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The Herb Filled Homestead, 1295 Riverbend Rd. Suite 200, London, ON (2026)

01/09/2026

While you may just see this post as me, my cat pyjamas, & my damp hair against the world, the Slavic fear of going bed or leaving the house with wet hair is more than just catching a cold 🇵🇱❄️

In a Polish household, leaving the house with damp hair is a cardinal sin. Those with Polish roots or ancestry all heard the warnings: “Zapalenie płuc!” (Pneumonia) or the dreaded “Przewiało cię!” (The wind blew through you!). But this deep-seated fear isn’t just about germs; it’s a centuries-old Slavic relationship with the elements.

The Myth of the “Przeciąg” (The Draft) lives on into modern day. In Slavic belief, the “Draft” is viewed as an active, malevolent force. Damp hair acts as a conductor, lowering the body’s “fire” and creating a bridge for cold dampness to enter the skull. Folklore views the head as the “Altar of Reason”; leaving it wet is leaving the temple doors wide open. The energetics of heat in Slavic tradition is rooted in the balance of the hearth. Wet hair represents an uncontrolled loss of vital heat—the flame that fuels your “Vital Force.” Dampness extinguishes that flame, making you energetically vulnerable before you are ever biologically ill.

The Wind’s Touch can cause harm. There is an old belief that the wind can “catch” you (Przewianie), blowing sickness directly into your nerves. When your hair is wet, your pores are open and your defenses are down. You move from being Sovereign of your environment to a victim of the elements.

Matriarchal Ancestry may be a contributor & the obsession with the hairdryer may be a subconscious ritual of protection. For a thousand years, Slavic women have guarded their “tribes” against brutal winters. When Babcia chases you, she is ensuring the Altar of your body remains fortified.

Science blames the virus, but the Slavic heart knows better. Respect the Przeciąg. Dry your hair. Protect your heat. 🕯️🌬️

Who else still hears the “Zaraz się przeziębisz!” yell in their sleep? 😂

01/09/2026

As the world dips into its winter hush, our physiology calls for deep reverence & protection. Only one of nature’s most impactful allies is so readily relied upon: Echinacea.

More than just a ‘cold remedy,’ Echinacea is a masterclass in nature’s sophisticated design. Its potent alkamides gently tune our immune system, while polysaccharides mobilize our internal guardians;our leukocytes (white blood cells) to stand watch. Its actions are like insulating a house’s walls against the biting winter winds, physically strengthening our biological terrain.

But the magic of echinacea runs deeper than its phytochemistry. Look closely at Echinacea’s iconic cone. It holds the secret geometry of the Fibonacci spiral, a fractal echo of the sun’s power, perfectly organized even in the darkest months. It’s a living altar; a silent testament to enduring solar energy.

And the bees… Those tiny priestesses of the flower world are drawn to Echinacea’s energetic signature, carrying its wisdom forward. They remind us that even in stillness, life is in constant, sacred exchange; a vital ceremony & one that we must be mindful of in all of its seasons.

In the depths of winter, the energetic teachings of this sacred plant provide more than just defense; they offer a bridge. Echinacea is pungent, tingling, and grounding. It wakes up the “stagnant” parts of our system that tend to retreat too far into the cold. It reminds us that our connection to the earth doesn’t end when the leaves fall; it just moves into the roots to be nourished in the dark winter months. Its energetics urge us to pause & receive to avoid depletion.

Illness is a firm reminder that we aren’t just observers of nature; we are participants in its endurance. To work with the energetics of this root is to remember that we are built for the cycles & the seasons because of the plants that nourish us. This ally permits us to carry the summer’s geometry within us, even when we are in our “frozen” state.

Echinacea, despite strengthening our immune system, teaches us how to honour the terrain &Stay in the exchange of that which nourishes us.

01/08/2026

I’ve renamed winter The Season of the Alchemist”to reflect our primal need to transform and adapt as the landscape shifts into its frozen, dormant state.

While the world is quiet and my head is buried in medical texts, my heart stays tethered to the jars on my shelves. In Naturopathic medical school, we learn the biochemistry of plants; the pathways and clinical applications. But on my homestead, I remember their spirit; that healing is as much about the ritual of the pour as the science of the steep.

As the frost settles, the plant performs its own alchemy. It withdraws its life force from the brittle leaves & retreating stems, pulling its vital chemical constituents down into the earth. The root becomes the sanctuary; it is where life resides when the world is harsh, a concentrated reservoir of energy waiting for the turn of the sun.

