There’s usually 1-2 tins, or more, floating around our home for all kinds of skin, nerve, muscle and connective tissue ailments.

Making infused oils can be an easy thing. It looks overwhelming at first but once you get it, it’s quite easy.

Here’s the quick lowdown on the process. My herbal course HERE gives more details and LOTS of recipes, ideas and guidance.

I use 1 cup chopped herb to 2 cups organic olive oil as my 1:2 ratio. This makes a bit so if you want to try a few herbs then make smaller batches butkeep the ratio of herb to oil consistent.

Use dried herb or allow fresh herbs to wilt a bit as water is not your friend when making infused oils and can cause spoilage. It is the one thing that makes oils rot in the apothecary.

​CLIFF NOTES ON MAKING HERB INFUSED OILS + HERBAL SALVES:

- Some use a blender to start them - optional step
- Some add 1 TB grain alcohol per 1 cup dried herb and toss, allow to sit for 15m, add your oil - this can helps preserve and extract - optional step

- Stir daily with a chop stick or 3-4x/week for a month
- Keep in warm place out of direct light
- Warming is optional - place in the lowest temperature warm oven and stir every 30m for 4h - you should have a color change and aroma unique to the plant which you learn by doing; then strain (this is the sped up way)

- Label and date everything carefully as you go.
- Gravity strain through muslin - no squeezing as this releases any water and sediment.
Allow to sit for an hour and any water or sediment will drop to the bottom of your bowl. Then pour off the good oil and toss the stuff stuck to the bottom.

- Store in glass in a dark closet or cabinet; label and date.
- Shelf stable for 12 months; 18 months if stored in frig.
-First decide what your purpose is for the salve as this directs which plants or essential oils you choose.

-Salves can be more solid at 1:4 ration and more soft at a 1:8 ratio which is more ointment consistency for covering larger areas of the body.

- Beeswax or vegan wax to oil is the ratio, so to every 1oz of wax add 4-8oz infused oil.
- Use double boiler - have containers laid out and ready.
- Warm just until wax melts, add infused oils and any essential oils you may be using.
- Once melted fully you pour into containers and allow to cool. You can add a sprinkle of dried herbs if you wish (optional but beautiful).

- Cap and make your label with all ingredients.

The ElderMoon Everything Salve  - buy from me at 1oz $12 and you're set for the year.

Or make yourself: My recipe is 2oz each of Calendula flower, Comfrey leaf, St. Johnswort infused olive oil, 1oz beeswax, 20 drops pure Rosemary Essential Oil. This makes 7oz total at a 1:6 (beeswax to oil) ratio.
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If you make a batch, then you have enough for your home and some 1oz gifts for loved ones. 1oz tins or glass jars are available through an easy google search - or repurpose ones that have already come through your life. 

