Autumnal Health on Healing Wisdom

My guest this week on Healing Wisdom on Cape Cod's Outermost Radio is 4th generation herbalist Anya Messina discussing Autumn and Winter Health, herbal baths, and kid wellness. She holds an advanced degree from the East West School of Planetary Herbology and has studied with Rosemary Gladstar. Tune in Thurs at 9am est on 92.1 womr Provincetown 91.3 wfmr Orleans or streaming at http://womr.org

Pandora's Jukebox Goes Back in Time

Me and my laptop got struck by lightning as I updated my last post. I figure either Thor doesnt like me waxing poetic about love diaries and French films or Morganna (Celtic war goddess) is a big proponent of violent video games. Hater. I always wanted God to reach out and touch me, I just didnt expect it to be so charged. Or, maybe that is just Thor's way of flirting. Like, hey baby, I got my eye on you. How do you flirt back with an ancient Norse God? And, what would I even get him for the holidays anyway? A wrought iron fence, an old oak tree, a lookout tower on top of a great mountain top? It poses a lot of serious questions. Ironically, guess who must use her ipad? Listen for my primitive all vinyl deejay spot tomorrow from 9 to midnight est.

IPad Withdrawal and Alternative Healing

My beloved Hero needed a day home from school, because he has Sun in Cancer. It's been a very moony week for him. He was having "severe stomach cramps" this morning and I think its related to iPad withdrawal as much as needing to poo poo and possibly a side effect of the wonky California rolls we ate from Trader Joes after shoe shopping. We took away his iPad privileges yesterday morning when he socked me wild-eyed and threatening after I told him the device couldn't come with us on his ride to school. All the way there he threw a kicking-and-screaming tantrum. Suddenly, like lightning it finally hit me...lo and behold, the Ipad games he was playing (the innocent ones where happy smiling cows innocuously squish pigs and gofers into red fairy dust death clouds) made him aggressive, sullen and less than life-affirming all back-to-back in a cascade of intense emotion. This morning I think he was bio-chemically dependent on his iPad fix*, and quite literally today was experiencing some sort of withdrawal stress. His Indian doctor couldn't find anything physically indicative of any illness. So, we drank tulsi tea and came back to Mother Earth.

I took the day off and we took turns reading about fairies, drawing new herb cards and adding new parts to our favorite board game "Wildcraft", he added alternative cooperation cards and created a skeleton board game. I took out some of my childhood (and young adult) artwork, and showed him some of my early sketches. (I'd wanted to show him the flower fairies I used to draw.) We sharpened and organized an ever-dwindling and growing array of Prisma color pencils, snuggled a lot, napped, baked chocolate chunk pumpkin cookies. After which he followed every request I had for him to assist me in cleaning up, with no protests whatsoever. Laying in the dark and snuggling he asked me questions about death and he pondered reincarnation, and we talked at length about the life cycle and where we may be in 500 years before he fell asleep peacefully.

Here's some stuff I did in junior high.

Year Book Cover Thumb Nail...

Queen of Hearts at the Bar...

Probably snacking on something like this...

Sherwood's Daughter, Kismet, and Channel Mediums

When we were wee lil' towheads in diapers and yellow slickers, my first friend borrowed my Thriller album. I remember because somewhere there is a photo of us. Me with the album, and Liera hitting her plastic military drum with batons. Our moms had written lengthy letters to each other by beeswax candlelight about metaphysical ideas, lucid dreams, astrological events and lovers while my friend's mom was living in a tiny unheated apartment in France, subsisting off croissants and herbal teas. Our mothers met as teenagers when they were original members of the Mythopoeic Society, a group of young fans of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, who wrote plays and acted out scenes from the works of the Inklings, long before Sherwood (my mom's friend) became a fantasy author. My baby friend, Sherwood's daughter, Liera, had the prettiest name I'd ever heard and it stuck with me over the years.

