The Wildland Tea Party

A couple of months ago, in the most random situation, I found myself flooded with inspiration for a new type of event. The Muses, several indeed, had conspired to call me to produce something that would gather women together, in the outdoors, to create ceremony, to heal, and to learn. An offering that seems channeled straight from the Divine, down through my heart, and out through my hands. The divine method here can not be discounted or questioned. Every time I asked ‘how?’ ‘for what?’ “where?’ I was given an almost immediate response from these Muses in the form of a clear vision and strong desire to make it happen.

For the next few months I’ll be testing this offering out to see if it sticks; if it’s manifesting in a way that is pleasurable to me, to you, and to the Muses who are pushing it along…On or near the Full Moon, we’ll gather in sisterhood, somewhere in the great outdoors, for a Wildland Tea Party.

Think of this event as women’s spiritual retreat meets camping trip meets herbal medicine class. I will meet you in a natural setting, create a container for personal work according to a theme for that month, and we will meet each other, heart to heart, as sisters in a sacred space. We will move our bodies under the sun, learn about plant medicines to support our healing paths, and journey shamanically to uncover, release, heal, and integrate any issues that need brought to light.

Each Wildland Tea Party will be held in a new location, with the goal being exposing my tribe of sisters to new sacred places. That you can return to on your own whenever you need to reconnect with the spirits of that place and the energies we co-create and infuse into the land. Each place will become a power portal for you, one that will help you to heal when you feel stuck, stagnant, or in need of community or nature bathing or plant spirit connection.

Together we’ll drink herbal teas, purify with the alchemy of smoke and mist, anoint with oils and salves, and release with sacred fire. A themed kit will be available for you to purchase too, that will help you integrate your experience into your daily life after the event. The kits are available for purchase at the time of check out as an add-on, or at the event or on the website. *Purchasing it along with your event ticket will get you a good discount*

For specific details on scheduled Wildland Tea Parties, including them and general location, click the button below to get to our events page.

Simmer Down, Sweets

A few days ago I found myself on the phone with a good friend who calmly told me it sounded like I had a lot of fire inside of me and that perhaps I needed some cooling foods to help me get back to equilibrium.

I was detectably out of balance and emotionally worked up, and she knows me well enough to comment in a way that didn’t fan the fire scorching my insides, but instead touched me like a soothing balm so that I become of a mind to take heed.

We all find ourselves this way from time to time, mentally charged and physically ready for battle over something that really would be best handled with a cool temperament and quick step outside of the Self so you can see that forest instead of only burning bushes…some of us get heated more than others (strong Mars in your chart, anyone?) but we can all relate on occasion, can’t we?

Having good friends you trust to point out your bullshit is one of life’s greatest gifts, so if you have that person who will call you out when you’re being insane, don’t let them go. That conversation helped me channel my emotional fire into a creative one, one of my favorite things about being an herbalist. I now had a tangible problem I could set to work solving instead of just burning the blaze inside me brighter til it eventually would burn me out. And for no good reason.

Getting to it, I knew I needed some herbs to cool down the emotional intensity, balance my hormones a little bit (I was in the midst of moon time and RAGING), and reconnect me to the cycles of living that I’d gotten a little bit detached from. It was also really f***ing hot at that time, which surely contributed to my turmoil. What I came up with is one of my FAVORITE herbal teas ever generated from this here herbal witch, and I now present to you, Simmer Down - A Tea for Calming the F Down! It helped so much that I coulnd’t even tell you what the hell had me so tied up in fiery knots! During the blending and prayer process, a medicine song came to me, and I’d like to share it with you too.

It’s a delicious cooling, modulating, and soothing blend of herbs that immediately took me down a notch, to a more manageable state of affairs. It tastes so good cold I’ve been having a cup or two every day when the summer sun is hottest. It can help alleviate menstrual cramps, promotes relaxation, and helps us restore a balanced connection with the many emotion bearing fluids of the body. It would also be useful in mild fevers, overheating, overexertion, and irritable, agitated, and bad moods that are quite possibly covering up some other emotion we’re not ready to process. In the soothing of the agitation, it will help you ground down into the Earth and flow like a river through a forest, giving you access to your psyche, and whatever is really going on down there.

