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Brigitte Mars, master herbalist, author, and educator, discusses the power of herbal medicine to improve our health, well-being, mental clarity, and immunity. Having taught at The Mayo Clinic, the School of Health Mastery in Iceland, Naropa University, Omega Institute, Kripalu, Sivananda Yoga Ashram, and Esalen, Brigitte is the author of 17 books, including: “Beauty by Nature,” “Addiction Free Naturally,” “The Sexual Herbal,” The Home Reference to Holistic Health and Healing,” and “The Natural First Aid Handbook.” In this episode, Brigitte discusses the ways in which herbal medicine is an essential part of leadership, top-tier performance, parenting and a higher quality of life, and why common “weeds” like dandelion are so important for our own health and the health of the pollinators and ecosystems generally. Get special discounts at yonearth.org using the code: BrigitteMars -and- get her books at BrigitteMars.com!
Transcript
(Automatically generated transcript for search engine optimization and reference purposes – grammatical and spelling errors may exist.)
Hi friends, welcome to another edition of the YonEarth Communities Stewardship and
Sustainability Podcast Series.
I’m here with Brigitte Mars.
Hi Brigitte.
Hi, wonderful to be here.
And it is such a joy to have this opportunity to visit with you today, Brigitte.
Brigitte is a teacher of herbal medicine and natural healing using the power of plants
and has taught students all over the world.
She has also written several books, is it 14 books at this point, including the home reference
to holistic health and healing, the natural first aid handbook, the country almanac of
home remedies, the desktop guide to herbal medicine, beauty by nature, addiction free
naturally which is an amazing resource, the sexual herbal, also an amazing resource, healing
herbal teas, rossum, I mean it goes on and on Brigitte and these are such a rich
set of resources, treasures really for us to learn from and I want to ask you something
about the books in just a minute, but let me just finish by saying that you teach at Naropa
University, the School of Health, Mastery in Iceland, you’ve taught at the Omega Institute,
Esalon and the Myoclinic and Brigitte of course you’re also a mother and a grandmother
and it is such a joy and pleasure to be with you today, thanks so much for being on our show.
It’s my pleasure and honor, thank you.
So I want to maybe start by asking, how did this all get started for you?
I know that you’ve written all these books, you’ve taught so many hundreds thousands of people,
how did your connection with herbal medicine begin?
Well I was really blessed to have this French Canadian grandmother and she was very knowledgeable
about the ways of healing with plants and I would go visit her and it was almost like going
back a hundred years in time because she had a root cellar and she made soap and a big cauldron
in the in the yard and she had chickens in the yard and her idea of ice cream was to put maple
syrup which we made out in the forest with these lumberjacks and then we would pour it on snow
and that was like I’m glass A and so by the time I was in high school I knew that I wanted to
study more about herbal medicine. I did not like getting shots as a child and because I went to
camp every summer there was all these shots and it was very stressful to me and you know I felt
that the medicine that my grandmother was promoting things like garlic and cabbage and apple cider vinegar
I felt like this is medicine for the people and my parents would like why do you want to do these
old wives’ tails that’s something poor people did in the old country and I felt like yeah but it
works and it’s good for the planet because every time we decide to use a natural medicine somewhere
on the planet there’s going to be a field of cabbage or lavender or a canesia rather than a
you know pharmaceutical company pumping smoke into the environment not to say that those things
can’t be life-saving but when I was in high school every time I had a paper to do I would turn it
into an opportunity to learn about herbs so if it was you know Spanish I would write about that
Plantas medicinales de Mexico or herbal medicine during the French Revolution and so
and then I actually treated all my classmates rather than them going to the nurse I had this drawer
of you know rescue remedy and chamomile tea and I was just a kid but I was experimenting on my friends
and it worked of walking pharmacopia I love it and you know this is something that has been used
by millions of people for thousands of years so when someone tries to say like oh herbal medicine
hasn’t really been tested right it’s been tested a lot longer than a two-year rat study
yes in my book no doubt about that for countless generations and you know one of the things that
strikes me that I discussed a bit in the book yonearth toward the beginning actually is that
we don’t have to go back very many generations regardless of who we are and where we happen
to be living on the planet we don’t have to go back very many generations to find that in all
of our ancestors all of us shared all of humanity is a background in a past where we use herbal
medicine that was normal for so many hundreds and thousands of years it is only in the last two or
three generations where it is abnormal where we have this aberration where for many people it’s
like herbal medicine oh what’s that new fat or what’s that strange fringe thing but in fact this
is the norm right there’s nothing new age about it it is ancient and in 1900 about 80 percent
of all the pharmaceuticals were derived from plants we had willow bark that came from meadow sweet
and aspen and we had birth control pills that were derived from wild yam even digitalis comes from
the plant fox glove which is toxic to use as a plant but in 1917 there was a movement where they
sent one man the flexner mr flexner they sent him around to all the medical schools in the
country and he was supposed to make a deal with the medical schools that if they would only teach
the new modern medicine they would get funding and if they persisted in teaching about herbs and
homeopathy they wouldn’t get funding so in a few years herbal medicine really died on the vine
unless it was you know still being used by tribes or people that lived very close to the earth
certain religious groups but in europe the herbs never got taken off the shelf they’ve always
co-existed and i feel we’re blessed because if you were in an accident you know the modern care
that the hospital can afford you is great and i feel that the best of medicine is yet to come when
we honor the natural remedies and put our heads and hearts together to also offer what technology
is offering us absolutely yeah that’s such a beautiful beautiful vision you know one of the things
that i love sharing because like you i’m busy working on new writing projects giving talks
consulting and i have found that in order to maintain a good level of sustained energy health
and well-being for myself it’s essential that i utilize some of the herbal medicines that are
available and i thought i’d bring some Brigitte for us to share together so this is a teazon
i made last night and it has some beautiful organic and even biodynamic herbs including
calendula licorice root peppermint nettles and some equisitum some of these were even grown at our
friends biodynamic farm sustainable settings up in the Rocky Mountains and i thought it would be
fun for us to have a little while we’re talking today that sounds wonderful and those are all
really great herbs so i love it you know when we’re imbibing herbal teas the plants transform the
minerals of the earth into a way that we can readily assimilate them so my friend my friend
to your health blessed be blessed be
yum oh it’s wonderful licorice makes things just a little bit sweet yes
and one of the things i love about the licorice is because when i’m you know giving talks or what
have you my throat can get raspy and the licorice helps to soothe that a bit right great anti-inflammatory
agent yeah well let’s talk maybe a little more about the nettles right because i know that you
have a few favorites in this whole pharmacopia and i have heard you say more than once that nettles
is one of those favorites so why is that well nettles well Rudolph Steiner said about nettles
nettles are the heart of the world that’s a big statement coming from a pioneer such as Rudolph
Steiner and the belief and observation is that when plants that have a lot of essential oils
grown near nettles their essential oil content is higher so plants like oregano and time and peppermint
but what i love about nettles is that it’s so mineral rich really high in iron high in protein high
in calcium magnesium it even contains the amino acid lysine which is hard to get from vegetable foods
but has anti herpatic properties um a german woman gave me one nettle plant maybe 30 years ago
and i moved with it and now there’s 10,000 nettle plants there and it provides constant food
for us from March until maybe December and you know you might have heard of stinging nettles and
this is the same plant or took a diawica um it does sting if you touch it but the getting
stunned with it is actually very therapeutic for arthritis and pain soar joints for you know people
that use their hands a lot of the computer playing instruments so the getting stung is actually
very therapeutic and it’s like a free remedy um but i love nettles because it’s very blood building
there was a study done in Portland where they found that it’s very effective at alleviating
the symptoms of hay fever the runny eyes the itchy runny nose and so forth um and i love that
