Kitchen Sink Spirituality – Elisabeth Brooke

This is women's Radio station. You're listening to Avril Price with Kitchen Sink Spirituality, the voice of holistic London. And welcome, everybody. Thank you for joining us today. And I have with us somebody who's very special. And I know that you're going to get a lot out of our conversation together this afternoon. But first of all, before we go into that, I just want to remind you that Kitchen Sink Spirituality is about letting you know what's actually there in London. There is so much going on in the field of spirituality. It's actually teeming with events, and there's some really fantastic people out there facilitating some of these events. And part of the aim of the program is to let you know just what you yourself can take part in, should you so wish. And each week I try and bring somebody to you who will. Will inspire you, enlighten you, and perhaps encourage you to take up a spiritual interest. So today we have the very fabulous Elizabeth Brook. Hello, Avril. Thank you very much for coming in. My pleasure. I've been very much looking forward to our conversation today because I know it's going to be absolutely riveting. And Elizabeth is a. Well, you tell us what you do. What are you. I trained originally as a medical herbalist, and I've been working as a herbalist for 40 years. But I'm very interested in spiritual practices. So when I first started training as a herbalist, I started to work intuitively and psychically and magically with plants as well as working on their physical bodies. And I discovered that there's this whole. There's this whole world of the plants that can treat your physical ailments, it can treat your emotional ailments, and you can use it spiritually and magically. The plants that grow around us, things like nettle and rosemary and sage, all the local plants that I pick, you can use to work on your chakras, you can use to help align your planets, you can help to. To regulate emotional conditions, you can help in rituals and, you know, headaches, stomach aches and all the rest of it all spots in between. I'm really looking forward to unpacking some of that because perhaps you can actually tell us how we can perhaps even grow our own herbs, how we can heal ourselves. But first of all, you've written several books on the subject, haven't you? Yes. The first book I wrote 30 years ago, it's called A Woman's Book of Herbs. And that was where I laid out my philosophy of herbalism, which was that herbalism is the tradition of women, of wise women. Women have always used plants, they've always healed. They heal their children, they heal their partners, they, they grow gardens. Lots of women grow gardens. They make remedies, they have to do first aid. And women were the natural healers of the ancient world. And in my first book I talked about a little bit about the history of women healers, but also about how traditional herbalism is aligned to the planet, the phases of the moon, astrology and Wicca if you like, or woman's wisdom. And that's what we're all about here. We'd like some women's wisdom. In fact, I have one of your books here in France of me, an astrological herbal for women. And I was dipping into it earlier and I was getting all squealy, squealy going, oh, look at this. What mercury could do, look at what Venus could do. So I hope you're going to be able to tell us a little bit more about that. But I just want to read what it says on the back about you. And it says, elizabeth Brooke resurrects the European herbal and medical astrological traditions from the ashes of the burning times, offers them to contemporary women in this remarkable handbook. And it also goes on to say it's an important reference guide for students of herbs, taking the work of Nicholas Culpepper, who apparently is a 17th century herbalist and astrologer, and Dr. Edward Bach of Bach Flower remedy fame. And I love this bit to new levels of goddess based insight. So I suppose in general what you're saying is that we're all capable of being goddesses or indeed witches. We definitely are all capable of being witches, yes. So let's just talk about that a little minute. Would you call yourself a witch? I would, yes. So for the most part we have these weird ideas about witches that we fly about on broomsticks and have pointy hats and black cats and cast spells on people. But that's not the case at all, is it really? No, I think that's propaganda. Although, you know, lots of women like hats, do they not? Yes, indeed. Lots of women grow herbs and they love their gardens, do they not? They do. We don't wear pointy hats these days. The pointy hats comes from the alewives in the women who used to brew beer. They wore pointy hats as a way of identifying their profession or their trade. A lot of the propaganda against witches came about because of the Puritans. One of the things that women were doing was being healers, being doctors, being bonesetters, midwives, and so on. Cunning women. And in the 16th and 17th century they were trying to take the professions away from lay people and put them in the hands of the university educated. There was a lot of bad propaganda about women and herbs and healing and the moon, which I don't think there were. There may have been one or two bad women, but most women were just hanging around in hedgehogs talking to their cats, you know, celebrating, having meetings on the full moon. But the devil was nowhere in there. You know, that's the Christian thing. That's the Christian thing. Witches are not interested