Author: Stephanie Bacquet Mathews

  • It is time to evolve into the matriarchy

    I made a post about the namehim.io site. A place where women can name their abusers without needing to input their information or even an email. The fact is, the website actually doesn’t matter. It is the fact that women are finally speaking out. They are tired. In that same post I also shared a device that had supposedly been used in Africa that would give me a consequence if they decided to r-pe women.

    I had tons of men and even more women say, but a device like this will get women killed. Women are already getting unalived. They are already being r-ped with the perpetrators having no consequences. We are already seeing men emboldened by a rapist and pedo file president.

    When women have nothing else to lose, they will take action.

    I am seeing women in their 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and even in their 80’s naming their perpetrators online. Releasing the silence they some of these women have been holding onto for the past 70 years of their lives!

    This is a shift that has been needing to happen.

    Every law, every cultural norm, that tells women to keep silent, to know our place, to accept that this is just the way things are, and even ore oddly, to be scared to get in trouble and go to jail for speaking out, is a step towards a new society. A new way of living.

    I shared that as women begin to share the names of their perpetrators, and the number of women sharing is staggering and heartbreaking, we will begin to see even more clearly why Matrifocal society is desperately needed.

    The patriarchal society, that is global, is devastatingly harmful for all of those involved, not just women. It makes men into predators and then blames the victims for being a victim.

    Matriarchal society is not women on the top. It is not now a feminist regime of role reversal, emasculating men and making them subservient. No this would just be an inverse of patriarchy.

    Matriarchal Society is not the opposite of Patriarchy.

    Patriarchy is where the men are the top of the hierarchy. Their comfort, their bodies, their rights, their thoughts, their lives are THE most important. Everything revolves around the man, specifically the white man.

    Matriarchal Society is not a hierarchy at all, but interconnected circles. In the center, the most important circle, the most protected, revered and honored are the children.

    Let this sink in for a moment. The children are the ones that are most precious. They are the survival of the species. They are the ones who are going to pass on the traits, and create the world for us to live in. Yet, in our current not just patriarchal but Christian Nationalist Society in the United States, they have no protection from predators, school shootings, abuse, and neglect. And yes, our children are neglected. Despite helicopter parents, more regulations at schools, “safer” care in medical systems. At the core children are not valued. In a world where they are at the center, an entire society would be there protecting them.

    Next would be women, in the next concentric circle. Women are the ones who bring life into this world. This is known, but not valued. Women would not be worshiped as people say, they would be honored. Again, there is so little context to this in our modern world, because hierarchy has said, there is a top. There are people more valuable than others. This is NOT what matriarchal societies create. Everyone is valued.

    The last circle is men. Not at the bottom. On the outside. They are the protectors in this society. They are protecting against external threats, environmental harm, and predators outside the circle. They are not the predators. When a massive, and I am talking more than 70% of the males in a species are predatory to their females, that species does not have long to last. It creates a strain on the entire society. The children don’t want to create more of the species, the women begin to live in chronic nervous system de-regulation.

    But that is not the last circle, and in fact all of the circles are connected, interwoven, all vital.

    All circles are held, grounded and supported by the Earth. Our only home. The space that feeds, clothes, and keeps us alive. Without the Earth, there is no human kind. Their are no animals, plants, water, and everything else vital to keep us alive, day in and day out.

    So these circles are not more important than one another, they are interconnected and completely reliant on each other.

    A circle would be all the animals, trees, soil, and water. Yet, we are also a part of this circle as human animals. Matriarchal society sees that we are all connected, think of the Avatar movies. Where the beings on the planet that the Patriarchy is trying to gain control of, is the matriarchal society. They are not depleting the resources, they live interconnected to them.

    But women are waking up. 100 years ago, women woke up with the suffragettes, and the women’s movement, but it was all within the context of keeping the patriarchal society, not collapsing it.

    Men think they are stronger, more powerful, and better in a patriarchal world. The issue with this, is they begin to think this is true, and think women will forever live by the rules. They think they can just make more rules to control women, but when billions of women, the world is 54% women, wake up, men will realize prisons, threats, and death, have no hold over us anymore.

    I can see it already. We are tired. And we can not be controlled by ideal threats any longer. Women are waking up to our Sacred Embodied Human Animal selves. We are realizing that this is a losing battle to stay “safe” in a patriarchal society. So we will no longer be safe willingly. We have to make this change. And men are suddenly threatened, that women are taking their own protection into consideration.