the minerals in it can nourish our hair our teeth our bones it’s very alkalonizing and it’s
edible so yeah you know you can uh you know i’m big on adding greens to everything so if i
were making gluten-free pancakes i would blend nettles up in it and my grandkids get to have
super hero pancakes that are green um if you’re making muffins if you’re making uh scrambled eggs
you could make green eggs no ham uh-huh that would make dr. sus proud um so whatever you are making
fortified by adding more greens and i think the american diet has gotten rather beige so
you know eat the rainbow eat all the colors is always a good idea one of the keys to health and
well-being eating the rainbow that all the different colors of fruits and vegetables i just want
to repeat that reiterate that because it’s such an easy thing we can all do more of in our own
lives right at our fingertips right this doesn’t take a massive lifestyle change and you know a lot
of parents find it challenging to get their kids to eat healthfully so you know go shopping with your
kids and in the produce section mind you and then say you need to pick out three red foods you’re
willing to eat and three orange foods and so forth because you know kids can relate to colors but
hey if kids can do it we can do it absolutely that’s cool so you’re giving them the choice it’s sort
of like a new version of a kid in a candy shop right yeah a lot of fun well you know when i’m
working with executives organizational leaders what i hear over and over is that they are doing
things to enhance their level of performance to really be at that that top level that a game
as consistently as possible and it it strikes me that oh my goodness what an incredible
opportunity we have to utilize herbal medicines in our lives to sustain that level of performance
and energy creativity leadership that so many of us are frankly spending all kinds of money to
try to cultivate in other ways and i’m just struck especially with the nettles patch outside
of your home some of this is not only so simple to incorporate in our lives but it is so delightful
well there’s a whole classification of plants that are called adaptogens they help the body adapt
and they can help the body adapt to stress they might help you sleep if you need to sleep but they
might also give you more energy if you need more energy and i’m finding a lot of high level professional
people getting great benefits from using adaptogenic herbs like rodeola or eluthro which used to be
called Siberian jinsing also Chinese and American jinsing holy basil or talsi is another one shazander
berries and it’s interesting that a lot of these plants they adapt they grow very well under
difficult conditions i was teaching in Iceland and i saw by the side of a cliff rodeola growing and
the winds are whipping it and the sea foam is crashing upon it and it’s going to be really hard to
harvest this plant someone’s going to have to climb out on a ledge and i thought that’s why this plant
is so good for you because it survives the intense winds of Iceland the six months of almost total
darkness and then total light and these plants that adapt hold the secret to help our bodies adapt
it seems that the cultural norm has been you know just drink coffee for people that are you know
having a lot of work to do and you know coffee is an herb i don’t have anything to say against it
but it doesn’t provide us with the minerals that we get from some of these adaptogenic plants
and so i’d like people to mix it up a little bit and you know and i know coffee gives us energy
but it’s like taking money out of the bank account whereas i see these adaptogenic herbs like
rodeola and ilusro putting something in the bank account meaning our creativity and life force
and well-being it’s so beautiful well and i know that a lot of my friends out there are coffee
drinkers and i enjoy coffee myself but this is not an either or a kind of question this can be for
some of us a both end and so i really enjoy having some coffee as well as some of this adaptogenic
tea throughout the day and especially later in the day so that i’m not disrupting my sleep cycle
too terribly much with the caffeine and all of that i wanted to go back to a thing you mentioned
about the metals that it’s alkalizing and can you tell us a little more about that what that
means and why that’s so important well there have been a number of books written about how important
it is for our bodies to be more alkaline and you know how do you know if you’re more acid or alkaline
you can get these little paper strips that you test you can test your urine or your saliva
and what we do know is that most Americans eat a lot of food that promotes a condition of acidity
and being more acidic can make us feel more lethargic more depressed crave more addictive substances
