From HerbMentor.com, this is Herb Mentor Radio.
You're listening to Herb Mentor Radio on HerbMentor.com. I'm John Gallagher.
Herb shop, and herb walks in remote and urban areas around the world. She served on faculty at the National College of Naturopathic Medicine, Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine, the California School of Herbal Studies, and has offered her own intensive herbal program in Portland for years.
Cascade even started three food co ops across the US.
You can take classes from cascade at the tenth international herb symposium, June twenty fourth to the twenty sixth. That's this year, two thousand eleven in Massachusetts along with many folks I've interviewed on this podcast.
And you can meet many of them in one place. Learning herbs dot com is a proud sponsor of the conference, and you can visit, the International Herb Symposium at InternationalHerbSymposium.com. Cascade, welcome.
Well, thank you, John. Thank you for having me on Herb Mentor.
Thank you.
Great to be here.
Oh, it's it's an honor. So, you know, you're one of those herbalists that you can pretty much just talk about anything with.
I've knocked out a lot of things.
Some some people have certain you know, niches or things they specialize in. But but, so what we what we have for you a little later, is just a a big, big assortment of of cool questions that members on her mentor dot com have submitted. So I'm excited for those questions and we'll get to those in a bit. But first, I'm always fascinated by, the story of an herbalist.
So I'm wondering is how did you start? How did you learn? Who your mentors were? What inspired you?
All that. So that's a big question.
It is a big question and it's a very important question.
And my story really starts out as a child because my, parents are from the South, even though I was raised a Northerner, a Yankee, because my dad left the South. My mom and dad left the South, for work.
But we I was deeply connected to, North Georgia because they're both from there and and that's where all of the relatives were. So I spent a good deal of time there in my life. And my mother's side of the family and my father's were both involved in plant, wildcrafting foods and medicines from the beautiful hills and mountains that dominate there. And so I had this great, just experiences picking wild things and bringing them back home and using them.
So as long as I can remember, that's been a part of my life. And I think that that's an important aspect, for a lot of reasons. But one is because it instilled in the innate trust of nature as a place to go for sustenance and for healing. And, you know, much later in my life when I began, teaching about herbs and wild foods and also, working with people with health concerns, I realized that even though they were seeking out the help of an herbalist, they didn't really have the platform of trust you know, that comes with when you learn something at the knee of people that you deeply love and trust, like your parents and your grandparents.
So, anyway, I think that that's a very important aspect of my relationship with plants and people and and trying to get the two of them together and to develop that intimate relationship, which is why, I think it's so important to just get outdoors as much as possible.
Get to know the plants as much as possible and and start that start building that trust before you're ill, actually, is the best because then it's very difficult, I think, you know, to to build a layer of trust when you're already dealing with something that is maybe uncomfortable or, very concerning.
But it's people still do it and it's possible, but I think it's great to start young. And I think that's what's happening now. And now my classes are filled with second and even third generation people now that, whose moms and dads were into various ways of healing, you know, alternative so called healing.
And and so I see that trust already built into a lot of those young people that are taking the classes now.
And so it started all over again. You know?
And do you have, like, did your grandparents or parents, pass on knowledge to you, specifically? Or was it, like, other mentors in your area? Just something you felt just found yourself studying at one point?
Or, like Well, you know, just first of all, it's helping your parents, your grandparents pick things.
I mean, that's you know, it's not like they just go out and provide. You you you go out there and dig and cut and harvest too. So, you know, whether you're picking wild muscadine grapes or, digging around for ginseng or, golden seal or yellow root, santhariza.
And and that's what you did as a and you did all that as a young person.
Yeah. As a kid. You know?
So that was just normal for you.
It's not like you know, hill people don't help people don't, make a big deal about those kind of things. I mean, it wasn't like you're you're necessarily proud of it or you're you're, you know, claiming yourself to be an herbalist or a healer of any kind. I think, you know, like my granddad was my mother's father was sought out for his healing abilities. My his mother, my great grandmother was an herbalist and a midwife And more in a formal sense, you know, where there was actually exchanges, not necessarily money, because people back in those days didn't have a lot of money and there was a lot of trade that went on.
But, there was formal stuff like that. But more specifically, it was just the doing, you know, when the when the season was right and the ramps were, you know, in the spring, the ramps are ready to pick, you you that's what you did, you know. And And even up in the North, when my mother and dad moved to the North, there are a lot of the same plants. And so you still did a lot of we had dandelion greens every spring, a long series of them as a spring tonic, but also just as a food, you know, and my mother made wilted, dandelion salads, wilting the greens with hot She she used a pork, salt pork, which is, you know, famous southerners.
They made their own. You know, my mother grew up making, you know, doing doing her own meats and so, you know, salt pork was something that people had that they could save and and you just you just render out some of the, you know, not a lot, but some of the fat and saute some onions and garlic in it and pour that or ramps if you had them, pour that over the, greens and that was a delicious salad that was also serving as a medicinal food.
So the combination of food as medicine, you know, that was something that I also grew up with on both sides of the family and my dad's side as well. And you were always supposed to eat so that you could eat things that were very special and powerful foods, you know, especially from the wild so that you would be you wouldn't get sick. I mean, that was the point. It wasn't it wasn't any kind of big deal, you know. It was just a hopefully, you stayed out of doctor's offices and hospitals, you know.
Right. And that was what makes the most sense because, you know, folks up there and that make so what was it like when you realized one day, you know, he he came down he came down from the hill and you were met lots of other folks out there and and realized they didn't quite have the same upbringing as yours. That they're like, what?
Was that would you ever have a moment like that?
Or or Well, I was always surprised at how, far the human humans can get without, a lot of knowledge about the Earth.
That has been really astounding to me that, you know, that we can dominate in such a way and really be so disconnected.
But I I feel that and I have seen so much that people want to be so deeply connected to the earth. Most people have that deep, deep desire. And even though they may not do a lot about it, as far as getting outdoors, they love to watch nature shows, they love to feel connected to butterflies and, you know, beautiful flowers and, and, you know, big cats or whatever. They're they're interested in all of that.
