are you dreading allergy season?
Me lovingly caressing Nettle, the plant that changed my life and drew me to herbalism
I used to be disgusting.
I would sit in classes throughout high school and college, rationing out my tissues and mentally calculating how often I could blow my nose without being interruptive.
I was mucusy, congested, and gross. Above all, I was embarrassed.
I've had indoor allergies since I was very young. I was allergic to dust & mold, along with artificial fragrances, and, eventually cats. These things are everywhere. So I was sneezy everywhere.
Blowing my nose all the time in a quiet classroom was humiliating. Not being able to wear contacts because my eyes were painfully goopy was inconvenient. Sneezing because someone near me was wearing harsh, strong perfume (and then being glared at by the perfume-wearer) infuriated me -- how dare someone take up so much olfactory space with their awful chemicals?!
This was my reality until the fall of 2010.
That summer, I had done my first internship on a veggie farm. A fellow farmer taught me how to respectfully harvest nettle, how to dry it, and how to drink it to help prevent menstrual cramps. I enthusiastically followed her instructions and, when I returned to school that fall, began drinking nettle tea in the days leading up to my period.
Two months into occasional nettle infusions, I realized something amazing: on the days I drank nettle tea, I didn't blow my nose at all. At all!
If you're at home enjoying a non-nose-blowing life, it might be hard to realize the magnitude of the quality-of-life change that occurs when a less-than-socially-confident twenty year old is no longer snottily snuffling into a tissue while the 12-person Social Theory class discusses The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism while giving the snuffler the side-eye. My public snuffling humiliation plummeted, and my mucous membrane freedom soared.
My life was changed.
I began drinking nettle tea every day, obviously, and began scouring thrift stores & natural food stores for herbal books, and then reading those herbal books when I definitely should have been reading Max Weber. I obsessively educated myself about nettle, and began evangelizing nettle to anyone who would listen.
I think you know the rest of the story. Nettle infiltrated my consciousness with the call to herbalism, and -- after a few twists and turns -- I stand before you as a clinical and magical herbalist, someone who works with herbs as medicine and as magic, and who hasn't stopped spreading the good news of plant potency since I put my tissues away.
Listen, friend, allergies are important to me.
Allergies won't kill you. (not this kind, anyway.) But they make your life miserable. And that matters.
It matters if you dread going outside in the springtime because your face explodes at the suggestion of pollen.
It matters if you live in a house with a cat that you love... but you're miserable in your own home because you're allergic to the cat.
It matters if you have to plan social outings around allergy meds and tissue access and blowing your nose. This is especially compounded by the fear that people will think you have COVID if you so much as sniffle.
Allergies affect how much you enjoy your life. And that matters.
Because I've had such incredible success with treating my own allergies, because I feel personally offended that some folks experience discomfort simply from stepping out in fresh springtime air, and because I've developed a more sophisticated herbal regimen since my early days with nettle I've developed an allergy program to help you have the easiest allergy season of your life.
We begin on March 22nd. You can find all the details here. I'll just say two things:
1) This is the time to get ready. Once the flowers bloom, it's too late.
2) Pollen counts are getting higher due to climate change. If you already suffer, it's just gonna get worse.
If you've got allergies, read on below. If not, I hope you enjoyed hearing about my adolescent mucus experiences.
with a deep, clear breath of fresh air,
Amanda