The Holistic Herbalism Podcast
The Holistic Herbalism Podcast
Herbs A-Z: Salvia
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Today’s herbs are sage & rosemary – two herbs whose botanical name Salvia indicates they can keep us “safe, healthy, and secure”, if we go with a literal translation. Sounds pretty good to us! And tastes good, too…
Sage, Salvia officinalis, is the subject of a great many old sayings & adages, like “if a man would live for aye [forever], then should he eat sage in Maye” – or, “why should a man die while sage grows in his garden?” (We’d like to point out that sage is good for women and enbies too, just for the record!) Ryn’s personal favorite is this one: “Sage, make green the winter rain / charm the demons from my brain!” As a mental awakener and mind-sharpener, sage is hard to beat. It’s amazing for digestive sluggishness too, especially when that involves difficulty digesting fats. But don’t relegate it to food applications only – sage can be beautiful in formulae for cocktails or mocktails, bitters blends, and nervine elixirs.
Rosemary, Salvia rosmarinus, was categorized in its own genus as Rosmarinus officinalis until 2017. Well, we’ve had six years to get used to it, and we’re aaaalmost there – but you should still know both names, because in a lot of good herbal books you’ll only find it under the older name. It’s an excellent cerebral circulatory stimulant, aromatic carminative, and hepatic stimulant herb. Rosemary is an herb for remembrance, also, as Shakespeare’s Ophelia tells us in Hamlet. See how much this herb has in common with sage? They go great together, or with lavender and other aromatic mints. Try them in concert with sweet herbs, too – a “sweet heat” blend of sage, rosemary, monarda, fennel, goji, and a pinch of licorice is one of Ryn’s favorites recently.
Sage & rosemary are featured herbs in our Neurological & Emotional Health course. Although often when herbalists refer to “nervine” herbs, they mean relaxants and gentle sedatives, the term can also be applied to stimulants, like these two herbs. They can awaken and enliven nerve activity, and mental activity too.
This course is a user’s guide to your nerves & your emotions – including the difficult and dark ones. We discuss holistic herbalism strategies for addressing both neurological & psychological health issues. It includes a lengthy discussion of herbal pain management strategies, too!
Like all our offerings, these are self-paced online video courses, which come with free access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more!
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Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.
You can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!
Hi, I'm Kaia. And I'm
Speaker 2:Rin. And
Speaker 1:We're here at Commonwealth pluralistic Herbalism in Boston, Massachusetts,
Speaker 2:And on the internet everywhere. Thanks to the power of the podcast. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:<affirmative>.
Speaker 2:Yes. Woo,
Speaker 1:There. Woohoo. Almost. I almost forgot the
Speaker 2:Woohoo. You do the Woohoo. I do the mm-hmm.<affirmative> and then we can start
Speaker 1:<laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's how
Speaker 1:This works. All right. Having done those things,
Speaker 2:Uh, today we have our saviors here. Before us, we're gonna be talking about sage and rosemary. Mm. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Two of our favorite plants. Two of our favorite plants.<laugh>,
Speaker 2:Once again. Yes. Uh, but before that, I want to give you a little mini advertisement and say, when I thank Sage, and I think Rosemary, the next thing I think of is lovely lavender. It's
Speaker 1:True.
Speaker 2:Which is not just what we call lavender most of the time. It's also the name of a$10 course that we offer to you. To help you understand why lavender is more than soap.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness.<laugh>. Honestly, most of the soap that's lavender soap isn't even real lavender. So if you don't like lavender soap, that doesn't necessarily mean that you won't, like real lavender. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But this smells, this smells powerful. But lavender is even more than just aromatherapy. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know? Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, so we've got this course, and it'll teach you all about how to work with lavender, how to grow it, how to harvest it, how to make it into your own remedies. That's pretty cool. It's got,
Speaker 1:Yeah. And stuff that is beyond just smelling it like, uh, lavender as an antiseptic wound wash, for example. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Burn care, sugar scrub for the old pores. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Yeah. Uh, this is Or the new pores or the new ones. Why not?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you might be young.
Speaker 2:That's fine.<laugh>. That's fine. So this is one of our shorter courses. This one has three hours of video. It's got PDF quick guides for you. You can download the MP three s of the audio and take them with you on the go. There's discussion threads, uh, incorporated into each lesson, so you can ask your questions without even pausing the video. If you want to<laugh>, uh, you get lifetime access to this course once you buy it. Wow. That's a good deal.
Speaker 1:Also, it's a really great way, like, you listen to us on the pod every time that we release the pod, however frequent that is, or is it mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, and you might think that's pretty cool, but, um, then you might be like, well, I think I would like to take classes with them, but I don't really know what their online course platform is like, and do I like the videos and do I this and that? Well, hey, 10 bucks you can find out.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And you'll even get access to our live twice a week q and a sessions. And
Speaker 1:Yeah. If you've ever wanted to talk back to us while we were, uh, talking in the pod, uh, live q and a is your chance. That's the
Speaker 2:Place to do it. Yeah. Yeah. And our student community, which has been growing and thriving and really active lately. Mm. And, uh, it's like Facebook, but so much better.
Speaker 1:Only cool people are there
Speaker 2:Talking about plants. Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes. Garden
Speaker 2:Gardening tips, uh, formula, recipes, all kinds of good stuff.