in the devil at all. So where does the moon come into then? What's the big emphasis about the moon? Well, the moon. They have found scientifically that the moon affects our bodies. We had something like 80% water. So when the moon is full, it affects the fluid contents of our bodies. And when I first moved to central London, I could tell when it was a full moon without looking in my ephemeris. Because people would argue in the streets and do peculiar things. And anyone who works in mental health will tell you on the full moon people go a bit lunatic, which is where the word comes from. But you can use phases of the moon to heal and to banish energy and to contact spiritual energies. Personally, I make my own remedies, I make my own tinctures and I always make them at the full moon because that's when the planetary energies are their most powerful. So I make them at the full moon and I leave them from a lunar month and then I press them out or do whatever I need to do to them. And that to me potentizes the remedies. And we are, I think everyone, when they see a full moon, they go, ah, don't they? Everyone loves the moon. It's a real, it's. It's like a real deep recognition of our connection to the planet, to nature, into mystery. Because the moon is a mystery, isn't it? How come it changes? I mean, we know how come it changes. But they call it the life planet, don't they? Because in basically without the moon, it holds us just as much as important position as the sun in terms of giving life giving properties totally. And it pulls those tides. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. I just want to recap to something that you were saying earlier. Because our listeners may not actually know what we're talking about when we're talking about banishing energies. What does that mean exactly? Well, sometimes due to things that happened in our childhood, we pick up energies that we don't or we encounter people who we feel have left energies in our energy field and we want to get rid of them. We've all met people like that, you know, dismal Desmonds or nasty people. So banishing then means to exclude it from your life, to push it out of your life. Yeah. But you let it go with love. If you let things go with love, there is no comeback. So witchy magic is to send them on their way with love and then you're detached, they can't affect you. That's really fascinating. We're going to talk about that a little bit more in a moment, but right now we're going to go to a break. Welcome to women's radio station, the voice of women worldwide. So I do glitter for a living. Coming up next on women's radio station wrs. Women's radio station. Hey, this is Jessie and I'm a life architect. So what has made you say effort, enrage or effort? Enjoy this week. I love listening to women's radio whilst driving in my car, my sport and me. Listen online on your smartphone and on your computer. If you wanted to find out a little bit more, do go to our website, womensradiostation.com Spice Mountain brings a touch of the exotic, offering a dazzling range of spices, herbs and chilies alongside our specialty handmade spice blends which make it so easy to create wonderful and memorable meals. From basics like salt and pepper to a Japanese katsu curry or a Malaysian rendang. You'll find it in the Aladdin cave of spies. You can find us at www.spicemountain.co.uk at the Women's radio station. Hi, I'm Vivian Arts, President of Women in Banking and Finance. Are you a woman working the financial services sector in the uk? If you are not already a member then you are missing out on a fantastic network which has been inspiring women for 40 years. We are a not for profit organization empowering women to network, learn and inspire each other at every stage of their career. 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Absolutely. In ancient times, at least until the 17th century, astrology and medicine were bedfellows. They were done together. Nicholas Culpepper particularly wrote about astrology and medicine. There's a branch of astrology called horary astrology, which is the astrology of questions. And one branch of horary astrology is decompeta, which is the asking of illnesses. It's the discussion of illnesses. And you can, you, you can create a decompeture chart for the time that someone falls ill and see what the illness is through the, the arrangement of the planets. And also because all the herbs are ruled by planets, which remedies are appropriate to this given condition. It is a fantastic system. It's. I love, I love decompeture, because what it shows you is the person, the sickness, because that's not the same thing. You're a person, but you also have a temporary sickness. It also shows you the practitioner, it shows you who you need to be for your client, for them to get better. Because some people like strict rules, some people like hope, some people want all the truth, some people want sympathy. So decompeture will show you what kind of practitioner your patient is looking for. It will show you the remedies that the best remedies, the best herbs to give. And also because it's based on the moon in the first instance, it will show you the best time to do treatments. And what's the name for that again? Decumbiture. What is it? That's a Latin word. And de is concerning and kumbitur is lying down. So it's from the time that you take to your bed or these days when you realize you're ill because there's a time where you feel a bit, you know, off, don't you? And then there's the time you think, actually, I'm