    I just wrote an entire chapter jumping into more of this that can be read here. https://www.patreon.com/posts/chapter-13-what-156903262?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

  • Chapter 13: Matrifocal Living: What Patriarchy Replaced

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  • A Wildcrafted Formula for the Nervous System That Has Forgotten How to Rest

    Nervous System Recalibration | Anxiety Relief Formula | Wildcrafted Herbal Tincture for the Nervous System | Magical Mothering
    Magical Mothering Apothecary  ·  Wildcrafted Herbal Medicine

    Nervous System Recalibration
    Returning the Body Home

    A wildcrafted tincture for the everyday person living inside a nervous system on fire. The mom. The employee. The one who opened their phone this morning and cannot stop scrolling. This formula does not mask what you are feeling. It gives your body back what it has always needed.

    You are not broken. Your nervous system is not failing. It is doing exactly what a mammal’s nervous system does when it is chronically undernourished and chronically overstimulated. Iit keeps the alert signal running. It cannot find the off switch. Every notification, every headline, every interaction that requires something from you while you are already at capacity becomes another log on a fire that never goes out.

    The Sacred Embodied Human Animal lived for hundreds of thousands of years with wild plants as daily food and medicine. Not supplements. Not pharmaceuticals. Not wellness products. Food. The body co-evolved with these plants. The nervous system learned its own calibration in relationship with them. Motherwort growing at the edge of the field. Purslane underfoot. Wild lettuce going to seed at the fence line. California poppy spreading gold across the hillside. These were not exotic interventions. They were the ordinary landscape of a human life.

    When those plants disappeared from the daily body, something went with them. The mental health crisis is not simply a crisis of modern stress. It is a crisis of severance. The body is running ancient software on a nutrient substrate it was never designed to run on. The threshold drops. The fight-or-flight response, which was built for acute danger and meant to resolve, becomes the chronic baseline instead.

    The racing thoughts stop. You can feel your body. You can breathe deeply. You are safe. You are home.

    This formula is a return. Sixteen wildcrafted and ethically sourced plants, chosen for their specific action on the central nervous system and the physiological pathways of the stress response. A few drops under the tongue and the body begins to remember what it feels like to not be under threat.

    The Fight-or-Flight Response: What Is Actually Happening in Your Body

    The fight-or-flight response is a survival mechanism seated in the autonomic nervous system. Specifically the sympathetic branch. When the brain perceives danger, real or anticipated, the hypothalamus sends a signal that cascades through the body in seconds. Adrenaline floods the bloodstream. Heart rate accelerates. Breathing shallows. Blood moves away from the digestive organs and into the large muscle groups. Cortisol begins releasing from the adrenal glands to sustain the alert state. The thinking mind narrows its focus to threat assessment. No longer giving the required attention to non-essential functions such as the digestion system, immune response, deep sleep, libido, and creative thought. They simply are ignored in a way that the body can do while in danger.

    This system saved lives. A predator at the water’s edge. A fire. A flood. The Sacred Embodied Human Animal activated this response, moved through the danger, and then discharged the stress through the body. Through running, fighting, trembling, crying, and resting. The system reset. Cortisol cleared. The parasympathetic nervous system, the rest-and-digest branch, came back online.

    The problem is not that you have a fight-or-flight system. The problem is that your nervous system cannot distinguish between a predator and a push notification. Between a flood and a news cycle. Between a fire and a comment thread. The threat signals arrive constantly, the discharge never comes, and the cortisol never fully clears. The threshold, the amount of stimulus required to trigger a full stress response, drops lower and lower until you are screaming at your child over a dropped cup, lying awake replaying a conversation from three days ago, or unable to take a full breath.

    This formula addresses that threshold directly. These plants work on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, on the GABA receptors in the brain that signal safety, on the vagus nerve that carries the parasympathetic signal from the brainstem to the organs, and on the adrenal glands themselves. They do not sedate you. They restore you. There is a difference.

    Microdosing Protocol

    Acute symptoms & oncoming panic attacks: Take 7-10 drops under the tongue. Hold 20 seconds. Repeat every 15 minutes until calm.

    Daily nervous system rewiring: Take 3–7 drops under the tongue, holding for 20 seconds, 2–3 times per day.

    Cycle: 5 days on, 2 days off. This rest period allows the body to integrate rather than become dependent, honoring the rhythm of the body’s own adaptogenic intelligence.