You can make salve with a single herb or multiple herbs, depending on your needs. It’s useful to make a variety of herbal infused oils so that you can easily craft a salve whenever you need it.
​
Make small batches and use them up. It’s food for the body and needs to be fresh like the food we eat.
​
Arnica flowers: Can help treat physical trauma, bruises, strains, and occasional muscle pain. Use immediately after strenuous exertion or injury to prevent, relieve, and reduce swelling, bruises and pain.
Birch Bark: fresh whittled black or yellow birch bark is easily infused into oil and the wintergreen smell transfers to it. This is great for sore aching, overworked muscles, swollen joints, pain, congestion of lymph nodes and chest congestion.
Burdock root and leaf: For skin infections (leaf is stronger than root for this), contusions and swellings, good for sensitive skin folks,
Calendula flowers: Wonderfully healing with all-around healing properties useful for a wide variety of skin irritations and conditions including wounds, insect bites, rashes, scrapes, abrasions, cuts, and much more. Suitable for sensitive skin and babies.
Cannabis: a profound skin healer and nerve repair remedy for external use. Best first aid for burns, general beauty treatments, contusions, bruises, hematomas, cuts, scrapes. abrasions, and even rubbed over packed sinuses or lymphatic regions to drain them.
Cayenne Pepper: Warming, good for occasional sore muscles, alleviates occasional pain, and itching.
Chamomile flowers: Minor abrasions, cuts, scrapes, swellings, and wounds plus for chapped chaffed skin.
Chickweed: Soothing: helps with skin conditions erupting from within(eczema, psoriasis), minor burns, and other skin irritations.
Comfrey leaf and/or root: Relieves occasional pain, swelling, supports muscle, cartilage, and bone. Assists with healing a wide variety of conditions.
Elder Leaf or flower: green leaf oil has a long history of aiding in ceremonies and rituals as an anointing oil but also heals abrasions, wounds, swellings. The flower is often added to cereals as an elevated beauty treatment for skin rejuvenation.
Echinacea herb and/or root: Beneficial for minor sores, wounds, insect bites, and stings.
Ginger root: Warming, use for occasional sore muscles.
Goldenseal leaf and/or root: Useful for treating minor wounds, infected wounds, and ulcerative skin conditions.
Lavender flowers: Soothing, calming, relieves occasional pain, has healing properties beneficial for minor wounds and numerous skin conditions.
Mugwort: Helps speed the recovery process, relieves and soothes minor sores, bruises, blisters, contusions and swelling, and damaged skin.
Myrrh Gum powder: Used for cuts, scrapes, scratches, and abrasions.
Nettle leaf: An effective herb for many skin conditions.
Oregon Grape root: Skin disinfectant for minor wounds.
Peppermint (and menthol crystals): insect bites, bruising and contusions, tired or overworked muscle rubs for increased circulation and repair.
Pine: I love hemlock, white pine and spruce trees for this. Great for sore aching, overworked muscles, swollen joints, pain, congestion of lymph nodes and chest congestion.
Plantain leaf: Helps speed the recovery process, relieves and soothes insect bites and stings, poison ivy, itching, minor sores, bruises, blisters, and damaged skin.
Poke Root: for questionable moles snd unusual non-healing skin lesions. (Caution with making - wear gloves and keep your room well ventilated as this is a strong one - come learn more in my herbal course)
Rosemary: Helps speed the recovery process, relieves and soothes insect bites and stings, late stage poison ivy, itching, minor sores, bruises, blisters, swellings, and damaged skin. Also a great chest rub for congestion.
St. Johnswort: Craft the deep red-colored oil from fresh flowers. Beneficial for minor wounds, cuts, bruises, insect bites and stings, nerve support, scrapes, and minor burns.
Thyme: Used for cuts, scrapes, and occasional sore muscles, chest rubs for congestion.
Yarrow Flowers: Apply to bruises, minor wounds, cuts, scrapes, and areas with swelling and bleeding.
Yellowdock root: yes! It’s quite antiseptic and offers swelling reducing properties too.

There’s more but this is plenty. We have so many plants! Drop the overwhelm.
I know, it can get that way.

My hope is this inspires you to start simple with one plant.

Learn the steps and it will be so easy to make these amazing products for your body and to gift or sell to others.

As healthcare wobbles more and more we are called back to the plants and creating home apothecaries. This allows us to add to our primary healthcare with remedies from nature that the majority of the world still considers primary healthcare. Linking your apothecary to others to move resources (ie. medicinal plants) around is a form of currency. It wasn’t that long ago that we traded eggs for a salve. If each tribe / family has one person that takes this knowledge deeper and creates a working apothecary, they can supply the friends and family who are in need. It begins simply. Start with one plant and make one oil into one salve. Then get good at it! Do it again and expand your skills.

I’m here for questions and cheering you on for we need more homes with small working apothecaries, connected to other small working apothecaries.

Much love, Jen

Ojas is the essence of vitality and immunity.

It provides stability and nourishment to the body's tissues, moisture to the skin, and clarity to our mental processes.

It is the subtle essence of the kapha dosha, existing both as an energy and, according to the ancient Ayurvedic texts, a physical serum that resembles honey, measured as 8 drops that stay in the heart. As my Ayurvedic and yoga teacher Linda of Shakti Yoga puts it, “our glow of health, virility, fertility, luster, juiciness, reproduction, regeneration and life itself all depends on a healthy supply of ojas.”

Ojas is the refined substance produced after digestion, once all seven dhatus—the tissues responsible for the functioning of the systems and organs of the body—are fed and nourished. The classical Ayurvedic texts state that it takes 27–30 days to build ojas.

Basically it takes a lunar cycle to make.

My teacher explains her understanding of ojas, “It is like honey, ojas, the pure essence of all bodily tissues circulates via the heart and throughout the body to maintain a natural resistance and order of the bodily tissues. Ojas fights against aging, decay and disease. A person who has good ojas rarely becomes sick.”

