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79. Sunshine Medicine: The Healing Magic of St. John’s Wort

Medicine Stories

Release Date: 07/12/2021

113. Elemental Inheritance: Minerals & Metals in Modern Life - Niecia Nelson show art 113. Elemental Inheritance: Minerals & Metals in Modern Life - Niecia Nelson

Medicine Stories

What metabolic patterns did you inherit from your parents, and what may you have passed down to your own children? Many behavioral issues, and even what are usually considered personality traits (like that of high sensitivity), can be linked to mineral imbalances and overall health.  Heavy metals often accumulate in individuals due to stress, compromised metabolic function, or ancestral imprints, not necessarily always due to direct exposure. Heroic detoxification protocols should be approached with caution, as forcing the removal of metals without addressing underlying nutrient...

info_outline 112. Fertility is a State of Being: Metabolic Wellness Through a Woman's Lifespan - Niecia Nelson show art 112. Fertility is a State of Being: Metabolic Wellness Through a Woman's Lifespan - Niecia Nelson

Medicine Stories

Fertility is not just the ability to conceive, but is an indicator of overall health and the capacity to nurture life; it is how we extend genetic strength across time and space into generations we will never know. Pregnancy and menopause are transformative states that reveal underlying metabolic and hormonal imbalances, emphasizing the complex interplay between biochemistry, psychology, and lifestyle. In an age of rampant metabolic dysfunction, let us together find our way to renewed vitality, for ourselves and for those yet to come. course membership (extended convo w/ Niecia) Substack...

info_outline 111. Nourishing Motherlines show art 111. Nourishing Motherlines

Medicine Stories

In which I read a few pieces from my new Substack. Bone, blood, milk, and marrow... Nourishing Motherlines is a collection of memoir-adjacent personal writings exploring my evolving understanding of nourishment (not nutrients), how my mitochondria and minerals were inherited from my motherline (and yours from yours), my hEaLiNg JoUrNeY as I navigate hypothyroid and hypoadrenal exhaustion and a host of related symptoms, what I am focusing on as I prepare to help my daughters with seemingly inevitable future health issues as women alive in the 21st century, and your garden variety midlife...

info_outline 110. Women's Bodies are Metabolically Expensive (Why Things Break So Easily) - Dr. Suuzi Hazen show art 110. Women's Bodies are Metabolically Expensive (Why Things Break So Easily) - Dr. Suuzi Hazen

Medicine Stories

Chinese Medicine holds that women’s bodies are 10x harder to heal than men’s, as our reproductive system is biologically much more precious and metabolically more intensive to maintain. In this conversation my good friend, third time guest, and Doctor of Chinese Medicine Suuzi and I catch up one year after we both underwent severe energy loss to share how we’ve rebuilt and healed. We talk about shifting away from the mindset of achieving “optimum human health” (an illusion that contributed to our health crises), working and mothering in a state of total burnout, how our childrens’...

info_outline 109. Loving Ourselves Home: Finding Sanctuary in Herbal Medicine - Kami McBride show art 109. Loving Ourselves Home: Finding Sanctuary in Herbal Medicine - Kami McBride

Medicine Stories

The times are unprecedented and there is no template for the future. We all feel this, and we feel the overwhelm of information, influence, and opinions. Herbalism, as it always has, offers us sanctuary from everything vying to take hold of our attention and life force. Not so that we can check out in an endless fog of self care, but so that we can be truly present and embodied as we navigate this time of rapid and radical change.  The plants call us home to ourselves. Kami’s Free Workshop (week of 3/3/24 only) Kami’s Free Webinar (week of 3/3/24 only) Kami’s revered course ...

info_outline 108. The Mythic Hive & How Bees Heal Us - Ariella Daly show art 108. The Mythic Hive & How Bees Heal Us - Ariella Daly

Medicine Stories

Nothing exemplifies the magic of nature more than honeybees. They are insects yet their colonies are akin to a mammalian being, they produce numerous healing substances from their bodies and within their hives, and they have been revered and mythologized since time immemorial by countless cultures. Beekeepers live longer than folks in any other profession, and being in relationship with bees is deep medicine for the spirit in these frazzled times. Let us relearn ancestral ways of tending and listening to bees so that we may maximize our chances of reclaiming a vibrant and thriving Earth....

info_outline 107. Death is the Great Healing: Reclaiming Ancestral Relationship w/ the Dead - Perdita Finn show art 107. Death is the Great Healing: Reclaiming Ancestral Relationship w/ the Dead - Perdita Finn

