The Plant Spirit Podcast with Sara Artemisia

Plants as a Gateway to Nature Connection with Rosalee de la Forêt

• Sara Artemisia / Rosalee de la Foret • Episode 49

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#49 - Join us for a wonderful conversation with Herbalist Rosalee de la Forêt on how connecting with wild medicinal plants supports an experience of joy and deep fulfillment in our relationship with the Earth.

In this episode, Rosalee shares about the transformative experience of working with some amazing herbs including St. John’s Wort, Elderberry, and Hawthorn, and how a sense of curiosity and wonder arises when we witness Nature. She also offers insight on the current phenomenon of plant blindness, and how getting to know herbs inspires an inherently joyful relationship of reciprocity in our experience with the Earth.

Rosalee is passionate about inspiring people to turn to the healing gifts of medicinal plants and nature connection. She finds daily inspiration in the beauty of the Methow Valley in WA state where she has lived for the past 15 years. She is the author of the bestselling books Alchemy of Herbs: Transforming Everyday Ingredients into Foods and Remedies that Heal and co-author of Wild Remedies: How to Forage Healing Foods and Craft Your Own Herbal Medicine.

Rosalee is a registered herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild and was an herbal clinician for 6 years before dedicating her offerings to herbal education. In addition to writing books she teaches many online herbal courses about herbalism, nature connection, and medicine making. She is also the host of the Herbs With Rosalee podcast and YouTube channel.

You can find Rosalee at: herbswithrosalee.com
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosaleedelaforet/
On facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HerbalRemediesAdvice/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/HerbsWithRosalee

For more info visit Sara's website at: https://www.multidimensionalnature.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/multidimensional.nature/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saraartemisia.ms/
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/plantspiritherbalism
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@saraartemisia
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@multidimensional.nature
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/multidimensionalnature/

Learn how to communicate with plant consciousness in the free workshop on How to Learn Plant Language: https://www.learnplantlanguage.com/

Sara Artemisia:

Welcome to the Plant Spirit Podcast on connecting with plant consciousness, and the healing wisdom of Nature. If you'd like to learn more on how to communicate directly with plants, visit www.learnplantlanguage.com. To register for the free workshop, that's www.learnplantlanguage.com. I'm your host, Sara Artemesia and I'm excited to introduce our next guest to the show today. Rosalee de la Foret is a registered herbalist who's passionate about inspiring people to turn to the healing gifts of medicinal plants, and Nature connection. She's the author of the best selling books, Alchemy of Herbs Transforming Everyday Ingredients into Foods and Remedies that Heal and co-author of Wild Remedies How to Forage Healing Foods and Craft Your Own Herbal Medicine. In addition to writing books, Rosalee teaches online herbal courses about herbalism, Nature connection, and medicine making. She's also the host of Herbs With Rosalee podcast, and YouTube channel. So Rosalee, thanks so much for being here. It's such an honor to have you here with us today.

Rosalee de la Foret:

Aww, such a pleasure, Sara. Thank you so much for having me.

Sara Artemisia:

Oh, thank you. And yeah, I just love your experience with Nature connection with the herbs. We were talking a little bit earlier about your journey with all of that. And I'd love to just hear more about this about your experience with plants. And how in your experience are they a gateway to Nature connection?

Rosalee de la Foret:

Hmm. Well, for me, they were kind of my gateway. But my own personal experience. I grew up camping a lot. But I always felt even you know, when we were hiking or camping outside where there's no other people around or concrete, I still always felt separate from the world around me, like I was going out there. And I never really felt at home. And I loved it. And it was beautiful. But I felt like I was a tourist or a visitor on the Earth. And it was really through getting to know the plants one by one by forming those relationships with the plants and not just learning how to identify them, but very practically working with them for food, for medicine, for insights, all of that slowly transformed me into this gateway of actually connecting with the Earth and feeling like I live here on the Earth, I'm not just a tourist looking around in awe. But I actually belong here.

Sara Artemisia:

So, so valuable. We were talking a little bit earlier about your experience with Plantain. And I was wondering if you'd be open to sharing that now?

Rosalee de la Foret:

Sure.

Sara Artemisia:

What? Who is Plantain? Why are they so special? What do you love about Plantain?

Rosalee de la Foret:

Yeah, so Plantain. My first herbal course that I took was about infusing herbal oils. And my instructor Karen Sherwood, kept mentioning Plantain and saying all these wonderful things about Plantain. And I had been recently living in the Dominican Republic. And so I immediately thought of platanos, which is one of my favorite foods. And I was just incredulous that like, oh, there's platanos are here. And, you know, I asked her what is this Plantain? It's all over the driveway. I thought wow, I just like couldn't even envision that, you know, so she literally took me upstairs and we went to the driveway. And she showed me Plantain as broadly Plantain. And I swear I've never seen that plant before that moment. And then I saw it and I just couldn't you know, she had waxed on and on politically about all of his wonderful healing attributes and the way it heals tissues. And she had all these stories about having it addressed. Even like sepsis, blood poisoning when they're out on a backcountry trip and you know, all these things. And then it's like this literally a weed that's growing in the driveway. And I was just wow. And then of course, after I was introduced to Plantain, I began to see Plantain everywhere. And everybody's driveway in sidewalk cracks along trail sides, Plantain was everywhere. And again, I swear I'd never seen this plant before in my life and then suddenly it was everywhere. I know that's a common experience for all of us plant lovers. You meet a plant and then suddenly that plant wants to see you everywhere. I'd love that moment. It was very transformative for me. Because then you know that experience happened over and over again as I got to know more plants but Plantain was the first which is it's why it's the logo for my school and a plant that I do love dearly and when I rarely pull from my garden. You know, it's like I just, I love it so much. So I love to be surrounded by Plantain.

