Vanessa's Sunshine Herbals

50 Black Herbalists 🌿 when they forage, they have to worry about their skin color in addition to what white herbalists worry about; ticks, snakes, poison ivy, etc. NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO LIVE IN FEAR

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⁣Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria formerly known as Spiraea ulmaria) but I still and always will write Spiraea ulmaria in my notes, on my wooden plant tags.. ⁣
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⁣Here in CT, zone 6, it is late May and my Meadowsweet (Spiraea ulmaria) is beginning to flower. ⁣
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⁣Since I use mainly the leaves for medicine, I am going to cut her back today in the hopes that she bushes out and grows fuller and provides more leaves for medicine making. I do also use her flower. ⁣
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⁣When I plants seeds, I observe the areas in my backyard that mimic closely to the needs of the herb. ⁣
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⁣I have her in part shade, part sun and in a somewhat moist raised bed. ⁣
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⁣My raised bed does not have a bottom, her roots reach right into the earth freely. ⁣
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⁣I began raised beds last year so I could sit frequently, then crawl and pull myself through the garden when the lupus and rheumatoid arthritis prevents me from walking, standing or crouching. ⁣
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⁣I will be using her leaves today in my dehydrator, into a glycerite, an herbal oil infusion and in tincture. I take her tincture daily to help relieve my chronic arthritic pain and inflammation. Glycerin is added to the tincture to extract the tannins ⁣
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⁣All organic: evoo, glycerin, seeds and plants. ⁣
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⁣🌾 Family: Asteraceae ⁣
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⁣🌾 Part used: Aboveground Plant (leaves, flower buds, flowers) ⁣
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⁣🌾 Energetics: Bitter, sweet, cool, dry (I run hot and moist so she perfectly suits my needs) ⁣
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⁣🌾 Actions: Antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, aromatic, astringent, diuretic, sedative, stomachic, anti-microbial activity (addresses infection) ⁣
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⁣🌾 My Uses: Rheumatism, Arthritis, Pain in Connective Tissue, Joint Pain, Inflammation, Internal Infections, Lowering Blood Pressure, Improving Digestion ⁣
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⁣🌾 I grew her from seed and also from an organic plant. Now I have three well established plants in my organic garden. I do not forage for her. I grow my own. ⁣
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⁣🌾 Fun Fact: Felix Hoffman first synthesized aspirin in 1897 and derived it from meadowsweet. The “Spir” in aspirin is derived from the older botanical name for this plant Spiraea ulmaria. Bayer manufactured aspirin starting in 1899 and it became the most common pain relieving agent through much of the 1900’s and was the beginning of the class of drugs known today as NSAIDs ⁣
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⁣🌾 She is pain relieving and anti-inflammatory herb ⁣
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⁣🌾 She is especially useful for pain that is hot, throbbing and stagnant. She helps move the blood and lower inflammation. I also use her to assist in lowering my blood pressure. ⁣
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⁣🌾 The flowers can be used as a natural sweetener⁣
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⁣🌾 Combine with plantain leaf, marsh mallow root and chamomile for chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. - Thomas Garran⁣
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⁣🌾 Burning the dried herb in your home will cleanse the air of negative energies and lift the spirit.⁣
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⁣🌾 Tannins, Salicylic Acid, Quercetin, Spiraein - Tannins and salicylic acid decrease pain⁣
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⁣🌾 Meadowsweet is a symbol for grace and refinement. Used in spells and potions to attract love and create happiness.⁣
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⁣🌾 Her flowers smell like wintergreen to me. Her leaves smell completely different.⁣
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⁣🌾 I hope some of this helps someone out there. I learn by research and by watching the plant grow from seed to harvest to using her myself. ⁣
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Timeline photos

