The Kitchen Alchemist’s Guide to Liquid Herbal Preparations

There's something magical about transforming plants into medicine in your own kitchen.

Each time we create an herbal preparation, we're participating in an ancient tradition that connects us to both the practical wisdom of our ancestors and the subtle energetic properties of the plants themselves. 

There are of course a billion ways to incorporate plants into your kitchen witchery…I share some of my favorites here and here.

In these cold winter months, I’ve been sipping teas and broths constantly. I just strained my homemade fire cider and got an herbal wellness tincture going for some upcoming travels.

Communing with these healing remedies in my kitchen has been inspiring me to write some of the content for my upcoming Wild Alchemy Apprenticeship — I’m even trying my hand at making some how-to videos as I write down the real life recipes I’m making these days :) 

And, this process has got me reflecting how many different liquid extraction methods there are for herbs!

Teas, tinctures, and broths…and also oxymels, infusions, syrups…even mocktails!

Traditional herbalists understand that different extraction methods draw out different properties from plants, just as different plants share their wisdom and medicine in unique ways.

Being the maximalist I am, I thought it would be fun to share an overview of the many liquid preparations herbalists turn to. 

Keep in mind, this is an overview — so if you want to dive deeper into why you’d use different extractions for different herbs, even more recipes, and more about the benefits of each, definitely consider joining the apprenticeship ;) 

Water-Based Preparations

Simple Teas & Infusions

One of the most accessible form of herbal medicine, teas and infusions are essentially water-based extracts. While a tea steeps for 5-15 minutes, an infusion is steeped for several hours, drawing out more nutrients and medicinal compounds.

• Best for: Delicate plant parts like leaves, flowers, and tender stems; can be made with fresh or dried plants

• Spiritual qualities: Tea-making can be a mindful ritual, a gentle moment to connect with a plant's energy (find my favorite tea ritual here)

• A few favorite herbs for teas: mints, nettle, chamomile, lemon balm

Find dreamy tea blend below!

You may be wondering…Do those little tea bags you buy at the store really have medicinal effects? Maybe. I prefer a bigger dose of dried herbs than those tea bags have. Still, steeping for at least 10 minutes will help you make the most of whatever you have.

Decoctions

These are long-simmered preparations perfect for tough plant materials that need more time to release their properties.

• Best for: Roots, bark, berries, and mushrooms
  Spiritual qualities: The slow extraction process teaches patience and deep listening
  A few favorite herbs for decoctions: Astragalus, reishi, dandelion root, burdock

My favorite decoction is a “winter brew”. This is my own made up remedy that’s sort of like an herbal coffee meets chai, but simmered with immune boosters like elderberry, rosehips, and echinacea for hours. I swear by it. If our household is coming down with something, I make a crockpot of winter brew and keep it going for all day sips. It works!

Hydrosols

The gentle aromatic waters produced through plant distillation.

• Best for: When gentle medicine is needed

• Spiritual qualities: Captures the most subtle, ethereal aspects of the plant

• Favorite herbs: Anything you can gather a lot of

I love hydrosols so much that I wrote an entire, comprehensive guide covering everything about them. Find the hydrosol guide here.

And, I even made a PDF with 44 ways to use hydrosols, which you can download here:

Broths

These mineral-rich preparations extract the medicinal properties of herbs through long, slow simmering in water — often with the addition of mushrooms, seaweeds, or vegetables. Though bone broths have become quite vogue in recent years, a good mineral rich veggie broth is my preference :)

• Best for: Mineral-rich herbs, adaptogenic mushrooms, nutritive plants

• Spiritual qualities: Connects us to the ancient tradition of healing soups and the wisdom of slow food

• Best herbs: Astragalus, reishi, shiitake, kombu, nettles, burdock

I love a good sipping broth. Garlic, onions, turmeric, ginger, shiitake, kombu, astragalus, and a bit of miso stirred in at the end is a favorite. So is garlic, onion, leek, carrot, celery, fennel, mushroom, and sweet potato, with a whole lot of culinary herbs and nettle.

Alcohol-Based Preparations

Tinctures

Tinctures are alcohol-based extracts that preserve and concentrate herbs' medicinal properties. Vodka and brandy are common carriers. Tinctures last for several years when properly made and stored.

• Best for: Nearly all herbs, especially those with resin or volatile oils

• Spiritual qualities: Tinctures capture both the physical and energetic essence of the plant

• A favorite: Motherwort tincture for heart health and emotional balance

Tinctures are one of my favorite ways to work with local, wild plants. Here in Oregon, Oregon Grape is everywhere! Even my own yard :) Oregon grape root is good for a ton of things…but especially stomach bugs! I took a bottle of homemade Oregon grape root tincture with me on my last trip to Mexico…and my digestion was never so amazing. (I mean — who’s stomach gets better in Mexico?)

Herbal Liqueurs

These spirit-based preparations have a long history as both medicine and pleasure. From medieval monasteries to modern Italian cafes, herbal liqueurs represent some of our oldest recorded herbal formulations.

• Best for: Digestive herbs, aromatic spices, bitter roots

• Spiritual qualities: Connects us to ancient traditions of monastic herbalism and folk medicine

• Notable examples: Chartreuse (made by monks since 1737), B&B, Jägermeister (originally medicinal!)

Once upon a time (this is a true story)…

I was on the Greek Island of Amorgos in early September, just after most tourists had left. My girlfriend and I set off on a hike up a steep cliffside to a beautiful and rugged monastery. Low and behold, the hottest monk I’ve ever seen (not that I’ve seen a lot of monks in person), appeared and offered us each a small glass of the most deliciously sweet herbal liquor.

So yes. Climbing a mountain and being served sweet elixirs by a hot monk is a thing. Definitely a medicinal, spiritual thing.

If you’re into infused liquors and spirits, the book The Good Reverend's Guide to Infused Spirits is one of my favorite resources.

Bitters

These potent herbal preparations are experiencing a renaissance both in craft cocktail culture and herbal medicine.

• Best for: Digestive herbs, aromatic plants, and flowers

• Spiritual qualities: Bitters help us digest food and life

• A few choice herbs: Gentian, artichoke leaf, dandelion, yellow dock, angelica

I went down the bitter-making rabbit hole a few years ago, making all sorts of fun themed bitters — love bitters, chill out bitters, tropical bitters… My Alchemessence Bear Bitters had osha, honey, cacao, medicinal mushrooms (double extracted), and bitter herbs and were ridiculously delicious. Now that I’m writing this, I think I’ll get another batch started and share the recipe in the apprenticeship ;)

For those of you who can’t wait to get started, check out the book Botany at the Bar.

Sweet Preparations

Glycerites

Glycerites are sweet, alcohol-free extracts made with vegetable glycerin.

• Best for: Herbs for children or those avoiding alcohol

• Spiritual aspect: Glycerites carry the gentle, nurturing energy of plants

• A few favorite herbs: Lemon balm, chamomile, marjoram

I love making relaxing “garden glycerites”. I add lemon balm, mints, strawberry leaves, skullcap, edible flowers…all sorts of fragrant, sweet, garden grown summer herbs. Then, whenever I need a winter pick-me-up, I take a dropperful. :)

Elixirs

“Elixir” is a bit of an umbrella term that generally refers to any sweetened herbal preparation, though they are often alcohol-based. (Oxymels, syrups, and glycerites can all be thought of as elixirs!)

• Best for: Making medicine you keep coming back for

• Spiritual qualities: Elixirs were traditionally associated with life extension and vitality — who doesn’t want a longevity elixir?

• Best herbs: hawthorn, rose, holy basil, damiana

One of the first elixirs I made was a violet one…made from violets gathered in a cemetery of all places. I was studying with a Mayan shaman at the time, and that is where our class was held! I infused violet blossoms in brandy and added maple syrup. Delicious and heart healing.

Syrups

These are concentrated herbal decoctions preserved with honey or sugar.

• Best for: Respiratory herbs, bitter herbs that need tastier delivery, herbal flavoring

• Spiritual qualities: “just a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down!” right? Healing can be sweet :)

• Favorites: elderberry for wellness, hibiscus for summer fun

While I make medicinal syrups with honey, I’ll often use a lighter agave for syrups meant to be used in mocktails or more for flavor. This summer, I made a lovely mint simple syrup that added digestive and uplifting qualities to sparkly summer elixirs.

Psst: Find a recipe for healing elderberry syrup in the section at the end of this article!

Moon Milks

These warming, nurturing drinks blend herbs with milk (usually plant-based) and often include adaptogens and spices. Moon milks definitely don’t need to be sweetened, but since they often do have a touch of sweet added, I’m including them in this sweet section.

Best for: Evening rituals, stress support, sleep
Spiritual qualities: Connected to lunar energy, self love, and Ayurvedic wisdom
Favorite ingredients: turmeric, rose petals, warming spices, butterfly pea flower, cacao

I don’t know where the term “moon milk” got started, but I put all sorts of milky beverages in this category — from golden milk to chai lattes to cacao elixirs.

Psst: I’m sharing an extra-rich and delicious moon milk recipe at the end of this article ;)

Vinegar-Based Preparations

Image from Fare Isle, with an lovely recipe here.

Infused Vinegars

Herbs extracted in vinegar offer medicinal properties, culinary applications, and spiritual cleansing.

• Spiritual aspect: Vinegar transmutes and purifies while extracting medicine

• Best for: Mineral-rich herbs, immune-supporting plants

• Perennial Favorites: Fire Cider, Queen of Hungary Water

I’ll probably share a whole how-to guide for fire cider at some point. There’s a ton out there, but I have a special approach that involves seasonally collected wild plants ;)

Another really great use of infused vinegar is for spiritual washes. Infuse some potent, protective plants — like rosemary, evergreens, rue, mugwort, lemon — into a basic white vinegar. Then, dilute this infusion with water to use as a purifying floor wash. Bad juju be gone!

Oxymels

These are preparations combining honey and vinegar with herbs.

Best for: Respiratory support, immune herbs, wellness
Spiritual aspect: Represents the balance of opposites — sweet and sour, warming and cooling
Example: A thyme and elderberry oxymel for winter wellness

Local honey is said to help with allergies! So, I make a special springtime oxymel with local honey, raw apple cider vinegar, and flowering herbs from my garden — especially nettle, a must have during allergy season. When the pollen count goes up, a spoonful of oxymel in sparkling water becomes my daily ritual. Plus, mixing honey and vinegar is the best kind of kitchen witchery — a little sweet and a little sour, just like life ;)

A Bit of Everything

Tonics

Like “elixirs”, this is more of an umbrella term than a specific liquid extraction — which is why I threw it in this section. Tonics can include broths, teas, tinctures…Any nourishing preparations designed to be taken regularly for overall wellness and vitality, tonics generally work gradually to build strength and resilience. They “tonify” our organs and bodily systems with targeted vitamins, minerals, and nutrients.

• Best for: Adaptogenic herbs, nutritive plants, immune supporters

• Spiritual qualities: Represents commitment to self-care and the slow medicine of prevention

• Some favorite herbs: Astragalus, codonopsis, American ginseng, nettles, raspberry leaf

Herbal Mocktails

Mocktails are everywhere these days — and you can be so endlessly creative with them that pretty much all of the previous preparations can become mocktail ingredients, which is why they get their own category :)

• Best for: Adaptogenic herbs, nervines, and aromatic plants

• Spiritual aspect: these offer multidemensional experiences for multidimensional beings

• Some favorite herbs: Holy basil, hibiscus, rose, lavender, mint, lemon balm, bitters, berries

I make my own tonic syrup with real quinine, juniper berries from my yard, and a variety of citruses. So potent and delicious in all sorts of drinks!

That recipe is a bit complex…but your mocktails don’t have to be. I share a simple, refreshing recipe below :)

Beyond the Basics

Each herbal preparation is born from a unique relationship between you and the plants. As you work with these different forms, you'll continue to develop an intuitive sense for which preparations are best for different plants, at different times, with different intentions. The creative possibilities are endless.

The key to any successful herbal preparations lies not just in technique — but in the authentic connection we form with the plants who support us.

If you are craving a nourishing and deep connection with plants , join the yearlong Wild Alchemy program. You'll learn to make healing preparations while developing your own spiritual connection to the plant realm.

Starting in September, we spend an entire year diving into ceremonies, rituals, elemental magic, and more — so you can embody the wisdom of plants and share this magic with your own communities.

No matter what kind of healer you are — from shamans to stay at home moms to acupuncturists to psychotherapists and Reiki Akashic Astro IFS Animists… partnering with the plants in an intentional, spirit-led container will 100% transform your offerings to the world.

This is a seasonal program, and our learning and practices will be guided by the sun, moon, and stars.

Learn more and join us here:

The Wild Alchemy Apprenticeship

Your Turn!

What are your favorite preparations and recipes? What did I forget? Let me know any favorite liquid remedies I’ve missed in the comments and I’ll add them to the list :) This is just an overview, and one that hopefully inspires your own creative remedies!

Recipes

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Simple Dream Time Tea

• 2 parts chamomile

• 1 part lemon balm

• 1 part spearmint

• pinch lavender and/or rose petals

Steep in hot water for 10 minutes.

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Elderberry Syrup

This elderberry syrup recipe combines the immune-supportive benefits of elderberries with additional herbs like ginger, cinnamon, and echinacea for a powerhouse blend to help fortify your defenses.

Ingredients

• 1 cup dried elderberries (or 2 cups fresh elderberries)

• 4 cups filtered water

• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger root, grated (or 1 teaspoon dried ginger)

• 1 cinnamon stick (or 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon)

• 4-5 whole cloves (or 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves)

• 1 teaspoon dried echinacea root

• 2 teaspoons wild cherry bark

• 1 teaspoon dried orange peel

• 1/2 to 1 cup raw honey (you want about a 1:1 ratio of honey to liquid, though can be a little less)

Instructions

Prepare the Ingredients: Rinse elderberries if fresh, and ensure they are free of stems and debris. Grate the ginger if using fresh.

Simmer the Herbs: In a medium saucepan, combine elderberries, water, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, echinacea root, and orange peel (if using). Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce to a gentle simmer.

Cook Down: Simmer uncovered for 30-45 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the liquid reduces by half.

Strain the Mixture: Remove from heat and let cool so it won’t burn your hands. Using a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth, strain the mixture into a bowl. Press or squeeze the berries and herbs to extract all the liquid. Discard the solids.

Add Honey: Once the liquid has cooled to warm (not hot), stir in the raw honey. Mix well until fully incorporated. The honey not only sweetens but also adds antimicrobial properties.

Store the Syrup: Pour the syrup into a sterilized glass jar or bottle. Seal tightly and store in the refrigerator for up to 3 months. Enjoy your elderberry syrup as a daily immune boost, drizzled over pancakes, stirred into teas, or simply by the spoonful!

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Dreamy Moon Milk with Cacao Butter

This luxurious moon milk is perfect for winding down in the evening. It’s thick, creamy, and infused with cacao butter for a velvety texture, along with relaxing herbs and spices to help you drift into peaceful sleep.

Ingredients

• 2 cups plant milk (my favorite is Elmhurst cashew milk)

• 1 tablespoon cacao butter (adds creaminess — so worth it)

• 1 teaspoon ashwagandha powder

• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

• Maple syrup or raw honey to taste

• Pinch of sea salt

• Optional garnish: a sprinkle of cinnamon or edible dried flowers (like lavender or rose petals)

Instructions

Warm the Milk: In a small saucepan over low-medium heat, warm the plant milk until it’s steaming (but not boiling).

Melt the Cacao Butter: Add the cacao butter to the milk and stir until fully melted. This creates a luscious, creamy base.

Add the Herbs and Spices: Stir in the ashwagandha powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a pinch of sea salt. Whisk well to combine.

Sweeten and Flavor: Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract and your sweetener of choice. Adjust sweetness to taste.

Blend for Frothiness (Optional): For an extra-smooth and frothy moon milk, pour the mixture into a blender and blend on low for 10-15 seconds.

Serve Warm: Pour the moon milk into your favorite mug. Garnish with a sprinkle of cinnamon or dried edible flowers if desired.

