Healing with Nature
Nature heals us, as we help Nature heal herself. A journey of discovery into self-healing and embodied health, in relationship with Nature, using local plants and remedies.
Cleavers (Galium aparine)
Galium aparine has many common names including cleavers, clivers, goosegrass, catchweed, stickyweed, robin-run-the-hedge, sticky willy, sticky willow, velcro weed and it is an excellent spring tonic. It grabs your attention and hangs on, quite literally, when you first venture into…
St John’s Wort
St John’s Wort, Hypericum perforatum, is one of my favourite healing plants. It grows all over around here, more abundantly each year. The healing plants are like that, the more they are appreciated, the more they grow. St Johns Wort…
Rude Health
Self-healing Rude health is generally taken to mean ‘strong and healthy.’ Rude comes via Old French rude from Latin rudis ‘rough, raw’ and is thought to have denoted ‘rough unpolished stone’. Self-healing is a divine endowment available to all – everyone is…
Wasp Medicine
Attracting Wasp Venom A couple of weeks ago (July 2015), I disturbed a wasp nest. Wasps attack immediately when they feel threatened and I was stung 10-15 times on my arm, hand and leg. I couldn’t get away because of…
Nature Healing
Nature heals and Nature grows and Nature is in us, but are you in Nature? In 2008 we crossed a threshold; for the first time in our history more than half the world’s population now live in urban environments. As…
Homemade Natural Toothpaste
I probably wouldn’t have bothered with homemade toothpaste if organic, fluoride-free natural toothpaste was easy to get here, but it isn’t and I just couldn’t bring myself to buy the commercial stuff. So, I started to look for natural, easy…
Natural coconut milk shampoo
I’ve been working to get as many chemicals out of our lives as possible. Every other day a report comes out about cancer-causing chemicals in shampoo, toxic ingredients in the laundry detergent or asthma and allergies triggered by common household…
Lessons from water
In the developed world we take water for granted; we don’t appreciate it and we brutalise it, alternately contaminated it and then treating it with harmful chemicals. We barely stop to think that without it we would not exist, many…
Chamomile/manzanilla
Chamomile/manzanilla grows wild around here and I’ve been picking and drying it. It smells beautiful and fresh and tastes much nicer than any of the commercial versions. Only a few heads are needed for a cup, which I sweeten slightly…