Speaker 1:How late lately people are talking about organizing their apo, Carrie. Hmm. Um, that's been a really fun conversation. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, uh, you can find lovely lavender and all of our course offerings@online.com and wealth herbs.com. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, that's the place. Okay. And then one more thing before we jump into today's topic. This is where we see, see how
Speaker 1:Much more smoothly things go. The last episode I did by myself, and like, I don't remember when you are here, everything goes very smooth. We have an outline. We don't forget anything.
Speaker 2:It's the, it's the power of, of the text file.<laugh>.
Speaker 1:I'm
Speaker 2:A big, I'm a big, I'm a big believer in dot txt. I'll tell you,<laugh>. So here's where we remind you that we are not doctors. We are herbalist and holistic health educators.
Speaker 1:The ideas discussed in this podcast do not constitute medical advice. No state or federal authority licenses herbalist in the United States. So these discussions are for educational purposes only.
Speaker 2:We want to remind you that good health doesn't mean the same thing for everyone. Good health doesn't exist as an objective standard. It's influenced by your individual needs, experiences, and goals. So keep in mind that we're not attempting to present a single dogmatic right way that you should adhere to.
Speaker 1:Everyone's body is different. So the things that we're talking about may or may not apply directly to you, but we hope that they'll give you some new information to think about and some ideas to research further or experiment with further. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Yes. That's, that's a thing, uh, like little tangent I've been thinking about lately.
Speaker 2:Research and experiments. Right. I
Speaker 1:Like it. Right. Especially as all the hubbub over AI keeps growing and growing and growing, um, and the internet becomes a more and more challenging place to do research. I was like, but you know, actually that's less of a problem because herbalism is so much more about experimentation. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Yeah. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Okay. Okay. Well, anyway, sorry. All right. All right.
Speaker 2:<laugh>. Uh, and also finding your way to better health is both your right and your own personal responsibility. This doesn't mean you're alone on the journey, and it doesn't mean that you're to blame for your current state of health, but it does mean that the final decision, when you're considering any course of action, whether it was discussed on the internet or prescribed by a physician, that's always your choice to make mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Yes. Okay. So Sage, Rosemary two, salvias, both alike in dignity, in fair. The garden where we lay our scene,
Speaker 1:<laugh><laugh>, you just had that, that was not in the text file, y'all. He just had that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But if you can't do the first few lines of Romeo and Juliet, like, what are, like, you have to give your degree back. It's this whole thing.
Speaker 1:<laugh>,
Speaker 2:Uh, don't worry, Shakespeare is not done with us today. Um, but, but first Sage,
Speaker 1:But first, Sage,
Speaker 2:Sage, salvia, salvia, afic,
Speaker 1:Uh, you know,
Speaker 2:The original and old school Salvia,<laugh>
Speaker 1:<laugh>. Um, Sage is such an important plant to me, and actually I am pretty certain I owe that to you. Um, and normally the way that this kind of story goes, uh, is the reverse. Oh, yeah. Because normally this story goes something like, uh, this is RINs Weis. I was a martial arts teacher. I did this and that. I did the other thing. And then I met this girl and she had herbs, and Wow. Now I know about herbs, and
Speaker 2:That sounds just like me.<laugh>, that's exactly like me
Speaker 1:<laugh>. Um, but this time I have to say that Sage was not, um, like anywhere near my top 10 list of plants. I just, you know, whatever. It was nice and sausage, but I didn't really, like, I just hadn't gotten around to it. Mm-hmm. Then, then it
Speaker 2:Not, it was not your cup of tea,
Speaker 1:It wasn't yet mm-hmm.<affirmative> it wasn't yet. And then you were doing like your first or second, it was, maybe it was your second, I think your first her of the week ever was sent out. Oh, yeah. Or over the month. And so I think Sage was your second herb of the month, and that's when I really started noticing Sage and thinking of it in terms of something more than like dinner flavoring. And I, I think it's worth saying that because, I mean, this was a long time ago, but still, at any point in your herbal journey, there are herbs that you have like, just not really paid much attention to, or like, oh, those are just in the kitchen or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think this is often like a, like a thing for our culinary plants. Mm. You know, uh, and there's even a few that I keep being like, oh, I really need to just take a week and make tea with, I don't know, cumin every day, or,
Speaker 1:Yeah. I wonder what that would be like. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or, or I don't know. Or other things where it's like, well, it lives in the spice rack, you know, and it's, it's happy there. Just just leave it there.
Speaker 1:Just leave it there,<laugh>. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, and you know, it's, so anyway, if you have herbs in the kitchen and you don't re like, they're not also in your apothecary, maybe you don't give them, um, all the attention that they deserve, that's fine. That's okay. Uh, their time will come for you. And so don't, uh, don't be thinking like I have to, every herb has to be the center of my focus all of the time. Yeah. Like, no, these things,
Speaker 2:And there, there are some that you'll, you know, try out as tea your tincture and you'll be like, yeah, this really belongs in the dinner<laugh>. That's, that's, that's where it goes. Uh, and that's, that's okay too. But having taken it as tea, having ticking it, taken it as tincture that will give you like a whole new appreciation for those plants. Mm-hmm. Uh, and a much better understanding of them and their medicinal potentialities.
