Roselle Hibiscus– An Herb with Many Names — Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

Originally posted on The Herb Society of America Blog: By Maryann Readal With its bright red calyces, green leaves, and okra-like flowers, Hibiscus sabdariffa, also known as red zinger, red sorrel, sour tea, Florida cranberry, and roselle, makes an unusual and striking accent plant in the garden. On a recent trip to Montreal, I was…

In the modern world, it can be challenging to get a good night’s rest. Keeping a healthy daytime lifestyle as well as a calming nighttime ritual are excellent ways to prepare the body for restful sleep filled with exciting and inspiring dreams! There are even traditions in which herbs are used during sleep, not only to bring about peaceful snoozing, but also to create vivid, lucid dreaming landscapes sure to bring happiness, rather than grogginess, to your waking state.

The practice of placing herbs under one’s pillow dates back centuries and was originally thought to protect against evil, bring good dreams, calm bad dreams, foresee the future, or even conjure a lover into one’s life! No matter the reason, herbal pillows are an easy way to help promote peaceful sleep and encourage dreaming. These pillows are simple to prepare and make a wonderful “crafternoon” with your friends or family. The first step is to…

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Awen, Bardic Arts, and the Ancestors

The Druid's Garden

The time between Samhain and Yule is always a time of deep reflection for me. As a homesteader, this represents the end of the season– the first frost happened in the week I was drafting this post, making everything curl up and die. By the time late November comes around, any major outdoor projects are complete for the year. We anticipate, even embrace, the winter months when snow carpets the ground and all is frozen and still. While in the light half of the year, I spend most of my spare time gardening, doing various permaculture projects, or just being outside in the summer. In the dark half of the year, this is when I turn to more inward-focused bardic arts, more intense practice of my magic and journeying, and learning from books of all kinds. So as we move into the dark half of the year, I’ll be spending…

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How to Make Elderberry Syrup for Immune Health

Good Witches Homestead

Each year as winter approaches, I reliably find my patients asking me about the best herbal remedies to use during the cold weather months. One of the most common questions I encounter is, “What nutritional preparations can I use to help keep my family strong and healthy throughout the sniffle season?”. There’s a wide array of herbs well-suited to addressing specific and general winter wellness goals, but one of my favorite, tried-and-true choices for general immune support is the elderberry.

And while there are lots of ways to enjoy the healthful benefits of elderberries, one of the best-loved is that longtime herbal apothecary staple, elderberry syrup.

Elderberry Syrup Benefits

The berries, flowers, and bark of the elder (Sambucus) plant have long been prized by herbalists across the globe, and modern studies have also substantiated the berries’ ability to help maintain normal, healthy functioning of our immune system*. This makes elderberry an…

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The Hottest Mushroom In The Forest

Greetings!

An interesting quality about wild mushrooms is that more than a few of them will burn your mouth.

This may come as a surprise to those of us who have only eaten store-bought mushrooms — most of which, while certainly tasty, are rather mild-mannered.

Beyond the grocery store walls and out in a wild forest, however, there are particular wild mushrooms whose flavors range from hot, to really hot, to excruciatingly hot. Researchers aren’t even entirely clear as to why certain mushrooms demonstrate these qualities while other fungi — even poisonous species — can be flavorless.

In this brand new video, we discuss what many people consider to be thehottest mushroom in the forest, as well as some proposed theories behind such quirks in nature.

If you’re interested in learning more about this very common (and very hot!) wild mushroom, check out the video!

Speaking of store-bought food, here’s a species that commonly inhabits grocery store shelves as well as wild spaces outside the supermarket. Known to many of us as the Goji Berry, this wild edible nightshade is fruiting in eastern North America this month. Check out this Instagram post to learn more!

Click to view post

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

-Adam Haritan

ALLOWING FEAR TO BE YOUR TEACHER: CRYSTAL HEALING FOR THE SCORPIO NEW MOON

We entered the Scorpio new moon phase last night at 11:39pm ET, and I had trouble sleeping.

Anxiety, fears, shadow aspects coming up.

Scorpio is all about the dark places, the hidden and unseen, our innermost motivations and desires. It’s intensity, death, lust, magick, psychism, power, deep emotions, and manifestation.

Scorpio moons tend to have a powerful effect on me, but especially the new moon which occurs here in the North during what’s considered the descent – the dark time of the year – before the reemergence of the sun’s power at the winter solstice.

It’s a time for introspection and preparation – but for what? For an inevitable healing and growth period.

If we follow the wheel of the year, we’ve spent the first three quarters working towards our goals and harvests, actual or symbolic. It’s an active time of doing, achieving, failing, succeeding, and continuing on. Sometimes we stay on track, sometimes we stray. And sometimes, we discover that what we’ve been working towards isn’t quite what’s working for us or making us happy.

This time of year forces us to pause, reflect, and take a good hard look at what’s in the darker parts of ourselves. Our fears, shames, insecurities, ignored intuitions, lack of attention, are all things that are part of what make us human, and also the building blocks for what holds us back.

We like to avoid these things, and yet, if we approach them as teachers, they are enormous healing allies.

Crystals that help you to face and converse with your fears isn’t as popular a topic as crystals that help you to diminish your feelings of anxiety, or protect your energy. Let’s be real: we like to avoid what feels like sh**.

Read complete article at: Krista Mitchell ~ Allowing Fear To Be Your Teacher: Crystal Healing For The Scorpio New Moon

Third Moon of Autumn

Ancestral Herbalism and Samhain: Working Deeply with Rosemary

The Druid's Garden

Rosemary Card from the Plant Spirit Oracle

As we quickly approach Samhain, it is a useful practice to spend some time with rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) and build here into your Samhain practices. In this post, we look into some of the magic and medicine of Rosemary, and I share a number of ancestor and Samhain-focused practices that you can use with Rosemary.

An Ancestral Ally of Humans: History, Medicine, Magic

Before we get into what you can make or do with rosemary, let’s spend some time exploring and understanding this ancient herb. Rosemary has been with humanity almost as long as we have written records. Native to the mediterranean region, rosemary was first found referenced on cuineform tablets from Ancient Egypt that are from 5000 BCE–thus, humanity has at least an 8000 year old relationship with this herb (but I suspect it is much longer than our written history!)…

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New Moon in Scorpio: Crone Moon Energy Update

We are officially in Scorpio Season! The New Moon joins the Sun in the watery sign of Scorpio, and in a few short days… Mercury will be going retrograde in Scorpio as well!

This will bring us all a series of events and developments that we didn’t even know we needed to help awaken our potential.

This New Moon in Scorpio is bringing us in highly charged energy to assist us during our rebirth this season. What has been hidden will be uncovered, and what has been asleep will be stirred awake.

Prepare to dig deep! Unhealed wounds, childhood traumas and other unaddressed scars are likely to come up as we move through this “underworld.”

Don’t be afraid to step into this and to feel your feelings fully. This is coming up for a reason. Much of this is to help fully heal these past wounds and integrate the lessons of the year so we can move into 2020 with a new perspective, no longer weighed down by our past.

Read complete article at: Spirit de la Lune ~ New Moon In Scorpio ~ Crone Moon Energy Update