Spring Rewilding: What if the root cause is . . .

# Episode 198: Spring Rewilding & What If the Root Cause Is...

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Hello, my friends! I hope you're all enjoying spring now that we're in the midst of it. The plants are truly emerging from their winter rest, and by now I bet most of you have as well. I've been savoring the spring—it has been such a joy to re-witness all the plants in full bloom.

This weekend, I spent time on a little off-grid plant immersion, embarking on an epic barefoot hike with my dear friend (and foraging mentor) Ian. Together, we discovered an abundance of wild edibles, both familiar favorites and exciting new finds.

We came across an amazing patch of ramps—so plentiful! The wood nettles are already coming in, and we gathered a bunch of stinging nettles along with two varieties of horsetail.

I've been incorporating wild greens into my meals every day. Even my kids are getting more excited about them—my 16-year-old was thrilled to discover that I can simply wander through the woods and return home with a bag of food for our meals. The abundance of nature truly is a marvel.

Today, I want to discuss what's emerging this spring and how to let nature support your health during this season. I'd like to begin this conversation by exploring "the root cause"—a concept that's become quite prominent in the mineral balancing world. I see it quite differently than how it's often portrayed, so I thought I'd weave it in as a conversation starter so we can get to the roots of the roots of the causes.

What if the root cause is . . .

☀️What if the root cause is not being exposed to enough sun and cut off from it by living indoor lives with unnatural light

💦What if the root cause is not having access to wild mineral-microbe rich coherent water and instead drinking lifeless water our whole lives

🌬️What if the root cause is not being able to BREATHE deep fresh air because we are inside all the time breathing chemicals or sitting in traffic breathing fumes, stress out to the max and HOLDING our breath instead of sinking down deep into expansive breath

🌱What if the root cause is not accessing wild mineral-microbe rich nutrient dense food our whole lives and instead eating mass produced food like substances

🏃What if the root cause is living in a world that restricts natural adequate movement and forces us into sitting sitting and more sitting

👪What if the root cause is isolated living away from community bodies and deeper support

💗What if the root cause is loss of sense of self and purpose and truly knowing and be our unique selves

Everyone is now a root cause expert BUT the truth is there is no one ROOT cause there are MANY and they go deep, we are all suffering from the same root causes & therefore core wound - domestication, a loss of exposure to the natural world and all her nourishment we were designed to receive.

Which one of the above are you feeling the most right now?

Revisiting the "ROOT CAUSES"

Let's revisit some of the ROOT CAUSES, which are essentially a lack of the fundamentals for human health that I discussed last February in Episode 160. The fundamentals for human health are incredibly powerful for kickstarting our focus on minerals, microbes, and returning to nature's ways—thanks in large part to my group experience exploring Arthur Haines' book "New Path" with its emphasis on rewilding.

First, a quick summary of what rewilding is:

"Rewilding is about returning to a wild state, at first in philosophy (and eventually in practice). It is a way for us to reconnect with what is truly important and shed those things in life that only serve to distract us from real living. By rising above domestication, people can work toward restoring awareness, health, and self-reliance, while at the same time walking more softly on the planet." ~ Arthur Haines, A New Path

The Foundations: 7 Pillars for Human Health

Let's quickly review these fundamentals—what I'm calling the 7 pillars for human health—which I briefly touched on earlier. Even if you've heard this before, remember that repetition is the mother of all learning, and there's always some aspect of each pillar we could all work on each season.

Foundations: 7 Pillars
(+ detox which fits into each pillar)

→ Sun / Light exposure / Circadian Rhythm (sleep)
→ Water: quality, filtering, bathing, sourcing, quantity
→ Air: breath/environment
→ Food: quality/sourcing
→ Movement: lymph/finding your flow
→ Connection: with nature, animals & humans. As well as: tribe/love/sex
→ Purpose: Know thyself, BE YOU!

These are the core basics for human health that need to become habits. Learning to rewild yourself naturally incorporates all of these elements in a more fluid way. Today, I want to explore a few of these pillars in light of the season we're now in.