Medicine Stories

“I pray to the dead to help me remember who I am while I’m still alive.” To be in relationship with those who’ve gone before us is a deeply human way of being. Our ancestors knew that the “departed” never left, and that they answer when called. The way modern Western people conceive of the dead is a deviation that discards millennia of human knowing. Let us pray to the ancestors to help us sober up from civilization, remember what we’ve always known, and reclaim the long story of the soul. RESOURCES: Perdita’s website (book giveaway & course coupon code) by Bernd...

info_outline 106. Chronic Illness: Telling Honest Stories, Navigating the Underworld, and Tending the Roots - Sarah Ramey show art 106. Chronic Illness: Telling Honest Stories, Navigating the Underworld, and Tending the Roots - Sarah Ramey

Medicine Stories

It is estimated that half of all Americans have chronic health issues, and yet these conditions are new to the human species. What has happened? And how does an afflicted individual navigate a medical system that dismisses them and offers little help, embedded within a culture obsessed with self improvement and the hero’s journey of triumph? Sarah and I talk about the multifactorial nature of chronic illness and what has changed between generations, walking the fine line between self-responsibility and acknowledging that we’re all embedded in toxic systems that are out of our control,...

info_outline 105. Synchronicity Reveals Our Ecological Niche - Sophie Strand show art 105. Synchronicity Reveals Our Ecological Niche - Sophie Strand

Medicine Stories

Healing is communal. Settle in softly for this wide-ranging conversation with my most requested guest. Sophie and I talk chronic illness and trauma, diagnosis as blessing and as hex, the theater of medicine, the aquatic nature of memory, and the entanglements of time. RESOURCES: Sophie on Sophie’s newsletter by Sarah Ramey ACE- by Bessel van den Kolk (giant trigger warning; read the book below instead) by Rupa Marya and Raj Patel by Erik Wargo by Julia Cameron by Barbara Ehrenreich (a podcast beloved by both me & Sophie) Read by Ursula K Le Guin by Karen Barad by Joanna...

info_outline 104. Your Body is Not a Closed System: The Sun, Cell Signaling, & Metabolic Wellness - Sarah Kleiner show art 104. Your Body is Not a Closed System: The Sun, Cell Signaling, & Metabolic Wellness - Sarah Kleiner

Medicine Stories

The sun rules the rhythms and the well-being of all life on Earth, and humans are no exception to this rule. With the very recent (evolutionarily speaking) advent of indoor living and the even more recent advent of indoor lighting, we have inadvertently shut down the vital communication between sunlight and our cells. This is as upstream as it gets when it comes to health, and when we come back into relationship with the sun all manner of issues (insomnia, obesity, infertility, and so much more) can resolve. Let’s talk about the science behind circadian rhythm and practical ways to heal with...

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St. John’s Wort has evolved over millennia to capture the ultimate expression of sunlight on our planet and turn it into the molecule hypericin, which has numerous profound effects on our human bodies.

Find our St. John’s Wort Oil & check out my teacher Kami McBride’s course Handcrafted Healing Herbal Oils.

From deep nerve healing, relaxation, and pain relief when applied externally to its antidepressant, antiviral, and liver supportive properties when taken internally, SJW has always occupied an exalted place in the medicine cabinet of the ancestral humans who were lucky enough to live where it grew, and is one of the most used and loved herbal medicines in the world today.

IN THIS EPISODE:

  • St. John’s Wort acts as an extension of sunlight

  • The endless external uses include the healing of wounds, bruises, burns, blisters, cuts, eczema, growing pains, inflamed skin, muscle pain, nerve pain, neck tension, spasms, back pain, neuralgia, sciatica, insomnia, anxiety, and stress

  • The oil is indispensable for menstrual pain, pregnancy, postpartum, babies, children, elders, empaths, and highly sensitive people

  • Photosensitivity, precancerous skin cells, and using SJW as sunscreen

  • Internal uses: notes on the antidepressant, antiviral, and liver supportive effects (including my shingles story)

  • Hypericum feeds our inner radiance and summons forth our purpose and power

  • This ancient herb has always been associated with fairies and other magical beings

  • How empire co-opted pagan rituals and herbal practices

  • The widespread ritual use of St. John’s Wort as a protective herb

  • A word on wildcrafting and non-natives v invasives

  • Making your own high potency, shelf stable herbal oils

  • Herbal medicine is so simple, yet also endlessly complex

  • Kami McBride speaks about St. John’s Wort

RESOURCES (if listening on an app that doesn’t support embedded links, find these at https://mythicmedicine.love/podcast):

Learn to Make Your Own Herbal Oils:

Podcast Episodes & Books Mentioned:

More Good Stuff: