Lily of The Herbs and Stephanie Hazel go deeply and humbly into the mystery of herbalism: how little we actually know about plants, how true herbal mastery means being able to hold what you do know and the endless mystery of what you can't know, how finding yourself walking the plant path can be a mystery of its own.

They share powerful personal stories of Mugwort that span expelling enormous worms and appearing as a spirit with the power to heal sexual trauma.

Lily of the Herbs is a wild herbalist based in Warrandyte on the bushy outskirts of Melbourne. She has been working with plants since she was young and has a background in propagation and permaculture. Currently working as a Zenthai Shiatsu practitioner and herbalist, Lily is passionate about connecting people to plants and their bodies. She has been running workshops on herbalism and embodiment for the last five years and makes and sells a range of elixirs.

Lily is offering a special $5 off her upcoming 'Introduction to Herbalism' workshop on the 4th June for The Elder Tree listeners. Just mention this podcast when you sign up.

Follow her on Instagram: lilyoftheherbs or check out her website: www.LilyOfTheHerbs.com

Her two upcoming trainings are a full day Medicine Making Immersion in her home clinic in Warrandyte on the 3rd June, and an afternoon workshop 'Introduction to Herbalism' online on the 4th June.

Blake Hudson, also known as the Eartheartisan, is a leader in the world of permaculture consulting, design, and education. With a passion for utilising cutting-edge technology to conduct site analysis and read landscapes, Blake is able to provide tailored edible garden plans or "green prints" for clients seeking to grow organic food in their home gardens. From urban blocks to hobby lifestyles or homesteading farms and eco-villages, Blake's expertise extends both locally and internationally.

In this episode, we discuss his earlier inspirations that led him on his path and the dogma of permaculture, as well as his commitment to accuracy and attention to detail with the use of drone mapping and 'Sun Surveyer' for data collection. He has spent the past decade perfecting his design process, which has resulted in mentoring his students and personalising landscape manuals with prescribed plant collections that help people put the right plant, in the right place, at the right time.

Blake is an avid plant enthusiast with a nursery, and he grows, harvests, and cooks with a diverse array of species from his very own "garden of eating." He recently published a comprehensive resource, "Tropical Food Plants - A Field Guide to Tropical Edible Plants," which explores 121 edible plant profiles suitable for tropical regions worldwide.

Beyond his fetish for making fertile soil, one of Blake's unique talents lies in his ability to retrofit ornamental gardens with food species, which is becoming a strong desire by many people who want to become more self-sufficient within the space they already have without having to move to a farm.

He is particularly drawn to perennial plants such as bananas, which offer multi-functional benefits, and comfrey, which he considers to be his super healer home-grown medicine. In addition to his expertise in permaculture, Blake has a deep understanding of various regenerative land practices, including broad-acre regenerative farming, biodynamics, syntropic and market gardening, as well as bio-intensive and nutrient-dense gardening.

His love for 'spreading the worms' is infectious, and his love of practical workshopping in hot composting, food forestry and banana circle management. Blake generously shares his knowledge through workshops and courses in collaboration with ⁠@earthmumma⁠ (me!).

Beyond his work in permaculture, Blake is also a talented visual projection artist, lighting up the festival scene with patterns from nature and inspiration from the psychedelic realm. He invites you to join him at upcoming events, such as Rootbound and the Eco-fiesta, for an opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals and experience the magic of the natural world. He is offering a $100 discount for his next workshop and a link to download a free tropical annual planting guide.

Show Notes:

Connect:

Blake Hudson, the EarthEartisan: www.ediblegardenplan.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eartheartisan

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eartheartisan/

To learn more about The Elder Tree, visit the website here and donate to the crowdfunding campaign here.

You can also follow The Elder Tree on Facebook and Instagram and sign up to the newsletter. Find out more about this podcast and the presenters here.

Get in touch with The Elder Tree at:  [email protected]The intro and outro song is "Sing for the Earth" and was kindly donated by Chad Wilkins.  You can find Chad's music here and here.

Monica Francia is a herbalist, naturopath, nutritionist and herbal educator who is a passionate about community herbalism. Monica has a strong values-based practice with a focus on accessibility, social justice, equality, and environmental sustainability. She works in the clinic at Goulds in Hobart, Tasmania for the past 6 years. Monica works hard to co-create more community resilience via her community herbalism work and loves collaborating with other like minded folk to work toward the greater good. She founded the Hobart chapter of Herbalists Without Borders, which collaboratively runs 3 free clinics in Southern Tasmania. She coordinates the herbal growing side of the Rocky Top Collective Farm, and is involved with Radical Herbalists Australia.

