Your July 2026 Love Letter from Ardent Apothecary
What are we rebuilding and dreaming of?
t's been awhile since I sent a love letter to you. I've been busy attempting to write love letters to myself as waves of grief surface and move through. How many of us take the time we need to process grief that seems to come from all directions these days? How many of us can afford to stop and take that time?
One of the many reasons I chose to pursue craniosacral therapy as my main modality was that it allows us time to connect to our nervous systems, to take a "magical nap" as one colleague put it, and let a trusted professional tune in to our body and help support the inherent wisdom we each hold. As more of us have unexplainable auto-immune disorders, as more young people get cancer, as we withdraw into our solo bubbles to attempt to heal what I see are collective wounds, do we produce more of the same?
How can I, a person in grief, still connect to my friends, my family, and my neighbors to offer and receive support? How can we take tiny steps towards each other when we feel like shit, when we don't have the energy to feed ourselves, or make the house clean enough for "company," when childcare falls through, when we have chores to do but also need a hug, or someone to cry with, or want to hold a baby. Can we ask for help, change that stinky diaper, do a friend's load of dishes, or make their aging parents a pot of soup as well?
What I'm asking is, since our village structure is broken and we emerged from a pandemic into a recession during multiple genocides under an increasingly fascist government, what are we rebuilding and dreaming of?
I don't have answers today. I am very much in the dark tunnel that I hope is a birth canal. I'm simply recognizing a collective hunger for more of that connection and support, but many don't have the tools, energy or direction to create something long lasting.
I had the privilege to grow up in an intentional interracial housing cooperative in the lands of the Peoria, Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, Kaskaski, Kickapoo, Myaamia, and Očhéthi Šakówin, built in part by my mother's parents. I lived in a village. Many people I encounter don't know what that feels like. Maybe they've gotten a taste of it at a festival, or encampment, or week long gathering or retreat. It's certainly still alive in many parts of the world, and small towns across Turtle Island. Some part of us knows it can be created or revived and we feel it's loss. So I'm meditating with that loss right now. No answers, just observing the grief.
One of my practices in hard times is to gently, reverently observe my blessings. This brings me to the joy right now. I was able to rent a space in the Common Ground Wellness Cooperative Saturday and Sunday mornings! It's a light comfortable room with good energy. Here's a link to book a session. For extra lush self-care why not do a bodywork sandwich and soak 30 min before and after... yum!
I still offer care Wednesdays at my beautiful NE Portland clinic space and am beginning to do group drop in 5NP auricular acupuncture treatments for PTSD, stress and addiction Wednesdays 12:30-1:30! So if you and your besties want to chill out for an hr during your work day you can book that here! These are super affordable sessions and I can accommodate 6-8 people in the hour. I recommend you book once a week for a month to witness the cumulative effects. Sliding scale $5-20/person This treatment has helped my life in so many ways and is in lineage with the inspiring revolutionary community health care seeded in the South Bronx by the Black Panthers and Puerto Rican Young Lords. I've been trained in the 5NP since 2009, and am happy to be able to finally give this out more freely to community after my recertification and legalization by the Oregon Medical Board this year! If you and your 6 buddies want a fully masked session feel free to DM and we can book something!
Air purifier is always on in my spaces. Feel free to wear a mask if you like.
Gratitude to those of you who have contributed to the BIMPoC and low income scholarship fund by paying at the top of the sliding scale, I was able to offer a few discounted sessions this year as well as my first house call to a disabled client! Thank you so much. Please pass the word along to folks who might want to donate or get on a waiting list for care.
Reminder that I am still offering 2 free practice sessions per person as I work on learning new skills of myofascial therapy.
Lastly, coming very soon to the store is my stone & elemental essence called "the joining." It's a great one for those of us that have a difficult time feeling a sense of belonging in this world. For those of us in diaspora, in mixed culture families, in longing for wholeness while feeling in-between, this essence helps to join the parts of our being that feel separate and allow us to see ourselves as whole beautiful beings intricately and intentionally linked to the earth and to each other. Keep an eye on my online shop for that one.
Please be gentle with yourself this week. Hope to see you soon. To sign up for these newsletters in your inbox click here!
Your April 2026 Love Letter from Ardent Apothecary
Take Seriously Your Joy
In thinking what to write today, I meditate on how "behind" I feel. This message was "supposed" to go out this morning. But grace is part of my practice these days, for myself, for community dealing with so many compounding traumas, and for systems in place that are not robust enough to withstand the tests of today's off-kilter world.
Each year Spring can feel like we are running to grab someone's coattails, and in these times where every small thing is tied to a larger thing, we are all a little blustery and scattered, like the blossoms whizzing through the air and blanketing our streets in raucous colors. The news from the homelands is moving and changing so fast we have no time to grieve one loss before another compiles on top of it with no end in sight. Our nervous systems are on high alert, our responses sharpened or numbed out.