    The Plants & What They Do

    Ocotillo Fouquieria splendens

    Ocotillo is a desert plant with deep lymphatic and circulatory intelligence. In the context of chronic stress, the body holds tension in the pelvic and abdominal regions, where lymphatic stagnation compounds the adrenal burden. Ocotillo moves that stagnation. It improves blood and lymph circulation to the pelvic basin, supports the adrenal glands that sit just above the kidneys, and addresses the physical heaviness that settles in the body when chronic cortisol has been running too long. When the fight-or-flight system keeps blood moving away from the core and toward the extremities, Ocotillo helps the body redistribute, restoring circulatory coherence so the nervous system has the physiological foundation it needs to downregulate.

    California Poppy Eschscholzia californica

    California Poppy is not opium poppy. It carries no opiates and no addictive compounds. What it does carry is a profound nervine action, that binds to GABA receptors in the brain, the same receptors that signal safety, that allow the body to release held tension and move out of sympathetic dominance. GABA is the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter, the neurochemical message that tells the nervous system it can stop bracing. California Poppy supports GABA activity gently and effectively, reducing anxiety, easing racing thoughts, and promoting the kind of restful sleep that is the nervous system’s primary repair window. It is particularly indicated for people who cannot quiet the mind. Who lie awake cycling through worry and whose thoughts run ahead of every present moment. It brings the attention back into the body and back into now.

    Motherwort Leonurus cardiaca

    Motherwort’s Latin name tells the whole story, it is the lion-hearted mother, and it acts directly on the heart as an organ of the stress response. When anxiety peaks, the heart races, palpitations begin, and the chest tightens. Motherwort is a cardiac nervine, meaning it calms the nervous system through its action on the heart specifically. It slows a racing heart rate, reduces palpitations, and eases the chest constriction that panic and anxiety produce. It contains leonurine, which has demonstrated uterine-relaxing and antispasmodic effects, and acts broadly as a nervine tonic. Thereby nourishing the nervous system over time rather than simply suppressing symptoms in the moment. Motherwort is the plant that holds you. It does not remove the reality of what you are navigating. It steadies you inside it.

    Wild Lettuce Lactuca virosa

    Wild Lettuce has been used since antiquity as a sedative and anodyne, a pain reliever, a thought-quieter, a mild euphoriant with no addictive properties. The milky latex of Wild Lettuce contains lactucin and lactucopicrin, sesquiterpene lactones that act on the central nervous system to reduce pain perception, calm hyperstimulated nerve pathways, and ease the anxious restlessness that makes it impossible to simply be still. For people whose anxiety lives in the body as physical tension, twitching, restless legs, or the inability to find a comfortable position, Wild Lettuce addresses that physical component directly. It is the plant for the nervous system that has been running at a frequency too high for too long and needs to be turned down, not off.

    Mulberry Morus spp.

    Mulberry contributes to this formula through its rich antioxidant content. Specifically its flavonoids, anthocyanins, and resveratrol, and its direct neuroprotective properties. Chronic stress produces oxidative damage in neural tissue. Cortisol, when chronically elevated, is literally neurotoxic; it shrinks the hippocampus, the brain region involved in memory, emotional regulation, and the suppression of the stress response itself. Mulberry’s compounds protect neural tissue from that oxidative burden. It also supports blood sugar stability, which is a frequently overlooked driver of anxiety. Blood sugar crashes trigger adrenaline release and cortisol spikes that mimic or amplify panic. Mulberry’s compounds help buffer that response, contributing to a more stable physiological baseline.

    Yarrow Achillea millefolium

    Yarrow is one of the most ancient healing plants in the human record, found buried with Neanderthals. In this formula, it functions as a nervous system tonic and boundary plant. Yarrow tightens and tones. It addresses the energetic and physiological porousness that chronic anxiety produces. The inability to filter incoming stimulation, the way the overwhelmed nervous system takes everything in without the capacity to differentiate signal from noise. Yarrow’s bitter compounds support liver function, which is the organ responsible for clearing excess cortisol and adrenaline from the bloodstream. When the liver is burdened, stress hormones clear more slowly, extending the duration of each stress response. Yarrow addresses the entire cycle.