Fast forward to high school. At an arts-focused boarding school, my pals and I got to talking about baby names, because what else do Renaissance-garland-crafting, vintage-dress-wearing girls who sew with floss and drink whiskey from flasks do, when they are not reading Victorian literature? I told her I wanted to name my first baby girl Liera (her middle name unknown to me). And after some debate about the uniqueness of her name, coined by her literary mother, we realized kismet had brought us together again. She started telling me tales about my Appalachian mammau, her uncanny psychic ability and her Cherokee blood. She waxed poetic about my mammau's love of Edgar Cayce and channel mediums like Seth Speaks' author Jane Roberts. It wasn't until several years later that I read anything by either of them, but at that point I learned that it was my grandmother who introduced my mom to channel mediums and their far out ideas. It kind of blew my mind, even though I'd heard of some of her mystical experiences, because God bless her soul, she was quite a hillbilly.

On November 20th my interview with Peter Woodbury, of Edgar Cayce's Association for Research and Enlightenment, will be speaking me about the life and work of Edgar Cayce. Mr. Woodbury received his undergraduate degree in psychology from Harvard University and his master’s degree in social work from Boston University. He trained in hypnotherapy and past-life regression techniques with Dr. Brian Weiss, Dr. Allen Chips, and Dan Brown, PhD. Peter is in private practice as a psycho-therapist and hypnotherapist in Virginia Beach, with a focus on the use of spirituality and faith as tools for personal transformation and liberation. He is Edgar Cayce presenter, global tour guide, and aregular contributor to A.R.E.’s member magazine Venture Inward and somehow finds time to play Edgar Cayce in the popular one-man show titled “An Evening with Edgar Cayce.” Listen for my upcoming shows Thursdays at 9am EST on 92.1 WOMR FM in Provincetown, 91.3 WFMR FM Orleans, and streaming globally at http://womr.org

Licensed Professional Counselor Wanda McCallum is on Healing Wisdom at 9am this Thursday on 92.1 WOMR-FM Provincetown, 91.3 WFMR-FM Orleans and streaming at http://womr.org discussing a very new technique called the Higher Brain Living(TM). It is said to be unique in that it allows you to experience multiple brain waves at one time. It's effects on the brain are compared by its creator Dr. Michael Cotton to the brain activity of monks who have been meditating for thirty years. Tune in at 9am on your womr.org app to see what all this Higher Brain Living(TM) is about.

Homemade Pumpkin Pie

My seven-year-old and I threw together this pie tonight. Raven and Hero were in heaven.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Mix the below ingredients in a medium sized glass bowl. Stir in your wet ingredients into the dry ingredients bit by bit to create a smooth consistency. Knead the smooth dough into a ball. Grease your 9 inch in diameter pie pan with butter. Place the ball into the center and press your dough out until it covers the width of the pan including about 1 1/2 vertical inches. Bake 5 minutes on 350.

Crust Ingredients:
- 2/3 c. ground walnuts. (You can place them in a plastic sandwich bag and use a mallet to hit them if your coffee grinder doesn't work. Pounding things with a hammer helps relieve tension.)
- 1 1/2 c. rice flour or blend of rice flour, tapioca and potato starch flour. (Trader Joe's now sells this gluten-free flour)
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp of clove
- 2 tbsp. coconut oil (room temperature is ideally soft)
- 3 tbsp. water
- 2 tbsp. maple syrup

In a large pan, cook your cubed pumpkin on medium heat in the coconut milk. Cover with a lid until the pieces soften. Add the sugar. Simmer. Mash everything together, stirring everything together so that your pieces become mushy puree. Remove from heat. Mix in butter, maple syrup, vanilla, spices, and finally 3 whisked eggs. Pour pumpkin puree into your crust. Bake on 350 for approximately 45 minutes. After about 30 minutes sprinkle coconut sugar on top for a crunchy topping.


Filling Ingredients:
- 4 c. cubed Sugar Pumpkin
- 1 c. granulated coconut sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 1/2 c. coconut milk
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 4 tbsp. butter
- 1 tsp. pumpkin spice
- 2 tsp. cinnamon
- 1 tsp. clove
- 1/2 tsp. ginger
- 1 tbsp. maple syrup


And if you're feeling extra motivated, throw together some bananas, eggs, and cornstarch (plus maybe a few other items) and make something like this. Tonight is my first time using coconut sugar, and it's delicious. The brown color is very appropriate for autumnal baked goods.

