Angelica Herb

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It was such a pleasure to sit down with Frieda Kipar Bay to talk about the angelica herb (Angelica archangelica). Not only is Frieda a really cool person, but she shared so much wide-ranging and in-depth information about this beautiful and medicinal herb! 

I loved angelica before this interview. Now I feel like I’m falling for it even more and I know you’re going to love it, too. 

Don’t miss downloading your free recipe card for Frieda’s Candied Angelica Root for a delicious way to enjoy angelica’s many gifts.

For example:

► Many herbal systems call for moving stagnation before doing anything else - see what that means exactly and how angelica is especially suited to helping.

► Are you amped up all night and then exhausted in the morning? Find out what may be causing that and how angelica could help.

► The unique ways that the angelica herb supports digestion.

► and more…

By the end of this episode, you’ll know:

► When to turn to dong quai (Angelica sinensis) and when to turn to the angelica herb (Angelica archangelica)

► Who should avoid the angelica herb – and when?

► Who is the angelica herb particularly supportive for?

► How to develop your plant ID eye (always important, but especially when a plant has a toxic look-alike, as angelica does)

For those of you who don’t already know her, Frieda Kipar Bay is an herbalist, movement artist, writer, and educator.  She began her formal study of the plants at the California School of Herbal Studies.  She went on to apprentice with The Herbal Apothecary for two years, studied with Aviva Romm and Matthew Wood, and seed Taproot Medicine, a small line of potent herbal syrups. 

As she began working clinically, she found the need for more diagnostic skill, and over the next 4 years, embarked on a journey into reading the tongue, pulse, and face primarily under the direction of acupuncturists Brian LaForgia and Will Morris.  This work has brought her to her current study of Daoist Medicine Theory, Qigong, and Daoist dream diagnosis. 

She has volunteered as part of the MASHH Collective, the Botanical Bus, and the People’s Medicine Project, and taught advanced coursework through Gathering Thyme Herb School, Scarlet Sage, and her own apprenticeships. 

It sounds like a lot, but most of her days include at least one long conversation with a plant, and many awe-filled moments as a parent.

I’m thrilled to share our conversation with you today!

-- TIMESTAMPS -- for the Angelica Herb

• 01:17 - Introduction to Frieda Kipar Bay
• 03:39 - The influences that led Frieda to plants
• 07:39 - Why Frieda loves the angelica herb
  
• 12:15 - Medicinal gifts of the angelica herb (Angelica archangelica)
• 18:25 - What about toxic look-alikes?
• 22:11 - Where the angelica herb likes to grow
• 25:15 - Ceremonial uses of the angelica herb
  
• 26:18 - The angelica herb supports the circulatory and endocrine systems
• 27:49 - How Frieda likes to work with the angelica herb
  
• 29:15 - Candied angelica root
• 33:41 - Closing thoughts about the angelica herb
  
• 36:54 - Frieda’s offerings
• 45:04 - How plants inspire hope in Frieda
• 53:20 - Herbal tidbit

Get Your Free Recipe!

Connect with Frieda

• Website | friedakiparbay.net

Transcript of the 'Angelica Herb with Frieda Kipar Bay' Video

Rosalee de la Forêt:
Hello and welcome to the Herbs with Rosalee Podcast, a show exploring how herbs heal as
medicine, as food and through nature connection. I’m your host, Rosalee de la Forêt. I created
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Okay, grab your cup of tea and let’s dive in.

I loved this conversation with Frieda, not only because she is a really cool person, but also because of all the wide-ranging and in-depth information that she shared about the Angelica herb. I loved Angelica before this interview, and now I feel like I’m falling for it even more. I know you’re going to love it too.

For those of you who don’t already know her, Frieda Kipar Bay is an herbalist movement artist, writer and educator. She began her formal study of the plants at the California School of Herbal Studies. She went on to apprentice with the Herbal Apothecary for two years, studied with Aviva Romm and Matthew Wood and seed Taproot Medicine, a small line of potent herbal syrups.

As she began working clinically, she found the need for more diagnostic skill and over the next four years, embarked on a journey into reading the tongue, pulse and face, primarily under the direction of acupuncturist Brian LaForgia and Will Morris. This work has brought her to her current study of Daoist Medicine of Theory, Qigong and Daoist dream diagnosis. She has volunteered as a part of the MASHH Collective, the Botanical Bus and the People’s Medicine Project, and taught advanced coursework through Gathering Thyme Herb School, Scarlet Sage, and her own apprenticeships.

