The Founders of Moon Canyon Healing on Reconnecting With Yourself

Rip & Tan: Tell us how Moon Canyon Healing came to be. When did you know you wanted to begin this venture together?

Moon Canyon Healing: Moon Canyon Healing was birthed over cups of tea and long conversations about our shared love for the Earth. We met during our time as students at the California School of Herbal Studies in idyllic west Sonoma county, where the redwoods meet the rugged coastline, and together, began dreaming about how we would like our work as herbalists, medicine makers, and practitioners to be shared with our community.

We also held a mutual desire to formulate and create herbal remedies that we wanted to take ourselves. It is a shared experience that we were called to this work as a part of our own healing journeys, and it’s been a blessing to continue to heal in sisterhood and partnership. Women are meant to do this work together.

Rip & Tan: Since its founding, what has most surprised you on your journey to where Moon Canyon Healing stands today? What’s been the most fulfilling aspect for each of you?

Moon Canyon Healing: It has been so fun, and enlightening for us to see which of the medicines in our line are speaking to and serving our customers at this time. What has been revealed to us, more than anything, is that most folks are in need of deep, foundational nourishment.

We, ourselves, began to build our own herbal routines from this place, and we now have the gift of supporting others in doing the same. It is so fulfilling for us to share the healing wisdom of the Earth with people. It is a big responsibility and one that we do not take lightly. To have the privilege of being conduits, of sorts, acquainting folks with herbs that they may develop life-altering relationships with is a dream come true.

Rip & Tan: What are some of your favorite ways to incorporate herbs into your everyday routines? Do you have a go-to morning and evening ritual?

Moon Canyon Healing: Nourishing herbal infusions and medicinal broths like the Fill The Well or Immunity Broth. Both of these modalities are all about nourishment and re-building your body from the ground up. The herbs we are working with at any given time usually call out for one preparation or the other, so we are naturally drawn to the remedy that will best honor the type of herb we are working with (leaf, flower, root, fruit, or mushroom). Sarah has an evening ritual of preparing her nourishing herbal infusion blend before bed, so it has a long overnight steep and is ready to be enjoyed first thing the next morning. A few herbs in her french press of late are hawthorn, gotu kola, and tulsi. And Kristen practices a morning infusion preparation routine, feeling into the herbs that are calling to her that day.

Most days lately, you’ll find lemon balm, fennel, and oatstraw in her teapot. Both of us regularly enjoy full body ‘oilination’ which is covering the body in herbal-infused oils. You can check out the oils that we make, here. It’s a simple, restorative way to soothe the nerves, and feed them with the fat they need to function properly. 

Rip & Tan: Whether it’s time in nature or a new recipe, what’s one thing you’re most looking forward to this season? 

Moon Canyon Healing: The welcome invitation (if we are listening) to slow down. The shorter days and the colder temperatures beckon us indoors to cozy up and do the work of connecting to ourselves. The days of a natural tendency toward lots of outward activity are behind us for this year, and it’s the opportune time for us to reflect. 

Rip & Tan: For women specifically, what’s something we often overlook on our health and wellness journeys? How can we remedy it?

Moon Canyon Healing: The health of the liver! The liver plays an essential role in keeping our hormones in balance. Our livers, as one of the primary organs of filtration and elimination, are dealing with so much these days—from heavy metals to air pollution to viruses to food. And when our livers are taxed, they can become overwhelmed and fall behind on their work, which can lead to excess hormones and hormonal imbalance.

One thing that we can do is look to gentle, tonic, liver-supportive herbal allies (like burdock root and dandelion root, both found in our winter immunity broth) as well as bringing bitters into our daily routines. Bitter flavor and bitter herbs help the liver to produce the digestive secretions it needs to do its detoxification work – including the detox of hormones. We have a bitters blend in our medicine line, Intuitive Nature, and there are many other herbalists who have great bitter tinctures too. Or, you can consider keeping bitter foods like endive, cucumber peels, citrus peels, and certain leafy greens around to do the same job. About 15 minutes before a meal, take your bitters blend, or taste your bitter foods, and enjoy the activation you’ll feel in your liver and gallbladder. You can expect better digestive motility and greater assimilation of nutrients, which will leave you feeling fulfilled and nourished by your food. Your liver will feel supported in staying on top of its game and the hormones that are no longer serving you will make their way out of the body. As with all herbal protocols, avoid or take caution if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, and with this particular remedy, if you have acid reflux you may want to consult a practitioner before bringing bitters into your routine.

Rip & Tan: Tell us more about this winter immunity broth—what kind of benefits can we expect? 

Moon Canyon Healing: We are so glad we had the opportunity to share this broth with you, as it is one of our personal favorites. It is full of adaptogenic roots and mushrooms that help our bodies to build the capacity to better endure stress. This keeps our immune system well when, say, a bug is making its way around or we’ve been burning the candle at both ends.

There are also a handful of cleansing, clearing herbs and flowers that help our bodies to take out the proverbial trash so that our systems of elimination are free and clear to biotransform whatever we may come into contact with. Also contained within are some of our anti-microbial allies, which also happen to be many of the tasty, savory, culinary herbs we are used to finding in our kitchens—thyme, rosemary, bay leaf—all antivirals.

And possibly less sexy, but arguably most important, the nutritive herbs that are all about building our strength and energy, feeding our tissues so they have integrity, and establishing organs and body systems that have the vitamins and minerals that they require to function optimally. We love this broth on its own, as a sipping broth, or will add veggies, garlic, noodles, oil, vinegar, or tamari to bridge the gap between food and medicine.