Dangling coyly out of my window, Red Flowering Currant announces her majestic arrival over weeks--months even. Each showy fuchsia cluster of blooms unfurls slowly in an organized array of bodacious joyful flirty energy. She shares so many messages as I open myself to her wisdom while her essence dissolves on my tongue during weekly meditation. At night she blooms outside my window guarding my dreams. She brings all the bees (and hummingbirds) to the yard and smells like honey. While her blossoms are easily photographed, her largess is difficult to capture accurately, and so teaches me that a little bit of mystery is strategic in this technological era.
I only make an essence when the plant has been calling me in, chatting me up. I planted this Currant 6 or 7 years ago and this was the first year it occurred to me to work with her in flower essence form. I like to begin a relationship without doing a bunch of prior research. It's kind of like hearing gossip about a person and then when you meet them it's hard not to hear the echoes of those stories coloring your interactions. Does that make sense? So I sat with her for several weeks before doing any online research.
Today she shared two messages, "unconditional love is the answer" and "get your house in order." Last week she shared "take seriously your joy" and "play is important!" What medicine to hear!! Who doesn't want a little structure and permission to play and a reminder to love unconditionally? Thank you Red Flowering Currant! Also that name is a mouthful! Who knows another, maybe more original name for this beauty?
When I researched other practitioners' stories with this plantcestor, resonant tales echoed of her ability to unearth, acknowledge and release fear to make space for joy and confidence. How cool is that?? How many of us continue to struggle with fear based decision making, or rather indecision making? I wouldn't have specifically pinpointed this quality in her, but oddly (or not...the more you keep working with plants) fear has been an emotion I've experienced an abundance of these first months of the year. Fear, anxiety and grief presented strongly enough that I had some serious health issues arise in February and March. I'm feeling way better now thanks to my amazing Chinese Medicine doctor (shout out Melinda Iglesias Wheeler!) and I'm so interested to now learn that Red Flowering Currant was supporting me even before I knew some of the details and specifics of her medicine! What a gift.
I'm hoping to bottle up some of this beauty for you in the coming weeks and she will be my first offering on the website! I'm curious if anyone would be interested in some online or in person plantcestor meditations with seasonal plant offerings? I've been doing it informally with my dear friend Melanie of Waterleaf Farm, but would be happy to formalize some classes if there was some desire from community to do so!
Thanks for reading my April love letter. Feel free to share my work with someone who might need it. My books are open for April, May and June. April 20-21st are pay what you can appointments so don't hesitate to get some care!
It is an honor to offer care in these times and I hope you make your health, the health of your community and the earth a priority this year.
To book a session click here 🩷 Don't forget to take advantage of the gift certificates and deals!
If you would like to donate to a pay it forward account so I can continue to offer BIMPoC and other marginalized groups low/no cost sessions feel free to make a donation via Venmo @Sarah-Farahat!
In Solidarity-
Sarah
And don't forget..."Take Seriously Your Joy!"
"The future enters into us...long before it happens"
Your March 2026 Love Letter from Ardent Apothecary
I was listening to a podcast episode a friend shared called "How to Fall in Love with the Future," and the person being interviewed, Rob Hopkins, shared a quote by Rainer Maria Rilke, "The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens." I was overcome with chills.
We are in this time of Spring now with the daphne and daffodills and cherry blossoms. But maybe we are also always in Spring, always planting consciously or unconsciously. When will those seeds sprout, if ever? What will have the space or time to blossom? To me, this is one of the great mysteries of life.
As I was contemplating what my March love letter might entail, how to talk about my journey towards this work and towards each body, each person I work with in my practice, I kept going back to the land, to the tree- THE tree.
You see, I have the opportunity to practice craniosacral therapy & energy work here in my neighborhood. I've had the privilege to live in the area for twenty years, fifteen of which have been down the street from my practice space. One of the first neighbors I met when moving into my house was a giant grandma Sequoia. I used to say hello to the tree on my daily walks through the neighborhood and her energy reminded me to be patient and grounded.
Five years ago she was mysteriously poisoned. Five deep wide holes drilled into her trunk. Yet she continued to fight even as her leaves turned brown and shed. She was fighting the poison and winning. By the following year she still had many green branches despite the poison drilled deep into her trunk. However the city deemed the tree to be dangerous and cut her down.
The sounds of her trunk falling shook my house, blocks away. I felt ashamed that I couldn't bring myself to be there as a witness. I closed all my windows and put on loud music to shut out the sounds of the chainsaws while I wept. No one really talks about the sky space trees inhabit. I look into this yard and there is a massive uncomfortable hole in the urban canopy.
