Biography and Interviews
 
 

 

Lectures & Demonstrations  

Herbal Talks:

The Safe Use of Botanical Medicine:  What Are You Taking?
Herbal First Aid Kit
Tea Time
Potions, Notions & Lotions: A Series
Potions: Herbs As Medicine
Plants for Heart Health

How Sweet It Is?
Wintering
Integrative Oncology
Prepare for Surgery
Let the Sunshine In!
Lifting the Spirits: Natural Approaches  to Anxiety & Depression
Feeding the Injured Brain
Notions: Food As Medicine
Chocolate Therapy
The Honey Experience
Bee MD-- Medicine from the Hive
Botanical Medicine & Women’s Health
Breast Health
Food for Your Breasts
Environmental Breast Carcinogens: Risk Reduction
Breezing Through Menopause
Menopause & Stress Management
Make It Beautiful
Lotions: Beauty As Medicine/Aging with Grace & Humor

 

Botanicals

The Safe Use of Botanical Medicine:  What Are You Taking?
Understand some of the basics of botanical medicine, including the forms, applications, actions and cautions of the plant medicines.  Learn how herbal and mainstream approaches can overlap, and when to separate them. Controversies will be addressed, such as the pros and cons of standardization, where to go for accurate scientific information, interactions, and the real data on herbal dangers.

Herbal First Aid Kit
Learn to assemble a practical first-aid kit for home or travel use, and be ready to deal with many acute minor ailments, such as indigestion, burns, insect bites, nausea, sore throats, sinus congestion, fever, wounds and more.  Understand how to apply these remedies, and get quality sources for creating your own kit. 
                                           
Tea Time
Enjoy sampling a variety of herbal and green teas and learn about the many traditional and contemporary uses and health benefits of each of these tisanes (water-based beverages). Educate your sweet tooth as well, experiencing stevia, agave nectar, coconut sugar and honey. Understand how to distinguish them from table sugar and the artificial sweeteners. All teas are organic or responsibly wildcrafted, and may include Holy Basil, Rose, Linden, Lavender, Green and White Teas.

Potions, Notions & Lotions: A Series
This three-part series will explore and clarify some of the muddled, maligned or misunderstood information presented about herbs, foods and aging in our culture. These fun, informative and hands-on classes will put you on the path to wellness and expertise.

Potions: Herbs As Medicine
Americans are enjoying an herbal products renaissance. But are we taking the right product, the right form, from the right company? Are we substituting an herb for a drug (and just treating the symptoms)? Unlimited internet access makes everyone seem an expert, so where do we go for reliable information? We’ll review the top-selling botanicals in the market today, and discuss excellent suppliers and sources, doses and safety issues. We’ll talk about the scope of botanical medicine and how to support the symptom and the underlying cause. You’ll make our own tea blend, while your questions and concerns are answered.
Notions: Food As Medicine
See below: Therapeutic Foods
Lotions: Beauty As Medicine
See below: Women’s Health

Cardiovascular

Plants for Heart Health
There are many nutritional and medicinal plants that offer wide-ranging general and specific benefits for our heart, and the blood vessels which nourish it. Understand which foods to add to our diets and which to reduce (we don’t mean fat, salt or meat, either). These controversies will be addressed, as will plants which can support and strengthen our heart muscle, improve circulation, balance cholesterol, reduce inflammation, remove excess fluids, and lower anxiety. You’ll put your heart at ease a you learn to care for it.

Endocrine/Obesity

How Sweet It Is?
Blood sugar imbalances-- obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, low blood sugar are epidemic in America today, and lead to many adverse health conditions, from heart disease to cancer. We will explore the causes and learn some of the varied nutritional, herbal and lifestyle approaches we can incorporate for their prevention and treatment.
                                                        

Immune


Wintering
Whether facing the winter of the year or of our lives, our immune systems need some preparation and coaching. Here, we will learn the foods, herbs, supplements and lifestyle choices which strengthen, balance or deplete our multi-faceted immune system. This information can help support us going through immune overstimulation (allergies, auto-immune conditions), immune underactivity (HIV, cancer), or both at once. Learn the significance of sleep, alliums, fatty fish, exercise, sunlight, adaptogens, stress management, blood sugar stability, vitamin D, community and more. With these tools at hand, the spring will be back in our step.

Integrative Oncology
We will learn an overview of the growth cycle of cancer and the many opportunities to intervene in that cycle with dietary, botanical, nutritional supplement and lifestyle choices targeted for both prevention and intervention. Controversies will be addressed, such as phytoestrogens with hormonal cancers, and supplements during treatment. Understand that an integrative approach is specific for the uniqueness of you, your cancer and your environment as we review the healthy choices in our daily lives that can multi-task against cancer’s initiation, promotion and progression.

Lifestyle

Prepare for Surgery
Most of us will have to undergo surgery during our lifetime. How can we maximize our surgical outcome? Learn guided imagery techniques, therapeutic foods and nutritional supplements which help minimize pain, improve wound healing and reduce anxiety.  Understand which products are to be avoided and which are to be added to benefit before, during and after surgery. These simple lifestyle changes can significantly improve recovery.

Let the Sunshine In!
Recently, Vitamin D has come to the forefront of research, and is now known to benefit much more than build strong bones. It has been discovered to play a role in preventing many diseases, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease and more. Learn about Vitamin D’s impact on the whole body, and understand the benefits of balanced sunlight exposure and other sources of this amazing nutrient.

Mental Health

 Lifting the Spirits: Natural Approaches  to Anxiety & Depression   
Living in today’s culture puts our nervous system at risk for major depletion and injury.  Depression and anxiety are only two of the many effects resulting from the stresses of a life with inadequate time to replenish our bodies, minds and spirits.  Learn to easily useherbs, foods, supplements, and lifestyle changes to restore the nervous system and overall vitality. We review some of the most familiar and effective choices.

