Do not be dismayed with the brokenness of the world.
All things break. And all things can be mended.
Not with time, as they say, but with intention.
So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.
The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.
L.R. Knost
I’m on the west coast watching for whales and enjoying the lush green that is Vancouver Island. More to come. Loving the revamp to my site and looking forward to the next 10 years helping folks with herbs.
Oh January. If someone ever needs you to explain irony you can tell them that the 2019 Festival de Neige in Montreal was cancelled because of a massive snow storm.
We are now into February. How are those resolutions?
Kicked under the bed? Stuffed into the oven?
I have some advice on goal setting.
We do better when we set goals that are action oriented and not outcome oriented. Outcomes are often beyond our control. Why set yourself up for bad feelings and kicking yourself when the outcome you hoped for
goes sideways. Even if we can assess that we were not responsible for the poor outcome it is still hard sometimes to step away from blame. Actions we take or choose not to take are our direct responsibility. The choice to act or not act rests with us.
Here is an example of an action oriented goal.
I will listen to 30 minutes of Radio Canada weekly.
As opposed to an outcome oriented goal.
I will improve my French.
See how vague it is. How will I know when I have made progress? If I learn 1 new French word a month is that enough? Too mushy. Outcomes need to follow actions.
More perspective here – planners and goals. This page is VERY busy but
the author has a point about planning.
I was fortunate enough to be able to head home (down to Halifax) over the holidays. Driving back I was threading my way up the TransCanada in New Brunswick and as I brushed alongside of Maine I was able to tune into NPR. I love tracking different radio stations when you drive cross country. They were exhorting me to sign up for their curated newsletter – covering each months top ten new stories. My immediate thought was – am I supposed to be curating the newsletter?
What are we here for? I personally think that we each have a destiny to
fulfill. The healthier we are – the easier it will be to fulfill that destiny.
Fate has enough sorrow in store for all of us. Why self sabotage? We might just as well do what we can to make the best choices. I always hope to share quality info combined with practical steps you can take to make use of the information. I always dislike sharing information that people cannot act on. It might be great that moondust is the cure for highblood pressure. Unless someone reading has a contact at NASA there’s not much we can practically do with that knowledge.
MOVEMENT – get up, get off the sofa and move your body.
There is a baseline fitness test that can be used to assess your fitness in
the moment. Not suitable for everyone so check with your health care
practitioner before you give it a go. I like to have a baseline because how else can you track your progress? The lower your beats per minute
(BPM) after the test – the better.
3 Minute Step Test
Why is she talking about movement? I just want to snuggle under my
blanket, look at seed catalogues and plan my herb garden. More about
herbs Anne. 
Look at it this way. When the house is on fire it is hard to care that the tap in the kitchen sink is leaking. As an herbalist I love plants and their healing. I want to make sure though that lifestyle wise people have the big health pieces resolved. Movement is an essential piece.
My niece at one point wanted to be a model. She went to check out a
modeling agency and there was a mark on the wall. Before any talking,
any looking at the young women, any picture taking, before any anything – the young women had to stand against the wall. If they were not at least as tall as the mark on the wall they were out. Out. Did not matter if they looked just like Iman, just like Cindy Crawford, just like – insert name of current supermodel here. They either were tall enough or they
weren’t. Movement/physical activity is like that.
You just cannot be sedentary and be healthy.
A fit and healthy person has a greater ability to confront health challenges when they do happen.
It is easy to overestimate how much exercise we need and the intensity of the exercise we need. You do not need to train for the Crossfit Games.
Start from where you are. Do more today. The real health benefits come from engaging in regular low to medium intensity activity. It can be one of the best ways to build overall health. I am talking about activities like walking, swimming, tai chi, hiking, biking, yoga, and etc. Start each day with a morning walk. Go for a skate on the canal. Folks who engage in
physical activity during the day find it takes less time to fall asleep and
they sleep for a longer period of time. They also have better bone
density, lower blood pressure, better overall cardiovascular health, and
greater lung capacity. Regular exercise also helps us to handle stress.
Thirty minutes a day is enough to extend your life.
You don’t even have to do all 30 minutes at the same time.
More will make you fitter, but it won’t make you live any longer. Crazy
cardio has negative effects on the body. It is pro-inflammatory and
increases the production of free radicals. It depresses immune function.
It also raises levels of cortisol (a hormone released in response to stress).
