It’s December, and here are some delightful things we’d like to share with you!

December 2025 Sale Code: CALENDULA
The code for this year’s sale is CALENDULA – use it during checkout to get 20% off everything we offer – all the courses, all the programs, anything on a payment plan, anything at all!

Browse All Courses

The discount code even works for gifts! Just make sure to check the box that says “this is a gift” and the extra gift information will pop up for you to complete.

Herbal Activity Calendar – Stacked with Holiday Help
The herbal activity calendar is a fun free way to get more herbs into your life. There are recipes, experiments, things to think about, and more – and you can set it up to autoload right into your online calendar if you want to!

You’ll find it right on your student dashboard if you’re a student, and if you’re not, just click here:

Herbal Activity Calendar

For the month of December, the calendar’s stacked up with gift ideas, recipes, and strategies for staying stress-free through the holidays.

So if you need inspiration for herby gifts you can make for the people you love, you’ll find it in the herbal activity calendar!

2025 Herbal Gift Guide
We’ve compiled a guide to our favorite herbal holiday gifts. It goes out Thursday December 4th, so watch your inbox!

This features friends and allies of ours, as well as makers & artisans who we find particularly excellent and skillful. Herbs, tea blends, remedies, mugs, and delights abound! There’s something for everyone.

If you’re on our mailing list already, then you’ll get a copy directly in your email. If you’re not on the mailing list, sign up here!

After Thursday, you’ll be able to find the gift guide in our blog – we’ll put it right at the top.

The Evergreens
We’re not leaving you without some herb talk today, don’t worry! This time we’re turning our attention back to our good friends, the evergreens.

Pine, spruce, and fir are all excellent wintertime herbs. Their volatiles give them a stimulating, activating action on our bodies – not just the lungs where it’s most obvious, but also in digestion, the kidneys & bladder, blood circulation, and even the nerves & mind.

Evergreens make excellent tea, but don’t use the needles from your solstice / Xmas tree! They’ve probably got a lot of pesticide residues. Instead, forage after a storm for a downed branch, and work with the needles from that.

Evergreens can also be prepared into steams, elixirs, an evergreen-focused fire cider or thieves’ vinegar, and of course the old reliable resin salve.

• HHP 205: Herbs A-Z: Pinus & Plantago
• HHP 146: Herbs Help Us Feel Our Way Through Difficult Times – discussion of evergreens begins ~16:50.

If you have a moment, it would help us a lot if you could subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!!

Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.

Support the show

You can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

A quote attributed to Hippocrates says “all disease begins in the gut.” No surprise, then, that gut-heal tea is a major part of our practice! We work with this formula – or better said, this schema for creating individualized formulae – very, very often. It’s not only a ‘digestive’ blend, it’s also a nervine formula: it operates at the nexus between the digestive and nervous systems.

But we don’t prepare it the same way every time! Variation is essential to make a blend that best suits a person’s body and needs. Today’s episode of the Holistic Herbalism Podcast is all about this flexibility in formulation.

We can adjust the blend based on the person’s energetics, the desired actions of the herbs, and special affinities they have. While we must avoid creating a ‘kitchen sink’ of insufficiently intentional herbs, there’s plenty of room for addressing the specific patterns in each person.

Here are the specific versions of gut-heal tea formulae we explored in this episode:

“the original” gut-heal tea

• calendula (Calendula off.) flower
• plantain (Plantago major) leaf
• peppermint (Mentha piperita) leaf
• chamomile (Matricaria recutita) flower
• ginger (Zingiber officinale) rhizome
• fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) seed
• licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra) root

a gut-heal tea for the holidays

• 1 part calendula (Calendula off.)
• 1 part chamomile (Matricaria recutita)
• 1/2 part rose petals (Rosa spp.)
• 1/2 part yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
• 1 part damiana (Turnera diffusa)
• 1 part wood betony (Stachys off.)
• 1/2 part fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)
• 1/2+ part ginger (Zingiber off.)
• 5 or 6 cardamom pods (Elettaria cardamomum)