Water: The Foundation of Life

Let's start with water—I've been sharing my biweekly trips to the spring over on Instagram for a while now. It has become quite a ritual for me and something I deeply look forward to. Because it's such a fundamental element, I share it repeatedly with intention as a reminder and to highlight some small nuanced aspect about why I'm collecting wild water. Since I've been alive, the water I've been exposed to has been primarily tap water—not even filtered for the majority of my life, and certainly not full of minerals, microbes, or proper structure.

For those of you new to the topic of wild water, I liken it to how we finally figured out how to go back to raw fresh milk instead of pasteurized milk. First, we were afraid of it, but then we realized that in its wild raw state, it's actually much safer to drink than the bastardized commercially raised and pasteurized milk that is now behind many of our collective health consequences.

When you think of this in terms of WATER consumption, it goes WAY further because we are dependent on it 24/7/365, throughout all the years of our lives. If you need to drink several quarts per day, that's a lot of one substance going through your body your whole life—it probably should be something we make absolutely certain is optimized.

I've been collecting spring water for all of my drinking water for almost 2 years now—because spring water is 100% raw, untreated, and ALIVE water. I have not found a home water system yet that can replicate nature in this way. And I'm pretty sure we can't do it exactly the way nature can anyway. We can come close—there are more and more home systems becoming available that are trying to do so—and it will be much better than municipal or even well water.

If you're not yet aware, natural spring water flows freely from deep underground aquifers, is naturally filtered, and springs from the Earth at various wild locations to be collected and consumed.

The nutrients—vitamins and minerals in spring water—are drawn up towards the sun, so spring water springs up from the heart of the earth to the surface, naturally filtered through layers of soil, rock, and silt.

Spring water is naturally probiotic, bioavailable, and made to support our bodies in every way.

This is something I learned long ago in my nutrition training, BUT we didn't go this DEEP with it. We didn't go back to wild water and the elements it contains—we just left it at "water," which to me is "plain water" or maybe better stated as something that is wet, aka lifeless water—and even sometimes toxic water when it has things like chlorine and fluoride, and the list could go on of what can be in the water or how the water is treated in light of what could be in it.

I read this simple statement in Gerald Pollack's book "The Fourth Phase of Water": "water in the cell is nothing like water in a glass."

We know that water flushes through the kidneys, cleansing toxins and waste, playing a vital role in keeping our bodies balanced and disease-free. BUT if that water isn't pure, full of minerals and microbes and structure—which by the way is the right form to fill up our cells, to enter them and truly hydrate us in the deepest possible way—we also call this exclusion zone or EZ water. Another way to help ourselves build up this structured exclusion zone water in our bodies is by EXPOSING OURSELVES TO SUNLIGHT (ahem—another fundamental for human health—which the water needs as well).

What's also super cool is the vitamin and mineral stack in spring water is unique and varies by biolocation. I have this phrase I like to say: real nutrition can be sustained locally.

It's fascinating because that means spring water is perfectly formed to support a human body living in the same ecology; for instance, a spring in a warmer climate might have elevated sodium levels to support proper cellular hydration. This goes way beyond and is way better than everyone just slamming the salt packets or electrolyte powders that have become quite the trend—nature is so much wiser.

Along with a diet of local-grown and seasonal food, which I've been talking about over the past year, spring water plays a complementary and similarly integral role in supporting optimal physical, mental, and spiritual balance and lasting health. To be disconnected from one's local ecology—namely nature and our food/water systems—is to be disconnected from oneself. The modern diet of eating and drinking lab-made or imported food and water plays a huge role in the prevalence of physical and mental illness.

Spring water improves physical health in numerous ways; its most basic function is to re-oxygenate cells and carry oxygen to every part of the body and internal organs, including the brain. It flushes and moves waste out of the body, evidenced by clear skin and eyes, improved digestion, weight loss, and improved skin elasticity. It has a profound rebalancing effect on every bodily system including endocrine and hormone health, reducing overall acidity and bringing your system back into pH balance, increasing energetic flow or chi.