And, of course, people love their pets, their animals who are, you know, quite close to nature whether, you know, even if they're an indoor animal, they're still they still have that innate ability. And so I I I feel like people want that connection. But the way that we've developed, I think, over the many centuries on the planet, you know, is to keep being protected one layer after another from nature. And it is kind of astounding how far we can get from it.
But also any little gap, allows people in their consciousness allows people to move right back over to to nature and realize how important it is. And I think that's one thing that illness often does for people is it opens a little gap to to wanting to explore ways that maybe have been in the back of their mind or it's just something that's deep inside them that they haven't operated on and they and all of a sudden they want to connect with it more. Mhmm. I see that a lot with pregnancy too.
You know, people, all of a sudden when they get pregnant or are trying to get pregnant, there's an opening and and and they want very much to move forward with things that that have been in the back of their mind. And often I think it is nature.
You know, because I I, because because you're teaching students all the time and you're always in touch as well with, you know, the fact that for somebody who has an opening and realizes, you know, I wanna learn about plants and you and you know how overwhelming and scary that can seem in the in the very beginning for someone. And and I always try to keep in touch with that space till I can keep connecting with folks on that level because that's the reality. So what are things that you do with your students to simply show them, hey, you know, connecting with nature and having the space isn't is really easy, you know.
Yeah. Well, I think first of all, you know, of course, herb walks.
But, and I love doing herb walks probably more than any part of my teaching.
But I when I'm doing an indoor class, an evening class with, herb walks, you know, on the weekends, what I like to start with are is what I call produce aisle healing. And that is getting to know the plants in the produce aisle that you that people buy all the time and and bring home and eat. But they don't know that other side of them that are more medicinal.
We're just going down the produce aisle and we're working our way through it. And this week, it's dealing with the Apicis family, the umbels that are available in the market there and celery and cilantro and fennel and carrots, just to name the top four and then expanding into the seeds of those that you use in your cooking or should use if you're not. The spice, anise seeds and fennel seeds, and cumin and coriander.
So it's really starting with things that people are already fairly intimate with and then building from that. I'm really into building from what's already there. What is the base the person has? Whether you're doing clinical work or teaching, you know, through in classes or seminars, it's what's already there? What do you have to build from?
And trying to build to to shore up the base that the person already has. Mhmm. And sure, you know, people that come to herb classes or seek out an herbalist for health consultations, they already have some sort of base there or they wouldn't have found you. You know, they they have some level of trust and something has built some kind of foundation.
So, you know, it's I always wanna spend time getting to know that what what a little a little bit more about that foundation just like you're doing with me right now. What's my base? What did I how come I'm interested in plants? How can I can how can I feel good enough about, that base in order to move off of that into realms of teaching other people, which I consider to be a very big responsibility?
You know, whether you're just teaching or, you know, even more so, helping somebody with, with their health, you know, individually.
That's a huge honor that someone would seek you out, I think to start with and then making sure that you have a good foundation and you have enough experience to really be able to draw from.
Right.
And because you're gonna be carrying in some ways, you're gonna be carrying that person a little bit as they develop more of a relationship or more of you know, they get better or they get more information.
If it's a class, you're you're kinda carrying everybody. And you've gotta have a really sound based yourself. It can't be just academic. That's for sure.
As far as I'm concerned, the academics are they're interesting. And I love books. And, but they fall away as time goes by, a lot of the book stuff, when you're really working with people and you're looking for things that are very meaningful and authentic. And the only place that those exist are really in the plants, you know, in nature itself.
That's where that exists.
And Well, that recipe makes a lot of sense.
Well, I there's a story that illustrates that, from when, Rosemary and I, Rosemary Gladstar, brought Rocille Alarcon, who will be at the international, which you mentioned, the International Earth mean, she she Herb Symposium. And I went to her classes as much as I could. I really deeply connected with her and mentioned to Rosemary that it would be great to study more with her. And she said, yeah, let's do it.
So knowing Rosemary's great energy, she got a trip together in nineteen ninety six. And so we started out on this, study program with Rocio, you know, letting her guide us in in Ecuador to the places and people that she thought and plants that she thought we would benefit from. Mhmm. So on that first trip, we went to a very wonderful area that, is called the Choco region in Northern Ecuador on the coast that is not very well known at all.
And not there's no tourist tourism there. There wasn't then. There's a little bit now. But, anyway, we were fortunate enough to for Rocio, to have set up this, these three shamans who came and worked on our group.
And and I use that word loosely because they they probably wouldn't like that word too much, but because that's how we can relate to it, I'll use it. But, anyway, the guy that, the very nice man that we had in our group, we broke into three smaller groups.
And the group I was with, I really connected with him so much. Well, for one thing, he completely, knock on wood here, and I'm not gonna do I'm gonna do it right here on my old desk. But, that because I had some carpal tunnel and I'd had a lot of work done on with people here in Portland, some of the best people and outside of Portland and done a lot of work on it myself. And I was holding my own with it.
It wasn't like I was, you know, going downhill with it, but it was present. But, anyway, without him saying a word, he worked on my, my I didn't tell him there was anything wrong with me when it was my turn to be worked on. He just went directly to my wrist, and he did a series of things. And, you know, it completely took it away.
And, so, you know, I I was astounded the next morning. I'd always wake up with, you know, with, hands that were partially asleep in the morning. And it was really from using the computer. That was back in the day when, you know, a lot of us were so wowed by the Internet and everything. We were spending way too much time on on the computer.
But anyway, I woke up the next morning and putting away my bedroll, and I realized that I had my hands were gray, you know? And I I didn't have time to think about it because I was helping to run the group. But, you know, it just never came back. But another thing that happened with that man relating more back to, what we were talking about with going to nature for the authentic piece is I had a book with me and, about, you know, Amazonian plants.
And even though that's not the Amazon, a lot of the plants are the same. And, he headed out and he saw me with it and he came over and he we had to have two translators to work with, or one translator. We had one translator that spoke both Chapalacci and Spanish. So it's difficult, you know, communicating.
But his main point was he wanted to look at the book. And so I handed it to him and he wanted to know for me to know that these drawings, these little line drawings in the book were not the plants. And I said, I do realize that, you know. And, then he proceeded to sniff it and carefully run his hands over it. And then he asked me if he could borrow it. And I said, well, yeah. I was concerned because I liked that book.
