Native California Herbs & 5 Elements, with Athene Eisenhardt | Tea Talks with Jiling
Dr. Athene Eisenhardt, Licensed Acupuncturist and Herbalist, found her path in life by way of the plant world. Working professionally as a field botanist for Yosemite National Park led her to begin wildcrafting and using native California plants as medicine, and to study the Taoist 5 elements in nature. She maintains a private practice in Oakland, California, offering 5 Element Acupuncture and Integrative Herbalism. Athene is also on the Herbology faculty at the Acupuncture & Integrative Medicine College in Berkeley, CA.
Athene and Jiling discuss:
The Five Elements of East Asian medicine
How the five flavors relate to the Five Elements
Examples of native California plant and Five Elements’ interrelationships
How climate informs plant intelligence
Ethical harvesting of native plants
Some of Athene’s favorite plant meditations!
Interviews on Herbal Radio with Thomas Dick | Featuring 7Song
We had the pleasure of interviewing our good friend and esteemed herbalist, 7Song. This conversation was recorded in the Winter of 2022. Learn about 7Song’s upbringing, his path and approach to herbalism, as well as his general advice to up and coming herbalists including practicing in a clinic. Humorous and entertaining, we hope you enjoy this meandering and wonderful conversation.
7Song is an herbal practitioner and Director of Holistic Medicine at the Ithaca Free Clinic and Founder, Director, and main instructor at the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine. 7Song has been studying plants, people, and herbal medicine for over 30 years and currently teaches at schools and conferences throughout the United States. His focus includes herbal practice, free clinic work, first aid, wildcrafting, and botany. He also spends a lot of time taking photographs of things that run, crawl, fly, or photosynthesize.
Herbal Action Project, with Jesús Garcia | Tea Talks with Jiling
Jesús Garcia is a Mexican Shaman and Herbalist teaching the traditions of lineage work through botanica practices of curanderia and community spiritual herbalism. Jesús is an early childcare educator focusing on nature school fundamentals through holistic enrichment garden programs and is the founder of the Herbal Action Project, a nature play-school and community garden sanctuary.
Jiling and Jesús discuss herbal traditions, family root work, children’s botanical practices, and nourishing community connections.
The Benefits and Uses of Blackberry with jim mcdonald
We recently took a plant walk with our friend jim mcdonald to learn more about blackberry. The common blackberry is part of the Rubus genus that we love for its delicious annual berries and the healthful properties this prickly botanical offers. Like other members of its genus, blackberry is a cooling astringent and has a wealth of antioxidant flavonoids in its leaves and roots. The leaves are a mild astringent that is particularly wonderful in tea blends, while the roots have more powerful astringent qualities.
jim also shares two of his favorite tea blends that include blackberry leaves that you won’t want to miss!
Flowers Inspire Us Together | Featuring Bevin Clare (Rerelease)
Today’s episode is a rerelease of an excerpt from our spring online Free Herbalism Project hosted on April 8, 2021. This presentation was the inspiring and informative intro with our guest emcee Bevin Clare. Bevin covers a few of her favorite spring flowers and notes their traits as well as some lesser known facts. It’s a fun, short presentation, but we think you’ll have a lot of takeaways from it.
Interviews on Herbal Radio with Thomas Dick | Featuring Ryland Engelhart of Kiss the Ground
We first met Ryland Engelhart and Finian Makepeace, co-founders of Kiss the Ground – a nonprofit raising awareness for regeneration through storytelling, education, and advocacy – at Natural Products Expo West in 2022. Since our initial meeting, we knew that we shared foundational values with these inspirational leaders, such as the importance of soil health and sustainable agriculture, sparking our interest to want to get to know them and the organization better.
Plant Stories | Featuring Michelle Guerrero Denison
This week on Plant Stories, we’re releasing our interview with Michelle Guerrero Denison. Michelle is an herbalist, formulator, educator, and the founder of The Twig & Feather. Michelle resides in Southern California and talks about how through her family’s own health challenges, she found herbalism and holistic wellness.
Refreshing, engaging, and open-minded, Michelle’s plant stories are human centric. It’s clear her passion resides in listening to and assisting others on their personal wellness paths. Michelle’s life experiences and philosophy transfer over to her approach to herbalism as well as the ways she shares her herbal knowledge. We hope you enjoy this wonderful conversation with our friend Michelle!
Inspired by the needs of her family, Michelle has been studying herbalism for the past decade or so and opened her online shop in 2019. She practices western herbalism, with a holistic focus. She has had the opportunity to study with several wonderful teachers, and readily admits that she will probably be learning for the rest of her life. Her true passions lie in personal consultations, teaching, and writing. All of these are opportunities to get personal and see how herbs can change a life.
Tips for Choosing Reputable Seed Companies & Nurseries
Spring is upon us, and many of us spent the cold and dark days of winter planning spring and summer gardens, selecting plant varieties, acquiring seeds, and getting a head start on sowing, germinating, and nurturing the young seedlings in our windowsills and greenhouses. Nowadays, we can buy everything from seeds and trees to full-grown flowers and shrubs at nurseries around the country. But not all nurseries are alike. A surprising number of the most popular suppliers of the seeds and plants we love give little regard to environmental issues. Don’t despair! There are guidelines and best practices we would like to share with the Mountain Rose Herbs community that will help you select seeds and plants that were grown using practices that support the health and vitality of our ecosystem.
Sustainably Foraging So-Cal | Tea Talks Roundtable
In this new “Tea Talks Roundtable” series, Jiling gathers four local Ventura and Santa Barbara county herbal teachers to discuss sustainable foraging in southern California (aka. So-Cal). Learn more about the Ventura area’s Mediterranean climate, ethical harvesting considerations, and some of the plants that make this area special. We discuss building relationships with plants, spring nibbles, gardening, white sage, horehound, tasty naturalized plants, warrior plants, and conclude with some of our favorite easy to grow medicinals. Enjoy the chat! Learn more about these Ventura area herbal teachers below:
Herbs Are Not Pharmaceuticals | Featuring Dr. Christopher Hobbs
This podcast episode comes from Dr. Christopher Hobbs’ presentation for the Fall 2022 Free Herbalism Project. This was a virtual event that took place over Zoom on October 14, 2022. Dr. Hobbs discusses why herbs and herbal medicine is fundamentally different than drugs. Since the pandemic, the popularity of herbal medicine in households has continued to grow rapidly. Dr. Hobbs help us to look closely and practically at how herbal medicine can transform your health and wellness while helping to relieve symptoms and chronic ailments. His presentation also details why choosing herbal medicine as our first line of prevention and treatment in most ailments can not only benefit us—side benefits rather than side effects—while being completely sustainable and beneficial for our beautiful planet and all the inhabitants. Dr. Christopher Hobbs occasionally references slides throughout his presentation. You can find his slides by watching the presentation on our YouTube channel.
