https://bio.site/Wildfolkapothecary

Wild Folk Apothecary, Suffolk (2025)

11/12/2025

The wreath is a symbol of eternity, of the continuation of life, of the cycles. To adorn our doorways and thresholds with evergreens at this time is to honour the never-ending, the transformative states of being, the ongoing. May we all remember that we are part of the great becoming of life. Structures will fall, towers will crumble, but the cycles will go on, and we will go on with them, as ever moving energy and consciousness woven into the life which necessarily surrounds and infuses us in every moment.

Blessings of the season. Midwinter approaches, and the circle will be honoured once again.

The Yuletide offering continues at Wild Folk Apothecary. Take 25% off using code YULE

I will be closing on the 16th, so orders need to be in by then.

06/12/2025

The Folkore of Frost

The trickster nature spirit known as Jack Frost is a playful being who inhabits the frozen lands of snow and ice and plays tricks on those trying their hardest to keep warm amidst the deepest chill of winter. Our small and imp-like Jack Frost is thought to come from the older and less benevolent spirit of winter, Jokul Frosti, the son of the wind goddess Kari, and an immortal giant, possibly one of the giant spirit beings who is said to have created the glaciers and icecaps.

These playful but dangerous tricksters paint beautiful images with their frosty powers, nip the toes and noses of children, and ask for offerings of food, wine, song, and ritual to placate them and prevent them from freezing the reindeer or taking lives in deep blizzards.

The poem is an extract from “The Frost” by Hannah Flagg Gould (1789-1865)

“Then he went to the mountain, and powdered its crest,
He climbed up the trees, and their boughs he dressed
With diamonds and pearls, and over the breast
Of the quivering lake he spread
A coat of mail, that it need not fear
The downward point of many a spear
That he hung on its margin, far and near,
Where a rock could rear its head.“

Yuletide blessings of 25% off at Wild Folk Apothecary. Use code YULE

All words and pictures my own

04/12/2025

With her twisting, turning tendrils, Ivy (Hedera helix) winds her way through history, myth, ritual, and folklore.

A symbol of the enduring nature of love and commitment, of the promise, and trust between souls, Ivy was (and still is) worn or carried by brides to bless the marriage with good fortune and fidelity.

To ancient Greeks and Romans she was woven into lore; a wreath of ivy around the head to prevent intoxication, standing guard against excess, an earthly protector against the wild god of wine.

Ivy was used in death divination practices, and it was said that if a family wrote their names on Ivy leaves, dropped them into a bowl of water, the next day the leaves could be inspected for portents of disease and demise. If any leaf had morphed into the shape of a coffin then it was a sure sign that death was imminent. A cheerful practice indeed!

An ivy poultice can heal wounds and clear up infections, and it was said that drinking from an ivy wood bowl could bring relief from whooping cough.

Ivy makes a pretty good washing agent, she contains saponins which cleanse and foam and can be made into a natural laundry detergent.

In more death lore, it is said that Ivy grows best on the graves of those who died of lovesickness; that to pick a leaf from a grave is to invite sickness into your life, and that to remove Ivy from a sacred place will disrupt the sacred bond between the living and the dead and surely bring misfortune upon the picker.

🌀Visit .folk.apothecary for handmade balms, salves, essences, skincare, ritual offerings, and courses, all created with deep reverence for and respect to the wild. There are many beautiful, handmade Yuletide gifts to be found in the apothecary too. See 🔗 for more.

*all words my own

30/11/2025

And so we begin our descent.

Down towards the darkest day; the longest night.

The sun hangs heavily in the sky.

Her deep golden rays kissing the land for the last days of this cycle; full, pregnant, overflowing.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Ready to die.

She welcomes death as she welcomes life;

Fully.

The sun, the goddess, the giver of life waits patiently in the birth canal of the new year for the days when the sun stands still.

The fecundity of this still darkness is not to be wasted.

It is fertile with potential for what could be.

As we go deep within and light the fires which will guide us through these days of darkness we dive deep into the darkness of our own lives.

We promise to make life even more sacred than before, to honour it all in every moment.

We align with nature in the hope that we will be reborn, transformed alongside the sun as she inevitably begins her ascent up into the green, the growth, the new light of the year after the solstice.

This is a time for deep reflection and reverence.

A time for keeping the light alive within and without.

We take with us our precious gifts of awareness and learning into the darkest days, and after this time we begin again, shedding the skins of a life less lived.

We realign.

We rebirth.

We remember.

And we arise as new life ready to create a new world.

*********
The Wild Folk Apothecary Yuletide gift shop is now open. See 🔗

*all words and images my own*

29/11/2025

The frost speaks to me of stillness, of being and holding the still point within the tumult. The centre. The still point within us being reflected in the still point of the year.

The cold can make us tense up, become brittle, shatter and disintegrate into pieces, but if we can relax into it then we can feel its powers of healing and stillness.

That still point within teaches us that we can become the true observer, the one who sees from afar, watching and learning from the ways we have expressed ourselves in this human existence.

The still point is a place of calm observation and reflection on the nature of being.

All words and photographs my own.

I didn’t manage to send the email out to subscribers yet, but it is coming, I promise. ❄️

27/11/2025

There are new ways and new visions and new dreams to dream. We are walking and creating and visioning the future as we bring it into being from our minds, our bodies, our hearts.