Right.
But, he wanted to borrow it. I I thought, great. You know, this man, I'll give him anything. So I gave him the book and he had it for a while and he came back with it a couple days later and he said, what's this made out of?
And I said, well, it's made out of trees.
And I and he knew about making paper. In fact, Rocio had helped make a little paper cooperative in another village, and they had seen that paper where they're grinding up the actual fiber and everything.
So, anyway, he says, oh, oh, oh.
He said, well, he says, you didn't write the book. I said, no. He says, you didn't draw these pictures. No, I didn't. He says, what does the book have to do with you?
I said, well, I I use it for learning. And and he says, Well, basically, you know, you you really can't learn anything about plants except from the plants themselves.
And then I asked him about his teaching teacher, you know, his mentor. He had a mentor up in Columbia.
And he said, well, he says, my mentor taught me some things that he could teach me, but I had to go and meet the plants and figure out how the plants were going to perform for me, and what my relationship was with them. It wasn't that he could teach me that. So he was very baffled by our interest in their plants for one thing because we were from so far away.
But in the end, we ended up seeing that really what that book had for me was that it was made from trees, and those trees were the what was speaking to me from the book and not the information that wasn't my information that hadn't come through channeled to me.
And it was, you know, it was very profound.
Right. Wow.
So I I that's the kind of thing that, you know, that he brought to words what I what I felt innately, you know, in many ways. And yet, of course, I still like books because I'm we've we're trained with this. Whatever we're trained with as a child, you know, that's what we kind of relate to and what we go back to for when we are feeling ilities or having any kind of difficulties, we tend to go, you know, we call it comfort foods or comfort activities or whatever. We tend to wanna go back there. So, with our training in academics, I think it is a stretch to begin to learn to trust information from any other source but through the academic, you know, vehicle.
Mhmm.
Exactly. That's that's great. Goodness. That's exactly what I my underlying goal and all our work on Herd Mentor and all is as well, is developing that relationship between people and nature. And that's the most important thing. That's where the real healing is. Right?
Yeah. I think I think that that's and healing is a huge word, you know. For me, it's certainly changed forms since I was, you know, in my twenties and starting an herb practice, which I sort of smile now at, you know, that I would even have the audacity to think that I'd have enough life experience, much less knowledge to do that, you know. But there was wonderful epiphanies made with people, you know, that great healings that occurred through the plants and the foods and the and the activities that people were willing to do to make changes in their lives.
But healing and I've learned this a lot from traditional people. Healing encompasses not just feeling good, and being very active and all the things that we sort of relate to right now as health.
There's layers of health, I think, on every level. It doesn't matter what you have left of your physical body. There's a healthy way to approach that place, you know, whether you're very, very ill, and actually on the verge of dying, you know, and and and passing over, there's a there's a layer of health there. You know, if you have a a very complicated genetic disease that, makes your life very difficult compared to the way that you see most people getting around, there's a layer of health that can be overlaid on that through a change in mindset, you know, in activities, foods. So I think health is so diverse and, so big these days for me. It's just humongous. And it does relate to every level of being, you know, of life as we know it and of course through work with other people that work on different levels like that shaman I was mentioning.
You know, it it it extends beyond just the visual and the physical, emotional, spiritual things that we see right here. You know, it could be it even expands beyond that, I think. So health is is a huge word, and I don't use it health and healing, I don't use those words lightly, as I used to, maybe more so.
I hope I'm conveying that.
Yes, you are.
It's kind of, the into the woo woo level. But, you know, I think many people, whether you're a physicist or whatever you are, if you go deep enough into whatever interest you have, then you start to really see how big everything is. You know, it's just so so big.
You know, I I encourage people in the IHS to get there because, last time I was there, I did get a chance to participate in, event with, Rocio as well as, you know, Donna and Rekieta and raileen, you know, from hawaii.
And, and it was fantastic. It was amazing. And it was really it really I really got a lot out of that. She she definitely you know, that that was a great experience.
Yeah.
Yeah. Traditional people, I think around the world, I try very hard, over my the years when I before I had a family, in my travels to always go and stay a long time with people that were living close to plants. And all of those people, when you stayed long enough, they all operated on this very deep spiritual level about everything. You know, it wasn't just about healing. It wasn't just about it it was really an all encompassing.
Spirit or not. You know, we we we there is a level of consciousness about it, I think, even when we're we're we're we're seeing quite unconscious about it and but traditional people don't have to, in general, don't have to worry about being seen as a an oddball or, you know, a complete freak.
And everything, in fact, that shaman that I mentioned earlier, he one of the things he said the first night we arrived, people were very tired.
We have to go a long ways up a boat. We had a long, we had a plane ride on the same day, a plane ride, a bus ride, and then it's like a fifty mile boat ride up the river. Mhmm. People were very exhausted. It's about eleven o'clock at night. The people that in the village are up way later than they're supposed to be too, than they wanted to be waiting for us.
And they had prepared a feast and right away everybody wants a shower and bed. You know, they aren't even worried about food anymore though they were starving a little while before that.
But the shaman was very clear with saying, to the leaders, you know, we have to have the ceremony first. The welcoming part is very important. If we don't do that, you know, it's not gonna work work out well. And you need to make sure that people understand that. And so, of course, we had to kind of snap people too and say, look, we came all this way because we are here to learn, and this is the first lesson here in this village is what we're gonna do what they what they want us to do.
So, anyway, the the point was that we had to sing and dance with them. They they taught us something to do and and people were like, are you kidding? You know, it's really brought up a lot of energy around being exhausted and everything. And we were we had to get kinda tough like drill sergeants and say, you will sing sing and dance, you know, and get going with it.
So but, you know, within five minutes of that ceremony starting, people's energy was totally changed. We stayed up. We had, you know, we had the feast. Nobody talked about bed anymore.
And when people went to bed, you know, it was fine. You know? But the point is spirit comes first. You know?
You take care of spirit, and then everything falls into place. And that's their point. And later in the trip, he he came to me again and he said, can you tell the people something? This is my final kind of words.