ill, and that's the time of the decompeter. Although generally speaking, in these days, most people have more. Don't have such acute illnesses, such sudden illnesses. So generally speaking, I make a decompeter for the time that they come to see me, and I use that. But there's another way of using astrology with medicine which I'm really interested in, because having worked with sickness for 40 years, very interested in preventive health. And you can use the birth chart to work out your temperament, because we have. There are four temperaments that are based on the four elements, earth, air, fire and water. So there's phlegmatic, which is water, and choleric, which is fire, Melancholic, which is earth, and sanguine, which is air. And from your natal chart, you can find out your temperament and then work out a plan of preventive medicine and how to maximize your health. That's something I'm very interested in. So as you're talking, it's making me think about alchemy. Yes. And I'm wondering if we can weave alchemy into that with you. You know, in terms of. Is it sulfur, salt? Because they all treat the different humors as well, don't they? I don't really know anything about alchemy, so probably I'm not the best person to ask, but. But I mean, it sounds similar and it's from a very similar route, I suppose, a similar tradition. And I think that the humors. There's a similarity with Vedic astrology there as well, isn't there? And Chinese medicine, they all have it. That, to me, is fascinating how they should have all that connection. Yes, because we've got the ancient Greeks to thank for that, and the ancient Greeks who went as far as India, who influence things like Buddhism and Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic. So it's a big mishmash. And in fact, I think these things are universal truth. You might have slightly different formats, but basically they're talking about the same thing. You know, like in Indian. In Hindu mythology, they talk about goddesses that you can recognize in the Greek tradition. Neoplatonism, it gets everywhere. It totally does. And yes, and the Arabs loved that, this kind of philosophy. They were the ones that kept it going after the fall of the Roman Empire. The Arabs, that's another big conversation. Okay, let's just go back to this thing. About astrology and herbs again, before we digress into the weird and the wonderful universe. So each herb has its own planet. That's right. So when you're looking at somebody's astrological chart, what exactly are you looking for? It depends. If you're using a decompeter, you're looking at thickness. But if you're looking at a temperament, you will be looking at the balance of the elements. Are you a fiery person? Are you a watery person? An earthy person? And then you could suggest herbs to take to balance that. For example, I'm quite fiery, so I need. I need things that cool me down. Some people who are quite cool need things that warm them up. So what I'm fascinated in is I love astrology. I wish I knew more about it. But you can almost see your astrological chart as a life map. And some of it seems to be even be predestined. But. So I'm interested in general this mind, body, spirit, spirit connection. And from my own experience, I've realized that the mind can affect your bodily health. Oh, totally. Would that show up in a chart? Would you be looking out for how perhaps how somebody's processed their life experiences and then how the mind has then affected the body? Oh, totally, Absolutely. Because you can look at. These things are very subtle. And you can look at a grace level and say, take Saturn, a planet. You could look. Saturn rules the bones, so you could look at things like arthritis. But it also rules limitations and discipline. It also rule is quite an alchemical planet. It's one of the last. It's the last of the seven traditional planets. So it's about transformation. So it depends on which level people are operating on, which level you speak to. And because herbs work on the physical, the emotional and the spiritual level, you can actually affect it without them knowing that that's what's happening. Yes. So say, for example, if somebody's pitched up and said, look, I've got kidney problems. So what would you be looking for? Would you be looking for life experiences that might have created that condition? Absolutely. Or would you be looking for the planet that have affected that? Or is it a combination of a lot of things? I think. I think the planets don't affect it. The planets don't cause anything. What they are is symbols, and they show us, through symbolism, what is going on. It's a bit like the tarot that you use. You know, it's not doing anything. It's just. It's like a mirror. It's like a symbolic representation of what's happening. And so if someone came with kidney disease, you would look at, you'd look at Libra, you would look at, at Venus and various other things, maybe Mars in the chart and see what's going on there. But kidneys are related to fear. So you'd have a look at fear and you see, well, what Saturn is the planet that rules fear. What's Saturn doing? They might have a really strong Saturn in their birth chart and that. And then you talk to that. And they don't necessarily have to know that you're using astrology because it's the language of symbolism and everybody understands it. Everybody understands it, understands it. So yeah, okay, I'd like to talk, talk a little bit more in a bit about your relationship to herbs and how we use them and, and Culpepper because I