Why I love this one

• Cacao Butter: Rich in antioxidants and healthy fats, it creates a velvety, soothing texture.

• Ashwagandha: Known as an adaptogen, it helps promote relaxation and stress relief.

• Warm Spices: Cinnamon and nutmeg offer gentle warmth and comfort, perfect for bedtime rituals.

Pair this moon milk with a relaxing evening practice like journaling, a short meditation, or reading a favorite book. This cozy drink is a hug in a mug—perfect for preparing the mind and body for sweet dreams.

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Citrus Thyme Bliss Sparkling Herbal Mocktail

This vibrant, refreshing mocktail features immune-boosting thyme, bright citrus, and sparkling water for a delightful drink that feels fancy yet nourishing. It's perfect for sharing with friends or savoring solo.

Ingredients

• a few sprigs fresh thyme or about a teaspoon dried

• 1 tablespoon raw honey (or maple syrup for a vegan option)

• 1/2 fresh orange, juiced

• 1/4 fresh lemon, juiced

• 1/4 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

• 6 oz sparkling water

• Ice cubes

• Garnish: a thyme sprig, orange slice, or edible flower

Instructions

Make the Thyme Infusion: In a small bowl or glass, muddle the fresh thyme with honey (or maple syrup) to release the herb’s oils. Let it sit for 2-3 minutes. If using dried thyme, steep it in 2 tablespoons of hot water for 5 minutes, then strain and mix with the honey.

Mix the Citrus Base: In a cocktail shaker or mason jar, combine the orange juice, lemon juice, and grated ginger (if using). Add the thyme infusion and stir well.

Shake it Up: Add a handful of ice cubes to the shaker/jar. Cover and shake for 15-20 seconds to chill the mixture.

Assemble the Mocktail: Strain the citrus and thyme mixture into a glass filled with fresh ice. Top with sparkling water and gently stir to combine.

Garnish and Serve: Garnish with a sprig of thyme, a slice of orange, or an edible flower for a touch of elegance. Serve immediately and enjoy!

Why I love this one

Thyme is not only flavorful but also known for its antimicrobial and immune-boosting properties. The citrus provides a dose of vitamin C, and ginger adds a warming touch, making this mocktail a perfect blend of delicious and functional.

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Enjoyed this article? The absolute most wonderful way to say thank you is by sharing it! Use the image below for Pinterest or add to all your socials :)

You might also like:

• A Sunday Tea Ritual

• Simple Tricks to Add More Health-Boosting Herbs into Your Daily Routine

• 3 Simple Ways to Rewild Your Thanksgiving Table + A Wild Winter Recipe

• Healing Pumpkin Soup with Cozy Autumn Spices

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The Perfumed Heart & Anointing the Windows to Heaven

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The Perfumed Heart & Anointing the Windows to Heaven

Allegory of the Sense of Smell (1617–18), Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder. Museo del Prado, Madrid

A dab on the wrist, a splash behind the ears.

To the French aristocrats of the 17th century, these points held the allure of seduction. In these close contact areas, perfume would waft from neck to nose during greetings, whispers, and embraces. A perfumed wrist would leave a trail of aroma with every movement, and could be easily accessed for a discreet inhale.

Practically — these points on the skin hold heat, which helps distribute and enhance aroma, and you’re less likely to stain clothing from these points. 

The wrists and neck are also known pulse points. Did our perfumed ancestors intuit how protective and healing anointing these places with fragrant oils could be?

And here we are, centuries later — still creating fragrant auras by placing perfumes upon our wrists and necks.

This practice, when done in partnership with pure plant perfumes, has the potential to protect our heart and attune us to spirit throughout the day. 

Unfortunately, most people aren’t using botanical, natural perfumes. Even many “spiritual” perfumes are made with synthetic fragrances. 

If you’ve been around here for awhile, you probably already know some of the risks of synthetic perfumes — namely disrupting the endocrine system. But stay with me here. There is way more at stake that you might realize. 

And — way more benefit to uncover, too ;)

The Meridian Matrix of Perfumed Points

When we apply any perfume to wrist and neck points on the body, we are activating and anointing our energetic blueprint — our meridian matrix.

This means that the perfume you put on these key points not only travels through your skin into your body’s chemistry, it also moves into specific meridians, where it is further circulated throughout your system.

Meridians, to review, are energetic pathways through our body. Some of them have an affinity with organ systems and very real effects on our physical health. Some of them carry karma, patterns, and life lessons. All of them impact us on multiple levels of our being.

Any system that utilizes the meridian matrix for healing — from acupuncture to tapping to anointing — aims to free us from blockages and foreign energy that clogs or disrupts the healthy flow of our energy.

So how do the commonly perfumed wrist and neck points relate to our energetic body?

Let’s begin with the wrist points. 

In TCM, the Pericardium meridian runs down the arm, with a few key points along the wrist. It protects the heart — both physically and emotionally — just like the actual pericardium, the membrane around the physical heart. 

Take a look at the image below, and you’ll see just where some of the key wrist points are:

Hand Jue Yin Pericardium Meridian 手厥陰心包經穴 | SpringerLink

A healthy Pericardium helps us manage emotional stress, heartbreak, and trauma. It opens us to joy, love, and connection. 

Next, let's look at the neck points. 

The neck is home to several points within the grouping known as the Windows of Heaven.* Also referred to as Heavenly Windows or Windows of the Sky, these points are often used to connect us with our higher selves and facilitate all sorts of spiritual healing. A few of the Heavenly Window points found along the neck include:

• Large Intestine 18

• Triple Heater 16

• Stomach 9

Images below thanks to Yin Yang House.

*There is contention around the actual age and origin of these points, with many scholars calling them a modern invention. It seems that a version with 5 points has some origin in ancient texts, while the grouping of 10 points might be a modern development. I find that the results speak for themselves, regardless of their origins. See this article for more.

Plant Perfumes as Energetic Allies

While acupuncture is probably the most well-known way to stimulate these points, they aren’t our only option. Placing stones on these points is an ancient practice. And so is anointing them with sacred, perfumed oils.

By anointing your wrist points and neck with sacred oils via a simple daily perfume ritual, you stimulate energies of love, connection, and healthy emotional boundaries within yourself. You facilitate your connection to spirit and your true, divine nature.

This happens simply by applying perfume. (But only the right kind of perfume…)

We evolved in partnership with plants, and plants help us remember how to be healthy. Essential oils in particular carry the healthy, vibrant energetic blueprint of a plant — which in turns helps our own energy blueprint remember its most healthy and vibrant way of being. 

When we wear perfumes made with real essential oils and absolutes, not only do we benefit from the condensed chemistry of plants, but we receive their spiritual essence and energetic gifts, as well. 

If you have a diluted essential oil or truly botanical perfume nearby, you can experience this right now: 

Dab a bit of your perfume onto your your pulse points. Feel the spiritual essence of the plants flow into your body on the lines of energetic matrix. Notice how the plants know just where to go, effortlessly clearing any stagnation as they circulate health chi throughout your system. This may feel subtle. Simply notice any tiny shifts, buzzes, vibrations, or thoughts that arise. 

For those wondering — yes, certain plants do have an affinity for certain meridians, and I’ll share some of my favorite plant perfume allies in a moment. 

Now that you have some idea of how truly magical and healing plant perfumes can be, let’s look at how typical commercial perfumes impact our systems… 

Popular Perfumes as Foreign Energy

There’s a foundational concept when it comes to healing at energetic and spiritual levels:

Either something is missing that should be there, or something is there shouldn’t be there.*

(I have an entire 65-minute class on this topic that is totally FREE, which you can check out here.)

Anointing with pure plant perfumes has the potential to call our soul home. To ignite memory beyond the mundane and help our souls remember who we really are. In other words, plant perfumes restore what should be there.

Anointing with synthetic entities that have not evolved to support us introduces foreign substances and energetics into our system. We are literally inducing spiritual illness because synthetic perfumes add something that shouldn’t be there.

In Taoist alchemy, we refer to these substances as parasites or ghosts — foreign energies that enter our system and begin to hijack our wellness to support their own survival. 

When “ghosts” take up residence in our hearts: 

• We have trouble letting go of the past. The process of integrating challenging experiences into lessons that become strengths is clogged, and our most painful emotions get lodged in our systems.

• It becomes more difficult to discern what feelings, emotions, and opinions are our aren’t our own. Are you picking up on other people’s fear, or is it your intuition? Heart ghosts make this type of discernment incredibly confusing.

• Our relationships lack intimacy. The ghosts block us from being able to open our hearts and find the truth and love within. 

• We lose hope. For some reason, ghosts love depression. Sadness. Fear. Shame. Guilt. All the fun stuff. They feed off these emotions, and make it harder for us to access the spiritual joy that is always waiting to imbue us with blessings. 

When “ghosts” clog our Windows to Heaven:

• We lose our spiritual connection. Our attention becomes overly fixated on the material world, leaving us feeling empty and hopeless without fully understanding why.

• Our connection with our higher self is blocked or severed. We start to believe the lie that a smaller version of ourselves is the fullness of our being.

• We can’t access our intuition. There’s too much confusion with the many messages that come to us from all directions, and we lack the ability to know what’s true beyond the surface. 

• Trust in the goodness of life becomes elusive. Without an authentic connection to the realms beyond this reality, we lack the ability to see the beauty that is always within any pain.

It’s estimated that up to 80% of humans wear perfume regularly, and the vast majority of this is still synthetic. (Even “natural” perfumes can contain synthetics filled with foreign energy, which I write more about here.)

Imagine what this is doing to us. 

So many people are unaware that they are sabotaging their connection with their true nature, which often results in searching outside yourself for fullness. What should you believe? Who will protect you?

We give away our power when we lack the discernment to know lies from truth. We lose our ability to have strong communities when our hearts are filled with ghosts.

And we see the results of this all around us. 

Fortunately, there are so many options for botanical, natural perfumes today…  

Botanical Perfumes as Daily Allies

Perfume is ritual. It always has been. And it’s only been since the mid-1800s that perfumes have had synthetic materials in them. Reclaiming the ancient, ancestral practices of blessing our bodies and energy fields with sacred, natural perfumes is revolutionary act with far reaching consequences. 

Botanical perfumes are everywhere today, but you do need to be careful — there’s a lot green/spiritual washing when it comes to terms like “clean” or “natural”. (So much so that I wrote a whole article on how to navigate the chaos and jargon of natural perfumes.)

I’ve been creating natural perfumes for almost two decades now, and I know where my ingredients come from. I also have developed a process of creating perfumes while channeling compassionate spirits, so each bottle is filled with transmissions of healing energy. 

When I create a botanical perfume, I select plants based on several factors — what I know about them chemically (I’m also a certified aromatherapist with a 610-hour training under my belt), energetically (I mentor with a Taoist alchemist who specializes in anointing), and spiritually (my mediumship practices help me communicate directly with the spirits of the plants). 

This article goes into more detail about my process. 

And this article has a fun example of how all this came together when I created my Magpie perfume. 

Many of the oils for the heart and spirit gates I mentioned above are in my natural perfumes, which means that when you apply one to your wrist (and the heart itself, as I like to do), you are giving your entire body a plant healing. 

As promised, I’ll highlight a few general botanicals that you can use on your own, alongside some of my own creations, here:

Anointing the Heart

Truly, any pure botanical perfumes applied to the wrists will have a positive effect, but of course, bringing in oils with a special affinity for the heart is especially helpful. A few of my favorites:

Rose — obviously! Rose is the ultimate heart harmonizer, both opening us to love and supporting the cultivation of healthy boundaries.

A few perfumes with rose: Aphrodite, Rós, Elephant, Forest Fawn

Lavender — A great harmonizer and all-purpose healer, lavender brings balance and gentle strength to the heart center.

A few perfumes with lavender: Wild Horses, Artemis

Citruses — Uplifting the spirit, citruses are a blessing for a bright heart. 

Citrus-forward perfumes: Jardín de Citron, Yuzu Yoru

Cinnamon — A deeply penetrating oil that warms the heart and helps energy move while brightening the heart and mind.

A few with cinnamon: Oshun, Mary Magdalene (both of these have big rosy hearts, too)

Lemonbalm (Melissa) — Soothes anxiety and grief while uplifing the spirit

Anthophilia, dedicated to the bees, is the best perfume for lemonbalm; but, my heart chakra anointing oil is filled with this loving herb, along with roses and violets. 

All flowers — In general, all flowers have an affinity for the heart. Chamomile soothes and calms, jasmine nourishes, ylang ylang strengthens and uplifts, neroli does everything :) 

See floral perfumes here.

Anointing the Heavens

For the Heavenly Windows, I love oils with an affinity for spirit. Every tradition associates different plants with different types of spiritual work, so this is pretty broad…but once again, here are a few favorites to get started with:

The flowers, again — When it comes to plant parts (blooms, woods, roots, fruits, leaves, etc), the flowers have an affinity for influencing the spiritual dimensions of life. A few I love for these points are:

• Clary sage & Lavender — brings clarity to higher mind and harmonizes with the body

• Neroli — uplifting, delicate, and enhances angelic connections

• White lotus — opens us to spiritual wisdom and connection

Some perfume options: White Buffalo Calf Woman, Magpie, and Wild Horses for clary sage and lavender; Xi Wang Mu and Epona for neroli, and Kuan Yin for white lotus.

Frankincense — A protective, sacred resin, frankincense helps us ground spiritual wisdom into our bodies and minds.

Perfumes with frankincense: Innana, Mary Magdalene and Oshun again, and all the angel oils. 

Hiba & Hinoki — Two Japanese evergreens with sacred aromas, these woods calm the spirit and quiet the mind. 

My perfume for abundance, Daikoku, is inspired by and filled with these trees.

Trees — Strong and tall, the trees help us root to Earth and expand to spirit, which keeps these gates protected and open. 

Omgggg I loooove evergreen perfumes. Maybe because my name is Juniper ;) So I’ve made a few with amazing forestry fragrances, including Artemis, Wolf, and Green Man.

If you wish to use any of these essential oils on your own, make sure to dilute them first! More is not better with this practice. 5% is good to start for a light, energetic lift. Up to 20% works for most, but not for cinnamon — go with 1-2% for that one.

Becoming the Alchemist of Your Own Healing

The waitlist is open for Nectar & Alchemy, the School of Sacred Aromatics. I’ll be launching with a few courses on the spiritual dimensions of fragrance, working with plant spirit allies, and an introduction to anointing — plus a very special anointing workship for the Feast Day of Mary Magdalene in July. 

Enjoyed this article? The absolute most wonderful way to say thank you is by sharing it! Use the image below for Pinterest or add to all your socials :)

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Juniper Stokes is a certified coach, mythoanimist guide, alchemist & artist.

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Featured Workshop:

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Transfiguration: The Ancient Art of Spiritual Transformation

Throughout human history, mystics, healers, and spiritual seekers have practiced a profound method of healing that transcends ordinary understanding. From the sacred temples of ancient Egypt to the cutting-edge research of modern quantum physicists, there's been a persistent thread of a deeper reality — one where consciousness itself can transform matter. This is the essence of transfiguration, an ancient art that invites us to access and embody the divine light within.

What is Transfiguration?

At its core, transfiguration is a complete shift of form or consciousness. It’s more than meditation or visualization — this is true alchemy. A a radical state of being where you become one with divine light, dissolving the boundaries between self and universal energy. 

This state not only transforms the practitioner but also ripples outward, affecting the environment and others in profound ways.

Throughout history, many traditions and individuals have glimpsed or practiced this phenomenon:

• Egyptian Mystery Schools: These ancient teachings described transfiguration as a process of divine light transformation. Initiates underwent rigorous spiritual practices to align with cosmic energies, often in temple rites designed to dissolve the ego and reveal the eternal soul.

• Christian Esotericism: The New Testament recounts moments of miraculous healing and transfiguration, such as the Mount of Transfiguration where Jesus radiated divine light. These acts demonstrated the power of spiritual alignment to transcend physical limitations.

