Medicine Stories Amber Magnolia Hill

St. John’s Wort has evolved over millennia to capture the ultimate expression of sunlight on our planet and turn it into the molecule hypericin, which has numerous profound effects on our human bodies.
Find our St. John’s Wort Oil.
Make your own with the Handcrafted Healing Herbal Oils online course (more links in the resources section below).
From deep nerve healing, relaxation, and pain relief when applied externally to its antidepressant, antiviral, and liver supportive properties when taken internally, SJW has always occupied an exalted place in the medicine cabinet of the ancestral humans who were lucky enough to live where it grew, and is one of the most used and loved herbal medicines in the world today.
IN THIS EPISODE:
St. John’s Wort acts as an extension of sunlight
The endless external uses include the healing of wounds, bruises, burns, blisters, cuts, eczema, growing pains, inflamed skin, muscle pain, nerve pain, neck tension, spasms, back pain, neuralgia, sciatica, insomnia, anxiety, and stress
The oil is indispensable for menstrual pain, pregnancy, postpartum, babies, children, elders, empaths, and highly sensitive people
Photosensitivity, precancerous skin cells, and using SJW as sunscreen
Internal uses: notes on the antidepressant, antiviral, and liver supportive effects (including my shingles story)
Hypericum feeds our inner radiance and summons forth our purpose and power
This ancient herb has always been associated with fairies and other magical beings
How empire co-opted pagan rituals and herbal practices
The widespread ritual use of St. John’s Wort as a protective herb
A word on wildcrafting and non-natives v invasives
Making your own high potency, shelf stable herbal oils
Herbal medicine is so simple, yet also endlessly complex
Kami McBride speaks about St. John’s Wort
RESOURCES (if listening on an app that doesn’t support embedded links, find these at https://mythicmedicine.love/podcast):
Mythic Medicinals St. John’s Wort Oil (finally back in stock!)
Medicine Stories Patreon (patrons can download Rosalee’s ebook here)
Cute, short video showcasing our St. John’s Wort garden
Learn to Make Your Own Herbal Oils:
Kami McBride’s Handcrafted Healing Herbal Oils online course
My video Sneak Peak at the Handcrafted Healing Herbal Oils online course from Kami McBride
Podcast Episodes & Books Mentioned:
Episode 23 The Profound Medicine of Herbal Body Oils
Episode 53 with Kami McBride Healing Herbal Oils: How to Make and Use Them
Episode 55 with Lola Pickett Highly Sensitive People are the Psychedelic Plants of the Human Realm
Episode 67 with Nadine Artemis Harvesting Light: the Alchemy of Sun & Human
Episode 65 with Rosalee de la Foret Wild Remedies: Tending Relationships with the Land Around Us
Episode 17 with Sajah Popham True Holistic Healing: Bridging Plant & Human Consciousness
Episode 62 with Sajah Popham Called to the Plant Path: Herbal Myths, Healing Forward, and Human Ecology
The article Feeding Your Inner Sun with St. John’s Wort from The School for Evolutionary Herbalism
Wild Remedies: How to Forage Healing Foods and Craft Your Own Herbal Medicine by Rosalee de la Foret and Emily Han
The Untold History of Healing: Plant Lore and Medicinal Magic from the Stone Age to Present by Wolf D. Storl
The Herbal Lore of Wise Women and Wortcunners: The Healing Power of Medicinal Plants by Wolf D. Storl
A Modern Herbal II by Maude Grieve
The New Healing Herbs: The Essential Guide to More Than 130 of Nature's Most Potent Herbal Remedies by Michael Castleman
More Good Stuff:
Kathi Keville’s website 
My website MythicMedicine.love 
Take our 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)