think he was quite a mover and groover. But we'll come back to him in a moment. We're just about to go for a break. Welcome to women's radio station, the voice of women worldwide. Hungry an average woman eats about 2 to 3 kilos of lipstick in her lifetime. Women's radio station, we want to hear from you. This is women's radio station. You're listening to Avril Price with kitchen sink spirituality. It's Anna Kennedy talking all things autism and my guest today is Karen Nunn. I listen to women's radio station. Women, the possibilities are endless. That's what makes us different. Do you experience skin irritation, unpleasant odor or feel insecure worrying about possible leaks during menstruation? Discover revolutionary and patented most absorbent 100% ECO certified genial day sanitary napkins with tourmaline strip. So thin, so powerful, so genial. Leave behind embarrassing rashes, annoying skin irritations, leaks with your old menstrual pad. Join more than a million women around the world who choose genial day. Order your free trial@geniald.com you can also find us at womensradiostation.com my special mum or my special daughter. 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This is Avril Price with Kitchen Sink Spirituality, the holistic voice of London and I'm here with a very fascinating Elizabeth Brook and we have been talking astrology, we've been talking herbs, we've been talking witchcraft and I want to pick up the thread now, if I may, Elizabeth, about how you specialize in women's health, astrology and herbalism. So can we kind of unpack that a little bit? Is there a particular area of women's health that you specialize in? I used to do a lot of gynecology and obstetrics, a lot of fertility work. I do that less now. But some herbs are great for women's health because they're really gentle, you know, and there isn't much in chemical medicine for things like PMT or menstrual cramps that are not really excessive. But there's lots that herbs can do, lots and lots just to regulate hormones, to make the cycle easier, lots to help you conceive, to get over childbirth. Rather really good for the menopause because again, the stuff that's available is like a hammer to crack a nut. It's quite heavy duty. Herbs have lots of, lots of applications for women's health. And the nice thing about herbs is that they will work in a really simple way. You can drink a tea and it will affect you. I had a patient recently who, because she'd had an eating disorder, was a low weight. She hadn't had a period for 11 years. She came to see me and I gave her a tea and a little bit of tincture and two weeks later she had a period. Well, that's great stuff. That must be really rewarding to see people get back into step with themselves and get. It's almost like they're reconnecting to their own biology again and owning it, which I think women perhaps really need to do. Because I think we live very much in an age of disconnection and maybe working with your way with herbs and helps us to re engage with who we are as women on a mind, body, spirit level. Totally. And I think just the simple process of making yourself a tea once a day is the self care routine. Because there's lots of stuff in women's magazines about self care. You know, painting your toenails and lying in baths, but actually making yourself a lovely herbal tea. It's like on a regular basis to say, I'm important, I matter, I care what happens to me. I'm using gentle medicine to rebalance my body. Or if you have a garden, same thing, you go out to the garden and you float about with the herbs and the flowers and you connect with nature, which is really important, particularly for a lot of women's conditions. I must, like I was saying to you earlier, I must say that you've inspired me to grow some Herbs in my garden, because I just suddenly dawned on me that they could be such a valuable asset. And it strikes me that we're in a funny position where natural medicine and traditional medicine, they kind of want to converge because we've still kept one or two of the old practices. So in childbirth, for example, we're encouraged to drink Raspberry Relief to them. That's right, yes. That's very much incorporated into traditional style. Is there any advice, Is there anything that you could say to women? Are there top tips for top herbs for women's health? Okay. Well, for younger women, actually for women in the menopause, premenstrual tension, which can be terrible, right? Yes, terrible. Especially for people around you. And what. The first thing that I do is treat the liver, because it's the liver. The liver is like the factory of the body. And it's the liver's job to break down the hormones. And all our livers are under stress because we live in quite a toxic environment. We eat weird food that we're not, you know, evolved to eat and all the rest of it. So if you just treat the liver, usually that fixes the problem and it often fixes menopausal problems as well. So lovely herbs for the liver. Marigold or calendula pot. Marigold, the lovely bright orange marigold or dandelion root or. So dandelion is just like the common garden dandelion that you see. So you can just pull it up and then what do you do with it? Well, you'd wash it and make sure that there are no dogs have visited it. You would chop it up, stick it in a teapot or stick it in a jug and pour boiling water over it and leave it for 10 minutes and sip it. So did you have to study what the herbs were actually made of? Oh, sure, yeah. It's called pharmacology. And I did a four year training