3500 years ago, a powerful detox practice was born in the heart of India. Vedic folk healers learned that swishing a tablespoon of oil around in your mouth not only eliminates bad breath and makes the teeth stronger, but seems to speed up the body’s recovery from a number of major illnesses and also ...
Ready for something personal? Gulp! Here we go. Late last year, I began to hit a serious dip in my energy levels. Each day, I would wake up feeling like I had been beaten up in my sleep, rolling out of bed with pain in my muscles and zero energy. Walking up the stairs felt like a herculean effort—and ...
Every human on this planet has experienced some type of physical pain in their lifetime. One of the great equalizers, pain knows no race, gender or creed. It is often billed as an unfortunate occurrence to be avoided at all costs, but pain is actually quite useful— in the right amounts. Pain is here to warn...
On the healing path, a few well placed words of wisdom can sometimes trigger a much needed “a-ha” deep within that brings everything into focus. One of the most powerful lessons that I’ve been taught is this: A true healer doesn’t actually heal us; he or she simply helps us remove the ...
What do you feel when you bite into a piece of dark chocolate? Does your palate explode in ecstasy? Do memories of warm holiday evenings and the scent of your mother’s kitchen wash through your body? We naturally and easily associate foods with the environment in which we consume them and the people who ...
Last summer, I was helping my mom garden some of the beds in the back of her house when we stumbled upon something that looked too amazing to be true. A gorgeous Reishi mushroom was growing on the stump of a hemlock tree underneath the fence between her and her neighbor’s yard! You know, Reishi, the ...
Why do so many people equate relaxation and pleasure with walking barefoot along the beach as the waves roll in? How come my son River’s first instinct is to take his shoes off when he sees a field of green grass? Is it kooky human behavior that is simply hard-wired into our genetic makeup, or is there ...
Okay, I have to admit—it took me a while to get on board with my chakras. First of all, they don’t teach us about our energy systems in science class. Second, we can’t see them, so they’re not obvious parts of our bodies like, say, our hands. But the more I learned about chakras, and the more I got in...
When I was reading the prayer below the first time, it sent a course of energy through me from head to toe. Sharing this with you is an honor. Written by Shantideva, a Buddhist monk of the Mahayana tradition that lived around 700 AD, he was a devoted practitioner who authored the Bodhicaryavatara or ...
Every week, we receive emails from folks who are on the hunt for that one exotic herb that will solve all their problems. Maybe it can only be found in the mountains of Mongolia… or along the shores of the Caspian Sea. Our first question is always the same. “Have you explored the powerful herbal ...
Planting an herb garden is the perfect way to bring in the spring, and we humans have been doing it for thousands of years. The ancients believed that every one of us can speak the language of the plants. That we can learn how to harness their medicines by spending focused time with them — just like ...
Last year, I had the honor of sitting down with the godmother of American herbalism, Rosemary Gladstar, at her magical home in Vermont. I have to admit, I was nervous going into this interview because she’s, well, one of my heroes 🙂 Today, I’d love to share a quick video from our encounter with ...