Is the most important thing humans have to do is sing and dance.
Wow. I said, wow. You know, that's that's it.
Yeah. He says, because we're responsible for keeping a a certain level of energy going, you know, on on the planet. And he didn't say on the planet, but just to keep a certain level of energy going basically was how it was translated and that if we fall down on that, you know, it's not good.
Wow. Anyway. You know, and and and and and speaking of, you know, going out and having these adventures, you I I read where, yourself and Rosemary Goliath star, you are taking a group to Ecuador in two thousand twelve?
That's right. We're gonna Rocio and Rosemary and I are going back. We haven't been there since two thousand one. Wow.
So And how how where do people find out about that?
Well, I it's going to get it's not it's it's barely out there. We We're finishing the itinerary. But, the I I think it's going to be posted on on Rosemary Sage Mountain site, and that will be a good place to go. But people can contact me too, and I'd be happy to get them connected up, you know, with with, so that they can see if it's if it's a trip that is going to be good for them or not.
And folks, if you go to the IHS, you can ask Cascade and Rosemary about it personally and Rosio. All three of them will be there.
That's right. We're all having a reunion.
So don't miss that.
So so, Kelsky, what I'd like to do now on the second part of this is just get to some of these questions, which will seem pretty random to folks because they were randomly submitted.
So, yeah. So these, I'm just gonna go forward and and everyone listening, whoever submitted questions, you know, we only got so much time so we're gonna get to what we can get to here. And we always have a forum on our mentor to ask your question. If you really need that answered, you can just go on there and ask and and maybe the community can help each other out too.
Alright.
Great service.
Yo. Thank you. Thank you. It's great because, you know, having a forum that's within a site that's kinda private, you know, in a way, you know, then people feel safer and also there's a lot of like respect and people help each other out with their own experiences and so the whole concept is people are helping mentor each other and it's not, you know, and it's really about that personal relationship with nature and theirs.
So cascade Jennifer writes in here that natural progesterone cream is commonly recommended to women for hormone balance.
And she says, I know this progesterone is synthesized from wild yam. And her questions are is it is it truly natural to get progesterone like this? And can the same benefits be obtained by simply using YLDM in its whole herb forms? What do you think about that?
Well, that's that's a big ball of wax.
Yeah.
Well, you know, just to even if we just give people directions, you know, where to look or Well, I always say, first of all, I would clarify that I always tell all my students to take everything I say with a teaspoon of tamari.
And because they're you know, everyone has their viewpoint, and it gets very confusing in the world or everywhere to figure out things. But my own feeling about progesterone creams, and I've seen I've not I generally don't, recommend them, myself, as far as, like, buying them. Because in general, I one of my big points in my classes and my practice is to try to get people to, as much as possible, make things themselves so that they start with ingredients that they can see and manipulate them into something else that they can use, if they need to be manipulated. So most of the progesterone creams, they're basically, my understanding, is two types.
And it's really good. You can go on the Internet now. It's so much easier than the old days to research some of this. Some progesterone creams have just naturally occurring, from basically a yam base.
Others have a yam in them, but they also may have progestin or other forms of progesterone in them. And so you want to if you're having really kind of the scuttlebutt is if you're having really excellent results with your progesterone cream, it's probably because it's not just you know, from from natural wild yam.
That said, you know, wild yam as an herb, diaspora, usually we relate to wild yam in our country medicinally as diastoria villosa, but there's over two hundred, maybe two hundred and fifty species identified of of wild yams, in the Dioscorea genus.
Mhmm.
And so and and I've tried to get to know those both by eating them in in my travels, talking to people, that I can speak to about, you know, in the areas where they're grown and they're used as food, how do they use them for medicine? What are they what are they what is their, relationship with them? So, you know, my my, feeling about diasterea villosa and from my own experience is that it can be very powerful as a muscle relaxer, a smooth muscle relaxer as is in all of the old and newer herb books.
It was specific for relaxing the uterine muscle. I've also seen it for relaxing, for allowing gallstones to be passed, again, because of the smooth muscle tissue involved there. Also for urinary tract stones.
So, you know, it has a very, I think, a very strong action when it's used properly. It's very hard, almost like little rocks. It's one of the few herbs that I buy powdered to keep in my pharmacy.
Generally, I like to powder things. If I do want them powdered at all, I'm gonna powder them myself with my various grinders I have. But while DiEM breaks blades, you know, even good stainless steel blades, very hard to powder. So I like it in a powdered form. People can use that to make, products to put on topically, which I think also has some use for muscle relaxing and may also be able to be effective to some degree for helping with balancing hormones.
And also, it's been you know, YLDM in itself, I've seen, be really helpful for headaches, taken as a key or a tincture for headaches, or the powder just stirred into water, for headaches related to premenstrual or perimenstrual, before or after the menstrual cycle.
So, you know, I've certainly used it a lot and I like the herbs, so I wanna make that really clear. Mhmm.
But as far as just the general, like, this person's question sounds like, you know, there's not a specific thing she's using senses with in practice is to try not to need to use something that I'm going to need to send somebody to the market to buy on a regular basis. That there that if if there's other if there's symptoms of hormone imbalance, like, you know, premenstrual really difficult premenstrual things or breakthrough bleeding or, other other signs that things are really out of whack, then, maybe it's a good thing to use, if it's working well, maybe it's a good thing to use in courses, not on a daily basis. And courses are something that I always teach for chronic illness, chronic conditions is to take use if it's helpful, use it for a week or two weeks, ten days, something like that. Take a good break from it, five days, ten days, two weeks.
Do another course of it, on and off, on and off. This is really good for adaptogenic herbs or stress like ginseng, eleutherococcus, Siberian ginseng, other other abrellas that have been used as adaptogenic herbs.
And I think that in my experience with working with people and in my trainings with people, courses are really important where you're not taking something day in and day out.
So I'm really very I try to steer people away from getting not hooked, you know, as far as addiction goes, but just hooked on using something day in and day out. One thing that can happen with YLVM just taking it orally is, it can peter out. You can see it have great results with people with helping to balance hormones and they last for months. Then it just begins to become less effective.