    Red Raspberry Rubus idaeus

    Red Raspberry leaf is one of the most nutritively dense plants available. Its mineral profile includes magnesium, calcium, iron, and potassium which directly addresses the physiological substrate of anxiety. Magnesium is required for over three hundred enzymatic processes in the body, including the regulation of the HPA axis and the synthesis of GABA. The majority of people living on a modern Western diet are chronically magnesium deficient. That deficiency alone raises the baseline anxiety threshold. Calcium and potassium support proper nerve conduction, the electrical signaling that allows neurons to fire and rest appropriately. Red Raspberry feeds the nervous system the minerals it needs to perform its own regulatory functions.

    Jacaranda Jacaranda mimosifolia

    Jacaranda contributes antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties to the formula, and inflammation is central to the anxiety-nervous system relationship in ways that conventional medicine is only beginning to fully acknowledge. The gut-brain axis, the bidirectional communication between the enteric nervous system of the digestive tract and the central nervous system, is profoundly disrupted by both chronic stress and chronic inflammation. Jacaranda supports the inflammatory response, reduces the gut-brain inflammatory signaling that can manifest as mood disruption, cognitive fog, and anxiety, and contributes to the overall anti-inflammatory foundation the nervous system needs in order to come off high alert.

    Black Currant Ribes nigrum

    Black Currant is extraordinarily rich in anthocyanins and gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), an omega-6 fatty acid with powerful anti-inflammatory and adrenal-supportive properties. The adrenal glands are the organs that produce cortisol and adrenaline, the primary drivers of the fight-or-flight response. They take enormous physiological punishment during periods of chronic stress. Black Currant supports adrenal gland health directly. Its anthocyanins protect the brain and nervous tissue from oxidative stress, support healthy neurotransmitter function, and reduce the neuroinflammation that keeps the alarm system firing even when no acute threat is present. It also supports healthy cortisol rhythms, contributing to the restoration of a more natural diurnal pattern rather than the flattened, chronically elevated cortisol curve of the chronically stressed body.

    Catnip Nepeta cataria

    Catnip is widely dismissed because of its association with euphoric feline behavior, but its action in humans is the inverse. Which is a gentle, reliable nervine and antispasmodic. Nepetalactone, its primary active compound, acts on GABA receptors similarly to California Poppy, reducing nervous excitability and promoting relaxation without sedation. Catnip is particularly effective for the physical manifestations of anxiety: digestive upset, cramping, nausea, and a stomach that will not settle. When the fight-or-flight response shunts blood away from the digestive system, digestion becomes disordered. Catnip restores motility, eases spasm, and simultaneously calms the central nervous system, addressing the gut-brain loop from both directions. It is a plant of profound gentleness and underestimated depth.

    Purslane Portulaca oleracea

    Purslane is one of the most nutritionally concentrated wild edibles on the planet. It contains more omega-3 fatty acids than any other plant source, specifically alpha-linolenic acid, which is the precursor to the long-chain omega-3s that compose a significant portion of neuronal membranes. The brain is approximately sixty percent fat. The myelin sheath that insulates nerve fibers and allows rapid, accurate signal transmission is fat. A nervous system chronically deprived of essential fatty acids is a nervous system running on degraded infrastructure. Purslane also contains magnesium, calcium, potassium, and melatonin. It is not a medicine in the pharmaceutical sense. It is food, the kind of food the Sacred Embodied Human Animal ate underfoot, daily, without ceremony, and without understanding that this ordinary act of grazing was maintaining the very neurological coherence that allowed them to live fully present in their lives.

    Vervain Verbena officinalis

    Vervain is the plant for the person who cannot let it go. Who is so convinced of what is right, what must be done, what is wrong with the world, that their entire nervous system is permanently braced for the argument. The person whose passion has become their prison. Vervain acts as a nervine tonic and relaxant, specifically indicated for nervous exhaustion that comes from overthinking, overworking, and the relentless mental drive that refuses to allow the body to rest. It reduces the nervous system’s hypersensitivity to external stimulation and supports the liver in clearing excess heat and tension from the system. It is a plant for people who are genuinely trying to do too much from a place of genuine care, and whose bodies are paying the price for that relentlessness.

    Lobelia Lobelia inflata

    Lobelia is one of the most powerful plants in this formula. It acts directly on the autonomic nervous system as an antispasmodic and relaxant, with particular affinity for the respiratory system. Shallow, restricted breathing is both a symptom and a driver of the fight-or-flight response. The body under threat breathes from the chest rather than the diaphragm, which maintains the sympathetic activation signal. Lobelia opens the airways, deepens the breath, and acts as a direct antagonist to the sympathetic nervous system’s hypertonic grip. It is indicated for panic attacks specifically, which include the feeling that you cannot breathe, that something is closing, and that you cannot get enough air. Its action in those moments is rapid and profound. The breath is the bridge between the voluntary and involuntary nervous system. Lobelia uses that bridge deliberately.

