I have been leaning heavily into my yoga practice, and relatedly my teaching practice during this last year and more. I’ve been able to grow my confidence as a teacher at Aspire Yoga Center, and i’m excited to announce that I am adding Prenatal Yoga into the mix! Yoga was incredibly important to me during my pregnancies, and definitely contributed to a more positive mental attitude in that I LOVED being pregnant, both times. Although the second pregnancy was a little harder, because I was older mostly, overall I felt good in my body and I know that yoga helped. In 2011 when I found out I was e ..read more

For a really long time, I thought that my “lack of success” was because I didn’t know how to work hard. And to a degree, that’s true. We hear all these phrases- “just put in the work, do the work, do the hard work”, but like, what does that even mean?? I read so many books about steps to success, how to do the things to get where you want to go and every time I felt like I was still missing a crucial piece of the information. Like, ok to all of this but I still don’t know what to *do*. What the daily actions are that eventually create THE BIG THING. How you work backwards from a goal. Part of ..read more

If you have been on any of my plant walks or attended any of my workshops, you know that I can get a little prickly with the question “What is this plant good for?”. I know that it’s totally a thing to say that there aren’t any stupid questions- and while that is true- there are questions and then there are better questions. I want to ask better questions than “what is it good for?” One of the ways that we can go beyond generalizations like ‘elderberry is good for the flu’, ‘ginger is good for the stomach’ or ‘yarrow is good for wounds’ is by using a system of energetics in talking about plant ..read more

I was asked to write out my reasons for practicing yoga, and one of the reasons I came up with is that when I practice with regularity and devotion, shifts happen in my life. My mental health is better. I make better decisions. I feel good. It made me think about my struggles in the kitchen lately and that perhaps the shift I need to make in my mind and heart is this one- one of devotion. It makes sense on a few levels here. Food prep takes place multiple times a day, every day. It’s not negotiable to feed my people, but sometimes I don’t prioritize feeding myself. It can be so easy to get stu ..read more

I didn’t anticipate writing this out here, but I felt the call and so here we are. I don’t even know where to begin, because I am still not sure what many of the moving parts are in this story. I think it started around 2016, when I started feeling unwell. It was a really peculiar thing in that it seemed really specific. I couldn’t do any intense physical exercise without crashing. It didn’t happen every time, and so I would start feeling great and strong and then the very next workout, I would crash so hard that I would end up not being able to exercise in any way for 2 weeks to a month. I re ..read more

If someone asked me to describe self-heal as a plant, honestly the first thing that comes to mind is “a jaunty little plant”. And I mean, it kind of is, right? In typical mint family fashion, Prunella has an upright square stem and opposite leaves. She’s quite stiff looking in that regard- there’s nothing frilly or lacy about her leaves. Simply, utilitarian, to the point leaves. Smooth and slightly oval. Leaves. The flowers though, are pretty special. Self-heal, or heal-all as this plant is also called, first sends up a tubular flower head. The distinctive individual flowers blossom from this ..read more

What’s happening on the homestead here in mid spring, going into the 4th year of growing plants, expanding our gardens and really dialing in what and how we would like for things to work. I thought I would do a sort of brain dump as to what is going on, not only for future years but also in case anyone else is curious about what small family homestead scale gardens and food forest style orchards look like and some of the moving parts. A meals worth of pickings from the April garden Fruit trees: The peaches and the plums just flowered! Most for the first time, but one for the largest profusion ..read more

Since I began learning about herbal medicine almost 2 decades ago, I’ve held firm to the story that I did not grow up around plants in this way. My mom and both of my grandmothers were all gardeners to some extent, but not herbalists. The other day, I burned my arm with hot steam from the kettle. I was distracted and beginning to feel overwhelmed and boom I hurt myself. As is usually the case. I immediately went to the sink and started running cold water over the burn, and then as soon as I could I went and broke off leaf of aloe vera to use immediately. It was completely instinctual- I didn’t ..read more

Pine pollen is such an intimate part of my existence right at this moment in ways that are not entirely pleasant, and it felt like the perfect time to take a deep dive into this literal force of nature. Both to remind myself and to share about this incredible plant in a deeper way than ever before. Right now, a fine yellow dust is beginning to bathe everything. Everything. The cars outside, the sidewalk, and if we happen to have a rainstorm it will pool and be washed into thin lines of yellow- everywhere. It’s a sight to behold and people here in the south HATE it. I get it. My eyes are puffy ..read more

Happening right now in northwestern Louisiana and also probably the entire South is the beginning of the few weeks of time each Spring when everything is covered in a fine layer of yellow dust. In an attempt not to be vulgar, I will just say that we are breathing in the reproductive…. stuff…of male pine tree sex organs. Which is really just about the wildest thing I’ve ever really thought about. These are the male reproductive organs of this Loblolly Pine (Pinus taeda) Pine pollen is powerful food and medicine in its own right. I’ve written about it a little before here https://redearthwildcra ..read more