⁣✌🏻🌼☀️💛✨✌🏻 ⁣
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⁣🌼 d a n d e l i o n 🌼⁣
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⁣Dandelion Oil⁣
⁣🌼Harvesting dandelion flower heads⁣
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⁣🌞 Want to make your own oil? Grab a Mason jar, fill it half full of flower heads and top off with your choice of oil (make sure the dandys are submerged) Stir with a wooden chopstick to remove any air bubbles, then put on the lid. ⁣
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⁣💛Two weeks later, strain the dandelions from the oil with cheesecloth or whatever strainer you have on hand and wa~la. Store the infused oil in a separate, clean jar. ⁣
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⁣✌🏻Tired muscles? Stiff joints? She makes a wonderful base for massage oil and sore muscle creams. Use her infusion in place of plain oil with your recipes. ⁣
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⁣Quick tutorial on how you can easily use Dandelions leaves, flowers and roots ⁣
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⁣🍃Dandelion parts are strongly flavored & edible (flower head, bud, petals, roots, leaves) ⁣
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⁣🍃High in vitamins & minerals (vitamin C, iron, beta carotene, calcium) ⁣
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⁣🍃Sprinkle the yellow flower heads and individual petals onto your salad (pull them apart from their green base) ⁣
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⁣🍃The older the leaves, the more bitter the taste. Pick "young" leaves for best & sweet taste (opposite with roots; they are the sweetest later in fall, early winter) ⁣
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⁣🍃Warm weather brings out the bitterness in her roots ⁣
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⁣🍃Tea is an ancient form of medicine and free when you pick/harvest & grow your own (her leaves & roots stimulate healthy digestion that feeds intestinal flora/bacteria) ⁣
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⁣🍃To prepare tea with your homegrown herbs, use 1 Tbsp dried or 2 Tbsp fresh herb to one cup of water ⁣
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⁣🍃When steeping herb tea, always keep it covered to contain the plant magic and not allow it to escape/evaporate ⁣
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⁣🍃The best time to gather & harvest Dandelion plant parts for salad is when they are young and tender ⁣
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⁣🍃When harvesting, shake the dirt & bugs (if any) off the plant first ⁣
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⁣🍃Use freshly picked plants right away or store in the fridge after rinsing/cleaning ⁣
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⁣🍃Avoid harvesting plants near highways and roadways, they breathe in vehicle exhaust and are polluted ⁣
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⁣ ⁣🍃Adding fresh petals to your salad gives a beautiful color & nutrient boost ⁣
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⁣🍃Ground up Dandelion roots into a fine powder and add to soups and other dishes you are about to cook/bake ⁣
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⁣🍃Use her roasted roots as a coffee replacement ⁣
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⁣🍃Dandelion is a perennial who self seeds (white, wishing flower tops)⁣
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⁣✌🏻🌼☀️💛✨✌🏻⁣
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⁣💜v i o l e t 💜 h a r v e s t 💜⁣
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⁣Why? Looking for answers to my health challenges⁣
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⁣Harvest? Dry, aerial parts ⁣
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⁣Energetics? Cool/moist ⁣
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⁣Salve - inflamed tissues⁣
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⁣Tincture - soothes nervous system⁣
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⁣Tea - systemic inflammation/ inflammatory modulator ⁣
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⁣Violet picking soothed my soul today.
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⁣ #⁣violet
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Very Very important information about harvesting, foraging & wildcrafting. She did a terrific job of keeping it simple and easy to understand.
She’s amazing 💚🌼

Well, this just took my breath away

😍🙏🏻

Lavender-Rosemary Herbal Vinegar for Cooking, Clean-Up & Body Care

Free herbal recipes that are super easy to make! Don’t have to leave the house because you most likely have the items on hand or herbs in your backyard 🌿💚

Lavender-Rosemary Herbal Vinegar for Cooking, Clean-Up & Body Care Learn how to make a lavender and rosemary-infused vinegar to be used for body care, culinary, and cleaning applications!

🌼Elecampane (Inula helenium)🌼.
She is 2 years old and eight feet tall in my garden presently. I don’t forage for her, I planted her from seed last year. You will understand why I grow her when you read the uses.
🍃”there is no infection of the spiritual system that she fears”.
🌼Some uses: rheumatism, malnutrition, chronic fatigue, intestinal parasites, digestion, bronchitis, vitamin deficiencies, coughs/colds, muscle pain, nausea after chemotherapy.
🍃There is so much written about the roots, I feel like experimenting with her flowers and see how they effect me. The flowers have mesmerized and called to me since they first appeared.
🌼 Anti- bacterial/viral/parasitic/septic/fungal.
🍃I have been harvesting to create herbal tinctures/bitters and organic herbal infused oil.
🌼She is so so so strong! The stalk is so heavy and solid. The flower base is as well. The leaves are huge and deceiving; the undersides are super soft like velvet.
🍃Warming, drying, stimulating.
🌼 Also known as elfdock, elfwort, horseheal, velvetdock, yellow starwort.

