Empowering Self-Reliance and Sustainable Living & Microbiomes
Empowering Self-Reliance and Sustainable Living & Microbiomes
I never imagined that I would one day use banana flowers as medicine. But here in Ecuador, they hang in the garden, bold and purple, their heavy petals lifting one by one to reveal tiny hands of baby bananas tucked inside. For a long time I saw them as ornaments …
Chaga is a medicine of paradox. It hides for decades in the heart of a tree, unseen and unnoticed, and then suddenly bursts outward in a rugged black form that looks more like charred wood than mushroom. It grows slowly, deliberately, intimately intertwined with its host, offering itself as both …
Reishi has always held a certain mystery for me, the kind of presence that feels both ancient and majestic. If Chaga is the king of mushrooms, then surely Reishi is the queen. Her polished, lacquered body glows with a deep red sheen, shaped like a throne or a crown, rooted …
Ashwagandha has become one of the plants I treasure most in our gardens. When I first planted her at my home, I wasn’t sure how she would take to the Ecuadorian climate, a long way from the dry plains of India where she was born. To my delight, she didn’t …
Alfalfa has always struck me as a bridge between the earth and the body, a plant that works as hard beneath the soil as it does within our cells. When I walk through my gardens scattered with alfalfa plants, I see the familiar green leaves and tender stalks that the …
In the quiet of an Ecuadorian night, while you sleep, a bustling army marches across your garden. Small, coordinated, and persistent, ants can strip a plant of its leaves, harvest every fallen crumb, and carry more weight than their own bodies without you noticing until the damage is done. For …
After so many days, months, and even years of dreaming, planning, building, digging, planting, painting, and pushing through, the Living Ground store is finally open. On opening day, over 150 people came through the doors. I stood there and watched them wander through the aisles, pick up jars of fermented …
There are certain plants in Ecuador that most people would not even stop to notice. They spring up through gravel roads, weave into the corners of gardens, and quietly line the edges of fields. To the eye that sees only order and crops they are weeds, nuisances to be cut …
I would look for her when nettle stung. That’s how it started. My childhood knees would brush too close to a nettle patch, leaving a red, tingling fire that made me whimper. Someone would say, “Find the Dock.” And I would. Not because I understood anything about mucilage or tannins …
We are living in a time of disorientation. Many are searching for meaning, for answers, for someone to speak truth in a world that feels increasingly synthetic and detached. We’re told to look to the experts, the institutions, the leaders in suits and robes, the ones who speak from marble …