Physiologically, we mirror this retreat. As daylight decreases, our circadian rhythms signal the pineal gland to increase melatonin, leading to a natural “slowing.” Our bodies move into conservation; the sympathetic nervous system feels the cold-stress, requiring a conscious pivot toward the parasympathetic; the state of rest and digest.

To support this internal alchemy, I lean into the medicine of the roots:
* Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera): Its withanolides act as adaptogens, modulating the HPA axis, reducing cortisol to build resilience in the nervous system’s foundation.
* Dandelion Root (Taraxacum officinale): Supporting the liver, our organ of alchemy. Bitter sesquiterpene lactones stimulate bile flow, ensuring internal filtration remains vibrant.
* Ginger (Zingiber officinale): Keeping the internal fire lit. Gingerols and shogaols promote thermogenesis, ensuring the “vital force” reaches our periphery even when the air is biting.

Being a healer means listening to the pulse of a patient, the whisper of the soil, & the wisdom of plants that have stood guard over our health for millennia. I am curious, in this season of stillness, are you listening to the healer within you? Or are you finally ready to seek the ancient wisdom that only the roots can provide? ☕✨

01/07/2026

🌿Since many new faces are here, I figured it was time for a proper introduction. 🌿

I was born not with the gift of health, but with the challenge of it. Rushed by emergency helicopter to Sick Children’s Hospital for surgery at birth, I spent my earliest days in the balance of life & death. For me, health was never a given,but earned, cultivated, & protected. This personal battle became a professional calling.

My journey toward becoming a Naturopathic Medical Student is built on a foundation of deep clinical experience as an International Medical Graduate and former Midwife, I have witnessed the raw power of life and the delicate nature of its preservation, further enriched through involvement with medical outreach in rural El Salvador and Guatemala.

To effectively bridge my regard of ancient wisdom with modern evidence, I pursued a degree in Health Sciences and Psychology (Cognitive Neuroscience) at Queen’s University, followed by a Master of Health Science in Advanced Healthcare Practice from Western University. My path was also shaped by being a competitive sprinter on a professional track team; until illness redirected my career. That pivot deepened my resolve to understand the human body’s capacity for recovery.

In my clinical herbal practice, I hold space for:
🌿Digestive Health | The core of our vitality.
🌿Trauma & Neuroscience | Decoding the body’s memory.
🌿Women’s Health & Oncology | The cyclical nature of healing.
🌿Pediatrics | Honoring the threshold of life.

Beyond the clinic, I am a steward of the land. On my homestead & herb farm in Ilderton, Ontario, I cultivate the very botanicals that form the heart of my practice. Here, I am constantly unraveling and decoding the “botanical shorthand” gifted to me by my Prababcia, a traditional Polish healer: a Szeptucha. My work is a translation of her ancient mysteries, brought into the modern light.

As a dual citizen of Poland and Canada 🇵🇱🇨🇦, I seek to live at the intersection of rigorous science and the profound traditions of our ancestors. Thus, Art, medicine, and the soil are my mediums. I’m so glad you’re here for the journey. ✨

01/06/2026

Allergies and Antigen Exposure
During my most recent stretch of exams and make‑up clinic shifts, I spent several weeks away from my pug. When I finally returned home, I woke with facial swelling, congestion, and sinus pressure.

I initially assumed infection, but this was an allergic response to renewed dander exposure after a period without baseline antigen/allergen contact. Continuous daily exposure maintains low‑level immune engagement, keeping the mast cells and IgE pathways responsible for allergic responses in a more regulated state. When exposure stops, that tolerance downshifts. Whereas re‑exposure is interpreted as a higher antigenic load, triggering increased mast‑cell activation, histamine release, vasodilation, and mucosal edema; a pattern that can closely resemble sinusitis or a sinus infection despite being allergic in origin.

Surprisingly, a few hours of exercise further reduced my symptoms because increased catecholamines naturally down‑regulate mast‑cell reactivity. Sleeping without my dog for one night also lowered immediate antigen exposure, giving the immune system space to recalibrate/normalize. Thus, within a few hours, I looked like myself once again.

Thankfully, there are several naturopathic options to support this physiology: quercetin stabilizes mast‑cell membranes and limits histamine release; stinging nettle interacts with histamine receptors and supports inflammatory modulation; HEPA filtration with regular filter changes reduces airborne dander proteins and lowers total allergen load; saline rinses mechanically remove allergens from the nasal mucosa; brief environmental rotation decreases cumulative exposure.

These everyday experiences often provide the most valuable clinical insights. Routine changes; stress, travel, altered sleep, shifts in exposure can meaningfully influence immune thresholds and symptom expression. When presentations mimic infection but lack infectious features, consider allergic rebound responses shaped by real‑life environmental patterns.