On a deeper level, ingesting spring water connects you to the local ecology—aligning the body with its ecosystem. Drinking water from the local spring and soaking in a hot spring is holy medicine; an experience that connects the body with its ecology, grounds energy, and aligns the mind with the present moment. Each spring source has a unique profile; the taste and quality of water varies with locale due to a number of factors including alkalinity of the environment, composition of the soil, and the overall geological composition of the earthen layers it filters through.

So many people have been telling me they are finding a spring near them or looking for one since I've been sharing more—which is super cool. I've noticed the consistency of drinking this water plus my herbal infusions has really made a difference, and I no longer need to add very many ionic minerals to my water. I still do some, but it's amazing to have the minerals in my drinks already along with the structure and microbes so my water thoroughly hydrates me—I no longer have to HACK it. If you want to find a spring, check out the Find A Spring website and don't give up if there isn't one near you listed there yet.

Whenever I post about wild water/spring water, so many of you ask: "But how do we know it's safe to drink?"

Let me ask you this: How do you know your tap water is safe to drink?

You assume it is because it's all you've known, and we have never normalized checking into our water by regular testing beyond the time it gets tested when you buy a house—and if you're renting, forget it—nada, zilch, zip.

That said, it's begging the question—what constitutes "safe"?

It is important to feel safe, but do we even know what safety means when it comes to the source quality anymore?

So yes, by all means, if you can find the information on the spring you go to—many do test the water. If they don't, you can get it tested yourself. You should do this with your home water anyway. So either way—we should test, not guess, until we understand what constitutes safe water and we FEEL at ease around it and confident to drink it.

Kidneys and Diuretics: Nature's Spring Cleansing

Now that I've shared about water, I want to go further and talk about kidneys and diuretics, as springtime offers us many diuretic plants to work with—since water naturally makes me think of the kidneys too.

I think many of us, when we think about diuretics, assume they're just drinks that make you pee a lot and cause you to lose minerals, so you should probably avoid them. Or, as I was taught in my training, you needed to drink 1½ times more water to counter any diuretic drink you had—such as coffee, for example. I have some further thoughts to add to this, and I think it's important to bring it to people's attention.

Since I've been foraging the last two years and drinking more infusions and teas, I have also noticed how much my urine output increases when I drink certain plant infusions—as many have diuretic properties. I honestly have found this to be very helpful, even though at first it's like, "Wow, I sure am releasing a lot!" But you actually WANT this to be the case, as this is a big and primary way we can release toxins of all kinds, and the properties in the plants help PULL them out of us more naturally. So they are not like the allopathic diuretic drugs at all.

Diuretics drain fluids from the tissues and expel them from the body through increased urinary output. This is super helpful because we all can have some level of stagnancy in our body that affects fluid flow, and we can accumulate fluids in specific places—a more obvious example would be in the case of edema.

In the plant world, there are many different energetics to consider with the various diuretic plants, so this can get super complex and nuanced. BUT one thing that's important and interesting about many plant diuretics is that they tend to contain high amounts of the mineral potassium, which tends to be excreted in relatively high amounts in the urine due to its water solubility.

It is common in allopathic medicine to give patients with high blood pressure a "loop diuretic," which radically depletes the body's store of potassium to dangerous levels, which is why they usually always give potassium pills along with the diuretics.

Nature, in all of her brilliance, makes these plant diuretics—such as the Horsetail I've been gathering and enjoying in an infusion this spring—which innately have high levels of potassium to replenish what will be depleted through increased urination.

The diuretic action can prove to be extremely beneficial for certain musculoskeletal issues, primarily those due to accumulation of dampness in the tissues, metabolic waste products, and mineral deposits. By flushing out the tissues and the kidneys, the body is able to remove the inflammatory trigger behind the pain. Chronic inflammation also tends to produce a hefty amount of metabolic waste products which can further congest and stagnate the blood and tissues.

So don't be afraid to PEE more—it's one of the ways we can move out waste, and with some assistance from natural diuretic plants, we don't have to worry that we are also completely depleting all our minerals. This is something you may start to notice with nettle infusions, for example, which I talked more about in my last episode.