Feeding the Injured Brain
Head injuries, be they a major trauma or minor concussion, increase the risk for accelerated brain aging and other brain problems. We will review the nutrients that nourish the brain and discuss interventions which aid in repair and healing after an injury. There are botanicals and nutritional supplements which can reduce inflammation, improve circulation, and strengthen cognitive function for the brain, and provide support in conjunction with medical interventions after an injury.


Nutrition

Notions: Food As Medicine
As a culture, we are overfed yet undernourished, and we are witnessing skyrocketing rises in heart disease,
“diabesity” and cancer. Are we what we eat? How do we make enlightened food choices with so much conflicting information? And how do we make sense of meal-planning? Or even breakfast? We’ll explore the conflicts around pesticides, GMO’s, salt, fat, factory vs farm animals, sweeteners, soy and more. We’ll discuss some serious antimicrobial, anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory foods, while you enjoy healthy snacks and learn to make delicious, healing and (your own) happy meals for yourself and family.

Chocolate Therapy
What many know intuitively, science is now validating—that chocolate is a health food!  With hundreds of active components, its complex chemistry helps many of our body’s systems.  Learn to choose among the varieties of chocolates, and understand how our heart, immune system, skin, brain and overall endurance can benefit. A range of samples will be included to educate our palates, as well.

The Honey Experience
Like fine wines, honeys reflect their landscape of origin and the flowers that contribute to the flavor and sweetness (with much effort from the bees). In this experiential honey tasting, we will sample a range of domestic and international artisanal honeys, and understand the process of honey making, from blossom to table.  We will learn the different health and nutritional benefits of honey, from wound healing to endurance.

Other Therapies

Bee MD-- Medicine from the Hive
Humans and bees have been interacting since pre-history.  All bee products and activities are therapeutic to us and the greater environment, although honeybee populations are currently in decline.  Learn about the many benefits of what they provide and the factors that weaken them.  Medicinal uses of honey, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, wax, even bee venom all improve human health.  A sampling of these will be included.

Women’s Health

Botanical Medicine & Women’s Health
Since recorded history, and most likely since we have been humans, we women have been using botanical medicine to aid and support our overall health and to intervene in conditions unique to us and our family. We will explore an overview of herbal medicine, and learn how herbs can benefit women’s health in general. We will discuss some specific herbs for common problems, from menstrual cramps to menopausal hot flashes, their indications, contraindications, dosages and preparations. Resources and references will be provided.

Breast Health
There is much we can do to protect ourselves from getting breast cancer.  We will understand the foods, herbs, supplements and lifestyle choices we can make to reduce our risk. Learn about the life cycle of cancer cells, and how certain interventions can reduce abnormal cell development. Know where to avoid cancer triggers in the diet, lifestyle and environment. We will help clarify the soy and anti-oxidant concerns regarding breast cancer and its treatment. Enjoy sampling delicious organic white tea, one of the many helpful cancer-protective choices.

Food for Your Breasts
Diet plays a major role in the cause, treatment success and survival outcome in those with breast cancer. Even the genetic cancers are triggered or worsened by diet. Our food choices present us with incredible opportunities for prevention, intervention and outcome in breast cancer. Real and whole common foods combine thousands of safe plant compounds which multi-task, targeting many of the molecular pathways that are part of cancer’s development.  We will explore the foods which have been studied for their benefit against breast cancer, and discuss the foods and food-related factors which trigger cancer growth.


Environmental Breast Carcinogens: Risk Reduction
Understand how certain chemicals increase the risk of breast cancer through a variety of pathways. Learn how to keep our inner and outer environment protected from the hormone-disrupting household, garden, beauty and personal care items so pervasive in our daily lives. Discuss how to choose safe and effective products, and how to strengthen our inner resistance to their damage.

Breezing Through Menopause
Menopause is not a disease, but a time of life transition. The better-informed and healthier we are going into (and through) it, the easier it can be. We will review frequent symptoms associated with hormonal changes and aging, and the foods, herbs, supplements and lifestyle choices to help us prepare and intervene. We will also discuss the foods and lifestyle choices which worsen our health and symptoms at this unique time so we can minimize or avoid them

Menopause & Stress Management
Menopause is a time of great physical, emotional and social shifting, and can present new and unfamiliar changes to our bodies that can be stressful, even in the best of times. Understand these changes in the context of foods, herbs, supplements and lifestyle which can offer relief.  Learn these simple remedies which can soothe our nervous system and minimize the impact of chronic stress on our immune system, and how to safely incorporate them into our daily life.  

Make It Beautiful
Is beauty only skin deep? Understand how to provide the body with nutrients which nourish the skin. Watch as a skin cream, a facial scrub, a massage oil, bath salts and a body mist are made in front of our eyes using fragrant, safe, natural and available materials.  Learn safe remedies traditionally used for skin conditions such as burns, wounds, bug bites, warts, and poison ivy. Recipes are included.

Lotions: Beauty As Medicine/Aging with Grace & Humor
Being a Playboy Bunny (so long ago) was a great experience in maintaining style and energy in a hectic, demanding environment. Bringing this life lesson into the present, the challenge of staying attractive as we age in a youth-obsessed culture is daunting. But not impossible. We’ll examine the real meaning of beauty and self-care-- for our skin and within. We’ll share the facts of life about aging, using confidence, humor and compassion as guides to optimize our uniqueness, regardless of our years. Learn to make safe-ingredient lotions, salves and massage oils to deeply nourish our skin and our own sense of self.

 

 

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