Milky Oats with Yemaya Kimmel

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In this week’s episode, I sat down with the lovely Yemaya Kimmel to discuss milky oats (Avena sativa). Yemaya is not only a wonderful herbalist, but as you’ll see in this episode, she’s also an amazing singer! She shared so many deep insights about milky oats benefits – an herb that most people these days could probably benefit from – plus a beautiful song to cap off the episode.

Yemaya mentioned during our chat that she enjoys naming tincture formulas after songs (and I may have had a little too much fun coming up with Tori Amos-inspired tincture names with her). Her Oh Happy Day blend is intended to help bring more joy into your life – and I’m so glad she shared this lovely formula with us! You can find your beautifully-illustrated recipe card for Oh Happy Day in the section below.

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

► Why milky oats might be the herb we ALL need right now

► The difference between milky oats, oat straw, and dried oat tops

► How best to harvest and prepare milky oats to get the most potent medicine

► How to choose other herbs to formulate along with milky oats, depending on your specific needs

► A surprising way that milky oats can benefit people recovering from addiction

► and so much more…

For those of you who don’t know her, Yemaya Kimmel is a clinical herbalist based in Humboldt County, California, with over 25 years of experience working with healing plants. She has a special focus on supporting women over 40, especially those navigating stress, burnout, and chronic health challenges that can come with aging. Yemaya offers one-on-one herbal wellness consultations both in person in Eureka and online, where she collaborates with clients to craft personalized herbal protocols that reflect each person's unique story. Her greatest passion is helping people feel empowered to care for themselves with the support of plant medicine.

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

-- TIMESTAMPS -- for Milky Oats Benefits

• 01:11 - Student spotlight
• 04:10 - Introduction to Yemaya Kimmel
• 05:29 - Yemaya’s plant path
• 19:41 - Medicinal milky oats benefits
• 25:47 - Herbal preparation of milky oats
• 33:03 - Oh Happy Day tincture formula
• 41:53 - More medicinal milky oats benefits
• 48:09 - Tori Amos-inspired tincture formula names
• 49:42 - Yemaya’s current herbal projects
• 53:39 - How herbs instill hope in Yemaya
• 1:00:00 - Herbal tidbit

Get Your Free Recipe!

This is a nervine trophorestorative formula, which means it nourishes & supports the nervous system.  I like to use this formula during times of stress, overwhelm, & burnout.  It can help acutely but for best results I like to take it over time – a minimum of 3 weeks and a maximum of as long as needed.

Ingredients:

• 1 ounce milky oats tincture
• 1 ounce skullcap tincture
• 1 ounce St. John’s wort tincture
• 1 ounce lemon balm tincture or glycerite

Directions:

If you’re on pharmaceutical medications, omit the St. John’s wort tincture and use an extra 1/2 ounce each of milky oats and skullcap tinctures instead.

Blend together the tinctures into a 4 oz dropper bottle.

Take 1-5 dropperfuls (start low & titrate up as needed) 2-3 times a day.  It can be taken short term for acute support when needed, but for best results I like to take it over time – a minimum of 3 weeks and a maximum of as long as needed.

Connect with Yemaya

• Website | YemayasApothecary.com
• Instagram | @yemayas_apothecary
• Facebook | Yemaya's Apothecary

Transcript of the 'Milky Oats Benefits with Yemaya Kimmel' 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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Rosalee de la Forêt:

Okay, grab your cup of tea and let's dive in. 

First up is the Herbs with Rosalee Student Spotlight. Each week we take a moment to celebrate one of our amazing students and their inspiring contributions to our herbal community. This week we're delighted to shine the spotlight on Laurette Carey from Ontario, Canada. Laurette began her journey with us in Rooted Medicine Circle last year where she embraced the art of making potent herbal medicine while nurturing a deep personal connection to the living world around her. Following the certificate path, Laurette's module reviews were consistently mindful and detailed, full of reflection and reverence. One especially beautiful moment she shared was about her sit spot experience. She wrote, “My sit spot is nourishing me in many ways. From gratitude, peace, joy, and bliss to medicinal gifts, it grounds me and restores me. Choosing my backyard as my sit spot made it easier to visit daily. I would glance out the sun porch windows while completing my to-do list and feel compelled to stop and go outside. It's like a magnet. It calls for me.”

Her words capture so perfectly the magic of slowing down and letting the living world guide the way. Now in our Herbal Energetics Course, Laurette continues to shine. She's diving in deep exploring her plant allies with curiosity and care. Her reviews show not only a growing understanding of herbal energetics, but also a blossoming confidence in her role as an herbalist.

To celebrate Laurette’s contributions, Harmonic Arts is gifting her a $50 gift certificate to explore their exceptional herbal products. From functional mushrooms and tinctures to herbal lattes and artisan teas, Harmonic Arts crafts high quality products with care. As a certified B corp, they're dedicated to making a positive impact and continuously striving to nurture the connection between people and planet. Thank you, Harmonic Arts, for supporting our community and for your thoughtful offerings.

If you'd like to explore Harmonic Arts’ offerings and support this show, you can find the link here. When checking out, use the coupon code Rosalee, that's R-O-S-A-L-E-E to get a 15% discount on your order.

Hey, it's Rosalee. Creating this podcast has been one of the most rewarding parts of my herbal work, and if you’ve found something meaningful here, whether it's a new perspective, a favorite recipe, or just a sense of calm, I want to let you know there's a good way to go even deeper. It's called the Podcast Circle. Inside, you'll get access to live classes taught by some of my favorite herbal teachers, behind the scenes updates, and a beautiful library of herbal resources that we've gathered over the years. But more than that, it's a space to connect with fellow plant lovers who care about the same things you do, and truly your membership helps make this podcast possible. It's how we keep the episodes coming and the herbal goodness flowing. So if you're ready to be part of something more, something rooted in connection, head over to HerbalPodcastCircle.com. I'd love to see you there. 