Speaker 1:And when that happened with sage, it turned out that sage became a really important orb in my life. Um, and in particular, a really important nerving in my life mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And, um, and none of that was stuff I expected. I just had it in the, put it in sausage. It helps you digest fat category, which it really does, which it really does. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Yeah. Uh, sage is warming, it has some bitter action, but the bitter is, um, not in the forefront. So the bitter is still doing work in your body, but it is not like, um, you put it in your sausage and all you taste is bitter sausage, that that isn't what happens. Um, but still there is that bitterness there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. There's just so much aromatics that the bitter doesn't get in the way. And I feel the same way about the astringent element in sage. Mm. Like sage is, sage is a decently astringent herb mm-hmm.<affirmative>, but it's one that I never really have trouble drinking. Um, and I think there may be like commensurately, astringent plants who just don't have the aromatic flood, you know? Yeah. Or, or swoosh that sage offers. Yeah. Um, and that I, I get a little more like, eh, that's too drying for me about it.
Speaker 1:<laugh>. Yeah. Um, okay. Well, it's that whoosh actually. Well, it's the whoosh and the as stringency the whoosh, that's the technical term. Right. Um, it, it, it's those two things together that I think are doing the brunt of the work in the emotional sphere. Um, because when I want sage as a Irvine, it is usually when I am feeling really overwhelmed and, and then like, it has taken a bad turn. You know, like you can feel overwhelmed and then you can like kind of commiserate with somebody else, or like be in camaraderie and it can be kind of funny and whatever. Okay. When it's not that, it's, it's ugly<laugh> actually, um, to be overwhelmed and just feel like, um, you can't, you can't stop you. There's no one who will help you. There's usually someone who would help you, but like, you can't see that. Right. And, um, everything is like never gonna be done, and it's gonna be done wrong. And, and just like, everything is like, the worst possible outcome is the only outcome you can see. Um, even though honestly it rarely turns out that way, but in that point of overwhelm, that's like all there is that you can really focus on and it's a certain kind of falling apart. It's almost like, Hmm. It's almost like falling in on yourself, this kind of overwhelm because you can no longer see any of the parts of the world that could be available to help you or any of the parts in the, in the world that are going. Right. Um, or any of the parts that have felt overwhelming in the past and were, and, and ended up okay. Like, you can't see any of that. And so it's just this kind of like crumbling in.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But that's interesting cause you're talking about feeling over overwhelmed and then the sort of collapsing in thing, and it's like, yeah, if you have, you know, uh, like, like a, like a tin can, but it's at the bottom of the ocean and it's getting like crushed by the outward pressure, uh, you know, something heavy and liquid and coming in at all sides. But if we have something that can increase some inner movements and build up some boundaries and push some pressure back outwards from the in inside, then you can hold yourself stable.
Speaker 1:That was such exactly the description that I was trying to make and not making, and that was it perfectly. This
Speaker 2:Is why we do this together,
Speaker 1:<laugh>,<laugh>, uh, yeah. So, um, Sage really, it, it helps you like pick your head up. It helps you kind of expand yourself outward. It helps you simultaneously pull yourself together. Right. Because even though it's like a crumbling in on yourself, it is still falling apart. It's just like falling apart inside you. And, um, so just sort of like pulling yourself together and, and like getting your chin back up again mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, yeah. It's, it is an amazing plant. And in particular, I don't know who needs to hear this today, but in particular when you have that feeling of I'm overwhelmed, there's no one to help me. Okay, there is someone who could help me or maybe multiple someones, but they would do it wrong, and I would just have to do it again anyway. And so it wouldn't really be any help. I'm so alone, I'm so overwhelmed when it is that particular kind of overwhelm. Sage is really super good at it. And I, um, all of these different things also have a little humor for me because if you go back to the really old books, Hippocrates, the old, old books, they associate sage with psychosis, but the meaning of the word psychosis was very, very different back then.<laugh>. And it, it was so much more like you're stuck in your head and you're not able to like, be in reality anymore because you're just in this dark place in your head. Um, and, and like, oh, you need support to get through whatever is happening for you. Um,
Speaker 2:I'm thinking of like, you know, psyche, it's the minds, but it's a butterfly and it's the image for the mind because it flips from thing to saying, and it doesn't settle around. But then that's also making me think of like butterflies in your stomach. And sometimes we get butterflies in our stomach because we have too much of our mind jumbling around, and that causes the stomach to get jumbled around.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Because
Speaker 2:The butterflies are in your belly. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No, this is really good. Right. And it's that whole gut-brain access thing going on. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And really this, the idea of this gut brainin access thing going on<laugh> like that, that really does make a lot of sense for sage. You know, so often when we're looking at problems along this gut to brainin access, we're looking at excess permeability, you know, usually starting in the intestines, but also affecting like your blood-brain barrier. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, um, even in a very literal way, not only is metaphor, right? Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, and then we have sage coming in and improving digestive fire, helping you to break things down into, you know, absorbable nutrient parts instead of things that your immune system looks at as a threat. Mm. Uh, we have sage with the astringency tightening up the gut barrier and improving integrity there. And then we have sage as a, as a cerebral stimulant, moving blood and circulation up into your brain. Um, you know, famously, along with Rosemary now being studied for problems like Alzheimer's and dementia. But just to say it can bring in some fresh, fresh blood, it can bring in some fresh movement, uh, into your mind and, uh, stabilize there as well.
