Herbs and the Ancestors: Plant Medicine at the Year’s End

There is something particular about the dark months that invites this kind of reflection. When the garden is bare and the light is thin and the year is turning toward its end, the fact that you are doing what human beings have always done at this season, reaching for...

Frankincense: The Sacred Resin and Its Medicine

Boswellia sacra and its relatives (Boswellia serrata, Boswellia carterii) produce the resinous sap that, when it dries in the air, becomes the substance known as frankincense or olibanum: hard, golden tears of resin that burn with a distinctive, complex fragrance that...

The Herbs of Yule: A Winter Solstice Herbal Tradition

The winter solstice (Yule in the Norse tradition, Midwinter in the Anglo-Saxon, Alban Arthan in Druidic tradition) falls around December 21 in the Northern Hemisphere and marks the longest night and the return of the light. The celebration of this astronomical event...