It examines 100 of the most widely used, most easily available, most familiar, and most fascinating medicinal plants, tracing their history, folklore, and healing properties, and summarizing the latest scientific research on their many benefits. The Healing Herbs also explains where to find the herbs, how to take them, store and prepare them, even how to grow them.The Healing Herbs also includes an easy-to-use A-to-Z herb encyclopedia, plus a section titled Prevention and Treatment: A Fast-action Guide to Using the Healing Herbs, including: Conditions--from ear infection to stress, A-to-Z conditions and the herbs you can use to treat and prevent specific symptoms and diseases; Healing Actions--from antibiotic to sedative, an A-to-Z list of medicinal uses with herbs as a natural alternative to certain medicines; Other Uses--some unusual uses for the healing herbs, for example as insect repellent or memory improvement. Both Conditions and Healing Actions include special precautions about certain herbs, whether in preparation, long-term use, or short-term effects.

    Rejecting both end-times hand wringing and dewy-eyed faith that technology will save us from ourselves, urban homesteaders choose instead to act. By growing their own food and harnessing natural energy, they are planting seeds for the future of our cities.If you would like to harvest your own vegetables, raise city chickens, or convert to solar energy, this practical, hands-on book is full of step-by-step projects that will get you started homesteading immediately, whether you live in an apartment or a house. It is also a guidebook to the larger movement and will point you to the best books and Internet resources on self-sufficiency topics.Projects include: How to grow food on a patio or balcony How to clean your house without toxins How to preserve food How to cook with solar energy How to divert your greywater to your garden How to choose the best homestead for you Written by city dwellers for city dwellers, this illustrated, smartly designed, two-color instruction book proposes a paradigm shift that will improve our lives, our community, and our planet. Authors Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen happily farm in Los Angeles and run the urban homestead blog www.homegrownrevolution.org.

    His new book, The Witching Herbs, is an in-depth exploration of 13 essential plants and herbs most closely associated with witchcraft--13 because it's the witching number and reflects the 13 months of the lunar calendar. The plants are poppy, clary sage, yarrow, rue, hyssop, vervain, mugwort, wormwood, datura, wild tobacco, henbane, belladonna, and mandrake.Roth writes simply and clearly on a vast amount of esoteric information that is not easily found elsewhere and will be greeted enthusiastically by those who already have extensive experience and libraries. It is unique in that it combines mysticism with practical instructions for growing each plant, based on Roth's 30 years of gardening expertise. Each chapter focuses on one plant and includes information on its unique plant spirit familiar, clear how-to instructions for magical projects, and pragmatic information on growing and cultivating.Roth writes, "This book is a great choice for intermediate-to-advanced witches who would like to work more closely with the traditional witching herbs, especially the baneful plants with their rather difficult spirits. Working directly with spirits is one of the fundamentals of the Craft."The Witching Herbs is the essential plant-worker's guide. Roth is not only a successful gardener, but also a magician and scholar of the occult. No other book blends clear, practical gardening techniques with equally lucid and sophisticated plant magic so successfully.

    This is the original book compilation of Foxfire material which introduces Aunt Arie and her contemporaries and includes log cabin building, hog dressing, snake lore, mountain crafts and food, and "other affairs of plain living."

    Traveling back to the healing arts of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, The Herbal Lore of Wise Women and Wortcunners takes readers deep into this world, through the leechcraft of heathen society and witches’ herb bundles to the cloister gardens of the Middle Ages. It also examines herbal medicine today in the traditional Chinese apothecary, the Indian ayurvedic system, homeopathy, and Native American medicine.   Balancing the mystical with the practical, author Wolf Storl explains how to become an herbalist, from collecting material to distilling and administering medicines. He includes authoritative advice on herb gardening, as well as a holistic inventory of plants used for purposes both benign and malign, from herbs for cooking, healing, beauty, and body care to psychedelic plants, witches’ salves for opening alternative realities, and poisonous herbs that can induce madness or cause death. Storl also describes traditional “women’s plants” and their uses: dyeing cloth, spinning and weaving, or whipping up love potions. The Herbal Lore of Wise Women and Wortcunners is written for professional and amateur herbalists as well as gardeners, urban homesteaders, and plantspeople interested in these rich ancient traditions.