like more alcohol more coffee more sugar and when we’re more alkaline which is going to occur when
we eat more green leafy vegetables and fresh fruits disease doesn’t really proliferate in that
type of condition so there’s all kinds of books and not every book agrees on what’s acid and alkaline
but in general we could say that sugar and dairy and meat and grains make us more acidic
and when we’re more acidic we’re just going to be more likely to get that cold that flu be one of
those people that gets cancer whereas if we’re more alkaline we’re going to regenerate and
feel brighter and more alive so it’s a real simple thing and of course it’s changes from day to day
you know if you test yourself and you’re more acid it could be that you had a big dessert last night
or you drank three cups of coffee instead of one so it does change from day to day but it also
gives you ideas on well how do I get back on track because so many medical tests they do change
from day to day so we have control and what I’m trying to do with herbal medicine is really
empower people to take more responsibility for their own health rather than yes it’s great that you
have a wonderful doctor I’m so happy for you but he’s not making food for you three meals a day
unless you’re married to him or her so it’s really up to you what can you do to make this easier and
so I like to empower people to be their their primary health care person and then everything
else’s secondary interciary and it’s such a beautiful way to put this I have recently been
sharing with folks that in a sense each one of us is a farmer and we each have a farm in the form
of our body where we’re growing all kinds of organisms and some of them are good for us some of
them not and I’ve heard that as we keep our bodies more alkaline it actually means that the
conditions the environments inside of us are not as favorable for some of those pathogens that
might make us sick well it’s interesting that Louis past year who’s who promoted pasteurization
where we have to heed everything to keep it sterile and you know constantly be using antimicrobial
agents at the end of his life he said the terrain is everything the terrain is everything the earth
so it’s not just about like well I shook someone’s hand and they had it cold because we’re always
exposed to pathogens all day long every time we get close to somebody shake hands hug and brace
share you know a cup pick up a pencil that someone else had and so rather than thinking oh it’s
the pathogens that must all be annihilated because it’s not possible there are good bacteria and
bad bacteria and so if we have a healthy strong terrain then we’re going to be able to
fight off the things that don’t serve us oh I love it well it turns out we’re talking about soil
again there you go all this it’s so important when you mentioned the leafy greens one of the things
that made me think of is is learning a while back in Brigitte I think I’ve may have first heard
this from you that the chlorophyll in green plants which is the molecule that allows the conversion
of sunlight into usable molecules that essentially feeds our biosphere that chlorophyll molecule
is identical to the hemoglobin molecule that is in our blood with one difference that at the hemoglobin
molecules center there is an iron atom and in the center of the chlorophyll molecule is a magnesium
atom oh my gosh it’s as if we’re in the same family that’s true and you could think of chlorophyll
as being like plant blood and we also know that chlorophyll which we’re going to find in everything
from kale to spinach to arugula to dandelion greens helps our bodies not only to be more alkaline
but also to better utilize oxygen and to help wound healing time and help us to be more resistant
to infection so even though I really think eat all the colors there’s something especially
medicinal about the green plants and you know all of the we also know that the green plants of
our planet are also providing oxygen for us to breathe and that’s why you know I feel so strongly
that we should all be growing something rather than just having a rock yard you know plant
something to help oxygenate our cities because this is where we really need it absolutely well
speaking of the cities it seems to me that if we’re going to get more and more focused on this idea
of having space colonies or living on the moon or on Mars or something like that I know this is a
discussion emerging more and more it strikes me that by golly if we’re going to be terraforming
some of these utterly hostile environments why don’t we practice and terraform the cities we’ve
got now because they are actually pretty harsh environments also and it’s basically going to boil
down to soil and growing these plants whether we’re in a high rise apartment or a suburban
home with a yard we could be growing all manner of medicinal herbs couldn’t we?