How many creatures were displaced by the tree being cut down? How many birds used her branches to survey the land? How many squirrels jumped from roof, to tree, to roof? But just as not many talk about the sky part of trees, the below is also a mystery to us. If that tree was 100 years old and 80 feet tall, the roots must travel far and wide.
I realized that while the hole in the yard left by the ghost of the tree pains me, in fact when I root my feet down, connecting to the earth energy during my craniosacral sessions, I am able to connect to the roots of that same tree, to the mycelial networks created by the root tendrils rotting and becoming earth! What more beautiful way is there to connect with an ancestor who taught me so much?
I am so grateful for this location, for this opportunity to talk with the other-than-human world as well as with your body on the table. What a gift to have the privilege to respond to this calling. I look forward to the conversations we have together in practice together.
May the time we take to look inward and plant our seeds intentionally help us grow our capacity to show up for ourselves and our communities in these difficult times, standing together like grandma sequoias, protecting our neighborhoods far beneath our feet and way above our heads.
As always, once I write something I inevitably find other resonances as well. Here's a beautiful new poem by adrienne marie brown titled "a comrade spell for trees."
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Street Action Aftercare- Your February 2026 Love Letter from Ardent Apothecary
Well, sometimes you start out to try to do one thing and the ancestors and plantcestors tell you differently.
I started out trying to tell the story of a special tree but recent events made me change course. For all the tree lovers out there, don't worry! I will be writing that love letter for her/us in March.
Yet today I am moved in so many ways by all of the folks in the streets and for those of us who have lived long enough, the echoes of past moments ring through our bodies. I'm reminded of Palestinian protestors teaching folks in Ferguson about onions soaked in vinegar to combat the effects of tear gas, or artist Cannupa Hanska Lugar's mirror shields at Standing Rock which came from Ukranian and South American protest tactics. In these moments I remember all the ways that our struggles are interconnected and that we can and should learn from one another.
So a few tips and tricks I've learned from my teachers in sovereign spaces and the plants...this is not meant to be at all a comprehensive herbal guide for the resistance, those are local and specific-and have been done so well by the SWANA Ancestral Hub and other groups. But I know we are here for a long time, so let's also make it a good time and care for each others bodies along the way.
First off always listen to the wisdom of your body. You have clear yeses and no's. Your doctors can support knowing contraindications as well if you have medications. But I purposely chose these wise elders because they are strong and a bit gentle. The qualities I know of these plants are not the only ways they express themselves or are supportive. Just like people, plants are dynamic and responsive to the environments in which they grew.
1) Milk Thistle can help clear toxins out of your body. Chew them regularly!
2) Milky Oats helps sooth frazzled nerves. Steep a tea, or use a tincture for a wider range of components.
3) Roses are so supportive to our nervous system. Steep in tea, add honey, put in the bathtub, or make a rose jam like my Baba does.
4) Rose quartz has an affinity for the heart. Place on your heart or wherever needs soothing. Keep a little in your pocket when you are going into spaces where you need to feel supported.
5) Red Cedar fronds make an excellent tea to sip on, or cool the tea and soak a washcloth for use on skin for red, irritated, swollen or itchy conditions. Cedar generously drops fronds during wind storms so no need to break their branches! (Test on a patch of skin first to see how your body responds.)
6) Calendula is pure sunshine and soft support. Great tea, use as above for red irritated skin.
7) Marshmallow Root supports your throat and great for overused or irritated vocal chords in tea form.
8) Mullein tea supports and cools a hot dry lung or persistent cough. Can be used in conjunction with Marshmallow root.
Again, listen to your body and don't forget to reach for your local or ancestral plants and kitchen medicines in these times.
(Not shown, but not forgotten: onion broths for persistent coughs, yarrow leaves to stop a bleed or heal bruising, lavender tea for wound care and nervous system support, and so many more!)
*If you are harvesting, please make sure you harvest with permission and respect for the land and plants. Harvest from locations that are not sprayed with chemicals. If you need to buy plants, please support your local apothecaries, herbalists and herb shops! They have much wisdom and abundance.
Many of us are living on stolen lands so when possible ask permission from your local Tribal councils to harvest-especially in large quantities. Find ways to give back to your local lands and peoples through Indigenous habitat & cultural restoration/sovereignty projects.
Thank you for reading. It is an honor to offer care in these times and I hope you make your health, the health of your community and the earth a priority this year.
To book a session click here 🩷 Don't forget to take advantage of the gift certificates and deals!
In honor of Black History Month I have 50% off all sessions for Black folks in February! Appointment must be booked in February but can be redeemed in March (cuz why is February so short???)
If you would like to donate to a pay it forward account so I can continue to offer BIMPoC and other marginalized groups low/no cost sessions feel free to make a donation!
In Solidarity-
Sarah