And yes, I still adore my pug. This is simply the immunology of loving a creature who sheds antigens.

12/29/2025

We are staying put today and keeping warm given this wild weather. Clearly no orders will be heading out today given the weather. Stay safe everyone!

12/28/2025

Hydro is finally back on after this stretch of wild weather, which means heat, water, lights… and my favourite ritual: the produce purge.

Anytime the power goes out, I take it as my cue to clear the fridge of anything that might spoil. For this, I am forever grateful for my juicer. I’m always amazed when big families say they don’t own one. For me, it’s the easiest way to make sure fruits and veggies never go to waste (aside from freezing).

Today’s juice lineup:
🥕 Carrot, ginger, apple, orange, lime
🍍 Pineapple, apple, banana, orange
✨ A bonus blend of the leftovers
It’s such a simple way to get in your daily servings. I even freeze the pulp for muffins to ensure nothing’s wasted.

Then there’s my blender who is my bestie for soups. Today I roasted some veggies to make:
🍲 Red lentil, carrot, red onion, basil, butternut squash & pumpkin with turmeric
🍅 Classic tomato (with roasted garlic added later because I have extra) with red onion

Nutrition has been a cornerstone of my life since birth; literally. After bowel surgery as a newborn, I’ve always relied on dietary strategies to meet my needs. It’s one of the reasons I returned to farm life: access to fresh food and the space to grow what we eat.

Even as mother of four and a busy naturopathic medical student, this is a non‑negotiable. Eating well doesn’t have to be complicated, just creative & intentional.
Not pictured is tonight’s deconstructed rice wraps with chicken, rice noodles, shredded cabbage, carrots, red onion, peppers, and cucumber tossed in a sesame‑peanut sauce.

So, After a long day of catching up from the outages, I’m finally putting my feet up. I may love the simplicity of farm living, but I’m equally thankful for the convenience of a good juicer, a powerful blender, and electricity to run them.

12/25/2025

🎄 May this Christmas bring you and your loved ones warmth, harmony, and lasting blessings🎄

✨ Wesołych Świąt Bożego Narodzenia dla wszystkich Państwa ✨

🎅 Que tengan una Navidad llena de paz y bendiciones. ✨

12/22/2025

One thing I adore about old houses are their character. While living in one you come to love its bones, & its quirks which make you adept at listening to understand the way specific processes work.

There’s a certain magic in the way an old house holds memory. It’s akin to the way a skeleton key: simple, unassuming, can still slip into a century‑old lock and open a door as if no time has passed at all. This truth reminds me of the keys we carry within us.

This is because in health, healing, & in the quiet work of becoming, we’re not starting from scratch. We come to this earth having inherited more than eye color or jawlines, but rather, tendencies, patterns, longings, & the biological echoes of the lives lived before our own.

Epigenetics shows us that our bodies carry ancestral imprints in the form of chemical markers shaped by nourishment, environment, stress, & the stories our lineage survived. Some of these imprints help us, while some weigh on us. Some whisper through our nervous systems like drafts through old floorboards while others show up as emotional patterns, protective responses, or physical vulnerabilities that deserve compassion rather than blame.

As an herbalist, I spend time exploring these intergenerational signatures with reverence. Those that work with me learn all about their ancestral diets, stress patterns, and the ways trauma can influence how genes are expressed—not as destiny, but as information; as doors waiting to be opened with the right key.

What working with others has taught me is that healing isn’t about erasing the past, but listening to it, & honouring it. It demands an understanding of how unmet needs, unspoken emotions, and inherited survival strategies might be shaping the present.
Just like an old house, your body is full of rooms you’ve never entered, stories you’ve never heard, and wisdom that’s been waiting for you. Yet, healing often arrives the moment we come to realize that the key needed to unlock these doors is already in your possession.

12/21/2025

These are preliminary gym gains after losing 30 pounds. Others commented when I posted a story & I did not see it until I snapped this pic for a friend to show where I was working out. I was shocked to see that while I have so much more to go until I am myself again, I am indeed making progress! This has been a journey of reclaiming myself after chronic stress, Illness, & self sacrifice slammed me with 55 pounds 1.5 years ago after having been fit my entire life.

I have always been extremely active given that I was super athletic and lived to move! Despite being a busy mother of four, I always took time for myself & prioritized physical activity. I was the mom you would see riding her bike with a bike stroller with three little babies in tow, pushing the triple stroller for 15 kms uphill, jogging, going on nature hikes etc. I was the epitome of “crazy mom energy”. I was also historically underweight yet super fit with thanks to amazing metabolism via genetics. I was the woman who seemed to have it all figured out.