And I think adjusting the formula is important and getting rid of the YLDM for a while. And not necessarily forever, but bringing it can be reintroduced. But, anyway, the on again off again, and I call it in a in a course. That's how I learned Okay.
Learned about it.
Okay. Okay. Great.
But I I if she can research her product, specifically and what's in it and whether or not it's got, you know, progesterone from sources other than wild yam, that's that she can probably find that out and then make a decision, you know, based on whether or not that's what you wanna do is use progesterone's very powerful and a little bit goes a long way.
Okay.
You know, it's the another question we have here was, well, a person named Bobble Frog. That's a great that's a great name.
Anyway, she was actually thinking of going to Belize, to with, wanted to learn about plants traditionally. And, has interesting recommendations you have for someone wanting to experience, wanting that experience in terms of educational preparation and how to arrange that type of trip. Well, just go see you at the go go to Ecuador in two thousand twelve.
Yeah. But I think, you know, when you take a tour, when you go on a tour Yeah.
Yeah.
It's very different than what maybe this person is wanting to experience.
Right. Right.
And, you know, how I would interpret that question is and my and my my, advice would be, having been a traveler like that, myself, is that, but first of all, Belize is a nice country to go to if you are not if you only speak English because because it was a British colony.
It was it did you know, a lot of the Mayan people, though they may not like it, do speak English.
So if you're wanting to, and then you have also the coastal people, the African people. I'm forgetting what they're called there.
And I haven't worked with those people directly. I've met them, but I haven't really done any work with them. That's another whole culture that's very African that you can plug into. And they, of course, speak, gee, I'm forgetting the language, the name of that language too. But, you know, it's English based too. So anyway, Belize is a nice country for if you want to go and experience a different culture and and and learn more about the healing.
Of course, Rosita Arvigo, has written a book called Sastun, s a s t u n.
And Rosita is a wonderful, teacher. She does some teaching still there. It's, more with the Mayan abdominal massage, more so than maybe, more broader based learning. But they could plug into something that Rosita Arvigo is doing there.
She also created the Mayan Medicine Trail, adjacent to her property, there in the middle of the country. And so that's called the Mayan Medicine Trail. It's marked, and it's now, I believe, owned by a group that keeps it up, and she helps with it too. But, that's, you know, that's a nice place to start, and there's gives you a it's nice to land somewhere, if you're in a new country with some connection just a little bit to get your feet on the ground. And, but I would suggest in Belize, to go south and, and just connect with the Mayan people as much as possible by being unobtrusive and also carrying buying food, bringing things that are of value to them in your backpack, you know, small things, not expecting to get something for nothing.
You know, it's not like they they necessarily want money for their for your education.
But, you know, you really do need to to be very, very respectful of people, and in helping people. My experiences in the past have been to stay with people, pay them. You know, you can always find family homes that are open to keeping letting travelers stay with them. Then you can pay them for your room and board.
And just you want to be unobtrusive but helpful and offer to help with just menial tasks. And that allows you to get very close to people. A lot of times you're more trouble than you're worth because you're not very good at what they're doing.
Mhmm.
But they, you know, it is a way to connect. And then, you know, being able to spend time with people then is when you can get into more of the healing things, unless there's a clinic or situation where you can plug into or, some sort of healing, arts person who's looking for somebody to plug in with them. And of course, it's very hard to know that until you kind of settle in. So, the main point of all this rambling, is to go with enough time where you can really plug in, get don't try not to stay in hotels, try to stay with people, pay them adequately for your room and board, offer to help, you know, be available, sit around in the villages, at the time when other people are sitting around in the villages, just the average people, don't don't tend to congregate with, travelers or other tourists, tend to keep more to yourself and, you know, I let people know that you're there to learn from them.
You know? Mostly what happens in other countries is people that are there often, especially like Peace Corps people, and not to put down the Peace Corps, but, missionaries, Peace Corps, they're often there to tell the people that there's something that they are lacking, or whatever that can be improved. And that's not to say that there isn't good exchange that can happen. But in general, people in some of these remoter areas are very suspect of people who just show up, who are looking to learn from them, you know, because that's very unusual in general.
And, you know, that was the whole point of Rocio, in our trip to, Ecuador, the first and all three of them was we were there to honor the people, to honor the the shamans, to honor the the people working in the healing arts and the crafts and everything that that Rocio felt we should, wanted to to acknowledge the the power that those people have, not there as a missionary in a missionary posture to say, well, you know, you need to change. What you're thinking is wrong. We're there to say, boy, we're really interested and we would like to learn from you and what you have is a great value at this point in time and always, you know, it's of great value, and we've come all this way, to learn from you.
And I think that that's the kind of attitude that a traveler that wants to connect with people for learning, whatever it is, but especially healing because a lot of that stuff is hidden secret, and for good reason, you know, that they've kept it close. And, and so, you know, a lot of times we we waltz in with our notebooks or cameras and that's those are problematic right there.
Right. Right.
You don't wanna be waltzing around too much with that stuff. You you wanna look pretty pretty plain, you know, just stripped down, not a lot of baggage, in in many ways to really get into the deeper learning.
And, and have and probably have no expectations. Right? I mean, just, you know, the Yeah. Go with an open mind and see where it goes.
Exactly. And when you when you really keep your, something I've learned from political activism is, is that a political activist that's going to be successful generally has to know what they want.
So you have an open mind in this travel situation. But you also know what you want. And they make it more general, but you're there for a purpose and that purpose is to honor the people, to honor the culture, to be open to new ideas, even very far fetched things that are going to stretch you, to be open to those and to keep those in mind every day, and really let people know that how respectful you are. Through respect, that's when people are willing to share and open up little by little.
And it is a little by little process. It's not something that someone can go down for a week or two or even a month. You know? It's it's a long term process.
And a lot of the shaman people, so called, you know, they don't have they they don't have people that are interested in their communities as much as they used to because of the westernization that has happened in even very remote areas. So, you know, the people from our country, there is an open mindedness in our country and an interest, and in fact, one of the most the things I'm most proud of as an American is the interest that we generally have in other cultures and in other people.