If there's one herb that feels like a big herbal hug for our stressed out, always on-the-go world, it might just be milky oats. In this episode, I'm joined by the wonderful Yemaya, a longtime herbalist with so much herbal wisdom to share, and we dive into why milky oats might be the herb we all need right now. Yemaya brings not only deep insight into this gentle, nourishing plant, but also a fantastic formula that you'll definitely want to try. Oh, and did I mention she sings in this episode? This conversation was such a joy. It was uplifting, wise and full of heart.

For those of you who don't already know her, Yemaya Kimmel is a clinical herbalist based in Humboldt County, California, with over 25 years of experience working with healing plants. She has a special focus on supporting women over 40, especially those navigating stress, burnout, and chronic health challenges that can come with aging. Yemaya offers one-on-one herbal wellness consultations both in person in Eureka and online, where she collaborates with clients to craft personalized herbal protocols that reflect each person's unique story. Her greatest passion is helping people feel empowered to care for themselves with the support of plant medicine.

Welcome to the podcast, Yemaya.

Yemaya Kimmel:

Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Oh, I've been looking forward to this for a long time. I know you were on my friend Mason's podcast, Herb Rally. So I've gotten to know you a little bit through there, and now we get to dive in even more. So I'm excited and I'd love to start with your herbal story and what has brought you along the plant path. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Yeah, so it was one of those things where one door just opened up and led to another. It started when I was 19 and I was living in Miami, which is where I grew up, and even though it's a big city, Miami is—it's a haven for a lot of different types of plants. Almost anything will grow there, and I just took all of that for granted. I didn't even really think about that until I had this friend who was not an herbalist, he was a landscape designer, but he was the first person that I ever met that had this sort of reverence for plants. He had this practice where he would wake up every morning and he would go outside and he would greet all of his plants by their Latin name. I just thought that was the coolest thing. First of all, I'm like, “Oh, of course you should greet your plants. We greet our pets, we greet our family members, we greet our friends. Why haven't I ever been taught to greet my plants?”

And then I found out later that just greeting plants by the Latin name really helps us to memorize that. So I think it's just a really cool practice, which later on I tried to incorporate into my life and I still, sometimes I forget, but I still try to do it from time to time. And so he was sort of the first person that I met that made me start to think about plants as the living beautiful energy giving beings that they are. And it was around the same time that I ended up somehow with Michael Tierra's book The Way of Herbs, which I have heard is a gateway to herbalism for a lot of folks. So it's kind of cliche, but that really was the first book that I had, and I just fell in love.

Something just sort of struck me. I had grown up in just sort of your typical standard American diet. When we were sick, we went to the doctor, even with a cold, you get antibiotics for everything. That was kind of the life that I grew up in, and this really just sort of sparked a chord deep within me that made me realize that there's more to health and healing than what I had been experiencing. 

So I immediately started buying a bunch of plants, even though I lived in a townhouse and I had this tiny little strip of grass that I turned into my culinary herb garden, and I did not know how to garden, and I just stuffed as many different varieties of sage and basil and mint that I could, and then I would use it in cooking. That was kind of my first step into the world of herbalism.

Then fast forward to a few years later, I found myself living in Woodstock, New York. I was 22, and I saw a flyer for a moon lodge with a woman named Susun Weed, and I thought, this looks interesting. And I had a friend who was like, oh, yeah, I apprenticed with her. Let's go. You'll like it. So I went and one thing that really struck me with Susun, I ended up buying her books, and I see this a lot in her books too, but also in her teaching, her reverence for the plants as more than just a physical, practical “this herb for that.” I mean, she really does embrace herbs as a spiritual path.

Especially in Healing Wise, for example, where she really talks about the spirit of the plant that speaks. This had an impact on me because I realized once I met her and started experiencing this, that this was going to be more than a hobby and that it would be more than a career and would be, and is very much a part of my spiritual path. Really just learning about how to connect with plants one at a time, how to really sit with the plant and be open to the energy that we're receiving, to the download and the communication that we can receive. I think a lot of your listeners, and you probably can attest to this too, that if we really sit with a plant and we open ourselves, the plant will speak to us usually if it wants to. 

I find that, and it does, and sometimes words come, but it's more of this beyond words kind of download, and it's beyond—sometimes you can learn a little bit about its uses, but it's more like this energy exchange. It's kind of like when we meet a friend for coffee, we have all of these friends that are mostly acquaintances, and then we take the time to get to know somebody and we hang out with them one-on-one and we get closer and we have this connection and it's the same exact thing with the plants. And so that is something that I learned from Susun and that to this day, if I'm working with a plant or if I'm going to be recommending a plant, if it's growing near me or if I'm able to sit with it, I do do that practice as much as I can to just be open and receive that download. 

So that's something that I attribute to Susun and I wasn't able to really afford a lot of her workshops, so I used to go to her work exchange weekends and you would sort of get points for being able to attend workshops. So I was able to do that. I went to a few of her workshops. She lived about a half hour from me, so I was able to go and do that. I was never her apprentice, and maybe this is why, but we got along really well and I just really appreciate her reverence and the way she spoke about plants as a spiritual path. 

So that's what I got from Susun. And then I had a few kids, I moved out to the west coast. Before that—this is actually really cool. A couple of years later, I saw a flyer for the Women's Herbal Conference in New Hampshire, and it was put on by Rosemary Gladstar, and I was like, wow, I have to go to this. I don't know how I'm going to go to this. I was living really day to day as a musician and I was like, somehow I have to go to this. And so I thought, well, I teach drumming classes, I perform, I wonder if there's a place for something like this at this event. And so I called the number on the flyer because back then that's what you did. Yeah, internet was there, but it wasn't the main way of doing things. 

