Known as “the Wise Weeds Lady” to many people over the years, I have been blending essential oils, cosmetic grade fragrance oils and herbs to make my herbal healing, mystical, magical and spiritual oils for even longer than the establishment of Wise Weeds in 1992.
I’m a certified medicinal herbalist, transpersonal hypnotherapist and Reiki practitioner who has taught herbalism, aromatherapy and other healing practices in a variety of venues, including a community college, many adult education programs, Barnes & Noble bookstores,gift shops, beauty spas and salons, festivals and many other places. I've appeared on radio,cable and network television shows over the years, as well as been featured in newpaper articles.
Over the years, I’ve learned more and more about safe practices using oils. I’ve also seen how many vendors sell their products via false advertising, whereby they confuse the consumer
by promoting oils as being essential oil based, when they are not.
There are some spiritual practitioners who value only actual essential oils and/or herbs in oil blends. Their reasoning is that the plants imbue the product with a type of natural magic that cannot be found in synthetically based products.
While I myself tend to follow this belief, on a practical level, certain scents are NOT generally available, except as synthetics. For example, Gardenia Absolute is rare, hard to obtain and VERY expensive. Rose Otto is more readily available, however, it is still extremely expensive. It is virtually impossible to obtain a natural Lilac fragrance. So I will use synthetic versions of these oils in blends. But, again, I don’t hide the fact from anyone, nor do I try to mislead anyone.
If you’re buying a one-dram bottle of rose oil essence for $5.00, it’s not the real McCoy. Believe me, I've had people insist they had found a "bargain." Well, you get what you pay for.
On the other hand, if someone has infused rose petals into oil to get the scent, the oil blend will not be an “essential” oil, but it may be a wonderful treat. I used to own such an oil many years ago, and the scent was delightful and quite magical. But it was not an essential oil, nor had it been sold to me under that guise.
What actually are essential oils?
The essential oils of herbs contain their concentrated energies. An essential oil usually bears the aroma and/or flavor of a plant, although the intensity of the scent may be overwhelming compared to what you're used to the plant smelling like.
Unlike fixed oils, essential oils are volatile. This means they evaporate rapidly at room temperature, whereas fixed oils, such as vegetable or motor oils, are more stable. Chemically, essential oils consist of a complex mixture of 30 to 100 or more compounds.
Herbally-infused oils are different creatures than essential oils. An herbally-infused oil consists of plant material that is infused into a carrier or base oil. This base oil takes on the medicinal qualities of the herb, and can often be used either by itself or with another vegetable oil for massage therapy or as the base for an herbal salve.
I, myself, will often include some herbs in certain oils blends, taking a cue from certain hoodoo and voodoo traditional blendings of spiritual oils.
More often, I make herbally infused oils with a direct medicinal usage in mind. For example,
Hypericum oil consists of the fresh flowering tops of St. Johnswort infused into olive or some other carrier oil. Comfrey infused oil forms the basis of comfrey salve, used for healing.
And, of course, my Banish Pain oils consist of a combination of herbally infused oils and essential oils to help reduce or eliminate inflammation and pain.
Happy Summer Solstice
Current mood: 
Wishing all a happy Summer Solstice. Wow! Longest day of the year and all that.
Check out my music playlist at my myspace.
Updated it to acknowledge the "official" start of Summer today. Used to DJ a few years ago (okay...AEONS ago) in college and loved putting sets together. So, with this neat player, and the ability to update it almost instantaneously, I plan to change up the music when holidays happen and/or the mood strikes me. Some of the music will stay the same, but I'm figuring on changing up at least the first two or three songs so it's not the SAME OLE, SAME OLE, everytime someone visits.
Got a lot happening. All good. Will share some of it here.Been getting ready for this Saturday's Day of Tarot Readings. Spiffing up the shop a little, running business cards, you know, the usual kind of stuff.
Have also checked up on whether or not flyers were still up around town, continued to post info on the web and followed up with other folks who are helping promote this event.
In the process, it's been interesting to learn that a lot of folks are surprised I do readings. I explained that I tend to focus on assisting people with herbal consultations, hypnotherapy for behavior modification as well as past life regression and Reiki energy healing, but that tarot and intuitive guidance is also another avenue for healing.
Just like hypnotherapy can help someone overcome fears, blocks and obstacles in their life's path, tarot and intuitive guidance can aid someone in more clearly viewing where they are and where they are headed.
While a reading can indicate where one's path may lead, I truly believe that each of us can make changes to that path. Therefore, a reading is usually not a prediction of exactitude, but more an indication of where we may be headed.
One example of this in action happened last Winter. A young woman was considering a job change, but wasn't sure about a new position that she was offered.
The reading helped her to step forward with confidence and leave a job that had deadended for her. She had the confidence to ask for more money (and got it!) even though the recruiter discouraged her from doing so. She's now more confident, self-possessed and feeling more competent than she had felt in the last several years.
This woman could have ignored the reading and stayed in a dead-end situation. Instead, she used the reading to guide her and overcome her fears about dealing with a new situation.
That's what I mean about tarot and intuitive guidance being another avenue for healing.
Anything that helps us in a positive way can be a healing and transformative force in our lives.