course and we did traditional medicine and pharmacology, pathology, all those sorts of things. And so, yes, the active principles, we learned what they were and how they worked. Yes. So was Culpepper kind of like your guiding light through that pharmacological? No, no, because Culpepper was. No, they were very scientific where I trained. And Culpepper still is seen as a radical because astrology is a bit mad, according to some people. So astrology and medicine is not something that people like to indulge in. So my fascination and research in Culpeppers was my own work after I practiced Hingham. Really interesting guy Practiced in Spitalfields during the Civil War. Was a radical parliamentarian who year is this 1600s and was a radical. He fought against the King. He translated all the medical books in into English that ordinary people could use it because he felt they were trying to make a. The College of Physicians was trying to stop ordinary people practicing medicine. He was a radical and he felt very important that people have their hands on medicine and they could cure themselves. And yeah, I'd like to follow in his footsteps. Well, I don't know. You're doing a good job. For what I can see so far was Culpepper, was it. Did he have anything to do with that garden in Chiswick? Is it the physic garden? Oh, the Chelsea Physics. Yes. Chelsea physical a bit later, but yes, well, around that time. Around that. I'm not quite sure what the dates are, but yeah, most large organizations had physic gardens or the monasteries had physic gardens. The Oxford colleges had physic gardens because that was the medicine of the people. There were no. Apart from mercury, there weren't any chemicals, so they used herbs. So how does that sit then with this whole thing about witchcraft and the burning times, when kind of people were punished for using herbs? I think they weren't punished so much for using herbs. They were punished for not being of a certain kind class really, and being female. So it's more that they were outside of the professions. What. The reason Culpepper translated the. The pharmacopoeia was so that ordinary people could make ordinary medicines. Because before it was all written in Latin, so you could only read it if you'd had a university education. So it was a small elite that had their hands on medicine. And his thing was saying, no, this is. This is for everyone. Everyone should have this. You shouldn't not. You should not have access to medicine because you don't have the money. And this is something that's very current at the moment. There are lots of herbalists who are working with refugees at the moment. They take herbal supplies out to Calais. To the. The jungle or the camp. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Herbalists Without Borders, they're called. Really? Yeah, yeah. What kind of. Kind of things would they be treating for the rest? They would be treating coughs, they'd be treating bronchitis, they'd be treating sore feet. Because if you're homeless. I never knew this. No, no, there's quite a few in England and. And it started in Alaba, I think it started in Atlanta after the. There was a flood, I think but yes, there's a lot of radical work that goes on grassroots. Why do we call it radical? Why do we call it radical? Because it's not part of the main school scream stream, I suppose. And it's. It's using herbs rather than farm. Yeah, yeah. I love that idea. I've got. I'm gonna go ponder about this because I really do like this idea of an alternative coming up from the people, for the people that kind of bypasses some of these big movers and groovers like the Red Cross, because again, from experience, I don't think you can always trust the big organizations because you don't always know that your donations are going to where they're supposed to go. That's true. But also, the thing about herbal medicine is everywhere at this time of year, all the herbalists are out in the fields and they're picking cleavers and they're going to be picking elderflower and they're picking nettles and they're picking dandelions and therides is free. It's medicine of the people and it's safe. You know, people don't get killed by herbal medicine. They don't, they don't. So it's safe, it works. And it's not that complicated. Obviously, you know, when you get to serious illness with things like diabetes and stuff like that, you have to go and see someone who's got some training. We'll come back and we'll talk about that in a moment because we're just about to go for a break. Welcome to women's radio station, the voice of women worldwide. So I do glitter for a living. Coming up next on women's radio station wrs. Women's radio station. Hey, this is Jessie and I'm a life architect. So what has made you say effort enrage or effort? Enjoy this week. I love listening to women's radio whilst driving in my car. My sport and me listen online on your smartphone and on your computer. If you wanted to find out a little bit more, do go to our website, womensradiostation.com Spice Mountain brings a touch of the exotic, offering a dazzling range of spices, herbs and chilies alongside our specialty handmade spice blends which make it so easy to create wonderful and memorable meals. From basics like salt and pepper to a Japanese katsu curry or a Malaysian rendang, you'll find it in the Aladdin's cave of spice. You can find us at www.spicemountain.co.uk and the Women's radio station. Hi, I'M Vivian Arts, President of Women in Banking and Finance. Are you a woman working in the financial services sector in the uk? If you are not already a member then you are missing out on a fantastic network which has been inspiring women for 40 years. We are a not for profit organization empowering women to network, learn and inspire each other at every stage of their career. Through our highly sought after events, we aim to improve diversity by working closely with government leaders and firms through our UK branches. Find out more at www.wibf.org and join a network to transform your career do you dream of a wedding on the beach? Or maybe in the middle of a vineyard? 