Medicine Stories

Latest Episodes:

Decolonizing the Mind: You Belong to Your Ancestors - Tamira Cousett Jul 22, 2019

Show notes

Embodying the blessing of being a child of diverse lineages, being rooted first in our ancestral stories and second in our cultural narratives, embracing our inherent worth as we step into the work we came here to do, and so much more...

IN THE INTRO:

Imaginal remembering
How primal human posture has greatly diminished my pain
Gathering the stories of your elders

IN THE INTERVIEW:

Tamira's childhood experiences with the unseen, and how that was (not) held in her family
We are accountable to our ancestors
The process of remembering and learning to be in daily, direct communication with those who hold the container for our lives
Being a bridge between our children and the ancestors- incorporating small ritual into our lives and sharing our peoples' stories
Our children are the ancestors returning as the new faces of the lineage
The evolution of Tamira's ancestral healing journey as a black woman in the south with both African and European ancestors
Seeing today's -isms as rituals of disconnection that feed shame and hatred and anger, which further fuel racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc.
Remembering that black and white are not ancestral categories and stepping back to view the larger historical narratives of our people
The story of the harmonizing of two of Tamira's lineages, one of West African descent and one of European- what was shown to her during the ceremony and how the healing changed her life (we cry)
Victimhood, blame, forgiveness, and how our redemption is tied into one another's
Claiming first the identity of being a child of your ancestors before being anchored in the (very real and valid) identities the world assigns you
Ancestral connection banishes imposter syndrome- you belong with and to your people always, they're holding the container of your life so that you can bring your medicine forward (and when we feel this belonging this we are much less likely to perpetuate cultural and personal harms)
Holding space for childrens' grief, and the generations of unmetabolized grief wreaking havoc on our culture

LINKS:

Tamira's website (teachings, podcast, ancestral healing sessions)
Tamira on Instagram: Get Your Chit Together
Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!)
My website MythicMedicine.love
Christine Kent's Whole Woman website and her interview on the Honey Talks Podcast
Ruby Sales TEDtalk: How We Can Begin to Heal the Pain of Racial Division
Martin Prechtel The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise
Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy?
Medicine Stories Facebook group
Mythic Medicine on Instagram
Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Maternal Mammalian Ecstasy: The Ancient Hormonal Blueprint for Optimal Birth and Bonding - Sarah Buckley Jul 08, 2019

Show notes

Through untold eons mammals have evolved a beautiful birth-giving physiology based around a complex cascade of hormones that are released during labor. We give both mother and baby the best chance at a peaceful, ecstatic birth and postpartum period when we remember and respect this ancient dance.

IN THE INTRO:

Complex parenting topics: sleep, immunity, birth

IN THE INTERVIEW:

Sarah's mainstream doctor grandfather and how she got interested in natural birth
The exquisitely designed ancestral/mammalian hormonal blueprint of labor
The impact of (unnatural, external) stress on a laboring woman and how it disrupts the optimal hormonal flow
Creating optimal conditions for birthing and for bonding
The hormonal consequences of bypassing the natural physiological onset of labor (such as by induction or scheduled C-section)
How feeling unsafe (at a subconscious, limbic system level) disrupts the flow of birth
The irony of how we treat animals in labor v how we treat human women in labor
The ecstatic, altered state of mind we enter into during labor
What first time mothers need to know but are often not told
Fear and mystery in birth
The body is designed to transcend the (natural, intrinsic) stress and pain of labor and they play a critical role in bonding
The role of vocalization in labor
Newborns need placental blood: cord clamping and how our cultural beliefs around that have changed over time
What "No hatting, no patting, no chatting" means for the postpartum period
Ancestral family sleep and motherbaby biological regulation: the many reasons that co-sleeping is best for babies and the science that backs it up
The fascinating phenomenon of some birth attendants being able to smell the moment before the baby is born

LINKS

Dr. Buckley's website
Dr. Buckley on Facebook
Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!)
My website MythicMedicine.love
Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering book
Hormonal Physiology of Childbearing report
Jeanine Parvati Baker
CO-SLEEPING RESEARCH- James McKenna's Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory at the University of Notre-Dame
Sara Wichkam's website
Midwifery Today's website
Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy?
Medicine Stories Facebook group
Mythic Medicine on Instagram
Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Kneeling to the Earth: Herbalism is Remembering - Rosemary Gladstar Jun 24, 2019

Show notes

Soft power, honoring our elders, and banishing imposter syndrome by remembering that we're in service to the earth.