Sara Artemisia:

Sounds great. And yeah, there is something so interesting about that. There's this phenomenon I'm sure you've heard of, I'm sure many people listening have heard of this as well about plant blindness, how we're in a time right now, where a lot of people when they look out, or they're in a natural space, they'll just see a wall of green instead of individual plants, and how amazing both on that very practical level of understanding that actually, the forest is also a pharmacy. You know, there's many ways that we can work with plants for healing, and also just incredibly magical to develop these deepening relationships with the plants. And I'm curious to hear a bit more in your experience. Why is it so important for people to connect with wild plants?

Rosalee de la Foret:

Well, gosh, I think of like a thousand reasons. And I also think, like a thousand reasons, it's impossible to describe, because so is like this energetic feeling. I mentioned, I went camping a lot as a kid, I grew up in Utah, and my dad loved to go camping. So we went camping all the time. And I didn't know any of the plants really when I was growing up. So many years later, after I'd been through lots of herbal schools and got to know lots of plants and had relationships with lots of plants, I went back to Utah on a trip with my husband a road trip. And I was so amazed to go back and see, all these friends that I had met in the Pacific Northwest were growing there, making me realize how I didn't know the simplest of plants, like elder was everywhere and then there was just so many plants that I learned there that was new to but it's just I couldn't imagine what like I could no longer imagine what life would be like without knowing those plants. Because again, it's a sense of deep connection. And to not to have that plant blindness, I feel like there is a silent heartbreak that when you have plant blindness, you don't even know that you have it. And then when you break through that blindness and have those connections with the plants, and I would say you know, with the birds, and the bugs, and so you know, the reptiles all of it. My special gateway is the plants as I know, you love them too. But all of it to be out there and to have that connection, there's something that happens that is a magical internal transformation of peace and belonging, that I don't know how to find that in any other way. And there's also these other responsibilities that come up through that connection. You know, when you start taking from plants, I think for many of us, there becomes a natural reciprocity there, right? That's the highest ideal that we don't just take from the plants, that that we there's a give and take relationship that is involved. There's also this opening of interdependence and seeing how all of these beings and very much humans included are participating in the world around us. And to be blind to that is like really missing out on a lot of the magic and beauty of the world. And it's again, kind of like a silent heartbreak when people aren't able to see that. But I, that is my passion now, helping facilitate people along that path that they can go through that transformation wherever they're at within that, and just strengthening that connection to the Earth. And so I get to see that happen to people over and over and over again. And it is the most fulfilling work for me to see that. And again, it's kind of hard to describe because I use the word magical. I'm not a super woowoo person, but I don't know how else to describe it. It's very deep. And I think it's really coming back into alignment with our role on this Earth that has been forgotten for a long time. And so there's just a rightness to it, there's a beauty to it, there's an absolute joy and deep fulfillment that is just cannot be replicated by putting something in your Amazon shopping cart and then having internet you know, like you can't the two cannot be compared. But I think a lot of the times like the things that we might seek out consumerism, a lot of things we're you know, watching TV I'm, I consume, I watch TV. I'm not saying that those are not things we should never do. But I think when we become so focused on those things, it's like we're almost trying to create experiences or replicate something that we can't. The difference between that and that connection to the Earth is indescribable. And that's where the true meaning of life comes forth for me and the true joy.

Sara Artemisia:

So well said thank you so much for sharing that I really feel that, too. And just what you're talking about here with this joy, this deep connection that comes through. It brings to mind this experience of a question of really, for us each to look at you know, what are we primarily anchored to in this life? Are we primarily anchored to our relationships with people with the natural world or something else you know, and if it is something else, why? Question for that, because there is so much joy, deep healing and connection in the natural world that is, so you I mean, truly this podcast that is, it's a celebration of that. So yeah, I just love that you brought that up. And I'd love to hear a bit more about your experience with could be even what you've witnessed in students about how learning about herbalism naturally opens up this connection with the natural world, the relationship with the natural world?

Rosalee de la Foret:

Yeah, you know I think of somebody actually had as a client, and this person was kind of addicted to the new cycle, and felt like it was their moral responsibility to be updated on every breaking news event possible, and the news was kind of constantly on in their home and podcasts, all of it, you know, it's like the read the paper every day, it was like really, again, felt like it was their civic moral duty to be paying that close of attention. And this person had incredible amount of anxiety, and fear. And all of our conversations was kind of like, how are you doing? For me to ask them that question, the response was an update on news situation of the day. And so my first advice to them, when I acknowledged that it is a good idea to have some knowledge of what's going on in the world. So it was not saying like, don't ever watch the news, you know, because that was not, that was not this path they wanted to take in life. So it's like, yes, watch some news. But let's take that down, just getting the highlights for five minutes a day, I tell them just to do this for a week, just a week, five minutes of news per day for just a week, and instead go outside and spend time in their garden. And just within that week, I watched this person makes such a huge transformation. And then part of that transformation was the curiosity that came just from sitting outside in their garden. And the questions and their world now became filled with wondering about the world around them. And being more in touch with the weather, thinking about the moon, it was such a dramatic shift within that short period of time, which then just grew and grew right after that. And, again, I think we have so many problems in the world today. And it's so easy. For us, I know from personal experience to be anxious and afraid, because that's what gets sold to us on so many different levels. And I think what really needs our attention right now is the Earth, that the Earth is going through major transformations. Humans are not living in a good way that is in broad reciprocity, that's not promoting the health of this entire planet. And that's where we need our you know, not our fear and not our anxiety, although it's easy to fall into that. But we need those connections again, because that what we have connection to and that what we love is that what we're going to take care of whether that's in our gardens, whether that's the wetlands that are being threatened with drainage, and a strip mall, there's all these kind of like, even within our small communities ways that connection, not I mean, I have kind of talked about from personal transformation, that personal inner magic that happens that deep sense of joy. But when we feel that, and then we act from that joy and love, then turn that outward into the world around us and take care of the plants and the ecosystems and all of the beings there. That's what we need. And I used to be an activist, like the kind that like stood on street corners and yelled at people, because I was upset about the state of the world. And I wanted to be doing my part and not just going along with it. But I didn't find that particularly effective, because most people don't like to be yelled at I've learned. So living through this joy, and forming those relationships and helping people along their path of forming the relationships. It's just one of those gifts that just keeps on rippling out in so many ways. And and there is a huge resurgence right now of people who are yearning for that connection that is inherently our divine right as humans to have that connection to the world around something that has been somewhat robbed from us, either intentionally or unintentionally. And by restoring that connection that we are meant to have. It's a very powerful thing. And I think that obviously we need laws and things to like stop mega problems that are going on with corporations and the reaping of the Earth. But ultimately, like real change is gonna come from a cultural change. And we can do that by loving Plantain. I mean, that's where it starts.

Sara Artemisia:

I love that and I love what you just shared to how you know what we love and feel connected to is what we'll take care of. It's a simple and foundational as that applies to all all relationships with the natural world with people with everything. So important. So yeah, I'd love to hear some some of the herbs that you're currently feeling inspired by.

Rosalee de la Foret:

Yeah, well, you know, always hard to choose a few. But I grow over a hundred medicinal herbs. Many of them I grow simply to have them around instead versus like growing them for the purpose of mass harvest, but I just love having them around. But one plant that I love to have around and I love to work with on very practical levels is St. John's Wort. And I love the many layers of beauty of St. John's Wort. And all I mean, I've just every year there's more I have to learn from that plant. And it's kind of interesting plant and that kind of a famous medicinal herb, and many people know who aren't herbalist or even plant people know of St. John's Wort for depression, because researchers had latched on to that particular use and had done some studies and that were beneficial and so became known as like the depression herb. And this is a great example of stripping the magic away from a plant right they like they determined what the first they determined one chemical constituent that was the one responsible for its benefits. And then later they found another one that was responsible for its benefits. So they isolated those and put them into capsules. And then we watched those like have a lot of bad effects as is often happens with isolated chemical constituents versus whole plant medicine. There's no doubt that there is benefit of St. John's Wort for depression. I have found in my experience, and I've talked to many other herbalist about this is that St. John's Wort for depression is more about helping people through times of darkness. So it's like, you know, as herbalist we don't, we obviously we don't diagnose and we don't prescribe. So we're not saying Oh, you have depression, take St John's Wort. Some people may do that. But that I feel like is not only less effective, but again kind of strips the the deep layers there is of herbalism all the layers of healing that can happen as well. So definitely, you know, this bright sunny plants the has these yellow blossoms that often bloom around the solstice summer solstice. And it's like they're mimicking the sun its five beautiful petals, the superior ovary, which just has a very distinct look to it. And they just open up to greet the sun on the summer solstice, which I think is beautiful, and a wonderful metaphor for helping bring light into our life. So when we're going through a lot of darkness, harvesting St. John's Wort is a total joy that is so much fun you got you know, have there's very much for me a tradition of going out hopefully on summer solstice, sometimes it's either or, on either end of it because the plant might do blooms on either side of the solstice. But this year, I was able to go out and harvest them right around that time. And the really fun thing is it has these gorgeous yellow blossoms. And when you pick those blossoms and the buds are also yellow, and you pick them and if you squish the flowers and buds in your fingertips and your fingertips turn reddish purplish, which is pretty magical, too. And so I often harvest a whole bunch so my fingers are all purple and stained purple and red, which is just you know, another really fun thing like just that, in itself like the difference between going to a store and picking a St. John's Wort product off the shelf. And then the difference of going to a sunny meadow on summer solstice and harvesting these beautiful blooms and feeling the breeze and seeing all the pollinators and bugs that are visiting St. John's Wort and hearing the birds that is medicine, beautiful, beautiful medicine within itself and something I look forward to every year. What I love to do with St. John's Wort is pretty much everything. But my favorite thing is oil. And so I harvest the buds and the flowers and maybe a few leaves and make a really concentrated oil, which then I use topically, I use it on my face and my chest places that get a lot of sun. And I also use it for any type of like injury and especially nerve pain that I might have. Even just yesterday actually, I woke up yesterday. And it was just this weird thing that happened. My pinky on my left hand was numb. And I was like disconcerting. I have a like a numb pinky all of a sudden. And so my first thought was just kind of like take deep breaths and recognize this too shall pass, you know, didn't want to like feed into any kind of fear going on. And I just sat with it and breathe for a little bit. And then what came to me was St. John's Wort oil. And so I put St John's Wort oil through my neck, through my arm, through the pinky, just the whole that big nerve there. But then on a couple times a day and by the evening I had feeling in my pinky again. So I love being able to turn to this joyful medicine for that purpose. And again, just it's a whole different way of being as an herbalist to be able to take a moment to breathe, to have a plant come to me, to then work with this medicine that I made myself and in this I don't have harvest every single medicinal plant that I work with, but in this type in this way I could and so deeply healing on so many levels and so empowering and so different than immediately calling up a doctor and getting an MRI or going to see a physical therapist, which you know, could be a step to take. I'm not saying it's not, but it's just these different steps that can be done ahead of time. Which is one way I think that herbalism just has could be wonderfully integrated into our system today, like our medical system is so overrun. And there's these interventions we could be taking early on, again, not opposed to Western medicine, but just steps one, two and three, before we feel ers or whatever with these more minor injuries. Yes, I just love St. John's Wort oil, and I use it all year long again, for places that get a lot of sun. I've had a couple conversations with people who had precancerous skin cells, issues on their face, and you St John's Wort with great benefit. Again, I think that's something that warrants working with Western medicine. So I'm not saying ignored precancerous cells. But there's no doubt a very strong benefit of St. John's Wort being really wonderful for helping to restore tissue health and resource can help especially after sun exposure. So it's something that can be done at the same time as seeking out additional help for those issues. And I actually make St. John's Wort for a couple of friends. They don't like putting their order every year. I don't make a lot of medicine for a lot of people. But that's one and I do love making the medicine because making of the medicine is so much fun too, you harvest the blossoms your fingers turn reddish purplish. And then when you make the oil or the tincture, the result is this deep blood red oil which there's just something about things changing color. That's really fun, which is why I think I'm obsessed with like putting Hibiscus and all of my teas, which turns pink. I just love the color change like this. And then I always like feel such a sense of satisfaction to what I end up with like this. You can't even see through it. Dark red oil. Feels really good.