In these times, we all need all the healing help we can get. How lucky then that an infinite source of renewal and vitality lies just beneath our feet. Connection with the earth and plants never fails to shift our animal bodies into a place of calm receptivity and deep entrainment with the rhythms of nature. This is our ancestral birthright as human beings. Let us remember it.
TOPICS:
Name meaning and magic Weaving together ancestral lines How a chance encounter with an intuitive foretold Farai’s future path as a healer Being the cycle breaker in your family Working with plants is infinitely healing Living with a partner in the military Connection is the main thing that heals trauma Including kids into our every day folk herbalism Mullein medicine for littles Treating ear issues herbally Herbal care for animals Healing with topical honey Drawing salves for the win What we do when we find an embedded tick Folk herbalism is for you LINKS:
Farai’s Patreon Folk Herbalism for Everyone Farai’s website Farai on Instagram Medicine Stories Patreon (tick resource and Farai’s ebooklet are here) It Didn’t Start With You by Mark Wolynn What Happened to You? by Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Perry Naturally Healthy Babies & Children by Aviva Jill Romm Natural MD Radio Podcast Medicine Stories Episode 77: Herbalism is Homecoming & Our Senses Are Portals of Connection with Marysia Miernowska Juliette de Bairacli Levy’s books (including animal care)  Farai’s video on how to harvest nettles without getting stung Camille Rose hair products My website MythicMedicine.love  Take our 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)

For most of human history, herbalism hasn’t had a name. It was just a way of life, part of being human upon the earth. The folk traditions of our ancestors have deep nourishment to offer us, and are an antidote to the depleting and disheartening realities of modern life. Let us reclaim an embodied relationship to plants, come into alignment with the regenerative currents of nature and ourselves, and get back to the root of the root of the root.
TOPICS:
Remembering parts of ourselves through plants and storytelling Learning simple herbalism at her great-grandmother’s feet in Poland The many uses for nettle, including urtification or the application of the sting on the body Herbalism as homecoming Cultivating embodied presence in relationship with the plant realm Earth’s electromagnetic frequency brings us into the brainwave states where healing can happen Body portals (chakras) in relationship to plant healing Noticing where in your body a plant lands  Flooding the body with nourishment: drinking herbal teas & infusions every day (sometimes) Blending fresh spring greens to create herbal “juices” The most ancient herbal healing tradition on earth (v the way herbalism is often practiced today) Seasons and cycles: harmonizing ourselves to the regenerative currents of nature Midwifing death & dismantling structures in our own lives and society at large The dark womb of the universal mother: a personal, powerful medicine story in which names, archetypes, ancestral threads, and healing are interwoven The plants and the magic of Beltane LINKS:
School of the Sacred Wild website The Witch’s Herbal Apothecary book Marysia on Instagram The book’s illustrator Maggie Eileen Lochtenberg Sharon Blackie’s book If Women Rose Rooted My interview with Sharon on Episode 54: Lineage, Calling, and the Mythic Imagination Judith Berger’s book Herbal Rituals  My interview with Judith on Episode 59: Herbal Rituals, Rhythms, and Remembrance Article: Urtification or Stinging Nettles on the Skin Marysia’s article on The Pagan Roots of Easter Sage Mauer and The Gaia School of Healing and Earth Education Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) My website MythicMedicine.love  Take our fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz Medicine Stories Facebook group Mythic Medicine on Instagra Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

How do we support thriving life on earth through the pathway of maternal health? Our physiologic design is the inarguable truth, but in today’s confusing online culture well meaning morality politics often obscure what eons of evolution make clear. If we want to best support babies and their families, do the deep repair work of these times, and become the fully realized adults we were born to be, we must have an accurate understanding of what our biology needs from us.
Learn more about studying in community with Rachelle and exploring true wellness on the childbearing continuum, creating a culture of thriving life, and growing ourselves into the elders we so desperately need in the Innate Postpartum Care Certification Online Training at https://tinyurl.com/1darrj59.
TOPICS:
Social engagement: the lesser-known third branch of the autonomic nervous system (beyond sympathetic and parasympathetic)  Getting out of our conditioned morality and turning to nature/life/evolution as our ultimate teacher  Eating to grow a baby, birth a baby, help the body recover from birth, shift from gestation to lactation, replenish iron stores, and supply the nursling with necessary nutrients Babies in utero and at the breast literally grow their brains off of their mother’s brains (our bodies will always give our gestating or nursing babies nutrients first- at our expense, if we aren’t getting enough) Health is multigenerational The profound lack of emotional and spiritual maturation in modern adults Be real with yourself and speak your truth, because you’re going to offend people no matter what “I can’t be triggered if I don’t have something to work on” Reorienting towards joy and the alchemy of women coming together to exalt life How lack of community support is toxic for mothers Keeping in mind the both/and in this time of repair Healing can only happen when we feel safe Kids and anxiety in heightened times RESOURCES (if listening on an app that doesn’t support embedded links, find these at https://mythicmedicine.love/podcast):
Innate Postpartum Care Certification Online Training (early bird registration for $300 off ends 3/2; total registration period ends 3/7) Medicine Stories Patreon- get an extra $100 off coupon code for the training through 3/7 Our previous conversation- Revillaging: Maternal, Cultural, and Planetary Wellness Are One Rachelle on Instagram Rachelle's Physiologic Baby Care Course Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor My website MythicMedicine.love  Take our 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)