And if you couple that with, with some time that you can take away from your busy life here and go somewhere and make yourself available, for helping someone, but really helping them do what they want to do, not trying to lead them down a path know, that they don't wanna go down as as is the case with some of the, projects that end up in these other countries. Mhmm.
I think there's really a need for this. And I've encouraged some of the naturopathic students and other my private students to, if they're interested in this to, yeah, go some of these places and put yourself out there, you know.
Alright.
Thank you. That's great. That's a very thorough response.
That's awesome.
Anne once is, sixty six. And, she she, says her calcium seems to be depleting. She's been drinking tea. I don't know if it's a tea or an infusion or or what of but anyway, she says drinking tea of stinging nettles and comfrey, but it's constipating.
Any suggestions for getting good calcium in her system? And she says she's also been eating spinach. So what what do you have for Anne?
Well, I would have a lot of questions for Anne.
Right.
You know, because Well, what are a couple of questions you might have her look into or places that she could, you know, get some Well, first of all, in general, nettles are not, are sometimes the opposite of constipation.
Yeah. That's what I was thinking.
So, you know, the constipation piece, I would, I might start there, rather than the calcium piece and want to explore, you know, what kind of constipation, I mean, what that's a word that is people define in different ways. And so I would wanna know more about what why she thinks she's constipated and what, symptoms she has and how her bowel habits play out and spend some time there probably working on various things from more liquids in general, more juicy foods, fruits, fresh fruits, and wheyse and of course fiber and organic acids that are in the juicy fruits, so things like that.
And then as far as the calcium goes, I think that in general, we tend in our country to be more mineral deficient than we should be for the amount of calories that we have available to most of us.
And certainly, that's a concern. And so, I think comfrey is relatively high in minerals as it's stinging nettles.
The availability of minerals is always problematic.
And so if you look back in the books, in eclectic books and other herbals from the past, there's often a vinegar, an acid is added to help to extract minerals. And of course, we've continued that a lot of us with making these acid tinctures, so called, which are basically most of us use apple cider vinegar to extract. And so, you know, if, if she wants to get the most minerals out of her herbs, I would think that it would be better to put them in a add some acid to them. Even if she's making a tea, acidify the tea with a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar to every cup of water so that that the minerals are more available.
And I would say, like, infusing or decocting, oats straw, you know, would be Yeah.
It would be. But, again, the mineral I mean, the, the acid is important for helping to get that mineral out. Right. Because, you know, like we're talking about oats, comfrey, and nettles, they all three have, a lot of silica as a protective, and many plants do.
Another one that's very high is horsetail. And they have, silica is to break it down, there are various things that people have done through either long steeping, some boiling, decocting rather than just infusing. In the case of oats, you know, if that isn't ground up, like, you know, whole oat, oat straw or, oat tops as many people are using now, which are really great. Mhmm. If you just take a handful of oat tops that aren't really chopped up very much at all and put them in, in an infusion, you're not going to get a whole heck of a lot of minerals from them. You may get some other goodies.
So in focusing on minerals, in creating mineral solutions, I think it's very important to focus directly on the minerals.
And that is through adding heat and acid are the two things. And then the third thing that I'm experimenting a lot with myself right now is through burning to ash the herbs.
And this is something that was, of course, done, well, there's one technique, the German word for it is spagyric, and that's adding ash back to your product and your liquid product. And it's more involved even in that. It ties into Alchemy and of course, the ash ties into Alchemy in general, burning things down to their elements and their basic elements. And so, those there are more and more people putting ashes into their tincture products or into their teas. Wow. And then then steeping those. And of course, we we grew up, and this is I've been teaching this, the last few years.
I've been going over the elements for myself.
I'm always relearning things and going back over. And and right now, I've been going through the elements. I started with water. I did that for five, six years really studying water.
And now I'm I've moved on to fire.
And I'm teaching a lot about fire in my classes and burning things. Like last weekend, we had an herb block and we burned we're getting ready to make a mineral solution in the class, and one of the things we burned was egg shells from the eggs, from the chickens there at that beautiful place we were at. And taking those egg shells down to, an ash and then adding those and then also unburned eggshells along with we're going to use nettles. We picked the nettles the other day.
The nettles and horsetail and oat, it's oat tops. And, those are the main three and then eggshells in a in a cider apple cider vinegar, base. That's that's that's the product we're making.
That'd be a serious mineral solution. That's amazing.
Yeah. And if, you know, the eggshells taste terrible, basically. Not just the burned ones. They smell terrible too when you're burning, and they smell like burning hair.
But, the they're they're very they taste very chalky, the unburned eggshells. But I wanted to tell people to go online and, if they're not opposed to eating eggs, to research, eggshells. I mean, there's tons of information. As I stared into my fire thing, I've been doing this with eggshells for a while, for a few years, but I never looked them up online.
So anyway, that's a recent phenomena for me. And I've just finished I'm just amazed at what's on the Internet about eggshells and also that liner inside the egg, the very tough membrane.
Lots of great joint medicine in there and other connective tissue things, in that as you would expect. It is tough as it is.
Of course.
So, you know, this is working with the elements is where you wanna start with getting remineralizing is is working with going right right into studying what is calcium, how does it work, what does it need. And that's the good thing about using the herbs for helping to balance calcium is because they are so balanced in other minerals and you can't just, you know, be calcium deficient. You're not just calcium deficient. You're other mineral deficient. So you can't you don't want to just focus on calcium.
And that that's the good thing about using the herbs.
So anyway Great. That's kind of an involved answer too.
But, No.
No. That's good. Involved answers.
Well, you know, also with as far as I forget her name. What's her name? Anne?
Mhmm. Anne.
Anne, with her fingernails looking at her fingernails. I mean, how did how does she know she's calcium or that, you know, she's calcium deficient? That's how I'm saying she opened it.
One way I look at it without doing bone scans is just looking at fingernails and seeing the ridging and the strength and the health of fingernails. And so if you're and this is how you can help to see if your mineral solution or whatever you're doing to get minerals is helping if you're watching your fingernails. They change pretty quickly if you're if you're eating well or not. You know, you can see them go downhill very quickly too. It's amazing actually because they seem so hard, but they're they're very, dynamic.