It sounds like a lot but most of her days include at least one long conversation with the plant and many awe-filled moments as a parent.

Welcome to the show, Frieda. It’s so lovely to have you here.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

Thank you. It’s so fun to be here already.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

People find their way on to the show in different ways and you have the distinction. You are specifically requested. Somebody wrote me and I’m so sorry I don’t remember who it was. It was a couple of months ago. I remember somebody was like, “You’re going to love her. Check her out.” So, I did and I’ve been on your newsletter for a couple of months and just love all of your seasonal offerings. I’m sure we’ll talk about qigong a bit. That’s a big love of mine, so your offerings around that. Just everything you do is also very beautiful, just simple and beautiful. I’m really excited to get to know you better.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

Me too. I love your podcast. It’s the perfect length for the half hour drive into the town.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Nice. I’m glad. I guess the great place to get started, as always is, “How did you find yourself on this plant path?”

Frieda Kipar Bay:

Such a fun question because it’s not—I didn’t go into the garden when I was six and have an aha moment. Little by little. I would say my three things. My parents, both in really different ways. My dad is an immigrant here. He came from the Baltic Coast, so kind of other worldly. He definitely had a very different way of seeing things. His acknowledgment of the plant is sentient, from an early age had a really deep effect on me. I remember him he was an “odd job” guy. He would do firewood or plant trees or roofing jobs because he had immigrant status. He did all this landscaping for this little historical park near our town. He would only water the plants there with spring water, which he would drive 40 minutes to get in his old diesel car to get spring water and bring it to the plants. I remember being like, “Dad, you have money for this gas? What are you doing?” He was like, “These plants deserve the best water!” That just really stayed with me that somebody with very little means could really organize around something essentially sacred from this different perspective.

My mom always reached for mullein before cough syrup. She always reached for the homeopathic she knew about before Tylenol. I feel like her commitment to trying things out. She’s not an herbalist. She’s not a medicine woman on any level but she committed herself to just trying things and learning about them.

There was that and then I started dancing at a really young age. I often tell people dancing has saved my life. Being in a practice of being embodied feels like it actually really opened to me the plant world through my body in a way that I don’t think I could know if I didn’t practice that. Qigong is the current way that I really practice and teach that, so really just practicing being embodied, practicing being in my senses.

One other person I just want to give a shout out to, Jen Bredesen, who is now on faculty at the California School of Herbal Studies in Sonoma County. I met her in a punk warehouse in San Francisco. She was living out of the back of her truck and making these amazing herbal beers. She was making rose and berry, yarrow, mugwort beer for all the crazy punks in San Francisco in the early 2000’s. She brought me on my first seaweed harvest. She gave me my first remedies for menstrual cramps just like a real adventure and a real plant—it’s like plants are springing out of her all the time. She’s a plant person. You’re like, “Is that a plant?” “Oh, no. It’s Jen.”

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love that.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

She really gave me the idea that you could go and be an herbalist. It wasn’t just a mythological thing to be “witch.” She really was like, “No, you can know these things.” So, yeah. Those are some stories about that.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love that vision of those plant people who lived the plants so thoroughly that it just ends up engrossing everybody around them too. You chose the Angelica plant for your plant today, which I am super excited about because it is the first time Angelica has made their way on to the show. I love Angelica and I’m excited to hear what you have to share about Angelica. I’m also curious why Angelica was the plant you chose.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

The plant that herbalists get really excited about, right? You know somebody is a plant person when you mention Angelica and they’re like, “Ooh, haah.” We all kind of faint in Angelica’s presence. It’s funny I got the info and invite to the podcast and you ask, “What plant do you want to speak about?” That very night I had a dream where somebody handed me a bouquet. I was like, “Those are Angelica blossoms. They’re out of season. Where did she get them?” and then I looked into her eyes. She looked kind of like me. I woke up with this—this was a few weeks ago inside this veil of ancestry and just connections of worlds during the Witches New Year. I got the sense that she was my ancestor. I just love this plant because when I went to the Baltic Coast where my dad is from and emigrated from, I brought his ashes back when he died. I remember pouring his ashes into the Baltic Sea and then turning around and walking back at the slope, and it was just full of Angelica growing like a total weed in a way that it doesn’t really grow in North America that I’ve seen like that. It was the archangelica, the really big, juicy ones. I was like, “Okay, got it! Angelica.” That’s what we’re talking about here.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wow! It gives me goose bumps. I’m so glad you shared that story. It gives me goose bumps on several levels. I don’t know if you know this, Frieda, but I’ve just returned from Mexico where I spread my dad’s ashes so I feel you on that level to have the plants support. There’s been something about the whole journey of my dad passing and bringing his ashes back. The healing part is there has been community in feeling I’m not alone in that shared experience. For whoever else needs to hear it too, there’s something to be said about this human experience of the next phase.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

