Medicine Stories Amber Magnolia Hill

We cannot talk about collective health, planetary health, or the health of future generations, without talking about the health of mothers. As Rachelle says, “The dysfunction and disharmony within our human environments is manifesting through the vulnerable bodies of postpartum women. In fact it is through the bodies of mothers that humanity is being alerted to the urgency of our collective need for change.”
IN THE INTRO:
The reaction to my previous episode on parenting without a village IN THE INTERVIEW:
Our culture is set up to fail new families/parents, and pathologizing the postpartum period overlooks the fact that it’s our social structures that are the cause of the immense emotional and psychological pain most postpartum mothers feel Mama- it’s not your fault New moms lose up to 700 hours of sleep during the first postpartum year The baseline of normal is that human babies need care 24/7 (your baby is not “high needs”), what’s not normal is living in isolated nuclear families Postpartum care cannot happen without community, and community is the one thing we are all lacking  Why it’s so hard, when it’s what we all deeply crave, to recreate the community living of our ancestors/how the colonial mindset keeps us mired in separation and distrust The pelvis as the seat of trauma for most every woman, and how we can begin to heal that How we feel in our pelvis is how we feel in our life- the connection between mental and pelvic health Intergenerational trauma and clearing the “bad medicine” that was embedded in the bodies of our female ancestors and passed down to us Anchoring in what we actually believe about ourselves, our bodies, this life Women are, and deeply feel, unsafe in our culture The incredible responsibility of raising girls (and boys tho!) in this culture, and how Rachelle and I navigate talking to them about the realities of patriarchy in an age appropriate way Teaching our kids to respect their inner authority first and foremost Reproductive and environmental justice are one and the same It’s time to grow up and do the work- our primary responsibility as adults on this planet at this time is to caretake life One simple way we can create community and support the parents of little ones If we can’t be resourced horizontally (by the folks around us), we can be resourced vertically (by our well ancestors) and by the land The sacrifices we make as mothers are a holy offering to life itself LINKS:
The Innate Traditions website Innate Traditions on Instagram Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) Related podcast episode- Without a Village: Isolation, Honesty, and the Paradoxes of Modern Motherhood My website MythicMedicine.love  Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz Medicine Stories Facebook group Mythic Medicine on Instagram Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes) Mentioned in this episode:
Vagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf I’m a 37-Year-Old Mom and I Spent Seven Days online as an 11-Year-Old Girl. Here’s What I Learned. A mom’s response to a stranger insisting her daughter speak to him (seems the original post is no longer available, this is a summary)

The old stories that have guided our recent ancestors are falling apart, and we live in a time of great upheaval and division as we grope for a new guiding mythology. Yet enfolded into this chaos are the seeds of deep and revolutionary change. Charles Eisenstein has a knack for expressing the thoughts and feelings that many of us born to these times have had but never articulated, and a brilliant capacity for elucidating a way forward.
IN THE INTRO:
Following your curiosity & finding lifelong teachers IN THE INTERVIEW:
None of us fit in to the boxes our culture makes for us, and the story we’ve been handed down is no longer resonant Transitioning between paradigms, as the boundaries of the unthinkable begin to waver The initiation into love that is the environmental crisis A radical reframing of the climate debate (I so needed to hear this) Appreciating the complex physiology of the organs and tissues of the living earth, and realizing that we cannot reduce that complexity to the one metric of carbon emissions and offsets- “We can cut carbon emissions to zero, and the planet will still die of organ failure if we continue to degrade its organs” What we lose when we look at herbs, ecosystems, and anything/everything through a reductionist lense Bringing nuance and empathy back into our highly polarized culture, where folks are both sides (of any issue) are impervious to ever being wrong Holding our enemies in reverence (just channel Mr. Rogers) The legacy trauma of living in this culture, and how to minimize its impact on future generations What the germ theory of disease gets wrong, and why our inner ecosystems often play a larger role in our illness than the outer pathogens that get all the blame A new perspective on autoimmunity, self, and the story of separation  Shifting the war paradigm by which we often approach health Sacred economics: living in The Gift paradigm within our capitalist culture, and why Charles’ online courses are donation based The individual as a holographic map of the universe unfolding When you hold a question long enough, it will always bear a result IN THE OUTRO:
Human hubris and the unforeseen consequences of thinking we can outsmart the vital life force (nature/evolution) How challenges to the immune system both initiate children into their next level of unfolding and prevent later chronic disease The polarization in the vaccine conversation, cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias, and exploring what it would take for me to change my mind on the issue A short exploration of and some resources for learning more about the harmful consequences of praise, rewards, and punishments when raising kids LINKS:
CharlesEisenstein.org Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) My website MythicMedicine.love  Some of Charles’ related essays: Reuniting the Self: Autoimmunity, Obesity, and the Ecology of Health, We Are Unlimited Potential: A Talk with Joseph Chilton Pearce, In a Rhino, Everything Video of me expanding on how we can’t outsmart nature and how modern medicine is pushing pathogens to evolve Miller’s Review of Critical Vaccine Studies by Neil Z. Miller Vaccines, Autoimmunity, and the Changing Nature of Childhood Illness by Dr. Thomas Cowan @EchoUnafraid’s vaccine cognitive dissonance Instagram post Related past episode of this podcast: 57. Own Your Self: Radical Healing, Rooted Health w/ Dr. Kelly Brogan and 30. The Innate Intelligence of the Immune System w/ Cilla Whatcott Alfie Kohn’s website Article- Praise Not Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz Medicine Stories Facebook group Mythic Medicine on Instagram Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

My favorite herb book has been out of print for decades, but is now available again! In celebration, I had the extreme honor of interviewing the author. We talk about weaving enchantment and changing our inner states through language, the opposing paradigms of holistic, herbal healing and modern, mechanical medicine, how resting and rooting down in the darkness creates space for creativity and wholeness, and so much more.
