Comfrey is beloved by kitchen witches and is one of the best-known healing herbs of all times. It has even been referred to as “a one-herb pharmacy” for the inherent curative powers.Well-known and widely used by early Greeks and Romans, the very name,symphytum, from the Greeksymphyomeans to "make grow together," referring to its traditional use of healing fractures. Comfrey relieves pain and inflammation. Comfrey salve will be a mainstay of your home first aid kit. Use it on cuts, scrapes, rashes, sunburn, and almost any skin irritation. Comfrey salve can also bring comfort to aching arthritic joints, and sore muscles.
August, the month of holidays and harvest, a time to sit back, rest and relax and enjoy the fruits of our labours. A time for friends and families to be together, to re-connect, a time to laugh and play and enjoy each other and all that we have. A time for quiet contemplation and thankfulness. Something moves in my garden pond and a frog appears to rest upon a lily pad, his throat pulsing like a beating heart, such is the rhythm of life. Butterflies, bees and dragonflies hover and flutter between the flowers, drinking deeply from the funnels of nectar laden petals. I watch this spectacle unfold before me, an interwoven symphony of dance and psychedelic colour, there for the taking and a pure joy to behold.
My study of magic and metaphysical healing has emphasized magical herbalism from the beginning. The first pagan book I bought for myself was Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs. I knew nothing about plants at the time; I couldn't even identify lavender or rosemary, and I was a little shaky on dandelions. Sometimes figuring out which herbs to use in a spell was very difficult.
I hadn't yet learned to hear my intuition, much less trust it. So I usually chose herbs off the lists of correspondences in the back of the Encyclopedia and hoped I could buy them from the botánica in my New Orleans neighborhood, or from the bulk section of the Whole Foods across town.
I recently spent sometime learning how to scour the California country side for medicinal plants and herbs. One plant that was a surprise to me was the abundance of a weed known for its fascinating health benefits and tasting remotely like fresh picked corn.
The botanical name ~ Stellaria media ~ meaning ‘little stars’, or commonly known as Chickweed, can affect your physical and psychic health, by opening up cosmic energies and giving the strength handle these energies. Chickweed has been used in folk medicine for skin conditions, indigestion rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, stomach ulcers and as a "blood cleanser". When chickweed is consumed, it increases the body’s ability to absorb nutrients, especially minerals. It can also dissolve and break down unwanted matter, including disease-causing bacteria, cysts, benign tumors, thickened mucus in the respiratory and digestive systems, and excess fat cells. Yes, you heard me correctly; drinking chickweed infusion can eliminate fat cells.
Erin Lale
Fellow faculty at Harvard Divinity School posted an open letter to Wolpe in response to his article. It's available on this page, below the call for p...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. The Wild Hunt has a roundup of numerous responses on its site, but it carried this one as a separate article. It is an accoun...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. This one is by a scholar of paganism. It's unfortunately a Facebook post so this link goes to Facebook. She posted the text o...
Erin Lale
Here's another link to a pagan response to the Atlantic article. I would have included this one in my story too if I had seen it before I published it...
Janet Boyer
I love the idea of green burials! I first heard of Recompose right before it launched. I wish there were more here on the East Coast; that's how I'd l...