Did your dad—did he request? Did he want his ashes to be back in Mexico?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That was—he, I think towards the end, didn’t really know that he wasn’t 100% with us. I don’t think he really knew he was dying. On one level, anyway, but the only thing he said the last day he was alive was that he wanted to go back home. It was absolutely the right thing to do for that reason.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

It’s amazing to me how we know where home is in our navigational sense. My dad had this really thick Northern German accent. He spoke German in East Prussia. He would get belligerent about it. He’d be like, “You all have to take me back. You have to take my body back on a boat to the Baltic Sea,” when he was still alive, kicking and jumping around. We’re like, “Dad, we can’t afford that. What are you talking about?” When he died and we cremated him, it was just like a total no-brainer that, “This is what this year is about for me. It’s figuring out how to get myself and my little three-year old and my partner to that place to honor that passing.” Angelica actually feels a little bit like a navigation plant to me. It moves the waters of the body. It’s like this big, not only blood but blood, like circulatory lymph, plasma, everything. It moves the waters of everything. I feel like the way that it grows in different areas helps me navigate how to stay in circulation, in relationship to circulation, which is, of course, the key to all health. I remember one of my first teachers at California School, Gail Julian. She used to say, “Stagnation is the peril of the body.”

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That was also in my first teachings too because I began with Chinese medicine and that was very much like you always move stagnation before anything else.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

And you always start with the heart. Hearts first, treating that. Angelica enters through the heart and the liver, which is such a nice thing. The liver moves the blood into the heart. It enters through the liver and the heart in Chinese medicine from that perspective. It also nourishes the kidneys and the large intestine. In a lot of ways, it feels like an “every system” plant to me.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

There’s something so evocative about the taste of the Angelica herb that to me, it just feels like very good medicine. I think it has brought me a lot of relief in life too, so I probably associate it with that. There’s kind of comfort of, “This is good medicine that’s going to help me.” As you describe it entering into all these different organ systems and moving things, there’s just something about that that is just very comforting to have this plant that is nourishing and moving on so many levels.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

It’s funny you said that because I was chewing on a little bit of root before we met. I just got a nice big hit again of the aromatics of the Angelica. It doesn’t just downbear. A lot of carminatives downbear and move things down. I feel like Angelica both downbears and upbears because it also enters again through the heart and the liver, moving up and then moving down into large intestine and kidneys. In true circular fashion, not a lot of plants do that. People say yarrow does that also, but just the root of it and the bear medicine of it and the solar medicine. I guess Culpeper called it the “herb of the sun,” which is lovely to think about.

Also, I feel like it opens up the pathways between the center, the kind of middle burner, the stomach, and opens up and transforms fluids into spirit--like from vitality into spirit and the Three Treasures model, which I feel like really opens the doors to optimism and helps people in general when people feel beaten down by circumstance, neglected on some level. It invigorates those of us who suffer from that kind of anxiety of “I don’t have enough.” A plant that really helps us understand what “enough” means.

I was writing a little bit about Angelica and feel a sentence of like Angelica mirrors our reality and then makes it livable somehow. It circulates and harmonizes things for us to see what’s really happening, not like a pain reliever like ghost pipe or something where it’s numbing. Angelica is circulating, moving it.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Again, moving stagnation which can lead to both physical and emotional senses of pain or stagnation.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

Blood circulation. You tell me what you think, but I feel like dong quai is a little bit more of the builder, Angelica sinensis. You got to build blood, try dong quai. You want to move blood, try Archangelica. It also moves bile. It moves bile production. There’s bitter. It was used in all those fancy vermouth, French and English crazy liqueurs that people used to make. Also moves the blood in the uterus. It also moves the phlegm out of the respiratory tract, which I find is kind of phlegm in the respiratory tract that’s leftover from an infection, but also phlegm that’s leftover from some kind of old grief that doesn’t really move.

