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Casey's blog

The Beauty of Bitters

10/10/2024

 
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Do you eat your bitters? Bitter foods offer a multitude of health benefits, such as improving digestion, enhancing liver detoxification, and clearing up your skin when hormonal issues lie at the root of issues like acne. But did you know bitters can also improve your mood, clearing feelings of depressed malaise and calming the fires of impatience and anger?

​In Chinese medicine and in Ayurveda, the hallmark of a balanced meal is the inclusion of all of the flavours. ​​By including all of the flavours in a meal, you’re probably going to feel very satisfied. And satisfaction is a crucial element of enjoyable, intuitive eating.

One of these flavours is bitter, a very important taste that many of us are missing on our plates.


Throughout Spring and Summer in 
my Southeast Queensland neighbourhood, edible weeds pop up everywhere including in my own my backyard.

​Under the kids’ trampoline out of the lawnmower’s reach, I find dandelion greens, sow thistle, sheep sorrel, and wild carrot, among other largely unknown yet freely available sources of nutrition (always correctly identify plants before eating them, come to one of my Herb Walks to help you with this!). At the farmer’s market I uncover a similar array: mustard greens, endive, chicory, kale, parsley, rocket.​
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The Magic & Medicine of Mugwort

29/10/2019

 
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Mugwort. Surprisingly cheeky and brazen, like the very old withered little bent over woman who suddenly reaches up to you and plants a big juicy smacker of a kiss on your cheek. She has the vitality of somebody a quarter of her age. Wise and direct, yet joyful. She's soft without molly-coddling. She delivers her message swiftly, with mirror-like clarity yet without judgement or harshness.
Mugwort is like the grandmother you always wanted, which might be why she is often referred to by herbalists as cronewort after the wise elder archetype. Like a patient grandparent who has been ignored and not visited for far too long, she welcomes you with zeal and open, forgiving arms, eager to distil her timeless wisdom to anyone willing to listen.

Perhaps this is why she is also known as the herb for new initiates to the plant spirit path. She is so easy to talk to. She welcomes you with open, soft, silvery hands. All you have to do is open up the conversation by saying "hello". And when you do, she will gently invite you in to realms of deeper perception, where a new way of communing with plants and integrating the healing process is possible.

In my communications with her I'm always amazed at how quick and clear she is in her conversing. She is so chatty (at least, relative to other plants I've spoken with) that I often doubt myself - "did she really just say that?" - although that is becoming less of an issue with time. More about that soon.


Mugwort's genus name Artemisia hints at the moon goddess that it it's namesake. Every image I've seen of the greek goddess Artemis (or Diana, her Roman equivalent) depicts her as huntress and protector of the wild creatures of the forest. She doesn't kill indiscriminately; she brings death only when it is timely and appropriate. And she also brings life, as is evident in her traditional use by herbal midwives in labour and birth.

Edit on 14 June 2020: Since writing this article I've learnt more about mugwort and the many different species growing around the Sunshine Coast Hinterlands, where I live. I believe one of the species naturalised to this area (and pictured below) may be Chinese mugwort (Artemisia verlotiorum) which is more aromatic than common mugwort (A. vulgaris) and grows 1-3 m high. 


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Spring energetics - moving from darkness into light

12/10/2018

 
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Wild edibles have been popping up everywhere in our hood - check out these bitter dandelion greens. Perfect with some sour lemon juice, olive oil and salt for a simple spring salad.
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Spring is here, and although I LOVE it, the transition has been rough...

Winter just isn't my thing (as nice as all those warm cups of chai tea are!) Spring is my favourite season of the year - and not just because it's my birthday season. As the weather started warming up, our little family enjoyed daily expeditions to a local mulberry tree. It seemed our hands and faces were perpetually stained purple, and life was sweet.

Then we had a car crash. 

And it was as if our whole world was turned upside down. 

​
Someone rear ended us on the highway. Miraculously no one was hurt, but it shook us all up. Since then, my family and I have encountered battle after battle. Physical, emotional, mental, you name it.

It started with that car crash involving all of us (such a scary experience with babies in the back). Between us we've been through a bout of hospitalisation for appendicitis, some heavy repressed memories resurfacing, a shitload of emotional processing (with anger, shame and vulnerability at the forefront), the extreme physical fatigue that accompanies such emotional processing, a teething baby (aren't they just always teething?!) and learning about the "tantrum explosion" stage of a certain ginger haired three-nager.


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Treating allergies naturally

10/10/2017

 
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Do you dread high pollen count days? Is spring a season of antihistamine overload, soggy tissues, and hiding indoors? Treating seasonal allergies naturally is straight forward with the right know-how.

The sleeping earth of winter is re-awakening, spring is well and truly here, and nature heralds her return. We feel an extraordinary push for life and movement within our own bodies, and we see it in the natural world. And with our own blossoming comes that of the beautiful plant world: so many, pollen-producing, allergenic plants!

The glorious feeling of taking that first breath of crisp, early spring air might be somewhat stifled if you’re one of many sufferers of seasonal allergies. All those pollens and animal hair can set off your allergic rhinitis, a fancy way of saying hay fever. Worse still: when your allergies trigger your asthma!
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5 Legit Ways to Improve Your Body Image

20/8/2017

 
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It's the end of winter, nearly spring. This is Imbolc - the time of metaphoric rebirth. Half way between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, this is traditionally a time for purification and spring cleaning in anticipation of the new surge in life approaching.

We may well still have a few cold snaps ahead of us but the energy has shifted.

Both energetically and in the natural world, now is the time we see new growth following the seeming dormancy of Winter. Imbolc is a time of hope, a time filled with the excitement of new possibilities for the future, the time for manifestation of whatever dreams we've been seeding over winter. 

And troublingly - but not surprisingly - there are plenty of body-shaming industries ready to capitalise on the collective feelings of hope and excitement that coincide with the change in season.

One industry that plays a huge part in forming the mass constructed social expectations placed on bodies associated with this time of year is, of course, the diet industry.

Being late winter when the growing warmth is reminding us of the bikini season 'just around the corner', this is when we hear an escalation of mantras like, "Summer bodies are made in winter" along with increased pressure to buy those programs and products that employ this infuriating rhetoric.

​The marketing strategies of those selling diet plans, weight loss products, 8- or 12-week training regimes and body-beautifying yoga challenges adopt this kind of tagline in order to incite a feeling of urgency or even panic in those who, shamefully, 'still haven't started working on their summer body.'

Well fuck that.

I say, "Body shame is perpetuated by stupid sayings like 'Summer bodies are made in winter.'"

Your body is not the problem. Your belief that your body is the problem, is the problem.

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Detoxification: so NOT about juice fasts & colonics

21/4/2017

 
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When you hear the word "detoxification", what springs to mind? Juice fasting and colon cleanses? Coffee enemas and starvation? Health spas and slimming teas? For years, this is what I thought when I heard that oh-so-sexy-sounding word, and practised, much to my body's distress.

For the vast majority of people​, these things are totally unnecessary - and they can actually set a person up for disordered eating and eating disorders. 

When it comes to optimising your body’s detoxification processes, just doing a 3-day juice fast or a colonic – then going back to your normal diet – won’t cut it. It’s time to understand how our bodies really work, and what you can do to gently detoxify every day.

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All content copyright Casey Conroy - Funky Forest Health & Wellbeing. For more information please click here to see my disclaimer.
Natural health for EVERY body. Copyright © 2024
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