Absolutely I have an article that was on Huffington Post and it’s now online it’s called Get
Off Your Grass and Create an Edible Lawn and you know the idea that we are spending a third of
our nation’s water supply to water grass which is a crop that most humans don’t eat maybe your pet
goat does but you know how many of us have a pet goat in the yard I don’t think too many
but we’re wasting our water and we can’t continue to to disrespect water
right especially the way the population has increased and what if that same amount of water or even
a fraction of that amount of water was used to grow things like chickweed and dandelion and malva
and personally which was Gandhi’s favorite food so there’s been this American thought that like
weeds are the enemy and you’re not a good citizen if you have dandelions in your yard and yet
dandelions help aerate the soil the leaves are edible the flowers are high in luteine which benefits
our eyes farmers have long said that where the dandelions grow that’s a great place to put the garden
so we need to change our thinking that spring herbicides is an American way of life because
that is bad even if you think you’re only spraying your yard the rain the winds it ends up migrating
it ends up killing the bees and the bees pollinate I’ve heard like three out of every four bites of
food we eat millions of dollars worth every year and so we cannot continue this practice and we
know that there’s some really you know maybe we thought this was a good idea I mean I grew up
during the better living through chemistry slogan but we’re needing to rethink that and you know
anything with the words side in it herbicide pesticide we do not need to be spraying that in our
yard where our children play our pets cohort and and to rethink the way we look at the weeds because
I made breakfast this morning and everything that was in our breakfast was growing five minutes
before we were eating it I harvested kale and what was left of the dandelion greens and the
vitality you feel for meeting things that are so fresh they were just growing you can’t buy that
at the store right and I really think we’ve been bamboozles you know everything we buy and eat
it’s gonna have a bar code and a sticker on it and so I’m really advocating like what can you plant
what can you grow we can all grow something that’s so beautiful so beautiful so maybe we’ll we’ll
start planting the seeds for a a no-code movement around some of these things that we’re eating
you know I remember hearing recently that in some of our ancient traditions we actually have
awareness of the degree of life force in food called prana for example and the fact that you’re
often eating plants that were just growing a few minutes prior means that there is a much higher
level of prana in life force which is driving our health and well-being isn’t it it’s so true
and if you think about it how many people are buying iceberg lettuce that’s trucked in from another
country or another state although in the winter it might be trucked in from another continent
and how long ago was that plant in the ground and so I’ve heard bringing iceberg lettuce from
California is a very expensive way to ship water right and so you know again the darker chlorophyll
is going to indicate even more minerals so if you’re eating some kind of white green rather than
like something dark and rich you’re you’re missing out and we just it’s just a shift in consciousness
in this we’re all helping that and we’re all here for you to help you shift and we just need to
reeducate our neighbors but when you see those pesticides applied sign like that that cannot be
the good neighbor the future it’s not and housing associations and homeowners associations they
need to change their strategies because anything that’s contributing to the destruction of our bees
and our soil and our water and our air that’s not for the benefit of humankind absolutely
and Brigitte just to that end and on that note I want to mention for our viewers and audience
that with respect to engaging in these practices for greater stewardship sustainability health
and well-being there are incredible resources available including the 14 books that Brigitte has
written and you can find those at BrigitteMars.com it’s b-r-i-g-i-t-t-e-m-a-r-s.com
and I’ll just drop a little something in there for the esotericists out there you might be
interested to note that the plant nettles according to Rudolph Steiner had an affiliation with the
planet Mars and you’ll see on the tree of life the Kabbalah some very interesting things to check
out there if you are so inclined. I also want to mention that if you would like to you can use
the code podcast to get discounts on the audiobook and ebook resources at yhonner.org slash market
so that’s something that we want to make sure you guys use however there is also a very special
code you can use if you would like to which is BrigitteMars and if you use that special code
BrigitteMars at the yhonner website you’ll get discounts on products and some other
nifty goodies so we want to make sure you know about that and I just want to come back now to
the dandelion for another moment because one of the things that in all these different
plants growing in our neighborhoods maybe in our yards that some of us might have been
applying pesticides to dandelion in particular is an essential early spring food for the honeybees
and they are so essential to our ecosystem tell us a little more about that and taking care of
honeybees and dandelions and all of that well the dandelions were deliberately brought here
by the pioneers they planted them because dandelions are one of the top five most nutritious
