Heart of Herbs Herbal School Podcast
Welcome to the Heart of Herbs Herbal School Podcast, with Demetria Clark.
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Heart of Herbs Herbal School Podcast
Exploring Herbal Wisdom and Medical Astrology with Christina Cabezas
Curious about how ancient practices can enhance modern health? This episode promises a deep dive into the world of herbalism, acupressure, and medical astrology with our esteemed Heart of Herbs Herbal School Student, Cristina Cabezas. With over 25 years of experience in natural health and healing, Christina’s journey is a compelling blend of personal experiences and academic insights, from her early fascination with medicinal plants as a Girl Scout to her professional ventures as a Jin Shin Jyutsu practitioner. Christina shares an enriching narrative that will inspire anyone interested in holistic health.
We explore Cristina's transition from anthropology to herbalism, detailing her early work with the La Leche League and her passion for supporting natural childbirth and breastfeeding. Cristina’s expertise shines through as she discusses how historical and cultural perspectives on these subjects have evolved. She also opens up about her personal practices, such as making fire cider and growing herbs, and how these simple rituals contribute to her daily well-being. The balance of pursuing professional growth while raising a family is a key theme, emphasizing the importance of strong support systems and lifelong learning. https://ancientflow.com/
This episode also delves into the innovative ways Cristina integrates her herbal knowledge into her massage therapy practice. Discover how medical astrology and acupressure techniques are customized for individual clients, providing a holistic approach tailored to their natal charts. We touch on the exciting realms of distance healing and the practicalities of conducting medical astrology sessions via video conferencing. If you’re intrigued by how ancient wisdom can be applied in today’s world, you won’t want to miss Christina’s enlightening insights and practical tips.
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Hi, this is Demetria Clark, the director of Heart of Herbs Herbal School, and today, on the Heart of Herbs Herbal School podcast, we are talking to Christina Cabezas. Is that right? Yeah, is that right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right, cool, yeah. Is that right? Yeah, all right, cool, all right.
Speaker 1:So Christina is a licensed massage therapist with over 25 years of study and natural health and healing of the body. As an acupressure therapist, christina supports people with chronic health conditions to stabilize and improve their quality of life, ultimately towards optimizing their health. Her mission is to transform the entire physical, health and emotional well-being of her clients. They work together to feel more balanced, grounded and energized, allowing the body and the mind to continually heal itself. Thank you so much for being here today. What an impressive bio. I'm really excited to talk to you. So first things first. What got you into this kind of work? Like what was your your first seedling? I'm going to load a question to start with. What's your?
Speaker 2:origin story. How was your origin story? Well, it is funny. I have reflected a bit on this origin story. I can remember I was a Girl Scout in middle school and we were working as a group to try and get a silver award and working with this park within our city and they wanted us to do little portions to support the induction, the creation of this park. And I remember being really drawn and fascinated by what plants were in this park and what they might be quote, used for, might be helpful for, and particularly in the more medicinal edible realm. Um, and, and that was that very first like spark, and I remember even saying something to the girl scout leader about how, like the old medicine women in in in the, in the native tribes, and you know.
Speaker 2:Then high school happened and I was an exchange student in Germany and distractions of various kinds and sort of thought I would study international relations or something along those lines and got distracted. And then I started studying cultural anthropology and that was a really great fit for that sort of interest in food and medicine and the land. But it was still kind of a little bit dormant. It wasn't until my mother-in-law I got married very young, I was 20. She was going back to school at the time to become a midwife, a certified nurse midwife, and she headed yeah, yeah, she didn't end up completing it, it would have been her second master's degree because she was in her fifties and she's like I just, I just can't. But she handed me a few books on what doulas were. So here I was, at like 21, 22, reading books on doulas and going doulas, these women who support women who are going through natural childbirth or not quite so natural, but birth period. And that led me to the midwives in my town.
Speaker 2:And when I finally got pregnant at 23, finally they were very interested in herbs and, of course, and they were lay midwives or they were in a different midwife track, not the CNM track but but a different professional midwife kind of track. And they handed me a book on the childbearing year by Susan Weed. Okay yeah, and I remember being like, oh my gosh. I think my second book was Aviva Bra, aviva Ram's book on the childbearing year, and I just remember just being completely fascinated by all of those things. I finished my degree in anthropology where I focused on natural childbirth and breastfeeding, and so that was really fun to kind of delve into a little bit of research around those worlds and the anthropological implications, the scientific ramifications of being a woman in a Western world and breastfeeding or choosing to breastfeed or choosing to have a natural childbirth. So those were huge areas of interest and I was still trying to figure it out. I had thought I would study natural. This is ending up a long story, sorry. Oh, I'm loving it.