I have this story. My littlest kid who is six now, he came in really damp and boggy. He was just this puddle constitution. Also, as a baby would cry at beautiful music. The harmonica played slowly would make him cry tears of grief. It was so interesting how tender he was and sensitive to sounds or emotions around grief. He got crazy asthma, just ended up with hacking asthma. Angelica and other moving, warming herbs that actually move the digestion down, I feel like have helped him inhabit his lungs more and make room for all the grief that he’s going to feel because that’s who he is.

It’s used as an asthmatic herb traditionally. I remember somebody was telling me that people used to tie Angelica leaves around their kid’s necks to try and ward off evil spirits, which I translate to be like microbes and bacteria. The volatile oils, like you said, got a particular scent and smell. It’s kind of sweet.

The place that I feel like Angelica gets tripped up on is because it’s in the Apiaceae family. The carrot family is like, “There is where hemlock is.” Hemlock sits there and does have quite, I’ll say a good, strong resemblance for somebody who doesn’t know plants. I look at them and I’m like, “How could you possibly think that that is that?” Definitely, similar plant. Hemlock is, of course, the poison of the poisons. I feel like a lot of people just back away from Angelica in general, or plants that look like Angelica or Heracleum because of those families. But then... we eat carrots.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s true.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

And dill and parsley and fennel and all these other plants.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

People have to have a willingness to just look at the plants closely because like you said, when people first start learning about plants—I include myself in this too—you can confuse the most different looking plants because we don’t yet have the eyes to break apart different parts. We don’t know what to look for for characteristics. Knowing a plantain versus chamomile, those two have a lot of big differences. As we get closer and closer to plants that are more similar. Like you said, it’s not impossible to tell hemlock from Angelica. It’s actually quite easy, but you do have to be intentional about your ability to botanize.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

That’s really my sense of how it could be a navigational tool directing us through a certain terrain. The terrain might be even psychosomatic of like a rough time of feeling not enough or not actually having enough, and supporting us through that terrain. Also, attuning to the nuance of a landscape through our navigational skills. We just need a lot of location practices that help us locate ourselves and ourselves.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love that. I haven’t heard that being spoken about Angelica before, but now I’m excited for this whole other level. I normally grow Angelica in my garden. I don’t have it currently in my garden. I’m definitely going to fix that next spring when it’s growing season again because I’m used to having it there. I’ve seen it growing wild like you explained seeing banks of it in Iceland. Other than that, I see them at herbal botanical gardens, but it’s not a plant that I run across often.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

I learned that it grows naturally and natively around the Baltic Sea. From the Baltic states – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and then comes up through Scandinavia, all the way through the top of Norway and Iceland. It likes cold and it likes damp, which is yin. I love working with plants who tell me what they do based on where they live. We’re talking about archangelica. There are something like—I think it’s disputed. Somewhere between 50 and 90 different species of Angelicas across the whole world that people know about. Kind of like oaks, they’re still evolving. There are new species that will show up and people that’s why it’s like, “Is it 50’s species? Is it 90?” We don’t know. The Apiaceae family is really special like that. Shape shifters. It’s cold and damp and it grows in cold climates. It’s hardy to Zone 3, which is nothing grows in Zone 3.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Angelica!

Frieda Kipar Bay:

Yes, Angelica, brilliant, beautiful, big, leafy plant can grow in Zone 3 and in Iceland. It’s good for conditions that are really about cold stagnation and dry. When you need to warm and move, not good. The place where like if you’re yin to fishing and have heat signs, that’s not the landscape to use Angelica in because it’s a hot, dry landscape. Angelica knows what to do when things are cold and damp. She knows how to warm and she knows how to move and stand, be moving through standing water. I just try and think of people as landscapes. I’m like, “Okay, you’re hot, dry, yin deficient, not enough chi for Angelica yet. Let’s use other things for you.”

