What if becoming a good herbalist wasn't about knowing everything, but about slowing down, staying curious, and building a deeper relationship with the plants around you?

In this episode of Homestead & Heal, we're joined by longtime herbalist, educator, and plant enthusiast jim mcdonald for a beautiful conversation about making herbalism accessible, reconnecting with the natural world, and embracing the lifelong journey of learning from plants.

Jim shares how his herbal journey began with a book left behind by a roommate, the plants growing around his Michigan farmhouse, and a curiosity that never went away.

Together, we explore what it means to truly know a plant beyond memorizing its medicinal properties, why firsthand experience is such an important part of herbal education, and how we can release the pressure to know it all before sharing what we've learned.

We also dive into the mentors who shaped jim's path, the importance of learning at your own pace, sustainable wildcrafting, and the ways our relationships with plants continue to deepen and evolve over time.

In this episode, we explore:

• How jim discovered herbalism and developed a lifelong connection with medicinal plants
• Why herbalism should be accessible to everyone, not just experts
• The difference between memorizing herbal information and truly understanding plants through experience
• How mentorship and community can shape our growth as herbalists
• The beauty of wildcrafting and developing an intimate relationship with the land
• Why you don't need to know everything to become a knowledgeable, confident herbalist
• How slowing down and staying curious can transform the way we learn
• Passing down a connection to plants and herbal traditions to the next generation

Whether you're just beginning to explore herbalism or have been working with plants for years, this conversation is a reminder that there's no finish line when it comes to learning from nature.

The invitation is simply to stay curious, trust your experience, and keep building relationships with the plants growing all around you.

Connect with jim mcdonald:

Website: https://www.herbcraft.org

Explore jim's herbal writings, classes, educational videos, and online offerings through his website.

Connect with Lindsay & Scott:

To learn more about our retreats: www.homesteadandheal.net

Follow Homestead & Heal: https://www.instagram.com/homestead.andheal/

Connected with Lindsay: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaycourcelle/

Connect with Scott: https://www.instagram.com/alchemygardens/

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What does it actually mean to have a healthy relationship with food?

In this episode, Lindsay and Scott sit down with Katrina — farmer, mother, food lover, and the woman behind Meaty Mama — for a conversation about food that goes far beyond what we should or shouldn't be eating.

Katrina shares her journey from growing up between Colombian, Finnish, and Canadian cultures, to studying geochemistry, landing on an organic farm, moving to France, and eventually building a farm and family of her own.

She also opens up about the evolution of her relationship with food — from years of plant-based eating to embracing meat and nutrient-dense foods, experimenting with more extreme approaches, and eventually realizing that eating the “right” foods was only one piece of the puzzle.

Because our relationship with food isn't only about what is on our plate.

It's also about how we feel when we eat.

The guilt. The restriction. The comfort. The pleasure. The stories we've inherited. The signals coming from our bodies. And the amount of mental space food can take up in our lives.

Together, we explore what it can look like to come back into a more connected, nourishing relationship with food — one rooted in quality ingredients, body awareness, pleasure, moderation, family culture, and the land itself.

We talk about:

• Katrina's Colombian + Finnish roots and the food memories that shaped her
• Going from a city girl in Toronto to farming in the French countryside
• Her evolution from plant-based eating to a meat-centered approach
• The difference between nourishing yourself and obsessing over food
• Emotional eating, restriction, guilt + learning to listen to your body
• Why food quality changes the experience of eating
• Raising children with a grounded relationship to food
• Creating a family food culture without perfection or rigidity
• Slowing down enough to actually experience our meals
• Simple “slow fast food” and making nourishing meals realistic
• Fermentation, meat stock + foods that can't simply be bought
• Learning to love the foods that make you feel good
• Why small, sustainable shifts can be more powerful than changing everything overnight

Katrina also shares about her new program, Reclaim Your Love Story With Food, where she'll bring together nourishment, body connection, cooking skills, microbiome health, and family food culture in a small, intimate group experience.

This conversation is an invitation to look beyond the rules and ask a deeper question:

What would it feel like to be truly nourished by your food — without having your life revolve around it?