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We aim to empower and amplify women everywhere and would love to hear from you. Email getinvolvedomensradiostation.com to give us your voice. Women's Radio Station this is Women's Radio Station. You're listening to Avril Price Kitchen Sink spirituality. And this is the voice of holistic London. And I'm having the most wonderful time with Elizabeth Brook. We've been having some fascinating conversations and I hope you've been following it because it's just been so inspiring, particularly talking about people taking herbs to the refugees. And I just never knew that was happening. And I really feel quite enlivened by that, that there is people who are not giving all the power to the traditional organizations and you know that that lovely natural medicine that's free for people and so on and so forth. Yes, I think it's. Herbal medicine is medicine of the people and it's available to most of us. As I said before, you can pick your elder flowers, you can pick your nettles, you can make your teas. Lots of information out there to treat things like coughs and colds and small, you know, and simple wounds and stomach aches and really gentle remedies that you can use for everyday conditions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's radical because it's against, if you like chemical medicine, which has a lot of power. Has a lot of power. And this is, this is local, individual, radical medicine. I like this because it's almost like it's in keeping with what we here at women's radio station kind of represent And I'm just kind of thinking as we're talking that it would be lovely to maybe put something of this conversation on our. On our website@ww.womensradiostation.com and maybe we could have a couple of tweets that about it. So if you put a couple of tweets out there, Elizabeth, I'm going to definitely retweet them because I think people need to have this information. I think so. It's gentle medicine, and it's healing. It's healing the body, it's healing the emotions, it's healing the mind in a way that's not suppressing the vital force. Because one of the things that we talk about in this kind of medicine is the vital force is that if you get yourself out of the way, you can actually get. Cure your illness. Because you know what you need? Maybe you need rest, you need better food, you need less stress, or you need some balancing of your liver or your kidneys and. And the body has its own wisdom. Hippocrates, writing in the 4th 5th century BCE talked about, you know, the healing power of nature, and we're the same people, and we can do that. That brings me back to this point we were making earlier about being disconnected from who we are. And I think it's not just women, I think it's men as well. I think as a society, you know, in this technological age, we've forgotten where things are actually sourced. And I feel that part of this movement now is about reconnecting us. But in order to do that, we've got to be able to listen to our intuition, which is something that I'm very passionate about. About. Because that's partly what I like to do in my work, is to encourage people to see where that disconnection has happened. Do you find that you do that in your work, that it's about encouraging people to really listen to what the body is trying to tell them? Totally. Because your body is a symbol, isn't it? Classic one is migraine. People quite often get migraines when they're doing something they don't want to be doing. Oh, I've got a headache. Yeah. And they have to do it and they don't want to do it. So there's conf. There's conflict, and you get a terrible headache or, you know, heart attacks. People who are not connected with their emotional heart quite often suffer heart problems. I mean, this is not saying everyone, but, you know, there's. There is a correlation there. Absolutely. People with problems, their bones quite Often are rigid and inflexible, and they need to learn to be softer and be more gentle and be more receptive. There's a word for that, isn't there? Is it psychosomatic? It is psychosomatic, yep. Do you think that a lot of our illnesses and things that trouble us and ail us, do you think that that comes from a psychosomatic source? I do, actually. I think that one of the things I studied was psychosynthesis, which is a counseling practice. And they say that emotional diseases start in the spiritual realm, and I think physical diseases start in the emotional realm, which may also start in the. In the spiritual realm. It's. The physical level is the most gross or the most unrefined level we have. So if it gets to the stage where it's affecting your physical body, it's because you haven't listened to your feelings, or there's some sort of spiritual conflict going on. What? The founder of psychosynthesis, Asha Jolie, used to say that any kind of crisis. He was talking about emotional crises, but I think it applies to physical crises, is that spiritual