Speaker 1:I'm loving it. I have some questions to ask you, like as soon as you're ready. Love it. Oh, I think we just lost you.
Speaker 2:No, oh you just came back.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, perfect we were going to edit that out or maybe not. You guys can just deal. Yeah, silence, it was your time to reflect.
Speaker 2:It was time to reflect on on on those things and where I was going. I I had encountered somebody, I found a homeopathic study group somehow, um and uh, things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, internet Facebook really screwed up a lot of those things Right.
Speaker 2:And it was in person at a, uh, our local library. And um, I started going and one time somebody dropped in. She she was like 25 years old and she told me about this program of study called naturopathic medicine and she was headed to Bastyr, I think, out in Washington state to study to become a naturopathic physician, which, for those who are unfamiliar with that track, it is essentially becoming a medical doctor, but instead of studying the Western pharmaceuticals it is really studying herbs and a lot more of the natural ways of managing health. So that had been a name. I had child number two and when he was about three I decided I would start making my way towards that path of naturopathic physician and started really kind of beginning those prerequisites, because a lot of sciences I had kind of avoided as an anthropology degree and we decided to move.
Speaker 2:There are four at the time, four naturopathic colleges. One of them was in Tempe, Arizona, and I had also gotten involved with Waldorf education and I had also gotten involved with Waldorf education. My kids had gone to Waldorf schools the Waldorf preschool here, which in the rest of the world are called Steiner schools, and there was a Waldorf school in Phoenix that had just gone charter, and there I felt like I was going to have my cake and be able to eat it too. I could go for graduate programming that I was super excited about, and my kids could continue on on a Waldorf educational system for free, because my husband is a public school teacher and so all of that was kind of coming together. And then baby number three surprise. So we went ahead and moved to Arizona and so I was about 30 minutes away from the Southwest School of Naturopathic Medicine and started raising this last child, and by the time she was three and I was starting to get to that place where I would need to.
Speaker 2:I choose to be at home with my little ones, but at this point, when they're about three or four, I start more part-timing it and doing more things outside. And I was going to start taking prereqs and I started realizing that I wasn't feeling well. I was dealing with a lot of backaches, a lot of headaches. I was really struggling physically. I was tired. By 9 am I was in this very depressed state and essentially, when I went to my naturopathic physician to get some care and additional feedback resources around what was happening and what I was noticing within myself, she did some lab work and she said basically you're in adrenal fatigue, but your labs aren't showing it yet, so you're in a good place if you can turn this around. So again, depressed, tired, by 9 am, which is not good when you have a three-year-old, a seven-year-old and an 11-year-old Just not a great way to be functioning.
Speaker 2:Waller schools tend to do a bit of parent education and that school at the time did a lot of those kinds of things. And one Saturday morning in the same period there was a practitioner who came and did a three-hour self-help class and so I went to this class and I was blown away with how I felt by the end of the three hours, so much so that, oh, poor woman, I was like following her. She's trying to put everything in the car. I'm following her to the car like totally interrogating how do I learn more? Like it was a whole thing. Unfortunately I've lost touch with that woman, but if she hears this, thank you for being so kind.
Speaker 2:Exactly, but, but. But that class was an introduction to a Japanese form of acupressure called Jin Shin Jitsu and I was completely blown away because the depression lifted, I had energy. I remember for the next eight hours feeling like I was on this incredibly natural high with all of this energy. But I remember also stomping on the ground and telling my friends like I feel really, really grounded, but I feel like I've got all of this energy and I was just. I felt so amazing and thankfully she did pass some.
Speaker 2:The teacher of that three-hour class passed some information on, so I called the office that was local to me which happens to also be at the time the international office for Jin Shin Jutsu practitioners in Scottsdale, and got hooked up.
