Commonwealth Podcast For Holistic Herbalism

We continue this week with Katja’s series: Starting Your Herbal Business! Today the focus is on the practice of clinical herbalism.Building and running a practice as a clinical herbalist isn’t only about your interview skills, your ability to formulate a personalized remedy, or your capacity to build a holistic health plan in collaboration with your clients. Support work, research, and administrative tasks will take a fair amount of your attention – not to mention continuing education!Clinical work involves a lot of teaching. You teach your clients how to prepare their remedies, you teach them how the herbs work, you teach them how to build healthier habits. So, our advice for cinical herbalists in training is: practice teaching!To do all this, you need to understand the herbs on their own terms, but also in the context of modern life. That means common pharmaceuticals and potential herb-drug interactions need to be part of your education, too. It also means that you’ll need to be all brushed up on the legal

When you’re an herbalist, it’s normal to get questions from people about herbs. Usually they’re thinking that it’s a simple question, and expecting a simple response: “What’s good for IBS?” “Chamomile.” But the truth is a lot more complex than that! When you learn about herbalism, you come to understand that there are no herbs “for” any disease state. Instead, there are herbs who can exert influences on the body, and those may match well (or poorly) with the specific state of an individual person. So you become less enthusiastic about simply giving someone the name of an herb when they ask “what’ll work for…?”This dynamic is even more pronounced on social media. Whether in an herbalism discussion group or in direct messages from your followers, an herbalist on social media will see lots of these types of questions – and lots of those one-word responses, too! But people don’t take the names of herbs – they take herbs! Which means they prepare tea (using this much plant matter for that much water), or they take

We continue this week with Katja’s series: Starting Your Herbal Business! Today the focus is on an herb shop or herbal apothecary, with or without a tea bar for tastings and treats.Running an herb shop involves a fair amount of administrative work: ordering, stocking, inventory, payment processing, taxes, etc. Sharpen up your spreadsheets, folks! That’s not all there is to it, of course – there’s a huge aspect of community-building involved. Talking to people, planning events, and serving as a hub for your herbal community are also part of the gig.In fact, if we can give only one piece of advice, it’s this: think of your herb shop as a community center, first and foremost. The stronger you can make that community connection, the stronger your business will be. Listen to the episode for more insights and tips as you build your business!Would you like to know more? We’ve got just the thing! The Herbal Business Program has all the nitty-gritty details about setting up your herbal business – whether that’s produc

This week Katja brings you the first in a new series we’ve been wanting to produce for you: Starting Your Herbal Business! Today the focus is on herbal products – tinctures, salves, elixirs, tea blends, all that good stuff!Listen in for a simple explanation of what you’ll need to know if you want to build an herbal products business of your own. It’s not just about knowing your herbs – although of course that comes first! It’s also about medicine-making at scale, creating effective & regulation-compliant labeling, marketing effectively and sincerely, and finding what makes your remedies uniquely yours. That’s what people want!Would you like to know more? We’ve got just the thing! The Herbal Business Program has all the nitty-gritty details about setting up your herbal business – whether that’s products, clinical herbalism, or another variety of herbal pursuit. From GMPs and labeling laws, to marketing, to taxes & insurance, to the technology you’ll need to make it all happen, this course has everythin

Today we reach the end of our apothecary shelves! This series started way back with episode 170 on Achillea & Acorus, and today in episode 227 we’ve finally come to Zingiber.Today’s entire episode is all about ginger. (Yes, it deserves its own entire episode. If you don’t already believe it, we will convince you!)We discuss Katja’s evolving preference for fresh vs dried ginger in our tea blends at home, and some of the variations in activity between fresh vs dried ginger. We talk about quick topical applications of this wildly accessible herb, to relieve muscle aches, joint pains, and other musculoskeletal discomforts. Ryn takes time for an ode to candied ginger – yes, it’s sugar, but there are plenty of reasons why it’s excellent to have! You can easily make your own, too.Maybe you could put some chopped candied ginger into some ginger-chamomile cookies, eh?You can even grow your own ginger, if you’re up for it!Finally, we mention some relatives of ginger, members of the Zingiberaceae: turmeric (Curcuma