    Myrrh Commiphora myrrha

    Myrrh has been revered across cultures and millennia, and its chemistry supports that reverence. In this formula, Myrrh contributes powerful anti-inflammatory action, specifically targeting the inflammatory cytokines that dysregulate the HPA axis and keep the cortisol response running in excess. Chronic inflammation and chronic stress exist in a reinforcing loop: stress drives inflammation, and inflammation drives the stress response. Myrrh disrupts that loop. It also carries significant antimicrobial and vulnerary properties, supporting the mucosal membranes of the digestive tract, where so much of the inflammatory load of chronic stress accumulates. It is a grounding resin, that brings the energetic and physiological quality of rootedness that the hyperactivated nervous system most lacks.

    Evening Primrose Oenothera biennis

    Evening Primrose is one of the richest plant sources of gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), the essential fatty acid that plays a critical role in prostaglandin synthesis, the regulatory molecules that govern inflammation, nerve function, and hormonal signaling. The nervous system under chronic stress has elevated prostaglandin activity in inflammatory pathways. GLA supports the synthesis of anti-inflammatory prostaglandins instead, shifting the prostaglandin balance toward resolution rather than sustained alarm. Evening Primrose also supports the nervous system through its action on hormonal pathways, the adrenal stress hormones and the sex hormones share biosynthetic precursors, and chronic stress chronically disrupts reproductive hormonal function. Evening Primrose supports the body’s capacity to maintain hormonal coherence under load.

    Pineapple Weed Matricaria discoidea

    Pineapple Weed is wild chamomile, growing in disturbed soil, cracking pavement, at the edges of paths where foot traffic has compacted the ground. It smells of pineapple and chamomile both. Its chemistry reflects its chamomile kinship: apigenin, the flavonoid that binds to benzodiazepine receptors in the brain and produces anxiolytic effects without the sedation or dependency of pharmaceutical benzodiazepines. Apigenin reduces anxiety, promotes calm wakefulness, and supports sleep onset without disrupting the architecture of sleep. Pineapple Weed is also antispasmodic and carminative, addressing the stomach upset and gut tension that anxiety produces. It is the plant that grows where it is needed most, at the edge of human passage, underfoot, asking nothing, offering everything.

    Agave Alcohol Agave spp.

    The menstruum, the extracting medium, for this formula is Agave alcohol. Alcohol is the most effective solvent for extracting the full spectrum of medicinal compounds from plant material: alkaloids, glycosides, resins, essential oils, and water-soluble constituents that water alone cannot capture. Agave alcohol carries the additional quality of being derived from a plant that is itself deeply connected to desert ecology and indigenous medicine traditions. At the microdose quantities used in this tincture, the alcohol content is negligible, far less than is found in a ripe banana. What it delivers is the complete medicinal intelligence of each plant, preserved and bioavailable.

    Programmed Quartz Crystal

    Each batch of this formula is prepared with Programmed Quartz Crystal. Quartz is piezoelectric, it generates an electrical charge under mechanical pressure and responds to electromagnetic fields. Water and alcohol-water solutions are responsive to energetic imprinting in ways that the materialist framework of Western medicine has no adequate language for, but that every tradition of plant medicine in human history has understood intuitively. The crystal in this formula is programmed with specific intention: safety, return, presence, homecoming. Whether you understand this as quantum coherence, as ceremonial practice, or as something older than either framework, the body receives it. The body knows what it is being offered.

    The Sacred Embodied Human Animal is not designed for the world that has been built around them. That is not a diagnosis. That is an observation about a species that evolved in direct, daily relationship with the living world, with soil underfoot, with wild food in hand, with a nervous system calibrated by the ordinary presence of medicinal plants, and has been severed from all of that faster than evolution can respond.

    This formula does not pretend to be a complete answer. The answer is land. The answer is community. The answer is slowness and embodiment and the restoration of relationship with the living world. But the body in crisis needs support now, not after the revolution. This formula meets the body where it is. It gives back, in concentrated and preserved form, a fraction of what was lost. And for many people, that fraction is enough to feel the difference between drowning and standing on ground.

