A Little About My Natural Healing Journey

I grew up in a household where my first contact with medicine was through my maternal grandmother. She learned all she knew both through her adopted mother and through working as a nurse in "the old country". In those days, you just needed to be smart and be able to follow the doctor's orders to be called a "nurse" so that's what she did. She learned about unguents (basically what we now call salves), teas, how to lance growths, to soothe gas, help with nausea and other digestive issues and many other things. I was so happy that she taught me how to sterilize a needle to remove splinters when I was only 9 years old which later came in super handy when I was raising my kids. Everyone went to my grandma for advice on their health problems. Not that she tried to be a doctor or anything but she was a firm believer that medical science should hold hands with natural medicine. I looked up to her so much (she also taught me to cook, clean, do laundry, and bake).

Unfortunately, as I got older, I went through a phase that I "knew" better than she did because I was in pre-med in high school. You see, I had this lofty idea that I wanted to become a brain surgeon which didn't pan out because, well... undiagnosed ADHD is all I will say on that. Anyway, flash forward to my kids coming along and me, once again, thinking that I knew better than my grandma or the natural medicine world because there had been so many amazing medical advancements. Yeah, I know, I missed the entire lesson that they should work cooperatively. One of my daughters as a toddler developed scabies.

Now, if you're a parent, you know what kind of nightmare that is. It's right up there with lice. I took her to the pediatrician who diagnosed her and said, "Here's this cream. Apply it to her and sanitize your house from top to bottom". Okay, I said, I'll do this because here's the remedy that will make her less miserable and get rid of this parasite that I had NEVER heard of before. I went home and did as the doctor said, applying the cream after sanitizing the house and her. One week later, she was still scratching. We returned to the doctor and were told that "Sometimes it needs two phases to really take". I repeated everything, exhausted but hopeful. A week later, she was still scratching. Went back to the doctor who told me to do it all again. I was frustrated and told him he could come to my house and sanitize everything again because I couldn't do it one more time! Meanwhile, my mother had mentioned this "adventure" to a coworker who was an herbalist. She immediately told my mom that the cream wouldn't work on a toddler as effectively because she was doing what all toddlers do -- chewing on her nails in-between scratching! So, the scabies needed to be attacked from the inside with some black walnut extract diluted in juice. I tried it. And, guess what? The scabies were gone in three days!! I called the doctor and told him. He lectured me on giving my toddler "herbs" and I told him to jump off a short pier (yes, went to another pediatrician).

That incident returned me to the world of natural medicine and I've been trying to absorb as much as I can ever since. I've studied nutrition, I've been a massage therapist who specialized in natural pain management, I've been a mom whose adult kids still call me first for health/medical advice, and I've helped others realize the potency of balancing natural remedies with modern medical science. I will never tell you to not do what your doctor says but they also aren't infallible or know everything (if your doctor believes they know everything, ask them how many units of nutrition or pharmacology they studied in medical school) and natural healing remedies have been around for hundreds of years, only recently getting the attention they deserve. But, they are also not infallible.

Which brings me to my next thing - intuition. We KNOW intuitively what our bodies need but we've been silenced and questioned for so long that we've lost that connection. My grandma was a witch. She would NEVER have said so or even entertained that idea at all but she was. And, it took me getting into the craft to be able to see that I, too, have always identified as a witch, a healer. The beauty of coming into the practice is learning to trust your intuition, learning to understand the energies of the natural world and bring them together with old world knowledge to help, not just myself or my family and friends, but to help others.

You may enjoy the flavor blends of my teas but nothing is blended without some intention, intuition, and energy healing involved. I am a healer. I am a witch. If this terrifies you, then my knowledge is not for you. Embrace who you are, the ancestors that brought you into this moment, the past healers, witches, herbalists who listened to the Earth and her living plants to help our species survive for as long as we have.

Thank you for reading - Blessed be and may you find your intuition.