My primary relationships right now are with the plants that are healing me. It's an all encompassing love affair. What humans have never been able to give me, these plants are offering. Plant spirit medicine is for real. we are all one. nature is inherent to how we evolved. Whether we use the language of... Continue Reading →
First one on the left is for flushing the lymph (contains self-heal, violet, red root, and calendula), the second is an antifungal/antimicrobial (contains St. John's Wort, Pau D'arco, Lemon Grass, Lemon Balm, Olive Leaf and Tulsi), the third is for flushing bile (fenugreek) and the fourth is a highly mineralized nutrient dense mixture for bone health and the added bonus is it's also profoundly healing to the nervous system. (nettles, oatstraw and horsetail). Most herbs have multiple uses so this is what I happen to be using them for at the moment...it's not the only way to use any of the herbs listed. ...
Our modern forms of helping people in emotional distress (talk therapy and medications) have largely supplanted more traditional forms of healing. In some cases this is a continuation of oppression and colonization that has gone on for hundreds of years. -- Indigenous healing practices are denigrated and seen as unscientific, based on superstitions, or as an adjunct to the proper, modern way of helping people in distress. In this way, we have ignored and suppressed folk methods of healing that are often highly effective. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
For now our society remains seriously disconnected. Trauma is a symptom of disconnection. Psychiatry too often ignores trauma because, it, too, is disconnected. We don't know how to take care of one another and therefore we don't know how to take care of ourselves. We get this from our parents and we pass it on if we don't become conscious. Healing requires learning how to do these things as a species not just as individuals. In the end healing is radical community building. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
By Jon Keyes- We live in a world that is disconnected from this way of looking at plants/herbs and see them as either fairly useless or often as a capsule to ingest to gain a desired effect. When I work with people who are recovering from trauma, I often do the simplest thing possible, I have a cup of tea with them. Just the act of siting down and sipping a gentle tea brings connection, warmth, a movement towards increased stillness and trust and away from the noise and the overstimulation of the modern world. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
Seeing our mental health as part of a more global ecological picture where how we eat and the food we grow and buy has a direct effect not only on our mental health, but on how we can heal some of the wounds we have inflicted on our relationship with the planet. The global ecological and environmental trauma that is occurring is mirrored in the trauma that we experience in our own lives- the disconnection, the isolation, the lack of the sacred. We can help to heal ourselves in part by re-envisioning how we work with the plant kingdom, feed ourselves and live with the land. … [click on title to read the rest]
The idea of food and local herbs as medicine mostly dried up after world war II. Processed foods, microwave dinners, industrialized agriculture and shopping markets filled with food from far away started to dominate the Western landscape. Food became veryimages bland and tasteless. The notion that food was the essential medicine was overwhelmed by the idea that medicine was found in a drug. The psychiatric revolution really began in earnest in the 50’s at the same time that industrial farming took off. The first antipsychotic known as thorazine was synthesized in 1950 and was given to people who were deemed psychotic or labeled with schizophrenia. Interestingly, this first widely prescribed psychiatric drug was first developed as a pesticide to kill parasites in pigs. … [click on title to read and view more]
By Jon Keyes Mental health herbalism is the practice of working with herbs and other plants to improve well being, develop keener insight into patterns of imbalance and to reduce emotional distress. As a licensed professional counselor and herbalist, I often incorporate the use of herbs for helping people to get stronger and feel better. I have seen herbs improve mental health and I have also seen herbs bring profound insights that help a person work through emotional knots. Plants not only work on a physical level, they are able to transform people emotionally and spiritually as well. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
Everything matters 
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