So I called the number and Rosemary herself answered the phone, and I was like, yeah! I was like, wow, okay. I told her a little bit about what I did and was there maybe a place for that at this event because I'd love to attend? And she goes, why don't you sing for me over the phone right now? 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Oh, I love it. I love it. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

So I can't remember what I sung, but I did it. She asked and I sang her a song. I think it was one of those rainbow style chants, and she was so sweet and so supportive, and she gave me the gig and attending that event and meeting Rosemary and other amazing herbalists. There's actually a whole other story for another time of the synchronicities that happened when I was there that first year.

Meeting and becoming friends with Jeannine Parvati Baker, who was my favorite author at the time. It was like when you met Tori Amos. That's how I was. And then it turned out that my father-in-law was an author too, and I went and gave her one of his books and she was like, oh my gosh, I used to give this out to my students. Where can I get more? So we ended up becoming friends until she passed in 2005.

Anyway, coming to that event was like, wow, I found my people. These are the people that understand that feeling of just being drawn into this plant world and everything that herbs have to offer us. And so then I ended up moving out a couple of years later, had a couple of kids, moved out here and met Jane Bothwell and started studying at Dandelion Herbal Center.  I took all her courses and then it was only after her 10 month herbal study program that I was like, oh, I guess I can call myself an herbalist now. I had a pretty good foundation.

I started making products for my family, and then I had extras, so I'd hand them out to my friends, and that was kind of the soft start to what became my product side of my business. I know that's probably the same for a lot of people. It wasn't super glamorous or anything, but it was just like people would start asking me for stuff and asking to buy stuff, and it kind of just happened from there. 

During the time I was raising my three kids and I came across Herb Mentor and there was this course on Herb Mentor with someone named Rosalee de la something. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

She's alright. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

It was Herbs in Practice, I think was the name of the course. And I loved it so much and I was like, wow! It kind of honestly was what inspired me to be like, “I want to be a clinical herbalist. This is what I want to do. I want to help people with these kinds of things.” And honestly, I'm not kidding, the clarity that you spoke, you just made it so accessible and I was like, “Oh yeah, okay. I think this is what I want to do.” So I just went on to study with Sajah Popham and Herbal Academy, and then I went back and took Jane Bothwell's clinical mentorship program, and then it sort of started the same way the products business started. People started asking me to help them with stuff. So I just started and then somewhere along the line, I think it was in 2020 or 2021, I started getting people that I didn't know for clients. And I think that's when it really starts. Seeing friends and family is one thing, but then when you're like, “Oh, I have this person who I don't know, and now I really got to get my sh** together.”

And that's kind of, yeah. So now here I am. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wow. Oh my gosh Yemaya, there is so much good stuff in there that I want to circle back to. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Sure. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you so much for sharing that. I love that it was the reverence for the plants that kind of sparked something in you. That's really cool. And I think that is something that makes herbalism so special. We could say there's homeopathy, it doesn't quite—homeopathy is great, not saying anything bad for all your homeopaths out there—but there's rarely do you see homeopaths with that reverence for the plants. They're often dealing with these little pills versus working with the plants themselves. And of course pharmacists aren't usually like, oh, I love this Zoloft and connecting with that or whatever. It's just different that we can actually fall in love with our materia medica and have reverence as you so beautifully said. And I love the vision of your friend waking up and greeting plants is the first thing. I love that he was a landscaper too, and that was his practice. He had a very deep spiritual connection with landscaping, if that is how he approached it. That sounds so beautiful. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

He was the kind of person—he actually smoked tobacco and he smoked cannabis, but he refused to smoke around those plants. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

He didn’t want to offend them. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Yes, yes. I didn't even think it was weird. I was like, “Oh my gosh, you're totally right. I never thought of this before,” and it made sense. We forget. I think when we're not—we all know, your listeners all know—but people who don't know, we forget that herbs are alive, they're living beings, just like animals are living beings and people are living beings and having that reverence for life, it just made sense. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah, yeah. It's beautiful. And I love, you said something too, you knew that herbalism was going to be more than a hobby and more than a career, and I love the way you put that because that I think for many of us is how, even if it's not our full-time endeavor, I think that's how many of us feel: more than a hobby, more than a career. Sometimes when I'm talking to people, just random people, I'll mention my “job” and as soon as I say, I'm always like, where did that word come from? I don't really have a job. Even just the word career sounds weird to me. It's a life calling, a plant calling.

Yemaya Kimmel:

Yeah, it's a lifestyle! It is. It's just a way of being and then everything else just kind of falls into step around that. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That's so true. Yep, that's so true. And I appreciated your words about Susun. I'm drinking my nettle, oat straw nourishing infusion. I'm on a big kick with them right now. So I specifically learned that preparation from her and always have a bit of gratitude for her teaching that because it's been a foundational part of my herbal practice for over 20 years now. So, 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Oh, nourishing infusion. I got my oat straw infusion right here. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Lovely. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

I usually do put nettle in it, but since we're talking about oats today, I figured I'd go all oat. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Nice. That is a delicious drink. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