So Okay.
And, I wanna have time at the end to talk about your classes that you offer and stuff. So, we'll just have to choose one more question here.
And, I gonna have to choose the woman involved, the two year old because as a dad and you're a mom. Right? My heart just gets I wanna set up a two year old.
So, Tiffany is from Minnesota and, she says as soon as her two year old gets a cold, she begins to retract in her ribs and neck. She says, I've had to give her steroid treatments multiple times.
She's on vitamin d, which helps her stay healthy. But every once in a while, she gets a cold and the cycle starts over again.
Is there anything I can do in place of the steroid treatments that will help open up her bronchial path so she can breathe with ease?
That's a question.
Yeah.
Well, that's a huge question because Aren't they all?
Little person.
You should you should see some of these other questions that came in. I mean, they're, like, like, like, pages long. I'm like I know.
And we're all dealing with so many things all the time. And, you know, and with our children, it's just so, it's so overwhelming when they don't feel well. And then with the retraction, I'm I'm assuming she's seeing being able to see the great inhalation where you can see the ribs and they're really struggling to draw breath.
You know, that certainly, means that you need to be proceed with anything with a lot of caution, and get help. So I can't blame her for seeking, help, medical help for that. You really need to watch that. And of course, I'd be wanting to know if it's been diagnosed as asthma.
It's a little bit young for asthma diagnosis. It's usually a little bit later than that. But, and then I think you said it was Minnesota, is where they're located.
One of the, things in general, like, breathing, when a child gets a lot of colds, and this is only a two year old, I mean, how many colds can a two year old have had?
You know, it would be my question. When did they start getting colds?
If they're getting that getting frequent colds, I mean, it's certainly a sign that, there's adjustments that need to be made in daily life and that this isn't just a breathing problem. This is a problem with diet, maybe other concerns too. So some of the things I would definitely go down the path and to explore are, the foods and making sure that they're really getting a lot of Vitamin A and through foods, carrots and dark green leafy vegetables and squash and things like that that are really jam packed with Vitamin A for for that health. And Vitamin D, well, yes, Vitamin D is good to have, better from the sun. I mean, I know it's a big deal right now to give vitamin D. It's, you know, people need to look into it a little bit.
There are some problems with, you know, in the way that it's being given.
But, that's important is getting outdoors, getting some sun even when it's not nice outside as far as warmth, at least getting the skin in the sun. And of course, in the summer, getting out in the sun a lot. And of course, sun blocks and things. I mean, it's interesting we're taking vitamin D now and we've had all these sunblocks for years, blocking the creation of vitamin D.
Now we have to prescribe it.
And then also probably, one of the more important things I find for sleeping at night, the lungs work best with cool moist air, but you want to be warm. You want your body to be warm, but you want your lungs to breathe cool moist air. And so, sleeping with the windows even very, very slightly cracked in her wintertime environment there, the tiniest crack is going to let floods of cold air into the house. And so this is always a problem of the heat you know, coming on. So keeping the heat turned down pretty low in the house, getting that window cracked so that the lungs can do the exchange and keep clean, as clean as they can and not dry out. They have to stay really moist to work well.
And, you know, like with croup, which a lot of children will get and go through a spell with croup, you know, a few maybe a year or two, three years with croup, where a cold will start to get into this very bad spasmodic cough, especially at night.
And, the parents freak out and then you usually end up at the hospital, in an emergency room. But what doctors notice that by the time that the child would have left home and get to the emergency room, the croup symptoms would have either abated or become much less.
And so, now even I think it's the American Pediatrics Association or one of the, medical associations, you know, recommend cool moist night air, you know, taking your child, bundle them up, take them outside, sit on the porch, or just sit by an open window.
They used to recommend going into the bathroom and turn the shower on, but that, of course, that's warm, moist air.
Or just turn the cold water on in the shower if you don't have access to getting outdoors or by a window. But anyway, cool moist air, you know, that would be a good thing to try with that child, when they start to get into that retraction scenario with the cough.
And then as far as, let's see. Oh, there was one other thing that I think is very important if a a child is getting or anyone is getting a lot of respiratory complaints, and that is molds in the house.
So if very problematic areas are siding on the house that's leaked, that's allowed mold to grow inside the house, but you don't see it on the walls, but it's leaking into the house. And then also cement floors, where there's especially if there's carpet, tacked down carpet especially is bad over a cement floor, any kind of cement floor. It takes about five or six years for a cement floor to dry thoroughly. Yeah.
Even in regular so, you know, that can be very problematic. And over the years of working in clinical work, many times trying to it's like the dog chasing its tail with trying to interrupt these symptoms with some people and they just keep coming back. You may you may they may get better but then they come back and then you find out that they keep here I live in the northwest and you don't have to have it's not that cold usually, so people don't turn their heat on a lot to save money, and especially a lot of, naturopathic students when I was seeing a lot of them, keeping the cost down, students of all kinds.
They would end up living in these houses that were very cool and, clammy, and they would end up having molds, that would grow. So my advice to them came to at least once a week and probably make it on the weekend so that you can thoroughly enjoy it during your heat up and get that house really warmed up or get get a big fire going in the fireplace or the wood stove or whatever. You know, drive off the molds and beat them back with a stick, so to speak, so that you can get well and break that cycle. And then as far as Minnesota.
Pardon?
Minnesota too, where you're cooped up a lot of the year.
Yeah. You're cooped up. And that's what I'm thinking.
You know, we're we're cooped up, not all of us, way too much in general, most of us, but, you know, in that kind of climate, you can. And then with kids, getting them out and bundling them up and everything is problematic.
As far as herbs that are good, bronchodilating herbs that would be that I would feel comfortable using in a child, One of them is fennel, another one is anise seeds.
Those are making a very strong decoction. I call it an infused decoction. I sort of made that up. But, you bruise the seeds, just kind of rub them or pound on them a little bit with something before you make the tea. And then you put them into water, a good heaping tablespoon per cup of water in this case.
And then you bring them to just bring them to a boil, turn them off. You know, put keep a lid on, with hand. Just bring them to a boil. Turn them off and let them steep there till they're cool.
