Medicine Stories

Kami McBride, a seasoned herbalist with nearly four decades in the field, passionately discusses the role of women in utilizing plants for self-care and family healing. She shares personal stories about navigating motherhood without maternal guidance and emphasizes the importance of community in holistic wellness. The conversation dives into the evolution of herbalism amid information overload, highlighting the need for genuine knowledge and discernment in today's landscape. Kami also reflects on how home herbalism fosters stronger community bonds and supports emotional connections.

Suuzi and I continue the discussion sparked by my last episode about culty trends in the wellness space by talking about her past with Kundalini yoga- what drew her in and, eventually, how noticing the state of nourishment of those deepest into the cult precipitated her exit. We then catch listeners up on our midlife metabolic meltdown hEaLinG jOuRnEyS and what path we're taking forward as we continue to recover our vitality and deepen our understanding of why women's bodies are so metabolically expensive. Patreon bonuses for this episode include an extended conversation w/ Suuz about the reaction to the German New Medicine episode (114) & how it surprisingly kindled a discussion amongst patrons about a remarkably similar ideology, a 10% off coupon code for Suuzi's grass fed, grass finished liver pills, and a chance to ask us questions. Also photos of Suuzi in turbans! Dr. Suuzi on Instagram Mother's Best Liver Pills Amber's website MythicMedicine.love Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? Amber/Mythic Medicine on Instagram Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes) Mentioned in this episode: Kimberly Ann Johnson on Whose Body Is It Breath of Fire Kundalini cult/Guru Jagat documentary Kathleen Stewart's story The Rooted in Resilience podcast and specific Minnesota Starvation Experiment episodes with Kathleen Stewart The Energy Balance Podcast The group coaching program Suuzi is in is Transfrom Cronometer nutrition tracking app How to Not Get Fat on the "Pro-Metabolic Diet": a guide for switching to nourishing foods while avoiding fat gain by Kaya of Fundamental Nourishment Eating a "Pro-Metabolic Diet" Will Not Heal You: an appeal for having context to understand the big picture by Kaya of Fundamental Nourishment

GNM is an alt health trend that has grown in popularity in recent years. It is attractive to so many (including me and my guest, once) because it acknowledges the role that emotions and trauma play in physical health and symptom manifestation, something that mainstream medicine still somehow refuses to do. But just because some aspects of an ideology are true and helpful does not mean that the entire framework is valid. Critical thinking and humility are essential tools for navigating information overload and complex frameworks, especially when it comes to health. The allure of certainty and specialized knowledge can lead people to adopt rigid belief systems that don't hold up to critical thinking, and the the zealotry of believing that your group's belief system will save the world only further strengthens unconscious confirmation bias (along with other logical fallacies common in GNM- loading the language, heads you lose tails I win, us v them thinking, bizarre antisemitic conspiracies, etc). But what might be most worrisome about this growing movement is the purity mindset demanded of its more extreme adherents- the belief that nothing outside of us can affect us if only we believe strongly enough in our own omnipotence and prove our righteousness and purity by attaining a total lack of symptoms. What is viewed as radical sovereignty and empowerment is really just outright magical thinking reinforced by an absence of humility, mystery, and the reality that ultimately we are not in control of what happens to us. The body is not a closed system; we are deeply embedded in overlapping ecologies. This episode has been years in the making, and I have been asked time and time again for my take on GNM. When I was sent Demetra's essay on the subject I knew that I had finally found the right person to have this conversation with. Her past cult experience, and my years of deep dives into culty thinking and behavior, provide a lens through which to view this phenomenon. Though we do not claim that GNM is a cult in the traditional sense, cultishness is a spectrum and GNM is definitely on that spectrum. Also its tenets are demonstrably false, and have led to death in some cases. NBD. In our Patreon bonus conversation Demetra shares her cult story- joining what she thought was a good thing, slowly realizing it wasn't, leaving, being attacked by the leader and other members, and the long "deprogramming" and stabilization process that all cult survivors undergo Demetra's essay The Culty Fraud of German New Medicine Dr. Moss's report German New Medicine- Hope or Hoax? Demetra's podcast Impolite Company on Spotify and Apple Amber's website MythicMedicine.love Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? Mythic Medicine on Instagram Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes) Mentioned in this episode: Tension Myositis Syndrome Cell Danger Response A Little Bit Culty podcast (the best!) Cult documentaries (by no means an extensive list)- The Vow (NXIVM), Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence, Breath of Fire (Kundalini yoga), The Way Down: God, Greed, and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin Steven Hassan's BITE model Cult expert Robert Jay Lifton

