Summer is the time for the Heart, the Fire Element. The sun reaches its peak at the Summer Solstice as our Fire element burns stronger during the Summer season. The heart processes all of our emotions, every thought and feeling that goes through your mind also travels through the heart. When we are emotionally/mentally strained, our heart feels the same stress. When we are excited and full of joy, our heart is elated and light – ready to pump blood for revitalizing the body, filling us with energy. To experience radiating heart fire is equivalent to listening to a song that just makes you want to dance. You don’t try to fight it; with no resistance your hips start...
Stress - We all encounter it Stress /stres/ noun pressure or tension exerted on a material object. a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances. We do not need to be asking “What is stress?”, what we need to ask is “How do we react to stress?”. When put under pressure, slapped in the face by something sudden, stuck in between a rock and a hard place, how do you react to the situation? Arguably, one can react to each unique situation differently, but generally, we all have our fallback reaction to stressful situations. Do you have circling thoughts with a worried mind, upset digestion, and tension in the stomach? Do...
“Tell me what you plan to do with your one wild precious life?” – Mary Oliver. I end all my emails with this thought-provoking quote. My hope is to encourage folks to contemplate how they are living out their lives. Are they doing what they love or dreamed to do? What is their story? My Octogenarian father is a gifted story teller. He is a quiet modest man but once he leans forward in his chair, eye alight we know a story is coming and wait with anticipation. My father lives his life a poem by finding joy and laughter in the most ordinary encounters in life. As a child, he was my personal alarm clock. He would pop his...
A Look at Herbal Hair Care While many of us happily refrain from using chemicals in our gardens, eating organically grown foods, cleaning our homes with natural products, etc., what about our self-care habits while caring for our hair and skin? We may be so accustomed to shopping for hair and skin care products made by big commercial companies because they are convenient, plus it’s what we’re expected to do in a consumer-oriented culture. But if you really look into the ingredients in most of those products, you will understand how toxic many of them really can be. At the very least, our skin’s natural oils are often stripped, leaving our skin and hair too dried out and requiring...
We reached out to one of our local, recently graduated Clinical Herbalists, Shelly Olson - owner of SO Herbal, to help define general health complications among the sexes. Shelly and I were in the same herbal courses, taught by local Herbalist Nicholas Schnell through North Star Herbal Studies program located in Four Winds Natural Healing Center. Early on, I had to stop my herbal courses, however my education continued as my wife is also a Clinical Herbalist and I will forever be exchanging theory and ideas with her, learning and being pulled deeper into the Herbal world. Shelly continued her education through the 3-year intensive and has now received the official title as Clinical Herbalist - ready to change the world...
