Morning Rituals by Chelsea Connor

Morning Rituals: Starting the Day With A Tonic

By: Chelsea Connor @houseofnourishment

This week I am beginning my introduction to other magic makers in my circle. I want to shed light on the rituals and folks that have helped and inspired me. This week is written by the lovely Chelsea Connor of @houseofnourishment. I have known Chelsea since we were in high school in Huntington Beach, CA. Fast forward and a lot has changed in both of our lives with a big one being that we both moved to Northern California. I live on the coast and she lives inland, but our paths have crossed again because we are interested in a lot of the same ideals and lifestyle! Chelsea is a kind, smart, and YES kind of person and I am so honored to know her and have her sharing on my blog. I’m so excited for you to read what she has share. Please leave a comment below to let us know what you think and share this with someone you love!

I have linked her instagram above so you can continue to learn and grow with her! Grab some tea and enjoy… -Jess

By Chelsea Connor.

Something I’ve found to be foundational in my well-being is the addition of a morning ritual.

I wholeheartedly believe that in order for us each to show up in the world, we must first show up for ourselves. It can be so easy to rush out the door each morning without giving ourselves the peace & quiet we need before taking on the day. Whether your morning ritual is five minutes long or two hours, I hope it’s exactly what fills you up.

One part of my morning ritual that has nourished me in the most ways is creating and drinking a warm tonic. A tonic is simply something that is prepared with the intention to increase one’s well-being. As a way to cure the craving for a creamy, cozy latte, I began crafting tonics without integrating the usual coffee to fuel my morning energy. Almost instantly, tonics induced a shift in my anxiety, energy, mood and overall feeling of nourishment. Through creativity, I put together a variety of formulas that rejuvenated me in ways I’d never experienced. Not only is the taste lovely but the velvety potion knows just how to prepare us for whatever kind of day lies ahead. 

By Chelsea Connor.

Tonic Structure

Building a tonic that is unique to you is supreme. While I often share my own tonic recipes, I find that the best way to experience a tonic is to explore the ingredients that you crave & that nourish you, specifically. This can be as simple or complex as you desire. The magic of a tonic is in the moment of pure bliss as you sip & savor all of the flavors your body hopes for. Tonics serve as a gentle means to nourish both to your body & soul. 

As a good rule of thumb or for those who seek more of a roadmap to get them started, there are 4 main components of a delicious tonic. These consist of: a base, good fats, flavor & herbal or plant allies.

A base will be any liquid that will create the foundation for your tonic. This may be warm/cold water, tea, or coffee depending on what you desire.

Good fats are any sources of richness that you may want to add to increase your tonic’s creaminess while supporting your blood sugar balance. I love to use full fat coconut milk, coconut butter, almond butter, ghee, grass fed butter or any other smooth and delicious fat source I have on hand. The selection(s) you make & the quantity you use are completely up to you.

Next, you may enjoy adding flavor or seasonings to intensify your creation. These may be cinnamon, ginger, sea salt, turmeric, vanilla, or, if you enjoy some bitterness, cacao. A combination of many of these or just one alone, with the other three elements, will yield a beautiful drink.

The final step in putting your tonic together is choosing any herbal or plant allies you wish to include. This step is the only one that is especially optional and only necessary if you feel one of your favorite plant medicines may provide a needed boost your day. This may be as simple as adding a few rose petals to the top of your tonic or as complex as you’d like it to be. I commonly find myself reaching for one to three adaptogens and/or medicinal mushroom extracts as a way of supporting brain function, stress responses and immunity. Feel free to get curious and creative by trying new herbs that you feel drawn to. 

With these 4 buildings blocks, you’ll surely find your rhythm. Listen to your intuition and craft whatever it is your body is asking for. 

By Chelsea Connor.

Cacao Tonic

A tonic that I have come to know & consume every morning is one made of cacao. Cacao is a plant ally, a good fat, & a decadent flavor addition, making it exceptionally nourishing amongst the many nutritional benefits it also contains. 

