Practice Ways with Rachel Landon
Plants, a daily stretch, deep breaths
Practice Ways is a monthly feature on Balance Practice that shares notes from writers, makers, coaches, and creatives, offering perspectives on what balance looks like as real life is happening.
I’ve always dreamed of being able to recognize the medicinal properties of plants at a glance; to forage comfrey and chamomile from my local green spaces and create healing potions and salves for my family and community. Alas, my confidence ends with the dock leaf so I’m not very useful beyond nettle stings. To be attuned to nature in this way seems so innate and yet so far from how we live today. Nevertheless, the power of plants is something that I revere.
Herbalist Rachel Landon embodies the knowledge and skill of a natural healer. She’s a woman who has inspired me since I first woke to a warm mug of her sunrise tea back in 2018 when I lived not far from the North London shopfront of her apothecary, Wilder Botanics, that she runs with her husband Charlie. I’d pile my toddler into the stroller and waddle down the towpath with my pregnant belly, pulled by the prospect of renewal from Rachel’s healing creations that waited alongside the vibrancy of Broadway Market on a Saturday morning.
Now filled with decades of practical and meaningful experience, Rachel was initially inspired to qualify as a Naturopathic Iridologist and Herbalist after navigating her own health challenges during her career in the modeling industry. She set up Wilder to help cut through the confusion that so often accompanies “wellness” and started preparing her own herbal prescriptions for clients in the form of whole herb organic teas. Since then, her range has expanded to include face and body cleaners and oils, tinctures, and flower remedies that address everything from immunity and stress, to women’s health and sleep.
“The name Wilder was inspired with a hope of reconnecting people to herbs and their uses and instilling a feeling of self confidence in utilising the wild herbs that grow seasonally in our hedgerows and scrublands,” she says. “Common herbs that our forefathers would have used but more often now moved away from by generations since.”
Indeed, when I engage with Rachel’s work I can feel the care she’s put into it, as well as a subtle re-emergence of my own connection to the plants where they come from. I find this incredibly grounding. My well-loved copy of her book Super Herbs lives dogeared on my kitchen shelf and applying her Goddess of Protection Body Oil is one of my most loved gestures of care, a favourite quick reset for mind and body. And I rarely leave home without her Natural Hand Spray.
Rachel has been generous to share some of her recent notes on balance, and practice…
What’s feeling really good to you in this season?
This season is my favourite when it comes to herbs. We’re moving away from wintering where we need to revitalise our eliminative organs — cleansing our lymphatic system, and energising digestion and liver function. Mother Nature offers fresh spring dandelion leaves and nettle, cleavers and chickweed. Mineral rich cleansing herbs for us to start to freshen up the whole body system.
What does balance look like for you right now?
Juggling work and the children is a fine balance and managing my own sense of balance within this is tricky. I feel balance to me right now means support, space, rest, and good nutrition.
What practices support that sense of balance?
I make sure I practice yoga at least once a week and at this stage of my life in my 50’s stretching every day is really important as I find I hold onto stress in my muscles much more easily now.
I drink Wilder’s Flourish Tea all day long, and I add whichever Wilder tinctured drops I feel are needed. This is my only daily supplement ritual. Organic herbs.
Walking Tippi our dog is a good excuse every morning to be out connecting with the plants, checking out what’s growing where, and making mental notes to return with my foraging basket. I love this.
And I have to have time to be on my own, as an introvert it’s so important even if it’s just 10 minutes!
This morning I woke up and took time out on my own to take a bath in Wilder’s Healing Spirit Soak — this always helps to centre me.
What’s one gesture toward center you’d invite everyone reading to partake with you today?
Breathing deep.
Immersing yourself in herbs is an excellent way to utilise their healing benefits, and it doesn’t have to be the full body, if you don’t have a bath then try a foot bath in a quiet place where you can close your eyes or maybe even read. And you don’t have to use Wilder Soaks, add fresh or dried herbs of chickweed, lavender or calendula.
Rachel Landon is a Naturopathic Iridologist and Herbalist, and author of Super Herbs. Her private practice and shop, Wilder Botanics, is based in North London, where she specialists in family health, encouraging and inspiring clients to be active participants in their own health and well-being.
That was such an interesting piece-thank you Erin!