That said, we don't want to overdo it either—I usually recommend only a couple cups of any of the more diuretic plant infusions per day. While you can drink more, you wouldn't want to do it daily. And if you do drink more, just make sure you are drinking plenty of water or eating plenty of fresh water-rich foods.

Grounding: The Earth Connection

Another thing that has emerged since spring came into full swing is a greater ability to get grounded. I post a lot of videos and pictures on my Instagram account of my bare feet as I'm walking or standing or wading in the creek. Going barefoot and rewilding my feet has taught me many things, one of which is how to tread more lightly on this earth.

Lately, I've been back to barefoot meanderings and hikes, and it's such a welcome relief—my feet were aching to get free by March. Now that I know how my body responds to going barefoot during the warmer months of the year, sometimes I know I just need to go stand ankle deep in the creek barefoot EVEN in the winter—as it takes away inflammation, releases stress, it's very relaxing, and so much more.

Walking barefoot, sitting or lying on the ground, and even sleeping in close contact with the earth used to be common activities in all human cultures. As we have "matured" into a civilized species, we generally wear shoes for much or all of the year, primarily sit in chairs and on couches, and virtually never sleep on the ground. This has created yet another separation from source/earth.

Our feet are supposed to touch the earth—they are designed to walk through forests, prairies, mountains, but we have put them into foot coffins for so long our feet are too delicate to handle this natural way of being. This is an example of maladaptation. The fact that we rarely go barefoot has important implications for the strength and anatomical structure of our feet—which I won't go into today, maybe I'll save that for another episode. BUT what it also means is that we are rarely exposed to an important source of healing energy.

The Science of Earthing

Here's a little something nerdy for you about this. I find we need the 'science' or proof for these things when people haven't actually experienced it for themselves yet—if you've experienced it, you won't need the research/studies or science to tell you what you already intuitively know:

"White blood cells (also called leucocytes) are cells of our immune system that help to defend the body from infection and injury. There are five basic types of leucocytes: basophils, eosinophils, lymphocytes, monophils, and neutrophils. The last kind, neutrophils, are the most abundant leucocytes in the body and form an important part of the innate immune system that recognizes and responds to pathogens in an immediate and general fashion. Neutrophils are phagocytes, meaning they ingest foreign invaders and destroy them through one of several approaches.

One of the approaches is the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are chemically reactive molecules that include oxygen as part of their structure. Reactive oxygen species, while produced as a normal part of metabolism, are also produced to destroy microbial pathogens. Because ROS are chemically reactive, they steal electrons from other molecules, causing what is known as oxidative damage. This harms various components of cells, including membranes, amino acids, and DNA. Such damage can kill microbial pathogens. It is one of the reasons that neutrophils secrete ROS, so that foreign cells will be destroyed.

Anytime there is inflammation, including when the body experiences mechanical injury (such as hitting our shin on something hard), is burned, or is dealing with infection, the body undergoes a number of complex physiological responses to the site of damage. The redness, swelling, and warmth are the result of increased blood flow to the area. Increased pain sensitivity and (often) a loss of function also result from inflammation. During this process, neutrophils are released into the surrounding tissue and secrete ROS. This occurs to break up damaged cells so they can be removed and healthy cells can grow in their place. The ROS also destroy bacterial invaders if the skin was broken during the injury.

While all of this is completely normal, ROS can and do harm nearby healthy tissue. These molecules act like free radicals in our body, damaging tissue and contributing to aging. Whether the result of acute or chronic infection or normal metabolic processes, ROS must be dealt with by the body (and quickly). A number of mechanisms exist for this. For example, the body produces endogenous antioxidants, such as the enzyme superoxide dismutase (SOD) to quench one of the most common classes of ROS produced by the body (called superoxides).

We also also ingest antioxidants as part of our diet. Antioxidants, whether produced inside our body or ingested in our diet, function by donating (or receiving) electrons to make the ROS chemically stable without becoming unstable themselves. Once transformed into stable molecules, the former ROS cannot harm healthy cells. An important item to note is that our modern diets contain many fewer antioxidants than our original diets. Fortunately, there is another way we can help compensate for the presence of ROS—free electrons.

