Interview with Curandero Charles Garcia
Plant Healer Interview with Charles “Doc” Garcia (curandero) In Dialogue With Jesse Wolf Hardin – May, 2012 Doc Garcia is the founder of the California School of Traditional Hispanic Herbalism, street herbalist and well intentioned provocateur, as well as a regular Plant Healer writer and teacher at the Traditions In Western Herbalism Conferences. His teachings and unique personal style impresses, excites, amazes and sometimes offends or dismays, but never fails to earn a reaction. How to describe him? The Doc is a street warrior known to go around packing love, savvy and herbs in his quest to tend the hearts and bodies of society’s diverse underprivileged, its unseen fringe dwellers and needy outliers. He is Teresita seeing to the wounded in...
Greek Herbal Medicine: The Four Qualities and the Four Degrees by Matthew Wood
Intro: The following is an excerpt from the Spring 2012 issue Plant Healer, herbalist Matthew Wood’s excellent explanation of the basics of Greek Herbal Medicine, a predecessor to subsequent Western herbal healing traditions. This never before published work is an example of the contributions Matt has been making to Plant Healer Magazine through his regular column, and to our contemporary herbal community. Matthew is also teaching on related subject matter at this year’s Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference in the lakes region of northern Arizona! –Kiva Rose and Jesse Wolf Hardin Greek Herbal Medicine: The Four Qualities and the Four Degrees by Matthew Wood Excerpted From the Summer Issue of Plant Healer Magazine To Read the entire piece,...
Medicine Bear Novel Announcement – With Excerpt
www.TheMedicineBear.com …. It’s Here! Fresh off the press, Wolf’s new novel THE MEDICINE BEAR www.TheMedicineBear.com …. The first boxes of this exciting book have arrived, and Wolf is currently signing copies for mailing out to all who ordered one. I highly recommend it! As I wrote for its pages: The Medicine Bear is a powerful novel of love, healing, devotion, coming of age, and sense of place, but more than any single element, it is a tapestry of the vital medicine that connects the people to the land, and all of us to each other. The skillful hands of the curandera heal even while the soldiers endure a bloody struggle. Through it all, the medicine of this tale is found in the power of personal transformation and bone-deep...
Poléo: The Meandering Ways of Wild Mint
This post is for the Wild Mint month of the Wild Things Roundup hosted by Wendy Petty’s Hunger & Thirst blog Poléo: The Meandering Ways of Wild Mint by Kiva Ringtail Rose Botanical Name: Mentha arvensis (often considered synonymous with M. canadensis) Common Names: Wild Mint, Corn Mint, Brook Mint, Horse Mint, Corn Mint Energetic Tendencies: Variable temperature, dry Taste/Impression: Aromatic, acrid Actions: diaphoretic, stimulant nervine, aromatic digestive (including carminative), emmenagogue, spasmolytic, choleretic (via regulating liver qi.) Tucked in among the opalescent hedges of Bluestem Willows and silver-skinned Canyon Alders that line the San Francisco River’s lush banks, a wreath of lavender spikes adorn the square stems of the River...
Corazón a Corazón: Exploring Traditional Models of the Healer’s Practice
Excerpted from the Summer 2012 Issue of Plant Healer Magazine Corazón a Corazón: Exploring Traditional Models of the Healer’s Practice by Kiva Rose Hardin Even after so many years of devotion to the plants and experiential practice in herbalism, something just didn’t feel right… At a certain point in my healing studies, I narrowed my focus almost entirely to herbs, cutting out much of the attention I’d previously given to a wider array of medicine ways. During that time, this was a very efficient way for me to hone my skills and give sufficient time to what is surely one of the most demanding and complex fields of the healing arts. The problem came when I began to feel drained and exhausted by my studies and work, not just from the endless hours I...
Fernflower and Blackberries: Celebrating the Summer Solstice
Vodu upav. Kupalo na Ivana! Happy Summer Solstice/Midsummer to all of you on this side of the hemisphere! And Blessed Ivan Kupailo/Kupala Day to all you Russians/Ukrainians/Poles/Belorussians who celebrate the old ways! Today is a lovely day for weaving flower wreaths, making food magic with berries, playing in the forest, and searching for that mythical Fernflower, Chervona Ruta. It’s a hot day here in the Canyon, and well suited to spending the whole day in the river underneath the Alders. This morning I made a Spiced Blackberry Kissel (a Russian berry custard), and we’ll soon be savoring it cold, and topped with local cream and a splash of dark red wine. However you celebrate, enjoy this longest day of the year...
What Herbalists Really Want
Excerpted from the current issue of Plant Healer Magazine! What Herbalists Really Want: Manifesting Calling & Purpose, Competency & Excellence, Acknowledgment & Income… & Avoiding Being Average! by Jesse Wolf Hardin It seems that at some point in every generation, articles and posters pop up titled something like “What Women (or Men) Really Want,” checklists with which the so-called “opposite sex” can measure and then hopefully improve their desirability. The language and priorities change some over time, with versions from the 19th and early 20th centuries often sounding ridiculous to modern ears. That said, many of the same themes tend to appear again and again from one era to the next. Women, it is claimed, want a man of...
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