Speaker 1:Hmm. Almost like, um, it helps you break down nutrients that are hard to break down, that are challenging to digest. Also, it can help you break down thoughts and emotions that are challenging to digest<laugh>. Yeah. You know, like mentally digest. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And again, especially the ones that are kind of heavy mm-hmm.<affirmative> or weighing you down Yes. Or take a lot of energy to pull apart<laugh> mm-hmm.<affirmative> mm-hmm.<affirmative> and get the good stuff out of them. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Yeah. This, you know, this happens so often in herbalism where you start thinking about the effect of the herb on the physiology, and then that gives you this metaphorical connection to something else. And then, you know, as our science advances, we start to be like, oh, that metaphor, um, isn't
Speaker 1:<laugh>. No. That actually was literal
Speaker 2:What's going on. Exactly. Yeah. That's a very precise way to describe it. Thanks. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, because we, we think that emotions are like this esoteric kind of like non-tangible sort of thing. And the more that we learn, the more that we realize not so much. Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Well, uh, shall we talk about Rosemary then?
Speaker 1:Uh, we shall, we, shall, we shall, you know. Okay. So Rosemary has been reclassified, um, and it is now in the Sage family.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Apparently that, uh, really got rolling in 2017. So we've had like six years to get used to it now. And we're like, we're almost there.
Speaker 1:I mean, we're kinda used,
Speaker 2:We're almost there. Yeah. We're kinda used to it. Well, we did change the label on the jar in the apothecary that took at least four years<laugh>,
Speaker 1:<laugh>,
Speaker 2:Just to be clear. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Um, you know, so this is a thing that happens from time to time, um, when the taxonomic, taxo taxon taxonomy.
Speaker 2:Taxonomists.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, anyway, when the classifications were being made, um, you know, we used the tools that we had available, and those tools were mostly sensorial. Um, and so things went into families because they looked similar to one another, or because they had similar effects or similar actions, or similar properties that were sensible, um, since, and now the botanists are classifying things according to dna. And to be honest, I, uh,<laugh><laugh>, I think it sometimes it is better to have them classified with the actual senses, simply because, um, that's what you've got when you're out with plants. Like, you don't have a DNA n a testing laboratory available to you when you're out with plants. And I mean, anyway, these categories are all just for humans. So I guess it doesn't really matter what we do mm-hmm.<affirmative>, but, um, you know, and all of the names also they're just for humans. They're like, that's not their names. Yeah. But
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, the, the Recategorize logic, logic was basically like, well, you know, by their genetic profiles, you know, these not just Rosemary, but some others, like sk, which was Russian sage mm-hmm.<affirmative>, um, that also got moved from Sia genus into salvia genus. It was like we could move like five or six, uh, genre into the salvia and put them together, or we could break salvia into like 70 or 700<laugh>. Yeah. Uh, different genre. And I think they thought that that would be more of a paint. Yeah. Um,<laugh>, so, you know, human stuff, right. Science stuff. Look Rosemary, whether it was, uh, Ross Marinis a Fish, Alice, or now it's Salvia Ross Marinis, it was always a mint family plant. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, right in the Lemy aca mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And when you look at the flowers of rosemary and the flowers of sage, and the flowers of mint, and the flowers of lavender for that matter, you can see like, oh yeah. These are all, they're all the flowers. They're doing mint family flower shake thing, you know? Yeah. Line of symmetry right down the middle, some lobes up top, some other lobes down on the bottom. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I, um, I really think that you can make a pivot point out of rosemary between sage and lavender. Nice. And, um, so, you know, you've got sage on one hand and lavender on the other end. In the middle is rosemary. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And I think that is pretty accurate in terms of action as well. Like, um, sage, Sage is like the lowest working action, if you think about it. And then Rosemary Yes. Has digestive action, but also it's, it's upper then sage, not that sage isn't up, but rosemary is upper and then lavender is like the most up, and it doesn't have no digestive aspect, but it's like really in the background, you
Speaker 2:Get some relaxation. You certainly get a little bit of liver stimulus from it, but mm-hmm.<affirmative> more from rosemary. Yeah. And more from sage. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. It's just sort of like a, like a progression there. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, you know, one thing that I wanna talk about with Rosemary is actually, so, okay. We have this fantastic course called Basic Phyto Chemistry, which Rin pretty much teaches alone. Um, filmed it all alone and everything. Uh, mostly because at the time I was filming something else that I can't remember what I was film, like we, the
Speaker 2:Children's health course.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. We had like done divide and conquer. Yeah, yeah. Um, but also because, um, Rin loved Phytochemistry, first<laugh> and still loves it more than me, I see it as kind of like, oh, right, that's a handy thing. I should definitely know that. And not, ah, what a delightful thing that I would like to put into my brain, you know?
