Empowering Self-Reliance and Sustainable Living & Microbiomes
Empowering Self-Reliance and Sustainable Living & Microbiomes
Articles about herbs, medicinal plants, traditional plant uses, preparations and the ways plants can support the body and terrain. Many of these plants are grown, harvested or studied directly at Living Ground in Ecuador.
Aloe vera, celebrated as the “plant of immortality,” is a remarkable succulent renowned for its extraordinary healing properties and its robust ability to survive in tough conditions. Thriving in arid, nutrient-deficient soils, Aloe vera has captured the fascination of many cultures throughout history with its rejuvenating and therapeutic potential. The …
What We Notice, and What the Soil Is Actually Doing There is a moment on land that comes before explanation, before theory, before formal science, when something shifts and you feel it. If you watch how your gardens grow, you begin to see things and how plants seem to respond …
There is a plant I was recently introduced too, Laritaco. In botanical language it is known as Vernonanthura patens. It is a shrub with narrow leaves and clusters of soft purple flowers, often growing along roadsides, abandoned fields, and the edges of regenerating forest. When I first heard about Laritaco, …
I have been working on a small book about flower essences. It feels natural for me to say that because so much of what I do already circles around plants and medicine. I love making natural remedies. I love watching how plants work with the body. I have always had …
I had never even heard of the curry tree before coming to Ecuador. Now I cannot imagine this place without her. She is one of the most beautiful small trees in the garden, graceful and decorative, with glossy green leaves that seem to shimmer in the light. Birds adore her. …
When I started to really understand microbiology, I quietly moved many of the strong germ-fighting herbs and foods out of my apothecary. I had become uncomfortable with the idea that health meant constantly trying to destroy microorganisms. Those tools began to feel like blunt instruments that did not particularly care …
Bougainvillea grows where it pleases. It climbs, weaves, and stretches upward toward the sun, wrapping itself around trees, fences, and walls in search of light. Its branches are lined with thorns that protect and anchor it, yet from this fierce defense bursts a brilliance of color that softens the landscape. …
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 …