It's absolutely TYPICAL of 
to be GENEROUS, and that's why we love him and his beautiful partner 
.
Not only did they say a resounding YES to answering
's weekly 5 Questions, they volunteered to donate these post earnings to the NEXT TWO MEMBERS THAT DELEGATE TO NATURAL MEDICINE!!
That could be YOU! If you'd like to win a little bit of steem, delegate a minimum of 20 SP by clicking one of the links at the end of this post, and screenshot the receipt. Post as a comment below. If we have more than two entries, we'll draw names out of a hat - 1 entry per 20 SP. That's pretty good returns for supporting our nurturing, beautiful community - and you're just gonna feel pretty damn good inside as well.
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NM:
, you were one of the first people to get involved with ‘Natural Medicine’, and one of the first to delegate. We’re so grateful for your support, especially as you have included ‘Natural Medicine’ with the ‘Homesteaders Co-Op’ contributor and vendor Discord channel. How do you see the two accounts working together?
SS: Personally I am really grateful for the Natural Medicine community! Its great to have a place to be inspired and learn from others about different forms and styles of Natural Medicine. Homesteaders Co-op and Natural Medicine definitely have an overlap of intentions to encourage freedom, support living naturally and sustainably and embracing Mother Earth.
I certainly look up to 
I love what has arisen out of 
This is a perfect example of our our communities are already working together naturally. And so I think that is how I envision us working together – naturally, where we are inspired and where it fits in our our love for our communities. I think that approach is much more fun and rewarding than trying to plan out how we might work together.
However planning also has its place and I have some ideas. Our HSCO website will be evolving into a place for non steemy folks to learn about steem for the first time. As such I would love there to be a place to introduce our website’s new visitors to Natural Medicine so that they may learn that such a community exists and find ways to tap into NM easily and effortlessly.
Part of this idea is allowing Natural Medicine members who vend on Homesteaders Co-op the option of displaying a NM badge on their store profile, to show their pride for NM and help us all create more awareness of the NM community.
Other than that I look forward to do what we can to help NM meet their goals and I will be open to learn about other opportunities from anyone - whether they require planning or are spontaneous like
’s efforts which only required one of our members love and dedication to community.
NM: On the ‘Homesteaders Co-Op’ website, you’ve also included a section on ‘Natural Health’. Can you tell us a little bit about this section in particular, from how it began to where you see it going to?
SS: All of the shopping categories found in Homesteaders Co-op website, in part, represent the opportunity for our vendors and customers to claim independence, or more accurately interdependence. Like shopping in a farmers market, finding products in the Homesteaders Co-op gives individuals and families the opportunity to directly support vendors that create handmade and sustainable products.
Purchasing Natural Health and Natural Medicine products from a HSCO vendor gives individuals and families the ability to have confidence in knowing what is going on or in their bodies or minds. Because all of our vendors are on steem, we can get to know our vendors’ process, ethics, lifestyle and more. Like a farmers market, we have the opportunity to have a direct relationship with the maker of the products we purchase.
From a vendors’ perspective empowerment comes from the ability to tap into a shared community effort to be rewarded for their hard work and the ethical choices they have made in their business and their lives. Their empowerment also comes from having opportunities to build a direct relationship with their customers. And so we hope to blur the lines between customer/vendor and community/peers.
To answer your question more directly, the Natural Health category came out of need for organising our vendors’ goods. 
Natural Health currently combines Natural Medicine products with handmade and sustainable Bath and Beauty products. But there is also Natural Medicine found in our Services and books categories when it comes to spiritual nutrition. Our shop organisation reflects the offerings of our vendors and I imagine it will shift and evolve as we grow and learn together.
As it stands now we have several vendors offering Natural Medicine for sale in HSCO.
and
(our most recent NM vendor) are offering Nettle Leaves and Hazelnut Leaves to Canadian customers. From the spirit side of Natural Medicine they also offer Spiritual Mentorship to folks worldwide.
is offering Distance Reiki Energy Work and Medicine Card Reading to clients internationally.
is sharing homegrown dried Catnip, toothache flowers (Spilanthes) and Capsicum to customers in United States.
is internationally offering Juniper Piñon Bitters and Yerba Santa Elixer
offers Lilac Vegetable Glycerine to customers in United States.
is offering a myriad of creams, salves and sunscreens to customers internationally.
is offering Coloidal Silver in a variety of formats to customers in United States.
is offering natural handmade soaps to customers in United States.
We have only been online a little over 2 months and so this is just the beginning! I expect we will have many more vendors registering to sell natural products on our website in the months to come. And I know that many of our vendors will continue to add new products to their online store.
On a related note I also wanted to mention that we recently added the ability in our website for our vendors to not only operate in a monetary economy, but also in a barter economy and a gift economy within and without our marketplace.
