February 20, 2012
Study with Susun at Your Home
Susun is extending her special two for one study package through the end of February.
Pay in full for one of Susun’s correspondence courses, online courses or self study course and receive one of Susun’s online courses for free.
After paying in full for the one course, simply choose from one of Susun’s three online classes and use the corresponding coupon code in the blue redeem box in your cart.
Menopausal Allies – coupon code: menopausalallies
Your Healthy Vagina and Cervix – coupon code: healthyvagina
Herbal First Aid - coupon code: herbalfirstaid
Greetings from Susun
Green blessings and welcome to the first installment of fun with garlic mustard.
Garlic mustard (Alliaria officinalis), a wild member of the cabbage family, is delicious, available year round, and loaded with important phyto-nutrients such as sulforophane. See if you can find some this week. It grows by the road, in your garden, under shrubs, even in the forest.
Both the leaves and the roots of garlic mustard are edible and medicinal. The roots, also known as wild horseradish, taste just like their big sister and make an incredible Garlic Mustard Root Vinegar.
Garlic mustard is very invasive, taking up the habitats of rare woodland plants like trillium, and carpeting the ground in gardens. The seeds produce a poison when they sprout that renders all other seeds in the soil unable to sprout or grow. Many people spend the spring pulling out as much garlic mustard as they can.
Pull away. Not with malice, with gratitude. Use the garlic mustard roots you pull to make Garlic Mustard Root Vinegar. It’s fast, easy, and ever so yummy.
Garlic Mustard Root Vinegar
Find some garlic mustard and sit with it. Tell it you are going to harvest it.
Acknowledge that you are giving death to the plants. Dig up as many roots as you wish.
Soak the whole plant in cold water to loosen the dirt, then rinse.
Cut off the larger leaves, but keep the smaller purplish leaves and all petioles; chop.
Fill a glass or plastic jar with your chopped herb and then fill it to the top with apple cider vinegar.
Close with a non-metallic lid and label with the contents and date. Very shortly the red coloration will be visible in the center of the roots.
Within four hours the red coloration and the taste have moved out of the roots into the vinegar.
You can start using your Garlic Mustard Root Vinegar immediately on salads or stirred into water and taken to relieve sinus congestion.
Yes, it does better and stronger if you let it sit longer, but go ahead and use it now. Wow! I’ll tell you how I use garlic mustard leaves next week.
Green blessings to you,
Susun Weed
www.susunweed.com
Teaching Herbs to Kids by Kristine Brown
“We must take our children into the wild, introduce them to the plants, and teach them of their connection to the earth. In instilling in our children a respect for plant medicine, we not only care for their tender bodies but help pass along the seeds of a tradition that is as old as human life itself.”
– Rosemary Gladstar
Kids are the Future, Teach Them Well
Children are one third of our population and all of our future. -Select Panel for the Promotion of Child Health, 1981
Children are the best students when it comes to plants. They have no prejudice against any of them (except for what we teach them), no preconceived notions of how a plant should work or how its medicine should heal. Just as we can accept an orange has lots of vitamin C, a banana is high in potassium and beans contain protein, they can accept that peppermint is soothing to the stomach and comfrey can heal wounds and scars. And why not? They are all plants after all. Certainly if garden ‘vegetables’ can be nutritious and keep us healthy, so can herbs, weeds and other plants. As adults we tend to be narrow minded when it comes to our food sources but if we allow ourselves to open up, we can realize that this wonderful world we live on has given us an abundance of nutrition and healing through the plants and didn’t just reserve it for a select few. All plants have importance and value. We herbalists, scientists and the like just have yet to discover them all.
Nurture this attribute in children and reserve your opinions. Encourage them to keep an open mind as they grow to all the possibilities plants offer us. Let them learn for themselves. Teach them to trust their instincts. This doesn’t mean to let them eat anything, especially when it comes to fungi, however, when teaching them the difference between poke and elderberry, or hemlock and queen anne’s lace, teach them respect of the plant and reverence for the medicine each plant offers whether it is mild (chickweed, lemon balm, plantain) or overly strong (foxglove, hemlock, etc.). Time will teach the appropriate use and application of each variance.
Giving a good herbal foundation will stay with children for their lifetime. Knowledge is power and empowering. Even though the majority will not choose this calling as their lifework, they will have a solid foundation of herbal knowledge which will stay with them for their life and they will one day be able to pass the information along to their friends, family, community and children of their own. They will have the ability to take control of their own health and teach others to do the same. There is nothing more empowering than knowing you have the ability to take charge of your own healthcare.
Here are 10 ways to incorporate herbal learning into your everyday activities:
1. Start a notebook of the plants in your yard. Head outside with a notebook and make a list of each plant you have, starting with the common name and adding the latin name if 
you know it or later when you can look it up. Have your child(ren) look around and tell you what they see first. Don’t forget the trees! Even if you don’t think a plant has medicinal uses, write it down anyway. You’ll be surprised at the number of plants that are ‘just weeds’ really are medicinal. Remember, all plants have value, some are just yet undiscovered.
2. Make some medicine. You might start with a few simple items such as making a salve to replace the Neosporin and perhaps a tincture of Meadowsweet or Willow Bark to replace the aspirin. As your child(ren)’s knowledge grows, they may wish to make a salve for general wounds, a salve for skin afflictions, a drawing salve and a muscle salve. Likewise, they may add tinctures for various types of headaches: skullcap, wood betony, dandelion, feverfew and so on. The key is to start simply and have them build on that knowledge.
3. Assemble a home herbal medicine kit. Begin by making a list of all the over the counter medications you currently use. Then study your list of plants growing in your back yard and cross reference…ask your child(ren): which medications can be substituted with herbs? As they learn about the herbs that are growing in your yard, they can begin making medicines to replace them with.