Check it out in out in our shop, and be sure to let me know what you think and how it helps you. If you know someone who would benefit from it, it would make a great gift!

I hope you love it as much as I do!

Ethical Wildcrafting + Stewardship: A Video

In this video I introduce you to the ethics, principles, and practices of wildcrafting (harvesting) plants. I cover intention, intuition, tools, and how to respectfully connect with Earth’s medicines. This is essential information for ANYONE interested in foraging, collecting, or otherwise working with and removing plants from their homes.

Decoctions and Infusions

Herbalists rarely call a tea a tea. Hang around your local herb shop and you’ll hear tisane, infusion, and decoction long before the word tea comes out of someone’s mouth. That’s because in the art of herbal medicine, a tea isnt’ just a tea - and these other unfamiliar terms indicate just HOW the tea is prepared - because not all teas are just a teaspoon of herbs in a tea bag and steeped in water…it gets a little deeper than that.

An herbal infusion is the closest thing to a regular herbs-steeped-in-water tea. One difference is that while you can make an infusion using a tea bag, an herbal infusion usually uses a larger quantity of herbs than a teabag from the grocery store, which is what we herbalists refer to as a Tisane. A beverage tea drunk for fun or for mild benefit, but not usually extra-strength like an infusion or decoction would be, at a ratio of at least 1 Tablespoon of your chosen herb to 1 cup of boiled water. Tisanes and teabags generally use about 1 Teaspoon of herbs, to your cup of hot water.

Infusions are most notably different from the other types of teas because they are made using delicate parts of the plant. The flower, leaf, non-woody stems, and some seeds (like Fennel or Cardamom) are measured, placed into a glass jar, and covered with just boiled distilled or spring water, and then covered. Infusions need to steep for at least 20 minutes for a maximum extraction without maximum bitter principles being pulled into the water. It’s important to note as well that if you’re using primarily seeds for your infusion, you can use 1 Teaspoon instead of the generally used Tablespoon, because they are more dense and heavy.

Decoctions are made using the woody, fibrous parts of a plant, like barks, berries, hard seeds, and roots. We tend to use between 1 teaspoon and 1 tablspoon of the plant material per 1 cup of water. We add these to a stainless, glass, or cast iron pot, and bring to a gentle simmer. You do NOT want to boil this mixture - you want the water bubbling but not rolling like you want for pasta. Place a lid on your vessel and allow to simmer gently for 20 minutes.

Some herbal formulas contain different types of plant parts, so you’ll want to do a combined decoction-infusion process. For these, you’ll decoct the hard plant parts first using the total amount of water for the combined fomrula. Once the decoction is complete, add the infusion herbs and allow to steep, covered, for 20 minutes or more.

It is absolutely possible to put 1 tablespoon of herbs into a tea bag, tea ball, or cheese cloth, to do your infusing. I typically only recommend this when you’re traveling or don’t have access to the accoutrements you’ll need for the other methods, because you tend to get a weaker extraction.

There are great stainless steel mesh strainers that fit right inside your mug and make it pretty easy to do infusions. Whether infusing or decocting, make sure you strain your herbs through cheesecloth, muslin, a coffee filter, (use unbleached or sunbleached for all of these materials, if possible) or stainless strainer, pressing the herbs with your fingers or a spoon to get the extra out. That’s the good part with the most concentrated medicine, so you don’t want that to go to waste.

When your infusion, decoction, or tisane is ready to drink, dispose of your plant material in the most respectful way possible. Toss into your yard, put in the compost, or prayerfully put in the trash if those options are not available to you. Most water extracts can be stored in the fridge for up to 3 days, so I like to make 3 days worth at a time.