And that's a a good solid bronchodilating, petit.
And that can be stored. You can make like a quart of it up and store that in the refrigerator. It's better to be taken warm or room temperature.
But you can make enough for a few days, and so that's handy. And it was often served with sugar and sugar or honey. Sugar is an expectorant and was always used in lung formulas. We get cough syrups for that reason. But, you could use honey to make that taste better and that also has some good lung effects.
So that's a real base. Nice. And then I also like to buy fennel bulb that's available in the stores and you can chop that up in the white part as well as the green leafy part and add that to your tea as well with the fennel seeds or anise seeds. They're both contain aniseol, both fennel and anise, and they're bronchodilating and whatever flavor you kind of like.
Or Can can you do a steam tent with that too?
Yeah. I mean, that would be good.
It's very scary for kids.
Yeah.
You know, they Sure. That hot liquid, hot steam, it scares them. And and what you really don't wanna do, and this is another big piece for breathing problems in young people, is you don't want that fear factor to go into.
And asthma often, in my experience, shows up after a very bad scare, bad trauma, a bad loss, you know, whether it's the parents divorcing or, you know, a parent dying or a dog. You know, something something has lost that there hasn't been able to be grief hasn't been able to come out. And there's a really good word for this in South America and Mexico, Susto, S U S T O. And it has to do a lot with breathing. And this would be something she could look up on the Internet as about Susto and treating Susto. You know, I have no idea if this child has had any kind of trauma that would relate to Susto. But, certainly it's taken very seriously even by regular medical people in, Latin America.
And it's something that we can all learn from and learn learn how to address more.
So anyway Okay.
Well, that's a great great great answer. Thank you. I learned a lot there. Oh, thank you.
So what I'd like to talk about now do you, by any chance, also in your work do consultations or, like, phone work or I don't have an office now.
Mhmm. Okay. You know, I got I just got my kids sort of launched and, I'm back to teaching more. But, I haven't really I'm not really doing consults in that way, so at the moment, but maybe maybe pretty soon.
Well, tell us about your program.
Well, I for many years, I had a two year program that really designed for people that are living in the Portland or the metropolitan area. Some people drove from a long ways away, I thought longer than they should for, you know, a two, two, three hour class in the evening. And then the second year was a weekend, a month.
But I I retired that class a few years ago, and I just restarted this groundswell herbs, I call it, the healing tower of plants. So we're in the middle of the first six month, program and I'm really just revamping that into another a different a little bit different program than what I offered before. But if people are interested and live in that in this area, you know, they can just contact me by email and it's in your it's just cascade herbs, all one word, cascadeherbs at easy street, all one word, right, written out, e a s y, street dot net.
And, and, you know, I just get back to them. I I'm very low tech. I don't have a website.
And That's good.
Hey. You're saving yourself a lot of time. Yeah.
I mean, that's the point. I try to get outside more, you know, and it's hard enough to do that with just all the things that we do every day. And so, I feel like it running a website would be more than I really wanna do.
Well, it could be easier than you think. So if you wanna set up something simple, call me sometime and we'll Okay.
I'll tell you how to do it really easy.
A wonderful website.
Really easier than you think these days. It's free too.
So cascade herbs at easy street dot net. That's interesting because you don't you may not know this but my acupuncture clinic place I have is called cascade acupuncture.
Yeah.
And I I named it after the mountains, not you, but, you know.
Well, nice name.
It is a very nice name. I like it a lot.
So that's wonderful. And so, yes, if you live in the Portland area, write cascade and find out when the next, all the details of the next class.
I'll be starting up in October the next series.
Perfect. So there's plenty of time to get information and plan your plan your, your your future learning.
October is a great time to start.
Yeah. And I need to an herb camp this summer, which I haven't done for a long time, but I used to do a lot. And so if people are interested in that, drop me a line and, that could be for people even out of the vicinity because it'll be like a week long extravaganza.
Great.
Having fun and learning.
And at the International Herb Symposium, which you can visit at international herb symposium dot com, you are teaching formulating for the digestive tract and herbal parenting. So those are two classes you can take.
And the intensive, the herb walk.
Oh, oh, right. Sorry. I'm sorry. And the intensive herbal it's literally like a three or more hour herb walk that you're doing.
Yeah. Because it's a huge property and It is. There's wonderful herbs there, you know, famous famous herbs like the michella reppens and, always found, I found colic root, oh, jeez, elitris farinosa, which is also called, it's a wonderful fertility herb, unicorn root. Mhmm.
True unicorn root. And that's on that property and it was growing out with these where these tortoises were laying their eggs, actually, they're turtles laying their eggs right by it, this great fertility herb. It was very exciting. So it's it's a wonderful property.
I love to get people out and walk around around on on all the grounds here at Wheaton College.
And, you know, I last year, about two years ago when I was there, I I taped a whole walk with Jim McDonald that's on our mentor videos. And, he did he did a really cool thing, and we have him talking about it in one of the videos. But he went to, to the Zach Woods Herb Farm booth, and Zach Woods Herb Farm is run by Jeff Carpenter, Rosemary's son-in-law, and his wife. And, he bought a black cohosh.
And he went out and before the walk planted it in the perfect spot. Oh, good. And then at the end of the walk, he ended it on the black cohosh that he planted. It just say that, you know, it we're involved in this too, and we can help bring a lot of these plants back.
I love that idea.
Isn't that cool?
That's a wonderful idea.
Yeah. We could be doing more of that actually. It would fit with the United Plant Series and the advisory board, but that would be a wonderful idea there that we should jump off with Jim's start on that.
Yeah. And, and, that we should mention that too that the International Herb Symposium is a benefit for the United Plant Savers and organization dear to my heart too. We donate proceeds for a lot of proceeds from the wild craft board game to them too.
So Well, thank you for doing that.
I really appreciate that. That's that's a big that's important.
Alright. So cascade Anderson Geller, it's been a lot of fun. Thank you so much for your time, and, we'll be we'll I'll be seeing you at something. I'm I'm I'm sure soon.
Yeah. Well, I look forward to it, John. Thanks again for inviting me to Beyond and for your good work.
Thank you.
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