Herbal Support for COVID-19

Listen up! 👂🏻🌿 Herbal support for our bodies from one of my top five herbalists:
(I will repost information on Elecampane next)

Herbal Support for COVID-19 In this video I explore some of the best ways to work with herbs for protecting the body if you or a loved on get COVID-19. I am not a doctor or expert in vi...

Chamomile babies are here!!! Here in CT she is an annual however, she self sows and has miraculously taken off in my garden! 🙌🏻🙌🏻💚🌿💚🌿🙏🏻

Peeking under the leaves, around in the garden on a hunt for spring treasures 💚🌿⁣
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⬅️SWIPE for pic⁣
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4. fistulosa⁣
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6. Curly ⁣
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7. First spring flower in my yard ⁣
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9. baby

It’s Tulsi time! 💚🌿 Going to harvest her today, dry her for year long tea (with lemon balm) and inhale her amazing smell while we (Kenya & I) work. Back to basics for me, beginning today. Have a beautiful Saturday everyone ✌🏻

🌻 Sunflower harvest from yesterday. Forgot to post oops.

Tonight I am drinking tequila. And harvest some more herbal goodness.

I have begun 💚🍃🌱🌿🙌🏻

Love this 🍂🍃🍁

Timeline photos

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🍅🥔🍠🥦🥒🥗 Veggies!! Yay Garden Veggies! I could absolutely totally eat this way every day of my life!!!!! Cucumbers and tomatoes all day and more veggies baked to a blackened edge crisp for dinner. So fu***ng grateful!! 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙏🏻 For my bountiful garden harvests AND for the knowledge that I can CHOOSE to WALK AWAY from anything that gives me anxiety. From ANYTHING AND ANYONE that makes me feel manipulated, uncomfortable or doesn’t have my best interests at heart. I’m doing it! Practicing! Damn it feels good!!! Soon I will have full mouth dental implants and will smile all the damn time!!! Eat salad! Laugh open mouthed! Selfie with my kids! Smile at strangers AND loved ones! Love you guys! 💚💚🌿🌿👍🏻🙏🏻💜⭐️

YES

🧙🏼‍♀️🍵🔮I did this my entire childhood. This meme brought back so many HAPPY memories and realizations.
🔥I was happiest alone, in the woods, with sticks and leaves, dirt and trees, imagination fired up, creativity off the charts, with dreams and ideas and hope. While holding a stick and bare feet touching rocks in a stream.
💯 truth.
I am currently swelling with happiness, my head tilted to the right, beautiful gentle smile on my face, an aww moment. I’m in love with today.

What stories are you telling yourself?

“Sometimes the difference between an empowered state and a disempowered state is just the flick of a switch in our Mindset.
When I’m feeling angry or upset, it’s easy to look outside myself for the cause.
I can always find a reason that justifies these feelings and puts the blame into someone or something else.
In these cases I play into being a victim.
Which inevitably begets more of the same feelings and perpetuate the cycle of blame.
Yet if I am to be radically honest with myself, it’s always my own choices and actions that have created the situation in which I am feeling disempowered.
In these moments of realization, I give myself permission to rewrite my story.
Life is unfair and full of challenges, but we are not victims.
We are far more powerful than our self limiting beliefs.
It’s always our own past choices that create our current reality.
It can be uncomfortable at first to fully acknowledge that we are the true cause of our own struggle.
Yet in doing so we gain the opportunity to course correct, find the heart of the matter and create the more empowered self.
So lean in, eat some shadow, and you will find your new story to be rich with the rewards and an empowered way of showing up for the work you were meant to do.”