Reheat your teas on the stove, and not in the microwave. Sweeten with honey, maple syrup, or fruit juice if desired, but I highly recommend getting familiar with the unique tastes, textures, and sensations the herbs provide before adding anything to it. This will help you grow in your understanding of herbs and their properties, and is valuable information all herbalists seek out when getting to know their medicines.

Contraceptive Uses of Plants

contraceptive uses of plants

an ethnobotanical approach to women’s health

Although often perceived as a controversial topic in contemporary conversations regarding medicine, health, and daily life, contraception has been practiced in practically every culture in the world since humans developed civilization. 

Defined as a method of preventing the fertilization of an egg by sperm, contraception has become the term used to describe any method, practice, procedure, or device which prevents fertilization and implantation of a fertilized egg (zygote), as well as those which may terminate an active pregnancy.  For the purposes of this paper, contraception refers to any practice utilized by sexually active people to prevent pregnancy, or to end pregnancy in its early stages.

Currently there are a number of strategies employed by copulating couples to prevent fertilization and implantation, including male and female condoms, birth control pills, patches, and rings, contraceptive shots and intrauterine devices, fertility awareness or natural family planning, emergency contraceptive (Plan B or Morning After Pill), withdrawal before ejaculation, and in cases where pregnancy does occur, there are both chemical and surgical procedures for removing a fetus from the uterus and thus ending the pregnancy.

US News estimates that up to 40% of women between 15-44 are on some type of birth control, most likely the forms that alter a woman's chemistry such that her body behaves as if it is already pregnant, and therefore eggs are not released during the menstrual cycle.  A growing number of women and professionals in the field of health (in addition to environmental scientists) are becoming concerned with the seemingly unregulated use of these contraceptives because of how they affect women's reproductive health.

As more people, and women in particular, are becoming interested in healing therapies which are more connected to the earth and to their own bodies, herbal medicine is providing insights to these people about safer and healthier treatments.  By investigating how women and men have used plants to control their fertility throughout history, several things become clear: people have always used plants as contraceptives, and new options for family planning may be on the horizon.

Emmenegogues

True emmenegogues are herbs that stimulate menstrual flow and activity, according to David Hoffman, who also suggests in Medical Herbalism that the term 'emmenegogue' may have expanded to describe herbs that have an affinity toward the female reproductive system, and help to tonify, normalize, and balance hormones for this system.  However, most texts, journals, and professional herbalists use the term emmenegogue specifically for herbs that bring on menstruation when it has been delayed or obstructed. 

The largest category of herbs used for contraceptive purposes is emmenegogues.  They are used to prevent pregnancy by encouraging the lining of the uterus to release and initiate the bleeding phase of menstruation, thereby preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg, and even to prevent fertilization by using the herbal emmenegogues to start the menstrual cycle very early, and very shortly after sexual activity. 

David Hoffman mentions in Medical Herbalism three herbs which he calls 'True Emmenegogues,' and they are Yarrow (Achillea millefolium), Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) and Partridgeberry (Mitchella repens).  They also have a tonifying effect on the uterus, which is beneficial for the woman using the herbs, especially if she hopes to become pregnant in the future.  These three herbs are given credit for their emmenegoguic and contraceptive powers more than any others.

In Native American Ethnobotany, 340 herbs are listed as being used as gynecological aids, compared to 41 used for contraception, and 102 used as abortifacients.  For example, the Cherokee used Angelica (Angelica archangelica) roots and Pennyroyal (Hedeoma puglioides) leaves to induce abortion and as a "tonic for obstructed menses." (Moerman p 74)  The Sanpoil used Yarrow for this purpose, and Mugwort was used by the Blackfoot, Chippewa, Dakota, Kaiwaiisu, Menominee, Omaha, Pawnee, Ponca, and Sioux.  Interestingly, the Lakota people used the roots from a variety of Opuntia as the "medicine for not give birth." (Moerman p 765). 