energy is trying to emerge into your life, and you're not listening or blocking or hiding or whatever. You're not responding to the spiritual energy. And that's fair enough, because sometimes spiritual energy comes into your life, and you don't want to change. It's all fine. And you don't want what's being offered. But spiritual energy needs to be listened to, because otherwise it causes conflict, and then it might cause emotional problems and finally physical problems. So if you're looking to kind of cure illness, you can work on the physical, you can work on the emotional, you can work on the spiritual. And the nice thing about plants is they work on all those three levels. So do you find yourself talking to these plants, and do you actually tune into them and you get little conversations going with them? Totally. I did a workshop on Sunday called. I do these workshops called magical herbalism, where we actually. I think, as a psychic, you probably call them psychometry. Yeah. You actually hold the plant and you tune into the energy. Beautiful. And you can find the spirit of the plant. You can work on the emotional levels, you. You can work on the spiritual levels, you can work on the physical levels. And I discovered this years ago, just by complete chance. I was running a workshop, and I thought, I wonder what would happen if we sat with plants. And I discovered that if you sit with plants, there's a whole world out there, a whole world of the spirit of the plant. The emotional uses of the plant, the magical uses of the plant, all sorts. So, yes, I do. I do workshops in London on them. Yeah. It seems to me that you've got a great affinity with the natural and plant world, Elizabeth. Is it apparent in your own astrological chart? It is. I'm Taurus rising with Venus on the ascendant. And Taurus and Venus are very much about the natural world. So I love plants, I love nature. And I float about in nature. I mean, I don't garden, I'm not very saturnine, so I don't get my hands dirty by. More floaty. I can imagine. So we could say then, that your relationship with the natural world and your passion for herbal law was predestined. Possibly. I mean, I also paint and write, so it could have been expressed in another way. You being creative then, with the universe. I think it's creativity and it's also working with your hands and being interested in beauty. Because the thing about plants is they're incredibly beautiful and they smell fantastic, a lot of them. And so it's all those Venusian things about beauty and sensuality. So we're coming to the end of our chat time. Sadly, sadly, sadly. But it's been so interesting and I'm sure our listeners have also found it very interesting. So tell us a little bit about what books you have on offer and where people can find you. I work in Central London, in Fitzrovia. I'm Elizabeth Brook.com. i've written seven books. The latest one is due out in January next year. And it's about astrology and medicine, which is. I'm really excited about. It's being published by Aeon Books. And it's basically what I think about all this. I've also written a couple of books about the history of women in medicine, which, as I said before, is a hidden history. And I've written a book about herbs for women. And I've also written this book, A Woman's Book of Herbs, which is the Psychic, Emotional, Magical Use of Herbs. Oh, I think everybody should have at least one of them on their bookshelf. I would really like it if you could come back at some. Some point and talk to us about women in medicine. Sure, I'd love to. I think that that would be absolutely fascinating. It's a riveting story and it's a story of really brave women having doors slammed in their faces and carrying on regardless and fighting for the right to actually just practice medicine. It's really. Yes, I'm sure that would be really inspiring for all of us. And in the meantime, we can also catch up with you on Facebook and are you a Twitter person? I'm on Twitter and I'm on Instagram and in two weeks time I'm going to be doing a workshop in Greece. Oh yeah. With Joanna, who I think you interviewed a couple of weeks ago about astrology and herbs. So we'll be going over some of the things we talked about today. So if you were interested in any of your listeners are interested in that, contact me. Fabulous. So if any of you have any questions, our comments to make about this wonderful conversation we've been having with Elizabeth, then please do email us@presentersomensradiostation.com and we also have information about Elizabeth's books. So, Elizabeth, thank you very, very much for coming in today. It's been wonderful. Yeah, it's been really inspiring, really. And I want to say thank you to our lovely producer today, the lovely Natalie Durkin and the lovely Howard Jamieson for getting it all off the ground in the first place. Thank you very much everybody. Have a great week. Bye. Welcome to women's radio station, the voice of women worldwide. Hungry an average woman eats about 2 to 3 kilos of lipstick in her lifetime. Women's radio station, we want to hear from you. This is women's radio station. You're listening to Avril Price with kitchen sink spirituality. It's Anna Kennedy talking all things autism and my guest today is Karen Nunn. I listen to women's radio station. Women, the possibilities are endless. That's what makes us different. Do you experience skin irritation, unpleasant odor or feel insecure worrying about possible leaks during menstruation? 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