IN THE INTRO:

Honoring the lineage of plant healers that led to this podcast
Intuitive breast care w/ herbs
What every herbalist should know

IN THE INTERVIEW:

Kneeling to the earth- herbalism isn't about you, please don't be afraid to share your voice
How Rosemary's name (which came from her two grandmothers) set her on her path from an early age
Plants that carry soft power & the medicine of rosemary (the plant)
What Rosemary learned about plant healing from her Armenian grandmother
The necessity of recognizing our elders
How Rosemary came into teaching herbalism to others during the American herbal renaissance of the 1970s
How herbalists seem to come to the same conclusions as one another over and over again, and realizing that it's because we aren't figuring new things out but simply stepping back into the ancient human/plant relationship and the knowledge that comes with that
The importance of monitoring, conserving, preserving, and cultivating wild plants and how United Plant Savers has changed the face of American herbalism
How plants that grow in abundance tend to be super nutritive plants that our ancestors used in daily life as food and medicine, and how rarer plants tend to have more specific medicine and were used more sparingly in acute cases
The ongoing Fire Cider controversy and what happens when folks choose trademarks over traditions
Life transitions, looking back on Rosemary's incredible legacy, and looking forward to what's next

LINKS:

Rosemary's websites: www.sagemountain.com and www.scienceandartofherbalism.com (<-- click the Patreon link below to get a $75 off coupon code for this course by 7/31/19)
United Plant Savers: Medicinal Plant Conservation
Free Fire Cider
Queen of Heaven & Earth Herbal Breast Oil and episode w/ Anja Robinson Root Cause Medicine & Breasts as an Intuitive Center
Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!)
My website MythicMedicine.love
Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy?
Medicine Stories Facebook group
Mythic Medicine on Instagram
Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Grieving the Spirits of the Land & Bringing Healing to the Ancestors - Mariee Siou Jun 08, 2019

Show notes

Mariee Siou's music is medicine for the living and medicine for the dead, a direct portal both to and from the ancestors and the land spirits. In this interview she shares profound stories of hurt, healing, and visions gifted from the otherworld.

IN THE INTRO:

Making grief more beautiful and more bearable
How to enter the Giveaway of the Grief in Exile album

Songs played during this episode are-

Wild Eyes
Black Snakes
Grief in Exile
Two Tongues

IN THE INTERVIEW:

Mariee never dreamed she'd be a musician & how that ended up happening
Mariee's connection with her indigenous Mexican and American maternal ancestors and her Hungarian and Polish paternal ancestors
Songs pouring through you and the magical process of bringing something into being
When the ancestors choose one person in their lineage to drop their stories into
Ethnic stereotypes and what people will say to your face
Mariee's work with the Nisenan, the native people of the lands she and I live on, and how growing up here she literally never knew there were remaining tribal members here
"I experienced so many spirits on the land that hadn't been grieved"
Some deep medicine stories- how this podcast has changed Mariee's life (so much interweaving serendipity, since her music opens and closes every episode)
How datura embedded into Mariee's consciousness and how that plant relationship touched her life, even before she'd ever worked with the plant physically
The amazing ancestral vision Mariee was gifted that supports the music and voice medicine she carries in this lifetime
The different ways that people who come from lineages with unmetabolized grief and trauma [all of us] carry that ancestral inheritance
How magic and the synchronicities start showing up once we commit to following our soul calling
A digression on the Aquarian archetype

LINKS

Hear Mariee's music and order Grief in Exile: www.marieesioux.bandcamp.com
Nisenan Tribe: 1) www.nisenan.org, 2) Ancestral Homeland Reciprocity Program, 3) California Heritage: Indigenous Research Project (CHIRP), 4) Tribal Chairman Richard B. Johnson's book History Of Us: Nisenan Tribe of the Nevada City Rancheria
Sophia Rose's interview with Mariee at Garden Party
Past episodes mentioned- Reclaiming Kitchen Wisdom & Ancestral Healing w/ Darla Antoine and Becoming the Medicine & Seeing the Wide Arc of Time w/ Sophia Rose
Medicine Stories Patreon (enter the giveaway!)
My website MythicMedicine.love
Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy?
Medicine Stories Facebook group
Mythic Medicine on Instagram
Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Rose Medicine: Softness & Strength From the Queen of the Flowers May 16, 2019

Show notes

Humans have been joyfully engaging with rose medicine throughout the ages. This luxurious herb works on so many different parts of the body and spirit because of its many healing properties. Let's talk about them.

