Nourishing Root

10/08/2025

One person’s wellness hack is another’s cultural inheritance. 🌾

🧠🌿 “Fibermaxxing” might be trending, but it’s actually ancestral wisdom resurfacing. Across Latin America, staple plants like maize, taro, and yucca have long been paired with natural ferments like tepache and chicha de jora, nourishing microbial diversity centuries before the algorithms made it seem sexy and new.

🧠🌿 In my part of the world (Costa Rica and beyond), our ancestors already knew that feeding your gut is feeding your mind. Fiber is the foundation for a thriving microbiome, that inner ecosystem constantly communicating with your nervous system through the gut-brain axis.

🧠🌿 When gut microbes ferment fiber, they produce short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), small yet powerful compounds that reduce inflammation, strengthen the gut lining, and aid in the production of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine. In short: more fiber, better mood, steadier mind.

Science is even catching up!
🦠 Bacteroides + Barnesiella → improved impulse control
🦠 Catenisphaera → brighter mood + emotional steadiness

From an herbalist’s POV, fiber is medicine for the terrain. 🌱 When you nourish your inner garden with burdock, chia, flax, or plantain seed, you’re supporting not just digestion, but consciousness itself. Simple tip: introduce new fibers slowly, hydrate well, and listen to your body. Your gut speaks before it shouts.

Does your lineage have a favorite fiber food or ritual? 🫘🍠🫐

P.S. The blog is hot! 🔥 Read now: “Longevity & Mental Wellness: A Holistic Approach to Aging Well,” plus, more new drops: Vegan Reishi Pho for brain health, Chai-Spiced Pumpkin Sourdough Buns, your cosmic seasonal forecast, and more.

10/08/2025

"Join Plants of the Gods as we explore the mysteries of ayahuasca with ethnobotanist Rebekah Senanayake. Through years of fieldwork with traditional indigenous masters in the northwest Amazon, Rebekah has learned how people connect with plants in profound and transformative ways. In this episode, she shares insights on ayahuasca healing, visions, and the subtle language of plants."

Join Plants of the Gods as we explore the mysteries of ayahuasca with ethnobotanist Rebekah Senanayake. Through years of fieldwork with traditional indigenou...

08/12/2025

Early this morning before dawn the moon shone so bright, so yellow, and low in the sky that I thought it was the sun. I rose to look at the moon, inviting me to let in the liminal. Over the threshold now, we crossed into Lughnasa season (August till the Autumn Equinox) when the bright energy of the solar peak seesaws across from the sadness of waning light. This Lughnasa, the first harvest came for my dear cat, Leo. For more than 20 years, Leo was a friend, a guardian, a familiar, a family member.

While I’m still integrating our long journey together, I’m grateful to have had every minute with him. I’m grateful I could go with him as far as I was allowed to the edge of life. He picked a plant ally before he left and he told me which plant would continue to be most closely with him. There is much to meditate on and it’s not easy to put such a relationship into few words.

My love for Leo will live within me forever, the same way the fire of Lughnasa comes to remind us that while life comes and goes, there is an undying light of love, and in the harvest we celebrate growth and bounty that feeds us, and we honor the harvest that is also endings, death, changes. The fire of Lughnasa and the Lion’s Gate beckon us close to gently remind us of the leonine fire within, eternal, loyal, radiating, boundless, strong.

As we tip into the darker part of the year, Lughnasa is an encouragement to tend to this inner fire. You will know what makes it brighter, what needs to be fed to it in release and in gratitude, what makes it feel playful, liberated from the burden of responsibility, having transformed responsibility into fuel for the loving flame. May all that you love burn brightly this Lughnasa season, this Lion’s Gate, this full moon. May all that you love shine to honor what lives beyond matter, in memories, hearts, and stories.

Thank you Leo, for your unforgettable presence and all that you shared with me and taught me. You are loved forever.

(posted 8.9.25 instagram)

07/24/2025

We’ve come ashore after traveling through watery Cancer season. We’re gathering our hopes like collecting crinoid fossils. This new moon season, starting in sunny Leo, is a time to honor the solar plexus, how we move out into the world from our authentic selves, speaking and acting with what is in alignment with our hearts. A quick shout out to motherwort, lion-hearted one, who helps us locate courage and truth-telling with her strong bitter nervine profile.