vegetables and the pioneers put fences around the dandelions you know just like with everything
else to keep the deer and the rabbit and other creatures out because that was a food plant and
dandelion leaves are edible in the Jewish tradition they were originally one of the bitter herbs
of Passover the dandelion stems you can boil like noodles the flowers are edible I’ve made dandelion
smoothies dandelion loaf I have a whole e-book out called dandelion medicine so I’m going to
maybe mention that check that out and dandelion root is also edible and it helps to detoxify the
liver it’s good for skin ailments so how did this plant ever get so maligned like it’s such a great
plant and again I think it’s a lot of marketing that we’re being sold a bill that says you know
you need to get these chemicals and have this antiseptic pea green lawn I feel like it’s an
oppression of the wild and the feminine yes we need to control and dominate nature and keep
giving her like a crew cut all the time and that sells more gasoline doesn’t it
billions of gallons of gasoline per year to mow lawns and and it’s really toxic it smells bad like
here you are trying to sleep in maybe a little bit Sunday morning and seven o’clock you know
so maybe we should think about how we do our lawns but the dandelion is so useful
you can roast the root and it tastes a lot like coffee it’s a great herb medicinally it’s as I
said it’s also alkalinating like the nettles are and this whole idea that dandelions somehow
indicate that you’re a low-class citizen or something I think that really came from a sort of
prejudice against foreigners you know like hey it’s American American shop at the store and they
buy new modern food boiling a bag kind of vegetables and prepackaged food so it’s you know again
we’re all doing our best and we’re all very influenced by the median that’s why it’s so important
to do a show like this to really say the dandelions are not the enemy maybe we really need to think
about these chemicals that are poisoning our planet but dandelions are so useful and not only to
humans but for the soil because they aerate the soil they make nutrients more available for
other plants and you know we were talking about plants that adapt the dandelion adapts it survives
people walking on it it survives dogs peeing on it it can grow through the cracks in the sidewalks
it it grows before the snows are even you know complete it can survive all kinds of adversity they
tried to kill it tried to kill it it keeps shape shifting ever so little you mow it down and it
just goes back shorter next season so talk about adaptogens they don’t have to come from
Siberia or Iceland we’ve got adaptogens saying use me use me lots I’m right here you know and I
feel like the dandelion really is a symbol of this realigning with nature and becoming a partner
with nature and all those seeds that proliferate I mean this plant it’s doing great things and I
think a lawn with dandelions in it is so much more interesting for our kids to play and you could
make a wish and blow those little seeds around and yeah it’s delightful that way and it strikes me
that these plants dandelion are so resilient persistent intelligent adaptable reminds me a lot of
our species and in a sense connecting with the dandelion for each of us is an opportunity to
connect back more with our own heritages and the longer versions of our human story on the planet
that sounds like to me a lot of fun and you know the the French called dandelion peace on Lee which
means pee in the bed because dandelion is a diuretic and it’s as effective a diuretic as one of
the leading diuretic drugs well why aren’t the studies being done on dandelion and another thing
about those leading drugs is they deplete your body of potassium so a good doctor will say here’s
this drug now go get some potassium but dandelions give you potassium but who’s going to you know
release dandelion is a drug when they’ve got us buying chemicals to eradicate them it’s a bit
nefarious in my opinion so we just need to come on everybody wake up we’re here to help
yeah and the nature nature is like offering you something free that’s going to help you adapt
yeah well I just believe and and and so overjoyed every day that we live on this miraculous planet
Brigitte and there’s there’s no accident that we refer to this planet as a mother mother earth
Gaia in traditions all over the world and speaking of the relationship with the feminine and with
nature there’s another very special plant that I’ve heard you speak about before which is the
hemp plant the canning bosom and I’ve heard you talk about this plant as the great mother
this is a plant that has extraordinary healing properties for ourselves for the landscapes and
ecosystems and it’s amazing to watch right now that this plant is suddenly transforming back into
a central part of our way of being here in this culture that change is happening and so good
by golly it’s something we need to see more and more of and Brigitte why is this hemp plant
one of your favorites well I’m always looking for plants that can help the planet and when I think
about hemp here’s a plant that we could be making fuel out of that’s renewable rather than fracking
our neighborhoods that one really makes me mad we could be making fabric out of hemp right now one
of the most pesticide crops on the face of the earth is cotton and since it’s not a food crop
there’s no restrictions on how many sprays can be used on it so most cotton is really toxic and
really creating a toxic condition for the soil very often peanuts are crop rotated with cotton
which makes peanuts somewhat questionable too in their safety if they’re not organic
we also know that hemp could be used to make homes and make fireproof homes that are breathable