Speaker 2:And so that's where my path changed, because in realizing that I could learn about this natural healing art, using our fingers, not needles, to support our natural health without a whole lot of other things, just felt like this is my path, is my path. And and although the idea of going to naturopathic medical school if I won a million dollars, oh, I'd be moving my husband to Bastyr to go and study that. But the reality is that where I live in North Florida, there are no states nearby, including Florida, that licensed naturopathic physicians and my family is in Florida, my husband's family is in North Carolina and part of my family is in Costa Rica, and so it just was not going to make financial the ROI, as they say. The business people return on investment of spending a hundred thousand to half a million on a naturopathic physician degree was going to be a little tough oh yeah right, but you're giving people ROH Turn on their health by helping them.
Speaker 2:So that led me, as I said, to study naturopath, to study, excuse me Jinjinjutsu. And for most people where I live in North Florida they've never heard of it. And so I typically say I'm an acupressure therapist, because that makes a little more sense, it's a little bit easier for people to understand what's going on, and usually that's my introduction I'm an acupressure therapist. That means fingers, not needles. That's my introduction. I'm an acupressure therapist. That means fingers, not needles. And then, once it computes, they're like oh, then they get a sense of it, because Jinjinjutsu is based in TCM, traditional Chinese medicine. In that I will say that reiki, which most people are a little bit more familiar with, came to the states at the same time jen shinjutsu did, but reiki had a much better promotional uh team for it than than jen shinjutsu did, so it may have been also how you pronounce the name sometimes there's simple things, like people being like I don't know how to say that, so I'm just gonna you know Exactly.
Speaker 1:I mean it's funny, but it's definitely like, sometimes the obvious, like promotional thing. You know, you'd be like let's call it like finger pulse or something People are like, yeah, I do the finger pulse method or whatever, right. And then next thing, you, you know. So I have a question real quick and we're backtracking about did you feel that your initial studies in cultural anthropology shaped the way that you, one, raised your children and, two, thought about health and wellbeing and those dynamics? Because for me, that I, I studied some of this in high school. I went to an alternative Quaker high school and I lived in communes and stuff, but anyways, I digress there was a lot of that kind of people who studied that kind of stuff and I felt at least in my case, it completely. I was just like this is the only way I'm doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I will say the degree working, and so I took a pause after that first one was born for eight months and I joined La Leche League and I think it was a dual experience of being heavily involved in my local La Leche League chapter that met like twice a month and sometimes a little bit more. They had a regular meeting and they had a toddler meeting and I was so I'm such a love to be in community with people that I was like attending it all and learning and and at the time. Um, so this is like she was born in 96.
Speaker 2:um, there was definitely mine was born in 96 too, all right um and, and so there was a huge Schilling has its own set of books that they and that people talk about, and so that was an easy resource, as I was studying anthropology and really focusing in on the things that the professors were talking about. But very few professors talk about natural childbirth and breastfeeding. We can assume many of them are male and if they're female, many of them have not had children, and so it can be a little interesting. Thankfully, at the time, the chair of the anthropology department at the University of Florida, his wife, was a natural childbirth educator, so I had support in in looking and in fact he wanted me to to pursue a master's or PhD after I finished the bachelor's, which was a high compliment for sure, absolutely Cool.
Speaker 2:So so, yeah, it is definitely both of those I did when Alex, when my child that was born in 2000, when he was about two, I became an LLUG leader and let me tell you most of my meetings that I led, I would bring in that research of well, this is what we see in Native cultures and this at things, particularly in the 1950s, and how science was very much touted as king, nature not so much. And how companies and their advertisements and how formula has been very much scientifically researched and documented, became the gold standard for a while, and and so that has really colored um our culture, particularly western cultures, much more and then transmuted down to second and third world um cultures as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely right. I remember, um, so I actually did a project for one of my classes, because I started off, called art history and cultural anthropology were the two things that I was just joking with my husband this morning that you know, the two things I'd ever go back and get like my master's degree for is one of those Right, and I don't have time for either. But but I did like a study on billboards, like putting billboards all through the state of New York, cause that's where my, my husband was in the army at the time and the department of defense actually paid me to teach some little breastfeeding classes really early on. And that was, and those teaching those classes is what eventually, years later, became heart of herbs and birth herbs, that little root of someone believing that this very young person who was breastfeeding you know, so it's like it's funny how it's all connected.