Sara Artemisia:

I love St John's oil. Oh my goodness. I just love that oil so much. And yeah, it's worked so well for me with nerve pain as well. So yeah, I love that you brought that up and

Rosalee de la Foret:

I feel that in itself, like what do you you know, what do people do? Like I often think? Because it's been over two decades now that I've been working with plants. And I often like now I don't know, I'm like, what do you do when you have nerve pain? Nerve pain really sucks. It's shooting. It's hard, sharp. It's very painful. And what do people do? So yeah, I feel bad that more people don't know St. John's Wort, and also that St. John's Wort is so vilified. If cows eat a lot of St. John's Wort, then they could abort their fetuses, which is obviously a bad thing. But now St. John's Wort becomes vilified versus like cows being on public lands that are unmonitored, which would seem like another thing to look at, because if we imagine if the entire population of North America loved St. John's Wort and relied on St. John's Wort to keep their skin healthy and help prevent cancer, and if they relied on it to help with severe nerve pain, whether that's from something like shingles or herpes, cold sore, or thoracic outlet syndrome, or, you know, whatever, that was their medicine and they relied on it, they wouldn't be as villified and we would figure out some things, how to make it work. So that's another thing about St. John's Wort that I just love is it's so strongly anti viral. And so it's wonderful for all sorts of herpes virus stuff, chickenpox, shingles, herpes sores, it's one of the best things for cold sores. I make a cold sore lip balm. That's mostly St. John's Wort, also Cottonwood and Calendula. Every time I post the recipe, people are like, what about Lemon Balm? Why didn't this this recipe has to have Lemon Balm? You know, even some people say like this herbalist doesn't know anything. She didn't put Lemon Balm in it. Well, it's like, you know, Lemon Balm is a wonderful plant that I deeply love. What's most effective, it seems like with Lemon Balm is the essential oil, which is very expensive, because it takes massive quantities of it to get essential oil. It's an amazing essential oil, I will not dispute that. But the fact that I can just go out and harvest St. John's Wort which in my opinion is even better in this particular situation. Yeah, so it's a wonderful plant for for actually addressing these things that affects a huge part of the population.

Sara Artemisia:

It also comes to mind, just the multifaceted Nature of the whole plant versus the isolated chemical constituent, just how many it's St. John's Wort antiviral, you know, like all these other properties that are also associated when we work with the whole plant and just how amazing that is. And yeah, I've thought about that many many times as well of how different would the experience culturally with St. John's Wort be because I also live in the West. And so of course, it introduced these climates, beetles that are decimating the St. John's Wort populations everywhere. And I understand why they're doing that for the cows in the ranchers, and also, as a plant person and deep lover of St. John's Wort, it's pretty tragic. And just brings to mind that, that thing of what you shared earlier, what we love and feel connected to, we take care of and so how would all of life be different if all of us knew who these plants were, that are growing all around us, you know, the common weeds that are so supportive for so many different things and just bring so much joy. And you know, you talked earlier about in your earlier days, being an activist and I really do feel in a lot of ways that experiencing joy in the current state of the world can be a revolutionary act. And so this is, is subversive, you know, it's subtle, it's a subtly revolutionary act, but it's, it's really, it's a really powerful. It's really powerful to do that. And so that is one of my biggest reasons that I feel so passionate about connecting with plants. It's like, yeah, be a revolutionary experience joy connect with plants, you know,

Rosalee de la Foret:

Especially a weed, you know, like St. John's Wort, it's hard to not feel joy when you see this plant blooming. I mean, its this like yellow bouquet and blossoms that are just so gorgeous. It's such a joyful plant.

Sara Artemisia:

I mean, to me, it just, it's an embodiment of the sun in a flower. It's just absolutely amazing. I love it. So yeah, so what what other plants come to mind for you that you just feeling inspired by?

