plant wisdom

This week, I recorded a podcast episode recapping what you may experience in working with the Sacred Datura and what it can catalyze within you. I share personal experiences and stories, and talk about how you can use the elixir for purification and finding light at the end of the tunnel during this collective dark night of the soul.

In this episode I talk about the magic of the Cacao flower, the value of healing crises and the importance of making yourself and your nourishment priority #1 in order to create the human embodied stability necessary in order to experience rapid personal growth.

Now is the time to take charge and turn inward, to resist the urge to seek external stimulation and instead learn from our own inner wisdom and observe our emotional patterning for insights. I share the importance of staying neutral, being a leader and nourishing ourselves. I also provide a new list of flower essences for different types of needs that are arising this week and offer my favorite meditation program as a gift -- with 16-audio recordings designed to help you experience more calm, clarity and focus within minutes.

In this episode of the Flowerlounge Podcast, you'll hear a solo cast about the importance of reconnecting with the unshakeable part of you, along with a side of flower essences to keep your cool no matter what -- and a short meditation.

In this short episode, Katie Hess talks about her recent experience preparing for and doing a TEDx talk. She speaks about how to work with your fear of being seen and shares what flower essences she used leading up to the talk, and how your body sometimes has a mind of its own and what to do about it.

In this episode I talk to Sayer Ji about his new book calledRegenerate.We talk about how we as humans are essentially walking crystals - that we’re made of a liquid crystalline water with an infinite potential access to energy and nourishment available to us through sunlight, plants, herbs and healing practices. He describes the miraculous resilience within the body to be vibrant and healthy, even in today’s wild world.

In this episode, I talk to Danielle Ryan Broida, herbalist, nutritionist and national educator of Four Sigmatic. We talk about mushrooms as teachers and healers of our planet. Danielle shares wisdom about her favorite mushrooms, and how they boost our vitality, help us sleep better, chill out and be more productive. She shares fun history, culture and herbal lore around mushroom superpowers and describes their energetic qualities and how they can sometimes be elusive to find in the wild.

In this episode, I talk about flower essences for dogs and cats. I cover specific flowers and blends for all different types of pet experiences and share how we can help our furry loved ones with flower remedies for things like: rescue trauma, hyperactivity, sadness when you travel, surgeries, thunderstorm/fireworks fear, jealousy, biting, heart issues, sore muscles, restlessness, exhaustion, fatigue, physical issues and during the death process.

In a country where one of the leading causes of death is properly prescribed medications, the fact that there are 200 years of recorded safe use (zero harm) of homeopathic medicine is incredibly meaningful. 

In this episode I talk with Ellie Whalen, founder of Sprayology homeopathic remedies for the last 20 years. We talk about the most important remedies for preventative health and wellness, including for digestion, hangover, stress, lack of sunshine, cold/flu, environmental toxins and sleep.

In this episode I talk with baker, horticulturist + James Beard Award Winner, Sarah Owens. She specializes in sourdough cultures and other types of fermentation, as well as locally-grown and heirloom ingredients. 

We talk about why food preparation is so sacred and the beauty of making food with your hands. Hint: it transmits your own special essence to people who eat your food - through the microbiome (bacterial cultures) on your hands. 

In this episode I sit down with Samantha Bulloch from The Alchemist Tree in Eastern Australia. We talk about her favorite flower essence and essential oil allies - for all issues sex and money, along with her favorite flowers + nourishing food — and how to anchor plant medicine into your daily rituals.

Samantha Bulloch is the founder of The Alchemist Tree in Eastern Australia. Together, we talk about her path as a nurse working with children with cancer - to working with flower essences and essential oils as a naturopathic doctor.

Each week on the Flowerlounge Podcast, I interview an entrepreneur, a creative or thought leader in wellness or natural medicine. In this episode we switch it up: I’m interviewed by Singapore reporter Bianca about flower alchemy, flower collecting, meditation, botanical treatments and our future plans for Asia.

Claire Chiang and Katie have a conversation in Singapore about changes in our world, how flower elixirs have become critical for life today, and how a simple longing for a more meaningful life can unlock possibilities beyond your imagination.

Taylor and I set up the microphones in the Da'an Park in Taipei to do a special recording about what it’s like in to be in Taiwan. We answer questions submitted on social media about our travels, from food to flower collecting to what it feels like to be in the jungle and in another culture where we don't speak the language. We marvel at all the ways we love Taiwan, and reveal some of the craziness.  

During our travels in Costa Rica, we struck up a conversation with Christian Rodriguez. In this podcast episode, be a witness to the spontaneous conversation that arose between us, when Taylor and I stopped at an organic store to buy dark chocolate and local kombucha.

Brian Holley is the former director of the Naples Botanical Garden in Florida.  Together, we talk about horticulture therapy and saving endangered plant species.  At the end, we talk about nine flower essences that we collected at the garden.