Too much cortisol circulating in our system makes us dumber, weaker,
fatter, and raises our blood pressure – among other negative impacts on
our health. To get benefits from exercise we need to moderate the intensity and make sure we have adequate recovery time. If you enjoy an all out hard core spin class – great. Do it for enjoyment, for fun – and then make sure you take time to recover afterwards.
Did you know that elite athletes get sick 4.5 times more often than us
regular folks?
Aside from engaging in frequent low to moderate intensity activity there
are two other components of moving for better health.
Strength training – yes, I mean lifting weights. Personally, I would rather
shave a rabid weasel than do a deadlift but I still do them. Challenging
my muscles maintains and builds strength. It also works on balance and flexibility. There are plenty of bodyweight routines that a person can do at home. When the zombie apocalypse comes I want to be ready.
bodyweight workout
HIIT – high intensity interval training. This is basically sprinting. Pick anaerobic exercise, go all out for 10-20 seconds. Recover. Repeat 4-5 times for a session.
If you have a road you can sprint. You can go all out on an elliptical. If by the end of the session you are gasping for breath and can feel your heart pounding – you’re doing it right.
Strength training can be done a couple of times a week and sprinting
only needs to happen every 7 to 10 days.
Again – before starting any exercise program check with your health
care practitioner to make sure that its ok for you and your personal health
situation. Ease into it. You want to challenge yourself but you don’t
want to spend the next day lying on the sofa moaning. If you do experience some muscle soreness a great solution that also doubles as a reward is a soak in a warm bath. Let your body enjoy the warmth of the water.
Sore Muscle Soak
3/4 cup epsom salt
3/4 cup mustard powder
1/4 cup ginger powder
1/4 cup baking soda
1 tablespoon almond oil (carrier oil of your choice)
13 drops wintergreen or birch essential oil
This soak works by encouraging blood flood flow. The ginger and the
mustard are warming and improve circulation. I could also see making
this soak with cinnamon powder in place of the ginger. I would have to
check the $ comparison. Increased blood flow means better nutrition
for the cells and improved removal of metabolic wastes. You could easily
leave out the epsom salt/baking soda and just add the ginger/mustard
powder to the bath. Baking soda is great to make your skin feel soft and for the relief of itchy skin. Espom salt makes you floatier in the bath but
other than that they are both pretty inert. It’s true that epsom salts are
magnesium sulfate there is almost no absorption happening in the bath.
If you’re concerned about magnesium take an oral supplement or eat
more high magnesium foods.
Wintergreen and birch essential oils are known for being potent
analgesics (pain relievers). They both contain methyl salicylate. There are several contraindications to their use – only for adults, not for use during pregnancy, not for use by those who are on blood thinners or are about to have surgery and they should not be used by anyone who is sensitive to salicylates. It is crucial to dilute essential oils before using them. To make this soak add the 13 drops of essential oil to 15 ml (1 tablespoon) carrier oil (you could easily use an infused oil instead of the almond oil). A goldenrod infused oil would be fantastic for muscle pain. I admit that for carrier oils I often go for whatever I have on hand. This is a 3% dilution which is within the safety parameters for wintergreen or birch essential oil. Add the oil mix to the dry ingredients of the soak. Mix them together. Store in an air-tight container. When you want a relaxing
bath add 1-2 cups of the mix to the tub. As I am writing this I can also imagine using pine or rosemary essential oil.
The days are getting longer. I always like to look outside around 5 pm to see how much light there still is. Hope this finds you warm and cozy. Be well and there will be more nattering next month.
When I was working as the in-store herbalist for a health food store I would often be confronted by a customer asking about an herb and wanting assurances that it was strong, the strongest, right? I always struggled with this because what answer do you give? What question is really being asked? I often communicate by metaphor. The perfect metaphor can speak to folks in a way that allows for mystery and can help them to see around the corners. I never came up with a good answer – metaphorical or not – for the question – was it the strongest? But today I am going to have a hack at it. I stumbled across this friend by accident and that’s why I started thinking about herbs that are “strong”.
Poke
From my perspective as an herbalist I am not interested in having a client take the “strongest” herb. I want to move them towards health in a manner that will gently nourish and improve the body. Herbalism has a role to play in acute conditions but where it really shines is in working with folks to help reverse/release chronic patterns and habits of poor health. As these conditions have often manifested over years they are best approached with a plan for slow gradual healing. Anything else would give my clients whiplash. If your partner forgets your anniversary do you immediately say ok, that’s it – I am breaking up with you.
