Brown sun-kissed skin. Tall. He towers above her. His stance reminiscent of a Maasai’s on Kenya’s savanna. But no warrior or oxen milk drinker is he. “Love for a Moment,” a plant he loves back, shacks up in the village feeling no shame in populating this oasis in the tropics. The man from the bush revels in sharing his beloved botanical beauty with the awestruck Black Girl, whose walk through the bush reaps scattered ripe orange mangoes—the juicy, fibrous variety, when eaten at sunset, requires a napkin or two to wipe all that dribbling sweet goodness. Nighttime—in the land of the man from th ..read more

Not in the Mojave Desert or the Sonoran. Not in Joshua Tree National Park or the land of giant saguaros, Saguaro National Park. Her stroll, each step, winds through a man-made desert called Desert Garden, one of a dozen ecosystems created on over 130 acres of land bequeathed to Los Angeles County by railroad magnate and art collector Henry E. Huntington, a man also known as a voracious reader and book collector. Sometimes she feels like a female version of herbologist Dr. Sebi, out and about among plants. This time at The Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. She walks down ..read more

She’s still in Brooklyn, NY. She still consults with people who want and seek the healing she offers, as she has for more than 40 years. And she still cherishes peace, tranquility, goodwill. Maa Bowman guards them like a lioness guards her cubs. A few days ago, a gentleman with health concerns emailed me. He inquired about Maa’s contact information. I replied with the following, and thinking others are also interested, I decided to post it here. The Fig Tree Health Group (800) 998-5909 (International callers should add US country code +1) Email: thefigtreehg@gmail.com Website: https://thefigt ..read more

By now, everybody knows plant life planted itself deep in Sebi’s DNA. Remember that passage in Sojourn to Honduras Sojourn to Healing? On one of our daily rides around the town of La Ceiba, Honduras, he suddenly behaved in the most incredible way. I watched him leap from his truck, leave it idling in traffic, and dash his limber legs to an open field to inspect a plant that caught his eye. He examined his diamond-in-the-rough in what appeared to be widespread patches of weeds. I’m not likely to do that, jump out of my car on a Los Angeles County freeway to check out the gorgeous spring wildfl ..read more

Legendary, iconic jazz saxophonist John Coltrane gave the world “A Love Supreme,” that classic, incantational piece recorded December 9, 1964, with other jazz greats McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones and Jimmy Garrison. Mr. Coltrane’s masterful offerings also include “Naima,” “Giant Steps,” “Blue Train,” and his phenomenal and expert rendition of “My Favorite Things” (one of my all-time jazz favorites). Johncoltrane.com tells us that in 1964, Mr. Coltrane wrote a letter to his listeners. He said, “I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music.” And in 1966, he s ..read more

"Sebi was a beautiful human being who loved Black people. He loved Black people and he knew that there was a difference in something that we as Black people require. He shared with so many people and I was one of them. He shared so much information, so much of his time, and so much of his research, so much of his love with so many different people that now that he’s passed, he’s more popular and accepted than he ever was. Because in the early days, and even some years into his career, his natural healing career, he wasn’t accepted or even known. But upon him passing, and then with the young pe ..read more

If I can help somebody, as I travel along If I can help somebody, with a word or song If I can help somebody from doing wrong No, my living shall not be in vain —lyrics by Alma B. Androzzo If you place Ms. Androzzo’s lyrics in a natural healing context, then you could surely apply them to Dr. Sebi, a man driven to educate people, particularly Black people, about the nature of food and health. He committed over 30 years of his life traveling down that road, a road his protégé Adio Akil believed he would journey on for many years to come. But his death in August 2016 upended that notion, leavin ..read more

In this third remembrance video, Adio Akil weighs in on the effect of what Dr. Sebi leaves behind. https://video.wixstatic.com/video/94ce9c_aca11bafc85f488aa6ff8981324946bd/480p/mp4/file.mp4 Adio is a direct protégé of Dr. Sebi. Today, she’s the owner and operator of the holistic health business Quintessence Health & Wellness in Washington, D.C. That empowerment she mentioned in the video? Examples of young people with a Dr. Sebi-like pulse on natural health care and food include Chef Ahki (she cooked an alkaline meal for Dr. Sebi in his home), Aqiyl Aniys (he wrote a book about Dr. Sebi ..read more

From Bob Marley to Thich Nhat Hanh and Letta Mbulu to Sonia Choquette, the consensus is clear—love heals. So it’s not so surprising that our bodies are endowed with the ability to produce a “love” hormone called oxytocin, one of four feel-good hormones according to Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Health Publishing. Harvard says, “Oxytocin can help us bond with loved ones and can be released through touch, music, and exercise.” No doubt that hugging is therapeutic. About love, Dr. Sebi once said, “My ancestors afforded me the one thing that the world needs most today, love and compassion ..read more

We are witnessing an explosion, a cropping up and out, a renaissance so to speak, of natural healthcare and natural food business owners. Adio Akil is apart of that uptick and Dr. Sebi, one of her mentors, is a major reason why. In the first of four "remembrance" videos this month, November, Dr. Sebi's birth month, Adio tells us that even though Dr. Sebi helped her and other women remove cysts from their breasts without surgery, his brand of healing was initially a hard sell. https://video.wixstatic.com/video/94ce9c_ec5537801ed94cec8edd9b86dab6c46f/480p/mp4/file.mp4 Adio is now based in Washi ..read more