophia

There are advantages to learning about history. One of the big ones is that patterns repeat themselves across historical time, and if you know what happened just before other societies went through the important inflection points in their life cycle, you can tolerably often figure out when one of those is abojut to happen in…
Potemkin Nation — Potemkin Nation | Ecosophia

A Blue Moon Renewing Bath Ritual with Coast & Clearing

The Full Moon on the 22nd of August is a Seasonal Blue Moon.

A seasonal blue moon is third or fourth full moon in a season. They are a reminder of your fullness and your magnetic power, and they also give us a powerful opportunity for renewal and rebirth.

This Blue Moon also takes place on the last day of the Lion’s Gate, which helps give power to the intentions we made on the new moon. This Blue Moons gives us what feels like a second chance to clear away what no longer serves us so we can begin anew, and step into the life we are wanting to create.

We are on the last months of Summer here in the Northern Hemisphere. Right now is a potent time to step into your goals and take action on your intentions. Especially as the Sun moves into the earthy sign of Virgo on the 22nd. You might find that just like gardening, before you can see any new growth, you must clear away what is blocking the path or light.

One powerful but sometimes overlooked way to release energetic obstacles and to cleanse the auric field is to use water! Water helps cleanse and clear our energy field as well as our minds so that we can focus on the path ahead and receive insights to help guide us. When we add salts, herbs, oils and crystals to the water, we add even more power towards our intentions.

Read full article at: Spirit de la Lune ~ A Blue Moon Renewing Bath Ritual With Coast and Clearing

Three Principles for an Ethical Foraging

The Druid's Garden

Foraging for wild foods, mushrooms, and wild medicines is something that is growing as a pastime for many people. The joy of foraging from the land connects us to our ancient and primal roots and allows us a chance to build a more direct connection with nature. But with any practice rooted in nature comes the need for balance and responsibility. Thus, the following principles can help wild food foragers and wild food instructors harvest ethically, sustainably, and in a way that builds wild food populations rather than reduces them. I share both the principles in text below as well as graphics. The graphics are (full size and web-sharable versions, see links) and they are licensed under a Creative Commons license. Anyone who teaches plant walks or wants to use them in foraging, wild foods, and herbalism practice is free to download them, print them, and share them! The…

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Science is Dead

Secret Societies

Sacred Trees in the Americas – Black Willow (Salix nigra) – Magic, Mythology, Medicine and Uses

The Druid's Garden

Me under a giant fallen, but yet living, willow tree!

One of my earliest memories was of three ancient black willow trees that were down by a little creek where I lived. Although we lived on a busy crossroads in town, the stream and willows in the backyard were a quiet place, guarded by those three old willows. They looked like gnarled old women, sitting by the edge of the stream, their long branches swaying gently in the wind. When the stream waters would rise, sometimes they would look like they were wading there, branches swaying in the current. The Black Willow is an incredible tree, the largest Willow native to North America, and a great tree to get to know.

The Black Willow is also known as the Swamp Willow, Sauz, Dudley Willow, or the Gulf Black Willow. It is native to all of Eastern North America, from the…

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New Moon in Leo Moonthly Report | The Lion’s Gate and a Blue Moon

Happy New Moon!

Get ready! This new moon is a powerful one as it aligns with the 8/8 Lion’s Gate Portal. There is powerful energy beaming to earth right now in order to help humanity transcend to their next phase on a personal and global level.

This is a powerful portal for activation and manifestation.

The star Sirius (known as our Spiritual Sun) rises in the eastern sky midsummer between July 28th and August 12th, but the 8th is considered the most potent day as the Sun and Sirius move closest to the earth aligning with Origin’s belt on that day.

The Lion’s Gate Portal paired with the Leo New Moon makes for a very potent time to dream big and manifest a new reality for yourself! There is a powerful surge of energy coming to earth right now bringing in huge opportunities for your growth and expansion.

This cycle also holds a Blue Moon, which can bring in more powerful opportunities for change and transformation. Blue Moons offer us a chance for a rebirth and renewal.

New beginnings are often associated with new moons, but this blue moon is giving you a chance to either find closure, or begin again with some aspect of your life. This one takes place in Aquarius helping you dream big and reach for your dreams if you can find a new way of looking at things.

Read full article at: Spirit de la Lune ~ New Moon in Leo Moonthly Report | The Lion’s Gate and A Blue Moon