Abortifacients

            Herbs that induce an abortion are called abortifacients.  These act to stimulate the uterine lining so that an implanted embryo is flushed out with induced menstruation, or they may starve the uterine lining of progesterone, a hormone necessary for carrying a pregnancy.  Today these are likely avoided in practice and discussion because potentially toxic doses  may be required for inducing abortion.

            Margarita Kay, in Healing with plants in the American and Mexican West, found that Mexican women in Baja use the root, branches, and bark of Chaparral (Larrea tridentata) to induce abortion, and that in many markets in Mexico, Marrubio (Marrubium vulgare) or Horehound, is reccommended for its 'oxytocic activity;' meaning that it initiates a very early labor.  There is ancient evidence of this plant being used in this way, as Dioscorides said it brings on menstruation, and expelled the placenta after birth (or the fetus if it died in utero).  Another preparation by the Seri people in Mexico involves making a tea of Desert Broom (Baccharis sarathroides) leaves with the lac of a Creosote bush (lac is created by insects on the leaves of Larrea), which is said to induce abortion.  In 1633, the herbalist Gerard said "Sitting over a hot bath made of Baccharis roots mightily voideth the birth and furtherething those that have extreme laboring their childing," and also that it "brings down the desired sickness," which is menstruation.  Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinale) is often called the prostitute's herb in Mexico, because it is used not only to bring on delayed menstruation and induce abortion, it is given as a douche for a variety of vaginal infections.

Spermicides

            Although there is not much information regarding the use of herbs as spermicides, new research on this topic is continually being generated in India.  A spermicide is usually a gel, wax, or liquid, with ingredients that destroy sperm cells before they have an opportunity to migrate through the cervix.  Spermicides are usually used as a lubricant for sexual activity, or they may be inserted/injected into the vagina before or after intercourse.

            Neem (Azadirachta indica) is an extensively used plant native to India, where it is coined the 'Divine Tree.'  It's uses are numerous, and it is even considered a panacea to cure all diseases to many people.  In the December 1996 issue of the journal Contraception, a study is described where the active constituents in Neem plant demonstrated a clear spermicidal effect, killing human sperm in under 20 seconds. The compound most studied is named NIM-76, and it does not have abortifacient properties, while it decreases motility, velocity, and head displacement of human sperm.

            While most studies on Neem as a contraceptive have been performed on animals, human studies show a great potential for this plant to be used in its oil form as a contraceptive spermicide.

Herbal Pessaries

            A pessary is an herbal concoction which is inserted into the vagina to either kill incoming sperm, prevent the cervix from opening, keeping cervical mucosa from thickening, or stimulating the uterus to abort or initiate menstruation.   Parsley is commonly used by women attempting abortions.  However in a study described in the Indian Journal of Medical Research, pessaries containing the leaves of Neem and Soapnut (Sapindus mukorossi) with the oil of Bergamot mint (Mentha citrata) potentiated the spermicidal activity Neem by eight times.  It acted in this way by preventing the migration of sperm into the cervical mucus.

            Because contraception is so widely practiced among members of the human race, awareness of natural and particularly herbal methods is going to benefit people on a global scale.  Many procedures and recipes have existed for thousands of years, many herbalists and healers of the past openly discussed and advised patients on such matters.  As humanity heads into new eras, it must look to the past for the wisdom of the old healers and their plant allies for safer and healthier ways to manage fertility and population.

Sources

Journal of Ethnopharmacology. A. Jain, S. Katewas, B.L. Chaudhary, P. Galav.  January 2004; 90(1). p 171-177.

Indian Journal of Medical Research.  April 2001; 113. p 135-141.

Contraception. December 1996; 54(6).p 373-378

Native American Ethnobotany. Daniel Moerman.  Timber Press, Portland, Oregon. 1998.

Healing with Plants in the American and Mexican West. Margarita Kay. p 64-68.

Making Plant Medicine. Ricoh Cech.  Horizon Herbs, 2000.