A few dropper fulls of the milky oats tincture in there too. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Awesome. Well, let's segue into milky oats, your chosen herb for today's episode, and I'm excited to hear more specifically about milky oats. And I'm always curious because I imagine it's probably a hard decision of what herb to choose, and I'm curious, why did milky oats speak to you? 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Well, so first of all, I was going back and forth. Should I talk about just oats or should I talk about milky oats? And I love the whole plant and I'm happy to talk about oatstraw and oatmeal and all the different parts of the plant, but I really just think that right now in our time—and I live in the United States, so I can only speak for our country, but maybe it's the whole world—I think that we just are very stressed out. A lot of people are overwhelmed, a lot of people are scared, a lot of people are stressed and overworked. And you add that to the fact that we just naturally live in this digital society where everything is like “have it now,” and we are rewarding—there's sort of like this reward for overworking and for busyness. And so what that ends up is a recipe for just nervous system burnout, overwhelm, just feeling like we can't catch up with ourselves and take a deep breath, and that we sort of just, yeah, we're just burnt out. I think as a society, I think as a culture, we are just so burnt out. And so I think that that is where milky oats comes in. It's one of those plants that I feel like it, I wouldn't say that one plant is for every single person, but if I had to pick in this day and age one plant, that would probably help most people, I would say oats in their milky form is probably just what most of us need. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I think I would agree with you on that, and that's also something that I would be very uncomfortable stating. My go-to is hawthorn often for those kinds of statements. But I could see making room for milky oats in this. I'm with you on this one, Yemaya. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Yeah, I would say nettle too, but for other reasons. But milky oats, I think it's one of those plants where we have the panacea plants that are just good for so many different things. We have ginger and we have dandelion, we have calendula, and each of those herbs does so many different things. Then we have something like milky oats is a very niche plant. It's like a specialist. I think that what it specializes in, it really specializes in the nervous system and specifically in rebuilding and restoring and nourishing the nervous system. And it does that so well. I don't know, for me, it's the first plant that I think of when I think of “How do I help to restore somebody's nervous system?” Milky oats is the first thing, and I think of—it the way I liken it to is, so—imagine a newborn baby.

You're a newborn baby. It's got to be the most overwhelming thing in the world because you are, all of a sudden for the first time you're experiencing all these sights, you're experiencing sounds and feelings and “Oh my God, what is this hunger? And who are all these people? But I don't even have a name for all these people, just like what is going on?” And you don't have words to describe how you feel, and you can't do anything for yourself. So you just cry and cry and cry. And if you're lucky, you get picked up and you get put to your mama's breast and you get to get that sweet trophorestorative nutritive nectar, and you're held and you start to feel like, (sighs) “Ah, okay.” You stop crying. You're like, “Everything's going to be okay.” 

I feel like that's what I like in milky oats too, is that we have all these people who are stressed out, they're overwhelmed, they're burnt out. Maybe they're working too hard, maybe they're just overstimulated. They feel like they can't get off the merry-go-round, they just don't know how to get a grasp on life. And I feel like you take that beautiful, sweet, milky latex and you just squeeze an oat and suck on it. And it reminds me of just nursing from Mother Earth. 

And over time, you're being held. What I notice is that—and I think this comes to directly from the fact that this plant is actually rebuilding and restoring and replenishing your nervous system. What that does energetically is that it will change your perception and the stress will still be there. All the things that you're worried about, they're all still there. They're not going to go away. But over time with milky oats, it's like, “Oh, okay, I got this. I got this. I don't feel bent out of shape anymore. I don't feel overwhelmed anymore. I feel like I can tackle this thing.” So that resilience, I think the way that that happens is just sort of the magical side of the way milky oats works, and it gives us confidence, which is why I think that all of these things just, I feel like it just helps us to be happier people because of that, the way that all goes down in the process of how that happens. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Oh, Yemaya, that was so beautiful. I have two thoughts for you. First is I'm thinking like, oh man, here's another herb I need to start taking every day. It's already been on my mind. I have a friend who takes milky oats every day, and I've been thinking when he mentions that. I'm like, “I should maybe add that to my daily practice as well.” The second thing I'm wondering is how do we get this in the water supply is the other thing.

Yemaya Kimmel:

Right? Oh, wouldn't that be amazing? We need to do that. Yeah, yeah. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Well, let's talk, if you don't mind, I'm curious to hear about the making of the milky oats medicine and I think one of the biggest aspects of confusion I see is, “What's the difference between milky oats and oat straw and dried oat tops?” Because sometimes those get called milky oats, which is confusing. So if you could bring some clarity to that situation, and I'm asking you five questions right now. Also, how do you make milky oats medicine? All of those things, Yemaya, I’m just throwing at you right now.

Yemaya Kimmel:

Okay, so let me see if I can answer that in a way that sort of describes the process at the same time. So milky oats, so plants have all these ways that they work, there’s the physical medicinal part of things, but then there's also their energy and how they work. Milky oats, they are the seed that is actually, for our purposes, it's the ripe phase, but for the purposes of the oats themselves, they're in their unripe phase. They are in that—it's a very small window of time where you can actually take a seed and you squeeze it, and this beautiful white milk comes out of it. And that is the restorative tonic right there. That is the nervine trophorestorative, which in English just means an herb that replenishes and nourishes the nervous system and rebuilds the nervous system. You want that milky, you want the plant in its fresh form for this purpose. 

Now, oat straw, oat straw is great. I love oatstraw and probably oat tops too, and oatmeal itself, they all have nutritive qualities. They all have heart healthy qualities. There's so much goodness in there. But when we're talking about the nervine trophorestorative, that particular very specific specialist thing that only the milky portion does, you need to have the fresh plant, in my opinion. You need to have the fresh plant. You need to be able to squeeze out the sap. 

So the first lesson that I think it teaches us is sort of just being present in the present moment. If you're going to go out and you're going to harvest milky oats, you can't just wait till you feel like it. You can't wait until you're done with what you're doing. You have to check them every day, and “Now is the time I need to get out there and harvest this. Everything else can wait. I need to go be present with the oats right now.” So that is the first lesson of teaching us how to be present so that we're not so overwhelmed because in the present moment, there's very little to be overwhelmed about usually.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Very wise words right there. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Mostly we're worrying about the future or we're drowning in our to-do list or whatever it is. But in the present moment, if I put everything else aside and just be with this plant, that's the first healing step. For me, the second healing step—and I'm just going to describe my process of how I make a Milky oats tincture. So harvesting the plant, if anybody, if any of your listeners out there can attest to this, maybe it's just me, but I find the process of harvesting milky oats so satisfying and so therapeutic, and I don't know if that's a stimm thing, but I'm out there in the sunshine and this plant is dancing in the wind, and I have my basket underneath me, and I just sort of rake the seeds and they go, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop into my basket.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love that.