In Chinese medicine, this part of the summer is about using the peak strength of the sun to nourish our physical bodies so that we retain that vitality as the yang energy diminishes, moving into autumn and the colder, darker seasons. Enjoy the fresh, hydrating, cooling produce of the season, while balancing it with enough cooked food preparations, as opposed to a majority of raw foods. Adding in ginger warms and fortifies, while also stimulating circulation, balancing temperature, and reducing dampness. Bring in lunar rituals that cool summer sun like moon gazing, night swimming, and evening walks.

We’re moving into the time when sun can be wearing, overstimulating, drying, not only physically but also on mental and emotional levels. Saint John’s wort, pictured here as “ypericon” repelling a demon from the Northern Italian “Tractus de Herbis” manuscript, can be helpful for nervous system support, solar plexus connection, and letting the light in. Passionflower has a unique way of metabolizing heat, whether from the sun or from anxiety, and invites us to abandon the ideal of perfect stillness in order to embrace the subtle, ever-moving flow of life.

One can also be in relationship with plants without ingestion. Connection through observation can be just as powerful and profound. These purple/blue hydrangeas stopped me in my tracks and reminded me to cultivate balance in cooling down mental activity and enjoying color for color’s sake.

August 1st we have Lughnasa, the first of the three harvest festivals that extend through autumn. In your new moon intention setting, consider what calls out most loudly this month, but also have an eye on intentions for the next several months through the harvest season. The most enjoyable summers are a blend of joyful, fiery, sparks mixed with easy, watery, replenishments. As we move through the peak of the solar year into harvest season, how can the lunar cycles step in to help you find balance, as there is balance in the play of fire and water?

New Moon Blessings.

06/23/2025

06/23/2025

This is episode three of Swimming with Shadows: A Radiolab Week of Sharks.

Today, we take a trip across the world, from the south coast of Australia to—Wisconsin. Here, scientists are scouring shark blood to find one of nature’s hidden keys, a molecular superhero that might unlock our ability to cure cancer: shark antibodies. They’re small. They’re flexible. And they can fit into nooks and crannies on tumors that our antibodies can’t.

We journey back 500 million years to the moment sharks got these special powers and head to the underground labs transforming these monsters into healers. Can these animals we fear so much actually save us?

Can sharks cure cancer?

06/23/2025

https://drperlmutter.com/ultra-processed-foods-threaten-brain/

I’ve been writing a lot as of late about the threat posed by ultra-processed foods, (UPFs), specifically as it relates to the brain. And wouldn’t you know it. Just today, …

06/23/2025

Summer solstice, traditionally called Midsummer or Litha, turns the wheel of the year, celebrating the cycles of the sun and earthly seasons. It’s a moment to pause, standing on the eight-pointed cross marking the Earth holidays. Take a breath to consider where you are on that wheel.

What has shifted since May’s Beltaine, since March’s Spring Equinox, since February’s Imbolc, and since December’s Winter Solstice (Midwinter)? What do you want to create in the next turn to August’s Lughnasa, or maybe further to September’s Mabon, or to October’s Samhain, or to the next Winter Solstice? Take a moment to see the spirals of these cycles. We are always moving and yet here we are.

How can we embrace the paradox of Shiva Nataraja, the divine cosmic dancer, of finding motion in stillness, possibility in limitation, hopeful creation while in chaotic, destructive waves? Turn inward to connect with the generative force that supports Earth’s cycles. Connect with the wisdom of meeting each other’s needs through generosity. Connect with the unifying principle that all of us are under the same sun, on the same planet. Those without authentic power want us to fall into a sea of despair, but we call the sun, our birthright example of power, to shine a light ahead. Today or in the next few days, take a moment to honor the sun, to feel your inner fire, your worth, your gifts, what you shine out to the world through your solar plexus and through your actions. Bright Litha Blessings.

Art:
1. Kazuko Shiihashi “Awakening of Love” 2022
2. Ed Perkins
3. Unknown
4. Edieart
5. Ricca Arya
6. Jennifer Hawkyard
7. Mark Duffin

06/23/2025

06/10/2025

https://inform.urbanforestplan.nyc/

The urban forest includes the more than seven million trees that span New York City’s streets, yards, parks, campuses, businesses, and natural areas. It’s an important part of our city, meant to be accessible to all.

05/01/2025