I believe our modern cultures have a great need to heal our relationship with money, which is interconnected with our relationship with each other and nature. After all our relationship with money is a reflection of our relationship with our self (including our spirit). And so we are exploring new ways (and old ways) of transacting and interchanging with each other with the intention of growing trust, connections, community, while respecting our ethics and honouring one another.
NM: One thing that we’ve really noticed since starting Natural Medicine is how much homesteading, permaculture and self sufficiency people are also people who are very much interested in natural medicines, from mushrooms to herbs and good old healthy eating. Why do you think this is?
SS: All of these things go hand in hand! Homesteading, permaculture and self sufficiency ultimately lead down the same path – re-connecting with nature. The only reason we have these modern buzzwords in our vocabulary is because we have been sufficiently disconnected from nature. The more connected we are with nature, the less we need a word to describe what we are doing because we are just living.
People that are disconnected from nature can look at the birds flying above us, the dolphins jumping just out of our reach, and the trees swaying and feel a sense of peace, wonder, longing and envy. Even observing our more wild domestic friends such as our dogs and cats and we can find elegance in their movements and vicariously watch them living in the present moment, not getting stuck in the past or the future.
There is a place of peace and belonging that humans can long for; we often seek gurus to show us the way to enlightenment. Our paths can be numerous and winding, we can label our paths self sufficiency or permaculture or homesteading or some other name that we feel connected to.
In the end we bring no labels to the moment of death, we bring no tinctures, no homestead, no supplies. We bring our spirit, and if we believe in an afterlife our spirit is the connection between the worlds. Whatever path you choose, I hope it brings you closer to nature – your true nature. I hope you are able to shed your outer layers and connect with the spirit within. I hope your body and your voice can be a medium for the truest possible expression of your spirit’s vibrations.
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NM: Can you recall the first time that you realised that you had the power to cultivate and create your own medicines? We’d love to hear about it!
This is only a few years ago and I can recall it well. I was a gardener of 8 years and a wildcrafter of nearly as long. I had a passion for learning about and connecting with wild foods around me. It gave me some sense of security to know that there is food that I could rely on if I needed to, but more than that it gave me a sense of wonder about this new world that was under my eyes all along! All I had to do was adjust my focus a little and this new world appeared.
Wild foods brought me closer to nature and I had a more intimate relationship with my diet, even if it was only a tiny portion of my diet. I had a different experience when I was hiking in nature, even hanging out in my garden as I learned to identify the weeds.
And so it was a pretty natural transition for me to start tapping into natural medicine. There are two big inspirations to me when it came to creating natural medicine.
The first is Susun Weed. I started listening to her podcast a few years ago and never looked back. I owe so much to Susun Weed. She taught me to open my eyes to a new way of looking at this world and I continue to learn from her regularly. I have never talked with her directly, but I consider her a mentor both in herbalism and in life.
The second is a very good friend that was taking an herbalism apprenticeship. I had opportunities to see some of the world that he was learning about and tapping into. So some months later when I was wwoofing on a farm in East Washington we had a phone call and I said - “So I want to start learning about herbalism … can you recommend one plant that I can get to know?”
And he said “St. John’s Wort!! Summer solstice is coming up and they will be blooming then.”
And so I met Hypericum perferatum for the first time. And the rest is history in the making :)
NM:
Sagescrub: This is a hard question.. but my answer is Dandelion!! I choose Dandelion because what they represent to me. They are both a wild food and a medicine. But they also have been a cultivated food and medicine in the past, and I want to teach others that we can cultivate the dandelion once again and enjoy free food, free medicine and celebrate resilience. They are a preventative medicine, by their nature as a highly nutritive food. I love that they are persistent about living abundantly around humans, both rurally and in suburbia. To me they represent strength and independence – both in the plant world and in humanity – and symbiosis between both plants and humans.
Idyllwild: I love Yarrow because it’s abundant as a wild plant in our region, which is really great for first aid when you are hiking or in nature. I once accidentally cut my thumb with my clippers while I was harvesting and seeing yarrow right by my feet, I took a few leaves, chewed it until it became a poultice and applied it on my wound. Yarrow immediately soothed the throbbing pain and stopped the bleeding. My finger healed faster than any other medicine I’ve ever used. I wished I had discovered yarrow when I was younger! When I was a child, my parents would clean my scrapes and cuts with alcohol (or worse, iodine), causing me to tear up from the pain and leaving scars still visible to this day. When I think of yarrow’s gentle, effective healing action, I wish every child had the benefit of knowing this plant and experiencing that wonderful nurturing connection with nature.
In addition to first aid, I also use yarrow to replace the use of alcohol as a mouthwash. I swish a couple dropper fulls of yarrow every night, and it keeps my gums healthy. Another reason why I love yarrow – it’s also a really great dried flower!
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