Dancing At The Hedge & Returning Rooted
Letter 22
It’s been a minute, but I’m back.
Here are some updates and what you can look forward to from Rooted In and what I’ll be getting into in this letter ✨
Free new content for the immediate future (as a thanks for still being here)!
Free access to previously paid top posts including 🐾 Herbal First Aid For Pets and 🍁Fall Foraging Favorites
Herbal recommendations, reflections, and practices as I enter a new phase of life (more on that in the next letter!)
Even more sharing of herbal resources and teachers you can follow to expand your learning…starting right now.
“What is the medicine you bring to the table?”
This was a question posed to me (and a classroom full of herbalists) just a few weeks ago by the alchemist Phoenix Aurelius. In his magical teaching style that is so characteristic of the annual Good Medicine Confluence (but rarely to be found elsewhere in the world), Phoenix was speaking of something he calls Transpersonal Alchemy—relating the earthly elements back to the behavioral transformations we as people can make.
After many stages of alchemical extractions on any given element, you’re left with the salt of the thing, something he equates to the soul (hopefully I didn’t mess up the metaphor Phoenix!). And the soul is where that tiny but ultimate important voice resides—the one that insists on what you must you do.
It was after this example, that he posed his question, “What is the medicine you bring to the table?”
“When we aren’t using our talents—we’re squandering this life.”
- Phoenix Aurelius
Which is how I ended up back here.
A lot has happened for me in the past year. I lost someone very dear to me, and I also gained someone (more on that in the next letter) and through this, reached a new understanding about myself and who I want to be.
When I stopped writing these letters to all of you, I thought perhaps the best medicine I could to the world give lay elsewhere. But now, I’m not so sure.
I am still a writer and an herbalist who mostly practices with her family, animals, and friends, and a person who firmly believes that plant magic and medicine is an innate human right—and something that everyone deserves access to.
So if my medicine isn’t to share what I know in some way, then I’m really not sure what else it could be.
My hope for this publication moving forward is to keep the conversation going (ideally without a year-long hiatus), and share the things I know, the ones I’m still learning, and all the reflections along the way. And while you’ll never meet a writer (barring JK Rowling) who isn’t looking for more ways to earn an income, I intend to keep this publication free and open to everyone, at least for now while I find my footing once again. Even when that does change, I’ll be offering comp’d subscriptions to anyone who needs one. Again, plant knowledge isn’t mine to gate keep. And if you learn even a single thing from my ramblings about how to better care for yourself or your loved ones, my work here has a been a success.
On that note, here are just a few of the past top posts that were previously paid and can now be accessed for free.
There are others, so if you have a free subscription, be sure to poke around and see what’s changed.
🐾 Herbal First Aid For Pets (and People): Herbs You Can Use To Treat Minor Injuries
🌡️ Home Remedies For The Common Cold
🍁 Fall Foraging Favorites:Four Medicinal Plants To Gather For Your Winter Apothecary
The knowledge in this first one continues to be of use to me, as my dogs come back from our forest walks with all kinds of cuts and bruises. Most recently, our older dog Biggie (who’s already been dealing with a bad episode of arthritis!) had a wild hair and scraped up her tail while chasing a squirrel.
The next letter will hit your inbox in two weeks.
In the meantime, here are some of the things I’ve been reading (and loving) lately:
🦊 The Art of Enchantment, with Dr Sharon Blackie — a wonderful Substack from the author of This Enchanted Life.
🌲I’m not sure how I’m so many years late to the party that is reading this fantasy series from Juliet Marillier, but better late than never!
“Daughter of the Forest is a testimony to an incredible author's talent, a first novel and the beginning of a trilogy like no other: a mixture of history and fantasy, myth and magic, legend and love.”
🍄 “To our ancestors, the wild world around them was filled with meaning, guidance, and insight. They recognized the symbols hidden in Nature that represent invitations to connect with our wild kin, such as the Silver Branch of Irish legend. They understood that plants and fungi are living teachers who can become our allies in healing and magic. They knew that there is deep healing available when one lives in direct connection with the living world.
Braiding together insights from herbalism, ecology, neurobiology, psychology, Irish history, and magical tradition, Seán Pádraig O’Donoghue shows how we, too, can tap into the flow of communication from the wild world and our ancestral traditions to transform our lives, culture, and worlds. Introducing the seven principles of animist herbalism, he revitalizes the ancient Irish understanding of the "three cauldrons" of the body and shows how this framework can be applied to the practice of modern herbalism. He examines the importance of physical and spiritual nourishment, including the role of seasonal ritual in setting the rhythms of our lives. He shares ancient Irish stories, with precautions and protocols regarding the ethics of engaging the Otherworld and working with plant medicines, especially psychedelics.
O’Donoghue introduces 26 of his closest plant and fungi allies, discussing what it means to develop a relationship with a plant and how to work with their medicines for healing and magic. He also provides simple practices for rooting in nature, navigating the wheel of the year, and deepening your connection with wild plants as well as the sun, water, and the ancestors.”
Get the book or follow along on his new Substack.
New here? Follow along on Instagram (@rootedintribe).
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