Nature Provides – Episode 1

One of my long time passions has been natural healing. This ties in well with my passion for wild places, my love of Alaska is still strong. Now living in Hawaii I love the wild places I find here, along the cliffs, along a jungle trail, cruising around this amazing island of Hawaii, the Big Island. When I lived in Alaska I had the good fortune of studying with Janice Schofield, the author of Discovering Wild Plants: Alaska, Western Canada, The Northwest. My medicine cabinet contained balms, salves, tinctures and hand-crafted by me.

When I moved here as a new widow my life changed and I found myself caught in a fight for my life where natural healing walked side by side with eastern and western medicine. It was not an easy balance and took many different paths during my seven year journey through cancer. I used many of Hawaii’s healing offerings and am blessed to be sitting here today cancer free.

The time has presented itself for me to start studying Hawaii plants with David Bruce Leonard author of “Medicine at Your Feet: Healing Plants of the Hawaiian Kingdom” & “Wild Wisdom: Listening to Heart of Nature”. I am currently enrolled with the Earth Medicine Institute Introduction to Edible & Medicinal Plants of the Tropics. It is seven week on-line course with videos, handouts (pdfs), weekly zoom class time and now we are starting the Plant Walks. Our first one is coming up at the Ulu La’au – Waimea Nature Park. https://www.waimeaoutdoorcircle.org/projects.html. When you click on the link to the Nature Park from this page, we are gifted with a 16 page self-guiding booklet with Plant Category / Classification / General Information / Plant Uses. How cool is that? I am heading off to print the guide for my plant adventure.