    It's also a primer on nutrition--including facts about green foods, such as spirulina and blue-green algae, and the regeneration diets used by cancer patients and arthritics--along with an inspiring cookbook with more than 300 mostly vegetarian, nutrient-packed recipes.The information on Chinese medicine is useful for helping to diagnose health imbalances, especially nascent illnesses. It's smartly paired with the whole-foods program because the Chinese have attributed various health-balancing properties to foods, so you can tailor your diet to help alleviate symptoms of illness. For example, Chinese medicine dictates that someone with low energy and a pale complexion (a yin deficiency) would benefit from avoiding bitter foods and increasing sweet foods such as soy, black sesame seeds, parsnips, rice, and oats. (Note that the Chinese definition of sweet foods is much different from the American one!)Pitchford says in his dedication that he hopes the reader finds healing, awareness, and peace from following his program. The diet is certainly acetic by American standards (no alcohol, caffeine, white flour, fried foods, or sugar, and a minimum of eggs and dairy) but the reasons he gives for avoiding these negative energy foods are compelling. From the adrenal damage imparted by coffee to immune dysfunction brought on by excess refined sugar, Pitchford spurs you to rethink every dietary choice and its ultimate influence on your health. Without being alarmist, he adds dietary tips for protecting yourself against the dangers of modern life, including neutralizing damage from water fluoridation (thyroid and immune-system problems may result; fluoride is a carcinogen). There's further reading on food combining, female health, heart disease, pregnancy, fasting, and weight loss. Overall, this is a wonderful book for anyone who's serious about strengthening his or her body from the inside out.

    Created to both inspire and instruct, it returns readers to an era before power saws and fast food restaurants so they can rediscover the pleasures and challenges of a more self-sufficient, economical, and healthy lifestyle. Packed with hundreds of projects, step-by-step sequences, charts, tables, diagrams, and illustrations, it explains how to dye your own wool with plant pigments, graft trees for propagation, raise chickens, create a hutch table with hand tools, and make treats such as blueberry peach jam and cheddar cheese. The truly ambitious will learn how to build a log cabin or an adobe brick homestead.

    Updated with the latest biointensive tips and techniques, this is an essential reference for gardeners of all skill levels seeking to grow some or all of their own food.

    And yet there is still another; namely, growing them for sale in the various prepared forms and selling them in glass or tin receptacles in the neighborhood or by advertising in the household magazines. There surely is a market, and a profitable one if rightly managed. And with right management and profit is to come desire to have improved varieties. Such varieties can be developed at least as readily as the wonderful modern chrysanthemum has been developed from an insignificant[...].

    With all the plants conveniently organized by season, enthusiasts will find it very simple to locate and identify their desired ingredients. Each entry includes images, plus facts on the plant’s habitat, physical properties, harvesting, preparation, and poisonous look-alikes. The introduction contains tempting recipes and there’s a quick-reference seasonal key for each plant.“Season-by-season guide to identification, harvest, and preparation of more than 200 common edible plants to be found in the wild....Hundreds of edible species are included....[This] handy paperback guide includes jelly, jam, and pie recipes, a seasonal key to plants, [and a] chart listing nutritional contents.”—Booklist. “[Five hundred] beautiful color photographs...temptingly arranged.”—The Library Letter

    Whether you're hiking in remote areas or gardening in your backyard, this easy-to-use handbook will help you recognize and use fifty-five common wild plants that have extraordinary healing properties. With the Boreal Herbal, you will learn how to soothe pain with willow, staunch bleeding with yarrow, treat a urinary-tract infection with bearberry, and create a delicate and uplifting skin cream from sweetgrass. There are also dozens of healthy and delicious recipes, including Wild-Weed Spanakopita, Dandelion Wine, and Cranberry-Mint Muffins. Profiles of dozens of herbs, berries, and trees found in the northern boreal forest, including information on their habitat, harvest times, medicinal applications, as well as food uses, cosmetic uses, and spiritual uses. Full-colour photographs and botanical illustrations of each plant profiled in the book for easy identification Instructions on how to gather and preserve wild plants More than 200 recipes: teas, tinctures, powders, flower essences, topical treatments, beverages, jams and jellies, baked goods, soups, entr�es, and much more Safety tips for harvesting and using edible and medicinal wild plants, including information on calculating dosage and plant-specific cautions A resource section for people interested in starting up a non-timber forest-products business Botanical and medicinal glossaries, and index, and handy reference charts