Morgan Anderson has been published in the peer-reviewed academic journal HortTechnology, Postharvest, Cut Flower Quarterly, and the OFA Bulletin for her research.  Together we talk about about a culture of all things flowers, an dhow flower design can be an art as well as therapy.

Kate Clearlight is a folk herbalist, herb gardener, woods wanderer, medicine maker, flower lover, and a devoted believer in the cosmic healing powers of our wild allies.  Together we talk about cultivating a relationship with plants and flowers and how devotion to the Earth can become a spiritual practice.

Summer Sanders is an author, plant-based chef, raw food enthusiast and founder of Local Juicery.  Together we talk about how the raw vegan diet can make you more rigid.  She also shares her favorite superfoods, why cooking is like sex, how to listen to your body and tips for running your own business.

Aaliyah Nitoto is the founder of Free Range Flower Wines.  Together, we talk about the age-old practice of women making flower wines around the world.  We discuss the business of flower wines, including fermentation, tasting rooms and the difference between wine as a libation vs. medicine.

Justin Booher is the culinary director for Amor Healing Kitchen in Charleston, SC where volunteer teen chefs and kitchen mentors create healing meals for people facing a cancer diagnosis.  Together, we talk about sensory dinner experiences and foraging for wild edible plants and flowers.

Juliana Bishop is a wildly creative Medical Herbalist specializing in Western, Ayurvedic and Chinese Herbalism with a knack for getting down to root causes of issues.  Together, we talk about everything from tongue diagnosis to the nuts and bolts of how traditional Chinese medicine works.

Maia Toll mentors spiritual wellness seekers, practitioners , and teachers through her online program, The Medicine Keepers Collective, and is the founder and awner of Herbiary.  Together we talk about avoiding escapism, putting ideas into action and what defines embodiment and how to master it.

Born in Tahiti, raised in Canada, and now based in New York City, Téana is the Director of Programming at Deepak Homebase, a sacred salon theater founded by Deepak Chopra & ABC Home's Paulette Cole in 2011.  Together, we talk of finding stillness in a go-go-go world and ways to slow down and tune into your inner landscape.

What are Adaptogens?

Katie + David take a minute to intuit what adaptogens the listeners might need to hear about: from Nervine herbs, to 'Grief Relief'.

7Song is a clinical herbalist, teacher, botanist and naturalist. He is the director and main instructor of the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine and the founder and practicing herbalist at the Ithaca Free Clinic, an integrative clinic providing free consultations and herbal medicine.

Richard Mandelbaum is a clinical herbalist with a private practice in Brooklyn and Sullivan County, NY.  He and Katie take time to intuit what plants + flowers our listeners may need presently, diving into the physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits of each.

We interviewed Jeff Chilton and he talks about the benefits of mushrooms (Reishi, Lion's Mane, Shiitake, Maitake, Chage, Turkey Tail), how they can boost your immune system, how to correctly incorporate them into your diet, the correct way to cook them, and how they are the ultimate adaptogen! 

I talk with herbalist and best-selling author, Rosalee de la Forêt.  We dive into some of Rosalee's favorite herbs and spices, as well as how to identify the root causes of imbalance and deficiencies in our bodies. 

K.P. Khalsa is one of the country's foremost natural healing experts with over 47 years of experience in alternative medicine, and man-oh-man does he drop some knowledge on us! We deep dive into conversation about 3,000 year old medical systems that influence his work today.

Nick Polizzi has spent his career directing and producing feature-length documentaries about holistic alternatives to conventional medicine. Most recently, Nick directed The Tapping Solution and co-edited Simply Raw - Raw for 30 Days.

Taylor and I share stories from the magical and inspiring, to crazy and creepy, of what happens during our flower essence collection trips! Above all, the motivation behind all that we do, is not to see the world, it's to collect the transformative + healing essences from exotic flowers and all that Mother Nature has to offer ~ for the soul purpose of sharing something that is profoundly meaningful, sacred, and life changing!

The godmother of western herbalism, a woman who speaks the exquisite language of plants, your guide to building your own at-home herbal apothecary ... meet Rosemay Gladstar.

Brigitte Mars is an herbalist and nutritional consultant with almost 50 years experience! She shares what you should put into your home First Aid Kit and tips on how to look at your body, mind + spirit as one whole system to improve your health.

We have with us the founder of Juniper Ridge: Hall Newbegin, who crawls around in mountain meadows and hits the forest trails, capturing the magic of special places around the United States.

Even though I work with flowers, in my heart of hearts, I’m really a girl of the forest. The aromas that Juniper Ridge collect bring me right back into the woods. 

As our culture becomes more open to using plants to not only heal ailments of the body, but also the soul, I am noticing an interesting trend. It's a trend towards a fixation on only a handful of plants, that happen to be psychedelic plants or that impair your usual perception of reality.