Culture is Medicine with Dr. Gary Ferguson

Dr. Gary Ferguson | Traditional Roots Herbal Conference | Portland Herbal Conference

Our 2019 Traditional Roots Herbal Conference ended with a stirring talk by Dr. Gary Ferguson about the tangible ways that culture supports healing. The class was so powerful that we’re making the whole two-hour session available for free.

Forest Bathing: Immersion in the Healing Power of Nature

Traditional Roots Institute | Dr. Kurt Beil | forest bathing | shinrin-yoku

By Kurt Beil, ND, LAc, MPH Everyone understands how time spent in a beautiful natural setting can be good for you. The peace and relaxation from the surrounding trees and other vegetation leaves one feeling restored and invigorated. These experiences have been sought for hundreds of years, and this simple activity is affordable and enjoyable …

First Greens of the Season: Watercress

watercress | first greens of the season | wildfood | wildmedicine | Traditional Roots Institute

By Amelia R. Cohn Naturtium officinale, commonly known known as watercress, is is one of the oldest known salad greens consumed by humans, sharing the Brassicaceae family with collards, kale and broccoli. This semi-aquatic plant is high in many vitamins and minerals. It contains heart-rate and blood-pressure regulating potassium as well as the B-complex vitamins that are crucial …

August 29 Garden Social

5 Iconic Chinese Herbs: Combining the botanical, the sensory and the classical (2 hours CE to be applied for) Thursday, Aug. 15, 6:30-8:30pm in the Min Zidell Healing Garden at NUNM. Light refreshments will be served. In this talk, Eric will weave together insights from Han dynasty classical Chinese medicine texts, ecological and botanical information, and …

“The leaves Bruised do smell like Carrots.”

By Dr. Orna Izakson Today I held a 400-year-old copy of Gerard’s Herball in my hands. (It’s actually only 380 years old, but who’s counting.) I got to lift it, touch its cover, open and turn its pages, read its words. The crisp paper is cotton or linen fiber, and is in better shape than some of the …

Weed Lover

Unintentional Medicine from Evolution’s Winners By Dr. Orna Izakson Back in the late ’90s and early aughts, a small but information-dense ’zine circulated in the Eugene area called “weed lover.” The premise was that weeds offend gardeners by growing where they’re not wanted, but that they nevertheless offer great value by way of food, medicine …

Six Reasons to Start Gardening

My favorite seed catalog came in today’s mail. What’s new for 2010: organic Floriani red flint corn, green meat radish, Bolivian rainbow pepper, purple bok choy, ruby streaks mustard. This is why I started gardening – I was awed by the incredible diversity of life I could sustain on my little corner of earth. There …

The Top Ten Garden Medicines

A spring planting guide while you’re planning what to plant Gardeners have a big advantage during deep darkness of a northwest winter: We get to pore over garden books and catalogs that offer shards of sunlight and whiffs of spring. Dreaming about striped tomatoes, salivating over the prospect of a fresh melon, imagining the thrum …

Herb and Garden Book Roundup

At the end of a talk I gave the other day about gardening with medicinal plants, a lovely woman came up to me afterward to ask about books. If I could only have one herb book after the apocalypse/revolution/peak oil, etc., she asked, which book would it be? Book geek that I am, of course …

The Original Brands: Nature Literacy

There is an infographic* going around on social media that is telling: *Key at end By Dr. Mahalia Freed We are becoming nature-illiterate, and the consequences reach beyond not being able to identify the trees around us. It is telling that we can identify brands and not leaves. It speaks volumes about the values in …