Rosalee de la Foret:

I feel like with St. John's Wort, I should mention that we've talked about a lot of topical use, which is how I often most use it, it can also be worked with internally. And it has wonderful benefits with that. And one of the things that it really does is it moves like liver stagnation, it acts very strongly in the liver. And which is interesting, because in western medicine, it's become somewhat vilified, because it actually can make the liver work so well, then if you take it concurrently with a lot of different medications, then it moves the medications through too quickly, and renders them less useful. So I just wanted to mention that because, you know, if people are thinking about working with St. John's Wort internally, especially, it's good to know that there's some contraindications or at least special considerations with that. The other thing is that if somebody takes a lot of the isolated constituents internally, or somehow uses them externally, then there can develop an photosensitivity with St. John's Wort. So, I love St. John's Wort, you love St. John's Wort, there's so many gifts to St. John's wort, and it's just worth mentioning, as always really look into each and every plant, make sure it's a good fit for wherever someone's at in their health journey. That being said, you know, it's a safe plant in many regards, but there are just things to be aware of with St. John's Wort.

Sara Artemisia:

Yeah, that's so important. So, so important. So yeah, thank you.

Rosalee de la Foret:

Yeah. Yeah, so this is the time of St. John's Wort. And I love walking out there right now and finding it and working with it. It's another plant that I really love this time of year is the Elderberries and Elderberry Eldersberry common where I live. And it's interesting, like, it really sets the tone for the seasons, you know, it's like the flat or the leaves are some of the first to come out. And so that's always fun to watch. And then the flowers come around the beginning kind of the same time as the St. John's Wort, actually, it's around. early July. It's summer solstice time, the flowers bloom. This is very different for different climates. By the way, I know my friends in LA get the blossoms in February or something. So you have to get to know your own elder and see what your seasonal cycles are. But then right around my birthday in early September, there's it's time for the Elderberry harvest. And I love Elderberry so much when I was first introduced Elderberry. It was as a food. And that's what we did with it. We made wine with it. We made it into a syrup and poured it on our pancakes. We made beverages out of it. And it was just seen as a very nutrient dense, wonderful food Jam, make jam out of it. And then it was only like so that was my first introduction to Elderberry. And then later on I was introduced to it as medicine. But that's something that I like I really love about this plant. You know, St. John's Wort is medicine. St. John's Wort is medicine for the soul, for our hearts, for bringing the sun into our lives, for nerve pain on and on and on. You don't really turn to St John's Wort for food. But Elderberry excels at both, both the flowers and the berries make wonderful food. That's something that we can just welcome into our lives daily for wonderful benefits, whether it's that reciprocity and connection of just enjoying the plants that are around us. And or also turning it to for food which we can really are sorry is medicine, which we can really rely on for our health. So I love that like you mentioned, like the versatility of St. John's Wort has all these gifts and then Elderberry is similar. It has many different gifts, but I love those plants that are serious food and serious medicine both. One of the gifts of Elderberry that I think is so important for practically everybody in Western culture is that it modulates inflammation. And that is something that I'm super passionate about is helping people address chronic and systemic inflammation because that is one of the main drivers of chronic disease today. And chronic disease is often what people are dealing with with their health. So things like heart disease, cancer, type two diabetes, systemic pain, and on and on and on. There's so many things, insomnia, all of that can be most often pointed to systemic inflammation as the root cause. So again, like Western medicine has so many gifts, but when it comes to that chronic sees, it's often about suppressing symptoms, like suppressing the pain, or knocking someone out at night so that they can sleep and then feel groggy in the morning, and on and on and on. But plants we can turn to them in ways actually help heal the problem from the very ground level. And they many times do this by modulating inflammation and they all have their like own special gifts and ways that they do this. But Elderberry and Elderflower both strongly modulate inflammation, which makes it a wonderful plant to invite into our daily lives just to enjoy and have this in my grief books, the modern herbal books, she has a great story in there about how early 1900s or so and that sailors knew that if they had rheumatic pain that they should drink port wine, which is not something like we normally think like oh, you have a chronic problem, go drink a bottle of wine, not normally something we say. So it was looked into and they found out that the port wine, the cheap port wine that the sailors were buying wasn't actually port wine. It was Elderberry wine. And the Elderberry was just you know, this wonderfully strong modulating the inflammation. So again, so many benefits in that way. And yeah, I could go on and on about modulation. But I think you know, we have to mention Elderberries and all the flowers are most popularly known for which is addressing viral infections like upper respiratory infections like colds and the flu. And I love both the flowers and the berries. They're a little bit different. The flowers are so wonderful. And again, they make wonderful food as well and make them into a cordial include them into baked goods, all sorts of wonderful things there. But the flowers are a wonderful herb to support the fever process. And again, they are really beneficial in that they aren't suppressing a fever, but helping the fever and helping the person with the fever kind of move through these different stages of fever and how I work with Elderflower specifically is that when somebody feels hot, and kind of restless and uncomfortable and irritable, so it's like they're not really sweating, but they just like built up and built up and pent up in their body. What Elderflower does is it's like releases the exterior, in a way that just kind of like allows the heat to be let out. My good friend Jim McDonald talks about this is like if you're in a stuffy room, and it's really hot and stuffy and you open a window, that's what Elderflower does. And Elderflower has a wonderful affinity for the skin. It's wonderful as again as an infused oil that can be used topically in all sorts of different ways to support skin health. So wonderful affinity for the skin and both internally helps to open the skin externally helps to support skin health, and also has wonderful immune modulating properties to so if you're another way to work with eEderflowers take it at the very beginning of a cold or flu or upper respiratory virus in the hopes of helping either to stop it from occurring or to shorten the duration or perhaps to make the symptoms lessen the severity of the symptoms. And a famous Western herbal formula for that is Elderflower and Yarrow and Mint. And I was also taught to add Rosehips to that and it's a wonderful all purpose. We feel like something's coming on. That's a wonderful tea blend that I've relied on so many times. And then of course Elderberry is also quite famous for this, you know, both these plants are both these parts of the plants have been used for hundreds and hundreds of years and then that what happens in modern days is they get picked up on and researched. And then there's positive research studies on them and then they become very popular and that's what happened with Elderberry. The 90s There was a Greek researcher who started you know, was aware of the folkloric use of Elderberries and started working with them in the lab and showed these amazing results with Elderberries and that has kind of like catapulted Elderberry into popularity and which has just grown and grown. I thought it was interesting Paul Bergner in the 90s he published in his journal, like the 20 top most important, most popular herbs for herbalists and Elderberry didn't even make the list. I don't think he was even in the top 50 And now Elderberry is often in the top 10. So it's kind of interesting to see the popularity wax and wane but I'm definitely on board with Elderberry popularity, I love it, it grows. So abundantly, it grows naturally, but it can also be cultivated. And so you know, it's one it's not like a it only grows in the high alpine lakes, we can grow it sustainably and we can harvest it ethically, which is really important. And so how I like to work with Elderberry, again, wonderful food. Also, I think it works amazingly for a lot of people at the very very onset of a cold or a flu. And so how I work with that, it's like you feel that like scratch in the back of your throat or you feel the tiredness like you know, you know, like, oh, something's coming. And then I just really rely on Elderberry and pretty large amounts. So maybe 30 grams of the dried berries made into a tea per day, like 30 grams per day. Elderberry. gummies are really fun for adults and kids alike. They I just want to hit that a lot. I'm about to go on a trip, I'm going to be taking Elderberry gummies with me and just kind of eating those that like preventively. They taste yummy. And you know why not? Because I'm suddenly going to be around a lot of people. So I love that there has been some controversy around Elderberry and whether or not it's safe, and there's no indication at all that it's not safe. There's been a couple of case reports that people with autoimmune diseases don't do well with Elderberry, but there's many people with autoimmune diseases who do just fine. So if somebody has an autoimmune disease, it's worth working with an herbalist or taking things slow to make sure it's safe for them. But I wouldn't say I would never say like, Oh, you have an autoimmune disease don't ever use or work with Elderberry. I would never say that, because I don't think that is accurate. But it's always worth being cautious. And taking things slowly. But yeah, it just it's wonderful in that like so one way that we think it works and plants work in so many mysterious and broad ways. We know from the lab that one way we think elderberry might work is it actually stops viruses from replicating, which is why taking out that very onset of something it can help really well. I've not seen it be as helpful really, if you've been sick for three days and you're like in the thick of it, and then take Elderberry I've not seen that to be as helpful. So it's kind of like I take it a lot to prevent or at the onset of something. But if something settles in that I'm Elderflower might be more something that I'm turning to, the Elderberry is kind of like might have missed that timeframe there. Yeah, but it also because it modulates inflammation that can be really important for these upper respiratory infections that have a lot of inflammation associated with them like COVID because we know with COVID that people have excessive inflammation often have worse outcomes. And so plants like Elderberry to help are really a gift of modulating inflammation can be an important ally for that time. Now I feel like you know it's so much fun it's so much fun to just walk outside your door or walk down a park or see it on the side of the road and just look at this shrub and be like that's medicine that's, that's my medicine. You know to see the birds visit the shrub. Yeah, just the all the life around with Elderflowers love to attract lots of pollinators. It's just such a vibrant vivacious being that is really fun that be in relationship with and again, you know, have that tradition of harvest, which has become increasing, I would say increasingly important for me, but it's just kind of continuing to grow for decades of that. Being in touch with the seasons, the time of the year. And knowing like oh, this is Elderberry time. This is St John's Wort time.