Yemaya Kimmel:

Yes! It's such a satisfying feeling! It's probably my favorite plant to harvest because of that. That in itself is just so relaxing. I find that when I'm done doing that, I don't even need to take it anymore because I've already just experienced the healing. And then I sit down with it, and before I make a tincture, I like to take a few of the seeds and just suck on 'em. Like candy. I'm nursing from Mama Earth right now. I want to get some of the download that is straight from the tap before I go and process it. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I like that.

Yemaya Kimmel:

I advise everyone who can get their hands on the fresh oats to try that, because it is a different experience than just taking the tincture. It's just so, I don't even know. I don't have words for it, but it's altering in a way. Not in a psychedelic way or anything like that, but it does something. You have to just experience it.

It's one of those plants that—I don't always blend up my tinctures. I know some herbalists blend up everything, but with milky oats, I always will blend it up, so I try to pack it in as much as possible. If I can get to a one-to-one, that's awesome, but sometimes it's like a one to two or one to three, and then I will put it in the Vitamix and blend it all up. Because what you want is you want that milk, you want that milk that's inside of the seeds. So the more that you can break up the seeds, the stronger your tincture is going to be. I say tincture because I just think that's the best way to get the goodness of the plant because you're getting, again, you want to work with the fresh plant, and you can make a tea with the fresh plant, I guess, but most of us don't have access to that.

I don't think that the oat tops, while I think they're nutritive and I think they're great, I don't think that we're going to get the same kind of effect as we do with the latex, the juicy milk, the insides of the milky phase of the oats. I really think that that's where the goods are. If we want the nervine trophorestorative effect, then we have to ingest that. That's my opinion. I know other people probably have other ways of doing things, and a lot of different things work for a lot of people, but that's my take on it. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

What's your take on if somebody is just like, “I just can't do alcohol,” using something else like glycerin or even vinegar in that stage?

Yemaya Kimmel:

I've never made a vinegar with it, so I don't really know. I haven't personally experienced the effects of it. I mean, how are the constituents, how does the vinegar extract the constituents? I'm not really sure. I do know that you can make a good glycerite, though. I've had some great milky oat glycerites, so yeah, that's definitely a possibility. You could always use a vegetable glycerin.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I've never done the vinegar either, but now that I'm thinking about it, I really want to. That sounds good. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Yeah, I don't see why it wouldn't work.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

You'd certainly be getting some nutritive qualities. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Oh, yeah. I think if I was doing the vinegar, I'd probably do the oats and the straw together. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Good idea. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Just to get all of that in there. I know the vinegar's really good at extracting the minerals too. So then you’d have this superpower infused vinegar that has everything the plant has to offer in there. That would be awesome. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah, new project. Okay, let's do it. Thank you so much for describing that process. Like you, I also blend the milky oats. That was something I learned from my friend jim mcdonald many moons ago. And it turns—when you first make it, it's this bright neon green color that calms down after a while, but I love the fresh milky oats when it's in that stage of just being super, super bright green.

So I know you must take it as a simple, you mentioned having some milky oats tincture that you put into your oatstraw today, and I know you also like to formulate with it, and you've shared a formula with us that I'm really excited about. So would you mind walking us through that? 

Yemaya Kimmel:
Yeah. So that is Oh Happy Day and (singing) Oh, happy day. Oh, happy day! When I'm not being an herbalist, I'm a singer in a few different musical groups, and so I really enjoy naming tincture blends after songs. I don't always get to do this because it doesn't always jump out at me, but there are certain times, and this was one of those times where a song just jumped out at me that described the essence of what I wanted the formula to be about. I think about it as the intention is to bring us more joy back into our lives. That's where the title came from. And so, let's see. Oatstraw—not oatstraw—milky oats, skullcap. The reason that I added the skullcap is because I know it's a very traditional pair in Western herbalism. I see it used a lot, and I do think in the same way as dandelion and burdock kind of work together to synergize and sort of bring out the best in each other, I think that skullcap and milky oats do that too. 

I think of it as—so milky oats is more of the buffer. I feel like milky oats is the cushion. It helps us to adapt. It helps us to just have that, over time, ability to be able to think about our stress differently. It's more of a landing cushion where I feel like skullcap is more of up here, kind of what it says. So the person who's just worrying constantly, they have that just constant monologue in their head. They're worrying they can't go to sleep because they just got the loop going on. I feel like it just puts a cap on that and helps us to be able to get more into our body and less into our head. I also think it helps us to relax our shoulders a bit and just, I don't see it as something that will put us to sleep necessarily. I guess in high doses it would, but more of just it calms us down, and I think it restores our nerves in that way, and somehow I just think they bring the best out in each other. So that is a pair that I use a lot. 

The St. John's wort I think is optional. I know that a lot of people can't use St. John's wort or want to be on the cautious side because it is known to not play very well with a lot of pharmaceutical medications. And I think it's totally fine to leave it out. But I did add it because again, I think those three herbs together work really nicely. 

I see St. John's wort as like—it's a plant that people use a lot for nerve pain. I think of a burnt out nervous system, like a nervous system that's really stuck in a sympathetic mode as a nervous system that's hurting. Maybe it's not physical pain, but it’s still hurt equals pain. I think that St. John's wort maybe just has an affinity for the nervous system, and it's one of those panaceas, right? It does so many different things, but it really does have an affinity for the nerves. And again, it seems to work really nicely with the skullcap and the milky oats. 

