The Way of the Wild Heart

Prayer of Forgiveness

by Gail Faith Edwards

Prayer of Forgiveness

Great Mother, we ask that a great healing occur.
May our hearts be awakened to the truth of our oneness.
May we work together to ensure that systems of racism, prejudice and oppression are no more.
Please heal our minds, hearts and souls.
Please hold us all in your loving and protective embrace.
May the healing begin. Amen

Tastes

by Gail Faith Edwards

Tastes

Understanding herbs is as simple as authentically interacting with them, and learning about them is as easy as using your senses. Taste is an amazing portal into understanding the properties of herbs. When you meet a new herb, whether it’s fresh or dried, put a bit into your palm, rub it with your thumb to release its aroma, then take a good, deep smell. Aroma is integral to taste, as well as memory. Once you`ve experienced an herb’s aroma, and you know it is edible, taste a pinch, slowly rolling the herb on all areas of the tongue and palate. Taste buds on different parts of the tongue pick up different taste sensations and you’ll find that information listed under each of the taste descriptions that follow. The taste of a plant indicates its chemistry and a basic knowledge of plant constituents gives you clues to the possible actions of a plant. You’ll find a chapter on plant constituents in Herbal Pharmacy.

Roots Medicine and New Growth; The Way of the Wild Heart

by Gail Faith Edwards

Roots Medicine and New Growth; The Way of the Wild Heart

As my life and my practice of Community Herbalism has matured and ripened over the decades, I began to notice new green growth sprouting out from the side of the venerable old wise woman tree trunk. Something sweet and beautiful began to amplify the heart message, began calling out for me to name it and give it voice. What was emerging from my depths, I realized, has slowly evolved across the years of my practice with both plants and people. The emphasis of my work is shifting to the deliberate cultivation of our open, loving, wild heart and extending that love to all of creation. This I see as key to our survival and success both as healers and as earthlings.

Ten-Fold Path to Becoming a Community Herbalist

by Gail Faith Edwards

Ten-Fold Path to Becoming a Community Herbalist

An herbalist must pay constant attention to life. All of life and life processes. One way to do that is by tending a garden over many years. Goethe said that he spent his whole life in the garden and thus discovered the entire world. Start seeds and watch them grow. Welcome the same plant stands back year after year. Notice everything about your plants in every season. Notice their effects on people, animals, insects, other plants, the soil, the air. Visit your garden often, taking time to breath deeply, smell deeply, see deeply, listen deeply, relax deeply. Breathe from your heart. Watch the bees and butterflies, feel the breeze.

On Trademarks and the Herbal Community

by Gail Faith Edwards

On Trademarks and the Herbal Community

I began my small herbal products business back in 1989 when I had four kids under the age of ten and was searching for a way to channel my love for the herbs, healing, natural gardening and medicine making into a right and sustainable livelihood to support my family. I began teaching herb classes shortly after.

My herbal work and the unique formulas I’ve created over the years are precious to me. They come to me in inspired moments, are whispered to me by the plants, passed to me in dreams by my ancestors. Some are inspired by the work of other herbalists, from ancient times to the present.

Gemmotherapy Elixirs

by Gail Faith Edwards

Gemmotherapy Elixirs

Some of my favorite herbal medicines come from trees.  Willow, witch hazel, elder and hawthorn.  Pine, birch, cedar, chaste tree, bay and olive.  I love tree resins as well.  Baltic amber, the fossilized resin from ancient trees that grew around the Baltic rim many millions of years ago, the antibiotic pine, spruce and fir resins we collect from time to time and the copal, myrrh and frankincense resins that I love to burn.

Herbs for the Relief of Chronic Pain

by Gail Faith Edwards

Herbs for the Relief of Chronic Pain

Chronic pain, it turns out, is not simply a sensory, affective, or cognitive state. It’s a biological disease afflicting millions of people. Perhaps the biggest question surrounding current pain research is whether the pathological cortical reorganization, the cellular memory, the deeply dug chronic pain channels, can be undone.

Natural Substances to Protect Ourselves From Radiation

by Gail Faith Edwards

Natural Substances to Protect Ourselves From Radiation

In our everyday lives we seem oblivious to the impact of radiation on our health. Many of us are swept up in the euphoria over an endless parade of wireless devices. We actually seem addicted to radiation and completely unconscious of the jack-hammering effect it has on human cells.

In addition, industrial activities, mining, and nuclear power activities all release relatively large amounts of usually unseen toxic metals into our air, water, and our food crops on a daily basis.

The Pesky Enigmatic Coronavirus; Preventive Care

by Gail Faith Edwards

The Pesky Enigmatic Coronavirus; Preventive Care

Viruses are ancient. They are our ancestors. They have billions of years of evolutionary history and experience on this earth and far predate both plants and animals. Viruses co-evolved along with bacteria, long before we arrived. In fact, viruses and bacteria share a common ancestor that lived around 3.4 billion years ago, not long after life first emerged on the planet. From this single cell, bacteria evolved in the direction of increasing complexity, while viruses took the opposite approach; they have gradually shed genes to become increasingly more simple. And, all the while, they’ve been changing, adapting, altering themselves to accommodate the climate, temperatures, atmosphere and available hosts for the purpose of reproducing.

Sacred Bear Mother

by Gail Faith Edwards

Sacred Bear Mother

The relationship between bears and our indigenous European ancestors was exceptionally complex.  In fact, it’s an archaic pan-European belief that we humans descended from bears. And this ursine genealogy is still deeply woven into a rich legacy of Old World European beliefs and cultural constructs.  The sacred she-bear is our mother and was considered the most important spirit guardian of the European shaman. Our beloved Diana was known as a she-bear.

Benedicaria, Part Two: The Blessing Way of Southern Italian Folk Medicine

by Gail Faith Edwards

Benedicaria, Part Two: The Blessing Way of Southern Italian Folk Medicine

My rural village, with roots going back beyond the Neolithic, sits at the foot of the highest mountain in our area, Mont Cervati, which means Mountain of the Deer. The deer was a totem animal of the Lucani people and the sacred animal of Diana. In much earlier times this mountain was known as her holy ground, her habitat. Her ancient shrine sits atop the mountain in a grotto and people still walk to it in holy pilgrimage in early August as they have for countless centuries.

Benedicaria: The Blessing Way of Southern Italian Folk Medicine

by Gail Faith Edwards

Benedicaria: The Blessing Way of Southern Italian Folk Medicine

In the region of Campania, where our village is located, we refer to the old ways of healing, cleansing and religious devotion as Fa lu Santuccio, which literally means, “Do a little holy thing”. We call a practitioner of these traditional healing ways Benedetto if he is a male, or Benedetta if she is a female – both of which mean “Blessed One”. Most of the prayers used in Benedicaria are taken directly from Catholic prayer books.