Cacao is a fruit which grows on the Theobroma cacao tree in many tropical lands. The literal translation of its name and it’s historic legacy refers to it as  “food of the gods” due to its deep flavor and invigorating effects on the spirit. Cacao is rich in magnesium, zinc, iron, antioxidants, polyphenols, theobromine and anandamide, the body’s own “bliss” molecule. The synergy between theobromine, anandamide and a touch of caffeine inspires a mild stimulating sensation. Some refer to this feeling as “heart opening” and pure love from the spirit of cacao.

In my own experience, I’ve found cacao to embody the bitterness that I’ve loved in coffee while providing rich, sweet, and fruity notes that add to its deliciousness. I enjoy a cacao tonic each morning made with fair trade, organic and pure cacao, known as ceremonial cacao, grown with care by small farms in Peru. What once would have been recognized as hot chocolate in my younger years, now serves my well-being, and hopefully yours, daily. 

By Chelsea Connor.

MORNING BLISS CACAO TONIC

Ingredients

1 cup hot water

¼ cup full fat coconut milk or any other nut milk

3-5 Tablespoons ceremonial cacao or 1 tablespoon raw cacao powder

¼ teaspoon of lion’s mane mushroom extract or any other plant/herbal ally you’d like

A dash of cinnamon & sea salt

Sweeten to taste with stevia, maple, or local honey 

Method

1. Blend all ingredients together in a blender until thoroughly combined & lightly frothy.

2. Pour into your favorite mug & find a quiet place to sit.

3. Take a deep inhale focusing on your intention(s) for the day, slowly exhale through the mouth & enjoy each nourishing sip of your tonic. ♥

By Chelsea Connor.

Thank you Chels! @houseofnourishment

Thank you for your time, leave some love in the comment section below! -Jess

The Art of Nourishment

A big part of my soul speaks through cooking.

Cooking inspires me to my core, I lose track of time and become totally enveloped in the balancing of flavors. Sweet, salty, sour, savory, creamy, spicy. These things light me up! If you know me, you know I dream of cooking you a homemade meal. Whether its a bowl of curry, veggie tacos, kale chips you’ll love or just an epic sauce full of flavor. Honestly, sauces and dressings bring me utter joy!

That being said I’d love to share one of my favorite recipes with you:

Chipotle Cashew Cheez

This sauce goes on about everything in our home. When I make it more as a thin sauce I drizzle it over roasted veggie tacos, when it’s more of a paste I use it as a pizza sauce base (and add a little extra tomato sauce). If I’m in a pinch for time I eat it on carrot/celery sticks as a snack that fills me up and gives me energy! But the sky is the limit here, and trust me, once you make it you’ll want to eat it on everything.

Cooking is about tapping into your intuition and making it taste good to YOU, sample throughout the process, and add more or less of something. This should be fun, play!

Ingredients:

about 1.5 cups of cashews soaked with hot water for at least 15-20 minutes.

a couple Tablespoons of olive oil

juice of 1/2 a lemon

dash of salt

dash of peppa

1/4 TSP to as many teaspoons of chipotle powder as you’d like (however hot you want it!)

1 teaspoon of smoked paprika

1-2 garlic cloves

2-4 tablespoons of nutritional yeast (depending on how much you love this stuff)

Directions:

Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend on high until creaminess is desired. Add more or less liquids (water, lemon juice, acv) for consistency of you dreams. Taste test, and see what it needs more of!

Store in fridge for about a week (although I don’t think it will last that long if you’re like us!)

Other ideas for additions:

dash of apple cider vinegar if you need more tang

sun dried tomatoes

tomato sauce (for pizza/pasta sauce, this makes sort of a vegan vodka sauce!)

Some of my other homemade staples in the fridge:

kimchi

salsa

nut mylk

energy balls

cilantro pesto

chimichurri

carrot/cabbage slaw

Comment below if this intrigues you and

you’d like me to share more recipes!

The Magic of Sweet Chamomile

This is the start to a series where I will be going in depth about some of the medicinal herbs that I grow on our farm and use in my products. A sort of spotlight onto a single herb and how/why I use it in each of my products.

I am beginning with German Chamomile (matricaria recutita), a sweet and gentle herbal ally to get to know on a intimate level.