Speaker 2:So for you it's more like, well, these are the parts that matter and that I can really do something with or, or need to know about to practice safely or whatever else. Right. And for me, I'm like, that's great, but I would also just like to know all of the thing and see all the diagrams,<laugh>, and I wanted to see how the shapes are like each other<laugh>, and I want Yes. You know? Yes. So I'll, I'll, you know, get lost in that for a long time, but
Speaker 1:Okay. But here's, here's the thing. Rosemary is a prime example of one of the places where Phytochemistry seriously matters. And that is because Rosemary is, there's a lot of research done on Rosemary with regard to cancer. And listen, there are no herbs that will cure cancer. That's not how it works. But there are lots of herbs that will, um, assist the body in managing cancer. And if your cancer isn't too far progressed, that can be super, super helpful. And if you have cancer in the family, but you haven't gotten it yet, that's even more helpful. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, so
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Cancer is this thing where like, too often people are only looking at it when it's like fully advanced and it's kind of been around for a long time mm-hmm.<affirmative>, because tumors, they start as a cell two. Right. That gets a little bit weird in its DNA instructions, copying over to the new generation of cell, and now it's a little strange, and now it's like really sugar hungry, and now it's growing, and now it refuses to die, and oh, now it's like causing other cells around it to behave that way. Oh. And now it's a lump, you can feel. Right. It's really big<laugh>, you know, so on the one hand we might say that there aren't plants that are gonna cure cancer when we're talking about, you know, it's been in your body for a decade or how many years it's been, it's been building and, you know, developing to the point that we can feel it or see it or detected or whatever. But on the other hand, like almost every plant that has been looked at to have some anti-cancer or preventative effects, you find one. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So it's like, no plants can cure cancer. All plants can cure cancer.<laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 1:<laugh>.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, okay. So one of the big things that they have studied about Rosemary is that, um, it supports apoptosis, which is a super fun word to say. And apoptosis just means cells checking out when it is their time. Um, and that's the thing with cancer, right? That the cells refuse to, we say refuse to die. And that's like kind of, I think the better metaphor probably in this time and place is they refuse to log off and stop working<laugh>. Um, and like, you know, quitting time was five o'clock and it's now 10:00 PM and you're still checking your email for work. Uh, so that, but cancer cells, right? That's what's going on with them. And apoptosis is just, we are closed. It is time to stop. And so cancer overrides that process. Every cell has a programmed time that it knows is quitting time, and cancer is when many things have happened. But one of the things that happens is, um, quitting time doesn't exist anymore. It's all work all the time. And, okay, so Rosemary is one of the plants that can help reinstate quitting time, but the, the phytochemical constituents that are, um, researched in relation to that work are heavy. And for a long time you saw a lot of essential oils being like rosemary essential oils being, being touted for, oh, it prevents cancer. Or even, oh, it cures cancer. Which it's not like that, but, um, but so, so people were like, well, I'm gonna drink rosemary essential oil in my, I'm just gonna put a drop in my water. Don't do this. Um, I'm gonna put a drop of rosemary essential oil in my water, and then I'm gonna drink it because it's gonna keep me cancer free. But the elements that are in the essential oil are the lightest elements. So every chemical at the molecular like stage has a weight, and if that weight is basically lighter than air, it w it becomes an esen, it's an essential oil, it will evaporate and you can capture it in that essential oil. And if it is heavier than air, you cannot capture it in the essential oil, but you can get it in tea and,
Speaker 2:And, and food and Yes. Yeah. Other
Speaker 1:Things. Yes. Exactly. And so, like minerals are like this. There are no minerals in the essential oil. They're way too heavy. If you want the minerals, you have to eat the plant or drink it as a long infusion or a decoction or whatever. Mm-hmm. Okay. So that is the case with Rosemary. The constituents that are responsible for making sure that your cells quit on time and don't work all night, um, are heavy. They're not in the essential oil, but they are in the tea, they are in the plant as food. And so if you want those effects, you need tea. Essential oil is not going to do it. Yeah. But you won't know that<laugh>. Right. And you won't be able to like look at that marketing and say, that's not accurate. That's totally scammy. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, if you don't know some stuff about phytochemistry, even though phytochemistry might be a little intimidating, it really is very helpful. And this is exactly the kind of time when it is
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. These kind of things that can, that can give that answer<laugh>, you know, with, with some degree of finality to it to be like, look, you can take that preparation. It's great. You know, for aromatherapy, there have been some benefits found for people having the scent of rosemary in the air, um, or, or in their environment to help with clarity of thought and things like that. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, but if you're really focused on this supposed anti-cancer activity, well, most of the research is pointing at this rose meic acid stuff, and that's not gonna turn up in your essential oil. And here's the reason why, right? Mm-hmm.<affirmative> can make, make it just very, very clear and very straightforward. Um, and that's, that's much more actionable. Phyto camm<laugh>.
Speaker 1:That's very practical. It's, it's like just helps you to get a reality check about whether claims that are being made about an herb are like, even have the possibility to be accurate or not.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Um, I had mentioned that Shakespeare would re re return. Um, and with Rosemary, it's, you know, it's in Hamlet, right? It's the, the bit where Ophelia is, um, feeling sad because Hamlet's being a dick,
Speaker 1:<laugh> and<laugh>
Speaker 2:And, uh, you know, for reasons, whatever. And, but she's upset. And so she's, um, you know, she's going around tell all the people at the court, and she's handing out flowers and she says, Rosemary, that's for remembrance. I hope you'll remember me. You know, and what I, I always like to, I I always bring this up when we talk about Rosemary, and the reason is because,
Speaker 1:Because why not bring up Shakespeare whenever you can. Oh, sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's always good, right? But because like, this wasn't something that people in the audience at the time were baffled by. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, they weren't like, what's this weird lady giving out flowers and telling them that Rosemary means this, and violets mean that, and panes mean this other thing? Like, is that just, oh, that's just her being crazy. I get it. No, that's not that at all. That's not the crazy part.<laugh>, the, the crazy part is like in the middle of court,<laugh> to be, be dragged and handing out wildflowers to the people in their finery while they're like trying to, I don't know, sentence someone to death or, right.