In this interview we explore her journey of becoming an intern at Goulds, working in their farm, apothecary and clinic. We explore her motivations and inspirations behind the amazing work that she does. Monica shares her passion about teaching home herbalism and how she would really love to see people reclaim the word "herbalist' and the identity of being a herbalist and bring it back to it just being people working with the medicine, growing and harvesting and making their own medicine. Her message is that anyone can be a herbalist.

As a herbal practitioner, Monica is a strong advocate for folks to reconnect to their bodies and their menstrual cycles. Her main area of practice is reproductive and hormonal health, but she has other special areas of interest (listed below). With a mix of evidence-based treatments and traditional herbal knowledge, she enjoys working with folk to make sustainable change for improved wellbeing and a balanced, healthy life.

Find Monica on FB:

https://www.facebook.com/monicafrancianaturopath/

And on IG:

https://www.instagram.com/monica_francia_naturopath/?hl=en

Find out more about Goulds:

https://www.gouldsnaturalmedicine.com.au/

Hobart Herbalists Without Borders:

https://www.facebook.com/hobartherbalistswithoutborders/

To purchase "The People's Medicine Zine", email:

hobart [email protected]

In this episode, I welcome Women’s Health Naturopath, Emma Jacques to the podcast. Emma’s always had a love of eating and growing good food and spending time outside in nature and in her garden. Undertaking a 4 year Bachelor Naturopathy degree while also birthing and caring for 2 children and coming face to face with ‘mum burnout’, inspired her to focus on Women’s Health and in particular ‘Mothercare’ in her practice…

Emma’s been practicing as a Naturopath since 2015, and spent 4 years working alongside acclaimed integrative GP Dr Oscar Serrallach, helping mothers rediscover their vitality and manage their health on the other side of birth. As part of her work with Dr Serrallach, Emma contributed a section on diet to his book, ‘The Postnatal Depletion Cure’. 

During this episode, we chat about Emma’s childhood, her love of helping mum and dad in the garden, spending hours outside, collecting treasures from nature for potions.

During our chat, Emma shares how she encourages her clients to prioritise self care above eating well and exercising because when our cups are full, these things come more easily. We chat about the importance of bringing in loved ones so they see the necessity of us taking time for ourselves and can be there to help if needed. And above all, that self care isn’t a privilege, it’s an essential part of living well, that we know how to nurture and support ourselves. 

Emma makes some really good points about being realistic about forming new habits- we talk about how falling off the wagon with a new self care habit doesn’t have to be the end of the road and how being aware of this makes the habit easier to maintain.

As both a busy Mum and an experienced Women’s Health pracitioner, Emma has a lot of practical and simple wisdom to share, there’s lots of tips and tricks you’ll take away from this chat.

You can find out more about Emma, including how you can work with her, by visiting her website, Emma Jacques Women’s Health Naturopath

You can also connect with Emma on Instagram.

To find out more about The Elder Tree visit the website at www.theeldertree.org and donate to the crowdfunding campaign here.

You can also follow The Elder Tree on Facebook and Instagram and sign up to the newsletter.

Find out more about this podcast and the presenters here. Get in touch with The Elder Tree at:  [email protected]

The intro and outro song is "Sing for the Earth" and was kindly donated by Chad Wilkins.  You can find Chad's music here and here.

Stephanie Hazel interviews environmental activist and cofounder of the Deep Ecology movement John Seed on how Deep Ecology is a powerful philosophy for herbalists, plant folk and all humans living with grief and confusion around the devastation of the natural world. By getting humans out of the driver's seat of existence, and remembering that we are one strand in the web of life not the spider in the middle, we can restore right relationship with the Earth. John shares unique stories for the first time on this show: how powerful experiences with magic mushrooms prepared the ground for his initial groundbreaking revelations in the Australian rainforests that led to what we now know as Deep Ecology; how "Aussie-huasca" just might have saved his life recently; and how he discovered indigenous rituals performed in a group context to dissolve the hubris of human superiority that were exactly like the 'Council of All Beings' process he had created with Joanna Macy a few years prior.

Show Notes:

John Seed's book 'Thinking Like A Mountain' is available for free download here: https://rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/TLAM%20text.htm

Excellent talk by John Seed at Rebel Herbal conference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPdxrrg_Frw

'The Spirit of Herbs', an article written by John Seed in response to Stephen Harrod Buhner's work:  http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/herbs.htm

Upcoming Deep Ecology workshops with John Seed: https://events.humanitix.com/host/6020d0d134494c000a3c23bd

'The Perma Pixie' is Taj Scicluna's small business, based on her deep poetic love of the Botanical Realm. Taj is an artist who fuses together her love of Herbalism, Foraging, Writing, Cooking, Ecosystem Health, Personal Health and Education into a cohesive offering. Her business is a platform for creativity, a place to weave the romantic wonder of the botanical into something tangible to share with the world.