Sara Artemisia:

Yeah, there are certain plants Elderberry is definitely one of them. Where when I see that tree, there is this sense that I get of this connection through time of how my ancestors have also worked with harvest, it's gone back through the millennia. I don't always experienced that with every plant that I see. But with Elderberry in particular, there was something about that tree where I feel like going out connecting with this tree, harvesting the flowers harvesting the berries. And also there's this sense of just that this has been happening for thousands and thousands of years with this tree, this relationship this human tree relationship and just how incredibly powerful and special that is. And the fact that Elderberry modulates inflammation and like we should probably all be working with Elderberry because certainly there are just so many things culturally in our foods in our entire system that provoke inflammation in the system. So thanks for bringing that up. And also, that aspect of what you're just talking about the importance of like in any relationship, so valuable to go in slowly as we're developing a relationship with a new plant, what is the right way to work with this plant? For me recognizing that the plants are very multifaceted. So are we, you know, there may be certain body system, people that the plants don't agree with as much. So always important, of course, as we mentioned earlier, make sure that the plant you're working with, if it's the first time you're working with the plant, does it have any known contraindications for anything, any kind of medications, any kind of anything. And also, just to develop that relationship, slowly start out with really small bits, see how it sits in your system that is disagreeing with you or not that that's really, really important. So yeah, I just love what you're sharing there about Elderberry. And yeah, I'm curious if there any other plants coming to mind in this moment, or?