Speaker 1:But but, um, I find that a lot of herbalists, who seem to enjoy their jobs on like a different kind of level, have their roots in that, like anthropology, and you know they, they, they look at things a little bit differently. I don't know if that's been your experience, but it sounds like. It sounds like all roads led you to exactly where you needed to be at the right time, like that's really cool that you go to something at your child's school and it becomes what is now your career. How long have you been doing this?
Speaker 2:that class was October of 2007. Um, so I immediately the next sort of professional kind of leading track was in May of 2008. And they usually recommend taking one of those classes five-day classes once every year until you finish the three those those taking them three times to become what they officially call a student practitioner, because we're always a student and that's why she used that term. Many of us practitioners just say we kind of drop the student because it's just confusing to the general public. But but I didn't, I wasn't very patient and so so I so I took that May 2008 class in in Scottsdale, because that was close by Well, wouldn't you know it? About six months later, tucson had a class and I signed up for that.
Speaker 2:So five day I'm like I'm, I'm gonna find a place to stay with some people and um, and I'm heading down to that class. So five days down in Tucson to take that second class, and then Scottsdale did that third, did another class May of 2009. And so I completed that in May of 2009 and took a few other classes in between as well. So, yeah, and I pretty regularly, about every year, take another class in various topics within Jinjinjutsu world. I've actually even traveled, traveled to different places. I think one time when I was in Phoenix, I went out to Baltimore and one of my oldest daughters did a study abroad in the Netherlands and I was like, oh, there's a class in Amsterdam, that's an expense.
Speaker 1:I was going to come and visit you. Yes, in Amsterdam. That's an expense.
Speaker 2:I was going to come and visit you, yes, exactly I was the only American in that class and they were like why are you here? I'm like I'm visiting my daughter and I get to see this teacher who I've never seen before. So that was a bonus. But yeah, so this has definitely the acupressure world. Jinjin jutsu totally has rocked my world and so what? It's been 15, 16, 17 years somewhere around there. I'm not doing the math at the moment, um, math is overrated.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, now I will say it is not typical, uh, within jinjin jutsu world, to be interested in herbs, but I had always kind of been. As I expressed, you know, that first pregnancy I got really interested in those herbs. I didn't know of anybody who was studying those kinds of things. Now today it's so easy to just pop it in the Internet and find all kinds of things. Pop it in the internet and find all kinds of things.
Speaker 2:But at the time I was raising children, I wasn't willing to be away for long periods of time or travel long, long distances. It was much easier at the time that my kids were at their ages for me to just disappear for five days. My husband could, you know, hold down the fort. I think my mother-in-law came a couple of times to help that hold down the fort, which was very sweet and supportive of her and but but. So herbs is not a particularly common interest within Jinjinjutsu practitioners but it was always an interest and I happened to find out about for me because I'm in Florida and I happened to find out about for me because I'm in Florida the Florida Herbal Conference that was beginning, I think the first one was in 2013, 2012,.
Speaker 2:Uh, I, one of the things I learned in moving back to Florida is that I had to get a massage license. It was either that or become a minister. I decided that I didn't really want to do the minister aspect and I felt like it would be good to study the body on a much more physical level. So massage school I went and I remember hearing about the Florida massage, florida herbal conference and I was like Ooh, and I'd always been a big fan of learning herbscom, um, I think our fairies. We were part of that inauguration inaugural class of buying our fairies, um and um. I think maybe some of his early advertisers may have included myself and the kids, but but so you know, going to the third conference was was really fascinating. Emily Ruff, who founded that conference, happened to come up to Gainesville to the massage school and to do a little afternoon class with one of the other faculty members at the massage school and I had a conversation with her and she offered the potential to work trade and I was like, yes, sign me up for work trading at the Florida herb conference and I would love to be about together with the teaching team. That would be amazing and I have been on the teaching team moderating the Florida Herb Conference ever since. That's great, that's awesome. So for me, herbs have been more of a personal interest. I mean there are pictures of me making fire cider with the kids. Oh, I want to say around massage school timeframe. So love 2011.