She is a Permaculture designer, consultant, and implementer, specialising in ornamental, edible and medicinal gardens. As a facilitator of grassroots herbal medicine and teacher of Permaculture and creative facilitation, she shares her knowledge of Herbalism, wild food, and ecological systems with the philosophy that medicine is more than a resource.

At her core, Taj aims to support people as they bridge the gap between themselves and 'nature', to support the 'remembering' that we belong to the botanical, that we are woven into the photosynthetic web, and that we are truly animal. She aims to co-collaborate in repairing the rupture we have created in our experience of being 'civilised', of using language to keep us separate, believing that healing is done in this process of 'being' in relationship with the botanical rather than treating it as a resource.

Healing is within the process, not the product. To carry out this purpose, Taj lives a lifestyle dedicated to her values and educates via workshops, courses, mentorship, Patreon and one-on-one cliental consults.

In this interview, you'll get a sneaky peak excerpt of her upcoming book and what inspired her creative expression in her music video BotAnarchy!

Show Notes:

Connect:

Taj Scicluna The Perma Pixie Reclaim Food and Medicine⁠ www.thepermapixie.com⁠

Co-founder of Alchemical Ecology Remembering our Roots through Herbal Education⁠ www.alchemicalecology.com⁠

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thepermapixie 

Instagram: www.instagram.com/thepermapixie 

Other/s: www.youtube.com/thepermapixie 

Taj resides on the land of the Wurundjeri in Naarm (Melbourne). A percentage of my Patreon and workshop profits go towards paying the rent: https://paytherent.net.au/⁠

To learn more about The Elder Tree, visit the website here and donate to the crowdfunding campaign here.

You can also follow The Elder Tree on Facebook and Instagram and sign up to the newsletter. Find out more about this podcast and the presenters here.

Get in touch with The Elder Tree at:  [email protected]The intro and outro song is "Sing for the Earth" and was kindly donated by Chad Wilkins.  You can find Chad's music here and here.

In this episode I interview Christopher Smith, who is an extraordinary person doing some really important work in the herbal community in Australia.

Christopher is a herbalist, horticulturalist and herbal educator

He draws on over 40 years of horticultural experience to grow a line of rare and endagered herbs at the herb farm he runs called Tinderry Mountain Herbs, at Tinderry Mountain near Canberra.  These herbs are supplied to herbalists in Australia, and Christopher has the noble vision of assisting Australia to become self-sufficient with it's herb supply-  in particular Arnica, Goldenseal and Solomons Seal..

Christopher strongly believes that herbal medicine is the medicine of the people and needs to be alive in people’s homes and kitchens so he is passionate about sharing the world of plants and medicinal herbs with people.  He runs regular workshops and classes through the Heirophant in Canberra teaching people how to make an array of herbal preparations.  He also runs online workshops and classes.

All of my communications leading up to and after this interview was really beautiful.  Christopher has such a kind heart and pure intentions-  he wants to see as many people growing rare and endangered herbal medicine as possible, and is developing a mentorship program for advanced methods of growing herbs.

This interview was really enjoyable for the both of us and we are already planning the next one.  I appreciate the sense of comradery I feel with Christopher, in fact after this iinterview I invited him to become admin on two facebook groups I am admin for.  He is a rare find and I hope that you all enjoy this interview.

You can also follow him on Facebook here:

You can also follow The Elder Tree on Facebook and Instagram and sign up to the newsletter.

Find out more about this podcast and the presenters here. Get in touch with The Elder Tree at:  [email protected]

The intro and outro song is "Sing for the Earth" and was kindly donated by Chad Wilkins.  You can find Chad's music here and here.

During this episode, I chat with Zoe King, a Bachelor qualified Naturopath who runs a Norfolk Island based clinic, dispensary and store. She’s a new mum and understands first hand, the unique challenges facing mothers who also juggle small business ownership.

During our chat, we touch on Zoe’s first experience of plant medicine as a small child. Her Mum loved to care for the family using home remedies and one of Zoe’s first memory’s is a funny one- a home remedy for warts that raised eyebrows with her school friends….

Zoe’s experience of natural medicine deepened after witnessing first hand the magic of a herbal tincture for supporting immunity and lung health for the recurrent chest infections. The effect on her lungs and the infection was profound, she couldn’t believe how effective this medicine was. This experience marked a turning point in Zoe’s life- she was inspired to study Naturopathy at Southern Cross University in Lismore and enrolled soon after.

