https://bio.site/Wildfolkapothecary

Wild Folk Apothecary, Suffolk (2025)

18/11/2025

The dark and resonant Holly holds some fascinating folklore, and the shiny-spiky leaves are both medicinal and infused with protective magic.

Holly (Ilex) is said by some to make the finest wands, imbued as they are with protective power, gifts of divination, spirit travel, and the ability to channel truth.

In medieval times vast Holly forests stood upon these lands. I imagine the dark and dense thickets, rich with Holly’s deep humming songs of friendship and protection. Holly always sings to me of safety, and to be wrapped in the cocoon of her branches is a place of peace and quietude, a haven in which to be held by her dark and ancient strength.

It is said that holly wards against lightning, her branches a talisman against storms of both sky and spirit.

Placed above doorways and windows, the spiny leaves can keep malevolent forces from crossing the threshold into your home.

And in death, holly guards the departed, with trees planted in graveyards to stand vigil and thorns protecting the souls of the dead.

Her medicine is of calming inflammation, the leaves used externally as a poultice or infusion, or brewed into a delicious tea to ease digestive complaints and relieve constipation or bloating.

Her mildly diaphoretic properties encourage sweating and aid in temperature regulation during fevers, and she can also ease coughs and sore throats.

The berries of holly are an important source of food for birds in the winter, but are toxic for humans, causing nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea.

🕸️

Foraging walks are all done for 2025 now, but if you’d like to join me in 2026 or get on my mailing list and I’ll keep you updated, link in bio.

If you’d like to spend the dark months wrapped in the magic of nature, I have two courses which will sit beside you as you bide the long darkness.

Rewilding the Self is my foundational course in Nature Connection, it is free to access. Mugwort - Moon Matriarch is for those wishing to go a little deeper during the dark half of the year, it is designed around twelve immersive journeys in which you will meet and develop a relationship with the spirit of Mugwort.

The apothecary is, as always, fully stocked.

08/11/2025

When we de-centre the anthropocene and its false hierarchies from our discourse on freedom, change, and transformation, we find that the true voices of equality rise to the surface, wash over the land, and restore the proper order of things.

Now is the perfect time to explore these concepts, as the dark months envelop our senses and we prepare ourselves for the descent.

I have two courses which will sit beside you as you bide the long darkness. Rewilding the Self is my foundational course in Nature Connection, it is free to access and contains many practices to help you drop into deeper resonance.

Mugwort - Moon Matriarch is for those wishing to go a little deeper during the dark half of the year, it is designed around twelve immersive journeys in which you will meet and develop a relationship with the spirit of Mugwort, a guide for those seeking to open their inner eyes, realise their unique sovereign gifts, and then offer those gifts out to the world in service to Nature, as Nature.

Blessings from the hedgerows.

05/11/2025

The focus of this time is of alignment with the life force energies as they swirl between sun and Earth, leaves and soil, feathers and fire.

It is a time of allowing the liminal in to change us, resonate with us, and prepare us for the long sleep of winter.

Gather your nuts now, there is much preparation to be done.

The spirits who preside over the dark half of the year will guide us.

The land holds the wisdom of the cycles.

As ever, the land shows us the way.

This is the perfect time to dive into deeper awareness. I have two courses which will sit beside you as you bide the long darkness. Rewilding the Self is my foundational course in Nature Connection, it is free to access.

Mugwort - Moon Matriarch is the perfect companion for the dark half of the year, it is designed around twelve immersive journeys in which you will meet and develop a relationship with the spirit of Mugwort, a guide for those seeking to open their inner eyes, realise their unique sovereign gifts, and offer their gifts out to the world in service to Nature. The Samhain offer of 25% off extends to this immersive and illuminating course.

The Samhain offering ends at midnight tonight, November 5th. Enter SAMHAIN to access. Links to all offerings where the links should be.

30/10/2025

Samhain - A season, a time, a space.

The wheel turns. The year begins.

This is a time for reverence, ritual, and remembering.

A time for honouring the Earth and all who have gone before us.

A time for listening to the intuition and hearing the voices of the ancestors.

We will see what we need to see and hear what we need to hear if we can get quiet enough to listen.

The traditions which have become what we now celebrate are an inversion of what we are being called to do at this time of change and transformation.

We are being called into ourselves and into the wisdom and nourishment of the Earth, to celebrate our ancestors and the dead, the harvest, the sense of hunkering down and preparing for the darker, colder months ahead.

Now is the time to be harvesting the very last fruits of the seeds we planted in the spring and reflecting on what the time of dark winter dreaming can bring to our imaginings.

Honour the season by offering your thanks to the land which sustains you, by saining your space with intentional practices of awakening to purpose, by roasting pumpkin and squash, by bringing in apples as a symbol of rebirth and immortality, and by setting an extra place at your table.

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Samhain blessings at Wild Folk Apothecary. Take 25% off sitewide with code SAMHAIN

This is the perfect time of year to dive into one of my courses, see links for more info.

Blessings from the hedgerows.