Chamomile is quite easy and lovely to grow in your home garden. Give it summer sun, a light to medium amount of water, and pick from it weekly to obtain blooms all summer long. I recommend planting it in soil in the springtime and keeping the soil moist to germinate. If where you live experiences nice spring rains then you’ll be taken care of. A way to ensure you will have chamomile is to sow the seeds in trays and raise starts to then transplant out into the garden. Here is a great link on seed starting. The great thing about chamomile is that it seeds itself for next year, as long as you let it hang around late summer, go to seed, and drop its seeds in the soil. My favorite place to get seeds is at www.strictlymedicinalseeds.com.

Chamomile has been used for generations and generations to aid folks in stressful situations.

It has a gentle yet effective affect on the nervous system, immune system and digestive system. It is safe to use on children, adults, and even babies through breastmilk. Try taking it or administering it during highly stressful, anxious, or frustrating times. It is helpful if experiencing children’s colic, stomach disorders, uneasy digestion, infections. Any discomfort within digestion can be aided by a cup of chamomile tea or tincture. It is like a deep breath, there for you to call upon when you need. I created a chamomile oxymel so that this medicine can be shared with folks of all ages. An oxymel is an alcohol-free tincture made of herb, organic apple cider vinegar, and local honey. It tastes delicious and sweet, with a hint of tangy!

All of our body & systems benefit from touch. It stimulates the lymph to flow healthily which aids in detoxification, calms the nerves, increases circulation, among so so many other things.

When administering it topically, try it in a massage oil form. After a shower when your pores are cleansed and open massage onto your temples, feet, or whole body! Take the time to massage yourself or ask a loved one to nourish you, this ritual is the perfect nightcap. I am a firm believer in whole plant infusions. This means that I collect the plant at peak potency, finely chop the material, and infuse it into the carrier oil for 2-4 months (time dependent on plant). Because the entire plant is infused into the oil, the components are able to truly awaken and seep into the carrier oil. No part is missing or being stripped out; it is a slow method that creates a high quality product that is essentially better for the environment. Essential oils, use a LOT of plant material to create each little bottle. For example, it takes roughly 63 lbs of lemon balm to make 15 mL of Essential Oils. I choose to infuse the plant material into organic sunflower oil because while it is a nice and light oil, it is deeply nourishing and warming so that any type of skin is able to soak it in. Also, It carries more Vitamin E than any other vegetable oil. Lastly, growing oil sunflowers has the lowest environmental impact of large scale vegetable oils because the flowers depend on the least amount of water, have the lowest carbon footprint, can be planted in poor soil, and are GMO free. 

Water as Medicine. Hydrosol; hydro meaning water, sol meaning solution.

Why do hydrosols work? Because we quite literally are water and our body is able to recognize hydrosols immediately when it comes into contact with our skin. We can hydrate, tone, cleanse our skin. While also tapping into the aroma therapeutic properties to uplift, clear, and stabilize our mood.

What is a Hydrosol?

In the most basic sense a hydrosol is a distilled plant or flower water. I use my copper still to create steam that flows upwards through whichever plant I am distilling. The water vapors rise and spiral back down through the condenser to cool and form back into liquid. The steam naturally extracts water-soluble components, essential oil molecules and the magic of the fresh plant. In each bottle, you may see little dots of oils, those are the essential oils. 

How do you use a Hydrosol?

In short, all the ways! The list is quite endless. My favorite way is as a face toner and hydrator. They are wonderful in foot baths, compresses, clay masks, cream/lotion making, eye pads, drinking water, etc. They can be used for depression, anxiety, burns, scrapes, headaches, sinus congestion, eczema, acne, sensitive skin, etc.  

Chamomile Hydrosol helps to soothe muscle spasms, relieves pain, calms the nervous system, and acts as an anti-inflammatory.

“Pharmacological and clinical studies confirm what herbalists have long known: The common wayside plant known as chamomile is a very important medication for the nervous system. One of chamomile’s major constituents is azulene, a beautiful, azure blue, volatile oil obtained by steam distillation. Azulene contains whole complex active principles that serve as anti-inflammatory and antipyretic agents.” pg. 321 in Rosemary Gladstar’s Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health. Above is a beautiful example of the azulene that german chamomile carries within its little magical blooms.