Connect with Katrina on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/meaty_mama

Connect with Lindsay & Scott:

To learn more about our retreats: www.homesteadandheal.net

Follow Homestead & Heal: https://www.instagram.com/homestead.andheal/

Connected with Lindsay: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaycourcelle/

Connect with Scott: https://www.instagram.com/alchemygardens/

If you loved this episode - it would mean so much to leave us a review!

What can seeds teach us about our bodies, our relationship with the Earth, and trusting the timing of our lives?

In this episode, Lindsay and Scott sit down with clinical herbalist, integrative health educator, bodyworker, and Herbal Womb Wisdom podcast host Kay’aleya Hunnybee for a winding conversation about plants, womb wisdom, seed keeping, and what it means to live in deeper relationship with the Earth.

Kay’aleya shares the unexpected path that brought her from growing up in New York City with very little relationship to plants, to farming in India, studying birth work and midwifery, practicing herbalism and bodywork, and eventually spending years immersed in the world of seed keeping.

Together, they explore the magic held within a seed, the parallels between seed keeping and midwifery, the wisdom of our bodies and the Earth, and why sometimes the most important thing we can do is slow down enough to listen.

In this episode, we explore:

• Kay’aleya’s journey from feeling disconnected from plants to building a life deeply rooted in relationship with the Earth
• How farming in India transformed her understanding of plants and agriculture
• Her path through birth work, midwifery, herbalism, and bodywork
• Seed keeping as a form of “seed midwifery”
• The ancestral and cultural stories carried through seeds
• Trusting the timing of seeds, bodies, and natural cycles
• Allowing ourselves to experience fallow seasons
• Why observation and listening can be some of our greatest teachers
• Letting go of the pressure to move quickly and remembering that it’s okay for things to take time

Connect with Kay’aleya

Instagram: @herbalwombwisdom
Website: herbalwomb.com
Podcast: Herbal Womb Wisdom

About Kay’aleya

Kay’aleya Hunnybee, M.S., is a clinical herbalist, integrative health educator, and bodyworker whose work centers menstrual, hormonal, sexual, and reproductive health. Her background includes herbal medicine, massage and bodywork, doula work, and midwifery studies. Through her work and the Herbal Womb Wisdom podcast, she helps people deepen their relationship with their bodies, plants, and the wisdom of the Earth.

Connect with Lindsay & Scott:

To learn more about our retreats: www.homesteadandheal.net

Follow Homestead & Heal: https://www.instagram.com/homestead.andheal/

Connected with Lindsay: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaycourcelle/

Connect with Scott: https://www.instagram.com/alchemygardens/

If you loved this episode - it would mean so much to leave us a review!

In this episode, Lindsay and Scott sit down with Adena Rose Bright, an Ayurveda practitioner, educator, and women’s health practitioner with nearly two decades of clinical experience.

Together, they explore what it looks like to live in deeper relationship with the body, the seasons, and the natural world - and how Ayurveda can offer a practical framework for understanding women’s health through every season of life.

Adina shares how her own journey through painful periods, conception, pregnancy, postpartum, and now midlife shaped the work she does today. The conversation moves through digestion, pelvic health, herbal medicine, postpartum depletion, seasonal transitions, and why so many health challenges can’t be understood by looking at one isolated part of the body.

They also talk about the importance of becoming an active participant in your own healing — not rejecting modern medicine, but building enough body awareness, practical knowledge, and self-trust to have more choice in how you care for yourself.

In this episode, they explore:

• How Ayurveda approaches women’s health and seasonal wellness
• Why digestion is considered foundational to overall health
• Simple Ayurvedic practices for transitioning into fall and colder weather
• The relationship between digestion, pelvic health, inflammation, and the nervous system
• Adina’s experience healing painful periods and reconnecting with her body
• Postpartum depletion, anxiety, and the plant medicine that became a turning point for her
• Motherwort, herbal medicine, and building relationships with plant allies
• The limitations of compartmentalized healthcare
• How Ayurveda and Western medicine can work alongside one another
• Trusting the innate intelligence of the body
• Becoming an active participant in your own healing

Adina also shares the advice she wishes more women heard earlier: “Let the animal body take over.” Her reminder is that the body already carries an innate intelligence toward healing — and our job is often to create the conditions that allow it to do what it knows how to do.