• Quantum Researchers: Modern scientists like Joe Dispenza are beginning to explore the ways consciousness can influence matter. His research into meditation and brain-heart coherence reveals how focused intention and elevated emotions can create measurable shifts in physical reality.

• Shamanic Traditions: Across cultures, shamans have entered altered states of consciousness to access the divine. Through journeying, they connect with universal energies, facilitating healing and transformation for their communities.

• Global Alchemists: Both Western and Eastern Alchemical traditions hold one thing to be true — alchemy isn’t just about what happens in the laboratory. It is the complete transformation of the alchemist themselves.

The Science and Spirit of Transformation

Modern quantum physics is beginning to validate what ancient wisdom traditions have always known: consciousness is not confined to our physical bodies. At the quantum level, everything — from the cells in our bodies to the stars in the sky — is interconnected fields of energy. This understanding opens the door to profound healing and transformation.

Key principles from science and spirit converge:

1. Energetic Interconnectedness: Quantum entanglement suggests that particles remain connected across vast distances, mirroring the idea of a unified consciousness.

2. Observer Effect: At the quantum level, the act of observation influences outcomes, echoing the power of focused intention in spiritual practices.

3. Frequency and Vibration: Ancient traditions often emphasize raising one’s vibration, a concept now mirrored in the idea that higher frequencies are associated with healing and coherence.

The Seven Keys of Profound Healing

Achieving a true transfigurative state requires:

1. Powerful, Clear Intention: Intent directs energy. Without it, transformation lacks direction.

2. Unconditional Love: Love is a high-frequency state that dissolves separation and aligns with universal energy.

3. Complete Energetic Alignment: The body, mind, and spirit must harmonize to access higher states of consciousness.

4. Divine Union: A deep connection with the sacred—however one defines it—is essential.

5. Focused Concentration: Sustained attention creates a fertile ground for transformation.

6. Expansive Imagination: Visualization bridges the seen and unseen worlds, allowing new realities to emerge.

7. Sustained Energetic Coherence: Maintaining alignment over time amplifies the effects of transfiguration.

Practical Approaches to Transfiguration

While mastering transfiguration takes time, anyone can begin to explore this transformative practice with the following techniques:

• Meditation: Engage in meditative practices that dissolve the boundaries of the ego and connect you with universal consciousness. Start with guided meditations focused on light and energy.

• Energy Sensing: Practice noticing subtle shifts in energy around you. Focus on the sensations in your body and the space between your thoughts.

• Breathwork: Use breath to expand awareness. Techniques such as rhythmic or circular breathing can deepen your connection to the divine.

• Mindfulness: Observe the world with heightened awareness, paying attention to the space between particles, sounds, and moments. This can reveal the interconnected nature of existence.

Why This Matters Now

We’re living in a time of massive global transformation. Environmental challenges, social upheaval, and personal crises are calling us to evolve. Personal and planetary healing requires us to expand our understanding of what’s possible. Transfiguration offers a way forward—a means of accessing deeper states of consciousness to become agents of healing not only for ourselves but for the collective.

This isn’t about magical thinking — It’s about remembering our fundamental connection to a living, responsive universe. By tapping into the art of transfiguration, we can align with the light within and radiate it outward, creating ripples of transformation in a world that desperately needs it.

Free Guide: Your Invitation to Explore

To support your journey, I’ve created a free "Wild Alchemy Ritual Guide." Inside, you’ll find:

• Introductory meditations to access expanded states of consciousness

• Elemental connection practices to harmonize with nature’s rhythms

• Rituals and recipes to help you shift into a state of consciousness that supports quantum healing

This guidebook is 45 pages full of my most valuable content — folks have told me I should charge for it, but I think it’s too important not to share!

Every moment is an invitation to transformation. With a single breath, a moment of stillness, and the intention to see beyond the visible, you can begin your journey into the ancient art of transfiguration. The light within you is waiting to shine.

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ASTROLOGY | RECIPES | REWILDING | SACRED AROMATICS | SHAMANISM | SPIRITUALITY | WELLNESS

Juniper Stokes is a certified coach, mythoanimist guide, alchemist & artist.

A FREE 45-page guide to awaken your inner magic!

Your Complete Guide to Hydrosols

Nothing on this blog has been written by AI.

The alchemist is in session ;)

Above is a picture of my copper alembic. I love it. 

And, it took me two years to be brave enough to start using it, lol. Supposedly there can be a risk of explosion with these things…

Luckily, I have an engineering wizard of a man who put his skills to use getting me all set up this year. 

Over the summer and into early fall, our home smelled of fresh herbs and fragrant forests as I transformed wild and garden-grown plants into alchemical elixirs, mantra and blessings infusing the precious distillations. 

Blue spruce, white mountain sage, and magical mugwort are a few of the first allies who have participated in this botanical alchemy, transforming from fresh plants into healing hydrosols. Fragrant wormwood, incense cedarwood, and fresh local juniper berries are on deck, so long as I can get to them before the snow and frost set in fully.

As I tend my alembic to facilitate the transformation of these plants, I feel gratitude for the long line of alchemists who have come before me. I feel their wisdom, skill, and reverence for this process all around me, holding me within a sacred vessel of support as I do this work.

Now, steeped in aroma and the healing blessings of the plants, I come to share a bit more about this process — because I know some of you may be thinking, “Cool…but what is an alembic? What is a hydrosol? How on earth would I use one?”

I got you. And in this article, we will dive into all these questions and more ;)

Ancient Alchemy: Distillation of Spirit

There’s a reason alcohol is often referred to as “spirits” — the earliest alchemists believed the distillation process extracted the spiritual essence of plants. Since the result of botanical distillation was often alcohol, this literally intoxicating liquid became known as spirits. 

As with so many gifts from the gods, humans have created an often warped and dysregulated relationship with these liquid spirits. Yet this doesn’t mean they are inherently bad — it is pure, organic, distilled alcohol that provides the base of the sacred perfumes I create. Pure, organic alcohol, distilled from grapes in my home state of Oregon preserves the vibrational imprints of my flower essences.

In these magical, botanical remedies, alcohol isn’t just a preservative or base — it is an essential spiritual component of these botanical elixirs, helping to carry the spiritual nature of their gifts into our bodies, where we may receive great benefit. 

Yet it wasn’t only alcohol that arose from distillation…

Steam Distillation with Fragrant Aromatics

When fresh, fragrant plants are steamed in alchemical vessels, precious aroma chemicals can be captured in the form of essential oils and botanical waters — this is called steam distillation. Preparing steam distillations with my copper alembic lets me transform fresh, wild plants into magical remedies and elixirs. 

Here’s how steam distillation works: First, water and fresh plants, which contain volatile aroma chemicals and compounds, are placed in the bowl of a still (an alembic is a type of still). This is heated, and the steam rises — only the most volatile components rise in this steam, leaving the heavier plant chemicals behind. As the aromatic steam condenses back into water, it carries these compounds with it. Some compounds are water soluble, so they remain in the water, and others are not — these become essential oils that float on top of the water. 

So, this distillation creates two different magical and healing plant remedies:

• Essential Oils — You’ve probably heard of these guys ;) These are the condensed, aromatic molecules that are not soluble in water. They are highly concentrated and potent, and only a tiny amount can be extracted from the whole plant materials.

• Hydrosols — This is the recondensed aromatic steam, containing the water soluble molecules. It is gentle, fragrant, and full of very pure healing plant materials. Not as potent as essential oils, not as physically dense as a tea, hydrosols are unique distillations with their own alchemical gifts.

What Are Hydrosols, and How Are Hydrosols Different from Essential Oils?

While both hydrosols and essential oils come from the same distillation process, they are quite different in their composition and potency.

Distinctive Features of Essential Oils

• Essential oils are condensed, aromatic molecules that you’ll find floating on top of your hydrosol, their presence given away by an oily sheen.

• Essential oils float on top because they are not water soluble — rather, they are lipid-based and most soluble in fats and oils.

• They are also extremely concentrated — only a few drops are produced per gallon of water used in the distillation process.

• It takes a huge amount of plant material to make a single drop of essential oil, so they are very precious materials to use with great care.

• Since the water has been removed from essential oils, they are more shelf-stable and longer lasting than hydrosols.

Distinctive Features of Hydrosols

• Hydrosols, also known as floral waters or hydrolats, are the aromatic waters produced during a steam distillation of plant material. 

• Since they rise in steam, hydrosols contain water soluble molecules.

• And, since the steam distillation process creates a large amount of hydrosol, they tend to be fairly diluted in their potency.

• These qualities make them both more sustainable and gentle than essential oils — they are often used with sensitive individuals, children, and pets.

• Being water-based, hydrosols have a lighter, subtler scent and shorter shelf life than essential oils — a batch generally lasts about a year or two in a cool, dark place.

Ancestral Uses of Hydrosols

Historical evidence of distillation dates back thousands of years on multiple contents, with steam distillation happening extensively in Egypt, the Mediterranean, Persia, India, and China. (The copper alembic, which is what I use, likely originated with Muslim alchemists in the Islamic Golden Age, around the 8th/9th century.) 

In every country we find evidence of distillation, we can see that hydrosols were used in ritual and spiritual practices, medicine and healing, food and flavoring, and perfume and beauty.

In the past, it’s likely that the hydrosol itself was the primary aim of the distillation process, and the essential oils were either skimmed from the surface or simply mixed in — and this is really important to remember: 

So often, we think that more is better. More potent, more healing, right? Not necessarily. For thousands of years, hydrosols were incredibly valuable and revered for their medicinal properties.

The earliest use of hydrosols probably dates back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, a world in which boundaries between perfume, medicine, and ritual were nonexistent.

Evidence shows that some of the earliest plants to be distilled were likely pines and junipers, along with lavender and rosemary.

In ancient Greece, hydrosols were used along with infused oils for cleansing, pathing, and ritual purification. As time went on and the use of hydrosols spread throughout Europe, health and beauty became the focus — rosewater being a favorite in both England and France.

I’m particularly drawn to the Taoist practices of the Han Dynasty in China. There is a long, beautiful history of using both hydrosols and essential oils in the Jade Purity lineage of Sun Simiao, which we’ll be diving into more deeply with my Nectar & Alchemy programs next year…

But in brief: Sun Simiao was a revered physician who used hydrosols and essential oils to anoint specific acupoints to bring about deep healing. His work was so effective that he became renowned throughout the land and was called to serve as a court physician.

Sun Simiao as depicted by Gan Bozong, woodcut print, Tang dynasty (618–907)

This is one of my favorite ways to use hydrosols today — anointing key acupoints, often related to the eight extraordinary vessels, to bring about deep, soul-level transformation and healing. 

And when I get to use hydrosols that I’ve myself, from plants grown on my own land and harvested by my own hands, the results are even more profound.

The Unique Benefits of Hydrosols

Among all the wonderful ways we can partner with plants, a few benefits make hydrosols a unique kind of remedy:

Hydrosols are very safe. Unlike essential oils and herbal remedies, hydrosols are incredibly gentle. While you should always check for contraindications and allergies, in general, you can safely use hydrosols with children, pets, and the elderly, making them wonderfully accessible remedies.

Hydrosols are energetically potent. Hydrosols are primarily energetic in nature, yet retain light and pure physical properties, as well. This combination helps us receive their gifts in every level of our being.

Hydrosols are more sustainable. For every drop of essential oil created, a gallon or more of hydrosol is made. This means that we can use far less plant material and still receive profound benefits, which makes hydrosols a more ecologically sustainable option for plant healing.

Hydrosols last under the right conditions. Kept in a cool, dark place (such as a refrigerator) and free from contamination, hydrosols will last 1-2 years without any added preservatives. While this isn’t as long as an essential oil or tincture, it is a lot longer than a tea or infused water — and pretty amazing considering no preservatives are needed!

How to Use Hydrosols

Healing, spiritual practice, fragrance and flavor, beauty…the many historical uses of hydrosols carry forward into our lives today. You can be endlessly creative with your hydrosol use, so here are just a few ideas to get started:

1. Make an aromatic mist

Use a single hydrosol, combination, or add essential oils and other plant extracts to create an aromatic mist. These mists can be used as you would any other aromatherapy spray — for beauty, cleansing, aroma, protection, refreshment…get creative!

2. Flavor your food and drinks

Add a teaspoon of hydrosol to a glass of water, use rosewater in a Mediterranean dessert, add orange blossom water to a honey cake, blend an herbal hydrosol into a salad dressing…most hydrosols are totally edible, so have fun in the kitchen. (If the plant isn’t edible, don’t eat the hydrosol!)

3. Apply topically

Hydrosols are safe to use directly on the skin — even with children and pets. Soaking some cotton pads in antiinflammatory hydrosols and applying to puffy eyes or irritated skin feels so soothing, and antibacterial hydrosols can be dabbed onto scratches.

4. Use ritually

Hydrosols can safely enhance any ritual intentions. Mist your space, attune your energy field to practice by taking a few drops internally, and cleanse your ritual objects. 

5. Anointing

Hydrosols are beautiful for any anointing practice — whether you are opening your third eye before meditation, attuning your heart to its highest vibration, or practicing traditional acupoint anointing in the TCM style, hydrosols carry the vibrational gifts of plants deep into your body’s energy system.

6. Support your health

All of the wellness benefits of the plants involved are carried into their hydrosol form. So, use peppermint and chamomile for digestion, tea tree and sage for antibacterial purposes, helichrysum for skin health, and lavender for a calm mind. Once again, there are endless possibilities. 

Psst — this list just scratches the surface! Download 44 more creative ways to use hydrosols—my gift to you!

44 Creative Ways to Use Hydrosols

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2024 Hydrosol Collection

Ok, now that you have some idea about how totally magical hydrosols are, and how many ways you can use them (although, honestly, my favorite is just to mist my face for hydration and a mood boost throughout the day), I hope you’ll be inspired to start incorporating them into your own daily rituals.

Right now, there are 4 freshly made hydrosols in the botanica at Alchemessence. Obviously, pretty limited amounts are available.

Here’s a peek at who you’ll find:

• Mugwort — Mugwort has a long history as a sacred herb for enhancing dreams, intuitive work, and protection. Known for its ability to clear energetic blockages, Mugwort supports relaxation, enhances spiritual practice, and aids meditation.

• White Sagebrush — A lovely, local, and sustainable white sage from the artemisia family, this hydrosol purifyies the mind, body, and spirit. It helps clear emotional clutter, provides mental grounding, and energetically prepares you for spiritual practices.

• Blue Spruce — This hydrosol captures the spirit of evergreen forests, bringing about feelings of peace and strength. Blue Spruce hydrosol is wonderfully grounding, helping to clear mental fog, support emotional balance, and create a sense of calm stability.

• Purple-Leaf Chokecherry Blossom — This unique hydrosol offers us gentle emotional healing and reminds us of the sweetness of life. It provides calming support for the nervous system, uplifts the heart, and enhances a sense of connectedness and harmony.

You might also like:

• How to Use Flower Essences: A Complete Guide

• A Guide to Natural Perfume Fragrance Families

• The Complete Guide to Magical & Ritual Anointing Oils

• A Short & Sweet Guide to Understanding Flower Essence Dilutions

• A Guide to Perfume Types: Dilutions & Ratios in Natural Perfumes

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Juniper Stokes is a certified coach, mythoanimist guide, alchemist & artist.

A Sunday Tea Ritual

A cup of tea can become a sacred ritual—all you need is intention.

I find Sunday evenings offer the perfect time to pause and reflect in sacred ritual before the new work week begins. Here’s a ritual for you to try this evening or anytime you want to quiet your mind and connect with spirit…

Begin by setting the intention to nourish your soul and calm your mind before the week begins.

Before you boil the water, place your hands over the hot water kettle and visualize calming nourishing energy flowing from your heart into the water.

Prepare the herbs and your cup with a grateful heart. Keep this feeling of gratitude—for these plants, for this moment in time, for your body, the aromas, the nourishment—flowing as you pour water over the tea.

As the tea steeps, you may like to light a candle and prepare your journal space.

Once ready, bring all your senses to your first few sips. Take your time and feel the warm cup in your hands. Inhale the aroma. Taste the nuances.