katja’s current gut-heal tea

• self-heal (Prunella vulgaris)
• chamomile (Matricaria recutita)
• betony (Stachys off.)
• catnip (Nepeta cataria)
• ginger (Zingiber off.)
• tulsi (Ocimum sanctum)

ryn’s current gut-heal tea

• yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
• saint john’s wort (Hypericum perforatum)
• centaury (Centaurium erythraea)
• peppermint (Mentha x piperita)
• ginger (Zingiber off.)
• plantain (Plantago major)
• catnip (Nepeta cataria)
• fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)
• rooibos (Aspalathus linearis)
• jiaogulan (Gynostemma pentaphyllum)
• gotu kola (Centella asiatica)
• lungwort (Pulmonaria off.)

We dive into gut-heal tea most fully in our Digestive Health course, though as you’ll understand after you’ve heard this episode, it’s also really relevant to Neurological & Emotional Health.

For more principles & strategies of formulation, check out our Fundamentals of Formulation course! And if you’re feeling a little uncertain about the individual herbs themselves, the Holistic Herbalism Materia Medica is where to begin.

Like all our offerings, these online video courses come with free access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, lifetime access to current & future course material, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more.

Support the show

You can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

Elderberry syrup isn’t everything an herbalist has to offer to someone suffering from a cold, the flu, COVID, RSV, or any of the other respiratory ailments to which we humans are susceptible. Despite being the first to come to many minds when asked if they’re prepared for winter illnesses, we encourage you to broaden your view both of what elder does, and what herbs can do.

Elderberry is famous for inhibiting viruses by interfering with their capacity to replicate. Elderberry constituents have been shown in petri-dish studies to bind the neuraminidase ‘spike’ on the virus. It can therefore reduce the virus’ capacity to ‘break into’ our cells and convert them into virus-making factories.

Sounds good! Note, however, that this particular mode of action was identified through in vitro studies. The limitation here is that the required concentration of those constituents may not be attained in our bloodstream when we ingest elderberry syrup. It may not reach the tissues which are under attack by the virus. So while this is an interesting mechanism of action – and one we’ve taught about often when discussing elderberry – we now consider it as less relevant to the impacts of elderberry on viral illness.

So what matters more? The effects of elderberry on inflammatory patterns in the body. An efficient immune response includes inflammatory and anti-inflammatory actions, both at the right times and in the right amounts; elderberry supports this. And here’s the good news: so do other berries! Every berry with deep pigmentation – blueberry, blackberry, cranberry, serviceberry, aronia berry, and many more – will work to improve inflammation management within the body. At the same time, they’ll enhance vascular integrity and flexibility (particularly important given the capacity of COVID to damage these tissues).

So elder isn’t the only berry who can help us. And berries aren’t the only supportive herbs, either – nor are herbs the end of our options! First of all, elder offers flowers as much as berries, and those are helpful for managing fever.

Working with elder in formula with other herbs – like our homemade winter elixir – is an excellent way to enhance its actions. But there are also plenty of good herbs beyond elderberry syrup, including decongestants like sage, expectorants like elecampane, and aromatics like pine. Last but not least: nourishing food, gentle movement, and restorative sleep can each be just as important as any herbal remedies we choose.

Listen to the episode for a COUPON CODE to get our Cold & Flu course for only $20!

Herbal Remedies for Cold & Flu teaches you everything you need to know to conquer a cold or fight off the flu. We teach you how to work with herbs that are safe and effective for all aspects of the illness. These strategies can also be very effective when coping with COVID, RSV, and other respiratory infections, too! Our focus is on finding ways to support what your body is already trying to do as it works to restore balance.

Like all our offerings, these bundles of self-paced online video courses come with free access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, lifetime access to current & future course material, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more.

Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.

Support the show

You can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!