・・・
Repost
(Thank you Yarrow)

🥕🍠🥒🍅 Roasting veggies from the garden.
My garden carrots are still too small so I added organic baby carrots to this dinner.
Rheumatoid Arthritis is why I currently choose baby carrots instead of regular carrots. I stopped feeling bad about it.

This man mesmerizes me. His knowledge and understanding of herbs makes me feel like I’m floating. Like I’ve arrived. Like I’m at home. Surrounded by others who love herbs so deeply and passionately as I.
His descriptions and information are delivered gently.
I watch his videos instead of turning on the tv.

💜💜💜

🙌🏻❤️

Today’s bloomer is Marshmallow (Althaea officinalis) ~ she bloomed today in a thunderstorm!
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📷 all photos are my own organic herbs & plants, in my organic gardens
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💭The genus name, Althaea, comes from the word altho (means to cure, in Greek) So that should be a huge hint about her magical medicinal properties!
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💭Her seeds, leaves, and flowers can all be eaten
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💭Cooling, Soothing, Uber Moistening
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💭She coats sore throats AND soothes/lubricates muscle & joint pain (aches)
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💭Anti-inflammatory, laxative plus so much more!
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💭Make her into a tea by using both her roots & leaves
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💭sweet, soft & gently feminine 💕
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💭Incense glue (demulcent) I also use her when making my incense sometimes.
Using a mortar & pestle, ground down her dried roots into a fine powder. Add water (I use rose or calendula hydrosol) a little bit at a time until she becomes a paste.
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💭I choose her because I run hot & dry; she is cooling and moist ~ she’s great in herbal lotions
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💭She stimulates your immune system, let’s kick some Lyme ass!
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💭Canker & mouth sores ~ I rinse with a cool root infusion 💦

💭I dry her leaves and make her my base for herbal smokes. She’s fluffy and filling, a great base for smoking blends.
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💭Use in a poultice for external inflammation, bruises, swelling, burns
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💭Poultice for Inflammation: I gather some leaves, crush/rough them up in my hands, wet them with cool, filtered water, squeeze out excess, apply them to the top of my foot, wrap a slightly cool & damp washcloth around to keep them put, elevate my leg and take the leaves off after 10-15 minutes.

💚 1st time successfully growing White Sage!


🙏🏻 I'm starting again slowly. I re-entered my garden.



🦋And then the butterflies came.



✌🏻 They know. They know I know. It was time.

☀️ h a r v e s t ☀️
Borage
Roses
Monarda
Chamomile
Calendula
from my garden

Happy Harvesting! Here's to a healthier us!

Comfrey Tea: Homemade Natural Fertilizer

Most of you that know me, know that I have an organic herbal garden that I never water and don't use miracle grow, etc in.

This article perfectly explains what I do to make my organic fertilizer. It's herbal fermented comfrey tea. That's all folks. Twice in a summer I do this.

Buy a comfrey plant. It will come back every year. Shade, sun, poor soil, this powerhouse will always come back no matter what. It's a great investment. Think about it.

Comfrey Tea: Homemade Natural Fertilizer Learn how to make comfrey tea for use as a homemade natural fertilizer in your garden. It's easy to make and provides nutrients for your plants!

🕉b a l a n c e💜

☮️ Strong and steady. Calm and creative.

☮️This is what I am recognizing as a balance that calls to me.

💜 When I am barefoot, I am connecting to something inside me and like a light switch, I become centered.

🙏🏻Yesterday I was given the gift of creating a special inflammation set of herbal products.

☀️ Today I create them. Heart filled with love. Mind ready to follow the steps. Hands excited to mix and mold and stir and melt.

✨ When you meet another who shows kindness towards you, you smile and stand a little taller. Hope breathes new life into your being. And you instinctively know you will pass that kindness along to someone else.

🍵🌿 Herbal tea brewed from the French Press ~ kick ass Tulsi Kapoor (Ocimum sanctum) . I keep mentioning the press so that someone, somewhere hears me, grabs one and makes their own beautiful tea and feels something like what I feel when I harvest the herbs, boil the water, know magic is steeping and then drink the plant powered elixir. Makes for a heavenly morning.

"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair." - Khalil Gibran