4. Start a herb garden in your back yard or in containers. Begin with a few simple herbs such as chamomile, mint, basil, rosemary, lemon balm. Let your child decide on 10 or so herbs that they would like to become familiar with. Have them help create the garden, pot the plants, weed the garden and water regularly. Encourage them to work with the plants and observe them as they grow. Make sure they taste each plant regularly and record how the flavors change as the plant grows. Mint becomes extremely strong when he flowers; Dandelion leaves become bitter as they mature. Be sure to have them record all this information (see journalling below).
Giving your children a part of the garden to grow their own plants is very empowering and also teaches them responsibility. They will take pride in growing their own medicine and when it comes time to use it, they will be more receptive to using it as it is something they themselves planted, grew, harvested and created medicine from.
5. Explore the herbs. As you work with the herbs, talk with them about the latin names and the family they come from. Discuss characteristics of each family and similarities between plants. Have your child(ren) sample the herbs and state how that taste makes them feel (puckered, dry mouth, thirsty, etc) and what they think the plant may be useful for. Have them write down these ideas and put their theory to work the next time they have need to. If they are having trouble getting started, try offering them mint and say something like ‘this is good for upset stomaches. When you eat it, what else do you think it would be helpful for?’ (freshen breath, pick me up, etc.).
Encourage them to discover medicinal uses through their own intuition. Never discourage them. If they say lemon balm would be good to stop bleeding on a cut, let them try the theory 
out the next time they get cut. If it doesn’t work out, offer some suggestions of plants that may be more suited (something more astringent such as yarrow or plantain) or ask what they think might be more suitable. Teach the
6. Keep a journal of experiences. Have your child(ren) regularly sketch drawings of the plants progression over the course of the growing season, keep notes on the changes such as when they bloom, when they go to seed, etc. They can write down harvest information and any remedies you and they make with the herbs.
7. Have a herbal ally. Once your kids get more familiar with herbs, encourage them to pick one herb to learn about for 3 – 6 months to a year depending on their age. Have them focus on one herb and use it as much as possible, making as many remedies as possible from it and really getting to know it. Encourage them to be immersed in the plant, writing songs, stories and poems about their ally. They should also be making as many medicines as possible with their herbal ally: salves, tinctures, vinegars, elixirs, oils, poultices, compresses and so on. Even if it doesn’t seem to make sense doing this with a plant, have them try it anyway, even if it’s just a few ounces.
8. Use the herbs in every way possible. This seems like a given but a lot of people overlook this. Incorporate herbs with your everyday living. Experiment with dyeing clothing with plants. Use them in floral arrangements, crafts, nature tables and other seasonal decorations. Eat them. Make them be an integral part of your life.
9. Play games. Wildcraft! from Learning Herbs is an excellent cooperative board game that will teach children about herbs. Other games such as Walk in the Woods can also be a good teaching tool. Look into getting knowledge cards from Pomegranate such as Herbs and Medicinal Plants, Darcy Williamson’s Medicinal Flower Cards or Linda Runyon’s Wild Cards. Also, although not Herbal Based, it is a great tool for teaching plant families: Shanleya’s Quest book and card game.
10. Start a Medicinal Herbal Library. Offering a variety of books to children is a great way to let them explore herbs on their own. There are a few children’s books available and a wealth of adult herbals that are kid appropriate. For a complete list of books to stock your library with go to: http://www.herbalrootszine.com/herbal-learning-resources/.
Remember, No Matter What, They Are Always Learning
Above all, be open to experiences and allow your child(ren) to participate in all your herbal endeavors. Weave a tapestry of herbal love and knowledge into your child(ren)’s lives by letting them observe and help. Even the smallest child can add the oil to the double boiler to make an oil or help strip herbs from stems. And when they grow tired of the task, let them move on to another while you finish up what you are working on. In time, they will naturally start helping longer and eventually take over some of the tasks of medicine making in the home, creating their own recipes as their knowledge grows. Always gently nurture this and remind them to keep records of their experiences.
“Can we teach children to look at a flower and see all the things it represents: beauty, the health of an ecosystem, and the potential for healing?”
-Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
Kristine Brownhas taught classes on herbalism since 2003 and has danced with the plants for over 17 years. In 2009, she began writing and illustrating Herbal Roots zine, a monthly publication for children. She offers a monthly herbal study group, presentations for adults and summertime workshops for kids.
Her focus is on local plants which are easy to access and identify, allowing her community to empower themselves by harvesting their own plants for medicine.
Fireside Chat with Susun Weed and Kristine Brown
Free teleseminar Susun Weed and Kristine Brown
February 29th, 2012, 9pm EST.
Join us for this fireside chat while these two amazing herbalists talk healing and teaching children herbal traditions.
Kristine Brown has taught classes on herbalism since 2003 and has danced with the plants for over 17 years. In 2009, she began writing and illustrating Herbal Roots zine, a monthly publication for children. She offers a monthly herbal study group, presentations for adults and summertime workshops for kids.
Her focus is on local plants which are easy to access and identify, allowing her community to empower themselves by harvesting their own plants for medicine. Kristine is the Children’s Program Coordinator and Head Teacher for this year’s conference.
February 29th, 2012 – 9pm EST
In association with the Midwest Women’s Herbal Conference.
Wise Woman Recipe
A Yummy Cauliflower Recipe from a Dear Wise Woman Friend
Wise Woman Radio
Susun Weed interviews author and clairvoyant Sylvia Bucek
Easy Organic Gardener Radio Show with Sheri Herrera de Frey
12pm EST February 26th
Join special guest Susun Weed on the Easy Organic Gardener Radio Show. Don’t miss this educational interview!
Wise Woman Ezine
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