so that’s another product we are cutting down old growth forests to make newspapers
trees that take you know decades to grow whereas hemp were used in three to four months three to
four months three to four months okay and not to mention that hemp seed provides a food it’s the
second highest source of vegetable protein next to soybeans but it’s much easier to digest
so we could be using hemp seed to make hemp milk and a protein protein powder we could be using
it as a nut in seed and not to mention all of the medicinal properties that are being found and
have long been known as medicine that many of the components in hemp whether it be CBD, THC
and so on and so forth have been used to compings like anxiety and help sleep reduce inflammation
and so this plant has really been persecuted and prosecuted for many years and yet this is
a plant that can solve many many of the problems on our planet and I’m not saying that everybody needs
to smoke cannabis but we know that Henry Ford built a car out of hemp and it was fueled on hemp
and it’s stronger than steel it can resist impact more than steel think of how many minerals
were extracting from the earth when it could all be done above ground with a minimal amount of
pollution so when I think of a plant that could really save the world I’m going to say hemp can
save the world and it’s also interesting that we actually have a system in our bodies called the
endocannabinoid system that somehow our bodies seem to have evolved with this plant and you know as
you mentioned in the Bible they talk about the holding anointing oil that is mentioned in the
Old Testament that it was made from olive oil cinnamon, mer and cany bosom and in translation,
a Greek translation in the septugiate I hope I pronounced that right in the 3rd century BC they
translated the cany bosom to be calimus a chorus calimus which is probably not the plant that was
used in the holy anointing oil it doesn’t have the same medicinal benefits and the Bible also refers
to cany as a fiber plant and calimus is not a fiber plant so there’s a lot of scholars,
botanists, rabbis you know priests who are saying hey it’s not a chorus calimus so that’s a huge
misstep and yet even though the cannabis plant is legal in many states it’s still in prison in the
sense there’s this female plants that are being grown indoors with electricity and floridated water
and so I really feel to move into this age of regeneration and healing the planet that we’re
going to have to free the plant and let it grow outdoors with sunlight and wind and I know that’s
going to really shape shift the economy but what if there was free food and fiber growing everywhere
for people and one other thing about hemp that you often don’t hear about is it grows very tall
and it produces seeds that the birds could be eating in the winter which encourages the birds
to nest nearby and then the birds help you by eating more insects in the warmer months so it
really is a plant that could help not to mention that the leaves provide fertilizer that it is one
of the most ancient fiber crops that grows as tall as a tree in one season it’s pretty remarkable
and again I realize that we’re turning it into a drug and I don’t know if that’s really that’s
a whole another discussion but when I think of all the environmental concerns that we have
here there’s one plant that could do so many things it’s interesting I’m hearing more and more
commercial farmers are now incorporating hemp into their production cycles because it is actually
helping their economics and allowing them to get away from a lot of the chemical inputs that
they’ve been using and we’re hearing more and more farmers farmers growing 20, 30,000 acres of
things like wheat and hay out in places like Utah who are now making the switch back to organic
because of course organics not a fad right this is what we’ve been doing for hundreds and thousands
of years it’s only the last couple generations we’ve been conducting this experiment and so many
of these conventional farmers several of them are fifth sixth generation are converting back to
organic and incorporating hemp into their production cycles and it’s doing amazing things for
their viability as small family businesses and you know even here in the state of Colorado where we
legalize cannabis a few years ago it is good for the economy it’s bringing not only tourism but
there’s many places people that are employed in this industry and you know there’s a there’s a lot
of good there’s a lot of creativity going on and but I’m always into education about plants and I’m
certainly not condoning being abusive with anything I think with every plant we need to learn
what its functions are when it’s appropriate to use it I certainly wouldn’t use golden seedle every
day yeah well speaking of abusing plants you know I’ve shared that I’m I’m part Native American
Mohawk Indian and of course tobacco is this incredibly sacred plant to many of the quote-unquote
new world tribal peoples and I was addicted to tobacco smoking cigarettes for many many years I
started as a teenager as a lot of people do and then it was about 12 or so years ago that I
finally quit and Brigitte I’m just I’m really curious I think more and more of us are waking up
to the role of addiction in our lives and what we can do proactively to overcome some of those
patterns and what what are some of the essential insights and even recommendations that you make
in your book that deals with addiction if you if you could share with us about that surely well
I wrote a book called addiction free naturally because I think very often in our quest to get well
if we don’t address the things like we’re drinking too much coffee eating too much sugar still