IN THE INTRO:
Slowness Medicine Herbal Rituals IN THE INTERVIEW:
The role of story in our human lives  Remembering, rather than learning, ancient herbal knowledge How Judith decided, after a violating experience in a doctor’s office at a very young age, to take her health into her own hands Why the mechanical medicine system is trauma producing to the creatures that we are Growing up in Brooklyn, living in NYC as an adult, and being a city herbalist Widening the lens by learning about the animals is the ecosystems where our plant friends live How our senses and capacities become stunted when we don’t engage in ancestral human practices, and instead spend all our time in the narrowness of digital technology Mycelium as both the neurons and the fascia of the earth Morphic resonance between similar tissue types in the body Anecdotes and subjective experience are data to be trusted How Herbal Rituals came to be Changing states and casting spells of enchantment with words Along with species and ecosystem loss, we are also losing the capacity to retain certain states of consciousness The story of healing told by modern medicine does not actually lend itself to healing Radical, empowered self health care Our bodies and herbs are meant to be together Rooting and slowing down- viewing the dark time of the year (or day) as the beginning of a new cycle Our culture doesn’t support descent into inner realms The magic of mugwort Smoke medicine as an instant nervous system reset, and how burning mugwort helped Judith remember her life path Taking in a plant’s medicine via the skin, just by touching it Growing and deepening through life’s challenges LINKS:
Buy the world's most beautifully written herb book Herbal Rituals  Judith’s website Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) The Overstory by Richard Powers On Being interview with author Robert Macfarlane (Judith mentioned the author, I found the interview and wanted to share it here): The Hidden Human Depths of the Underland My website MythicMedicine.love  Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz Medicine Stories Facebook group Mythic Medicine on Instagram Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Poisonous plants have long been misunderstood and even forbidden, yet they hold a special medicinal power. Let’s do as our ancestors did and carefully, respectfully ally ourselves with this potent family of healing herbs.
IN THE INTRO:
Poisonous plants, visionary journeys, and Samhain/Halloween witches IN THE INTERVIEW:
How trees and plants companioned Kathryn through her dark and disconnected teen years, led to her meditation practice and relationship with wrathful deities, and eventually brought her to the poison plant path Safety: we are not talking about ingesting these plants, but working with their spirits Making space to integrate traumatic experiences My recent experience with belladonna What happens when many people all tune in to the same plant spirit The effects of deliriant plants How (not) to work with datura, a gateway plant into underworld/angelic work How the scent of plants can bring us into deeper relationship with them Gender, pronouns, and plants Reclaiming lost visionary lineages Being aware of projecting our desires and our wounds onto plants When plant knowledge transmissions get broken through the ages When Amanita muscaria came to Kathryn in a dream Exploring the myth of Persephone The dose makes the medicine/poison- the poisonous plants used in modern medicine, and the different mechanisms of action by which they can harm LINKS:
Kathryn’s website
Ben Vierling art website
Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) Poisonous Plant Book Recommendations- 
Pharmako Gnosis: Plant Teachers and the Poison Path by Dale Pendell
Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants: Ethnopharmacology and its Applications by Christian Ratsch and Albert Hoffman
Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants by Claudia Muller-Ebeling, Christian Ratsch, and Wolf Storl
Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers by Richard Evans Schultes, Christian Ratsch, and Albert Hoffman 
Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart
Malleus Maleficarum
Hammer of the Witches on the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast
Witches & Witch-Hunts: A Global History by Wolfgang Behringer My website MythicMedicine.love 
Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz
Medicine Stories Facebook group
Mythic Medicine on Instagram
Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society" -J. Krishnamurti
"Medical science has made such tremendous progress that there is hardly a healthy human left." -Aldous Huxley
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." -Arthur Schopenhauer
IN THE INTRO:
Remembering that radical literally means “back to the root"- what we consider today to be radical health care is actually just our ancestral human biological inheritance  IN THE INTERVIEW:
How Dr. Brogan’s own diagnosis, and sitting with the cognitive dissonance that came with it, turned what she had been taught about health and healing on its head Searching for the science that we aren’t given It’s not so much information wars as competing paradigms that are causing the divisions in modern medicine Embracing complexity and critical thinking Psychiatric pharmaceuticals are the most habit-forming substances on the planet (Dr. Brogan hasn’t written a prescription since 2010) Walking away from labels and tapering off psych meds How a diagnosis can act as a hex, or as an opening into a more authentic connection to self The dehumanizing that has to happen when medicine is practiced at scale Suffering ends where meaning begins How the Evolutionary Mismatch between our ancestral human bodies and our modern lives underlies so many physical and mental disorders We have tremendous capacity to change our gene expression Precision and bioindividual (the future of!) medicine v vaccine mandates (everyone gets the same 72 highly complex and inherently risky injections, no matter their individual health profiles) How two of Dr. Brogan’s patients having 2nd trimester stillbirths after receiving the flu shot sent her down the path of 10,000 hours of vaccine research The germ warfare paradigm is the ultimate expression of a control, fear-based paradigm of medicine  Creating the conditions that allow people to heal themselves Kelly’s personal experience transforming motherline pain and trauma, and raising her daughters to report only to themselves IN THE OUTRO:
The conversation they are trying to silence is the very conversation we need to be having; the information they are trying to censor is the exact information you need to know The cultural cognitive dissonance wherein we live in a society that censors the hashtag #vaccineinjury while simultaneously paying out $4,182,078,646 through the government run national Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (as of August 2019, link below) Google and social media search censorship Some great accounts, websites, and one podcast for real vaccine information How censorship and vaccine mandates will backfire on the Pharmaceutical industry LINKS:
KellyBroganMD website Kelly’s Vaccines and Brain Health free eBook Medicine Stories Patreon (Own Your Self book giveaway!) The Continuum Concept book by Jean Liedloff Censorship is the Last Tool of Tyrants article by Dr. Joseph Mercola Google is Now a Pharmaceutical Company CDC is a Vaccine Company Financial report by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program My website MythicMedicine.love  Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz Medicine Stories Facebook group Mythic Medicine on Instagram Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes) SOME VACCINE RESOURCES-
Instagram accounts:
@pubmed_science_stats @TheAulaniProject @BelieveMothers @EchoUnafraid Facebook pages:
The HighWire  Hear This Well Vaccine Impact Ashley Everly Websites:
Informed Consent Action Network Children’s Health Defense by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Immunity Education Group The National Vaccine Information Center The HighWire on YouTube if you’re not on FB And listen to The Vaccine Conversation podcast!

Owen never thought he’d be a dad, neither of us planned on getting married, and we had no idea that our love for plants would play such a big role in sustaining our relationship. Here’s a peek into how we make our lives together work...
IN THE INTRO:
Elderberry & Motherwort Three things that make our marriage work IN THE INTERVIEW:
How we met and then, six years later, got together (St. John’s Wort oil played a role) Why we pretended we weren’t falling in love even when we clearly were What we were doing before we got together, and how we’ve changed and grown together How Owen, who never thought he’d have kids, transitioned first into the role of stepdad and then new father How we find balance and prioritize our marriage while sharing kids, land, a home, and a business (spoiler alert: we don’t) What roles we each take on within the family and the business Ramblings on getting married and raising kids in middle age Parenting a teenager and a threenager Adulting, we hate it but it brings us closer Our reaction to our unexpected pregnancy How we became homeowners and married people, two things we never envisioned for ourselves What’s growing in our gardens, what tending our land looks like Sustainable wildcrafting (and pivoting away from wildcrafting) Why plant communication has been heavy for Owen lately What Owen thinks about my activism around the issue of vaccine mandates Civil uprising is the only option left to us on so many fronts, so many issues, as big businesses continue to destroy environmental and human health in the name of profit What we’ve learned from our fights Envisioning the future of our business and family LINKS:
Our website MythicMedicine.love (herbal medicines & more!) Medicine Stories Patreon  Amber’s/Mythic Medicine’s Instagram Owen’s Instagram Take our fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? quiz Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)