Then the reason I added the lemon balm is because I think—and that's where the joy comes in—I think a lot of us who get into this sympathetic mode, we're stressed out, we're working too hard, we’ve kind of just forgotten how to have joy. Our senses are usually dimmer, and I think that lemon balm really, it energetically will calm us down and sort of center us a little bit, but it also kind of sharpens our senses and invites that feeling of joy and delight back in. And so that's why—and it could be a glycerite or a tincture, I recommend the Glyceride because it just tastes so good, and it helps the entire blend to just taste amazing. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love the suggestion of glycerite in there because like you said, the taste is so good. I also love adding a little bit of glycerites to formulas because it removes the harshness of the alcohol. It just rounds out in a way that, I dunno, especially for this formula, just makes sense. Oh, happy day. We want it to taste good and be fun. I have to say, Yemaya, one of my less flattering qualities is that I can be very critical and I can be very critical of herbal formulas because I’m kind of a snob. And I love this herbal formula. This is beautiful. I love it. I love all the intention and it really makes sense. And the lemon balm glycerite, I think gives it that extra notch up. This is a formula that you sell?

Yemaya Kimmel:

Depending on when this airs, sometimes I have it out for sale and sometimes I don't, and I make it a lot for clients. But it is also a formula that, I mean, you can check my website when this comes out. I'll try to make sure that I have some by then, but it's one of those formulas that I use a lot and that can be customized to sort of fit your needs. So for example, for me, I like it as is. I will use it as is. If you need to take out the St. John's wort, it's still good as is. But if you think about the individual person and you think about either the root cause or maybe the effect that the burnout is having, or maybe just sort of a tandem symptom that's going on, there are other plants that really help bring out this formula and that also can address some of those needs. 

So a few examples, maybe you're overwhelmed with grief and maybe you just lost someone close to you and you don't know how to deal with life now, and that's where I would maybe add a little hawthorn and rose to the tincture. I think that would be a really nice blend. Maybe this is affecting your heart and maybe you have high blood pressure because of all your anxiety, or maybe you have heart palpitations, or maybe you're just prone to panic attacks. I would definitely put some motherwort in and also the hawthorn again. Maybe this is something that's been going on for a really long time and your vital force is really depleted. I would throw ashwagandha in there. 

As a matter of fact, I think ashwagandha is another one that just works so well with milky oats that maybe just throw it in anyway if you want to and see how it works for you. Ashwagandha is so good at replenishing the nervous system and especially that deep kind of loss of vital force that just happens over time from being in this state for a really long time. 

And let's see, what else? Maybe you're having brain fog, maybe you're having trouble concentrating because of all the stress. Maybe throw some gotu kola in there. You could throw some tulsi if you feel like you're out of center and you need help grounding yourself. So there's all these ways that you can customize it and make it work for your situation. And I am a big advocate of that. If you need to customize something, take a recipe and make it for you, because we all come to these needs with different root causes, and we all have different constitutions, and we all have different stories and situations. And so customizing it is—it's fine to play with it and see what works for you. The only thing I would advise against is don't do all of those suggestions at once. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you, that’s a good point.

Yemaya Kimmel:
Because then you'll just be all over the place, but play with it. See what works for your needs. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Lovely. Thank you. Yeah, my add in, not to be too revealing about me and my issues, but I would add in blue vervain. That would be my, which I think would work well in there.

Yemaya Kimmel:

I could put some blue vervain in there too, actually.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you so much. Yeah, there's a lot of people who are like, yeah (raises hand).
Thank you so much for sharing this formula with us, and listeners can download their copy of this beautifully illustrated recipe and formula just above this transcript.

Wonderful. Well, is there anything else you'd like to share about milky oats before we move on? 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Yeah, actually, I also want to say, because this is a really important other way that I use it for, and it comes from that same specific quality of it being able to restore the nervous system, but it seems to work really well for people who are coming off of addictions. 

And disclaimer, it's not going to take away your cravings. It doesn't do that, but it will sort of recalibrate the nervous system after you've been on this substance for a long time and you're coming off of it and your nervous system is going to go a little wild for a while. And that's where I would blend it with skullcap and in the case of tobacco addiction, maybe throw some lobelia in there, but again, I am not doing it to curb the craving. I'm doing it to help the nervous system to be able to rebuild. Obviously, that's really prevalent in situations like caffeine or meth or cocaine, overstimulate, even stimulant adaptogens that are overused. Your nervous system is going to be just really wired and oats is great for that, but I've seen it work in other ways too, and you just kind of formulate it for the person. 

And again, that's specific for nervous system restoration, not for taking away cravings, but it's a great herb to have alongside your other tools and the other things that you're doing to help. And I would also even add oatstraw infusion with that as well, because then you're getting the extra minerals that are probably needing to be put back in your body. So yeah, that is another way that I use milky oats. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thanks for sharing that. Where my mind went, just because I've been thinking about this a lot is kind of our society's problem with dopamine and the hits we get from constant notifications from our phones or the doom scrolling or whatever. It makes me think about that. I know a lot of folks are trying to move away from even just news headlines, all these things that are just kind of hitting our nervous systems constantly. It's become this constant background noise for us.

Yemaya Kimmel:

And that's wreaking havoc on our nervous systems tremendously. I do think milky oats is a good thing to work with if you're trying to remove yourself from social media or just take a break from—it's that dopamine, that constant hit of adrenaline that we get from that. So yeah, that would make a lot of sense to use in that way too. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I guess that comes about, I was listening to a podcast the other day and it was talking about how there are so many kids who are addicted to screens and video games, but it was talking about how it does become a chemical addiction to these things. And so to just remove the video games or whatever, a cold turkey approach is really not good because it really does affect the kids in a very strong way. I just thought that was so fascinating. We hear about cold turkey with nicotine or something more of a drug abuse thing, and I thought, wow, that's so fascinating. Obviously we can talk about kids, but it's true for everybody who might be in that relationship with these devices and everything. I think that's where my mind went when you talked about it. I've never really thought about that before. That other area of addiction, all pervasive in our society right now. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

And you could even go there with people who have food sensitivities and they're trying to take certain types of foods out of their diet. It's going to be that same kind of, it brings up anxiety and that's where the milky oats absolutely comes in. And it's not a quick fix. It's not something that I would say do it once in an acute situation. No, milky oats is more of like, you just do it over time and it's subtle, and then all of a sudden three weeks later you're like, “Oh, wow. I don't feel so freaked out anymore.” 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah, thank you for adding that in. Thank you so much for sharing all this lovely wisdom about milky oats. I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who's now thinking, “Okay, time to open up the milky oats tincture.” So thanks for that. Add that to my list. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

