Empowering Self-Reliance and Sustainable Living & Microbiomes
Empowering Self-Reliance and Sustainable Living & Microbiomes
Diabetes is no longer a rare condition. It is now one of the most common health struggles in Ecuador and across the world. Around 589 million adults worldwide live with diabetes, which means almost one in every nine people. The number is expected to continue rising, especially in developing countries. …
The pomegranate’s outer skin is a universe of medicine that most people throw away. Most people who know me know that when I began to study the soil, my whole way of seeing health changed. Once I understood how the soil food web functions, I saw how every part of …
Coffee blossoms are a brief candle of the coffee tree. They open after the first good rains, bright white, breathing out a perfume that sits somewhere between jasmine, citrus, and honeyed vanilla. Inside those petals are the same energetic signatures that move sap through the plant, guide bees to nectar, …
As a child I never thought of the pomegranate tree as medicine. For me it was play. I would crush the red seeds and paint my lips and cheeks with their juice, pretending I had lipstick and blush. It was silly, but I remember how the color stained my skin …
Vitamin C is one of those nutrients that has been misunderstood in the modern world. Most people think of it as ascorbic acid or citric acid, but those are only the shell of something much more complex. They are the empty frame of a living compound that nature designed as …
Not all medicine grows in our garden. I deeply believe in using what we cultivate and forage here in Ecuador, but some plants are so profoundly restorative to the body’s inner terrain that they are worth bringing in. Slippery elm is one of them. This is not a tropical tree. …
For years we have been told that cholesterol is the enemy. The word alone makes people nervous, as though it were a poison to be purged from the body. Doctors prescribe statins almost reflexively, diets are stripped of fats, and marketing campaigns praise anything labeled low cholesterol. Yet the more …
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 …
In this article, I explore the intricate relationships between the soil microbiome, plants, and human health. Through recent discoveries and personal experience, I share how restoring healthy soil is about more than adding microbes, it is about rebuilding the living terrain itself. Together we are learning that the health of …
I can feel it … the pulse of something long planted, now pushing its way to the surface. The Living Ground Store and Café is almost ready to open. And standing here, on this edge between what has been vision and what is becoming reality, I’m carrying a thousand stories …