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.
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 …
We have all heard of taking turmeric (curcumin) with black pepper (piperine) to enhance the bioavailability and absorption of curcumin. Piperine, the bioactive compound found in black pepper, has been shown to significantly increase the absorption of curcumin by inhibiting metabolic enzymes that break it down and increasing intestinal permeability. …
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 …