If you’ve ever swished coconut or sesame oil around in your mouth first thing in the morning, you’ve already dipped your toes into the Ayurvedic practice of oil pulling. I’ve been using this technique for years, and it’s one of those daily rituals I keep coming back to—for fresh breath, healthy gums, lymph drainage, and that clean-mouth feeling that just feels good!

Spring is here, at last, and the world is all a-shimmer with dew and last night’s frost. After a long winter of dark and cold, the earth has begun to stir again. There’s a palpable change, and we can all sense it, in the air, in the earth, in our bodies. Spring is a season of new beginnings, inspiration, a time to create and explore. As nature begins to flourish around us, now is the perfect time to rejuvenate ourselves in the same fashion as the beckoning meadows. 

In spring, I like to gather nettles and violets. Nettles for their wealth of vitamins and minerals, and the energy boost they provide after sleepy winter months. Violets for their flavonoids, mucilage, and diuretic properties. They also taste mild and delicious in infusion form, making them ideal additions to mocktails.

Around this time of year, my mom would start crafting her incredible herbaceous mocktails; drinks that are both refreshing and healthful. I have many fond memories of us staving off the heat with her creations. My mom is an absolute wizard when it comes to mixing ingredients to just the right proportion, guided purely by intuition. She (and now I, thanks to her influence) never really measured things. It was always “a splash of this,” “a sprinkle of that.” As a result, each drink was a little unique, but somehow always perfectly balanced.

With herbaceous mocktails, the trick is balancing the bitter with the sweet, adding just enough sugar to lift the flavors without overpowering them. It’s also important to find the right ratio of ingredients; some herbs have stronger flavor profiles than others, so finding the right balance can feel rather alchemical at times. 

In a world wafting with artificial fragrance as far as the nose can smell, those of us with scent sensitivities often find it challenging to navigate the vast, perfumy sea of skin and body care products. As someone who gets a headache solely at the thought of walking through a store’s fragrance department, this challenge is nothing new to me. After spending an inordinate amount of time walking down aisle after aisle, uncapping and sniffing products, only to settle on one I found relatively tolerable, I’ve since opened myself up to a new world—custom fragrance!

Living in California as I do, tacos aren’t just for Tuesdays–they are a way of life. There are taco trucks on nearly every corner, each ready to provide you with their own particular take on carne asada, al pastor, and spicy pollo soft tacos. And requisite with every order, at least for me, is a tall icy glass of Agua de Jamaica.

When I first learned that plants were medicine, my first thought was, How did I not know this sooner?

A lot of that probably has to do with growing up in Frederick, Maryland—a vast landscape of agricultural crops, where corn, soybeans, and a patchwork of wheat filled the fields. But even more had to do with my inability to access information that was freely circulating on the internet. As a Deaf kid in the nineties, I grew up alongside the boom of the internet. There was information out there—glimpses of herbalism, holistic health, alternative medicine, tending to the land—but much of it wasn’t captioned. Even television, a major source of knowledge and culture, was largely inaccessible. (Spoiler alert: it still is.)

Spring cleaning provides the perfect moment to refresh your home and embrace the new season's charm. This year, consider enhancing your routine with natural cleaning methods that are not only environmentally friendly but also gentler on your health, especially if you deal with sensitivities. 

Comfrey (Symphytum spp.) is a divisive plant in herbalism. There is some very serious contention about how to use it safely and effectively in the herbal community. Some say that it should never be consumed internally, while others drink tea made from the leaves. Some also say that you shouldn’t use plants that were even harvested from the same beds as comfrey for internal use. All of that is to say, there is some drama surrounding this plant! But first, let’s talk botany…

As an herbalist I’ve learned to lean into the changing seasons, embracing the ebb and flow of life, death, and rebirth that happens in the natural world all around us. Observing and celebrating these cycles has helped me to become a better medicine maker, knowing that as the plants around me change, I change as well. My body moves through these same seasonal cycles, from youthful exuberance, through powerful strength and eventually waning into my season of slumber. This is an accurate observance whether I consider this seasonal cycle as a daily occurrence, and annual one, or the changes I experience as I move through my lifetime. The seasons are all around us and the only constant is change.

There is something I need to come clean about: I have never tried a Peep® before. I know, I know—what in the world am I doing writing a blog about the very confectionery in question? Well, let me explain! My mouth has yet to cross paths with one of those sickly-sweet, fluffy marshmallow chicks because my sweet tooth did not emerge until long after my baby teeth came and went. Although I’m not entirely sure why I did not have a particular fondness for sweets and treats growing up, I can say for certain that my adult self has developed quite an impressive sweet tooth since then! With the Easter bunny hopping right around the corner, there seems to be no better time to spring into my newfound passion for Peeps®.

I don’t know about you, but I am ready for all things spring!  Here in Oregon, we are just coming out of several months of rain and overcast skies, and as the spring buds and blooms begin to emerge, I dive headfirst into the season. (Even though many of us Oregonians know this as “False Spring” because we get a few wintery surprises before real spring arrives.)  Yet, I still move forward with my spring cleaning and crafting season. 

Our family farm, nestled in the northwoods of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, is a haven for medicinal plants. We have been stewards of this land for two and a half decades, and it is a joy to continue learning the ecosystems, seasons, and rhythms of life here. The farm is diverse, and we use organic, regenerative, and authentic agricultural techniques to tend fields and hoop houses of produce, herbs, perennials, shiitake mushrooms, pasture-raised pork and poultry, and grass-fed beef. Over the years, we have observed improvements in our soil and increasing biodiversity, both of which have invited wild, health-supporting weeds to flourish.