smoking still drinking you maybe even a prescription drug we could be undermining our health and all
the supplements and herbs and yoga is not going to help us to achieve balance so one thing I think
would be very helpful is to bring back the art of doing handicrafts with our hands if we were
to go back to our ancestry you know the men and women were doing things with wood and metal with
fiber with fabric maybe the women were inside making a quilt or knitting socks and the men were
out on the porch making you know knife handles or cradle boards or or something rocking chairs
or something like that and so it seems like we let go of doing things with our hands and
making things with your hands is good for your self esteem and you create things of beauty that
have lasting value I mean if I make a quilt for my children it’s not going to end up in a yard
sale that’s like an heirloom and it’s made with you know mama love or pop a love and I and
sketching could be a craft playing an instrument rather than just listening to music like doing
something with our hands and we also know that we need to find other ways to reward ourself
so rather than thinking oh I was really good today I deserve a drink or I deserve a smoke
and again I know the tobacco can be used in ceremony and celebration in a in a sacred way
I use it I was a tobacco smoker myself for years that what are other ways to reward ourself
maybe reading a novel reading a magazine calling a friend on the telephone yeah maybe going
for a walk um you know doing yoga spending time in the garden so it’s so those are just a few
things but we also know that being more alkaline and eating those green leafy vegetables can make
us more you know able to stay on track and not over indulge in anything that undermines our health
I love it it’s um there are so many pathways to enhanced health and well-being and on the
topic of making things with our hands you know of course Gandhi really emphasized this notion
of Swadeshi how important it is for us to be able to make things in our own homes in our own
communities and I’m struck that our word man new facture comes from the Latin monos for hand
and facto to make so manufacture means to make by hand and uh or at least that’s the origin
the etymology of our word um and I’m struck that one of the as you were describing this one of the
things I love making by hand as you know are these um hemp infused bathing salts that I’ve been
making to share with people love them waylay waters and we actually I started doing this about a
year ago in part because of the classes I was taking from you Brigitte and I was creating these
different aroma therapy blends with a hemp infused base organic coconut oil I was sharing them
with friends and family and then suddenly I was hearing from people hey can I get some more that
it helped with my back or with my arthritis or I’ve been able to cut back on my sleeping medication
my goodness and uh realized um we were uh talking with Artem and uh realized my gosh this might be
a little cottage industry thing we could do uh to help support the work at the Y on earth community
and so for me to be able to sit there for a few hours and make a batch the level of joy and peace
and really tranquility I feel during and after that process is remarkable and it’s like
what a gift and here here we’re just making things to share with people um I I don’t know
Brigitte I think you’ve hit on something there that could be a whole another uh topic of discussion
even perhaps in addition to what we might do with our relationship with plants and herbal medicine
in terms of helping heal our planet and ourselves this uh working with our hands seems really important
it’s so simple and I also think that not working with our hands is another contributing factor to
losing our mental faculties because there’s a big connection between the hands and the brains so
it’s also a great stress relieving technique but we also know that um many people that have
addictive tendencies have blood sugar issues and eating things like drinking lots of fruit juice
and eating whiteflower products and sugar can also make us be in that loop of uh stimulate
sedate stimulate sedate so using herbs like cinnamon and fennel and anus and there’s a lot of
things that we can do to help addiction rather than just you know only use willpower yes yes
yeah that’s so important Brigitte I am so uh humbled and overjoyed to have this time with you
and I know you have been teaching hundreds thousands of people uh in our community around here
and all around the world and uh you are in my humble opinion a living treasure oh thank you so
much and I so appreciate what you do and I love wellay waters they are amazing so yes we have
them at our house and they make a big difference that’s wonderful there is a if you want
wellaywaters.com there is a free download soaking ceremony guide check it out you’ll have fun
you’ll feel good and that’s another way to reward yourself it is you know rather than you you
deserve a break today well an aromatherapy bath with these wonderful salts brilliant yeah well I
just Brigitte I want to thank you for being with us today I really encourage all of you out there
audience to check out BrigitteMars.com an incredible wealth of resources are there waiting for you
and remember to use the code Brigitte Mars if you would like to get some discounts on some of the
products we’re offering through yunners.org and again it’s b-r-i-g-i-t-t-e-m-a-r-s like the planet
and uh blessings thank you so much Brigitte thank you Aaron cameraman Ardom many blessings to you
all right we can do this let’s make the world a better place uh-oh
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