Click here to get the beautiful PDF Bringing Rose Medicine Home, featuring 6 rose recipes from 5 herbalists, plus my 3 favorite rose products.

An overview of rose's abundantly generous physical & energetic medicine
Wild v cultivated roses
Which roses are best to use, and which to always avoid
A healing message from rose that came to me recently, and the synchronicities that followed
"Rose unwinds the stuckness that is often rooted in old grief, old trauma"
Rose Delight Honey recipe from Kami McBride
Rosebud Tea recipe from Rosalee de la Foret
Rose is medicine for the whole heart
Rainbow Heart Beams Elixir Giveaway!
Discount on the Wild Rose Surprise Box from Rebecca Altman
The Big (podcast related) Realization that came as a result of rose showing up in my life
Upcoming guests & subjects

LINKS:

Medicine Stories Patreon (the Bringing Rose Medicine Home PDF, the giveaway, and the coupon code for the Wild Rose Surprise Box!)
Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy?
Sophia Rose: Being the Medicine and Seeing the Wide Arc of Time
Kami McBride: Herbalism, Menstruation, & Innate Knowing and Kitchen Herbalism: The Body Remembers
Lola Venado: The Medicine We Carry
Rebecca Altman: Magic Makes Us Human & Plants Keep Us Rooted
Kami McBride's book The Herbal Kitchen
Rosalee de la Foret's book Alchemy of Herbs
Lola Venado's podcast Branch + Bone Medicine Show
My website MythicMedicine.love
Medicine Stories Facebook group
Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Sex, Trauma, Magic, & the Ancestors - Pavini Moray May 08, 2019

Show notes

Remembering that our ancestors can guide us because they've done this all before, relating ancestral healing & communion to our sexually traumatizing culture, helping people without assuming that we hold knowledge of what it is they need, and so much more...

IN THE INTRO:

Lilac water
Creating apart from perfection

IN THE INTERVIEW:

The sweet vulnerability of praying out loud
Bespoken Bones and the magical process of naming things
Discarding the expert paradigm- "I don't know what you need to know"
When jealousy is pointing you toward what you want to be doing
Navigating the pathway of harm to healing
Discerning the well from the unwell dead/ancestors
Trancestral healing & the blessings and the powerful magic of complex gender
The difference between our ancestors of blood and our ancestors of heart
Engaging trauma as an alternate state of consciousness in which deep healing can happen and potent gifts can come forth
Coming back into sexual wholeness
We're living in a sexually traumatic culture
Sexual liberation is not a state we permanently get to, it's a path and a process and a practice
Most of us don't feel like we can bring our whole, authentic selves to our relationships
Shame, you know we talk about shame
The throughline of selfhood

LINKS:

Pavini's websites: Emancipating-Sexuality, Trancestral Healing, and the Bespoken Bones Podcast
PlantMakeup's Instagram lilac water post
Dr. Daniel Foor's Practical Animism online course
My website MythicMedicine.love
Medicine Stories Patreon
Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy?
Medicine Stories Facebook group
Mythic Medicine on Instagram
Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

The Deepest Magic: To Know Yourself, Know Your Ancestors May 01, 2019

Show notes

You come from a long line of healers, midwives, songstresses, herbalists, dancers, birth-givers, artists, and wise folk.

You are a direct descendent of powerful visionaries and earthwise geniuses, and their ancient knowing resonates today deep in your marrow.

These are not empty platitudes or the wishful thinking of modern spiritual yearners; these statements are genealogical fact.

In this episode I talk about:

Why these statements are true
How knowing our ancestors helps us to know ourselves
3 ways to connect with your ancestors

LINKS:

My website MythicMedicine.love
Medicine Stories Patreon (find the written version of this episode)
Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy?
Medicine Stories Facebook group
Mythic Medicine on Instagram
Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Animism: Coming into Kinship with All Life - Daniel Foor Apr 24, 2019

Show notes

We are in relationship with plants, animals, fungi, mountains, metals, fire, bodies of water, spirits of wind and weather, deities, human ancestors, star people, and others we don't have words for, whether we are conscious of it or not. In this conversation Dr. Daniel Foor and I talk about reclaiming kinship through earth-honoring ritual, getting right with your ancestors and with the land you're living on, finding your own unique medicine, and so much more.