I don't know why it's not one of the listed adaptogens, because in my mind, it helps us adapt to stress. It seems like it would be, in my mind, how I feel like an adaptogen, that's what an adaptogen is supposed to do. I don't know why it's not on that list, but I am all for putting it there. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I wonder—just because I’m studying with David Winston right now who literally wrote the book on adaptogens, and so he's very particular about what gets called an adaptogen and what isn't, and he's relying on scientific literature to determine that rather than a traditional use. And I'm guessing that there's not a lot of scientific studies on fresh milky oats. That’s what he would want to see, he would want to see an exact—some kind of study looking at the HPA axis and how milky oats directly affects that in order to be classified as an adaptogen. That's my guess. I could be wrong. Sorry, David, but that's what—

Yemaya Kimmel:

I would love to hear more about that and maybe that research needs to happen because I'm very curious to see if it would make the list, if it would meet all the—

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Folks. Yeah, me too. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Because in my mind, just in my simple, what I think an adaptogen is supposed to do in my mind is help us to adapt to stress. And milky oats I find does that really well, whether it's called an adaptogen or not, it does that wonderfully. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah. I think we can see that happening even if we don't have the studies to back it up yet. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Yeah, exactly. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Well, Yemaya, I just want to take a moment to congratulate myself that I was able to come back and be present with you because once you started saying that you named tincture formulas after songs, and my mind of course was just like, what Tori song would we name? I really—it was a strong, “Come back, be present.” But now that just popped into my head again, so I have to think about that. And if you ever do happen to come up with a Tori song for a formula—because obviously that should be a high priority now—let me know.

Yemaya Kimmel:

I love Tori Amos. I think we've talked online a little bit about this. I love Tori, and I'm not the diehard fan that you are, but I've been listening to her since I was in my teens, and I am already thinking of a few songs—even something simple like “Winter” could just be some sort of winter immunity. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

“Caught a Lite Sneeze. “

Yemaya Kimmel:

Yeah, there you go. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Whoa! That's a cool tincture name!

Yemaya Kimmel: 

You could have so much fun with that. Okay, that's the assignment. How many Tori songs can you turn into a tincture formula? 

Rosalee de la Forêt:
Of course, my favorite line, “kiss the violets as they're waking up,”—Kiss the Violets could be a violet based formula. Yes. Could be a presence. She's talking about presence. I think we should spend the next 20 minutes just brainstorming this. I think everyone's going to want to hear what we come up with. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

I really want to think about that more. And we should just send each other ideas as we come up with them.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Okay. This is good. This is good. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Okay. Okay. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Okay, great. Well, Yemaya, thanks again for sharing so much about milky oats. I'd love to hear what you have going on in your herbal world and what you'd like to share in terms of your projects and that sort of thing. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

So my main thing, I don't have any books yet or anything like that. My main thing right now is I just really love working one-on-one with people, and that's just, that's my happy place. So I do sell some products too on my website. I sell a lot of custom blends to clients and to people who have been repeat customers over the years, markets, in-person markets, things like that. But my main thing is I just love working one-on-one with someone. I love hearing somebody's very personal specific story, and I love putting the puzzle pieces together to sort of help them come up with a protocol that is specific to their story and their constitution and their situation. And I work with all different types of people. I would say that I sort of specialize in women over 40 who are stressed out and overwhelmed and have maybe age-related chronic illness, hence the milky oats that I use a lot in my practice. But I work with all genders in all ages as well. And if anyone is interested in that kind of offering, you can go to my website, YemayasApothecary.com, and it tells all about the consultations and all about what products are currently available. You can sign up for the email list, which I recommend because I do a monthly newsletter where I just sort of share some herbal tips, seasonal tips, events, things that I'm up to, that kind of thing. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wonderful. And you had mentioned that you might have a new client special for listeners. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Yes. If anybody would like to sign up, you can go to the consultation tab and when you sign up, use the coupon code new, “newclientspecial,” I believe is the coupon code, right? Yeah. And you can get $30 off of your intake. Yeah. So that's available for anybody who's listening. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Yemaya. I think seeing a clinical herbalist is so important when we're working for more complex things. And it's kind of an interesting thing because in herbalism, it's so much like—herbalism is the medicine of the people, and so many of us who are interested in herbalism are learning it for ourselves, and we want to apply it to ourselves. I just like to say I see an herbalist. I don't try to be my own herbalist. I'm the worst herbalist for myself. I would not—take too many things, probably would be the thing, or wouldn't be able to monitor my progress as well. Or I'm just too close to myself to see everything. So I highly recommend that people see a clinical herbalist. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Yeah. I know for me, I need to definitely see another person because I will get freaked out. I will get just, if I start thinking about something that's going on with me, I can't really think about it clearly enough. So it's really helpful even if you are an herbalist, to reach out to somebody else and maybe somebody who's sort of a specialist in whatever you've got going on. And so I think that there can't be enough clinical herbalists—or just herbalists—in the world. I think the more of us that are out there, the more that people are going to really be able to find what they're looking for, because we all have our different niches and our different personalities, and so yeah, let's all support each other. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah, it's so true. Thank you for doing your great work in this world and working with people to hear their stories and help them through their process. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

It is an honor and a pleasure. I love it. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Well, before we go, I have one last question for you. And that question is how do herbs instill hope in you? 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Yeah, so basically I've been thinking about that question because I think it's really about—right now, it seems like there is a resurgence of people who are interested in herbalism. Do you notice this too? 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Mmm hmm. Oh Yeah.