We’ve reached our penultimate Herbs A-Z episode this week, and we’re highlighting ashwagandha & prickly ash – it’s prickly ashwagandha!Withania somnifera, ashwagandha, is an herb Katja takes every single day. Usually, she gets it in the form of “notCoffee”, a formula of various roots and herbs blended to offer sustained energy and endocrine suppport. Ashwagandha is popular as an adaptogen or a “stress herb”, but its real power is in helping entrain healty cycles of activity and rest. Balance is not about stillness, but dynamic equilibrium, and ashwagandha’s one of our favorites to build that capacity.Zanthoxylum americanum, prickly ash, tells you all about its diffusive activity with the message of its tingly taste. This makes it not only an excellent herb for toothache relief, but also a truly fantastic circulatory stimulant. Stagnant blood and lymph are dispersed, and healing can proceed effectively, when we recruit prickly ash for this purpose.These two herbs make recurrent apperances in both our Neuro

We have just three episodes remaining in our Herbs A-Z series! Today’s show features mullein and blue vervain.Verbascum thapsus, mullein, deserves its reputation as an effective remedy for dry respiratory conditions. Its leaf is a great ally when your home heating system dries out the air inside, or when your area is hit by wildfire smoke. But mullein leaf isn’t a systemically moistening herb – its effects outside the respiratory system are drying, through better distribution of fluids. Also, mullein root and flower are each different from the leaf – root is even more astringent & tonifying, while the leaf is a more mucilaginous demulcent. Categories like “moistening” and “drying” bear close investigation and nuanced exploration – mullein teaches us this lesson.Verbena hastata, blue vervain, is an excellent nervine when you want to release tension without losing all structure. It helps us to receive & transform, whether that’s food or information or experiences. As one of our bitter nervines – a very

DECEMBER SALE: 20% off every course & program we offer, all month long! Use code KINDNESS at checkout!As we draw near the end of our tour of the home apothecary herbs, today we come to nettle and bilberry.Urtica dioica, nettle, is an herb who can help with a really vast array of health issues. Sometimes we half-jokingly refer to “nettle deficiency syndrome”: a constellation of imbalances due to poor mineral nutrition, fluid stagnation, systemic inflammation, and associated symptoms. In truth, many green nutritive herbs and food plants help resolve this – but nettle is a particular standout, and is often a great choice for a month or two of work to establish a new baseline. Do compensate for its drying qualities in people of dry constitution, though! This can be done by formulating with marshmallow or other demulcent herbs, or by cooking the nettle into a soup or other food.Vaccinium myrtillus, bilberry – also known as European blueberry, whortleberry, huckleberry, and a variety of other common names – is

DECEMBER SALE: 20% off every course & program we offer, all month long! Use code KINDNESS at checkout!This week we return to our home herbal apothecary shelves and discuss two medicinal barks: slippery elm and cat’s claw.Ulmus rubra, slippery elm, is an at-risk plant. We don’t work with it frequently, for this reason – other demulcents will usually do the job, just fine. It is a standout mucilaginous plant, though, that’s for sure! It can be difficult to strain cut & sifted herb for tea, in fact, because of the thickness of mucilage creates when infused in water. For this reason it’s often easier to work with it as a powder. Never forget that other elms – especially the abundant / “invasive” species Ulmus pumila, the Siberian elm – can do all the same work as slippery elm!Uncaria tomentosa, cat’s claw, is an herb with a lot of reputations. It’s reputed as an “anti-cancer” herb, as an “immune stimulant”, as an “herb for joint pain”… It’s easy to put herbs into conceptual boxes when we talk about them t

Today our featured herbs are red clover & damiana – two complementary fluid-moving remedies.Red clover (Trifolium pratense) has a reputation as an herb that “cures breast cancer”. That’s not the way we talk or think about it, but it’s worth digging in to why people say that! What underlies the claim is an observable effect: the plant can diminish or reduce swellings (and not only in breast tissue). This is due to its capacity to improve the circulation of lymphatic fluid, and that’s a good thing – helpful for stagnation patterns and for immune efficiency. But it’s still not a “cure”, and it’s important for herbalists to be clear about that difference.Damiana (Turnera diffusa) is more of a blood-moving than lymph-moving herb. It’s one of our favorite dispersive remedies, for increasing blood flow to the periphery and to the skin. Its affinity for the pelvis and it’s capacity to restore or enhance sensitivity in nerve endings contribute to its reputation as an aphrodisiac. It’s not about raging lust – it’s