If this is all you have time or energy for, the ritual is complete. If you’d like to take this moment to journal, you might like to ask yourself:

How can I nourish myself in the coming week?

Where can I create more space in my schedule, perhaps by delegating or saying no?

What am I looking forward to? How can I make sure that I prioritize this?

May this ritual bring you peace and nourishment.

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Just Say No to Bro Goals

Just say no to bro goals.

Unless that works for you. But I'm taking a more feminine approach this year.

The cult of self help has a particular flavor in the podcast realms…

A lot of the habit-tracking and goal-setting info that makes it's way around the bro-podcast circuits just doesn't work for me.

I like the idea of 5am wake ups, cold showers every day, and pushing through discomfort to see change...

But ultimately, so much of the advice out there separates me further from body and intuition.

I'm cyclical. My energy levels are not the same throughout the month, or the seasons. I need the freedom to create space for my authentic needs without having my mind crowded over with "shoulds".

A lot of women suffer from the idea that we can hack our way to health and force ourselves into productivity…

Which brings me to an observation during a recent meeting of my weekly astrology class.

It’s an advanced class with just a small group of pretty badass women. We were practicing reading each others' charts, and a theme emerged…

We had all burned out. Hard. Enough so that half of us had quit our full time jobs for the sake of our health.

As above, so below.

I think a lot of us were drawn to astrology as part of our recovery.

There’s something incredibly comforting about seeing our human experiences reflected in the cosmos.

I have the fixed star Sirius conjunct my moon. Sothis to the Egyptians, many refer to Sirius as our spiritual sun—a portal to divine wisdom. Makes sense for me as my entire life has been a deep dive into mystical realms.

But Sirius is also known as “the Icarus star”. It blesses us with great inspiration and success…yet this success is almost always followed with a painful crash and burn.

Fortunately, rather than deciding my fate, this cosmic knowledge reminds me that I need to be extra intentional with my self care and energy levels.

AND it helps to not pretend that I will magically create consistent equilibrium in my life. My authentic blueprint inherently has cycles of success and burnout.

The question becomes, how can I work with these cycles instead of pretending they don’t exist?

For me, this means knowing that I will need periods of deep rest between creative projects. If I’m launching a new perfume or writing a hefty Substack series for example, I’ll need to put a few days of self care and rest into my calendar.

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How Mama Moon Saved Me

To heal from the extreme burnout I experienced (by extreme I mean total adrenal fatigue, no cortisol spike at all, inability to digest food, horrible skin, and crying all the time and unable to get out of bed), I knew I needed to start taking more exquisite care of myself than I ever had before.

This meant resisting the pull of mainstream messages about endless productivity and growth and sinking into a slower, earthier way of being.

But here's the challenge: Committing to exquisite self care is one thing—actually doing the self care is another.

Because being totally depleted makes it really, really hard to take care of yourself in even the most basic ways.

As much as bro-hacking doesn’t work for me, I do need some accountability to keep myself healthy. I will absolutely slip into later and later bedtimes, skip vitamins, and put off meditating until "tomorrow" if left completely to my own devices.

I needed help. So I turned to the moon.

In Hellenistic astrology, the Moon is considered to be the closest ally of our human experience. Her cycles directly affect our physical bodies and energy levels.

This is why consciously tuning into the Moon’s cycles can have a profound impact on our well-being.

So I made myself my own cyclical, nature-based habit tracking calendars.

These trackers are based on our monthly calendar system because that's the time my mind lives in. But they incorporate moon cycles because that's the time my body lives in.

Rather than rigid to-do lists that reinforce a mind-over-matter mentality, these lunar calendars help me track and plan according to my authentic cycles.

I’ve used these sheets to become more aware of my own energy levels and natural tendencies with the cycles of the moon, and I was better able to cultivate more sustainable habits on my journey back to health as a result.

I still plan and track goals like taking cold showers in the morning, getting sunlight on my skin within the first 10 minutes of waking, morning movement, pranayama, yoga, vitamins, etc.

But I also plan on skipping cold showers during the first days of my cycle. I put in the best days for certain foods or supplements. I mark the weeks when I'll likely have the most energy to go on long hikes, as well as the weeks when I know I'll need more rest and a hot bath.

I used these sheets all last year and love them.

So I packaged them up into a lovely little set that I can share! This set includes:

🌝 two types of tracking sheets — one for intentions/planning and one for tracking/measuring
🌝 a 20-page moon-syncing guidebook
🌝 a moon cycle wall calendar for fun

You can get yours here.

Using these sheets helped me:

🌚 cultivate more sustainable and nourishing habits, from drinking more water to recommitting to my pranayama practice
🌑 plan ahead for different types of self-care activities (saltwater baths at the new moon, socializing at the waxing moon, long solo hikes near the full moon)
🌒 align my schedule with my natural energy levels—sometimes I just won't be as naturally productive and that's ok
🌓 use different herbal tea blends and eat different foods as my body's needs change throughout each month
🌔 become so in touch with my body that I can more easily spot the first signs that I'm heading towards illness or imbalance, which helps course correct before its too late
🌕 get way happier!!!

And…here are pictures!

Here’s the link to get your moon magic:

2024 Moon Magic Guide

May your new year be filled with a balance of productivity and rest that perfectly meets your uniqueness. Many blessings!

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• Coregulating with the Natural World

• It’s Not Depression. It’s Exhaustion. ☥ Why Creative Women Are Burning Out and the Soul-Level Need for Deep Rest

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6 Ways to Celebrate the Autumn Equinox

Joyous blessings for the beautiful Autumn Equinox!

Today marks one of my favorite turns on the wheel of the year — not in the least because of my triple Libra energy ;)

I’m guessing that many of you can relate to our collective craving of autumnal air, cozy traditions, and the beckoning cocoon of the darker half of the year.

And of course, the harvest. Throughout the world, the Autumn Equinox is a time for harvest celebrations — various versions of festivities and music, communal feasts, rituals of gratitude, and offerings to the deities of the land are performed throughout the world as our night dances equally with the day.

The equinox is also a liminal time — neither summer nor fall, it’s a day in between. A gift of stillness in the fleeting balance of light and dark. 

And liminal spaces are made for magic. 

The natural world and the “otherwolds” extend an invitation to deepen our connection with Earth and spirit. Today, we may make magic together. 

How will you mark this turn of the seasons?

Here are 6 magical and seasonal ideas for celebrating the Autumn Equinox:

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6 Magical and Seasonal Ways to Celebrate the Autumn Equinox

1. Create an autumn altar. 

Altars are portals that invite specific energy into our spaces. Your autumn altar can welcome the energy and abundance of the season into your home. Traditional additions include squash and grain, especially if they’re from your own garden or a local farmer’s market, as well as wine, fall leaves, and other cornucopia-like decor.

2. Reflect on the themes of the season. 

This day of equal light and dark is a beautiful time to reflect on balance in your own life and to practice gratitude for your harvests. Grab a warm beverage, light a candle, find a quiet spot, and journal on the following questions:

• How can I cultivate a greater sense of internal peace and balance in my life?

• What would I like to let go of as I move into a new turn of the wheel?

• What lessons and joys am I harvesting? 

• What am I most grateful for from this past season? 

• What are my intentions for the season to come? 

3. Bake!

Celebrate the grains and fruits with a sweet plum bread, embrace the cultural obsession with pumpkin spice, and perhaps make an apple pie…or four ;)

4. Gather roots. 

Once the wheel turns to fall, it’s the perfect time to harvest roots (and if possible, aim for the new moon when they have a bit more potency). Whether carrots and beets from a garden or dandelion and chicory from a field, the grounding energy of the roots is exactly what we need right now.

5. Make a harvest feast. 

Gather seasonal produce from your gardens and local markets and make a meal you love. This doesn’t need to be anything over the top (unless you want to go all out, which I often do…). 

Simple roasted vegetables or a cozy soup and rustic bread are more than enough. See if you can go slow here—what happens if you allow yourself just to be with the harvest, rather than push yourself to get a dinner made? Play music, relax, chop, and sing. Get into your body and smell and taste and feel your way to a beautiful meal.

6. Get grounded. 

Take a moment to sink your energetic roots into the earth today. Allow our mother to welcome you into her abundant care before the ground freezes and hardens for the winter. See a full grounding ritual here.

How will you be spending your equinox? Let me know in the comments — I love to hear from you!

You might also like:

• Rooted: A Seasonal Grounding Practice

• An Imbolc Ritual

• Healing Pumpkin Soup with Cozy Autumn Spices

• Magical Bread Rolls with Pumpkin & Buckwheat

• Celebrating Samhain: Modern Rituals and Festivities for Connection and Protection

• Autumn in the Mountains - A Poem

• 3 Creative Ways to Celebrate Summer Solstice

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How to Use Flower Essences: A Complete Guide

Using flower essences is simple and allows you to harness the healing properties of flowers to support your own well-being. In this article, you’ll learn how to use flower essences for personal transformation and healing — including how to choose the right flower essence for you, different ways to take your flower essences, and how to know if they’re actually working!

Psst: If you want to know more about what flower essences are and how they work, take a look at this complete guide to flower essences!

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to use flower essences for transformation and healing:

1. Choose the Right Flower Essence

Select a flower essence that aligns with your specific emotional or mental needs. For example, if you are experiencing general anxiety, you might consider using a flower essence like aspen. For healing past relationships or a broken heart, twinberry honeysuckle could help.

You can select flower essences by researching your intentions and reading descriptions, through kinesthetic testing, intuitively, or with a personal consultation. 

Looking for more in-depth guidance on choosing your essences? This free guide will walk you through a fun process!

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2. Set Your Intention

Before using your flower essences, take a moment to set your intention or the purpose for using it. Be clear about what emotional, mental, or spiritual aspects you want to address or what positive qualities you wish to cultivate within yourself. This intention will infuse your experience with more healing and prepare you to receive the benefits of your essences.

3. Take the Flower Essence

The most common way to take flower essences is orally — directly under the tongue or in water:

• Direct Ingestion: Place a few drops (usually 2-4) of the flower essence under your tongue. Hold the drops in your mouth for about 30 seconds before swallowing. This allows the essence to be absorbed through the mucous membranes and enter your system.

• In Water: Add a few drops of the flower essence to a glass of water and sip it slowly. This method is especially useful if you find the taste of the essence too strong for direct ingestion.

Either way, you’ll want to take your dose of essences 2 to 4 times a day for at least two weeks. After two weeks, most people notice at least subtle changes. You should continue taking your essences either until the dosage bottle is gone, or until you naturally feel complete — you’ll notice that you just aren’t drawn to keep taking them. 

While taking essences internally and consistently is the most common way to heal and transform with them there are many wonderful and creative ways to use flower essences! You can apply them topically, use them in rituals, share them with pets…the list goes on :) 

For a complete list of creative uses for flower essences, make sure to grab your free guide, Flowering Soul.

4. Observe and Reflect

As you use your flower essences, pay attention to any shifts or changes in your emotions, thought patterns, or overall well-being. Keep a journal if possible, noting any insights or observations. Sometimes the effects of flower essences may be subtle and gradual, while other times, you might notice immediate changes. You can read more about signs to look for here.

5. Combine Flower Essences (Optional)

You can create personalized blends by combining different flower essences to address multiple aspects of your emotional or mental well-being. If you choose to mix essences, do so in a separate bottle and label it with the intention or emotions you are targeting. An experienced practitioner can also help you create a custom blend for your particular needs.

6. Be Patient and Gentle with Yourself

Flower essences work in harmony with your natural healing process, but they are not a quick fix. Be patient and compassionate with yourself as you embark on this journey of self-discovery and healing. 

Sometimes, what has been buried or hidden within our psyches emerges when we use flower essences — and this isn’t always easy to confront or integrate. Find support for your journey, whether through a trusted friend, therapist, spiritual healer, or someone else with the skills to hold you during your transformation.

Remember that while flower essences can be a valuable tool for emotional support, they are not a substitute for professional medical or psychological help when needed. If you are dealing with significant emotional challenges or mental health issues, consider seeking guidance from a qualified healthcare practitioner or therapist.

Using flower essences can be a beautiful and transformative experience, allowing you to connect with the healing power of nature and nurture your emotional and spiritual growth.

If you’d like to go deeper with your exploration, you’ll want to get my free guide to flower essences here:

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Ready to start using essences yourself? I offer a selection of handmade essences in the Alchemessence Apothecary. I created each one myself, in sacred partnership with the plants. A few to get started with are:

You might also like:

• Flower Essence FAQs

• Flower Essences 101: How to Partner with Plants for Whole-Self Healing

• Gnome Plant & Meeting the Queen of the Underworld

• The Magic and Medicine of the Rose

• Great Northern Bedstraw: A Beloved and Underrated Wild Plant

• The Magic and Medicine of Elephant's Head Flower

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All About Flower Essences: How to Partner with Plants for Whole-Self Healing

Flower power is back! Flower essences are liquid infusions of blossoms and light that shift the vibrational state of anyone who uses them. And they’re becoming more popular all the time — because they are one of the most gentle, accessible, and still potently transformational healing remedies available. The plants are here to support us, and in this article you’ll learn exactly what flower essences are, how they work, and how you can start using them for your own healing journey.

As the child of nature-loving hippies, I’ve been using flower essences for just about my entire life. I love them.

For the past decade, I’ve also been making my own flower essences in sacred ceremony out in the wilds — I spend miles and hours wandering through mountains, forests, and fields, allowing the spirits of nature to guide me to the perfect plants. 

The result is an ever growing collection of powerful elixirs made from a wide variety of botanical allies — some of which are quite rare and true gifts from the earth. 

Flower essences have been part of my life for so long that I sometimes forget that not everyone lives and breathes spiritual botany the way I do. And, from the outside looking in, they almost seem like a snake oil type of medicine…how does infusing a blossom in spring water actually make a difference for your own health and wellness?

Read on to discover the magical, vibrational, and natural power of the flowers!

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What Are Flower Essences?

Flower essences are natural remedies made from the energetic imprint of flowers. They are created by infusing the blossoms of specific plants in water, and then preserving with alcohol, to capture their unique vibrational signature.

By working on an energetic level, flower essences affect the subtle energy systems of the body to promote emotional, spiritual, and, as a result, physical healing. 

Unlike essential oils or herbal extracts, flower essences don't contain physical substances — and therefore have no scent — but instead carry the vibrational imprint of a flower’s unique healing qualities. 

The term “flower essence” is often used as an umbrella term for vibrational essences of all types, as well, including:

• Trees and mushrooms — even if not technically flowers, these make wonderful essences

• Environmental essences — these capture the energy of a place, such as a body of water or sacred site

• Gemstone essences — these essences carry the vibrational imprints of crystals and stones

The History And Origins Of Flower Essences

The history of flower essences can be traced back to ancient civilizations, when healers and spiritual practitioners recognized the healing potential of vibrational remedies. The modern-day foundation of flower essences, however, is attributed to the pioneering work of Dr. Edward Bach.

Dr. Bach was a British physician and homeopath. In the 1920s, he developed a set of 38 individual flower essences — known as the Bach Flower Remedies — each corresponding to a specific emotional state. His belief was that imbalances in our emotional and mental states led to physical illnesses, and by addressing these emotional imbalances, true healing could occur. 

Dr. Bach created the first flower essences based on his intuitive realization that the healing properties of flowers could be transferred to water, which captured the energetic imprint of the plant — something Dr. Masaru Emoto later demonstrated with his famous water experiments. 

A strong proponent of accessibility in healing, these essences allowed Bach to share healing remedies that could be easily administered and understood by people without specialized medical knowledge. To this day, Dr. Bach’s work with homeopathy and flower essences continues to influence alternative and holistic healing methodologies.

How Are Flower Essences Made?

Creating flower essences involves a gentle and sacred process that honors the essence of the flowers.

The most common method is the sun-infusion technique, where freshly picked flowers are floated on the surface of spring water and left to be infused by the sun's energy, which helps transfer the vibrational healing qualities of the flowers to the water. (I use a moonlight infusion for mushroom essences, though, as the moon and mushrooms have a unique relationship.)