    Pharmacognosy is the study of the composition, production, use, and history of drugs of natural origin. Pendell covers these topics and more in this volume, charting a voyage around the world of plant teachers. Through poetry, chemistry, and a generous sprinkling of arcane lore, Pendell weaves and twists the many threads of tradition into a singularly bewitching brew. Pendell's voyage is a true circumnavigation. It divulges what Gary Synder called "dangerous knowledge" that is a formidable weapon against "even more dangerous ignorance."Dale Pendell is a poet, software engineer, and longtime student of ethnobotany. His poetry has appeared in many journals, and he was the founding editor of KUKSU: Journal of Backcountry Writing. He has led workshops on ethnobotany and ethnopoetics for the Naropa Institute and the Botanical Preservation Corps.

    Thomas Cowan before reviewing this book--boy, have I been missing something!... This book is probably the best self-help guide for the healing arts that has ever been written" --Nancy Parsons, waldorfbooks.com "Readers will be pleased to know that its author, Dr. Thomas Cowan, combines the best of Eastern and Western esoteric wisdom in the healing arts with the best of modern findings in Western medicine.... This collaboration pulls together a mix of expertise that offers health seekers some truly holistic solutions." --Duncan M. Roads, editor, Nexus magazine What is the Fourfold Path to Healing? It is a unique, comprehensive view of medicine, a holistic approach to healing that integrates the four aspects of our bodies: the Physical, the Life Force, the Emotional, and the Mental. Its principles are simple: right diet for healing the physical body; beneficial medicines or therapies for the life-force body, healing movement and exercise for the emotional body, and effective thinking activity for the mental body. Dr. Cowan merges the wisdom of traditional societies, the most modern findings of western medicine and the esoteric teachings of the ancients as he works to answer this most important question: How do we obtain true health? The Fourfold Path presents a unique, comprehensive view of medicine that will challenge your deepest beliefs, while revealing a practical approach to healing. The "fourfold approach" includes:Nutrition, using nutrient-dense traditional foods; Therapeutics through a wide range of nontoxic remedies; Movement to heal and strengthen the emotions; Meditation to develop one's powers of objective thought. CONTENTS: PART 1: THE FOURFOLD APPROACHNutrition: Healing the Physical Body Therapeutics: Healing the Life-Force Body Movement: Healing the Emotional Body Meditation: Healing the Mental Body PART 2: THE ART OF MEDICINEInfectious Disease Cancer Heart Disease Hypertension Diabetes Diseases of Adrenal Insufficiency Digestive Disorders Chronic Fatigue Women's Diseases Men's Diseases Weight Loss Depression Back Pain Arthritis Neurological Diseases How to Be a Patient APPENDICESCooking Instructions Therapy Instructions Movement Instructions Sources This book is a great companion to Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions, (New Trends Publishing, 1999).

    It shows you how to grow your tea from seeds, cuttings, or small plants, as well as which parts of the plant are used to make tea. Liversidge lays out when and how to harvest your plants, as well as information on how to prepare the plant, including how to dry tea leaves to make tea you can store to last you throughout the year. As a guide to using tea to make you feel better, there are nutritional and medicinal benefits. Finally, there is an illustrated guide to show how to make up fresh and dried teabags and how to serve a delicious homegrown tea. It is sustainable way to look at a beverage, which is steeped in history and tradition.Sample drinks include well-known plants such as rose hips, mint, sage, hibiscus, and lavender, as well as more obscure ones like chicory, angelica, apple geranium, and lemon verbena.

    Tips on setting up a natural medicine chest, changing the family to a healthier diet and boosting immunity are also featured. Jessie's holistic approach covers nutritional, lifestyle, herbal and other natural therapies with a focus on evidence based care. Each health concern also includes information on preventative care and when to seek professional medical treatment.