Rosalee de la Foret:

Well, you know, I was talking about Elderberry. I felt the Hawthorn was like, don't forget about me.

Sara Artemisia:

Yeah, love Hawthorn.

Rosalee de la Foret:

You know, you had mentioned you know, there's so many things in our current culture that creates inflammation. And I do think we live in this interesting time where your inflammation is a good thing, actually, like we rely on inflammation to live, right. If we get an injury, we rely on inflammation to help create all these signals and processes that help to restore the injury. But we're living in this time right now, where chronic inflammation of sudden, like you mentioned, there's so many foods, lifestyle, etc, that are increasing our levels of inflammation. And I think at the same time, all these things that we ancestrally did that modulated systemic inflammation are at an all time low. So both are very bad. Both of those combined, have led to a very bad situation. And so I personally, my approach after being a clinical herbalist, and after many years of wagging my finger and telling people not to do this or not to do that. My approach now is more joyfully based and really involves, what can you include in your life. So it's more about being inclusive and joyfully adding things that you want to add to your life. And then what naturally happens with that is things that aren't serving people tend to get fall by the roadside, but it doesn't have to be like a big battle, you know, to give up things, because your life becomes filled with these other beautiful things. And so Elderberry can certainly be that. So we talked about for food, and Hawthorn is one that I feel like, because heart disease is so rampant in Western culture, and affects all of us in you know, whether it's ourselves personally or our loved ones. I feel like Hawthorn is something that we should all know. And be in relationship with and be interacting with as regularly as possible. And I love Hawthorn, again, a tree this beautiful tree, a sacred tree like Elder that has abundant fruits on them that we can grow and harvest sustainably and ethically. So we don't have concerns again about harvesting some rare plant you know, this is a plant that we can joyfully interact with on a large level. And popcorns gifts really are about modulating inflammation but it's whereas Elderberry seems to have I'm sure Elderberry can help support the heart and its ability to modulate inflammation. But Elder has this really affinity for upper respiratory health. Hawthorn has a strong affinity for heart health. And it's really guarantee if you ask a room of hundred herbalists with all of us with our many opinions and many ways of going about things. I guarantee that Hawthorn is going to be at the very top of that list. Because it is just a wonderful heart nourishing herb. So I love Hawthorne, as a preventive maybe two decades ago, I heard Rosemary Gladstar day something like you'll want to give Hawthorn to every man in your life that you love every day, just referring to heart disease being especially prevalent amongst men. And so I do that with my own husband I make him Hawthorn tea every single day. Hawthorn leaf and flower tea with Tulsi. So yeah, that's I strongly I was like Okay, I will do that Rosemary, whatever Rosemary says I will do that was definitely one of them. But why not? And then I also work with Hawthorn berry myself too again as a preventive Yeah, so that's what I just feel like again, that just bring so many gifts it's so it's a fun one to harvest all these red berries. Where I live we have black Hawthorn, Crataegus douglassi and the harvest seasons coming up here pretty soon, which is another traditional thing in our family we do we go harvest that and my favorite thing right now with Hawthorn is harvest the berries and I used to make a ton of brandy extract like a tincture with brandy and we would just have a little sip of that every night but even that little amount I've been drinking a lot less alcohol. And now my favorite thing is making a shrub or oxymel, which is a vinegar and honey mixture with the berries. The resulting color again, I love the color change, I'm just like this is like part of the joy like half the joys, the color change with the black Elder or with the black Hawthorn. It turns is like deep, deep red color like ruby red color. It's so beautiful. And I make enough like I make gallons and gallons of it this time of year. So that I can, we can enjoy it all throughout the year. So what I do is I just fill a jar with the Hawthorn berries, fill it like third or a quarter of the way with honey. I'm just kind of eyeballing it. And then I filled the rest of the way with an organic apple cider vinegar, put a plastic lid on that, give it a good shake, keep shaking it for a while, and I just actually let it sit in the jars until I use them. Then I just strain it off when I'm ready for it. And I put about a tablespoon or two into a cup with some sparkling water and drink it and it's so refreshing. Oh my gosh, really. There's nothing more when you're just been outside doing yard work or whatever and just got back from a hike your face is flushed, you feel super hot. Just you know this hot summer has like penetrated to your very soul. There's nothing more refreshing than a shrub like that. It's something about the fruit and the vinegar is it's a refrigerant like, I mean, it's like so cooling, it just cools your entire body down. It's like jumping into an Alpine like basically. So I love that. And then I love having this wonderful healing beverage that we love so much that we just get to drink all the time throughout the year that we often use that to make our salad dressings with. So again, it just becomes a part of our lifestyle and something that we get to enjoy. And again, I mean, what would the world be like if everybody was drinking Hawthorn oxymel shrubs every day, all year long? Undoubtedly, there's a lot of really amazing research on Hawthorn berries and leaf and flower specifically for heart health for people who do not have heart disease. As a preventive for people who have even moderate heart disease, heartburn is extremely beneficial. So yeah, it's quite the gift Hawthorn and it grows so freely.

Sara Artemisia:

I'm definitely gonna have to try that this year. I also have tended to do brandy bass tinctures with Hawthorn berries. And like I love oxymel's course, to hop on very oxymel. Sounds amazing. Yeah. Sounds amazing. Yeah, so that and just what you were talking about earlier, too, about that approach of looking at? What can you joyfully rather than saying, what do you need to cut out? Look at what can you joyfully include in your life. And that whole thing of what you focus on grows, that health is naturally going to grow over time. And it doesn't have to necessarily be something that we're forcing ourselves to do, but just rather incrementally introducing things that we love more and more into our life with plants and how that can then one day we take a look back and say, Oh, well look at what's shifted over the past five years or something and how powerful that can be.