Essences from hardier plants, such as trees, are often made with a boiling method instead of the sun infusion, as Bach felt that simmering tougher plant material in water for 20 minutes more effectively brought out the vibrational imprints. 

Either way, the resulting infusions are then preserved with alcohol to create the “mother” essence. Brandy is traditionally used, though many people today use vodka. (I have a 100% Demeter Certified organic grape alcohol I like to use.) For those avoiding alcohol, apple cider vinegar is a good alternative.

From the mother essence, you will dilute just a few drops into each stock or dosage bottle. (I share more about this in the free guide!) Each vibrationally attuned drop imprints the water if your dosage bottle, allowing you to receive full benefits of the elixir in amazingly sustainable ways.

Why Flower Essences Work

The philosophy behind flower essences is based on the belief that emotional and spiritual imbalances can manifest as physical ailments. By addressing the root cause of these imbalances on an energetic level, flower essences facilitate healing and personal growth. 

They can assist in alleviating stress, anxiety, fear, grief, and other emotional states, promoting a greater sense of harmony and connection with oneself and the environment.

As a subtle healing remedy, flower essences probably won’t give you an immediate, noticable difference with a one-time use. However, used consistently over time, they do make a difference. 

You’ll likely wake up one day and realize that your thoughts have become more positive, and you didn’t notice it happening. Or your back pain just isn’t bothering you as much, and you’re not sure why. Or you have an inspired idea, seemingly out of nowhere. These are the essences at work!

Here are a few signs your flower essences are working:

• Your dreams — look for shifting patterns in recurrent dreams, insights, and healing

• Your habits and daily patterns — notice subtle shifts that arise naturally and will make a bigger difference over time

• Your thoughts — again, notice subtle shifts in old thinking patterns, as well as new insights and inspiration

• Your intuition — you’ll begin to come into clearer connection with your inner knowing and meditation may feel easier

• Synchronicities — seemingly ransom blessings are actually the result of your own shifting energy

• Relationship changes — as you change, your relationships with those around will change too

• Physical wellness — you’ll start to just feel better, whether that means having more energy, peace, or joy

How to Use Flower Essences

Flower essences are best used consistently over time. The most common way to use them is to drink a few drops in water four times a day — but you can get creative :) 

For a complete guide on using flower essences, take a look at this article!

Why to Use Flower Essences

Flower essences can support a wide range of intentions. Here are a few common ones:

• Alleviating anxiety — aspen is one of my favorites for this

• Healthy boundaries, energetically and emotionally — try a combination of yarrow and rose

• Embodying your worth — I absolutely love queen’s crown as an ally

• Enhancing psychic abilities, intuition, shamanic journeying, and lucid dreaming — mugwort and amanita are favorites

• Shadow work — the poison plant essences are potent allies, and you can get a full set of them here

• Support for times of change — bistort helps us with internal scaffolding, and fireweed helps us re-emerge after having the ground pulled from under us

• Sleep and relaxation — elephant’s head is my absolute favorite for this

• Tending the mother wound — mariposa lily is a beautiful essence

• Deepening your relationship with the Earth — you have to read my article on gnome flower essence!

• Plus healthy relationships, healing depression, motivation for life changes, physical changes, and so much more.

Safety Considerations And Potential Side Effects

One of the wonderful things about flower essences is that they are so safe and easy to use, with no known side effects or interactions. They usually can be used with animals, children, and the elderly without any problems.

That said, the emotional transformation that may arise with use of flower essences may be intense — you’ll want to have proper support, such as a trusted therapist or holistic healer, for any emotional or mental issues that arise.

Remember: While flower essences can be a valuable tool, they are not a substitute for professional medical or psychological help when needed. If you are dealing with significant emotional challenges, mental health issues, or physical ailments, consider seeking guidance from a qualified healthcare practitioner or therapist.

Flower essences offer a profound and accessible path to holistic healing and personal growth, bridging the gap between nature's wisdom and our own well-being. If you’d like to go deeper with your exploration, grab my free guide to flower essences here:

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Ready to start incorporating flower essences into your own healing journey? Explore the wild, sacred essences I’ve created in partnership with the plants in the Alchemessence Apothecary.

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Wild Sunflower

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Fairy Trumpet

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Sacred Datura

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Gnome Flower

You might also like:

• Flower Essence FAQs

• How to Use Flower Essences: A Complete Guide

• Gnome Plant & Meeting the Queen of the Underworld

• The Magic and Medicine of the Rose

• Great Northern Bedstraw: A Beloved and Underrated Wild Plant

• The Magic and Medicine of Elephant's Head Flower

Coregulating with the Natural World

Like any trauma — and like so much of our modern lives in general — ecological trauma often leaves us depleted and exhausted. The ongoing existential threats, the feelings of powerlessness, and the potent pairing of anger and grief we experience can coalesce into overwhelm and physical, emotional, and spiritual dysregulation. 

Our work is to alchemize this pain and grief into usable energy. Our birthrights include being in sacred relationship with the natural world. Our true potential to be effective stewards of the Earth is without limit.

Here, we’ll take a shamanic approach to recovering from ecological trauma. This approach is rooted in two fundamental principles:

First, as much as we might resist connecting with what we perceive to be the pain of the Earth, deepening our connection with the natural world is our path to healing.

The Earth has provided humans with multi-layered healing for millennia, and we must allow ourselves to receive and reconnect with the gifts of our Earth.

Second, as much as we might perceive humanity as bearing the burden for the fate of the world, we are not alone in our efforts.

When we embrace a cosmological shift to animist perspectives, we recognize that the Earth and all her inhabitants are inspirited — and as such, they have agency to affect the fate of the planet, just as humans do. Listening to and partnering with these nature beings is essential if we hope to enact any change within ourselves and our world.

As we partner with our bodies, with the Earth, and with spirit, we can begin to co-create a wildly wonderful world.

Coregulation with the Natural World

The importance of being in a well-regulated body cannot be overstated. 

It’s really hard to be a fully functional, compassionate, and mature adult when your nervous system is dysregulated. Mindset and willpower can only go so far when your adrenals and vagus nerve are depleted or your general endocrine system is out of sync with your body’s needs.

I’ve noticed that when I’m depleted or experiencing activation in my sympathetic nervous system (the “Fs”: fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and I might add “fatigue”), I become more reactive and judgemental. Yet when I’m well-regulated, I’m naturally more generous and forgiving. I have more energy to take positive actions, and my thinking is clearer, allowing me to direct my resources — time, money, and energy — where they’re needed most. 

There are many daily strategies we can implement to tend to our nervous systems — I list several of my personal practices here and here. 

One of the most beautiful ways to tend our nervous systems in response to ecological trauma is coregulation with the natural world.

In simple terms, coregulation is the idea that when a person is spinning out and unable to regulate their own nervous system, another person who is calm and well-regulated can help them — almost “lending” their nervous system’s health to the person in need: Think of a child who gets taken over by a sobbing fit, and their parent simply hugs them until they calm down enough to process whatever has just happened. 

Humans, being social beasts, are perfectly primed to both give and receive this type of communal support with each other.

But what about coregulating with the natural world? 

The shamanic and animist cultures we all come from included the Earth and spirits of nature in our circle of relations. Coregulating with the Earth is our natural way of being in the world. 

When I walk through the Rocky Mountains, a place I’ve tended relationship with for over a decade, the mountains literally feel like my grandparents. The trees are wise elders. The animals my brothers and sisters. This isn’t metaphor, either. Nature beings — especially those I know well — are my kin, pure and simple.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked my favorite trails with a broken heart, ready to crawl into a hole and hide for the rest of my life. And over the course of miles and mountains, I emerge with the presence and purpose to keep going.

Coregulating with the natural world is effective because nature is naturally well-regulated.

While we certainly witness imbalances and traumas in our ecosystems, most of the nature spirits we encounter in our daily lives are resourced and regulated. They remember their divinity and often hold a broader perspective than our egoic human minds. 

And, usually, they delight when humans turn to them for support. The spirits of nature are tuned in to collective memories of times when humans actively partnered with the Earth. They know that sharing their love with us is part of their destiny.

I’m sure most of you can remember spending time in a natural place that just felt good. Even if you couldn’t pinpoint why specifically, you felt yourself becoming present and relaxed. Unintentionally, you were coregulating with the natural world. 

Intentionally coregulating with the natural world is even more powerful. While this practice can be done with a variety of nature beings and places, trees are some of our most accessible allies for this conscious coregulation.

Practice: Coregulating with Trees

Begin by approaching a tree you naturally feel drawn to. Hold your intention for coregulation in your heart. 

(One of the core practices I teach when connecting with any spirit being, including nature spirits, is to ask permission before you engage with its field of energy. Yet knowing whether your getting a yes or no answer can be tricky without practice. By setting your intention for healing and then allowing yourself to be drawn to a tree that seems to be calling you, or that just feels good, you can safely assume permission has been given.)

Take a few moments to observe the tree. Witness its beauty, notice the details you would normally gloss over. 

How do you feel in the presence of this tree? Notice your energy as you approach. How is it shifting the longer you sit with this tree? 

Even if you notice that the tree is diseased or damaged, see if you can pierce that layer of existence to align with the true, divine essence of the tree.

Take some time to tune into the roots, the trunk, the expansion of the branches. What sensations arise in your body?

Feel into the solid, grounded energy of the tree. Depending on the kind of tree and time of year, you might sense energy that feels rooted and flexible, grounded and expansive, nourished and nourishing, resilient and joyful.

Check in with your own nervous system again. Feel the energy of the tree within your being. 

You can deepen this practice even more by adding circular breathing with the tree. Visualize yourself inhaling both the oxygen and energy of the tree, and as you exhale, it receives your carbon dioxide and energy. 

You can also spend time in direct contact with the tree: Either sit with your back along the trunk or go head and give it a big, long hug. Both can enhance the energetic experience of the tree. There’s a reason tree hugging is thing!

When you feel complete, offer thanks to the tree (more on this when we discuss reciprocity in Part 3 of this series). Acknowledge what you have received and move forward with gratitude in your heart. 

If available to you, try repeating this practice with the same tree several times. You’ll notice that not only do new sensations arise, but new insights and wisdom will spark within your consciousness, as well.

Coregulating with Place

This is a practice you can do with rivers, mountains, flowers, stones, and the earth herself. The more variety you experiment with, the more you’ll realize that nourishment from the natural world has many different flavors. 

Another place that I have a deep, long standing relationship with is the Oregon Coast. If you’ve never visited the Oregon Coast, know that it is wild. Largely undeveloped and protected with state park designations, these rocky beaches have retained an untamable, at times exhilarating, energy. 

Massive rocky outcrops emerge from huge coastal waves. Cliffs filled with nesting birds of prey overlook tide pools full of sea anemones and starfish. Giant kelp and jellyfish wash along the shores. The water is numbingly cold even at the height of summer, and ravaging wind gusts are almost guaranteed. 

This is not exactly a relaxing scene in many ways, yet the wild coasts of Oregon feel aligned. As rough as the waves and weather may be, the spirit of this place is strong. And I’ve never ended a trip to the coast without feeling more enlivened and empowered because of our time together.

Coregulating with the wild spirit of the coast is a very different experience from sitting with a tree in a park. The calm, nurturing, grounding energy of the tree contrasts with the wild strength of the sea — yet both energies are perfectly aligned with their own divinity. Both are resourced and regulated. And this is what heals us. 

Your invitation here is to explore the gifts of coregulating with place.

Where do you feel enlivened? Where do you feel a sense of calm presence? Allow yourself to receive the healing energy of aligning with the Earth’s authentic being.

Coregulating with Animals

You might have noticed that until now, I haven’t included animals in the list of nature spirits to practice coregulating with. Put simply, animals are different. They have nervous systems, just like we do, and they may or may not feel resourced and regulated themselves. Coregulating with animals can be an absolutely beautiful experience, and it can benefit both parties, but it needs to be approached a bit differently. 

When it comes to animals in the wild, coregulation is a rare gift. In my experience, wild animals usually don’t sit in presence and regulate with humans. While it can happen, and some humans are especially gifted at this practice, animals in the wild most often appear as messengers.

(If you’d like to learn how to understand messages from animals, I have a really special short course on the topic here.)

Our pets, however, can be wonderful allies for coregulating — and if you have a pet you love, you already know exactly what I mean. 

While human-pet relationships can be as varied as any familial dynamics, most often our pets are happy to coregulate with us. Humans have karmic bonds with many species that make dropping into coregulation natural and healing for both us and our animal kin. 

The frequency cat’s purr has positive physiological effects on our nervous systems. The unconditional love in a dog’s gaze heals the heart at the deepest levels. I even had a lizard who, though I didn’t have the language for it at the time, would coregulate with me… 

I swear — that lizard and I had karma. A lizard wouldn’t have been on my personal pet list, as I always thought lizards were best left in the wild. But this one, a bearded dragon named Diego, was about to be returned to a petshop because his owner was moving across the country, so I volunteered to take him in.

At first, he was so foreign to me — a little dinosaur walking around my kitchen floor. Yet it didn’t take long for me to learn his language, see his intelligence, and tune into his amazing presence. 

I was in grad school at the time — not exactly a stress-free era of life — and I would often take Diego out of his enclosure to run around my bedroom while I studied. I distinctly remember that whenever I would pause and take a meditation break, he would run over and hop in my lap to join me. Eventually, this magical little being would initiate the meditation breaks!

I loved that lizard, and would hold him while watching TV, feed him green beans from the garden, take him on little walks in the backyard…I know without a doubt that he was coregulating with my perfectionist student self, and I needed him.

If you open your mind and heart to the many possibilities of connecting with the natural, wild world — support can be found in the most surprising places.

Cultivating Self-Regulation 

One of the basic tenets of psychological teachings on coregulation is that it’s not a replacement for self-regulation. We must develop the skills to soothe and tend our nervous systems on a regular basis, to cultivate resilience for challenging times, and to become beacons of stability and healing for others. 

In a way, coregulating with the natural world is a beautiful step toward being able to effectively self-regulate. In the presence of nature spirits, we aren’t alone, yet we can be alone in the human sense. We can tune into our own resources, guided by the natural world.

You may also like:

• Ecological Trauma: A Guide to Understanding Eco-Trauma

• Earth Friends & Reciprocity (You Belong Here)

• Humans are losing their ****, and how body and Earth can help

• 5 Steps for Communicating with The Spirits of Nature

• Who is your Spirit Animal? A 4-Step Guide for Understanding Our Animal Allies

• 8 Benefits of Partnering with the Spirits of Nature

Humans are losing their ****, and how body and Earth can help (aka, tend your nervous system)

It's not crazy to feel like the world is a bit crazy right now.

Ever since the pandemic arrived in 2020, life has felt a bit volatile — right? 

I find peace through my connections with nature, spirit, and the cosmos…but I’m always tracking our collective energies through various media outlets. 

Intuitively, I’ve felt that we should expect more collective upheaval until 2025 or 2026 (something many astrologers have confirmed). This isn’t saying that major goodness and growth won’t happen along the way. Rather, it’s more of an acknowledgement that yes, things feel a bit crazy and no, you’re not crazy for noticing. 

The completely bizarre shootings of young people making mistakes last week really hit me. Being naturally sensitive, I’ve of course felt the pressure-cooker like energy of our collective. I’ve watched as people have become so filled with fear — what is likely deep, existential, multi-layered fear — that they are losing their humanity. 

We’ve traded our reverence of life for the gods of money.

Now, personal survival and individualism to the extreme seem to come first no matter the cost. No civilization has ever thrived with rampant individualism at the core of its values (the elites in that civilization yes, for a time, but without collective care I don’t think you can really say an entire civilization is thriving). 

I’m not surprised that people have lost their shit.

The pandemic, no matter how you were personally affected, shook the foundations that so many had taken for granted.

The way the media pours fuel on the fire of the most aggressive voices in our modern cultural movements — from every side and in all directions — has further shaken the foundations and assumptions that once provided stability in people’s lives. And has further made us fearful of each other.

(Though, for what it’s worth, shootings like this aren’t actually new. The media just decided to cover them all in one week. Once again, we must always check the agendas of any media outlets and the energetic influences they are susceptible to.)