Nature's Medicine Plants that Heal. Joel Swerdlow, Ph.D

Medical Herbalism The Science and Practice of Herbal Medicine.  David Hoffman, FNIMH. Healing Arts Press, 2003.

**DISCLAIMER: Any information contained in this article is for educational purposes only and not intended to replace professional health advice. Need a professional herbalist? Contact us!**

Globe Chamomile - A Sonoran Desert Invasive

I’ve been wanting to post about this little round ball of joy for a while, but now I totally know what the internal hold up was. Turns out, I had the plant all wrong. About 10 years ago I learned that this was Pineapple Weed aka Matricaria discoideae, but I could never detect that pineapple fragrance I’d read about – cuz it actually ain’t there. Please forgive my miseducation friends, and there are a few of you over the years who’ve received the wrong info from me. Thankfully I was corrected last week, so let me introduce you to Globe Chamomile, aka Oncosiphon piluliferum.

Globe Chamomile has a bright, sunny disposition, and this year it’s growing all over the dang place (in the Sonoran Desert). Turns out it’s a non-native and noxious – but I suspect it has something to teach us desert dweller. According to the Arizona Native Plant Society, Globe Chamomile first made its way here back in the 90’s as an introduction from South Africa. Seems to like growing here in this arid climate, and with the wet seasons we’ve had in the last year, it’s proliferation is dramatic and to many a botanist/ecologist/naturalist – SCARY.

When I first got into what I thought was Pineapple Weed, I assumed it had some of the same healing traits as Matricaria recutita, what we just call Chamomile. Standing in a stand of Oncosiphon one is immersed in the same or at least very similar aromatics of our regular Chamomile. It makes you feel good and soothed. Like if you’re in a really irritable mood and you just can’t snap out of it, the fragrance of all these varieties will help you leave the illusory world of heightened emotions and ground down into a calm reality.

Well Pineapple Weed is used just like Chamomile, German, Roman, English, or otherwise. But I just can’t seem to find much info on Globe Chamomile which is breaking my little wildcrafter’s heart. What I have found is rather interesting, though, and I do believe there is some reason this invasive ‘weed’ is reproducing in such abundance that it can be harvested for medicinal use by every herbalist I know from here to Kingdom Come and there would still be plenty to go around, for many rounds.

Globe Chamomile in prolific abundance - Scottsdale, Arizona

Oncosiphon piluliferum is native to South Africa, and the only healing application I’ve discovered through hours of searching the interwebs is as a febrifuge. Meaning it helps break severe fevers. This is very cool, literally, as the Matricarias are also known for having cooling, drying qualities. I believe the Chamomiles would be lovely additions to formulas for fevers to sooth the edgy weariness that can come along with them.

Aside from their cooling energetics, I don’t know for sure if they’re used to ‘break’ fever. I did find a couple of clinical studies describing that the constituents in Globe Chamomile showed anti-malarial properties in-vitro, which could be of tremendous benefit in those areas where the parasite causing malaria is easy to meet.

Now please read clearly – what I’m about to say is of my own intellectual surmising and I did not read this anywhere and no one told it to me, but I wonder if Globe Chamomile might have some healing capacity in treating Valley Fever?

Valley fever is caused by the inhalation of coccidioides, a fungus that becomes airborne during construction and drilling, and finds its way into the lungs of humans and animals. It can be a pretty serious condition with uncertain results from treatment.

The two dis-ease states are caused by entirely different organisms, but both cause fever, and I have learned through my own love of phyto-geographic observation that oftentimes invasive, noxious, difficult to deal with weedy plants are growing somewhere the people in that area really freakin’ need them. Like Kudzu in the South East.

Anyway, I suppose this is just some stream of consciousness rambling on and on about a plant I love to see and am dying to learn more about, but there are a few little lessons to take from my experience with Globe Chamomile.      

