We are a couple days away from the Arrowleaf Balsamroot Advanced Foraging Workshop on Saturday. Registration closed for this one back on May 3rd. The next Advanced Foraging Workshop is June 28th, and will cover making yummy foods with the flower buds of Canada Thistle, and the leaf ribs of Scotch Thistle. Right now, early registrants for the Thistle workshop are in Vernon. As I do not know the trails around Vernon very well, I am open to anyone telling me where they've seen both canada Thistle and Scotch or Bull Thistle on public-use land. Foraging has exploded this year. We are seeing evidence of other foragers, so for those reading this who also forage, remember the 5% rule! Never take more than 5% of any given patch so that animals and people coming behind you can avail themselves of the abundance too. The textbook-writing idea is slowly taking shape. I've come to the conclusion that we are not traditional herbalists, we are phytotherapeutic herbalists! As I start writing my textbook dig up research to confirm what I want to say and verify or add to it, discovering why colleges teach backward herbalism, labelling it as Traditional, is a slap in the face and explains why so many believers are so wary of anyone who claims to be a Christian AND claims to be a herbalist or healer. My textbook will teach a version of Western Herbalism I am terming: The Phytotherapeutic Herbalist! The working title for the book is A Christian Perspective on Western Herbalism. If you know people who would like to be kept in the loop about this book, tell them to register for this newsletter. They can visit the site to do that, or you can forward my newsletter emails to them and they can respond asking to register for the newsletter. https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/2025/05/15/foraging-escapades-writing-and-workshops/

This devotional article just got a major update thanks to recent information shared by Faithwire Magazine! It would appear that biophotonics begin at conception and carry straight through to death of the body. We look at additional Scripture as well, that Faithwire offered as suggested reading. https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/2024/02/17/is-your-bodys-biophotonic-behaviour-strong-or-weak-a-devotional-commentary/

This is why my infusions, whether they are oil, ACV or glycerine, are not officially sold on the website, and why the pre-order trailkit is sold with herb packets and instructions to make your own oils with the herb blends instead. On the one hand, its an opportunity for you learn how to do something new. On the other hand, there are people who don't have the time, or perhaps stay away from the stove for valid reasons, but would prefer the finished product sooner than later (a 4 to 6 week non-heated infusion time is more widely known). This pushes such products into black market or back door territory! https://www.rebelnews.com/health_canadas_crackdown_on_natural_health_products_the_battle_for_truehope_supplements

Sometimes when I introduce myself online or in person as your Biblical Natural Health Coach, I'll tag onto the end of my short speel, "Don't worry! I won't make you go vegan!" This is because of a discussion I rarely ever see coming out of the vegan space, and I read magazines that sometimes push the vegan diet, with articles written by trainers, dieticians, nutritionists, sports coaches, and others. That discussion is the issue of bioavailability. I discuss this issue, along with sharing research papers around why certain nutrients are best obtained from meat and dairy, often red meat more than pink or white, and fish. Though this article focuses more on red meat. I just updated this article again! It's been updated a few times now since it was first written in 2022, and additional links for further reading are given at the end of the article. Today's update was a second voice speaking up around the issue of PUFA's in the modern processed diet, but sharing how damage done can be reversed. If you've recently read this article, scan to the end for the latest update: https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/2022/06/10/the-benefits-of-meat-in-your-diet/

When you make an update to a previously written article, then try to share that update and it becomes a small blog post in it's own right! There are two links in this article, one to the update and one to an article on my author blog about similar subject matter. Be aware, and wherever you can, take action, for the physical, mental, emotional, and social health of you and your household! https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/2025/02/13/where-you-live-and-work-part-three-a-lengthy-update-notice-to-part-two/

What does "health" mean to you? Does it refer to the state of your body, or the state of your relationships, or your emotional state, or what's on the plate at dinner? In reality, it's all those things and more. One of the ways I offer to assist you in your health journey, is helping you understand the connection between how you handle life, and how your body responds to it. We like to talk about good stress and bad stress, but to the body, it's all just "stress". Life has it's stresses for sure, and how we deal with them is incredibly important to our mental, emotional, social, relational, and physical health. Before I obtained my NHP, I was writing about stress and it's effects on the mind and body over on my author blog. This is one of those articles: https://songdove.fa-ct.com/wordpress-mu/songdovemusings/2022/02/28/de-stressing-gods-way-and-what-to-watch-out-for/ (actually considering copying this article to my coaching blog)

To my fellow believers out there who may have found themselves in situations facing the spirit realm that they weren't prepared to deal with, my Spiritual Warfare 101 workbook is now available on Lulu! Barnes & Noble stopped shipping to Canada, so while the workbook continues to be sold there, it is now available to Canadian Christians as well, via Lulu. https://www.lulu.com/shop/marilynn-dawson-nhp/spiritual-warfare-101/paperback/product-dyz5m8j.html?q=Marilynn+Dawson

What do you do with soured milk? Make cheese!!! I typically make my own cheese salsa dip these days, but for some time now, I've been wanting to make a batch of wild-herbed ricotta. It even passed the taste test with my son, who isn't the easiest to please. My daughter's idea of a cheesecake made me think of adding one of my wild syrups to the cheese such as fir, chokecherry, saskatoon berry, or pine mugolio and making a wild-flavoured cheesecake. I might try that idea the next time there is a heavy cream container cheesing itself in the fridge. Click here to read how the experiment played out: https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/2025/01/26/wild-herbed-ricotta-cheese/

Realities like this in Kelowna, are why I encourage you to consider my Natural Health Monthly Retainer, or my newest offering, The $5 Question. Both offerings are not intended to handle emergency situations, but to handle queries to either help you over a non-emergency situation or help you in figuring out preventive measures to avoid a situation. If you keep returning to the same question though, I will recommend we switch over to the coaching so a plan of action can be put into place and monitored for improvement. Take a load off mainstream medical's doctor shortage and overworked emergency personnel, by learning how to handle more health issues for yourself. Here's the link to the latest clinic closure here in Kelowna: https://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/529288/Spall-Medical-Clinic-to-stop-taking-walk-in-patients And here are the links to my monthly retainer, and The $5 Question: https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/product/natural-health-monthly-retainer/ https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/the-5-question/

Apparently, even in the world of natural health, you have your stalwarts who know what they know and refuse to entertain any change to what they know, and who get threatened enough to slander and lambaste anyone who questions it. The level of lambasting and slander by a so-called herbalist, reminded me of the medical terminology problem rearing it's head out there. Let me wrap this up now. You will find me using modern terms for conditions the human body has suffered for millenia. I don't apologize! The herbs that helped way back then, continue to help now in the exact same ways for the exact same conditions under different names. If modern research calls into question long-held understandings, and that research isn't trying to sway the disillusioned masses or swing over to eastern concepts of medicine, I will consider it. Click to read the full article here: https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/2025/01/20/clearing-the-air-around-modern-versus-historical-terms-and-references-in-medicine/