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Medicine Stories

79. Sunshine Medicine: The Healing Magic of St. John’s Wort

Medicine Stories

Amber M Hill

Herbs, Health & Fitness, Ancestry, Alternativemedicine, Herbalism, Alternative Health, Dreams, Healing, Society & Culture, Psychedelics

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 12 July 2021

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

St. John’s Wort has evolved over millennia to capture the ultimate expression of sunlight on our planet and turn it into the molecule hypericin, which has numerous profound effects on our human bodies.

Find our St. John’s Wort Oil & check out my teacher Kami McBride’s course Handcrafted Healing Herbal Oils.

From deep nerve healing, relaxation, and pain relief when applied externally to its antidepressant, antiviral, and liver supportive properties when taken internally, SJW has always occupied an exalted place in the medicine cabinet of the ancestral humans who were lucky enough to live where it grew, and is one of the most used and loved herbal medicines in the world today.

IN THIS EPISODE:

  • St. John’s Wort acts as an extension of sunlight

  • The endless external uses include the healing of wounds, bruises, burns, blisters, cuts, eczema, growing pains, inflamed skin, muscle pain, nerve pain, neck tension, spasms, back pain, neuralgia, sciatica, insomnia, anxiety, and stress

  • The oil is indispensable for menstrual pain, pregnancy, postpartum, babies, children, elders, empaths, and highly sensitive people

  • Photosensitivity, precancerous skin cells, and using SJW as sunscreen

  • Internal uses: notes on the antidepressant, antiviral, and liver supportive effects (including my shingles story)

  • Hypericum feeds our inner radiance and summons forth our purpose and power

  • This ancient herb has always been associated with fairies and other magical beings

  • How empire co-opted pagan rituals and herbal practices

  • The widespread ritual use of St. John’s Wort as a protective herb

  • A word on wildcrafting and non-natives v invasives

  • Making your own high potency, shelf stable herbal oils

  • Herbal medicine is so simple, yet also endlessly complex

  • Kami McBride speaks about St. John’s Wort

RESOURCES (if listening on an app that doesn’t support embedded links, find these at https://mythicmedicine.love/podcast):

Learn to Make Your Own Herbal Oils:

Podcast Episodes & Books Mentioned:

More Good Stuff:

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hi friends, welcome to the Medicine Stories podcast where we are remembering what it is

0:12.7

to be human upon the earth.

0:15.5

I am Amber Magnolia Hill.

0:18.4

This is episode 79, a rare solo episode.

0:24.1

Today I'm talking about St. John's Wart.

0:28.0

So the most downloaded episode yet of this podcast is number 67, harvesting light, the

0:35.2

alchemy of sun and human, my interview with Nadine Artemis, the practically infinite

0:42.0

and certainly multi-dimensional healing power of the sun, which was of course apparent

0:47.6

to our ancestors in every waking moment, is one of the best kept secrets in our backward

0:54.0

modern culture.

0:55.6

The most amazing thing to me about St. John's Wart is that it, in the words of a Chinese

1:01.8

medicine doctor friend of mine, acts as an extension of sunlight.

1:06.1

So I'm going to say that again, St. John's Wart acts as an extension of sunlight.

1:12.6

When you hear about the million and one health benefits of this plant and wonder how it's

1:16.9

all possible, just think about what the sun does for us and for all life on earth.

1:23.5

Hypericum perforatum blooms around the summer solstice when the solar influence is strongest

1:29.1

upon the earth, the full force of the sun ripening the hypersin within, the main medicinal

1:35.5

constituent of the plant, and what turns the medicines made from it red.

1:41.2

If you crush some of the small yellow flowers or leaves between your fingers at this time

1:45.7

of year, it'll leave a deep burn they stain behind.

1:50.5

This is the hypersin.

1:52.6

The plant has evolved over millennia to capture the ultimate expression of sunlight on our planet

...

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