Yemaya Kimmel:

It seems like more people than ever are just getting bitten by the herbal bug. And I think that alone instills hope in me. But I think when that happens, because different people are coming to herbalism for different reasons, a lot of people are just seeing that what people are doing, what our society is doing, what our culture is doing in the name of health isn't really necessarily healthy for ourselves and for the planet. So the plants start calling to them, and we're all doing this with different intentions, with different reasons. But I think that once we do get bitten by the herbal bug, the herbs sort of pull us into greater harmony with nature and greater alignment with nature. And obviously that happens on different levels for different people, but we're always better off than when we started. We're always more aligned than when we started. 

I think that this whole observation that there's more herbalists in the world, and by herbalists, I mean, it could be a career, it could be a hobby. You could be a student, you could be a family herbalist, you could be a gardener, you could be a product maker. You could be a teacher or a practitioner. You could have another career that you are infusing your love of herbs into. Maybe you're a teacher, a kindergarten teacher who has developed an herbal curriculum and is now teaching it in the schools to the next generation. Or maybe you're a doctor or a nurse and you've learned about herbs, and now you're using that as your first go-to before you recommend pharmaceuticals and surgery. 

All of these people and everyone in between, which is basically probably everybody listening, and all of us, our love for herbs is going to impact the world in a positive way no matter how small. So if you think about your love for plants, and maybe it's just that you've made somebody a cup of tea, or maybe you've made somebody a great meal, or maybe you're having a conversation about a plant or you're walking with them and you show them something, people are going to be affected by that and it's going to spiral out. This world is actually not that big. And what we think is just like a little drop in the bucket is going to spiral out. And the more people that are jumping on this train, the more healing—it has to happen. We can't help it. We don't even have to try. The healing is happening just by what we're doing and our love for the plants, and it's just spiraling outward. And so that is how herbs and herbalism instills hope in me. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Oh, that's beautiful, Yemaya. And I feel like that's just full circle, because that reminds me of your friend in Miami greeting the plants. And that inspired you. Helped you bring along this path and how I'm sure we can't even quantify or qualify the amount of people that you in turn have touched and helped. So that’s beautiful.

Yemaya Kimmel:

And all of us. Yeah, all of us. Sometimes it just circles back around too. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah. Well, it's been such a pleasure to hang out with you. Thank you so much for being on the show. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

You are so welcome. It is an honor, and it is a pleasure. It’s funny. I was listening to the Herb Mentor podcast this morning, that was John interviewing you, and you were talking about how when you met Tori Amos and you were trying to play it cool. And I kind of feel the same way because I've been following you for a long time, and I'm like, wow, this is really awesome. So it is an honor. It is a pleasure, and you're so much fun to talk to. So thank you for this opportunity. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Oh, it's been my absolute pleasure Yemaya. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

Yay. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thanks for being here. Don't forget to download your beautifully illustrated recipe card above this transcript. Also sign up for my newsletter below, which is the best way to stay in touch with me. You can find more about Yemaya at her website, YemayasApothecary.com. And if you'd like more herbal episodes to head your way, then one of the best ways to support this podcast is by subscribing on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

I deeply believe that this world needs more herbalists and plant centered folks, and I'm so glad that you are here as part of this herbal community. Also, a big round of thanks to the people all over the world who make this podcast happen week to week. Emilie Thomas Anderson is the project manager who oversees the entire podcast operation from guest outreach to writing show notes and on and on. I often tell people I just show up. Emilie does most of the heavy lifting. Nicole Paull is the operator for the entire Herbs with Rosalee school and community. She keeps an eagle eye view on everything to ensure it's running smoothly. Francesca is our fabulous video and audio editor. She not only makes listening more pleasant, she also adds beauty to the YouTube videos with plant images and video overlays. 

Tatiana Rusakova is the botanical illustrator who creates gorgeous plant and recipe illustrations for us. I love them and I know you love them. Once the illustration is ready, Jenny creates the recipe cards as well as the thumbnail images for YouTube. Alex is our behind the scenes tech support and social media manager. And Karin and Emilie are our student services coordinators and community support. If you've written in with a question, undoubtedly you got help from them. For those of you who like to read along, Jennifer is who creates the transcripts each week. Xavier, my handsome French husband, is the cameraman and website IT guy.

It takes an herbal village to make it all happen, including you. Thank you so much for your support through your comments, reviews, and ratings. One of my favorite things about this podcast is hearing from you. I read every comment that comes in, and I'm excited to hear your thoughts. 

Okay. You've lasted to the very end of the show, which means you get a gold star, and this herbal tidbit. Well, as a closing gift, Yemaya graciously agreed to share a song with us. This is really a powerful sharing that just feels like medicine in its own right, and it was a beautiful moment. I'm so honored to include it here. Thanks, Yemaya. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

So this is a song that I sing in between clients, and I encourage you to sing it too, whenever you need healing in your life or whenever you feel like you need to be a vessel of healing for someone else. And it is called “Come Healing.” And my apologies, I do not know the original author. I learned it from someone who learned it from someone else. But I do believe it is meant to be shared.

(Singing) Come healing, come in to my bones, come healing. Make this body your home. Come healing. Come into my bones, come healing. Make this body your home. Come healing. Come into my bones, come healing. Make this body your home. Come healing. Come into these bones, come healing. Make this body your home. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Oh my gosh, I have goosebumps. I can see why Rosemary got you the gig. That was awesome. Thank you so much. 

Yemaya Kimmel:

You're so welcome. Thank you for everything that you're doing in the herbal community and in the community in general. I really appreciate it. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Oh, thank you so much, Yemaya.

Hi, it's Rosalee. If this podcast has brought you inspiration or grounded you in your love of herbs, I'd love to invite you to join the podcast circle. Your membership helps support the show and it gives you access to live herbal classes, exclusive resources, and a warm community of fellow plant lovers. Learn more and join us at herbalpodcastcircle.com. Your support truly helps this podcast thrive. Thank you.