We’re on the final shelf of our home apothecary, and today we’re talking about thyme & linden!Thyme (Thymus vulgaris) is our absolute favorite herb for a steam. Herbal steams are an amazing way to bring the plant’s medicinal actions into the lungs and sinuses – and the ear canal and eyes, too! Thyme’s a great steam herb because it’s so rich in volatile, aromatic chemistry. This also means it’s easy to prepare as a tea, tincture, infused vinegar, infused oil, or salve – it’s a very flexible herb.Ryn’s favorite formula recently has been “Sweet Heat” – a combination of hot aromatic mints (thyme, oregano, sage, rosemary, monarda) with sweet demulcents (licorice, fennel, fenugreek, goji berry). Make it strong and drink it hot, and you’ll feel the diaphoretic movement of heat upwards & outwards in your body!Linden (Tilia spp.) is a very friendly demulcent herb. Infusing it in water makes the liquid silkily viscous, but not slimy or snotty. This makes it a good choice for folks with dry constitutions who hav

Our herbs for this week are dandelion & cedar! Both are diuretic, but their similarities pretty much end there.We are big fans of gardening your weeds, and we took another opportunity here to advocate for it. It’s easy to do, and you don’t have to stress about upkeep. Plus, you get nutritious or medicinal plants ready to hand! Dandelion is a great one for this, and the leaf makes an excellent base for a Salad of Health (listen in for an example recipe). Whether you grow it or not, it’s easy to find growing wild – but don’t be fooled by any of the many not-a-dandelions out there in the field!The cedar we’re talking about today is “western redcedar” or arborvitae, Thuja plicata. (Other plants called ‘cedar’ include “true cedar” Cedrus species, as well as some species of Juniperus.) Katja has an argument to make that this cedar should be counted as a nervine – but it’s not a sedative one; rather the opposite. We also talk quite a bit about its particular aromatic profile, and how perhaps cedar is to tulsi as

Today we proceed futher along our shelves, looking at the herbs we keep in our home apothecary. In this episode we discuss goldenrod and wood betony.When using the botanical Latin name for goldenrod, we write Solidago spp. – that “spp.” means “species plural”; there are many varieties in the genus. It can hard to tell them apart! Fortunately, your senses can tell you about the particular actions of your particular goldenrod. Is it more bitter? That’ll have more digestive action. Is it more aromatic? That’ll really get you kidneys moving. It’s also worth trying goldenrod leaf-only vs flower-only tea or tincture.Betony, also called wood betony, is Stachys officinalis. It’s related to lamb’s ears (Stachys byzantina), but nowhere near as fuzzy, and with smaller, scallop-edged leaves. An herb with a panoply of benefits, in modern people we find its most important attributes are its grounding and centering effects. These can help us oppose the habits of multitasking and dissociation from the body which are so preva

Today we’re continuing our “herbs on our shelf” from A to Z series! This week, our herbs are schisandra and skullcap.Schisandra (Schisandra chinensis) is SOUR. That flavor stands out most strongly when you taste the herb. But it’s also bitter, pungent, acrid, and a little bit sweet – that’s why it’s sometimes called five-flavor berry. Schisandra’s a great herb for modern people, not least because it helps a lot with anger and with sugar. It does have some drug interactions to be aware of, though!Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora) is one of the ‘bitter mints’. It’s not powerfully bitter, like motherwort, but more like betony, ground ivy, or self-heal. This group includes mostly relaxants, lymphatics, alteratives, & anti-inflammatories, and skullcap is primarily a relaxant. Its specific affinities are tension in the neck & shoulders, or else tension that’s intermittent. It makes a great base compound with betony and passionflower, whether that’s for a nervine tea blend or a before-bed tincture.Schisandr

20% OFF EVERYTHING for the month of July!Use code ALLTOGETHER at checkout!There’s one reality, that of the human need for fundamentals like nourishing food, restorative sleep, consistent movement, ways to mitigate stress, and community support. Then there’s the other reality: that so much of this is not accessible for so many people in our society.What can we do about it, as herbalists? A lot!We can start by keeping our recommendations as accessible and affordable as possible. We can center our practice on grocery store herbs, abundant weeds, and widely available plants instead of those that are rare or expensive. We can teach people to minimize waste, and get the most goodness out of their herbs. We can keep a mental store of “cheapbest” formulae – things that serve common needs and keep expenses low, but don’t compromise on quality.We can recognize that people don’t only have to budget money, but also time and energy. Especially in the context of chronic illness and fatigue syndromes, being able to work eff