Iceland is one of its native places. Archangelica arrived in North America in the 1600s. Those Northern European ancestors from Norway, a lot of them came over from Norway and from Scotland in that time, took their seeds and dropped them in right before it froze. Angelica likes a hard freeze. If you do—I know you know this, but if you do want to see the Angelica, it needs cold stratification. The best thing to do is get one plant, bless whoever grew it for you, and then grow it then have the seeds and just drop them right in the ground. It doesn’t take over here so much. I haven’t seen big stems of it like you said. She goes in three, four or five, like friends together. I’m more familiar actually with the hendersonii and the smaller species over in the California Coast because I spend most of my time in the plant world there. She’s little and grows right on the edge of the ocean where it’s just frigid all the time, and that wind is pushing. Those are the roots, the last roots I dug when I moved from California because of just extreme climate change and fire situation to Western Massachusetts. Burning those roots for that first year that I had moved, I feel like it just let me know I was still home. It stretched that word out for me across the whole country. It was like, “Yes, this is home. This smell is here too.”

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Again, location shows up again for you.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

The Sami people and the Laplanders used it as a Shamanic journeying plant so that’s interesting, and then smoking it. It has a lot of uses, a lot of magical uses beyond the whole St. Michael thing and the whole Christian crusader way back before all that happened.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Undoubtedly a powerful plant. It really grabs people’s attention. It’s hard to feel neutral about Angelica.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

Totally. Similar to Angelica, it was one of the first instruments. Angelica and elder are hollow so you can dry them out. The Laplanders would use the Angelica as a flute. The Californian Natives, the Pomo, in particular, would use the elderberry as a slapstick, as one of the first instruments that they had. One of the elders just told me about that and it was just so cool. So many layers.

Also, the cardiovascular piece working on the arterial network in the brain. I certainly use that with people who have had mini strokes, like stroke after stroke or have ischemia. I feel like it really restores and holds the integrity of the arteries that are moving all the blood into the brain. Matt Wood used to say that Angelica taken in tiny doses for the people who wake up at night and they are on high cortisol mode and then exhausted in the morning, helps to reset that cortisol flow and reset the endocrine levels. Again, that fluid to fluid of the endocrine system, the HPA axis works in that way too.

So many different layers of medicine in this one plant. It almost feels like a panacea in a way, but when I really dive into any plant, I’m like, “Oh, you’re like that too!” They all can do so much because they’re all their own little microcosm of the macro.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s well put. I often find in having these interviews and being immersed in this plant, like now I’m just like, “Angelica I need it back my life right now.” How do you like to work with Angelica? Teas? Tinctures? Glycerites?

Frieda Kipar Bay:

I definitely use it as a tincture for folks when I’m doing formulations for people, just taking medicine and people who really need it on that level. I do like to burn it. I feel like it’s the smell of the cut up root is so particular. I’ve used it a lot in different ceremonies. The Lakota people use it in Inipi ceremonies. I’ve been in there and associate that smell with that ritual. It feels like it’s a clearing of stagnation and negative energy making way for something clear to arise from that middle burner. I use it like that. I’m somebody who is just like medicine should taste good, so I use in honeys. I love using the fresh Angelica, soak it in honey and then either just having honey or the recipe making these like candy chewy chunks and then chew on them. The ginseng family, in general, like American ginseng, Aralia, dong quai, the archangelica, - I use all of those in that way.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Let’s talk about your candied Angelica recipe. It’s a nice segue for that. I love candied Angelica. It’s an old, old way to appreciate and enjoy Angelica so I’m excited to hear about this.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

When I was visiting and dropping off dad’s ashes, the two cool things in the Russian Baltic culture that I was steeped in at that point were tanks of kvass on the streets. They have street cars. They have a keg of kvass and you could go get a little shot of it for your day. Also, the candied Angelica. The candied Angelica stems feel really like an Eastern European, Northern European delicacy. That’s where I got the idea of the candied root. It’s not technically candied because that’s a lot of sugar and different kind of preservative. These are soaked in honey, basically. I tended to use fresh Angelica for this, but you could use dried too. You could get dried because—now is not the season to be digging, but you could get the dried Angelica root. I tend to spray it with a tiny bit of alcohol just to bring out the resins and start to break up the density and then just leave it in honey. It’s hard to even call it a recipe because it’s like take the Angelica root, pour the honey on top and enjoy!

