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Between the covers of this book, you will discover a blend of plant wisdom and a love of astrology blended in a cauldron of storytelling and poetry. Not merely an herbal compendium, not only historic storytelling and a weaving of ancestor history, The Weaving: Plants, Planets and People follows the path of herbal medicine from roots in the Earth to planets in the Sky. Abrah Arneson brews up magic on each page.
Find the seam between modern science’s exploration of the Pineal Gland, and the Moon’s secret light. Follow Cerridwen as she discovers the grace of Venus as Vervain grants her heartfelt wish. Descend with Inanna into the Underworld and be healed by Violets’ softness. Journey through the Renaissance under the influence of Mars to learn why women carried swaths of clothe woven with Nettle stalks.
The Weaving asks you to think about your Grandmothers, where you came from and who you wish to become.
The Weaving will deepen your understanding of:
- The journey of the Great Round, the life, death, rebirth cycles of life as experienced by the pagan traditions of Europe
- A non-traditional history of herbal medicine from the perspective of “The People’s Medicine”
- Astrology as a language used to describe not only a plant’s medicine but significant cultural events that have informed herbal medicine today.
- What it means to decolonize your mind.
- The medicine found in stories once told to weave one into the great web of life.
The Weaving is the essence of imaginative storytelling sprinkled with clinical experiences using science and herbal medicine all simmered in planetary vibrations for a rich reading blend that comforts as it stimulates.
Click here to get your copy of The Weaving: Plants, Planets and People.
Reviews of The Weaving: Plants, Planets and People
“What a fresh, new perspective for an herbalist like myself to come across. A chance to view my beloved plants in a new light, through stories, strong female voices, traditional uses and experiences. I was held under Abrah’s rapt spell, quenching my parched soul with her words. I didn’t even know I was thirsty.”
– Penelope Beaudrow
RH, founder of Back To Your Roots Herb Conference
“You hold in your hands powerful storytelling; stories that link back and carry forward.
Some forgotten, some never before told. The kind of stories that leave dirt under your fingernails.
They are raw, passionate and unapologetically full throttle into the cycles of life and death and renewal and remembering.
Read this book, the Earth with love you for it.”
– Julie McIntyre
Author of Sex and the Intelligence of the Heart: Nature, Intimacy, and Sexual Energy
“The rhythm of ancient stories, the balm of healing herbs and the potency of astrological archetypes soar like fireflies from the page. Dip into this book of plant and planetary lore to partake of soul medicine for our times”
– Laurie Szott-Rogers
Author of Healing the Goddess Wound
“Come all now and gather in, to make a circle with one another or within. A corral to hold this old souls wild whispers. A nest of listening to catch her awakening spells, that come to crack you open and break from your shell.
Her incantations contained within are not some reenactment of a make-believe pagan. These tellings are real drops of wisdom spilling from Carridwen caldron, as Abrah vigorous stirs. If you lick up this concoction your journey will begin.
What I am most interested in and what I feel we are in grave need of these days is the embodiment of knowledge. Our knowledge has wandered lost for a long time, moving between cultures. It used to sleep under bridges, and maybe on cold nights in the library. Now it hides in the internet. But it needs a real home of its own on the Earth. I love a story or a good theory, but if they can’t live here with me in reality on the land and I can’t feel them resonate in my bones, my patience runs thin. We have the written wisdom of the ages at our finger tips, and yet it means nothing if we can not apply it to working with the Earth and our everyday reality. To reembody what we know, on the land, is “the great work” of our time, and perhaps our only hope for the change that is clearly needed.
For me as a herbalist, Abrah’s weavings of history and myth, astrology and medical herbalism give me both the expansiveness of ‘story’ and the grounded specificity of application. Her understanding of both the spirit and the physiology of herbs is a rare thing these days. More often the spirit of the plants have been thrown away, dismissed as wives tales and superstition. But this spirit, and not the biochemical knowledge, is what connects us through the plants to the earth and heavens. These pages embody a sacred marriage, in a land of the separated. In this book lives a bridge to the wisdom of the past, that also honours the scientific knowledge of our time.
As it was long ago, a sacred marriage brings out everyone. Even those energies or parts of ourself thought long gone. They all come for the blessing, and to be make whole again.”
– Steven M.
The Vessel: Women, Plants, and Contraception unearths the intimate and often secret relationship between women’s lives and contraceptive herbs. In these pages read how Mother Ev, a wise woman of 15th century England, teaches her granddaughters about contraceptive herbs; how women of Athens pay tribute to Demeter while discovering plants for male contraception; follow the path of contraceptive herbs from Shakespeare’s stage to breeding plantation in Virginia to the hardwood forests of North America.