I’m not saying the need to question our assumptions is a bad thing — it’s an essential part of our soul growth. But I do know that it’s not easy, and without the proper skills and support, and a lot of compassion, this process can feed into collective fears (furthering the divides that keep us disempowered from enacting real collective change). 

And then there’s the exponential growth of artificial intelligence and the effects this has on our psyches. Just a few months back, AI programs like ChatGPT basically seemed like advanced search engines. Now, even a layperson like me is seeing hints of true AGI. When a computer learns how it works and discovers how to improve itself, how long until we really do reach the singularity? 

This monumental change to life as we know it further fuels humanity’s existential fears. And it’s not just about robots taking our jobs anymore — though that’s certainly a concern. And it’s not just about feeling as if you can’t keep up with these changes, or are losing your way of life — though those are at play too. 

These fears arise because on some level, whether consciously or not, humans are wondering what role reality will actually play in their lives — and what the definition of “reality” will even be. (More thoughts on this here.)

Which brings us to what is real, right now: our Earth. No one is immune to the Earth changes before us.

We must tend our bodies and regulate our nervous systems to meet for the challenges before us.

When I feel into my own experience with shaken foundations and future insecurity, I notice that my personal response changes drastically based on the physical health of my body, especially when it comes to the state of my nervous system.

If I’m already feeling drained and stressed, and I know that my HPA axis is out of whack, I tend to go into protection mode: I feel so depleted and under-resourced already, that I’m put on notice to guard everything I have left — whether this is my time and energy or my physical property. New information or a new person becomes a threat until proven otherwise. 

If I’m well-resourced and nourished, my personal response is radically different — and more in line with my true nature: I immediately turn to love. As cheesy as it might sound, our hearts are capable of endless compassion. From this place, when I see others acting out of fear, an inner determination to be a beacon of light, grounded and hopeful, in the midst of chaos fuels my motivations. 

I can’t emphasize enough how intricately connected these responses are to my physical state of being.

My own journey through (and still in) extreme adrenal fatigue, catalyzed by a series of traumatic events and ongoing grief, has taught me a lot about this. 

Even though my emotions might be going haywire and my soul feels wounded, if I’ve slept enough, fed myself nourishing foods, sipped on nervine teas, done my daily meditation practice, and kept up with regular abhyanga, my response to any disrupting information is more compassionate.

Unfortunately, it requires a lot of effort to stay healthy and sane these days (especially since most of us are already in recovery mode from the past two years). When your nervous system has been taxed by years of compounding stress — personal, collective, and of course environmental and physical — simply “maintaining” isn’t enough. 

How to Tend Your Nervous System When Burnout and Trauma Are Becoming Too Much

Needless to say, everyone is different, and finding the magical combo of support that works for your system and your lifestyle takes time and real effort. That said, I can share what has been most impactful for me, in case it inspires any support in your own life.

(It should be said that I hit a state of what felt like near catatonic exhaustion, with real adrenal fatigue and ongoing grief that will not subside to this day. The dedication I’ve needed to put into recovery is hopefully more than most of you will need to do. If this sounds extreme, simply take inspiration for what feels true and doable for you.) 

• Vitamins — So basic, yet so important. If nothing else, remembering to take my daily vitamins and a probiotic keeps me afloat.

• Meditation — When I was entering auto-immune territory, I knew I needed more significant changes. I committed to 40 - 60 minutes of meditation daily, mostly practicing the golden elixir meditation from Taoism, and this has probably helped more than anything.

• Pranayama — Along with meditation, I practice yogic breathing for another 20-30 minutes a day. 

• Syncing with natural cycles — I try to expose my eyes to the light at sunrise, high noon, sunset, and the night sky every day. This means I’m up before sunrise and in bed by 9:30.

• Plant Allies — These have been huge:

  • I traded out my morning coffee for a homemade adaptogenic brew filled with bitters, mushrooms, and liver-loving herbs. 

  • I sip a big batch of nourishing herbal infusions to replenish my minerals and soothe my nervous system throughout each day — nettle, oatstraw, raspberry leaf, lemon balm, marshmallow, horsetail, tulsi, gotu kola, and skullcap are some of my favorites to include in the mix.

• Spend time in nature — The natural world reminds us of our own natural essence. Physiological and psychological healing arises when spend contemplative time in the wilderness.

• Smell good things — It’s so easy to add a bit of aroma to your day, yet it makes a massive difference for the psyche. 

The commitments I’ve made to restoring my HPA axis and nourishing my nervous system have been significant, timewise and financially. But in essence, they’re really pretty simple. Take your vitamins. Breathe. Look to the skies. Meditate. Partner with plants. 

There’s more of course — movement, cold showers, dietary changes, saying no wayyy more often, limiting media exposure, time with loved ones, and partnering with the spirit world, to name a few. I have a whole article on stepping into rest if you’ve forgotten how, and another one with many more healing protocols. 

You might also like:

• Coregulating with the Natural World

• It’s Not Depression. It’s Exhaustion. ☥ Why Creative Women Are Burning Out and the Soul-Level Need for Deep Rest

• Pause & Play: How to Have A Mini Revolution

• Navigating the Gifts of Our Magnificent Clusterf*ck

• How to Boost Your Immune System with Essential Oils

• Simple Tricks to Add More Health-Boosting Herbs into Your Daily Routine

• Energetic, Spiritual, and Botanical Care for Wild and Uncertain Times

Severed from Scent

At the end of last year, I woke up on Christmas morning and my sense of smell was gone. 

This is awful for anyone…but for a perfumer? Absolutely devastating. 

It’s been a slow recovery (that bout of covid was especially rough). Though my smell had mostly come back by mid February, I could tell that I wasn’t picking up on the subtle nuances I used to. 

The loss of smell has been such a strange piece of this pandemic era…

A strong sense of smell has always been a mark of a healer — the ability to sniff out both the diseases and the cures. 

It’s also closely associated with our intuition. We can smell when something — or someone — is off. 

This probably has something to do with the unique ability of aroma to bypass our conscious minds, eliciting unbidden feelings and memories before our thinking brains can process what’s happening… or get in the way.

Our sense of smell also brings us into our bodies. While transcendence may certainly be part of our soul paths, we also come into bodies here on Earth to experience being fully human. Our five senses are the gateways to embodiment. And embodiment is a gateway to both pleasure and presence.

And, fragrance is a gateway to the gods. 

In Egyptian mythology, the fragrance of the sacred lotus birthed the universe. Statues of deities in ancient cultures were anointed with fragrant oils to wake up the gods they housed. The deceased were anointed with aromatic plant material to help carry their souls along their journeys. The aroma of flowers is said to announce the presence of the gods or angels. Temples around the world are filled with fragrant smoke. 

Healing, inner knowing, pleasure, presence, and spiritual connection…all rooted in our ability to trust our own noses. 

Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that our connection with smell as been under attack for some time. 

Even before the pandemic, humanity had been slowly led away from our sense of smell and the myriad gifts it offers, effectively cutting us off from a profound gateway to healing, intuition, memory, pleasure, and spiritual connections.

One long-standing culprit is the fragrance and flavoring industry.

I’ve long been skeptical of a fragrance and flavoring industry that trains humans to prefer the smell of artificial ingredients in their cosmetics. While the synthetic compounds added to our foods and body products have physically detrimental properties, my concern also lies in effects this has on our psyches and souls.

The fallout of the rampant scent-washing in our culture are twofold:

First, artificial fragrances have distanced humans from the natural world.

The idea that ingredients from a factory are somehow cleaner or potent than those from a forest pervades our collective consciousness. 

That the fragrance of an air freshener, filled with known cancer-causing compounds, smells “fresh” is a sign of this insanity. That a “peach blossom” lotion smells like no peach nor blossom ever found in nature is a sign of how far removed from the natural world we’ve become. 

These fragrances train our noses — and our knowing — to deny what we know is true and believe the lies sold to us.

The fragrances found in whole plant materials contain myriad compounds perfectly designed to harmonize with each other. We humans evolved in relationship with these plants, and our bodies readily receive their gifts. Our sense of smell brings these complexities into our psyches, where we intuitively receive our plant allies’ wisdom.   

As humans learn to prefer synthetic flavors and aromas, they are cut off from their relationship with their own ability to sniff out what’s true. To sniff out their own cures for what ails them. They are subtly disconnected from their innate powerful, intuition-supporting sense of smell.

The second outcome is found in those humans who loudly proclaim that they can tolerate no fragrances of any kind.

I get it. These people’s bodies told them that synthetics were harming them, and they listened. The problem comes when this makes people afraid of all smells — even the ones with profound healing benefits. 

Of course, toxic overload from synthetics can lead to the body’s inability to process naturals. And, many smells marketed as “natural” actually contain plenty of synthetics, so I can understand the fear. Yet, this fear cuts off important pathways for healing and delight. 

Our sense of smell is a gift from the gods, part of the wonder of being embodied in the human forms. Not only does it help us survive, it helps us enjoy life and find pleasure in our physical experience. And pleasure is part of why we’re here. 

My heart breaks when I hear that someone cannot tolerate any fragrance (if you’ve ever worked in an office building, you’ve met many of these folks). As a natural perfumer and clinically certified aromatherapist, I know that simply smelling precious oils from plants (let alone the benefits of topical applications) can help us focus, give us energy, regulate our hormones and nervous systems, alleviate depression and anxiety, soothe us in times of grief, ignite aphrodisiac qualities, relieve insomnia, and so much more. 

Anyone who’s ever worn a perfume, or had a signature fragrance of any kind, knows the feelings that arise with that first spritz. You somehow feel more like yourself — the best version of yourself. You might feel more beautiful, sexy, powerful, calm, fulfilled, peaceful, hopeful, abundant, or creative depending on the perfume of the day. 

Those over-the-top perfume commercials? They may be ridiculous, but they’re also a pretty good representation of what perfume does for the psyche. While synthetic perfumes legitimately give many people headaches and worse, perfumes made with true naturals bestow even more transformational energy and pleasure to those who wear them.

If you love beauty, pleasure, and Venusian delights as much I do, you might enjoy taking a peek at my perfumer’s artist statement.

The next severance from our sense of smell comes from our online lives.

The pandemic no doubt accelerated this phenomena, yet the seeds have been in place for decades. Our online communities and interactions, social networks and getting lost in the “scroll hole” (This is my partner Mike’s and my term for not just doomscrolling but getting lost in an endless mind-numbing feed of information. I’m surprised it hasn’t taken off yet, to be honest…). And then came the Metaverse and increasing capabilities of virtual reality. 

Any life lived online is removed from our embodied experience. Yes, we use our eyes and take in the visuals, we connect with audio and can converse or enjoy a melody, and we can even engage in some sensory experiences with haptics and the rare VR bodysuit. 

To my knowledge, however, smell — and its sister sense taste — are not yet available in the online realms. Smell keeps us in our bodies, in the present, and connected to what is true and real for us in the moment.

By the time the pandemic arrived, humanity had been well prepped for relinquishing our sense of smell. 

To be clear, I’m not saying that losing our sense of smell as part of the pandemic was some orchestrated event. Rather, I can’t help but wonder if this particular effect is a reflection, showing us what we’ve already lost in no uncertain terms. 

If we look at our collective pandemic experience, we can see the separation of us from each other, from our own healing capabilities, and from our intuitive knowing of what is and isn’t true. Yet these questions extend far beyond the pandemic too. 

Where have you doubted your own knowing? Your ability to heal yourself? Where have you lost touch with pleasure, embodiment, and the ability to be present in each moment? Where have you forgotten what’s actually true, or allowed yourself to be led by lies? Where has the reverent ritual of bringing spirit into daily life been set aside in favor of more “urgent” matters?

Smell is a gift from the gods and fragrance is the perfume of spirit. May we can heal our broken relationship with olfaction, realign with the true nature of reality, and reawaken reverence and wonder in our hearts.

Returning to the Perfumery

It’s now been a bit over four months since I lost my sense of smell, and it’s just about returned. Though it’s hard to tell if my nose is really as strong as it was before, I at least feel confident to work in the perfumery again. And this fills my heart with joy. 

I have several new perfumes I’d designed last year, before the loss of smell, in my studio. I didn’t want to share them until I could be sure they were up to my standards, and now that I can work again, I’m finally putting the finishing touches on them. 

A few that will be coming soon…

Odin

The all father of Northern lands, Odin is the newest addition to the masculine Gods series. His perfume is as strong and complex as he is. Imagine walking into a mysterious hall, almost an elevated and member-only speakeasy filled with aromas of tobacco, cognac, and cacao. A hint of spice, a touch of musk. Decadent and dark. 

Yuzu Yoru

One of my conceptual pieces, is inspired by my years living, eating, and inhaling the fragrances of Tokyo. A citrus forward fragrance, fresh yuzu and Asian kumquats meet with robust citrón and cedrat, gently harmonized with rare strawberry gum (a type of eucalyptus, not the artificial chews!), Japanese hinoki, and precious osmanthus blossoms. A rare delight for summer days and Toyko nights.

There’s also a magical Chinese Goddess, a watery Greek elemental, and more to come :) 

While you wait, be sure to explore the new Scents of Summer Discovery Set, filled with the perfect botanical allies for celebrating this season.

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You might also like:

• About Alchemessence Elevated Perfumes

• 8 Tips for Buying High Quality Essential Oils

• A Complete Guide to Magical & Ritual Anointing Oils

• Here’s What You Need to Know about Buying Natural Perfumes and Essential Oils (aka how to avoid the frauds!)

• How I Make Natural Perfumes: Art, Aroma, and Alchemy in a Bottle

Ecological Trauma: A Guide to Understanding Eco-Trauma

I recently came across an article in the Economist, of all places, entitled, “Shamanism is Britain’s fastest-growing religion”.

The article itself is not impressive (Shamanism is a religion? Um, no.), but it does share an interesting hypothesis: 

People are increasingly returning to nature-based spirituality because of the existential threats facing our earth. 

How interesting. Shamanism and other nature-based spiritual practices arose at a time when humans lived in partnership with the Earth. Now, after centuries of separating ourselves from the natural world, humans are waking up to the fact that the more we distance ourselves from the Earth, the more we distance ourselves from life itself. 

Those of us who deeply love our Earth often feel a complex, ongoing, and even subconscious traumatic response to the immense pain humans have inflicted upon the planet and her inhabitants. 

We feel grief — at the harm done to the Earth, the animals, the plants, waters, mountains, and more at the will of humans. 

We feel rage — at all the ways our current environmental crises could have been prevented, at how many obstacles we still face to get even the most basic protections in place.

We feel guilt — for being part of the human species, for having to live in ways that cause more harm simply by existing within our society. 

We feel pain — as empaths whose energy bodies do not separate the Earth’s pain from our own. 

We feel numb — because continuing to stay open and aware can be too much for our hearts to bear.

These are strong emotions. And as difficult as it is to feel this much grief, rage, guilt, and pain, there is power in these feelings. 

Emotions are charged with energy — and all energy is usable energy. 

The question then becomes, how will you alchemize your grief into hope? Your rage into healing? 

Living with the Effects of Ongoing Ecological Trauma

Before we jump into transmuting our pain, we must acknowledge what is true now: Humans are collectively traumatized. The existential ecological threats facing our species reside in all of our consciousnesses. 

The word “trauma” has become astonishingly pervasive in our current cultural narratives, with many voices contributing nuanced definitions of what was once a more specific psychological term. Here are a few key components that I consider when referring to something as traumatic:  

1. In general, trauma occurs in response to unusually distressing, life-threatening, and adverse events. These might be single occurrences, such as an accident, or ongoing experiences, such as abuse and neglect.

2. Trauma doesn’t just arise from directly experiencing a traumatic event — witnessing, failing to prevent, and perpetuating adverse events may also lead to trauma. 

3. Trauma is more than an emotional response. It lives in our minds, bodies, and souls — and thus healing trauma must incorporate holistic approaches.