Connect with Adena:

Website: https://www.adenaroseayurveda.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adenaroseayurveda

Connect with Lindsay & Scott:

To learn more about our retreats: www.homesteadandheal.net

Follow Homestead & Heal: https://www.instagram.com/homestead.andheal/

Connected with Lindsay: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaycourcelle/

Connect with Scott: https://www.instagram.com/alchemygardens/

If you loved this episode - it would mean so much to leave us a review!

What does it really mean to belong....to a place, a community, a family, or even your own body?

In this episode of Homestead & Heal, Lindsay and Scott sit down with author, somatic practitioner, and educator Kimberly Ann Johnson for a wide-ranging conversation about motherhood, embodiment, place, community, aging, and what it means to build a meaningful life.

Kimberly shares how her own challenging postpartum experience and years-long healing journey eventually led to her first book, The Fourth Trimester, and how her work has continued to evolve through pelvic health, the female nervous system, sexuality, grief, elderhood, and the changing seasons of a woman’s life.

The conversation moves into our relationship with home, land, and belonging. After living and traveling around the world, Kimberly shares why she’s become less interested in asking whether a place feels like home and more interested in what it means to devote ourselves to the places and people already around us.

Together, they unpack the modern search for the “perfect” community, the homestead dream, and the belief that a better life might be waiting somewhere else. What if belonging isn’t something we find—but something we participate in building?

They also explore the messiness of real community: working alongside people we wouldn’t necessarily choose, developing practical skills, navigating disagreement, taking responsibility, and committing to something larger than our individual preferences.

The conversation ultimately returns to the body and the different seasons of a life—from motherhood and fertility to perimenopause, menopause, aging, and becoming an elder. Kimberly offers her perspective on respecting biological limits, questioning some of our cultural ideas about freedom, and allowing the experiences of our lives to mature us.

In this episode, they talk about:

• Kimberly’s postpartum healing journey and the story behind The Fourth Trimester
• Pelvic health, embodiment, and the female nervous system
• Perimenopause, menopause, sexuality, and aging
• Motherhood and watching children enter new seasons of their own lives
• Connecting with nature even when you don’t live on a traditional homestead
• Homemaking, domestic arts, and the importance of the hearth
• Kimberly’s experiences living and traveling around the world
• The difference between finding belonging and building belonging
• Why moving somewhere new doesn’t necessarily create community
• The modern “homestead dream” and our search for a better life elsewhere
• Why meaningful community requires commitment, responsibility, and practical skills
• Staying in relationship with people who have different perspectives
• Following what calls you before you understand where it will lead
• Motherhood, fertility, family, and biological limits
• Our cultural relationship with aging and elderhood

Connect with Kimberly Ann Johnson
Website: kimberlyannjohnson.com
Instagram: @kimberly.ann.johnson

Connect with Lindsay & Scott:

To learn more about our retreats: www.homesteadandheal.net

Follow Homestead & Heal: https://www.instagram.com/homestead.andheal/

Connected with Lindsay: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaycourcelle/

Connect with Scott: https://www.instagram.com/alchemygardens/

If you loved this episode - it would mean so much to leave us a review!

In this episode of Homestead & Heal, we sit down with Adelaide Biggs, founder of Faith in the Body, for a conversation about women’s health, movement, healing, faith, and the wisdom of the body.

Adelaide’s work looks at how the way we sit, stand, walk, breathe, and move can impact pelvic health, nervous system regulation, and whole-body wellbeing. We talk about everything from prolapse, pain, incontinence, postpartum recovery, and structural integration to the deeper relationship between embodiment, suffering, faith, and healing.

Adelaide also shares how a lifelong relationship with horses shaped her ability to notice movement, pressure, body language, and subtle patterns — skills that later became foundational to the work she does with women today.

The conversation also moves into her own healing journey after a severe injury, her experience as a home birth midwife, seasons of loss and suffering, and the role faith has played in how she understands the body, healing, and what it means to receive the life in front of us.

This is a thoughtful, wide-ranging conversation about listening more closely to the body, understanding our own patterns, and seeing healing as something that can involve both the physical and the spiritual.