Speaker 1:So that scene was trying to illustrate that Ophelia was not okay in the head. Um, but naming the plants and what they can help you with, that wasn't the illustrative part. Right. It was, it was the manner and time in which she was doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And so this goes along with like, things that people might call the language of flowers, where like, you have a bouquet and it's, you know, got a color scheme, but it also has a secret message. Yeah. And if there's rosemary in there, it's like, you better not forget<laugh>
Speaker 1:<laugh>, you know, we don't, we don't really attend to the language of flowers anymore. Um, in fact, um, in this country we don't really attend to flowers so much anymore. But, um, and I don't know what it's like in Europe now today, so any of y'all listening in Europe can let me know. But when I lived there in the eighties and early nineties, um, you took flowers anytime you went to someone's home. Like even as a teenager, I took flowers places regularly because that was the appropriate thing to do. And people still knew the meanings of flowers. And so I did not, and there were certain times that Floris had to be like, you can't take that flower, or, or they would say, where are you going? And I would tell them, and they would be like, this, this is not appropriate. You cannot take that. And I didn't, you know, I, I didn't Why like,
Speaker 2:That's a flower for morning or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I had to be taught why that that flower was not appropriate, um, for a, like, baby being born<laugh> or something.<laugh> or, or whatever. Um, because, because in, because they weren't just buying them because, oh, I don't know, I guess that one's pretty Hmm. They were, they still had the meanings behind the flowers, so Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think it's fun to try to try to, you know, whether to re re reawaken or like reinvent<laugh> mm-hmm.<affirmative>, those kinds of things. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, um, I guess, uh, turmeric would be a message of like, keep your cool
Speaker 1:<laugh> well term, you know, these are what we're discussing right now are very European. Yeah. True. Um, traditions around the flower meanings and stuff. I think in other parts of the world, they would have totally different, different ones. Yeah. Um, yeah. Totally different flowers and possibly different meanings for them. Yeah. Like, and uh, different meanings for flowers that might overlap. Or maybe they wouldn't, maybe they would be the same. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Rosemary can still be about memory, though. I mean, a lot of people have heard about, oh, I heard that's good for Alzheimer's. I heard that's good for dementia. Mm. You know, that kind of thing. And you know, when you read those, when you read those studies or those investigations, it's like, you know, we reduce the like, visible expressions of anxiety and discomfort by 20%<laugh>. It's, it's not, you know, this person suddenly remembers where their keys were 20 years ago that they lost and have been looking for ever since. Or this person has no trouble recognizing all of their extended family when they visit now. Right. That's, that's not what people are talking about with this. If that's the kind of effect you want, you need to start long before mm-hmm.<affirmative> the diagnosis mm-hmm.<affirmative> like long before the worry, long before the suspicion of people in your life that maybe they're starting to go, you know? Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And I encourage that because, um, you can find ways to make both sage and rosemary, uh, a part of your life and to be very delicious mm-hmm.<affirmative> and wonderful mm-hmm.<affirmative> and not only in, you know, sausages and fatty meals and stuff like that, although, hey,
Speaker 1:How about you put it in there? That's
Speaker 2:Delicious. That's
Speaker 1:Great. Yeah. Yep.
Speaker 2:But I, I did wanna spend some time talking about like delicious things, uh, with both sage and rosemary, and one of them is this kombucha I've been drinking here today, so I'm not gonna like advertise for brew doctor or whatever. They don't give us like money or, or any of that. Although if they're watching Hi
Speaker 1:<laugh>. No, he, but like, he just legit likes this and drinks it all the time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So this is this formula and they call it clear mind, and they put rosemary and mint and sage and green tea together and good job. This is like a reasonable herbal formula, you know? Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, um, this is, uh, these are absolutely herbs that can increase cerebral circulation and clear out the cobwebs and mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know, there's this old English saying about sage and, and it's, uh, sage make green, the winter rain charm, the demons from my brain. And it's like, you know, we hear, we hear in that like, oh yeah, seasonal effective disorder. Oh yeah. Like cold, stagnant, watery type depression stuff. Yeah. Like, yeah. But also just that, that whoosh you were talking about earlier. Right. Like clearly the cobwebs right outta there, you know? Yeah. So I like this formula a lot. It tastes good and, um, it's, it's a wanna
Speaker 1:I wanna interrupt you completely. No, uh, I've, I wanna emphasize that the name of it is clear mind. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And somebody looking at the ingredients might say, well that's cuz green tea has caffeine and that's not what's going on here. I mean, yes, green tea does have caffeine, um, and that certainly is part of the formula, but that's not what this formula is about. To me, looking at this formula, I think of the caffeine as like the last part of it. Maybe even just the catalyst kind of part of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I mean, you know, this is kombucha, so they had to start with some kind of tea and Right. They chose green tea this time, or which is
Speaker 1:Like, but it's also in terms of caffeination, it's
Speaker 2:Pretty mild. Pretty
Speaker 1:Mild. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I just wanted to kind of point out because, because it's easy to be like, oh well it's just the caffeine, the rest of this stuff is just there for flavor and that's not what's going on in a formula like this at all. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Cuz flavor is, well, flavor is phytochemistry. Right. Flavor is herbal actions, uh, sensible to us because, you know, we evolved and the plants were around and we needed some way to make sense of them. And turns out we can do that with our tongues and our noses.<laugh>
Speaker 1:<laugh>. Yeah. The portable chemistry lab, we carry around with us all of the time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that's a sage and Rosemary combo I really love, um, actually putting sage with mint, um, sage or rosemary together with mint, uh, is quite good. And even some people who don't really love mint very much<laugh>, uh, might find it more acceptable next to some sage and some rosemary.