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s my kind of recipe – simple, delicious, fun.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

The difference is actually eating the candied Angelica root, the root that’s gotten soaked and really hydrated in the honey, and then chewing that up daily through the winter. Especially when I had babies because I was nursing, I was like, “Hoo. I need some heat here.” It’s really warming and hydrating. You could also just strain off the honey from the root and then just have this beautiful dark—it’s not bitter because it’s honey. Angelica root is a bitter and it’s a little acrid so it tastes like bear honey or something.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s a great way to describe that. Yes, absolutely.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

Matt Wood does call it “bear medicine.” I’m like, “Bear or elk?” because the other ginseng family plants are thought as of more elk medicine, which goes with the reindeer and the Laplanders and the Sami people. The only people who shouldn’t use Angelica are people on blood thinners because it’s a blood mover, essentially, and there’s just not quite enough research. Angelica is a little obscure, so there’s probably no research actually in the Western world on it. In the Chinese pharmacopeia, it’s considered food grade in terms of its safety. Just very safe to use as long as you’re using the right plant, not hemlock. So, people on blood thinners. They say people who are pregnant although I definitely use Angelica to help prevent miscarriage and calm the fetus. I think it just depends if you’re in a situation where you’re not quite sure to work with somebody who knows the plant. Otherwise, really safe, good for kids with cold-induced asthma where it’s phlegm and gunky but it doesn’t quite come up. Even little ones who don’t know how to hock loogies yet.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

They can’t clear it on their own.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

It’s an acquired skill it turns out. So, using it to help drain downwards and drain that into the stomach and help it move out.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That was a lovely sharing about Angelica. Is there anything else?

Frieda Kipar Bay:

That’s the... Is there anything that I missed? There’s one place. There was a conversation on— do you know Henriette Kress? Her herbal site? There’s a little conversation about, “Somebody said Angelica is toxic. Is it toxic? Wait a minute.” It turns out there’s one. I think it’s Angelica atropurpurea, which is native to Michigan down to Maryland, East Coast, Northern East Coast, that they say don’t use the root fresh. Wait until it’s dried. I will say that I have definitely used that fresh and I’m still here. That’s the one. If you’re out in the wild and you’re harvesting Angelica, which I will just say never harvest the first or even tenth plant. Really take care with this plant. It’s a plant that I feel like is so kind and so ready to offer and give. It’s medicine but I feel like there’s a real respect that’s required. When I first met Angelica, I was like, “Okay, let me just stand next to you and introduce myself first,” like so many other plants but Angelica also doesn’t grow in huge swaths. It really fixes the banks of rivers. It’s supportive in that way. It’s great medicine for the elk and the bear. So, being kind in how you harvest. If you’re doing that, the atropurpurea is the one that you may want to dry first and then use as medicine. Other than that, food grades, safety, lovely for all bodies.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you for those cautions.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

With the words that come to mind when I think of Angelica, because you know we all have our little, “That one is supportive, a warming blood tonic that clears the path for wisdom.” What I feel about that is it supports the kidneys when they get drawn out of balance going to fear, that kind of pulling back. The antidote to fear is wisdom. I feel like Angelica really supports the kidneys and draws the path to wisdom before us and giving us some hope as it does. I think that’s about it. I could go on and on.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That was a lot of wonderful sharings. I feel like I just fell in love with the Angelica herb all over again myself. Thank you so much for that. I’m very excited to talk about what projects you have going on because like I said, I’ve been on your email for a couple of months and seeing the many offerings that you have I’ve been enamored with them, so I want to hear what’s coming up for you.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

Nice. I feel like I’ve been neglecting my newsletter because it’s time to put the garden to sleep. I’m really excited. The thing that I’m really excited about in my own world as a humble human is continuing to learn this new landscape and expanding the meaning of what home means to me. I feel like belonging to a place and knowing that we belong where we are feels like the work of this time. It’s not just talking about belonging. It’s really knowing what that sense is. For me, discovering and committing to watching the sunrise every morning, figuring out what time it rises, going out, seeing the vast difference of living in a temperate climate after living in a Mediterranean climate for so long, and planting tons of golden seal just tucking her into the woods because that’s where these woods want to grow.