That is, until a year and a half to two years ago when I was hit with Life stress, cramming in a masters degree in one year, online education, health issues, aging parents, the dynamics of a blended family,
Four kids - the list goes on. Suddenly, I found myself due to the pressure of keeping everything going, neglecting all of the things I knew to be important. I stopped working out and barely moved, I stopped eating mindfully and just grabbed what was fast or left over from my children’s plates. I knew it was a trap but life demanded too much. I felt guilty taking the time.

Let’s just say this has been the most humbling experience of my life. I felt the difference in the way I was treated & while that did not affect me as much as I have always loved every version of myself - not feeling like myself in my own body was the greatest challenge. So, I decided to go back to what I know my body to need. I started prioritizing myself. And here is the progress. I have more work ahead, but the best is yet to come. So if you’re struggling, let this be your nudge to say you’re worth the time & the effort as the results will come. You just have to begin 🌿

12/07/2025

At the heart of it all is a truth we keep trying to intellectualize, rationalize, or outrun: the body remembers what the mind tries to forget. The somatization of emotions isn’t weakness or imagination: it’s biology, psychology, and lived experience woven together. It’s the quiet way our inner world speaks when we refuse to listen, creeping in to cause unexpected health outcomes, that if left to linger, cause dis-ease.

This arises from the reality that our emotions do not just move us; they shape us, alter our breathing, our hormones, our posture, our sleep, & our immunity. They can tighten a jaw, knot a stomach, or send a tremor through a hand. Yet they can also heal, soften, & open us.

Neuroscience has been telling us this for years: emotions aren’t abstract. They’re electrochemical storms: shifts in neurotransmitters such as cortisol, dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine. They’re neural pathways strengthening or weakening based on what we repeatedly feel as the brain and body engages in constant conversation, each shaping the other in real time. Thus, every feeling is a chemical event, a cascade of neurotransmitters shifting how we think, act, & interpret the world.

Although sometimes, the emotional load we bear becomes so heavy that the body buckles under its weight. Broken heart syndrome: stress-induced cardiomyopathy, is one of the most striking examples of this phenomenon. It is a sudden surge of emotional stress can stun the heart, mimicking a heart attack, firmly reminding us that grief, fear, and shock do not just live in our minds, but our cells.

Yet as humans, we like to believe that we can compartmentalize and swallow pain without consequence to keep going without ever slowing down to feel. But the body keeps impeccable records; it whispers, nudges, aches, & then shouts. Not to punish us, but to protect us & bring us back to ourselves.

At the heart of it all is this simple truth: our emotions are not separate from our health; they are woven into every beat of our heart that either propels or deters wellness. However the question remains, will we listen to that which is begging for our attention?

12/02/2025

As a little girl, I spent more time in fields tending to the growth of living things and exploring the wayward paths of forests than in classrooms. This knowledge is often carried into my dreams, as symbols that unlock deeper understanding. In fact, on my recent trip to Poland, I had dreamed that my prababcia slipped a bouquet of yarrow under my pillow. Since this dream, I have been reflecting on her teaching of this ally.

Yarrow, is a sacred conduit to the divine. It serves as a bridge between the earthly and spiritual worlds; linked to Venus and the element of water, symbolizing romance, harmony, and emotional connection. In fact, the hairs that adorn its feathery leaves symbolize interwoven destinies which is why my prababcia wove it into her wedding wreath to bless her union with my pradziadek with lasting love and fertility. It was an act which manifested many children, and allowed my pradziadek the peace of passing away in my prababcia’s arms when his life drew to a close.

Yarrow was also used to induce prophetic dreams when placed under a pillow, which often led to young maidens seeking to attain a glimpse of one’s future husband. This is also why it was burned during Noc Kupaly, to strengthen bonds and invite prosperity. Bundles of it were also hung in homes or worn upon the body to ward off curses and evil spirits, and carried into battle by warriors.

As I consider these teachings & my dream, I realize that yarrow is more than a plant, it is a thread that binds us to those who came before, and to those who will come after. Its feathery leaves reminds me that every destiny is woven into another, that love and loss are never separate but part of the same tapestry.

My prababcia’s gift beneath my pillow was not simply a symbol of prophecy, but a reminder that the wisdom of the earth is alive within me, waiting to be carried forward. I have come to realize that in tending to yarrow, I am tending to memory, to lineage, and to the delicate balance between the seen and unseen. And perhaps, in honoring this ally, we become a bridge between past and future, between earth and spirit, between dreams and waking life.

The Herb Filled Homestead

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