23/10/2025

The bilge will eat itself

At the pinnacle of consumptive culture stands a corrupt politician eating a billionaire’s vomit.

This system built on the broken hearts and backs of all our ancestors is consuming its own waste in a frenzy of narcissism and greed, and it will collapse under the weight of it.

The waves of sh*te will wash over us, and they will drive the people back to the land. Back to live music, to physical art, to real-life conversation and connection.

The race for productivity will be seen for what it is, another trick, another trap, another false construct which feeds only the hoarders sitting atop their mounds of filth.

I’ll race you back to the mountains and the meadows, slowest there wins. We will sit around the fire, throw our dreams of remembering in to the cauldron, and sing our songs of freedom, together.

And so it is.

We (The Wild Folk) have taken all of our music down from the major streaming platforms. has got some beautiful videos up, I’ve put links in my stories.

Blessings and whispers of resistance from the hedgerows.

Bernadette x

20/10/2025

To attempt to control human access to the natural world is to cut us off from an essential part of ourselves. It is to sever our hearts from the vital force of nature which runs through our veins.

The narratives which set humans apart from nature do not serve nature, they serve only the systems which seek to put themselves between us and our natural ways of being for their own ends.

Foraging for food and medicine is a subversive act in these times. It is my daily act of resistance.

I’ve only got one foraging walk left this year. If you want to come and dismantle the control systems with me using nettles, hawthorn berries, and brambles, visit the place where the links live. I’ll meet you in the hedgerows.

03/10/2025

What if the last frontier of colonisation is the colonisation of the human imagination?

I’ve started a substack, (a free one). I’ll pop a link in my stories and bio. ❤️

30/09/2025

There’s an almost imperceptible yet deeply profound seasonal shift in the air. Felt only in early morning as the chill starts to creep towards the edges of the day and the dew begins to cling on a little longer. We are now in the liminal space between summer and autumn.

The trees and hedgerows are filling with fruit; low hanging elderberry, damson, blackberry, hawthorn, and rosehip. Apples and crab apples hang heavily on their branches, whispering of fruition and harvest, of a changing focus and a drawing in to gather and reflect upon what the fullness and heat of vibrant summer has taught us.

The open expressions of summer are slowing, wrapped as they are in a death embrace of turning inward and inevitable change. Now is a time of pause and reflection, what aspects of ourselves will we choose to take with us into the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness? What will we gladly leave behind?

Let us walk forward with only what we need, shedding with reverence what no longer serves our highest good, and the highest good of all beings, towards darkness and warmth, and the rewards of self-discovery.

28/09/2025

There is much folklore associated with the sour quince, which was sometimes buried with the dead to ensure safe onward travel into the realms beyond. The quince is a divine offering, the forbidden fruit, the golden apple of myth and legend.

The quince has long been known as a symbol of love and fertility, a gift from the gods to those seeking to bring sweetness to the marriage bed. Brides would bite into the quince summoning affection and good fortune.

In homes, quinces were hung to ward off ill winds and evil spirits, their tough skin a shield against energies unseen.

To dream of quinces could bring portents of prosperity, but to eat the sour flesh in the dream world could signify illness or hardship to come.

It was said that witches could take the form of a quince, lying in strange places to deceive those who passed by. It was wise to tread carefully, for a fruit out of place might not be a fruit at all.

A gift of quince preserve between lovers, was said to stir the heart and bind the soul in deep and unshakable affection.

Quinces don’t really look real, they look like perfect paintings of themselves. A strange fur coats their shanks, their scent is intoxicating and indescribable. They are said to be poisonous raw (which isn’t true, they are just very hard and very astringent). When cooked they turn the most beautiful blushing pink and taste like exotic secrets. At this time of year they can be found piled up outside the houses of those lucky enough to have quince trees, and I receive them gladly. Quince cake is an autumnal delight, as is the syrup produced from poaching these voluptuous golden treasures.

21/09/2025

Do you know how to drop your awareness into your heart?

We hear it said all the time, “be heart-centred, drop down into your heart, listen with your heart, communicate from your heart, open your heart”, but do you know what that means? Do you find that difficult? Do you know how to bring the focus of your attention to your heart?

The wonderful thing about this practice is that it can be so simple, it is about the direction of attention and intention. The easiest way is by focusing on your breath and the way it expands into your heart space. As you consciously move the awareness from the mind into the breath, it naturally drops into the lungs and heart space.

With a little practice we can begin to perceive the breath as coming through the heart itself.

As we breathe through the nose we are also bringing in breath and life-force energy through the heart, feeling the breath coming in through the energetic heart of the body.

The regular practice of heart-breathing will allow you to “drop” into your heart, and in turn this will allow you to listen to and hear the language of nature, to hear the wisdom of plants and tune in more deeply to the living world around you.

Do this is under a hawthorn tree for even more heart.

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Equinox blessings at .folk.apothecary with 25% off everything, including courses and foraging walks. Use code EQUINOX

Wild Folk Apothecary

18/11/2025

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