There’s that and I’m really excited about this collaboration I’m doing with my dear old friend, Dana, who is a dancer and plant person from the perspective of farming, working on miso farms in Japan and working the land, and being in her body that way. We are working this question around how to dance a landscape and be danced by a landscape. She’s really holding. We’re dancing. Dancing can mean anything. Dancing can mean just like breathing with some sense of wonder and awe with some kind of consciousness happening there. For me, being danced by a landscape is about being witnessed inside of it and not being in this one direction relationship of seeing and naming and knowing the uses of, but letting myself be seen. It’s a really subtle, little brain shift that feels like it drops me into a reciprocal stance with my whole surroundings. So, working outside, working in our bodies, in landscape, feels like the antidote to living through a pandemic. That’s happening in person at different places.

We just did a residency last weekend. We have another one around Imbolc in early February and then doing some online versions of that where we’re trying to break the lens of two- dimensionality and be like, “You’re in Serbia. You’re in Alaska. You’re in Texas. How can we all organize around our bodies together through this space?” Kind of like you’re doing. I feel like you’re breaking the two-dimensional lens here. That just feels joyful and exciting. It’s a place where my dancing self is really starting to enmesh with my plant lover self.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Location and embodiment – I really see all these things you’ve been talking about come through.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

It really feels like—and qigong. We mentioned qigong in the beginning. Qigong feels like the practice that has really helped me understand on a deep level how healing works through our bodies. It’s working with these macrocosmic images and landscapes, and then taking that into the body. I feel like my understanding is actually been in a way, a deep part of my herbal training going into qigong and Daoist medicine and following a path through movement. I love actually that qigong was like this seed of all of Daoist medicine. It started with movement. It started with moving in the landscape and then things unwound from there.

There’s one other thing that I’m just still loving and being really excited about that I’m doing called, “Healing in the Round.” It’s a group clinic and it’s online. There’s this autonomous piece that also I feel like has been really helpful in helping people be in whatever pain they’re in or whatever suffering and see that they’re not alone, and see the pathways that connect them to other people who are having really different experiences about how constitutions overlap and what different bodies do in different situations. It’s like part herbal clinic for each individual and then part teaching space. It’s just interesting. It’s hard because people have to actually show up and really commit to showing up for each other. There is this witness container piece of, “We only just show up for each other,” so it feels a little bit like I have to shoulder people and be like, “Come on. You can do it. Stay with me.”

I’m really excited about just helping people understand their own bodies. I would like to get out of the way as a clinical herbalist and just have people understand from their own deep experience what’s going on and what they need. I feel like that’s traditional medicine that’s still on the backburner.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Frieda, there’s just something about your offerings. They don’t really fit in straight lines and into a box. There’s something very fluid, dynamic and organic in the sense of that fluid movement. You have a very particular way about you. Your offerings have a very particular energy around them that I find very compelling.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

That’s nice to hear. Thank you. Yes, I’m not good with boxes.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I am really good with boxes and linear, which I think is often why I’m drawn to the... Because, in order to balance myself, I definitely need more inspiration of the fluidity.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

It’s great that you are. I had this herb business that I didn’t want to talk about because it’s a different thing now. I just started making medicine and then people wanted it. They’re calling, on my doorstep. I was like, “Okay,” and I followed it where it wanted to go. I wouldn’t ship it. I didn’t want to do anything expanding beyond my local realm of making medicine for the people I lived around. I was like, wow. This is a box of entrepreneurship that I can’t fit in and finally, passed it on to other people to do that. I feel like it’s important to be able to fit and move through those boxes because we can reshape them, but only if we know how to be in relationship to them. I appreciate how you do that.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you so much. Thanks for that and thank you for all of your offerings, all the wonderful energy that you put out into the world.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

It’s my pleasure. It’s just what’s happening.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’ve been hemming and hawing and then going back and forth in what I should ask you for your last question. I want to mix it up a little bit. I’m going to just be entirely selfish and ask what I want to hear from you. I’m asking this question because we live in hard times. We could say “interesting but really hard times.” Right now, in the news, there’s a lot of hard news. There’s a lot of pain and suffering. I feel like I’ve been saying that for almost four years now, if not longer. It’s been a ride. A lot of my work, both personally and as a teacher, has been finding the hope and joy despite that because I don’t think we can just let our souls get crushed no matter how bad it is. That’s my question for you: How do herbs instill hope in you or inspire hope in you in these troubled times?

