![]() One of Tamara’s teachers, a clinical herbalist, specializes in cancer treatment. Practicing herbalism is a careful balance between medicine and the mystical. In actuality, walnuts are one of the best nuts for brain health, with a significantly high concentration of DHA, a type of Omega-3 fatty acid. Sometimes it’s more literal - a walnut looks similar to a brain, so is thought to be good for the brain. For example, plants with roots that are yellow on the inside often work on the liver and stimulate bile flow. It’s based on the idea that plants have certain appearances or mannerisms that we can perceive with our senses and that give us a clue about how they can work. There’s an ancient concept in herbalism used to determine which plants could be useful for which medicines called the doctrine of signatures. These patterns will also show up in people’s bodies, in terms of health and disease, and will be a mirror of certain patterns you see in the plants.” “They have their own semiotic language that we can learn to perceive-how they look, how they grow, how they behave, the shapes of the leaves, whether or not there are thorns, the texture of the plant, and whether it faces the sun or turns away. Her degree in linguistics gave her a framework for the language of plants. She found that when she started to learn about plant medicines, it came to her easily-like a remembering instead of learning for the first time. She began to teach herself, taking books out of the library and venturing into the woods to identify plants. So Tamara left her job teaching English in Toronto and moved to British Columbia to strengthen that sense of connection she was feeling to the Earth. That knowledge was a feeling of empowerment she wanted to nurture. She was first drawn to herbalism through wild foods, and the discovery that plants like dandelion and burdock-weeds that grow out of the sidewalk-are actually medicine. Tamara walks that line, bringing plant medicines to her clients backed by centuries old knowledge. She practices spirituality and science, seamlessly weaving together what is known and what is felt. The modern witch is a woman rooted in both the past and the present. “The Earth provides for us everything that we need” Tamara Segal Registered Herbalist, Hawthorn Herbals It surges forward now, with women speaking up and out, claiming their place and coming into their power. It started ages ago, when Mohawk women took up the mantle of medicine healer and brought light to their people. What cannot be ignored is the powerful tide of women rolling through the area. Whether it’s for better or for worse depends on who you ask. The feeling was so powerful it kept me returning to that spot every year to this day. ![]() Then I’d close my eyes and listen to the waves, the leaves, the stillness and all of the life. I would look up at the wind racing through the poplar leaves, the blue-green foliage breaking into streaks of silver. It felt like I was at the centre of something important, old. Behind me were the deep, dark, and silently still waters of a small private bay. In front of me was the crashing waves of a lake, powerful and undeniable. When I was a child I would sit quietly at my favourite place in the County, a small piece of rock separating two bodies of water. The feeling that those bountiful herbs growing in your garden are a living manifestation of all the love and care you put into the earth throughout that hot summer. That rush of calm and wonder you feel when gazing at a perfect pink sunset over an endless meadow. Have you felt it? That irresistible pull towards a secret beach hidden down a dirt road.
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