Speaker 2:And then I started getting into making lotion bars and salve and making a long Rosemary Gladstar's recipe of making a face cream. So those are regulars of what happens in my household is fire cider. There's usually a batch or two of different kinds of fire cider around the house and there's lotion bars. So if I ever come to visit you, you're likely to get a bar of my lotion bar and maybe a little travel thing. I'm telling all my secrets here of herbal salve first aid, neosporin kind of alternative herbal salve, you know, first aid, neosporin kind of alternative. And then which. I love having those things in my travel kit and that's usually how I introduce it to people like this is great for travel. It's the hard lotion and what's this, and people still don't know what hard lotion is, but it's such a great thing.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, absolutely Right. It's like you know, like I think one of the assignments we have I'm not sure if you've done yours yet or not is the herbal first aid kit. You know, cause it's like you just kind of like, I mean, I have one, I take them to travel. I have one like in our RV. There's another one that like if I go to my kid's house, I have, you know, I always have stuff in the car and like what is this? And you know what this is. You've been seeing it since you were two, but you know right you know how kids are, so anyway for sure I.
Speaker 2:I have this in my little purse, this little round.
Speaker 2:It's looked like a pencil case and that's in my purse all the time and it has some salve in a little teeny bottle of tea tree oil, a little teeny bottle of lavender essential oil, and then it has like, oh, bitters, because I tend to need bitters, so a little spray bitters. I have my own little first aid kit that I carry around and then I have an entire cabinet of like herb teas, herbs and various different kinds. Yeah. So it is definitely, um, yeah things for me to to have herbal first aid situations available all over.
Speaker 1:yeah, you always need something. You know for sure you might as well just make it yourself and and you know you know might as well just make it yourself and, and you know, get it done Right. So let's see. So we kind of talked about when inspired you and fascinated you. And so what do you think is one of the the best aspects of your herbal work that you enjoy the most? Like what is something that just every time you do it it brings you joy, Like I love.
Speaker 1:And this is probably so simple and easy, but people are always like what is something you I love making my little morning, I do a little bit of cider vinegar in the morning and then, but mine has turmeric and ginger in it and I just like that. I like the way it makes me feel. It's like my little thing, that's just mine. No one else touches it, you know, and and it's so simple and it's so easy and I feel like it makes such a difference in my outlook, my day, like everything, and people are like, oh, like they want it to be something really complicated and I'm like no, there's, I have no complications, I am not a complicated person.
Speaker 1:You know, like I want to not feel sad in the wintertime, I take a bath and then cover myself in sesame oil and I get out and then I feel better. You know people are like what I have? No, I have no sexy remedies. I'm like so simple, so practical, so what is like your thing? You know the thing that you love the most about when you you know an herbal remedy or something like difference in your life.
Speaker 2:Well, for me, I love making my, my face cream. It is and and so and. For me that's a daily ritual, because I get out of the shower in the morning and I'm lathering myself in that face cream. That is cause I tend towards dryness. I have curly hair, I I tend to have much more of a drier complexion, and so having this really rich and, um, essentially edible kind of face, cream it is.
Speaker 1:It's called face cream, but everyone who makes it is like you know. They put it in their container, whatever version they make of it. And then it's like you have this empty blender now that's covered with, and you're like you end up putting it all over your body in the kitchen.
Speaker 1:You know everything in the house that you touch smells like it. Right, oh, for sure. Isn't there some for anyone else? No, no, I just used to make it like um, I use different stuff now, but I used to make it like just massive like amounts at a time because I would was living in Vermont, my skin was really dry. Yeah, couldn't handle the wood stove and uh you know, so I get it.
Speaker 2:But right, that's a good addiction to have totally my face cream and I'm about to run out because I made a lot of little containers. I'm always looking for little containers and you know running them through the dishwasher to sanitize them before I make them, and so, like my lotion bar and the first day it's half I keep in the freezer until I gift them out. But the face cream can't be done that way, it can't be frozen, so I leave them in the fridge in one of my I have two fridges I leave them in the fridge. So that way then. But I've handed them all out and so I'm like I just made. When they don't give you the containers back always, and they don't that was my mother's day thing, was like mother's day weekend.