IN THE INTRO:

Making animism practical
$300 herbal medicine giveaway! (ends May 1st)

IN THE INTERVIEW:

Living humans are only one kind of person
Animism isn't necessarily spiritual- that other beings also exist and that we are accountable to them is just fact
The distinction between animism, shamanism, and indigenous ways
Food and the psychological implication of realizing that both animals and plants are people
Understanding the human dead as part of the sacred ecology of place
The impacts of colonization on trusting our own knowing
Being consent-minded and respectful of boundaries: how to hear no from (and say no to) the spirits/ancestors
"Colonialism is a massive systemic consent violation"
Expanding our vocabulary for the sacred by recognizing the incredible diverse of bodies and wisdoms of the world
Contextualizing our devotions amidst the current crises the earth is undergoing (we need to get really good at grieving, but also not lost in it)
Finding your own medicine and soul level calling
Hierarchy is an intrinsic part of nature
Seeing where you're at as the Holy Land (even if you're in suburban Baltimore)
Everyone has an ancestral connection with plants (let go of your story that you're not a "plant person"!)
Earth as deity (and exploring how we project a gender binary onto the this ancient, complex, multivalent being that is dreaming us up)
Down to the water to pray: grief, the erotic, ancestors, food, healing
Understanding deeper layers of magic at your specific place
Considering inclusive ways to think about deities, archetypes, and weird old gods
Harmonizing ritual skills with cultural and political advocacy- not compartmentalizing an animist approach to just our spiritual life, but taking it out to the wider world as well
Daniel's three steps to get your life together (so real)

LINKS:

More info on the Practical Animism Online Course
Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy?
Medicine Stories Patreon
Medicine Stories Facebook group
Mythic Medicine on Instagram
Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

A Plant Spirit Healing Story Apr 17, 2019

Show notes

This is a vulnerable and very personal story of how a plant friend recently stepped in to create a bridge of communication between me and my mother, who died three years ago. It was an unexpected and super meaningful healing message for me, and I switched my podcast release schedule around to share this story. Real magic happens when we cultivate relationships with plants and stay open to messages from the multiverse y'all.

I also talk about synchronicity, dealing with overwhelming grief, and how we can heal with a plant even when it is not physically present in our space or in our body.

Also I cry a lot.

Mentioned in this story:

Asia Suler's Intuitive Plant Medicine online course (from which I downloaded the meditation mentioned)
The Medicine Stories Patreon page
Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy?
Our Rainbow Heart Beams herbal medicine
Asia's two previous interviews Multidimensional Plants and the Fabric of Consciousness and You Are Your Own Healer: Earth Intuition and Self Knowledge

Further reading: My blog post Angelica: Mama Bear of the Spirit Realm (more about Angelica as bear medicine and more about its medicinal properties)

You Are Your Own Healer: Earth Intuition & Self Knowledge - Asia Suler Apr 03, 2019

Show notes

Asia Suler talks about how being in relationship with the aliveness of the earth brings us deeper into ourselves, healing within the complexities of chronic health conditions, working with the story medicine of flowers, and so much more…

IN THE INTRO:

Finding a plant ally
Reishi: Medicine of the Ages

IN THE INTERVIEW:

How plants bring us deeper into ourselves, and the kind of second sight that only comes when we tune into the aliveness of the earth
The cultural fallacy that spirituality and rationalism can't coexist
The chronic health issues that revealed to Asia her intuitive self and brought her to the plant path
We don't have to do it alone
When it comes to healing, the body works on its own timeline
One willow to rule them all: how one (ever-evolving) plant relationship can transform a life
But literally on an actual physical, biological level, you are your own healer
Your pain, symptoms, ailments- everything is happening for you
The daily routine that keeps Asia's past chronic health issues at bay
The interplay between stress, the nervous system, and health
Being truly seen, and the difference between being seen by nature v being seen by humans
When you're given a book on a subject you've never heard of before and the truth it contains makes you cry
Finding the core flower essence for your multidimensional self
Bringing story medicine into your healing