I find the perspective of trauma as a moral injury especially valuable when it comes to conversations on ecological trauma. When we experience, witness, allow, or perpetuate an act that transgresses our fundamental beliefs about how the world should operate, there can be a break in our psyches. Shame, guilt, fear, and loss of trust in the goodness of life fill the cracks. 

What Is Ecological Trauma? 

When it comes to environmental trauma, all of the above coalesce to create a complex and seemingly inescapable form of collective trauma. Let’s look more specifically at what this means in four ecological contexts…

1. Experiencing and Witnessing the Adverse Effects of Human-Caused Climate Change

When people first hear the term “ecological trauma”, their minds often wander to the effects of human-caused climate change — natural disasters that have been accelerated by human impact, food and water insecurity, the harmful effects of environmental toxins and pollution (an area none of us are truly immune to), and the violent conflict that may result from all of this. 

With our ever more connected world, even if we haven’t personally lived through a natural disaster or experienced food insecurity, we’re constantly reminded that ecological traumas are happening (we witness them through mass media) and that they will likely impact our lives at some point (the existential threat). 

I simply don’t know how anyone could witness the growing numbers of wildfires and “1000-year” floods every year, hear predictions that our coast lines will be underwater and farmland will cease production because of drought, learn about microplastics in our waters and glyphosates in our foods…and not experience fears around safety and survival. This is trauma, and it has become a consistent part of modern life. 

One of the most dangerous impacts of this line of ecological trauma is the sense of powerlessness it imbues us with.

There is nothing more dangerous than giving up. If you’re feeling powerless or fearful about these far-reaching effects of climate change — ask yourself, where are the roots of this fear? How is the mass media machine feeding my sense of powerlessness? 

This type of ongoing trauma can become debilitating — it can cause us to numb out, give up, and shut down. And it can be tended. 

Tending your nervous system in response to the existential threats we face strengthens your resilience to keep embracing what’s true while holding a vision of what is still possible. The elements of the natural world are available to support us:

Turn to the air, and breathe four counts in and four counts out. 

Turn to the earth, and allow plant allies to soothe you with restorative teas. 

Turn to the water, and soak in salts that draw toxins from your body. 

Turn to the fire, and feel passion fortify your heart. 

2. Our Innate Empathic Connection 

In recent years, I have witnessed a wave of “empath awareness” content sweep through popular culture. While I’m happy to see this phenomenon named and normalized, I feel that most teachings on this topic, which tend to focus on recovery and protection, are missing an important point: 

Empathy is our natural state of being. 

We are meant to embrace the nonverbal, energetic knowing that alerts us to the state of the world around us. Our natural way of being is to intuitively understand the true feelings and motivations of others. Of course we want the skills and awareness to differentiate between other and self, to be able to turn off connection so as not to be overwhelmed — but we must remember that being an empath is a healthy part of our human wholeness.

People who deeply love the earth tend to be in touch with their innate empathic gifts. Being around too many other people for too long can overwhelm our nervous systems, and the natural world provides soul-soothing relief. 

Unfortunately, this also means that as sensitive folks, we can feel the earth’s pain as if it were our own. Witnessing harm done to the earth and her inhabitants can feel like physical pain in the system of an empath. Hiking through a forest that has been clear cut, wandering along an ocean shore filled with plastics and fishing line, visiting locations where human atrocities have taken place — ecological empaths will feel deep grief wash through our beings and we may not even know why. 

The temptation here is to shut down. But repression is not a local anesthesia (thank you to Jose Soutelinho for that inspiration). When we numb ourselves to grief, rage, and pain, we end up numbing ourselves to joy, hope, and love, too. 

We must learn to acknowledge and feel our pain. We must expand our capacity to hold challenging truths in our awareness. And we must remember that the world is more than trauma. She is not broken, and neither are we.

The pain we perceive is only a small layer in the immense divine presence of the earth and the spirits of nature. Rather than shutting down, empaths can learn to extend their awareness beyond the surface and into the true nature of the wild world. And we can tune into non-human timelines, where we see that the earth is never barren and the potential for restoration is always there. Here, you’ll discover compassion, beauty, and divine order far beyond what our human minds might initially perceive. 

3. Caught in a Double Bind of Ecological Abuse

Whether we experience, witness, or perpetuate it — abuse is traumatic. And our earth is under an onslaught of abuse that few of us have the power to prevent. 

We know that precious resources are extracted from our earth with greed rather than reverence. We know that our waste, sewage, and toxic byproducts are dumped into her soils and waters. This trauma of witnessing and failing to prevent these acts  is an inescapable part of our daily lives.

What can be especially traumatic at the soul level, however, is that we are also required to participate in this abuse. 

Most people are dependent upon modern society for survival, yet modern society — and all the infrastructure, consumption, trade, and resources it requires — is the earth’s abuser. 

Do we leave our abuser to fend for ourselves in the wilderness, knowing that our own departure does nothing to stop the machine, or do we stay and do our best to effect change, knowing that our very existence will have harmful consequences for the planet?

This is a soul-crushing bind to find ourselves in. And it requires soul-level tending. 

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: “Our ecological crises require cosmological solutions.”

We must remember that the earth is alive, inspirited, and has consciousness — and we can partner with the earth and the myriad spirits of nature to bring about healing. We are children of the earth, and the soul of the earth holds us in endless compassion. 

By connecting with the earth’s loving soul on a regular basis, we’re more able to release environmental guilt and fill our hearts with hope. We recognize that even if our personal efforts to live more regenerative lifestyles seem like drops in an ocean, the spirits of nature witness our heartfelt intentions and it does make a difference. The ripple effects might be unseen and subtle, but they are there. 

4. Abandonment: Returning to Our Original Mother

For millennia, the earth was seen as alive and as an essential part of our more-than-human family. She was our great mother (and our fertile father in some ancient traditions), who ensured the survival and well-being of all her children. We were born of the earth, nourished by the earth, sheltered by the earth, and loved by the earth. And we remained in reverent relationship with her throughout our lives. 

Much of modern life removes us from our ancestral partnership with the earth. Severed from this original relationship, we experience the traumatic effects of parental abandonment in the core of our psyches. 

This core abandonment can leave us feeling unloved and under-resourced, as if we must fight for survival and bear the weight of our burdens alone. Helplessness, unworthiness, and ongoing anxiety are natural outcomes of disconnection with our earth mother. 

Inherent in this dynamic is also the sense that it is up to humans alone to “solve” our climate crises — we caused it, and we alone can fix it. 

While we must take responsibility here, this perspective traps us within the limitations of the human mind. Once again: Our ecological crises require cosmological solutions. We must recognize the natural world as inspirited, with agency in the course of its own future. 

We must restore our relationship to the animated earth, listening to the deep wisdom of our mother with reverence, humility, and gratitude.

As deep as this wounding of ecological trauma is, it is perhaps the most available for healing — for our primordial mother has not abandoned us. She is with us every moment of every day, waiting for us to return home to her loving embrace. 

Transmuting Our Grief and Trauma Recovery

The ongoing nature of these ecological traumas makes it challenging for us to stay present and well-regulated. It becomes much easier to numb ourselves to the pain of the world, turn away from suffering, and give up hope for healing. 

By bringing key practices from trauma recovery into ecological contexts — in other words, by healing in partnership with the natural world — we experience transformational healing. 

You might also like:

• Coregulating with the Natural World

• It’s Not Depression. It’s Exhaustion. ☥ Why Creative Women Are Burning Out and the Soul-Level Need for Deep Rest

• Wild and Uncertain Times: Energetic, Spiritual, and Botanical Care

• Navigating the Gifts of Our Magnificent Clusterf*ck

• Who is your Spirit Animal? A 4-Step Guide for Understanding Our Animal Allies

• Earth Friends & Reciprocity (You Belong Here)

3 Simple Ways to Rewild Your Thanksgiving Table + A Wild Winter Recipe

Thanksgiving mythology tells us that this holiday marks a time when native peoples helped pilgrims survive by sharing the bounty of a new land with them.

Obviously, the actual history of the holiday is a lot more complicated and painful than this simple recounting—something I reflect on here—yet the ritual of pausing to honor and show gratitude for the abundant gifts of the earth is one I continue to love in the midst of a complex history. 

One of my favorite ways to truly celebrate the abundance of the earth, as well as the ancestral spirits of the land, is to incorporate local, wild foods into our menu. 

Eating wild foods attunes our energy field and our DNA to the land we live on, and when done with reverence and gratitude, shows the spirits of the land that we don’t take our abundance for gratitude. It’s a way to nurture our relationship with place, open our hearts to mothering from our earth mother herself, and tend our well-being in physical and energetic realms. 

Want to add a few wild bites to your Thanksgiving feasts this year? Here are a few simple wild foods available just about anywhere in the States…

Wild Greens

If you’ve been following along here and have some wild greens infused vinegar on hand (usually made in the spring), use it to replace any other acids in your recipes. It’s great for brightening up butternut squash soup and mixing into wild salad dressings. 

Depending on where you live, you might still be able to gather some wild hearty greens in your area…even your backyard! Mallow, dandelion, chickweed, and nettle can often be gathered in small quantities even after the first snow. Sprinkle a few greens on side salads or even stir them into stuffing—the mild flavor goes with everything. 

Rosehips

Rosehips are best collected after a few frosts, which heightens their sweetness. If you gathered hips earlier in the autumn, great! If not, even wilty looking rosehips can be gathered and cooked into tart cranberry sauces or brewed as nutrient-rich teas. (Just be sure to remove the hairs and seeds first!)

Evergreens

Evergreens are an abundant winter wild food available almost everywhere. Rich in vitamin C and other phytonutrients, evergreen needles can be infused into butters and finishing salts for a fresh, herbaceous flavor, or brewed into healing teas.

Most evergreens are edible, so you don’t need to worry too much about identification here. The two exceptions (that I know of at least) are yew trees and ponderosa pines. There’s mixed messaging on the edibility of both, but general consensus is to steer clear to be safe. Firs, spruces, and most other pines are just fine!

Yews are easily identified by their distinctive orange-red berries—see below. But, the berries aren’t always in season, so if yews are in your area make a positive identification first!

The signature berry of the yew tree—one of the few non-edible evergreens.

Ponderosas can be a bit trickier. If you know you have ponderosas in your area, watch out for tall strong trees with large pinecones and extra long needles. Any time you use any wild food, please quadruple check your identification. And then triple check again.  

A Fragrant & Festive Wild Tea

This tea is based around two wild ingredients—evergreen needles and rosehips. From there, you can get creative with all sorts of fragrant herbs and spices. 

Ingredients

• 2 cups water

• A handful, roughly chopped evergreen needles

• One extra large handful of fresh rosehips, or a smaller handful dried (either leave whole or remove seeds and tiny hairs if chopping)

• 3-4 slices of fresh organic oranges 

• One cinnamon stick

• 2-3 stars of anise

• Lemon and honey to taste

Directions

Place water and herbs in a pot and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in honey and lemon, and serve in festive mugs. Enjoy!

A Shamanic Guide to Illness & Health

Explore the five main causes of illness from a shamanic perspective―and how to heal them.

In this free workshop, you'll discover:
​

• The 5 types of spiritual illness we all encounter
• How to know if you're experiencing spiritual illness
• The surprising ways addressing spiritual illness can impact your life
• A practice to strengthen your energy field right now

TAKE A POWERFUL STEP TOWARD THE LIFE YOU'RE HERE TO LIVE.

Enter your email to access this 65-minute workshop today!

Send me the workshop!

As always, whenever you’re working with wild foods, it’s wise to follow basic ethical and safety practices. In short, triple check your IDs and prioritize the health of the ecosystem above your own gathering needs.

You might also like:

• A Thanksgiving Menu for You: Veg + Gluten-Free

• Simple Tricks to Add More Health-Boosting Herbs into Your Daily Routine

• The Ancestral Convergence: Food & Ritual for Healing this Thanksgiving

• Healing Pumpkin Soup with Cozy Autumn Spices

• Wild Mushroom Pate

• The Best Wild Rice Salad

• Celebrating Samhain: Modern Rituals and Festivities for Connection and Protection

• Ethical Wildcrafting and Making Mountain Medicine

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It’s Not Depression. It’s Exhaustion. ☥ Why Creative Women Are Burning Out and the Soul-Level Need for Deep Rest

What does it mean when you don't want to do anything? When nothing sounds fun, you've lost touch with previous passions, and the things that used to bring you joy no longer have the same effect?

Modern psychology would tell us that these are clear signs of depression. And sometimes, that is what's happening.

But this isn’t always the case. I've found that there's often something a bit more insidious under the surface when creators lose the desire to create…

Many of the women I know are infinite creators. Their inner wells of inspiration seem to have no end to their depths.

These women remodel houses. Build healing practices. Tend potent relationships. Raise little ones. Nurture new life in the land. Paint magnificent works of art. Grow businesses of all types. Launch podcasts. Write books. Envision social ventures. Make a difference in their communities.

(And yes, I definitely count myself in this crowd.)

Their work is so beautiful and needed in our world.

But there is a shadow side to the drive to create. To manifest visions in physical form. To always be growing.

Patriarchal Systems Are Designed to Harm Creative Women

The influence of the linear, growth-driven, and let's face it—patriarchally influenced—culture we all live within sneaks into every part of our unconsciousness.

It slips in through social media and tells you that everyone else is doing more and doing it better.

It's a podcast guest, reminding you that you should always be biohacking your body, healing your trauma, and manifesting your dream life.

It makes sure you know that if you aren't always climbing the ladder of career—including if you work for yourself—you’ll end up desolate and broke.

It subtly lets you know that if, as a woman, you’re not focused on creating or raising new life (having children) on top of all this, you’re not really living up to your full potential.

The amazingly creative, power-house women in my life know that nature and life are cyclical, that endless growth is unsustainable, and that we need space to tend our wellness...

And yet resting or *not doing anything* is soooo uncomfortable for all of them (er, us...I've faced my own struggles here for sure).

But if we don't take the time to celebrate and integrate in the creative cycles of life, we will inevitably crash and burn.

I was talking with a good girlfriend recently, and I could see this starting to emerge in her.

"Some days I'm fine, and I get a ton done and feel in the flow," she said, "But more and more, I just don't want to do anything."

I know this feeling well.

As an infinite creator myself, I finally burned out so hard that I became non-functional. I could tell I was on the verge of chronic illness unless something changed. 

At this time, the idea of doing anything was too hard. And it freaked me out: If I didn't want to do anything, what was I going to do?? What is life without creation? How would I make money? Contribute to the world? Do all the things that "matter"?

When I was in the throws of panic on this topic, my wise little sister came to the rescue with key advice from Martha Beck, who shared (I’m paraphrasing here):

If you don't want to do anything, if you've lost touch with your passion, if nothing matters or motivates or delights you...

You Need Rest.

Just Rest.

Rest.

Can you feel your body relaxing as you read this? 

It's actually ok not to feel purpose-driven, connected with your "why" and following your "hell-yes's" for awhile.

It's okay to step into the alchemical cauldron of rest.

When I relayed this to my girlfriend, she started to cry. Not tears of sadness, but tears that signify a Truth with capital T coming home.

We Must Allow Space for Our Grief

In the months leading up to our deep exhaustion, both my friend and I had been through life-changing transitions. And both of us had experienced significant losses with deep grief.

Just about everyone I know has gone through something similar in the past two years.

It seems that, as a culture, we've forgotten that we need time and space to process and integrate the major changes and losses we've experienced. When this lack of tending meets the creator's endless quest, burnout and exhaustion are inevitable.

Check in with your body and heart. What happens when you ask yourself if you just need rest?

If you feel your nervous system relax and your eyes well up with tears, you need rest.

If you feel a constriction and sense of panic, you also need rest.

Do you remember how? Do you even know how to rest anymore?

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How to Rest — Even When It Feels Impossible

In my experience, it can take days or more likely months for us to actually remember how to rest, with quite a few ups and downs along the way.

Be gentle with yourself during the process. Know that it will be uncomfortable at times, and that it will absolutely become more natural as you practice.

