Empowering Self-Reliance and Sustainable Living & Microbiomes
Empowering Self-Reliance and Sustainable Living & Microbiomes
What My 3 A.M. Wake Taught Me About Cortisol I’m winding down by 6 to 7 p.m. The sun sets here around 6:30, and when the dark settles in, my body responds just like the birds. And, it really doesn’t matter what time I go to sleep, I always awake …
The story behind this weekend’s Ripening & Renewal Gratitude Meal and how it becomes a meal for the mind. We usually think of eating as something that happens in the mouth and the stomach. Long before food reaches the stomach, though, the brain is already at work. It reads the …
With my new lights, I can see…. I’m excited right now… and I want to say that out loud, because it’s been a while. For three years I’ve come to the end of most weeks wondering how on earth I was going to make payroll and get done all that …
“Conflictolysis: The Moment the Body Knows It Is Safe Do you ever find yourself suddenly triggered by something? A smell, a song, a familiar place. Sometimes these things bring back warm memories. Other times, they stir something deeper, something heavy. Those moments are trauma triggers, and they can arrive without …
My patio outdoor office and the Project Site is currently a landscape of preparation, drying herbs, working the gardens, jars in their early stages, and piles of herbs and foods (as medicine) being sorted. We are deep in preparation for the Plant & Kitchen Alchemy workshop, November 8–14, and I …
Fat is an organ! Surprise! Working with people has a wonderful way of sending me back into research. Someone comes along with an interesting health question, we start looking at what is happening inside their body, and I find myself learning something new. Our bodies are quite remarkable in the …
New research reveals another remarkable way microbes communicate and survive. But it also raises a question about what happens when we repeatedly disturb the microbial communities that keep us healthy. I came across a fascinating piece of research this week. Scientists have discovered that bacteria can actually share working proteins …
September 23, 2026 | Living Ground Project, Ecuador Whew! What a marathon. My Plant & Kitchen Alchemy book is finally finished, uploaded to Amazon and waiting to be published. After months of writing, experimenting, editing, illustrating and wrestling with page numbers, indexes, formatting and Amazon’s publishing requirements, I can hardly …
I am finishing Plant & Kitchen Alchemy, a book that has grown to more than 550 pages of personal experience, practical knowledge and over 80 kitchen alchemy recipes centered on food as medicine. As I moved through the final edits, I realized I had spent a great deal of time …
Lately I have been doing a lot of sorting, and I do not mean closets, drawers or old papers. I mean sorting through the pieces of my life and the pieces of Living Ground, looking at what still belongs, what is working, what is asking for more attention and what …