Small Things That Quicken The Heart

When the spirit is feeling a bit blue, sometimes it helps to eat something bright and alive, from nature. 

If you have a garden, picking fresh flowers and salad greens for lunch is sure to quicken the heart. 

Here is a mixture of calendula, borage, nasturtium, and fennel from my garden. 

What a delicious mixture to add to a pot of rice and tuna!

This week has been incredibly difficult in many ways, but it is the small things that make life worth living. Something as simple as a special, fresh lunch can be enough.

The earth is still full of good things...

Late spring is green and bright,

reminding me that even when the earth shakes, floods,

and the sky hisses at you, 

 if you are prepared to look at really, really small things,

 nature is still full of good gifts.

All pictures Copyright Joel Le Blanc, 2012.

Spring has Sprung

This season spring has definitely sprung in our organic urban garden. We don't have much land, but my partner and I surely put what we do have to good use. Even the weeds eventually find their way into our salads. 

Whenever work is too stressful, or life too complicated, I make my way into the back of our section and sit in the garden. Sometimes I pull out weeds. Other times I just sit there, and stare at the growth, the color, the life. I smell some crushed lemon balm leaves, and touch the feathery wings of a fennel plant. Before not long, I am grounded, and feeling connected again. 

 Food is becoming more and more expensive, which is why it is so important to grow food and learn how to live more sustainably and cheaply. After all, home-grown food is the cheapest, and the freshest, you can get.

The first blackboy peaches of the season. My, my -- how delicious you will be.

Heartsease adding color and life to the herb patch. These flowers can be used for skin creams, but I am leaving them where they are. They are too beautiful to harvest, and I have more than enough other herbs for my creams.

A cute vegetable patch resembles a miniature urban farm, complete with flowers, vegetables, herbs, chickens, and orchard trees.

Stinging Nettle is a frisky and delicious native to our garden. Wild and wandering, it creeps up everywhere, even in the sidewalk cracks. Most people spray it or pull it up -- but when I first moved into this house and saw the nettle, I was just too happy. When studying herbal medicine a few years back, I learned about Nettles. The leaves are rich in minerals like iron and magnesium, and contain ellagic acid -- a natural anti-cancer compound that is gaining increasing attention from the scientific community. Herbalists use nettle extracts to treat rheumatic complaints, allergies, skin conditions, and fatigue.

Lavender is such a gift... smelling just a few sprigs, and already I feel calmer and clearer. These lavender flowers might find their way into a homemade sleep pillow.

Elder has a long history of magical and medicinal usage. These flowers are often brewed into liquid extracts for the treatment of seasonal allergies -- but that's not what I have in store for these pretties. A few more weeks, and dark black elderberries will emerge. Perfect for antiviral syrups for the winter.

Coriander is my favorite herbal ingredient for soups. Just one tiny fresh leaf packs so much flavor and energy.

Convolvulus is a bit of a pest in our vegetable patch. It comes up as tiny shoots through the ground, and weaves its way around the herbs, flowers and vegetables. Here it is strangling an innocent lemon balm. Convolvulus flowers are beautiful, but it is a bit of a headache.

Here is Sylvia... one of the resident hens, who so kindly provides us with eggs for breakfast every day. 

Grand Wormwood & Crohn's Disease

Right now I am growing some Wormwood (as well as some Southernwood) in my garden, so thought I would post one of my previously published articles on Wormwood here. Wormwood is a herbal medicine used to stimulate digestive function, to kill parasites in the digestive tract, and recent studies have shown it helps to improve mood and a sense of well-being. Unfortunately, not much can be done about the bitter taste -- but it is the essential flavoring for the liquor absinthe. My article is called Grand Wormwood & Crohn's Disease, and I got to read some pretty amazing research while boning up on this assignment. 

Smoking and Herbs: How to Quit Naturally

Earlier this week I took up an assignment to write an article for Demand Studios on "How to Quit Smoking Using Herbs". It really seemed like the perfect fit at the time. I know a lot about herbal medicine. A lot.

And I hate tobacco and smoking. A lot. 

It was a (work) match made in heaven! 

In all seriousness, I was given the opportunity to learn a lot from researching this assignment. Herbs like Rhodiola and St John's Wort are fast becoming some of the biggest research topics in herbal medicine today. The fact that they and other herbs help with withdrawel symptoms and smoking cessation is just one more notch in an already impressive belt. 

Regurgitating old information is one of the most boring parts of being a writer. With that in mind, you've got to strive to find new and interesting information when writing freelance material. Especially when writing on old and decrepit topics that have begun to acquire that zombie smell (because a thousand writers have covered it a thousand times already). 

The link to the published article is here: http://www.ehow.com/how_7850085_quit-smoking-naturally-using-herbs.html

Growing up, both of my parents smoked, and it had implications for both their health in the long run. I hope that writing articles such as this one goes out there, and (somehow) helps someone, in some way.