Frieda Kipar Bay:

Can I extend it to plants?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yes, absolutely. Always. I use the words interchangeably, really. Which, of course, includes mushrooms just because we’re very inclusive.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

And lichen.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Absolutely, yes.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

Honestly, I feel like pretty much all the hope that I have in the world I draw from the plants. It comes like a direct infusion from my noticing. It feels like awareness can be a gift. It’s the thing that we humans do really well. We can be aware and we can witness. We can also maybe even offer some gratitude. That is really beautiful. It’s like the instant that I go to noticing place, an awareness place—moving from California which is so my home, it is so my home. It’s where the plants know me and I feel most myself. Moving from there as a choice for my family and for my kids to grow up outside of evacuations and smoke and fire, must deeply grieve us. There are still moments where I close my eyes and go, “Oh, my God! Where’s the Redlands? Where are the bay trees?” I feel like the practice of getting close—and these Northern Great Woods as they’re called that I live in now in Western Mass, they require me to get close to see what’s beautiful. It’s not like this massive beauty that’s just stunning on the coast somewhere.

It’s really getting close and seeing what’s happening. It’s always beautiful. It always gives this deep sense of “I belong here with you because I’m noticing you. Because I can see you and notice you, I’m needed here.” That feels like the most humble and careful stance I can take, and then it reflects out in other ways and in other places in my life. I have a tiny story to tell. Can I tell you a tiny story?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yes, absolutely.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

The other day, a couple of weeks ago, I’m standing outside with my tea. It’s not quite freezing yet and I’m taking a moment in the morning drinking my tea. This squirrel hanging out nearby and comes up pretty close to me digging. I think they may be burying their acorns. They were either burying or checking on them, I’m not sure. Gray squirrel. It was about 3 feet from me. It looks up at me and immediately stops what it’s doing. It still has a little hickory nut in its mouth. It looks up at me and I just looked at it and smiled. It kind of skirted me a 3-foot radius and was totally interested in me for 15 minutes. I just stood there. My tea got cold. I was starting to shiver because it was cold out, but I just wanted to be with this little creature who was actually interested in me. There was something about having an animal who is doing their own thing, surviving, living their lives, but noticing us humans and noticing me that felt so like an invitation to just be a part of the landscape. It ended because they literally walked up to me. I was like, “What’s going to happen? Are they going to climb up me and bite me? What’s happening?” It walked up to me and just tagged me on my left foot with their little paw. It was kind of like, “Tag. You’re it,” and then scampered off. That was a real good little lesson moment. You matter and you’re interesting, so do something interesting with your life.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Beautiful, Frieda. Thank you, squirrel. This has been so lovely. Thank you so much for being on the show. It’s just been wonderful to get to know you. I’m so glad that I know you’re out there in the world doing the beautiful work that you’re doing.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

Thank you so much. Such deep questions and sharing. Blessings on your year of grieving your dad and finding your way with that.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Thanks again, Frieda.

Frieda Kipar Bay:

Alright, take care.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thanks for being here. Don’t forget to download your beautifully illustrated recipe card above this transcript. And sign up for my weekly newsletter, which is the best way to stay in touch with me. The best way to get in touch with Frieda is by signing up on her newsletter at friedakiparbay.net.

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One of the best ways to retain and fully understand something you’ve just learned is to share it in your own words. With that in mind, I invite you to share your takeaways with me and the entire Herbs with Rosalee Community. You can leave comments on my YouTube Channel, at the bottom of this page or simply hit “Reply” to my Wednesday email. I read every single comment that comes in and I’m excited to hear your thoughts on Angelica.

Okay, you’ve lasted to the very end of the show which means you get a gold star and this herbal tidbit:

We touched briefly on growing the Angelica herb and it really is a fun plant to have in your garden. You can even grow it in a container although I would choose a large one. This is a biennial plant which means it takes two years to go through its growth cycle. In the first year, it puts out leaves. In the second year, it grows stalks and flowers and then it dies that fall. The flowers are beautiful. They attract a wide range of beneficial pollinators, so it’s fun to have in your garden for that reason as well. You can find Angelica seeds at places like Strictly Medicinal Seeds. You can also look for native species at your local plant nursery, although it’s best to start from seed and not a start because they don’t really like to be transplanted.

The fresh plant is fun to have around because you can candy the roots and stalks like the recipe that Frieda has shared with us, but if you aren’t able to grow the Angelica herb yourself, you can also buy the roots for medicine making.

Again, I’m looking forward to hearing your stories about the Angelica herb.