The Vessel is a both storytelling and a sharing of traditional contraceptive knowledge. You will learn which plants contain medicine for a woman’s reproductive health and what you need to know to use their medicine safely and with confidence. The Vessel will nourish your connection to nature and the plants that grow all around you. This book will empower you to take charge of your reproductive health.
Herbalist and storyteller Abrah Arneson CH. RH., has used herbal medicine to support women’s health for 20 years. Author of The Weaving: Plants, Planets and People, Abrah has a deep appreciation for the well-worn path of herbal medicine through history.
This book will surely become a treasured, well-thumbed resource passed around by women and all of those who care about our reproductive health. – Diane P.
Click here to get your copy of The Vessel: Women, Plants and Contraception.
The Wellspring is a magical realism memoir that invites all of us on a journey through time to heal ancestral and settler trauma with story, ritual and plant medicine.
As she did in “The Weaving: Plants, Planets and People”, and “The Vessel: Women, Plants and Contraception”, Abrah Arneson continues to uncover the tender and intimate relationship between women and plants.
The Wellspring is:
- 1 part memoir – the unearthing of ancestors
- 1 part historical fiction – a glimpse into the forgotten lives of women in England’s 1800s needle trade
- 1 part historical record – the events that shaped women’s lives in Victorian London.
- 2 parts herbal guide – a consideration of the many ways plants heal wounds
- 3 parts magical grimoire – incantations and spells cast by the light of the full moon…
The Wellspring is an enchanting and compelling story, beautifully written, about mothers and daughters, heart break and heart mending, and the softness of flowers.
May the stories within offer a gentle touch in a world with hard edges.
If you ever wondered if there is more to plant medicine than knowing a plant effects the kidney or has anti-inflammatory actions you will love this book.
The Herbal Apprentice is not just about plants, their chemistry and actions; it’s about learning to think like a herbalist.
Discover how to see the body/mind as a landscape where the elements, earth, water, fire, air and space mingle creating health or disease.
Learn to interpret a plant’s medicine through your senses, their chemistry and your dreams.
Explore how traditional healers used plant medicine, caring hearts and a focused mind to help other find wellness and balance.
Develop confidence in your abilities to help others using plant medicine while unearthing your unique gifts as a healer.
The Herbal Apprentice leads you into the complex, elegant dance between plant medicine and human being.
I normally devour books, but this one is the kind that you read slowly, savour and reflect on. Thank you Abrah Arneson for sharing your spirit, soul, and your wonderful teachings in this amazing book.
Chris Chabot – Student of Plant Medicine
The Herbal Apprentice is unique and special. It introduces herbalism on a deeply personal, heart-felt level; and uses metaphors of nature to explain complicated physiology to a lay person or budding herbalist. Well done!
Robert Dale Rogers (RH) AHG
Abrah has an amazing mind that explores the elements of plant and person in an incredibly thorough and exciting way. She is a gifted story teller and teacher….if you are considering exploring herbs this is where you should start:)
Dani Pyper – Herbal Apprentice
Reading Abrah’s book is akin to having a long conversation with her over a cup of tea. It is endlessly interesting, open, informed and brimming with her signature brand of loving kindness. There is much of value there for a range of natural medicine aficionados, students and practitioners from neophytes to professionals.
Evelyn Coggins MHSc, RH(AHG)
The Herbal Apprentice Work Book, along with its accompanying book The Herbal Apprentice: Plant Medicine and The Human Being, is written to support you in developing confidence in offering plant medicine to your family, friends and clients.
In this work book, the traditional intuitive methods of using herbal medicine are explored alongside contemporary analytical scientific understanding of plant medicine. By deepening your appreciation for both intuitive and analytical understandings of herbal medicine, you will quickly develop your unique methods of healing with plants.
In this work book you will:
- Enhance both your intuitive and analytical understanding of plant medicine.
- Learn a variety of practical medicine making techniques.
- Gain a deeper appreciation for the human body in both health and illness.
- Enhance your understanding of the healing nature of meditation and dreams.
Each of the eleven lessons in the workbook are broken down into the following sections:
1. Healer Heal Thyself
2. Meditation
3. Reflections
4. Understanding body/mind
5. Creative Monographs
6. Enhanced Herbal Knowledge
7. Medicine Making
8. Dreams
Enjoy you time discovering your healing gifts and herbal medicine with The Herbal Apprentice Work Book. Click here to read reviews & purchase on Amazon.