We’re continuing our “herbs on our shelf” series from A to Z today! This time our herbs are elder and sassafras.The most famous part of elder (Sambucus nigra) is the berry, which is indeed an effective remedy for viral infections including colds, flu, and COVID. It’s a rather safe one, despite occasional herban legends do the contrary. (No, the berries will not kill you with cyanide. No, elderberry does not cause cytokine storms. No, it is not a risk for people with autoimmunity.) But it’s so much more than that! We can break elder berry out of the ‘cold & flu’ box, and appreciate it as an anti-inflammatory, cardiovascular tonic, and traditional alterative. Plus, we can also work with the flowers! They make an excellent relaxant diaphoretic, for releasing both physical and emotional heat.As for sassafras (Sassafras albidum), its root bark is its most famous part, and it’s a key component of ‘root beer’ flavors. We like it that way, with sarsaparilla (whether that’s Smilax, Hemidesmus, or Aralia), ginger,

There’s a basic rule when it comes to herbal businesses in the US: “Don’t tell and sell.”Due to rules and regulations set forth by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), there are many limits on what one can say about herbal products. You may already know that it is not allowed to make “disease claims” on product packaging or promotional materials, only “structure & function” claims – that’s why a garlic supplement will says it “supports heart health” rather than “lowers cholesterol”. But you may not be aware that this prohibition extends also to any website, social media presence, or other materials you produce – including as a clinical herbalist or a teacher.The long and short of it is, you can’t realistically maintain an herbal products line and a teaching or clinical herbal practice.A lot of herbalists get frustrated with the tell & sell rules, but in reality they’re not as constraining as it seems. They’re part of doing business, and there are actually go

We almost never do interviews, but our friend Anna Rósa is collaborating with The Lotus Flower to empower refugee women in Kurdistan to care for their own health, their families and communities, and to start herbal businesses to support themselves as they rebuild their lives.We are so excited to support her efforts, and we wanted to tell y’all all about it too!You can learn more about the collaboration here:Herbal Sisters Workshops for WomenAnd you can find her fundraiser course here – all proceeds go to support the Herbal Sisters project!The Healing Power of Icelandic HerbsIf you enjoyed the episode, it helps us a lot if you subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Today’s herbs are sage & rosemary – two herbs whose botanical name Salvia indicates they can keep us “safe, healthy, and secure”, if we go with a literal translation. Sounds pretty good to us! And tastes good, too…Sage, Salvia officinalis, is the subject of a great many old sayings & adages, like “if a man would live for aye [forever], then should he eat sage in Maye” – or, “why should a man die while sage grows in his garden?” (We’d like to point out that sage is good for women and enbies too, just for the record!) Ryn’s personal favorite is this one: “Sage, make green the winter rain / charm the demons from my brain!” As a mental awakener and mind-sharpener, sage is hard to beat. It’s amazing for digestive sluggishness too, especially when that involves difficulty digesting fats. But don’t relegate it to food applications only – sage can be beautiful in formulae for cocktails or mocktails, bitters blends, and nervine elixirs.Rosemary, Salvia rosmarinus, was categorized in its own genus as Rosmarinus

In this period of Fallow Month (see previous episode), we're re-airing a couple of our favorite episodes from the archives. This one was originally episode #145, originally aired December 20th 2020.In this episode we explore the skills and disciplines necessary to conduct a successful self-experiment. Self-experimentation in this context might mean making changes to dietary, lifestyle, & movement habits; developing stress management skills; or trying out herbal medicines.First we address why and how self-experimentation can fall into self-justification, and how to avoid this. Then we highlight the skills of perception, reflection, and connection which are the bones of a good n=1 experiment, and share some key methods for developing them. Finally we talk about the practicalities that make this work go more smoothly, and share a few thoughts on how this all applies to clinical practice work as distinct from individual efforts.This is at the root of our work as herbalists, so we hope you’ll listen in!We