1. Always check your sources. It doesn’t matter if a wise old elder or a published book told you something, it’s really a good idea to get more than one say-so on who an herb is and what it does. Obviously I need this lesson first hand, especially as I am often a purveyor of herbal information. Question me, too!

2. Weedy and invasive plants  may have the ability to treat or heal an issue of critical concern in your area. I believe that plants show up where they’re needed, in their symbiotic relationship with us and other organisms in the environment.

3. Do you know an herbalist in South Africa? Please connect us! I need to know more about how this plant is used in traditional healing there.

**DISCLAIMER: Any information contained in this article is for educational purposes only and not intended to replace professional health advice. Need a professional herbalist? Contact us!**

Globe Mallow for Determined Patience

Globe Mallow

Sphaeralcea spp.

Harvest: 4.11.19

Seed, tea, flower essence

Globe Mallow teaches lessons in patience, trust, and determination. (Survival, self assuredness, self confidence, self esteem, trust, unfolding, perseverance)

This year I’ve been on the hunt for Sphaeralcea incana, even though it is quite a common desert wildflower. I have long loved this beautiful glowing flower. So when return from Tucson I drove past miles of desert floor ablaze in its ethereal orange blossoms, I knew I needed to connect it with it deeply, and soon.

This led to a series of weekly attempts at finding a grand stand of Globe Mallow, abundant enough to gather, prepare, and share. Revisiting old sites where I'd found it before proved fruitless, as the community I'd previously seen seemed to have packed up and moved to someplace more suitable.

I drove many miles as if on a quest, and eventually the insecurities arose as I sensed the plant's spirit evading my own - maybe I wasn’t supposed to harvest the herb this year, or maybe my understanding and memories of its qualities were incorrect. I had to surrender to the experience of not finding what I was looking for, and maintain the fire of determination at the same time. Glad I did! One of my girl crew was able to point me to a good grove of globes, and then the real magick started to happen.

One week before I sat down to write this, I quit the job to pursue my actual purpose, undeniable and indescribable as it is. Part of that is connecting people to nature and to each other, and to begin to understand the relationships between plants, people, and place, a little (a lot!) more. In order to do this I aspire to spend a lot of time in Nature as an observer and co-creator. In reality, I’m pursuing Nature as a lover in a longterm healthy relationship (and hoping she’s ok with with a non-monogamous affair).

So the day after I quit my job, I rode out to the ‘for-sure’ spot described by my friend. It was early-ish, the desert was still quiet but coming to life, and there was only one other person nearby. I hiked into the desert a little bit and found the stand she was talking about. Except! There were no flowers.

I peeked around a bit more and discovered that while there were no flowers, there were tons of seeds. Literal tons. It became clear that perhaps part of my purpose in seeking out Globe Mallow was not to blend a tea, but to provide seeds from wild plants so that others could experience its healing in their own back yard, just through being with it one on one. A giant orange lightbulb went off and I felt so aligned with everything that I set happily out to gathering seeds with gratitude in my heart and respect in my hands(it would have been too early for the seeds on my previous forays, keep in mind).

A few minutes into this I wandered farther up the hillside and down through a ravine, finding a blossoming Sore Eye Mallow (one of its other names) with enough blooms that I felt good about harvesting a few to make a flower essence (link to flower essence here). The blossoms were bigger, the stalks taller, and the leaves greener than I'd remembered.

Flower Essence medicine is pretty special for a lot of reasons, but one of the most important ways from an ecological perspective is that you only need to use a few blooms to make an ounce of mother essence (link to mother essence here). Flower Essences are vibrational medicine, which means they work to align your own energy/aura/spirit/mind/all of it with the energies of the plant. It raises your own vibrations to meet the plants’, and therefore heals you on the level of your psycho-spiritual self, rather than only on the level of your tangible self. Although the effects are tangible and palpable, and the healing spills over like sunlight onto all the parts of you in need of healing and balance.