To whatever degrees are possible for you (and I'm well aware that rest seems like an unobtainable luxury to so many women), here are just a few ideas that helped me when I was so exhausted I was becoming non-functional:

• Let go of your to-do list. The more you ignore it, the more you might realize that life won't actually fall apart if you don't get everything done each day.

• Stare out a window for over an hour. No devices, reading, listening, writing, or even trying to meditate. Just space out and stare. It's wild how healthy this actually is.

• Take time off with no plans for how to fill your days. Stay home — or leave if that's easier. Either way, try to spend your days responding to what you need in each moment. This is easier said than done...just know, you will likely binge Netflix or read a ridiculously cheesy novel. And you will end up with dirty floors and a sink full of dishes. It's okay (at least for now).

• Smell good things. Aroma seeps past our conscious minds deep into the brain where it can soothe our tender souls from the inside out.

• Drink water. Lots of water.

• Know that all of the above are easier said than done. Resistance is inevitable. Life is full of demands on your time and energy. Be kind to yourself and do what you can.

As you start to heal, you might find that you have the energy to engage in a few, simple self-care practices. These can feel like too much if you've really hit a deep level of exhaustion or grief, so there's no rushing into them. But when you feel ready, try incorporating a few of these practices into your days:

• Meditate. And don't make it too serious or intense. Find some nice guided imagery, or set a timer for 10 minutes. Or lay on the floor and do a body scan. This should feel good—not like a chore.

• Move your body. Personally, I love yoga for this. I go at my own pace, feel my body, and know my energy is beginning to move more too. If yoga works for you, great. If not, the important thing is that the movement helps you enjoy being in your body. Dance. Walk. Do jumping jacks. Whatever feels good.

• Incorporate herbal allies. Teas or tinctures that soothe your nervous system can help the healing process.

• Treat your senses. Eat nourishing, delicious food. Keep up the aromas. Take a bath and massage oil into your muscles. Decorate your body with jewelry, clothes you love, fake tattoos even...especially if you've lost touch with feeling good in your skin (which often accompanies burnout).

• Get out into nature. Even a backyard or park will do. Or a walk around a tree-lined neighborhood. The spirits of nature are beautiful allies on our healing journeys.

While I found my own journey to deeper rest uncomfortable and challenging at times, I also found it extremely liberating. I began to see the boxes I'd put myself in—yes, the ones I'd unintentionally constructed myself — with greater clarity.

My cocoon of rest has morphed — I've gone from teetering on the edge of autoimmune conditions to restoring health and learning how to enjoy life again bit by bit. And I'm still very much in the cocoon.

I don't know who I will be when I emerge. And everyday I remind myself to surrender to the process.

Because rest isn't just restorative. It's transformational. It's a cauldron we must enter to undergo an alchemical transformation into a new way of being.

Who will we become if we allow the cocoon of rest to alchemize our transformation?

I don't know. But I do know, with my whole heart, that those who surrender to the process will become even more impactful light beings ushering in a new era on our planet. (Yup—made a leap there...more on the new era I'm sensing to come!)

Does this resonate? Let me know in the comments 🙂

You might also like:

• Coregulating with the Natural World

• Humans are losing their ****, and how body and Earth can help

• How to Be Spiritually Sovereign: Making Magic with the Virgin Goddesses

• The Venusian Mysteries: Awakening the Sacred Feminine

• The Protection of the Goddess: Evaluation of Past Life Vows

• Spiritual Sovereignty: Can You Heal Yourself?

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Healing Pumpkin Soup with Cozy Autumn Spices

This year, Mike and I had a pretty epic harvest of various winter squashes—lunga di napoli (scroll down to see crazy pics here), red kuri, spaghetti, cinderella, blue hokkaido, pumpkin pie, delicata, and a few mystery hybrids all graced our little backyard in the city.

Now, as temperatures fall and pumpkin spice fills the air, I find myself experimenting with endless plays on basic pumpkin soup. This particular version, which I'll share with you now, has to be one of my favorites so far. It's rich and creamy, full of medicinal herbs and warming spices, and so easy. Plus vegan and paleo so you can serve it to all your friends.

A few notes on the recipe:

I used some of my giant lunga di napoli for this recipe, but any kind of winter squash would work well—I think butternut or Cinderella pumpkin would be especially good.

I'm pretty loose with my spices, dumping whatever I feel like into the pot like a mad scientist. Take the following as suggestions, but keep tasting and adjusting to your liking. Also, this might look like a lot of garlic, and it is! Hehe. I loooove garlic and add a ton to everything. Feel free to start with less.

If you have the time and want even more flavor in this soup, feel free to roast the squash while you prepare the other ingredients. I needed an easy one-pot meal so mine went raw straight into the soup and was still delicious.

I used Elmhurst cashew milk for this recipe. It's my absolute favorite nutmilk—creamy and the only ingredients are cashews and water. Cashew milk was my choice because I really wanted the flavors to stand out without coconut undertones, but I think coconut milk would also work perfectly well.

The lemon juice really brightens this soup up. If you don't have fresh lemon on hand, you can substitute apple cider vinegar (fire cider would be even better!).

Why this soup works:

• The garlic, onion, sage, and astragalus offer healing, anti-viral benefits

• The winter squash and nettle are full of essential nutrients

• The warming spices bring balance to your constitution throughout the fall and winter seasons

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Healing Pumpkin Soup with Cozy Autumn Spices

Serves 6-8 as sides and 4 as mains.

Ingredients:

• 1 small-medium white or yellow onion, chopped

• 1 head garlic, minced and let to rest at least 10 min

• 1 tablespoon oil (avocado, olive, and coconut all work)

• 4 cups peeled and cubed winter squash or pumpkin

• 6-8 sticks astragalus

• 1/2 cup dried nettle

• 6 fresh sage leaves, chopped

• 4 bay leaves

• lemon juice to taste (I used the juice of about 1/2 lemon)

• 4 cups broth or water

• salt and pepper to taste

• Plus...a bunch of spices totaling to about 2 tablespoons:

  • cinnamon

  • turmeric

  • nutmeg

  • mace

  • cardamom

  • powdered ginger

  • star anise

  • allspice

  • cloves

  • red pepper flakes

• I also added a big pinch of finely ground rose petals, lavender, and orris root because I have them and I'm fancy. I'm not sure you could even taste them, but now you know 😛

Directions:

Sauté the onion in oil over medium heat until just turning translucent. Add the squash and garlic and continue to cook for another couple of minutes, stirring regularly.

Next, add all the spices, fresh sage, and salt and pepper. Continue to sauté until the squash/pumpkin begins to soften and most liquid from the vegetables has been absorbed.

Add the broth or water, bay leaves, astragalus, and nettle. Bring to simmer and continue to cook until the squash is completely done (about 20-30m). You can tie the bay and astragalus in twine to make them easier to remove, but I didn’t bother.

Stir in the nutmilk and lemon juice. Continue to cook for about 10m to let the flavors merge. Remove bay leaves and astragalus sticks.

Turn off the heat and puree the soup to your preferred consistency (I like mostly smooth but still a little chunky). You can use a handheld immersion blender, or you can carefully transfer the soup to a blender. If going the blender route, be sure to allow the soup to cool a bit first. You may need to blend in batches.

Serve warm and top with fried sage leaves and a sprinkle of paprika if you're feeling fancy. Tastes even better the next day.

Wild Mushroom Pate

Wild Mushroom Pâté

Fall is for foraging mushrooms. The cool temperatures have laid most of our natural harvest to rest, but the moist earth continues to support the hidden treasures of the fungi kingdom.

Maybe someday I’ll actually gain confidence in mushroom identification, but as of now, I’m sticking to what I know and purchasing from local shops for as long as the season lets me ;)

If fresh wild mushrooms are difficult to come by, look for dried ones. They’re a great way to add that wild mushroom goodness when all you have is a pack of Costco creminis. That said, this recipe works beautifully even without any dried mushrooms at all. Simply omit that ingredient and you’ll be fine.

I’m addicted to mushrooms and always looking for fun ways to incorporate them into our diets. This paté has become one of my go-to recipes in recent years. Filled with the best umami and healthiest ingredients, it comes together quickly in a food processor and is another crowdpleaser.

Rich, vegan, and gluten-free—who can say no? Plus, the earthy flavor here is perfect for autumn and winter feasts. I’ll be serving this one at our Thanksgiving and Christmas tables!

Ingredients

• About 4 tablespoons olive oil

• ½ cup sweet onion, chopped

• 3 cloves garlic, minced

• 1 pound mixed fresh mushrooms, chopped (cremini, maitake, oyster, enoki, chanterelle, trumpet, porcini , cinnamon cap…whatever you can find!)

• 1/2 ounce dried mixed wild mushrooms (optional)

• 1 cup water

• 1/2 cup walnuts (or more if you’d like, because really, I measure nothing)

• 2 tablespoons fresh herbs, chopped (sage, rosemary, and thyme) 

• ⅓ cup red wine

• 1-2 T balsamic vinegar

• Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

• Truffle oil (optional)

• Fresh parsley (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 and set water to boil.

Soak dried mushrooms in one cup boiling water for 25 minutes. Once rehydrated, strain, roughly chop, and reserve the liquid for later. 

Roast the walnuts on a sheet pan for about 10 minutes. Check often - you’re looking for a nice toasty golden color. (Also, make extras - these warm walnuts fresh from the oven are so satisfying to snack on while you cook!

Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for a couple minutes.

Add the fresh mushrooms and a pinch or two of salt and cook over medium low heat for another 10 minutes or so. You’re looking for the onion and mushrooms to become slightly caramelized.

Add the herbs, pepper, salt to taste, and cook for another two to three minutes.

Add about ¼ cup reserved soaking liquid and cook for another five minutes.

Stir the walnuts and two more tablespoons olive oil into the mixture. Transfer to a food processor or Vitamix. Add the optional truffle oil and process until the mixture's texture is to your liking—smooth or chunky :) You can add more olive oil or reserved mushroom water if needed.

Serve at room temperature with crackers, flatbread, veggie sticks, or whatever else you feel like. Top with fresh parsley. 

The Best Wild Rice Salad

Here it is—one of my all-time favorite recipes for the holidays (and anytime, really). This wild rice salad uses seasonal ingredients like winter squash, leeks, and cranberries, but add a surprising twist with fresh basil and rosemary. I found the original recipe for this salad from the talented chef at the HeartBeet Kitchen years ago, and I’ve been making versions of it ever since. Here is my favorite :)

Wild Rice & Winter Squash Salad with Cranberries and Maple Balsamic Vinaigarette  

Serves 4 as a main, more as a side.

Ingredients

Dressing:

• ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

• 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup

• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

• ½ teaspoon sea salt

• ½ teaspoon black pepper

• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

Salad:

• 2 ½ cups peeled and finely chopped winter squash (butternut, pumpkin, etc)

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• sea salt

• black pepper

• 2 bunches very thinly sliced kale (lightly massaged)

• 1 thinly sliced leek, both white and green parts (or any onion works — add to taste)

• ½ cup dried cranberries

• ¼ cup thinly sliced fresh basil

• 3 cups cooked wild rice

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss squash with olive oil, salt and pepper. Spread onto a baking sheet and roast for about 25 minutes, stirring once, until fork tender. 

Prepare dressing by pureeing all ingredients with an immersion blender or by vigorously whisking.

In a large bowl, combine kale, leeks, cranberries and basil. Stir in warm rice and squash so that spinach wilts slightly from the heat. Stir dressing into salad; taste and adjust salt level if needed. Serve at room temperature. 

Magical Bread Rolls with Pumpkin & Buckwheat

The bread rolls are magical. Really—they are endlessly customizable, filled with fiber and protein, the perfect way to use up veggies, and absolutely delicious. Plus they’re no-rise, gluten-free, vegan, and still have a wonderful texture.

The secret? Psyllium husk. Yup—this fiber-rich plant provides the perfect binder for the buns. Whip in lots of air bubbles while the psyllium-liquid mix is setting, and you’ll end up with fabulous balls of goodness.

Since these are no-rise and the psyllium husk is such a great binder, you have a lot of room to experiment with flours in this recipe. I always use at least some buckwheat flour, as it gives these buns an extra rich flavor, but I go crazy with the full mix—almond, chickpea, rice, coconut, cashew, sorghum, quinoa, cassava, oat, and amaranth have all made the mix at some point.

When selecting flours, I like to go for a good mix of high-fiber (like oat and sorghum) and high-protein (like chickpea and quinoa), with at least one nut (usually almond). But really, you could use a single flour, a gluten-free flour blend, wheat flour if you’re not gluten-free, or a little bit of everything*. These just work! 

*I only make adjustments for coconut flour. It’s so absorptive that an extra fourth cup liquid can help.  

Beyond the flour, the rest of this recipe is pretty flexible as well. Mix in wild greens (I made these with nettle puree in the spring), add spices (they’re amazing with sundried tomatoes, chopped olives, and red onions), stir in a cup of quick oats or nutritional yeast, or even swap out the squash puree with another veggie or fruit -- shredded zucchini, apple puree, mashed bananas...as long as the end texture is similar, you can get wildly creative with the “magical” buns. 

Magical Bread Rolls

Makes about 18 rolls

Ingredients 

• 3 tbsp psyllium seed husks

• 1 cup lukewarm water or plant milk 

• 1.5 cups pumpkin or winter squash puree 

• 4 tbsp olive oil (divided)

• 1 tsp sea salt

• 4 cups mixed flour

Directions

Set the oven to 375°F. 

Add psyllium, water/plant milk, and squash puree in a large bowl. Stir to combine and leave for about 15 minutes to thicken. Then beat the psyllium gel vigorously—your hand and a wooden spoon is fine—to get as much air as possible into the gel. 

Add salt and 2T oil and whisk for another minute or until all is combined. 

Fold in the flour. I find that I need to use my hands and get messy to work the flour into a dough. 

Roll the dough into 18 or more equal pieces (or 12 big ones, 24 little guys…whatever!)  Dip your hands in warm water to avoid the dough sticking to them.

Brush with the remaining olive oil (optional but tasty) and bake for about 45-60 minutes (depending on the size of the buns and your oven). They are ready when the crust is just turning golden and firm and the inside sounds hollow when you knock on the bread. If they have a soft crust, they need more time. 

Important—let these cool for at least 10 minutes before slicing them open—they’ll continue to cook inside, and if you open them too soon they could be a bit mushy. 

Enjoy!

Me with my harvest of the giant lunga di napoli squash toddlers.

Slicing open the smallest of the bunch — still got enough to fill 8 gallon-size freezer bags!

Want to grow your own giant squash? I’ll include a few seeds with any purchase from my shop — just send me a note a checkout! (While supplies last, of course.)

Pumpkin White Bean Dip

Pumpkin White Bean Dip

Last year, when trips to the store were few in between and shelves were bordering on bare, I got really creative with my cooking—using every little thing in our pantry, paired with wild greens and garden produce to avoid any unnecessary trip to the store.

I’ll admit, I do have a very well-stocked pantry. The kitchen is my happy place and enjoying the flavors of the world is one of my favorite ways to take pleasure in this human body.

So, with pumpkin from our garden, white beans from the pantry, and my plethora of spices, this recipe was born. It’s absolutely delicious—celebratory, seasonal spices meet with sweet pumpkin puree and tender white beans to create an autumn dip more than worthy of your Thanksgiving tables.

Ingredients*

*I’m not much for measuring or following recipes, so please adjust these guestimates to taste!

• About 2 cups cooked white beans (or a can, rinsed) 

• 2/3 cup pureed pumpkin or another winter squash

• 1-2 Tbsp lemon juice to taste

• 2 Tbsp tahini

• 1-2 cloves garlic

• 1/2 tsp sea salt (plus more to taste)

• 1/2 tsp ground cumin

• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika

• 1 big pinch nutmeg

• 1 big pinch cinnamon

• 1 pinch cayenne pepper, to taste

• Chopped fresh cilantro (optional)

Directions

Rinse and drain white beans. Add everything to a food processor and purée until creamy and smooth, scraping down sides as needed. Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking.

Serve with veggie sticks and crackers. Top with fresh cilantro for a festive touch.

Adapted from Minimalist Baker’s White Bean Pumpkin Hummus