Rosalee de la Foret:

Truly works. I what am I big revelations about this is I had a client who was referred to me by his wife. And so he came to see me and he was drinking a couple bottles of Mountain Dew every day, kind of an excessive amount of Mountain Dew. And I could tell in talking about it with him like I you just could feel energetically that was a no go. And he was kind of there because his wife made him honestly. So I didn't even mention it. I just didn't even talk about it. And with my list of suggestions, I suggested this tea for him, told them you know how he's going to address the issues that he was experiencing. And we off the phone, it was like, I can't remember if it was like same day or next day I get a message from his wife was like, I cannot believe that you didn't tell him not to drink the Mountain Dew. I think that was part of what she wanted me to do. Like she's probably been nagging him about it, I'm guessing and didn't work and so called an herbalist to make him stop drinking Mountain Dew. And I can't remember, I wasn't going to discuss him with her. I can't remember I said to her, but in my mind, I was we'll just see, you know, like what happens, you know, and sure enough, you know, within a couple of months, he was drinking all these teas and the Mountain Dew just kind of fell to the side. And then he I remember him telling me he's like, oh, you know, I thought I kind of miss Mountain Dew. So I had some after I hadn't had some in a while and and it was gross to me. And I was like yeah. But it was like, you know, again, it was like all his choice. All you know, it was all based on him and it wasn't based on he didn't even have to power through it and give up this thing that he loved. He just welcomed other things into his life and that just got set down.

Sara Artemisia:

Well, that is amazing. What an incredible story for that.

Rosalee de la Foret:

Yeah, and I've seen that happen so many times, which is now that truly is the basis of my teachings and what I do is just really focus on what's truly joyful to add into our lives and really like accentuate and love that. And yeah, and then see how things sort themselves out?

Sara Artemisia:

I love it. Well, Rosalie, how would you say that the plants really support you in your life's work?

Rosalee de la Foret:

Ah, I don't even think I have a differentiation between myself and plants really, I'm so blessed and that I have a life, my life's calling gets to come into fruition with the plants. And so it's hard. Sometimes people ask me how was work or how's your job, and I'm like, I don't even associate with those words, you know, it's like, this is just my way of being and I feel so deeply grateful that I feel like I get to help people along the path of their plants. And that, you know, then there becomes a reciprocity of financial reciprocity, which then allows me to buy food and put a roof over your head. So I have that, I get that gifts from plants. But then plants are my lifestyle on so many different ways, whether it's my garden, which takes a lot of my time, this time of year and gives me so much as well. I mentioned I grow over a hundred plants there plus we grow a lot of our own veggies. Or, you know, I'm watering one of the 200 house plants that I have or so yeah, it's hard to know I'm going on a trip soon. And no part of the trip I'm going to see Tori Amos in concert, actually, but but I'm also like, what plants am I going to see? So I don't know how to answer your question in some ways of just like, my life's work is the plants and then that just complete and total immersion. I can't imagine life without it. I can't imagine life without my St. John's Wort oil. And all the healing that that's brought me on so many levels, or the Hawthorn, or the Elderberry. I can't imagine my life without plants. Whether it's me teaching about plants, or enjoying the benefits about plants, or watching the hummingbird, I watched a hummingbird drink off of St. John's Wort the other day, which I didn't know was the thing. Early in the morning is like 6:30 in the morning, and I was sitting out in the garden just watching and yeah, and that in itself is just I love that that gets to be my life's work too.

Sara Artemisia:

That is amazing. I've never seen that. That's absolutely incredible. So Well, it's been so wonderful to talk with you today and just hear this incredible wealth of wisdom, deep heart connection that you have with the plants. And so tell us how can people find out more about you and your

Rosalee de la Foret:

Well, my websites herbswithrosalee.com. work? And then I have the podcast, too herbswithrosaleepodcast.com. So those are great ways to connect. And I send a Wednesday newsletter out and update about what's going on in the podcast and my garden and all other relevant things like how cute my cat is. So I hit all the big ones.

Sara Artemisia:

That is a really important one as well. And tell us about your course too, what course do you teach?

Rosalee de la Foret:

Yeah, so I have a course Rooted Medicine Circle. It's a 10 month live course. And it's about strengthening your connection to the Earth. While very practically working with Plant Medicines. I co teach that with Emily Hahn, who I co-wrote Wild Remedies with and we go through all the major medicine making potions of Herbal Medicine and people either you know some people are harvesting those themselves or they're getting them from an apothecary, but it's pretty fun because we it's not really like a DIY course it's we actually meet live together online and get to make things together and answer anyone's answer all questions. So I know how that is when you're making something new and you're like, Oh, what do I do? Or is this right? Or is this wrong? Or you know, what if I did this instead? Is that okay? So it's nice to be able to just answer all the questions and help people just to feel confident and empowered when they're making their herbal medicines.

Sara Artemisia:

So great. Well, thanks again for joining us today. Just so wonderful to connect and and have you here with us.

Rosalee de la Foret:

Yeah, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much, Sara.

Sara Artemisia:

And thanks so much for listening and joining us today on the Plant Spirit Podcast. I hope you enjoyed it and please follow to subscribe, leave a review and look forward to seeing you on the next episode.