This current reality is our collective responsibility but it is also the key, holding the seeds of the future, the freedom of truth in the moment and the magic of consciously creating all that will be.

The stillness of frost holds moments of insight as we allow it to slow us to the pace of the cold. We are blessed with our eyes open to the ways of nature.

As ever, the land shows us the way.

❄️

An email will be going out to my mailing list later on, to receive it see 🔗 or DM me your email address and I’ll add you.

This is the perfect time to dive into deeper awareness. I have two courses which will sit beside you as you bide the long darkness. Rewilding the Self is my foundational course in Nature Connection, it is free to access.

Mugwort - Moon Matriarch is the perfect companion for the dark half of the year, it is designed around twelve immersive journeys in which you will meet and develop a relationship with the spirit of Mugwort, a guide for those seeking to open their inner eyes, realise their unique sovereign gifts, and offer their gifts out to the world in service to Nature.

Links to all offerings and links where the links should be.

My Instagram account is now approaching 30k followers. I’m not really sure what to do with that information, it’s heartening that so many of you are here and connect with my words.

Brightest blessings from the hedgerows,

Bernadette x

26/11/2025

I will write like a wild mad woman, because my very humanity depends upon it. So I do. I will. And so must we all. The now ubiquitous use of AI in writing makes everything s**t. It makes everything sanitised and soulless and predictable and pathetic. So I will tag worlds and words together like a weird overconfident language magpie. I will misspell and create new words on purpose, and use punctuation as if it is my own personal means of expression. To reclaim language we need to use it in the ways the machine cannot grasp. Our own words are better, always.

18/11/2025

The dark and resonant Holly holds some fascinating folklore, and the shiny-spiky leaves are both medicinal and infused with protective magic.

Holly (Ilex) is said by some to make the finest wands, imbued as they are with protective power, gifts of divination, spirit travel, and the ability to channel truth.

In medieval times vast Holly forests stood upon these lands. I imagine the dark and dense thickets, rich with Holly’s deep humming songs of friendship and protection. Holly always sings to me of safety, and to be wrapped in the cocoon of her branches is a place of peace and quietude, a haven in which to be held by her dark and ancient strength.

It is said that holly wards against lightning, her branches a talisman against storms of both sky and spirit.

Placed above doorways and windows, the spiny leaves can keep malevolent forces from crossing the threshold into your home.

And in death, holly guards the departed, with trees planted in graveyards to stand vigil and thorns protecting the souls of the dead.

Her medicine is of calming inflammation, the leaves used externally as a poultice or infusion, or brewed into a delicious tea to ease digestive complaints and relieve constipation or bloating.

Her mildly diaphoretic properties encourage sweating and aid in temperature regulation during fevers, and she can also ease coughs and sore throats.

The berries of holly are an important source of food for birds in the winter, but are toxic for humans, causing nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea.

🕸️

Foraging walks are all done for 2025 now, but if you’d like to join me in 2026 or get on my mailing list and I’ll keep you updated, link in bio.

If you’d like to spend the dark months wrapped in the magic of nature, I have two courses which will sit beside you as you bide the long darkness.

Rewilding the Self is my foundational course in Nature Connection, it is free to access. Mugwort - Moon Matriarch is for those wishing to go a little deeper during the dark half of the year, it is designed around twelve immersive journeys in which you will meet and develop a relationship with the spirit of Mugwort.

The apothecary is, as always, fully stocked.

08/11/2025

When we de-centre the anthropocene and its false hierarchies from our discourse on freedom, change, and transformation, we find that the true voices of equality rise to the surface, wash over the land, and restore the proper order of things.

Now is the perfect time to explore these concepts, as the dark months envelop our senses and we prepare ourselves for the descent.

I have two courses which will sit beside you as you bide the long darkness. Rewilding the Self is my foundational course in Nature Connection, it is free to access and contains many practices to help you drop into deeper resonance.

Mugwort - Moon Matriarch is for those wishing to go a little deeper during the dark half of the year, it is designed around twelve immersive journeys in which you will meet and develop a relationship with the spirit of Mugwort, a guide for those seeking to open their inner eyes, realise their unique sovereign gifts, and then offer those gifts out to the world in service to Nature, as Nature.

Blessings from the hedgerows.

05/11/2025

The focus of this time is of alignment with the life force energies as they swirl between sun and Earth, leaves and soil, feathers and fire.

It is a time of allowing the liminal in to change us, resonate with us, and prepare us for the long sleep of winter.

Gather your nuts now, there is much preparation to be done.

The spirits who preside over the dark half of the year will guide us.

The land holds the wisdom of the cycles.

As ever, the land shows us the way.

This is the perfect time to dive into deeper awareness. I have two courses which will sit beside you as you bide the long darkness. Rewilding the Self is my foundational course in Nature Connection, it is free to access.

Mugwort - Moon Matriarch is the perfect companion for the dark half of the year, it is designed around twelve immersive journeys in which you will meet and develop a relationship with the spirit of Mugwort, a guide for those seeking to open their inner eyes, realise their unique sovereign gifts, and offer their gifts out to the world in service to Nature. The Samhain offer of 25% off extends to this immersive and illuminating course.

The Samhain offering ends at midnight tonight, November 5th. Enter SAMHAIN to access. Links to all offerings where the links should be.

Wild Folk Apothecary

11/12/2025

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30/11/2025

29/11/2025

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