“Strong” herbs frequently carry with them the risk of serious side effects. They are more toxic than those herbs that we consider to be tonic and the difference between a dose at which healing can occur and a dose at which harming can occur is often minimal. Using these herbs makes a formula more complex as we may need to add in other herbs to help ameliorate the action of the “strong” herb. I still remember a woman coming in to the store and asking me for lily of the valley for her husband who had heart problems. No, no, and more no. I know how to use this herb and I would be extremely hesitant to give it to a client unless I felt that the reward was worth the risk.
I feel that wanting/needing the strongest herb is often coming from a place of fear. We, when faced with poor health, often want to get on and get over it. As fast as possible. If I can go out and get the strongest herb there is then I can resolve this and I won’t have to sit with it and be afraid and if I am really lucky then maybe I won’t have to make any real changes to my life and I can just forget about this and put it behind me.
Poke (Phytolacca americana) is a very strong herb. I was surprised to come across it growing here in Ottawa. To me it speaks of the southern U.S. Of sassafras and Appalachia. This herb is a plant that should only be used under the supervision of an experienced practitioner. It is teratogenic and as such should not be used during pregnancy. Even moderate doses can cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Large doses can cause low blood pressure, suppress respiration, dizziness and spasms. Convulsion and death is a possibility with very large doses. This is an herb where a dose of tincture might be a single drop. I am not sharing this info to scare you but rather to remind you that if herbs are powerful enough to have an action upon our body then they are too powerful to be completely safe.
We just had a poplar come down on our property. I got a great guy to come and attack it with a chainsaw. Why did I not do this myself? I do not know how to use a chainsaw. I used to get politely bitchy on the phone at the health food store. Is that possible? I suppose there is a chance I was just bitchy bitchy. Someone would be on the phone asking where they could find this or that crazily strong herb. I had to tell them now! My response was always that if they had the wisdom to be using this herb then they would know where to find it.
Be gentle with yourself. Are you getting enough sleep? Are you spending time with loved ones? Are you making loving choices for yourself each day? Nourish yourself before you turn to herbs that attack and antagonize the body.
“I will be gentle with myself, I will love myself. I am a child of the universe – being born each moment.”
I love wild bergamot. Taste a leaf and the spiciness just does a tango on your tongue. Also enjoying the echinacea just low-key hanging out lower left.
Urban herb walk was on Saturday and I made a wild weed pesto for folks to sample. There was even some left over for me to take home and enjoy. There are 9 different plants in this pesto. Technically 13 if we also include the garlic, lemon juice, pine nuts, and olive oil. This pesto includes raspberry, dandelion, plantain, wood sorrel, lamb’s quarters, red clover, nettle, and violet leaves. I gathered them the day before the walk. Also got to discover some fireweed (it’s been on my list to work with for a couple of years now) and St. John’s wort I did not know was there, saw a bluejay, numerous monarch butterflies, and a mouse ran over my foot. All round it was a win.
I wanted to talk during the herb walk about eating wild plants. Aside from the enjoyment of free groceries harvesting weeds and enjoying them as part of our diet improves the diversity of our nutrition. Humans evolved alongside the plants that surround us. It is theorized that our ancestors ate anywhere from 80 to 100 different plants. Meanwhile week in and week out I’m putting the broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and brussel sprouts into the cart. I can’t remember the last time I ate a veggie or fruit that I had never tried before. The best I can say is that I switched to blackberries this week instead of my usual blueberries. We need as many different phytonutrients as we can get. Low dietary diversity has negative consequences for our health – not just our physical health. This is fact. Eating, whenever we can, locally growing weeds and wild plants can make us healthier.
I won’t say I followed a recipe for the pesto. I’ve made it before and I basically make it up as I go along. It was about 4 cups of weeds and I blanched them by pouring boiling water over them and letting them swim for about 5 minutes. I blanched them because of the nettle that I gathered – I wanted to take out the sting. Also cause there is a difference between ground up herb paste and pesto (possibly my own pretensions are the difference but there you go).
Strained the herbs and squeezed out the water. I toasted a 1/4 cup of pine nuts in a frying pan on the stove – they burn quickly so keep an eye on them. Crushed a few cloves of garlic and then put the weeds, the garlic, and the pine nuts in the blender. A steady pulse to mix it all together, drizzle in the olive oil and then when the mixture has the right texture add the juice of 1 lemon. With the exception of the weeds and the olive oil you could leave anything out. I know some folks add cheese to their pesto but I wanted to minimize ingredients in case someone one on the walk had allergies.
The pesto turned out great.
One of the plants from the herb walk and the ancestor of the modern carrot.