Learn more about Adelaide:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/faithinthebody/

Co

Connect with Lindsay & Scott:

To learn more about our retreats: www.homesteadandheal.net

Follow Homestead & Heal: https://www.instagram.com/homestead.andheal/

Connected with Lindsay: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaycourcelle/

Connect with Scott: https://www.instagram.com/alchemygardens/

If you loved this episode - it would mean so much to leave us a review!

In this episode, Lindsay and Scott sit down with intuitive astrologer Emily King for a conversation about astrology, intuition, spirituality, and what it means to truly root into your life.

Emily shares how her relationship with astrology evolved from curiosity into a deeply intuitive practice, and how she uses it as a lens for understanding ourselves, our relationships, and the seasons we move through — rather than as a tool for predicting the future. Together, they explore the connection between intuition and spirituality, the importance of slowing down enough to hear our own inner knowing, and how reconnecting with the land and our bodies can bring us back to what feels most aligned.

They also talk about Emily’s own season of shifting from seeking and constantly looking toward what’s next to creating a slower, more rooted life centered around home, family, creativity, and presence.

In this episode, we explore:

• What intuitive astrology is and how Emily approaches her work
• Astrology as a tool for self-understanding rather than prediction
• The intersection of astrology, spirituality, faith, and intuition
• Slowing down and creating space to hear your inner knowing
• Reconnecting with the land, seasons, and the natural world
• Moving from seeking the next thing to rooting into the life you’re already living
• Using astrology to better understand relationships and family dynamics

About Emily King

Emily King is an intuitive astrologer devoted to guiding people into deeper relationship with themselves, their families, and the soul patterns that shape their lives. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, tending a home rooted in nature and simplicity.

Connect with Emily:
Website: www.emilykingastrology.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emilyj_king

Connect with Lindsay & Scott:

To learn more about our retreats: www.homesteadandheal.net

Follow Homestead & Heal: https://www.instagram.com/homestead.andheal/

Connected with Lindsay: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaycourcelle/

Connect with Scott: https://www.instagram.com/alchemygardens/

If you loved this episode - it would mean so much to leave us a review!

What is modern life doing to our fertility- and what might our bodies be trying to tell us?

In this episode of Homestead & Heal, Lindsay and Scott sit down with women’s health practitioner Kristin Hauser for a wide-ranging conversation about fertility, Chinese medicine, motherhood, grief, and our relationship with the natural world.

Kristin has spent nearly two decades working in women’s health, beginning in birth work and prenatal yoga before moving into acupuncture, Chinese medicine, functional medicine, and somatic sex education. Today, much of her work focuses on supporting women who want to conceive naturally and training practitioners to bring a more holistic approach to women’s health and fertility.

Together, they explore why fertility challenges seem to be becoming more common, how quickly our environment and lifestyles have changed, and why fertility isn’t solely a women’s health issue. Kristin shares her perspective on stress, environmental exposures, declining sperm health, and the ways our bodies are continually trying to adapt to the modern world.

They also go much deeper than fertility alone.

Kristin shares how growing up with horses helped shape her relationship with her body, power, and the natural world; what she’s learned from splitting her family’s time between Kansas and Costa Rica; and how motherhood has influenced the way she approaches both life and work.

The conversation eventually turns toward something we don’t talk about nearly enough in women’s health: grief.

Kristin shares how Chinese medicine understands the connection between the heart and womb, why she believes grief needs space to move through the body, and some of the somatic practices she uses to help women be with grief without becoming completely overwhelmed by it.

In this episode, we talk about fertility in the modern world, Chinese medicine and women’s health, environmental and lifestyle factors affecting fertility, male fertility and sperm health, grief and the nervous system, somatic healing, motherhood, our connection to nature, and learning to trust the path you’re on.

This is a beautiful conversation about fertility, yes—but also about what it looks like to live, heal, mother, and work in deeper relationship with our bodies and the world around us.

CONNECT WITH KRISTIN

CONNECT WITH KRISTIN:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristinhauser

Website: wombmedicine.com

Connect with Lindsay & Scott:

To learn more about our retreats: www.homesteadandheal.net

Follow Homestead & Heal: https://www.instagram.com/homestead.andheal/

Connected with Lindsay: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaycourcelle/

Connect with Scott: https://www.instagram.com/alchemygardens/

If you loved this episode - it would mean so much to leave us a review!