Speaker 2:I'm like I'm making face cream. Whoever's gonna be here, whether it's my two daughters or sometimes my sister, will come over and it's everybody like wear shorts or a dress that everybody can lather up all the things and put in all the containers. So yeah, that is definitely like my daily ritual of using my face cream. But lately I've really gotten into a sort of coffee alternative, um, sort of, to start the day, and I am completely and utterly addicted to cacao. Um, the darker the better. I love that better, um, and and so I, I um have a blend by a local um herb shop. She makes this lovely blend coffee sort of alternative with adaptogens and it has cacao, roasted dandelion, chicory, chaga, ashwagandha, macau, cinnamon and ginger. And then I add an additional teaspoon of drinking chocolate by another herbalist named Ratsa Ratsa chocolate out of Tarpon Springs, and so a teaspoon of each of those, and that's how, literally, I have been getting my morning. Let it brew for 30 minutes and I'm really glad to have those adaptogenic herbs and a little bit of that toasted and dark richness without having any sugar, and I know that it's going to also support my digestion, which is always in something that I need. So the little bit of ginger is helping me with that, and the cinnamon as well. So so, yeah, those are two different things, but all of those are on the personal level.
Speaker 2:In terms of how I use herbs, I mean, definitely it's around the house and I grow things. We live on a third of an acre suburban kind of lot, about four miles from the University of Florida, and I've got echinacea in the front lawn along with some different hibiscuses, and I've got a huge rosemary bush, and then in the back I've got, you know, a peach tree and I've made peach leaf tea and tincture as well, and I've got mulberry and I've got some comfrey growing back there, which is awesome, and you know basil, of course, a few different kinds of basil, thai basil and Genovese basil and those kinds of things. So again, all of that is on the personal level. On a professional level, it gets tricky because I have a massage license and so when I'm doing body work I'm not supposed to talk about other things or prescribe or blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:So that has been a challenge because it is definitely an interest of mine to be able to support my clients much more on the like what I would consider that, that edible level of herbs, that that that nurturing, nourishing level of herbs not the more heroic kinds of herbs and so how to support my clients with simple little things that they can do and bring into their world has been a little bit of a challenge, but one of the things that I've started. I started doing this about four or five years ago. I realized that within my acupressure tradition there were connections to astrology and I really delved into that astrological connection with the different parts of the body, and so for my clients that come and see me in the office but I also actually, when I do these sessions, I do them online, even for my in-person clients I started doing medical astrology analysis on my clients.
Speaker 2:So, getting their birth information that includes the time of birth, the place, the location of the birth, not just the date, so those three dynamics, and then looking into creating a natal chart, as it's described, and then really flipping it and looking at what Jinchen Jutsu says about those astrological connections and the body connections. And so this document really goes very in-depth on how, based on a number of factors, generally speaking, a bigger focus on the ascendant, the sun sign and the moon sign Really looking at those three factors and more tailoring acupressure, simple acupressure for my clients to be able to do on themselves in between detailed, longer sessions with me. And so this is where I can bring in the herb elements, because once I have that information of what I call their constitutional tendencies within their body, then I can kind of look and go okay, so I'm noticing this. For example, my sun sign is Gemini. Geminis tend to need a little bit of support around digestion, stomach, and so bitters are part of my life. There's two bottles of bitter there. I think I got another three bottles behind this wall Like I can probably. There's probably eight bottles of bitters, little bottles of, around within a 15 yard radius of me, and so that supports my, my Gemini nature, but that's not the whole story, so so that's kind of.
Speaker 2:You know how I tend to go with my clients is like, okay, you have this, this and this, but then there's this other aspects of element, there's a bit more, but by the end of it they also have recommendations of. Based on these things, this herb might be a really great thing to start bringing into your life on a more regular basis, or I'm noticing this within your bodywork sessions things that you're complaining about. How about we consider XYZ herb? Or even I use Himalayan salt stones with my clients, and what is the very first herb that we likely, as a species, used? It's not really an herb, it's a mineral, but it's salt. And what herb do you see on or quote in quotes? We've gone to wars for salt.
Speaker 1:We conquered or colonized or traveled the world for salt. I mean, you know they were looking for unknown herbs. When they decided to explore, they were looking for salt and then other things, you know.
Speaker 2:But Right, the word salary comes from. Its origin is in salt. Its origin is in salt. So but? But with my clients I use carved Himalayan salt stone, so it's a very highly pure salt, and I place it on their body and so sometimes I will notice that they will. They're where that salt, depending on where it is on their body, and salt tends to be naturally a hydrophilic, which means it brings water towards it. And if my clients have really sweaty spaces around that salt, I generally recommend you might want to bring more salt, natural salts, into your world, because your body's trying to get it one way or another and it's not getting it in certain places.
