About a year ago, a friend of mine suggested I teach a class on making Fire Cider. The name 'fire cider' has become a wee bit controversial these days, but I'm gonna use it anyway to pay homage to one of the best plant-medicine teachers and herbalists out there today, Rosemary Gladstar. Apparently, a company on the east coast has co-opted the name and make this old-timey folk remedy famous.

Those in the herbalist community know that Rosemary coined it first.  God love her.

So, my friend and I were creative brainstorming on plant classes and what would make for the most interesting one. At about the same time I received a post on Facebook from another friend who shared a beautiful image of a pint of homemade fire cider and her caption read, "This looks intriguing."

I agree. It took me a year to come around, but I finally made a huge batch of Courtney's Fire Cider (no trademarks intended) and filled all my orders promptly. Yes, I do make it easy with convenient delivery service or mail order. To learn how to make it, read on. The good news for those of you following a keto plan, Fire Cider is Keto Friendly!

Four weeks into the ketogenic diet and I can honestly say it has a way of fueling my body for the long haul. This is definitely the most radical program I have ever tried and sometimes after having a bullet coffee, I'm not hungry for six or maybe eight hours. For me, that is unheard of.

My typical day starts with a keto rocket fuel latte, vinyasa yoga or strength training, and then work. While I was dubious about any kind of bullet style coffee at first, I must admit the fat (whether from coconut oil, MCT oil, butter, or cacao butter) carries me a long time through out the day - even through the hour of soaking wet sweaty hot yoga.

Since bullet coffee is the bulk of my nutrients first thing in the morning, I concoct the most nutritious blends of it.

After intensive researching, staying steady, and experiencing the up and downside to the ketogenic diet - I finally have something worthwhile to share.

The two-week breakdown includes: embracing fat as a fuel, nutritional opinions and the controversy, what really works, and a few recipes that I thought were scrum-didly-icious (quoting the BFG aka Big Friendly Giant).

If you are new to the ketogenic diet and would like to learn more about it read on as I drill down into the facts versus the fiction.

As an Integrative Nutrition certified health coach and counselor I cringe at the title of my newest blog post, 12 Weeks of Keto. No, I'm not talking about Aikido either, although I really wish I was because that would be awesome. I'm talking about the low-carb, high fat, ketogenic craze. It was made famous in the nineties by Dr. Robert Atkins and has once again risen in popularity.

New research shows Atkins high protein, high fat, low-carbohydrate diet was beneficial. Well, sort of, after a fashion. Despite what the research shows dropping the carbs seems like an impossible order. I'd have to have a pretty good reason, right?

Feed the skin you're in. We pay a lot of money for designer products, but what kind of ingredients are these "designers" using?  In the last few blog posts we talked about how the skin is a window into health.

Our skin can be a predictor of internal illness or disease before it grows into something serious. Taking care of our skin can be a regular way of 'checking in' on our inner terrain.

Once we realize how important our skin is as a predictor of health, we learn to nourish it with the ingredients it's crying out for. That may be an anti-itch cream, anti-inflammatory, or anti-microbial cream.

Making your own cream might feel herculean, but the benefits are sure worth it when you need to customize particular ingredients to feed your skin what it needs. When I started writing my other post, Beauty is Only Skin Deep...Uh, Not I wanted to include a recipe for a simple beauty cream. It just got wayyyy too long, so I've included the recipe below. But, the original post is still very interesting. It gives several identifiers for learning to read the skin's health, how outer beauty can only be tended from the inside, and where to start in terms of nutrition in learning about managing health and beauty.

My daughter Maia, with Alaskan Fireweed. (2016)

Courtney and Jacob at the Iditarod, Willow Alaska

Yeah, nutrition is where its at right now. But, I think of proper nutrition as getting us somewhere else. Its not the end all, be all. That would be a pretty big bummer. Except, that is where a lot of us get stuck. On counting calories, working out obsessively, and striving to control everything. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, not giving a damn.

Our quality of life matters the most. Nutrition gives us a lot in that department when it comes to eating organic, super-foods, and bio-individuality. The benefits aren't just for each day, but last throughout our life when we want to have the flexibility to bend over, tie our shoes, and walk around. We want to be able to do what we want to do and have fun doing it - no matter what "it" is.

Maia and I in Ashland, Oregon (March, 2015)

Achieving health and beauty from the outside-in is impossible. Here’s why.

The human body is made up a 50 trillion cells. Every second each cell in your body coordinates billions of chemical reactions. Every day your heart beats 100,000 times pumping 7,500 litres of blood through 59,520 miles (96,000 kms) of vessels if you're a child. 100,000 vessels if you're an adult through three different kinds: arteries, veins, and capillaries. Every month you completely regenerate your outer layer of skin.
 
Did you just catch that? Every month we completely regenerate our outer layer of skin. Once we start taking better care of our self and health we see an immediate difference in our skin.