During our chat, we chart Zoe’s path from multi-modality clinic, to working as a Naturopath in a pharmacy through the 2017 Lismore floods, to questioning whether she would continue to practice…

She landed back home in Norfolk for a short stay but the pandemic limited further travel plans…which led to the birth of her Norfolk Island based clinic, dispensary and store…and her baby boy, now 14 months old!

We chat about the juggle of motherhood and small business ownership and the particular challenges of running a clinic in an isolated location.

Zoe shares how getting back to basics and not getting caught up in trying to do it all helps her to prioritise self care in this chapter of motherhood. She speaks of the need to always have some form of garden wherever she is and how spending time here helps save her sanity.

We chat about the ritual of herbal tea drinking as one of the most accessible ways to weave the herbs into our days no matter how busy we are- providing an invitation to slow down and savour the moment.

Zoe shares how her approach to supporting mum’s has changed and simplified since experiencing motherhood herself. Recognising how pressed for time mother’s can be, she now focuses on the basics- good, nutritious, easy to digest bulk prepped meals are paramount.

We explore how herbs and in particular, Withania, have helped carry Zoe through those sleep deprived, exhausted days of motherhood- how being consistent with this herb has her feeling more grounded and nourished.

Our chat is a must listen for all mothers- Zoe shares her struggles, her joys and her wisdom, I think you’ll love it! 

You can find out more about Zoe by following her on Instagram and Facebook. 

To find out more about The Elder Tree visit the website here and donate to the crowdfunding campaign here. You can also follow The Elder Tree on Facebook and Instagram and sign up to the newsletter. Find out more about this podcast and the presenters here. Get in touch with The Elder Tree at:  [email protected]

The intro and outro song is "Sing for the Earth" and was kindly donated by Chad Wilkins.  You can find Chad's music here and here.

The Elder Tree founder, Tatiana Dawn (aka Twiggy) talks to us about her profound early experiences of being known by plants and the the land of her childhood. We discuss how medicinal herbs can remind us of our profound interconnectedness with all of life; their way of being effortlessly connected with the rest of the living world can act as a doorway for us to be reminded of the sacredness of life. Tatiana shares how experiences with entheogenic Teacher plants not only helped her find a community of people who were interested in the sacred and in the plant world, but also taught her how to see with different eyes, and observe the sacredness that is always there. 

You can find out more about Tatiana's workshop and offerings by following her on Facebook: 

https://www.facebook.com/AlchemillaHerbals

You can also check out her website for upcoming workshops, products and more:

https://www.facebook.com/AlchemillaHerbals

Koa Windsong has been cultivating an extensive knowledge of Australian bush tucker and survival skills, living off the land for much of the last four decades around the northern rivers of NSW and Far North Queensland. As a respected elder, he is a wisdom sharer, inspiring and teaching his knowledge to people of all ages with practical in-person workshops about the local wild foods and medicines and how to harvest them respectfully.

In this interview, Koa speaks about sustainability and self-healing from the garden space with Comfrey (Symphytum officinale), Aloe Vera (Aloe barbadensis) and Perennial Coriander (Eryngium foetidum) and beyond into the wild with the plants that have been his allies, such as Coconut with fasting and ingesting termite mound to heal. He tells many stories of living close to nature, surviving and thriving from childhood to being in his eldership, passionate about passing on his knowledge. 

From weaving to tanning, making his clothes, building his dwellings in between nomadic living, and parenting experiences with nutrition, we cover many topics in this conversation, including his new book, Dream Weaving Down Under. 

Koa offers a way to stay connected and is calling in Tribe to his Patreon platform to access his extensive knowledge in bush tucker plants with his survival guide, plus ways to continue learning with short courses in bush crafts, weaving, growing food and medicines, and anything you put forward that you would like to learn. 

Show Notes:

Buy his book: Dream Weaving Down Under, Follow Koa's journey on Australia's east coast and learn about bush foods, survival techniques, earth-saving ideas and his compassionate philosophy. A must-have for those interested in self-sufficiency in these turbulent times. https://www.amazon.com.au/Dream-Weaving-Down-Under-Windsong/dp/B08GVJTZH5

Patreon Koa Windsong - Wisdom Keeper. Creating education in bush foods and survival skills. This is the place to stay connected and support his work to learn in exchange: https://www.patreon.com/wisdomkeepers

Koa Windsong Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@koawindsong5971

To learn more about The Elder Tree, visit the website here and donate to the crowdfunding campaign here.

You can also follow The Elder Tree on Facebook and Instagram and sign up to the newsletter. Find out more about this podcast and the presenters here.

Get in touch with The Elder Tree at:  [email protected]The intro and outro song is "Sing for the Earth" and was kindly donated by Chad Wilkins.  You can find Chad's music here and here.