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!

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)

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.

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.