Speaker 1:That's such an appropriate word. Acceptable. That's the word. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. We're talking specifically about peppermint mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, there's a blend that I really love for menstruation. Um, and I will say it's because, um, that is often a time that, that those feelings of overwhelm get out of control for me. Um, like that's a kind of part of p m s for me. Um, and so I, I really enjoy Penny Royal and mug wart and Sage, and usually somebody like Red Clover will go in there, like some kind of lymphatic mover will go in there as well. Um,
Speaker 2:Sometimes Heather you put in
Speaker 1:Yeah, Heather is quite nice also. Um, but the, the Penny Royal and the sage together well, and also with theor, like just the flavor is fantastic, but Mugwort isn't a mint, so the, you know. Okay. Um, but the, the Penny Royal and Sage, first off of all the minty mints, penny Royal is the one that I think is tasty. Hmm. Yeah. And, but secondly, you, you really have a full range of movement with a formula like that in terms of like digestive movement, circulatory movement, uh, lymphatic movement, just, just getting things moving. So, and also emotional movement. So if your kind of PMs tends to be damp and heavy and slow and stuck and stagnant, um, then that's, it's a very lifting, moving formula for the whole, like, I'm thinking like from the brain all the way down the trunk, you know,
Speaker 2:<laugh> nice.<laugh> nice. Yeah, that's a really good one. One thing I've been making pretty frequently, um, I guess less so as it's been getting warmer around here,
Speaker 1:But, um, oh, but it, when it was still cold, you were making this all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And mentally I was calling it sweet Heat and I would put sage and rosemary and menard or thyme or oregano or all of them<laugh><laugh>. And that's the heat portion<laugh>. All right. Um, uh, and then, and then sweet herbs like fennel and goji and if it's just for me, then some licorice root as well. Um, and so there's something about those like very hot aromatics and these really like, smooth feelings, sweet herbs and getting them together. Cuz sometimes if I was to drink like just men and timey and sage or like rosemary and oregano together, it does feel good in hot, but also a bit sharp, especially in the throats in the throat.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, and including the fennel, the goatee, the licorice in there, it really like smooths it over and, and there's a, a little coating effect as you swallow, and I found it much more pleasant. Um, but, uh, yeah, like that formula, it can be, it can be good and hot. There was this one time a few weeks ago, I think, or maybe just a couple weeks where I made a big pot of it. Um, and I was really enthusiastic about it. I was like drinking it as soon as it was tolerable, like it was still super hot and I drank a quart in like, I don't know, less than one hour. And I started like sweating, like,
Speaker 1:Like
Speaker 2:I, I was red in the face and everywhere, like my ears were turning bright. I was like, I gotta take off some layers. Okay. Take my socks off and everything. I was like, oh, this is great. This is like, this is an herbal stimulant, diaphoretic inaction. This is like the you, this is like approving<laugh> they call it, you know? Yeah. To really feel that. So that's good stuff.
Speaker 1:Um, also, I love how all of your T Blends have names, even if you don't tell them to people.<laugh>, you always have names for your T blends and they're always so cute and I never name anything. In fact, I often don't even remember what I put in it.<laugh>, uh, I don't know. I just appreciate that about you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well anyway. Sweet. Heat, give it a try.<laugh>
Speaker 1:Give it a
Speaker 2:Try. I don't know. Do you have any other sage and or rosemary, uh, combos that you love?
Speaker 1:Well, okay, we do probably have to mention the thing that like we always mention, which is smells good. Hmm. Um, and uh, it's really, it's just a spray bottle full of water with some essential oils in it. It's what I use to clean, it's what I like. Even if I'm just feeling like the house is kind of stuffy, I'll just spray it in the air. Um, but that started off just being rosemary and lavender and has branched out now to be like, sage, basil, terragon, like all kinds of different things. Yeah. Go in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Terragon, that's a good one. And that's sort of like what you were saying earlier about putting mug wart together with Sage and, and Penny Royal and Friends. But, um, Terragon is sort of related to mug wart. It's another Artemesia. Mm-hmm. Um, variety, but, uh, a very different flavor. And I, I feel like that might be even, that's another good one to try together with Sage and Rosemary. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Yeah. They fit together really nicely.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I'm actually like thinking about tea, thinking about making tea after this, and I'm like, oh, like, like Rosemary, sage, Anna Ssip and tarragon. That could be quite tasty. That
Speaker 2:Could be good.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It might need like some linden with it. Yeah. To kinda,
Speaker 2:It's warming up for us, you know, it's definitely springtime. It's not super hot yet though. I feel like on a hotter summer day you can still have sage and rosemary tea, but like maybe a sun tea and maybe with lemon balm.