If the phrase “school wounds” stirs something inside of you, or the words “crisis schooling” describe your current reality as a parent or caregiver, or you’ve just always intuited that there’s something not quite right about modern compulsory schooling, this episode is for you.
TOPICS:
The reimagining of schooling as we’ve known it Akilah's story of schooling and unschooling Unschooling is not just school at home- it’s a whole new paradigm of learning, power, and belonging School wounds The radical presence it takes to raise up kids in this way How leaving school can free up a family’s life in myriad unanticipated ways Schoolishness and the American Dream, in which so much of the actual human gets lost The slow normalization of dehumanizing systems and institutions Being constantly in curiosity about how our children (and ourselves!) actually learn Reframing consent in the parent/child relationship The liberation of being allowed bodily autonomy (especially for black folk) Akilah’s response to the common assertions that only stay at home parents/rich people/white people can school at home Actionizing love & recognizing that it’s all portal work RESOURCES (if listening on an app that doesn’t support embedded links, find these at https://mythicmedicine.love/podcast)::
RaisingFreePeople.com Fare of the Free Child Podcast Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work by Akilah S. Richards Akilah's Patreon Akilah on Instagram Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) Psychology Today article John Tayloe Gatto’s many astute writings on modern schooling My website MythicMedicine.love  Take our 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)

Your ancestors are with you every time the portal of the womb opens; our blood connects us to our lineage, to the mythic archetypes that hold meaning for us, and to our deepest inner selves. Whatever sort of womb release you experience, it lies on a continuum of commonality with all releases. Let us explore these interconnections so that we can be deeply rooted in our own bodies.

TOPICS:
How Samantha got into this work The womb as a source of pleasure and power, instead of pain There is cellular alchemy no matter how a pregnancy ends (birth, miscarriage, abortion) and commonalities between all the different kinds of pregnancy release Abortion is a nexus of sex and death and birth The Dark Goddess and the Underworld Journey- seeing the release of a pregnancy through a mythic lens Modern medicine is an industry, not a healing modality The psychospiritual process of menstruation: when the cervix is open we can more easily access other states of consciousness The Sacred Yes- what we are saying yes to when we say no to a pregnancy Honoring death as a healing need in our culture Function and access to Misoprostol Understanding the two categories of abortion: mechanical and chemical Demystifying the idea of a "natural abortion" Herbs: emmenagogues and abortifacients  Sitting at the feet of the plant elders Systems of false authority, persecution, and the witch wound How shame and secrecy around abortion can prolong bleeding Conscious contraception Giving yourself a 40 day postpartum healing period after any pregnancy release
LINKS (if listening on an app that doesn’t support embedded links, find these at https://mythicmedicine.love/podcast):

Samantha’s website Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) Medicine Stories Episode #73 Mysteries of the Dark Moon: The Healing Power of the Dark Goddess by Demetra George Herbal Healing for Women by Rosemary Gladstar Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom by Dr. Christiane Northup The Womb Sovereignty Song performance (can also find on Soundcloud) Self-Managed Abortion, the Law, and CODIV-19 Fact Sheet The Self-Managed Abortion podcast Red School Guttmacher Institute Stats on Induced Abortion in the United States BBC reporting on abortion rates Wild Power by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer PlanCPills.org If/When/How Women on Waves film Women on Web A New View of a Woman's Body by Carol Downer Samantha Zipporah's Patreon Take our fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? Quiz My website MythicMedicine.love  Medicine Stories Facebook group Mythic Medicine on Instagram Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)