Anytime someone sits, walks, runs, or plays on the ground, they have the ability to absorb free electrons from the earth. The planet we live upon is actually a mega-donor of free electrons.

When we walk on sand, gravel, stone, or even lawns and other vegetated surfaces, electrons can be donated to the human body so long as there is nothing that prevents conduction, such as shoes with rubber or polymer soles, wooden floors, and foam pads. Walking on a wet surface, such as wet beach sand or a field that is damp with dew, improves the conduction and allows more extensive "earthing" to occur (earthing is a verb that means to be in direct contact with the ground).

Remember, ROS and other free radicals cause harm by stealing electrons from other molecules. However, if a store of free electrons exists within the body, which can be donated to these free radicals and make them stable (i.e., chemically inactive), they will not contribute to oxidative damage in the body. In fact, it is likely that our bodies have used this mechanism of limiting damage from ROS for the entirety of human existence, and only recently has this mechanism been prevented through our lifestyles that limit contact with the earth.

One thing that is important to realize is that our mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cells, which produce the chemical energy our body uses to power various aspects of our metabolism, create ROS. This is a normal part of our metabolism and happens when we breathe, when we eat, and when we move. In fact, the more active we are, the more free radicals generated by our mitochondria. When the ROS are not "inactivated" by the body, they cause cumulative damage (to our DNA, our proteins, etc.). This cumulative oxidative damage contributes to aging and disease. The point is that even healthy people who are free of injury and infection produce ROS (and athletes produce even more, all things being equal). Therefore, neutralizing ROS is in everyone's best interest. And contact with the earth appears to help accomplish this.

Spending time in contact with the earth ("earthing") is easily accomplished. It simply involves removing those items that insulate us (electrically speaking) from the planet. Walking barefoot, sitting or lying on the ground, and scrambling in steep terrain where the hands would be used for balance and to climb upward are all easy ways to reconnect. While grounding (dissipating static charge) can occur almost instantaneously, earthing is best done with extended time on bare ground (the longer the better).

Getting at least 30 minutes a day (honestly though WAY more is better) when the weather allows would be very useful for many people, during which you could be doing things you need to do, such as foraging, weeding a garden, raking leaves, walking the dog, getting conscientious sun exposure, or whatever. Given that we are a technological society, we also have many tech options for earthing, such as grounding pads, sheets, and similar items that have a wire connected to a ground (which allows electrons to flow from the earth to the human). There are sandals and shoes with copper contacts that allow the feet to make electrical contact with the ground.

There are even large cloth sacks that people can climb inside with silver threads running through them that allow grounding through a wire to the outdoors. For some people, such technology may be necessary. It does strike me that it has now become easier to manufacture a way to allow electrons to flow from the ground to our feet (while we sit indoors) than to just go outdoors and experience it. But, if I lived in a high-rise apartment, I might make use of this technology.

There is a lot of research showing the benefits of skin-to-earth contact: including speeding wound healing, promoting better sleep, reducing oxidative damage, lowering blood pressure, suppressing inflammation, and improving various cardiac health issues.

So for now I leave you with this thought in the hopes you will try out some barefoot walking this season: Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet

The Tastes of Spring: Astringent and Pungent Plants

One last thing I want to share that has emerged more now that we are mid-spring in Taurus season is how the types of plants support us. I've already talked a lot about the bitter plants/greens in several past episodes, and they are abundant right now. They help with digestion and detoxification. There are also two other tastes that spring brings us that I've been finding on the trail a lot: ASTRINGENT and PUNGENT.

⭐ The Astringent Taste

Astringent plants constrict or shrink body tissues and mucous membranes. They work by drawing out water from the target tissue/membrane and reducing fluid emission. Astringents are employed for rapid wound healing and various digestive tract disorders. They prove to be immensely fruitful for leaky guts due to their drying property. They are used to treat persistent diarrhea and inflammation of the intestines.