Chinese Medicine holds that women's bodies are 10x harder to heal than men's, as our reproductive system is biologically much more precious and metabolically more intensive to maintain. In this conversation my good friend, third time guest, and Doctor of Chinese Medicine Suuzi and I catch up one year after we both underwent severe energy loss to share how we've rebuilt and healed. We talk about shifting away from the mindset of achieving "optimum human health" (an illusion that contributed to our health crises), working and mothering in a state of total burnout, how our childrens' metabolic patterns can mirror our own & how we've helped our own kids heal, the link between high sensitivity and mineral depletion, why we've chosen a metabolically appropriate approach to weight loss even though it takes much longer, and so much more. Suuzi's website Mother's Best Liver Pills and her Instagram Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? The Science of Human Energy newsletter book from the 80s Suuzi's previous interviews- Midlife Burnout for Women & Why Healing Work Can Make Us Worse and Land Based Living, Mothering, & Eating Women whose work has helped us- Niecia Nelson- Eat To Go Deep course and Instagram (my guest on episode 100 Returning the Mother to Herself: Our Nourishment Shapes How We Receive Life) Sena Maria- Offerings and Instagram Jenna Hamm- Offerings and Instagram Sarah Kleiner- Offerings and Instagram (my guest on episode 104 Your Body is Not a Closed System: The Sun, Cell Signaling, and Metabolic Wellness) My website MythicMedicine.love Mythic Medicine on Instagram Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

The times are unprecedented and there is no template for the future. We all feel this, and we feel the overwhelm of information, influence, and opinions. Herbalism, as it always has, offers us sanctuary from everything vying to take hold of our attention and life force. Not so that we can check out in an endless fog of self care, but so that we can be truly present and embodied as we navigate this time of rapid and radical change. The plants call us home to ourselves. Kami's Handcrafted Healing Herbal Oils course Video Sneak Peak at the Handcrafted Healing Herbal Oils Course from Kami McBride (what it looks like when you log in) Mastery by Robert Green Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? My website MythicMedicine.love Mythic Medicine on Instagram Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Nothing exemplifies the magic of nature more than honeybees. They are insects yet their colonies are akin to a mammalian being, they produce numerous healing substances from their bodies and within their hives, and they have been revered and mythologized since time immemorial by countless cultures. Beekeepers live longer than folks in any other profession, and being in relationship with bees is deep medicine for the spirit in these frazzled times. Let us relearn ancestral ways of tending and listening to bees so that we may maximize our chances of reclaiming a vibrant and thriving Earth. RESOURCES: Ariella's website Honey Bee Wild Medicine Stories Patreon (3 bonuses for this episode- our extended conversation, 100% off coupon code for Ari's 14 Kindred Bees classes, and a list of my & Ari's favorite beetending resources) Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? Song of Increase: Listening to the Wisdom of Honeybees for Kinder Beekeeping and a Better World by Jacqueline Freeman The Buzz About Bees: Biology of a Superorganism by Jürgen Tautz Previous Medicine Stories episode w/ Ariella Know Thyself: Weaving Myth & Magic Into Everyday Life Check out our Mythic Medicinals herbal & mushroom remedies Mythic Medicine (me) on Instagram The Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her song Wild Eyes)

