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Buzzards Blessing
The path to Stannon Stone Circle is quiet in that particular way Bodmin Moor knows so well—where even your own footsteps feel like an interruption. The grass tufts bend low, whispering across the earth, and the air holds that charged stillness that comes before rain. Out beyond the circle, Roughtor stands dark against the horizon. I watch as the sky above it thickens with grey clouds rolling slowly forward like something ancient waking up. It doesn’t feel ominous—just inevita

The English Herbalist
May 212 min read


Ancestral Memories
In the back of the old clay lump farm cottage in Norfolk, the barn door still stuck in damp weather, just as it always had. I leaned my shoulder into it until it gave with a sigh of swollen wood and rusted hinges. Inside hung the tools of three generations: ash-handled spades blackened with age, a Dutch hoe with its blade worn thin as paper, and my Great-grandfather’s fork, one tine bent slightly inward after striking buried stone sometime before the first war. I lifted the f

The English Herbalist
May 153 min read


Equine Spirit
A few days ago I had the pleasure to teach a private group of horse carers. How horses respond to healing energy is what amazes those who share their lives with equine souls. Behaviour, body language, kinship, spirituality. Horses have a reputation for being unusually sensitive—physically, emotionally, and even socially—and that’s a big reason why so many owners are struck by how they respond during calm, focused “healing” interactions whether that's framed as energy work, qu

The English Herbalist
May 41 min read


Memory
The first swallow arrived on a morning that still carried a memory of frost - 17th April. It skimmed low over the hedgerows, a dark flicker against the pale sky, as if testing whether the world below was ready to receive it again. The farm lay quiet beneath—stone walls breathing out the cold of winter, the barn doors half-open like a yawn not yet finished. Nothing announced the change outright. It came in soft permissions. By the time the swallow circled back, the signs had b

The English Herbalist
Apr 252 min read


Creating With Nature
In a rural hamlet, in a little barn kitchen surrounded by birdsong, the scent of springtime blossom and the sound of rustling meadow grasses here on the North Cornwall coastal, I formulate and produce a wide variety of salves, balms, tinctures, glycerites, infusions, decoctions and tea. Over the past few weeks I've prepared a variety of items which will replenish my herbal medicine clinic. Photograph: St John's Wort, Meadowsweet, Turmeric and Black Pepper Pain Relief Balm - s

The English Herbalist
Apr 251 min read


Stitchwort
In a quiet Cornish meadow, where the sea mist drifted inland like a wandering spirit, herb stitchwort bloomed in pale starbursts. My Great Aunt Jess called it “thread-keeper,” for it was said the plant could mend more than torn cloth. As a child, my Cornish Aunt told me this story; Long ago, a fisherman’s daughter found a sprig of stitchwort growing through a split in her father’s old net. That night, she dreamed of a soft-voiced woman who whispered, "What is broken may be bo

The English Herbalist
Apr 251 min read


Let There Be Light!
Winter sun – Seasonal Affective Disorder. A few years ago we returned home early from a holiday in the East Devon. It was our first holiday in 8 years and we’d been really looking forward to it. We started with 3 days in Somerset, visiting the obligatory town of Glastonbury, followed by the rest of our holiday near Ottery St Mary, Devon. We were staying in a little cottage ten miles from the coast. We adore autumn and back then we had a triple coated dog who struggled with th

The English Herbalist
Dec 11, 20244 min read
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