Gently detoxify and soothe your skin. I specifically chose white clay for its ability to cleanse but in a sweet & subtle way. All of the flowers in this blend are wonderful allies to the skin. Roses are great at toning all skin types and are mildly astringent, helping to pull bacteria and dirt from pores. Calendula is a potent bloom known to promote cell repair and growth. While also being anti-septic, anti-inflammatory, helps treat skin infections, rashes, sores, bruises, and burns. German Chamomile is anti-inflammatory, anti-septic, calming, and helps ease soreness.

Thank you for your time and interest, please comment below with any questions!

Stay Well this Winter.

Fire Cider

A lot of folks tend to catch a cold this season, so I wanted to share a basic guideline for making an age-old tradition called fire cider. It is simple to create and a great thing to do with people you love. It is a creation that will keep you, your family, and your friends fighting off any winter colds by using a preventative measure. I love to use it as the base of my salad dressing, or to just take it more traditionally as a daily shot.

You can pack it with any goodies you like, let your intuition guide you and have fun!

My tip is to think of all of the foods and herbs you go to when you are sick…

Take any/all of the ingredients below in whatever proportion feels right to you (I usually make a 1/2 gallons worth so I can share):

onion

garlic

horseradish

citrus of any kind: leave the peel on for bitter qualities that help with digestion or take the peel off if you want just the citrus flavor/benefits : lemon, orange, grapefruit, etc.

fresh turmeric root

fresh ginger root

rosemary

burdock root

ashwagandha root

dandelion root

cayenne pepper or any hot pepper

black pepper

apple cider vinegar

mason jar of any size you please

lid

parchment paper (so that if you are using a metal lid, it does not corrode from the acv)

bottles

labels

• finely chop, grate using a cheese grater, or food processor all of your ingredients

• fill the mason jar with ingredients & cover with organic apple cider vinegar by about 2 inches

• cover with parchment paper / plastic lid / anything to keep flies out

• store in cool, dark place for 4-6 weeks

• strain vinegar & compost the ingredients

• add as much honey as you’d like to the vinegar solution until it tastes delicious

• bottle label & share with your friends & family!

When you feel the onset of a cold, take fire cider every hour all day long. Or, take a shot everyday to prevent the onset from happening!

If you feel inclined towards more inspiration; google Rosemary Gladstar Fire Cider to learn more!

Cheers to your health, and making medicine with your loves.

1.8.18 Welcome to Root, Rise.

As the season shifts and I find myself more inclined to be inside cozied up to the fire, I decided it was time to begin sharing with you the creations I've been working on. A dream come to fruition. Last year was my first year realizing I would like to hone in on growing medicinal herbs and creating products from what I grew. Sitting here in January 2018, I am really feeling called to concentrate my growing efforts fully to medicinals. We will see what this year holds, I am so excitedly thumbing through the seed catalogues, and am inspired by the many dreams running through my mind and heart.

Root, Rise. is a labor of love dedicated to bring about awareness to self care rituals, herbal alchemy, and all of the magic that lives in between. I began practicing herbalism once I took a course with Jane Bothwell of the Dandelion Herbalism Center. As she taught us the ins and outs of her experience within herbalism, I finally felt that I was in a class that rang true, that felt like home. Everything in me lit up, a remembrance. Because if each one of us were to go back in our ancestry, we would realize that "herbalism" was not long ago a knowledge woven into everyday life, practiced by our family members. That different "weeds" and "foods" helped with this or that. Once I took this course I couldn't stop thinking about herbs and their properties. I started teaching myself by reading books that had been recommended to me, attending workshops, daydreaming, playfully making products for myself and loved ones. 

I feel strongly about bringing you the most potent and powerful product. The plants are with me every step of the way, through each season. Waxing and waning, growing and creating. The symbiotic relationship I find myself in nourishes and nurtures not only me, but the ecosystem and environment that surrounds me. I grow medicinal plants to reclaim my wildness, my truth. And in turn create potions and products that are imbibed with the true essence of magic. 

In my products you can truly taste, feel, or smell the freshness. Each one transports you right back to the actual plant. 

With very few ingredients the plant is able to come through strongly and clearly.

Thank you for joining me on this journey, I am so grateful you are here!