VRBFarmers - Roomy Lakeside Chicken Coop Comes Furnished with Insomniac Cats and Contraband Reptiles

Amazing Columbus Day Weekend. I wasn't lucky enough to get paid a lot of dough to discover a new route to old land, ignorantly insist I knew who the native inhabitants were, enslave some of them, steal their stuff and bring them home with me. But, there was some cultural confusion and I may have inadvertently made a few box turtles ill with my foreign microbiome, stowed away some dust mites on my irritated skin and forgot to get a $2 redemption on a glass bottle of fresh unpasteurized milk.

In the process of searching, finding and losing shelter, I packed and unpacked our bags several times over three days, nearly landing my son and I a few nights at a classy hotel in White River Junction, a heated barn on the southern tip of the White Mountains, and job at the co-op at the collegiate epicenter of agro-hipsters. After a couple of moon-tossled Mercury-dazzled nights, we finally set sail into a barn-dabbled, red maple-sparkled, orange-leaves-sprinkled vortex that spit us out in a tree heaven at the foot of a sign that read: "Creekside Cabin", with an arrow pointing south. After being nearly attacked by guard dogs, guard goats and guard chickens and trudging ankle-deep through a dangerous dungfield and touching an electrified fence, we were led to a screened platform covered in a hodgepodge of old doors leaning against a single paper-thin wall a few yards from Mosquito Rapids. No electricity, no kitchen, no outhouse, no fire pit...No problem.

But, there was one problem. A building needs walls, don't you think? I'm not a big fan of commercial logging, but houses need wood. While I may be a paper-waster, I can use more than my fair share of sycamore leaves TP or mullein napkins if the mood strikes me. I can eat dry cereal for breakfast, I'm no Polythene Pam. Huddling in a pile of familial bodies under paper-thin blankets with paint splotches and cat hair on a dusty sunken mattress, breathing in deeply and exhaling onto each others' faces to keep warm under musty polyblends, is lovely in a chilly cabin with a wood burning stove working hard to keep you pneumonia-free, but this is a chicken coop in October in the mountains and there's no heating or insulation of any kind! Give me a car, a yurt, or a tent and I can survive the night. Hell, give me a sukkah, a bottle of Manischewitz and three feverish bearded rabbis under a mess of camel-fur prayer shawls, and I'll make due...but don't turn my boy's tears into icicles. These runaway guests need to finish their staycation, STAT!

Terra Luna's Snow Bird

Our pal chef Tony Pasquale will be off to New Orleans chasing warmer weather pretty soon. But if you're on Cape Cod this week craving a "dip in your hip and a glide in your stride" try the Aphrodite absinthe, so-called for its hint of muira puama and damiana. Terra Luna will be waiting to enliven your senses and quicken your imagination.

In addition to finding nifty bartenders like the affable oil-painting, Collin McGuire, who has filled the restaurant with ambient rustic art, Tony is the voice of THE SQUID JIGGERS BLEND Wednesdays from 6 to 9am on 92.1 WOMR Provincetown, 91.3 WFMR Orleans and streaming at womr.org

Although you may not be scaling wrought iron fences barring the public from entering haunted manors up for sale lining Bourbon Street, you can kinda make believe you are with a hoodoo-licious Nawlins' Sazerac...

And, deejay/waitress Justine may even crank up the jukebox, filled with some Scungilli magic while you eat artichoke pate...if you are very lucky.

You don't have to be a strega, neopagan or even love squid for this little eatery to make a Lunatic of you.

The Domestic Goddess of Radishes

In the old country, eating radishes was a cure for everything. More from my day with my Austrian cousin...

Pespectives on the Mayan Calendar and the Global Mind

Here's my interview with esteemed toxicologist, environmental scientist and cancer researcher author Dr. Carl Johan Calleman. Podcast Here.

Dr. Calleman has a background as an accomplished cancer researcher and environmental scientist followed by a 20-year-long involvement with Mayan culture. The latter has included work to promote Mayan elder Don Alejandro Oxlaj, head of the council of elders in Guatemala. As a young scientist, he was mentored to a PhD in Physical Biology by a member of the Nobel committee in Stockholm, and later served as a Senior Researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle and a cancer expert for the World Health Organization.

Sunne, the German Sun Goddess

My model is an extraordinary doula. Why are there so many gorgeous women involved in childbirth and midwifery?