We began by reading Kiva Rose’s beautifully vivid and timely excerpt Enchanting Medicine Making, shared from a downloadable Plant Healer Apothecary guide that arrived just as we were to speak about it. Well worth checking out.
We toured a few menstruum bases that can be used for making herbal medicine preparations, and various forms of delivery.
water base – hydrosol, flower essence, decoction, tisane, infusion, baths, steam, homemade homeopathic, extraction temperature of constituents in steeping and uses of temperature in application
oil/butter base – salve, oil, perfume, bolus
vinegar base – liniment, dressings, oxymels
alcohol base – tincture, liniment, prep step for others
sugar base – syrups, oxymels, lozenges, honeys, glycerine tincture, fizzy drinks
gelatin base – broth, gummies, jellos, popsicles
plant base – poultice, fomentation, juice, adornment, altar, incense, powders, fermentations
And we explored a framework for simplifying intersecting considerations – appropriate preparations at hand, compliance & investment (including support, urgency and appeal), delivery access to location including systemic/topical, layers of self to address (body, soul, emotion, cognition, environment). And practiced the logic with a couple of scenarios.
Two trusty medicine maker’s guides are Richo Cech’s Making Plant Medicine and James Green’s The Herbal Medicine-Maker’s Handbook: A Home Manual.
And your take-home mystery herb this week was the lovely tincture of elecampane root.
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