Speaker 2:So, whether that's switching to Himalayan salt stone, himalayan salt as a shaker, or switching or including more seed in your life, so that's generally how I bring herbs into my practice. Right now I'm considering developing that more in a written form and having that be something that I can do more with in an email kind of way, so that way they could get a monthly update on. Like you know, this is your sun, moon and sign, sun moon and ascendant signs and the herbs that might be involved in that. But then there's also the flavor of what we're dealing with during this time. So, as we like, for example, in this particular day, we're sort of coming towards the end of cancer season and about to go into Leo season, and herbs can be supportive of those particular seasons, so those particular times in in the year. So so, yeah, so I am in constantly thinking about those realms. True to my sun sign, gemini nature, I love learning.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. What a wonderful way to do it. I think the thing that people don't realize one of the complexities with herbalism is that sometimes we have to go about serving our clients where we practice other modalities, in a very different way because we can't be seen like a lot. We have a lot of students who are nurses and they want to work with.
Speaker 1:But they have to say, okay, this is not my nursing hat, this is my, you know, and they have to be really intentional about it because, quite frankly, the world doesn't really seem to like herbalist all that much in some ways, you know. I mean, look, there's always the people that like go way out of bounds and are like this is what cures Ebola, it's a scent stick you can get on Pinterest or whatever it's like. No, that's really not happening. So there is always an element, but there's an element in every art Right and sometimes, like massage therapist and acupuncturist and acupressure, I mean they really have to think about connecting and helping their clients in another way so they can stay within the parameters of the guidelines of the industry that they work in. That people understand that that we really have to go through a lot of intention to help people get to where they are and to help people.
Speaker 1:You know access services and you know herbalism can be part of your referral source. You know we always have like sources to help people go elsewhere, and so I'm really happy that you illustrated that. I think a lot of people will find that really helpful when they think about it in reference to. You know their careers and what they're thinking about in reference to their practice. So thank you for sharing that. Or now, so I should probably let you go so you can get back to your regular life, which sounds wonderful. It sounds like you've got a lot of great people around you who love the work that you do, so I think that's great. We, of course, love you being a student, so we're always thrilled about all of that, but how can people find you if they want to work with you?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, wonderful you. Oh yeah, wonderful, um. So the easiest place to go. Excuse me, I'm sorry, sorry, um, I'm gonna have to grab a drink of water here, just go for it, I'll sit.
Speaker 2:I'll sit over here and prattle, all right so, yeah, so the easiest place to go is to find my website, ancientflowcom, that is A-N-C-I-E-N-T-F-L-O-W, youtube, facebook, instagram and LinkedIn. My personal profile on LinkedIn has a bit more information than the quote business profile, but they're both there. So I'm on all of those spaces. But you can also find that by going to agentflowcom and it'll have the link to the different social media spaces. I think I'm also oh, I'm on Alignable as well, if somebody's on there. I don't do a whole lot with Alignable, but yeah, so those are my main spaces to find me. The website definitely has quite a bit. It's more of a researcher's website. I will admit it's not a quick and immediate explanation, but there's a lot for people to explore on the website. Yeah, so those are the top spaces to find me.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for being here today, and we will. So anyone who's listening, we will have links in the information so you can find that you can always connect with Heart of Herbs if you heard something and you can't find the link to it, and I can get that to use. So thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it. I've learned so much about the work that you do and I wish you were closer, because so what you do sounds like perfect. So, anyways, maybe sometime when I'm down in Florida I will look you up, but thank you so much for all that you do. I really appreciate it. Thank you for being here today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for offering this up to an opportunity to talk about this work and how wonderful it is and being able to share more about it. I will say one last thing that this particular work can be done distance wise. So several of practitioners and I have, during the pandemic in particular, I did distance healing sessions. So it's not a huge part of my practice at the moment, but it's definitely something I'm very open to. So it is pretty amazing that distance healing is available in this energetic art and with the medical astrology analysis that's typically. I do that typically video through video conferencing. So it's it does open things up as a possibility for those that might be interested in that kind of work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so definitely so listen, if you're interested in this kind of work. And now you heard, like I did. Oh wow, there's a distance component, it's ancientflowcom, and you know she's had that URL for a while because you can't get one. There's no hyphen, there's no nothing. People, Ancientflowcom. Thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you. It was a lovely conversation. I really appreciate it. Thank you, okay, bye-bye, bye.