Speaker 1:I was gonna see that too.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Like something citrusy in there. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> that's gonna be more pleasant on a hot day. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>
Speaker 1:Nice. It's not too hot today, so Yeah. This should be good.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Um, you know, one thing I sort of hinted at earlier, but didn't really circle back to was something about a savior or saviors here, and that's, you know, the, the word salvia in the Latin, it can mean like to save, to keep healthy, uh, to keep happy,<laugh>, you know, things like that. Um, uh, secure, that kind of thing. And, uh, I like to, I like to think about that for these plants. There's a lot of mythology about both of these, um, about like literally being connected to, uh, with Rosemary, connected to, you know, Mary<laugh>. She's like a figure, um,<laugh><laugh> and um, and with Sage as well, like Salvia, Salva, Sage, the savior, you know? Mm-hmm.<affirmative> is one of the older names for it mm-hmm.<affirmative>, but there's a lot of power in, in these names, you know. Um, and with, with Rosemary Ross Marinis there, there's this longstanding debate about like, is it because it's the dew of the sea? Is it because it grows by the sea? Is it because it like captures some dew in the morning and it tastes salty and it reminds people of the sea? And there's all of this back and forth, forth, uh, about that when you talked to the, like, historians of urbanism.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, though, I I'm always just so fascinated by, um, herbalism in the United States specifically because, um, you know, back in the thirties it was, it was pushed out as a legitimate medicinal, um, discipline. And not in every place. There were some places that held onto it, but, but for the most part, um, it was, it was pushed out and, um,
Speaker 2:It was a prestige practice as a, as a mainstream practice.
Speaker 1:As a, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, it, it just amazes me how many herbs stuck, but we just moved them into like the culinary sphere. And, and then when you look at them historically and you're like, they thought sage was so important, they called it the savior<laugh>. Yep. You know, like they thought Rosemary was so important that they named it after Mary likes in Europe. That's a good one. They liked her, you know,
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, St. John's ward. Okay, that's John. He's pretty pretty up there in, in the whole pantheon, but Mary, that's like, that's,
Speaker 1:It's right up there. It's right up, you know, like, and, and that these are plants that stuck with us, and now we, we don't even associate them with any kind of medicinal action in, in terms of mainstream, um, knowledge. Um, and yet here they are, even when they outlawed herbalism, they couldn't remove these plants from people's lives. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And good thing too,<laugh>.
Speaker 1:Uh, yes.
Speaker 2:All right. Um, we're gonna wrap up, but before we do, I just wanted to, to comment a little bit about one of our courses, the Neurological and Emotional Health course, and it's connected to today's topic because s Saint and Rosemary are really two of our favorite nervine herbs. It's just that they're nerving stimulants, you know, not every nervine, uh, is a relaxant for a sedative, even though most of the time if an herbalist says, let's have a class about Irvings, they usually mean like the calm ones to help you rest and relax beany and chemmy and that. But Nevine stimulants are important, and it doesn't mean that they're gonna make you jittery like coffee does. Right.
Speaker 1:And even, even sometimes unnerving stimulant still helps you relax. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, right? Like, because if we're thinking about sage, well, Rosemary will do this too, and we're thinking about like heavy, dark, stuck emotional patterns. You, those, those create anxiety all on their own. Like even if those patterns didn't come from a place of anxiousness, they'll create the anxiousness because everything feels dark and stuck and heavy. Hmm. And so that's, that Irving stimulant action is what's required to clear out, break up the heaviness, break up the stagnation, break up the darkness, get it all out. And ultimately that does lead to relaxation, even though we did it through stimulation. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It, it feels, it feels very much like, you know, with, with muscles, people easily understand, well, if they're tense and tight, if you can warm them mm-hmm.<affirmative>, then they'll relax. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know, but your nerves are kind of similar. Right. If they're also like, cold and tight and we warm them up with herbs like this, then they can get some relaxation too. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know, so Yeah. And, and Sage and rosemary, they can, they can enliven, they can like awaken nerve activity. You can feel that in your, in your brain, in your mental state. Um, and our, our kind of takeaway so often is that your neurological system and the emotional patterns in your mind and your body, they're connected. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> and herbs are always acting on both of them at the same time. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, the herbs are not interested in Cartesian dualism,<laugh><laugh>. The herbs do not care about the, the body minds divide. They find it easy to cross back and forth, even if we struggle,
Speaker 1:They, they don't know there's, they don't realize there's anything to cross over. Yeah. That's just a human construct. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you should check this out, right? It's our neurological and emotional health course. You're sure to meet some herbs who can help you to feel calmer and gentler and more relaxed, but also present and sharp and, and more focused. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> as well,
Speaker 1:Like all of our courses, the neurological and Emotional Health course, which I do have to say is my favorites, one of our courses. That's a, it's a good one. It's a good one. Um, it includes, uh, nearly 45 hours of video lessons and MP3 versions of all that. So you can review on the go. There's downloadable PDFs, activities, study guides, all that stuff. You can ask your questions in the discussion threads. We answer them within a day. There's the student community. There's the twice a week live q and A sessions. There's lifetime access. There's all the things.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You don't have to rush to get through the 45 hours of video. You can take your time, you
Speaker 1:Can take your time, you can watch it a million times when we update it, the updates show up in your account for free. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, um, listen, you can't learn herbalism in a, in a, in
Speaker 2:A year in a, in a rush, in a, you can't. Lets, you know,
Speaker 1:You can't, like you need time, you need time to think things through and then review old material and then realize that there's stuff that you didn't catch the first time around and even several years later, time to do that again. Like, you just, you need time for things to sink in and settle in. And so we don't think that people should lose access to their herbal learning. We think you should have access to it for your whole life. So that's what we do. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, uh, we'll put a link in the show notes, but you can also find that and all of our courses@online.commonwealthherbs.com. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Okay. Well, that's gonna be it for this episode. Um, we'll be back soon with some more holistic Herbalism podcast for you. Until then, take care of yourselves. Take care of each other, drink some tea, drink some tea, and save yourselves, uh, with Sallis. Yeah,<laugh>. Bye. Bye.