What does that mean, self-care? And how can we start taking better care of our health, from the inside-out, to  see that beautiful reflection of health in our skin?

It is different for everyone.

Sometimes the hardest stories to share are the ones worth telling. It was 2013 in Homer, Alaska when I met Steve Johnson, the founder of Alaskan Flower Essences. For several years I had seen the training he offered, but lived in Seattle and then Livingston, Montana. So, I couldn't swing the long trip to Homer.

In a strange and bizarre twist of events, I found myself unexpectedly living in Anchorage, Alaska. In 2011, we were forced to move after a series of unfortunate events from our home in Montana.

But, that is a different story.

One of the easiest ways to prepare herbal  medicines is by making a strong tea. Medicinal teas are easy, affordable, and are a  great way to hydrate through out the day.

While herbalists use plant extracts such as tinctures, balms, flower essences, sprays, and syrups to help their patients recover from illness or injury, they also prescribe teas for maintenance of health as well.

Tea is a stalwart delivery method for every hardworking herbalist. While modern society becomes more and more interested in traditional forms of healing, teas makes herbal medicine delivery simple and tasty, always.

This ain't your momma's bath.....oh wait, eh, maybe it is?  Most natural minded folks know about the benefits of drinking apple cider vinegar:

• for increasing acid in the gut,
  
• cleansing
  
• providing enzyme rich nutrients such as potassium, calcium, magnesium, and iron (many of which most people are deficient in),
  

But get this ... soaking in this raw, unfiltered cider has outside benefits as well.

2 cups cooked quinoa at room temperature, or chilled
1 14 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed (avoid if on a low-FODMAP plan)
1 medium mango, peeled and diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
6 green onions, thinly sliced

"It only felt safe to feel it all alone. I’d get sideswiped by inexplicable emotion at inconvenient times. So, I just tried to keep it all under wraps, keep it all under conscious control." -- Ane Axeford

Anyone who has high sensitivity will understand Ane Axeford's perfect insight into our daily lives - which run deep emotionally. It takes a lot of mental effort, emotional restraint, and a damn-near super human strength to stay in control of sensitivity.

How many of you reading this know you are highly sensitive? Raise your hands. How many of you have met the highly insensitive person? Let me see the hands.

Yes, I see them. Many, many hands. Raised up high and all jazz fingers a wiggling.

We live in a world where highly sensitive people (also called Sensory Processing Sensitivity) are the  minority. Dr. Elain Aron suggests this number is 15 - 20 percent of the population. Since we make up a much smaller part of the whole, it's our job learning how to not only live, but thrive in an insensitive world. It's our job to take care of ourselves. Knowing this changes everything.

Hailing from Pennsylvania, we're required to pay tribute to all things PA, including PA artists. Some honor Springsteen, others Jon Bon Jovi, and for the millennials there's Taylor Swift. For me, it's Jim Croche, especially his songs "Big Bad Leroy Brown" and "Operator". I even had a friend from Philly whose mom frequented the same beauty shop as  Croche's. We both felt special being two small degrees from him. Today I'm feeling particularly fond of his timeless classic, "If I Could Save Time in a Bottle." Croche tapped into the mystery and surreal ecstasy of the peak experience when he sang, "If I could make days last forever....if words could make wishes come true."

If you're anything like me, you hate feeling lost, hopeless, and frustrated. As a young child I was extremely sensitive. I would plaster myself up against walls upon entering a room, even if it was only my extended family. Exasperated relatives watched confused as I would crawl under a dinner table and stay there until it was time to go home. Over the years, mainly through my involvement in sports, mental health, and advocacy, I've learned how to cope with extreme sensitivity, but it took a long time to understand what sensitivity was and how to change my relationship with it from the inside, out.

People who suffer from extreme sensitivity experience their environment as overwhelming. How they experience their sensitivity depends on their upbringing, energetic body type, and defense mechanisms.

Champions don’t become champions in the ring. They are recognized there. In our boxing ring, the entertainment industry, a performer hears the sound, “Action!” instead of a fight bell. This cues an actor to penetrate through the camera. Bringing scripts to life is our job. From Audrey Hepburn’s charming and charismatic performance as Holly Golightly in Breakfast Tiffany’s (1961) to Matthew McConaughey’s dramatic transformed hustler Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club (2013), actors must live, breathe, and believe their characters to capture our hearts.

Some teachers are naturally gifted when it comes to spotting our trouble spots or as Dr. Wayne Dyer calls them, ‘Erroneous Zones.’ These zones are the negative thought patterns so ingrained in our daily consciousness that we can’t see them for ourselves. The greatest teachers pause, listen deeply, and identify our strengths and weaknesses. They aren’t afraid to hurt our feelings by telling us the naked truth. They disarm us with meaning, often times brutal, but always for our own betterment.
Sometimes these masters are unrecognizable to the masses. They work diligently in classrooms, trek quietly up mountainsides, or even serve drinks as our neighborhood bartender.