I'm still learning my wild astringents, but a few astringent foods that you may know—not necessarily in spring—would be yarrow, goldenrod, raspberry leaf, witch hazel, cranberries, and teas like green tea. Rosemary, sprouts, broccoli, avocado, lettuce, peas, cauliflower, and potatoes are vegetables dominant in the astringent taste. Generally, when vegetables are eaten in their raw form, they give an astringent taste.

⭐ The Pungent Taste

The pungent taste from plants helps to increase circulation, movement, and metabolism within the body, countering the slowing down of metabolism and dampening of the tissues.

I find it fascinating that when we learn to start eating more seasonally, nature provides us with just what is needed in each season. One of the pungent wild edibles I am personally enjoying—thanks to finding an epic patch in the woods recently—are ramps.

Ramps are in the allium family and are a spring ephemeral (which I talked about another one, spring beauty, a couple episodes ago). Spring ephemerals are plants where the leaves and flowers come out in the spring but disappear by summertime.

These garlic-smelling leaves emerge in mid-spring. The leaves have an onion-like bulb under the ground. They are delicious and have a very pungent oniony aroma.

They have some pretty epic nutritional benefits in addition to the pungent flavor/action, such as: magnesium, potassium, selenium, manganese, polyphenols (which help with inflammation and rebuild the mucosal barrier), quercetin (which helps with histamine—hello spring allergies), inulin (prebiotics that help support mineral absorption), and vitamins A, C, K1, B6, and folate.

You can eat them raw—they're full of live enzymes that help us digest them, and they contain naturally occurring structured coherent cellular water.

Remember that raw foods are full of live enzymes that help digest 40-60% of that particular food, as well as naturally occurring structured coherent cellular water. When the weather is warmer, it just makes sense to include more fresh raw foods.

Now, I want to say something in case you are planning on learning to forage—we want to respect the life cycle of the plant so it continues to thrive.

To sustainably harvest ramps, pick only one leaf from each plant and leave most (80%) alone completely. These plants often form in large patches if there is a healthy population. If you are going to harvest the bulbs of the ramps, twist off the crown as you pull them off the ground.

After the leaves are gone in mid to late summer, ramps will put out their seeds. I like to go back to my ramp patch at this time to plant and spread the seeds. This increases the population over time. This species is at risk of being overharvested if proper techniques aren't used.

Take Away

There are so many ways we can begin to rewild our lives, many of which are FREE to do and are fundamental for our wellness. I've honestly touched on all of the fundamentals in this episode, and that's the beauty—the more you live in tune with nature, the more crossover you'll experience into all of these pillars. You don't have to put them on your to-do list or check off boxes for each; they should all be connected in a beautiful flow.

I have a couple of links below for you referring to some past episodes to check out if you enjoyed this one—including the foraging episode I did with Ian. And good news: he will be coming back to do another episode with me soon, so stay tuned for that!

In the meantime, if you need more support right now on your health journey and want to delve into what's going on in your body, I'm now partnering my mineral balancing work with HTMA together with gut healing work through BiomeFX. These are two key ways to cover many of our foundations in a more functional way.

LEARN MORE HERE: MINERALS & MICROBES [ My HTMA & BIOMEFX package ] 

As of this recording on April 24, 2024, I have 8 spots available for my HTMA & BiomeFX package—this is a fantastic way to support your whole self. Check out the link above for more information and how to sign up. If you're listening to this in the future and are interested, just email me at [email protected] to see if I have openings for new clients.

I'd love to hear from you about what resonated most in this episode! Was it the importance of wild water? The benefits of going barefoot? Or perhaps the seasonal plants that support our health? Whatever insight or practice you're inspired to try, please reach out and share your experience—DM me on Instagram or send me an email.

Remember, rewilding isn't about perfection or checking off boxes—it's about reconnecting with our natural state of being and allowing that connection to support our health from the inside out. Even small steps toward a more nature-aligned lifestyle can create powerful ripples of transformation in your wellbeing.

Until next time... stay nourished and well!

Links that were mentioned in the episode if you want to dig further: 

• Wild food and foraging  HERE 
• Rewilding vs biohacking HERE
• The fundamentals for human health are so sexy HERE
• Water testing sources: Find A Spring HERE / Radiant Life HERE / Cuzn.com HERE