One way to feed this process of ojas making is with moon milk sipping in a ceremonial way. 
​ 
So “Moon Milks” have been intriguing me for a while. I’ve learned that not all recipes are great either. Golden milk is another old favorite as well with turmeric and honey. Slowly, I’ve found my way to a recipe I love that I’m ready to share.

One can always enjoy a tea with the moon, yes. And I often do…

A“build ojas” whispered prescription is something I keep sensing again and again. Building vital essence, power, luster, strength. It’s the task internally and externally as we face life each day. 

Some prescriptions are divine.
Interpretation is personal, I know.

Let's consider these as a starting point for flow:

Go to bed early. Rest more. Sauna. Visit the ocean or wild water. Eat clean. Make your desserts with fruit. Fresh lemon in your water daily. Move your body. Soak in a tub. Sunbath nude in early morning or late day sun. Make tea daily. Get a massage. Paint a picture for Earth and gift it. Make a fire and speak prayers for the world. Massage your feet before bed. Meditate while gardening. Meditate in stillness. Play your instrument for the Wind. Or the Moon. Get up with the Sun. Go down with the sun. Eat dinner early. Eat a satisfying midday meal and skip dinner for enjoying moon milk and rest instead. Listen to a book or great music 2 hours a day. Drink Moon Milk 2x/week for 1 month.

Not all “prescription medicine” has to taste horrible, hurt, costa a lot, or feel like deprivation. Nor does it have to come from a doctor outside of you. That’s my point.

I’ve decided to drink this as a ritual brew twice a week for the next month, up to the next new moon to build ojas, honey in the heart. New moon milk stokes the fire gently as we find rest and restoration. 

Listen inward for more personal prescriptions as our needs vary and the moon will inspire you with more.

So this recipe is quite easy to make too - in the morning put up your almonds to soak. When ready to make, peel the almonds as your milk warms with spices on the stove. Then add all to blender. That’s it. ✔️

Mid-day or evening dosing is the suggested time for taking this.

It’s silky smooth, warm, and so delicately spiced that you want to just linger between the sips… build luster… ya know, all the things.

​INGREDIENTS:

• 10 raw almonds - soaked and peeled.
• 1 medjool date
• 1 cup pure water - split
• 1 cup milk (organic or coconut milk is good too and I use 1 can full fat coconut milk with 1 can full of water for the liquid component)
• 1 TB organic rose petals (optional – cooling, secretion thinning, rejuvenates)
• 1 tsp ghee (optional - rejuvenates)
• 1/4 tsp saffron (increases digestion & rejuvenates) - saffron is preferred but pricey so if you choose to substitute turmeric powder for this then only use 1/8 tsp. to keep things delicately bold.
• 1/8 tsp ground cardamom (increases digestion)
• Pinches of clove, cinnamon, and turmeric powder (improve immunity and digestion)
• Pinch of fresh cracked black pepper (thins secretions, supports immunity)
• 1 tsp of honey, maple syrup or agave (optional - rejuvenating, immune supportive, (honey is traditional and increases lactose digestion if using cow milk)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Soak almonds in 1/2 cup water for 4 hours to overnight. Drain off the water and slip the almonds out of their skins.
2. Bring 1 cup milk of choice and 1/2 cup water to barely a boil on the stove.
3. Add rose petals, saffron, cardamom, clove, and black pepper, let simmer for 5 minutes. Cover, remove from heat.
4. Allow milk mixture to cool covered for 10-15 minutes for more infusing of the spices.
5. Pour mixture in to the blender with date, peeled almonds, and add ghee and honey. Blend until smooth.
6. Enjoy warm in a favorite mug with a sprinkle of spice you love or few rose petals on top as you sit, moon gaze, and allow the moon to have all of you.

So delicate and delicious... enjoy.

What else builds our vitality and increases our golden ojas heart drops?

• Ample sleep—seven or eight hours is not enough for most people - the human body requires hours of wakeful meditative states and / or naps to fulfill our rest requirements.
• Following your heart’s desire, whatever lights you up.
• Volunteering, supporting a cause near and dear to you.
• Yoga, pranayama, and meditation
• Whole, fresh, organic foods, preferably home-cooked.
• Know your farmers and bee keepers.
• Spending time in nature; gardening, hiking; swimming.
• Hugs with pets, friends, family.
• A good book, read or listen - both do the same internally.
• Laughter.
• Love, Love, Love
• And my favorite ghee company - Goddess Ghee
• I Release Control - song by Alexa Sunshine Rose

​xo-Jen ​