I cut about 4 flowers from different stalks, and let them do their thing in their morning sunlight water bath. I sat to think about the meaning of of it, and as I meditated on all the changes I’d just made to my life, my pursuit of Globe Mallow, the sheer bliss of the moment I was experiencing right then, a flood of ideas entered into me. New ways of thinking about herbalism and my professional life, recipes, rituals, classes to write, work to do. It was a moment of divine union as inspiration poured right down into my crown and filled up my heart. I had a deep sense of knowing tuned-inness that I rarely experience indoors.

Sitting there in such quiet stillness, I saw a ton of wildlife. Lizards felt comfortable coming out of hiding, a giant black beetle with red wings walked by on long legs that elevated its body an inch off the ground. There were butterflies. I sat directly across of a giant Creosote Bush (Larrea tridentata), and began to have ideas for how this, my most trusted and well known ally, could provide healing in ritual and ceremonial ways I hadn’t tried before. As thoughts of our relationship floated through my mind, a hummingbird came to the tree and sat on the highest branch. It was so close I could see its tiny body and long bill, I could see where its colors began and ended and blended. And this was an incredible confirmation for me, sealing in what I knew to be true.

I stood up to have a good look around, and so discovered that there were more Globe Mallow Flowers. As it turns out, they opened up as the sun got warmer. I had wondered if that could be the case, and everything worked out perfectly to where I was still in the same meadow when they began to open. Something, some deep inner knowing, had kept me there to witness the grand opening in a way I’d never before.

Getting to see the flowers open all around me and being in their midst was more amazing than actually getting to harvest. The message was clear: Experiencing is more important than the experience.

Sitting there with an open heart and notebook, Globe Mallow medicine came to me.

This is medicine to support gradual unfolding. We must place unshakable trust in the process of our own opening. The journeys each of us take, the paths we are on in pursuit of goals and success (whatever that means is individual and of the time) come before the achievement, and so we must keep our minds in the moment, without frustration. There is a greater plan than the ones we devise, but they do indeed merge - and this is Alignment.

This medicine supports you in the risks you take, to grow brightly, colorfully, into you as you are meant to be. It helps you to support yourself by recognizing your own robustness and strength. It encourages you in your remembrance of self love, self care, rest, healing , and calmness and the memory that it is ok to slow down. You don’t have to know EVERYTHING Right Now. When you stop moving, everything reveals itself to you.

Here’s the thing. If I had found a bunch of globe mallow the first time I went looking for it, I wouldn’t have kept looking. If I’d found it before I quit my job I might not have made it my first priority after to quitting to go to the desert and harvest. If I’d found it in another location it would have been too early for seeds. I’d never have experienced Globe Mallow’s vulnerable expansion to receive the Sun exactly when it was supposed to. If I still worked in the office, I wouldn’t even have been there, right then. I’d have missed the other messages and the hummingbird, the spotted lizards and giant beetles. I’d have passed over my own process of unfoldment. I’d have missed my own personalized, universal memo!

Hindsight is not always 20/20 but it’s usually a hell of a lot easier to see the past than the future and for many of us, even the present. If you are struggling with feeling like you aren’t where you’re supposed to be, or if you’re facing a big decision that is scary or difficult to make, but you feel it pulling you from deep down in your core, Globe Mallow medicine will be your ally in progress and process. It will help you notice the subtleties and nuance of your life that actually play a bigger role than you expected on your journey. Gently it nudges your mental acceptance of where you are, it reveals that you can open yourself to new ideas and changes that need to be made in order to proceed. Globe Mallow holds your hand as you learn to trust Divine timing, and holds the candle as you illuminate the intersection of your plan with a greater one.

Aligns 3rd and 4th chakras, balancing will, determination, ambition, and outward expression with vulnerability, compassion (for oneself and others), receptivity, healing, trust, and soul knowing.

**Rebel Herbal recommends that you try any new flower essence for a full lunar cycle (28 days)**

**DISCLAIMER: Any information contained in this article is for educational purposes only and not intended to replace professional health advice. Need a professional herbalist? Contact us!**