"I pray to the dead to help me remember who I am while I'm still alive." To be in relationship with those who've gone before us is a deeply human way of being. Our ancestors knew that the "departed" never left, and that they answer when called. The way modern Western people conceive of the dead is a deviation that discards millennia of human knowing. Let us pray to the ancestors to help us sober up from civilization, remember what we've always known, and reclaim the long story of the soul. RESOURCES: Perdita's website Take Back the Magic Medicine Stories Patreon (book giveaway & course coupon code) Life Everlasting: The Animal Way of Death by Bernd Heinrich Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds by Thomas Halliday Waking Up to the Dark by Clark Strand My podcast about my mother's passing What I'd Be Without You: My Mother's Life, Death, and Legacy of Love The Madonna Secret, a novel by Sophie Strand Perdita and her husband Clark Strand's website The Way of the Rose Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? Our website & herbal medicines MythicMedicine.love Mythic Medicine on Instagram Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

It is estimated that half of all Americans have chronic health issues, and yet these conditions are new to the human species. What has happened? And how does an afflicted individual navigate a medical system that dismisses them and offers little help, embedded within a culture obsessed with self improvement and the hero's journey of triumph? Sarah and I talk about the multifactorial nature of chronic illness and what has changed between generations, walking the fine line between self-responsibility and acknowledging that we're all embedded in toxic systems that are out of our control, navigating the mythic underworld of autoimmune and chronic illness, and telling our stories without the need for a heroic ending. Sarah's website Medicine Stories Patreon (enter the book giveaway by 12/14) Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? Whitney Dafoe's website Medicine Stories episode w/ Sophie Strand Synchronicity Reveals Our Ecological Niche The Heroine's Journey: Woman's Quest for Wholeness by Maureen Murdock My post about my father's life and death My website MythicMedicine.love Mythic Medicine on Instagram Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Healing is communal. Settle in softly for this wide-ranging conversation with my most requested guest. Sophie and I talk chronic illness and trauma, diagnosis as blessing and as hex, the theater of medicine, the aquatic nature of memory, and the entanglements of time. RESOURCES: Sophie on Instagram Sophie's newsletter Make Me Good Soil Sophie's books and more The Lady's Handbook for her Mysterious Illness by Sarah Ramey ACE- Adverse Childhood Experiences quiz The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van den Kolk (giant trigger warning; read the book below instead) Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice by Rupa Marya and Raj Patel Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious by Erik Wargo The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy by Barbara Ehrenreich The Emerald (a podcast beloved by both me & Sophie) Read The Ones That Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K Le Guin Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics & the Entanglement of Matter & Meaning by Karen Barad Time, As a Symptom by Joanna Newsom (lyrics here) My blog post Ancestral Voices, women's Weariness, and the Illusion of Linear Time What I'd Be Without You: My Mother's Life, Death, and Legacy of Love Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? My website MythicMedicine.love Mythic Medicine on Instagram Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

The sun rules the rhythms and the well-being of all life on Earth, and humans are no exception to this rule. With the very recent (evolutionarily speaking) advent of indoor living and the even more recent advent of indoor lighting, we have inadvertently shut down the vital communication between sunlight and our cells. This is as upstream as it gets when it comes to health, and when we come back into relationship with the sun all manner of issues (insomnia, obesity, infertility, and so much more) can resolve. Let's talk about the science behind circadian rhythm and practical ways to heal with sunlight. Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) Sarah's links- Free Guide: Building Your Perfect Quantum Day - https://www.sarahkleinerwellness.com/pl/2147664711 FAQ Guide - https://www.sarahkleinerwellness.com/faq-skw Courses - https://sarah-kleiner.mykajabi.com/store (code PODCAST for 10% off any course!) Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sarahkleinerwellness Podcast -https://anchor.fm/sarahkleinerwellness Website - https://sarahkleinerwellness.com YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd1xxofTziySu0F9oG7G67g More links- The Human Cosmos: Civilization & the Stars by Jo Marchant Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy? My website MythicMedicine.love Mythic Medicine on Instagram Medicine Stories Facebook group Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes) Related Medicine Stories episodes: Harvesting Light: The Alchemy of Sun & Human w/ Nadine Artemis Liquid Crystal: Water, Memory, Consciousness, and Health w/ Dr. Carly Nuday Life's Sacred Matrix: How To Be a Truly Hydrated Water Keeper w/ Isabel Friend The Living Matrix of Fascia & the Resonance of the Heart w/ Lindsay Courcelle