    You are not broken. You are a mammal whose body has been running without what it needs. Give it what it needs and watch what happens.

    These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This information is for educational purposes only. Consult a qualified healthcare provider before use if you are pregnant, nursing, taking medications, or have a medical condition. Keep out of reach of children.

    Nervous System Recalibration is available in the Magical Mothering Apothecary.

    It is time to recalibrate your Nervous System Today
  • They Taught Us to Watch Ourselves

    Every farmer knows that if you don’t want your females bred, you manage your males. You separate them. You fence them. You take responsibility for their behavior because you understand what they will do if you don’t. No farmer blames the ewe. No farmer tells the hen to cover herself.

    The same men who understand this about their livestock come inside and tell us to watch what we wear so we don’t turn on the men around us. Including our fathers.

    The logic did not fail them. They applied different logic to their daughters than to their animals. Because they believe we exist to serve men, including being available to be violated by them, and that managing that violation is our job, not theirs.

    Before we were old enough to understand what we were being protected from, we were told to protect men from ourselves.

    That is not a warning. That is an installation.

    It tells us that male desire is an uncontrollable force of nature, like weather. That we are the variable. That we are what can be adjusted, what must be managed.

    So when something happens to our bodies that we did not choose, we turn the question inward. What did I do? What did I wear? What did I signal?

    We were never given the other question. Why did he believe he was entitled to my body?

    I was 18. I said no. I covered myself. He pulled my hands away and forced himself on top of me. And I froze. I could feel his whole body on top of me. I had a vision of kicking my legs and him flying into the wall. That didn’t happen. My body had been taught that my purity was my only value. When that was taken, my nervous system had nowhere to go.

    The freeze response is real. It is your body making a calculation under threat. But the conditioning we were raised inside made that freeze permanent in a different way. It silenced us after. It told us the story of what happened was ours to carry, ours to be ashamed of, ours to manage into invisibility.

    Women in their 70s and 80s are writing in public comment sections for the first time in their lives. Something happened to them. They never told anyone. Not because they forgot. Because they were taught that telling was the second violation.

    I know what it is to sit across from the man who raped you and feed his family.

    Fifteen years after it happened to me, I met him at a hot spring in Nevada. He had a wife. Two sons. I was there with my own husband and children. His name was Jessie. His grandfather lived in Redding, California.

    I invited them onto our bus. I shared food with them. I asked questions carefully, the way you do when you need to be certain, when part of you is still hoping you are wrong. I wasn’t wrong.

    I didn’t plunge a knife through him. I just sat there and stared at the man who had held my body down on a friend’s couch when I was 18 years old.

    His wife is still on my Facebook.

    She does not know. She may never know. And she is married to a man who decided that my no meant nothing.

    This is what we carry. Not just what was done to us. But the years after. The running into them. The watching them build lives. The knowing that they moved forward while we learned to freeze, to silence, to manage ourselves smaller so it would never happen again.

    Women are not reacting emotionally right now. We are doing math.

    81 million men visited a website to watch women who did not consent to being filmed, did not consent to being drugged, did not consent to being watched by strangers paying to see them violated.

    We watched nothing happen to billionaires who raped and murdered children. We lost rights over our own bodies. And we are watching little girls get told to watch what they wear so they don’t turn on the men in their own homes. I am hearing from friends that their husbands are not who they thought they were.

    We are done.

    My children are learning ju-jitsu. They are building muscle memory so that if someone does something to their body they don’t want, they do not freeze. I am not teaching my daughter to manage theirself so men stay comfortable. I am teaching my children that their bodies are theirs. That is not something I was given. I am giving it to them anyway.

    The indoctrination said our purity, as girls, was our only value.

    We are saying our bodies were always ours.

    That is not a radical statement. It is a correction that is long overdue. And we are not waiting for permission to make it.

  • Tick Bite Defense: A Holistic Approach to Tick Borne Illnesses

    Tick Bite Defense: Wildcrafted Herbal Formula for Tick-Borne Illness Support | Magical Mothering
    Magical Mothering Apothecary  ·  Wildcrafted Medicine

    Tick Bite Defense

    Over 200 viruses and bacteria can enter the body through a single tick bite. This formula was built to meet that reality, with the plants that have been doing exactly this work long before we had words for it.

    Tick-borne illness is not a single thing. It is a cascade. A tick carries pathogens on a spectrum that includes Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, ehrlichia, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, Powassan virus, and dozens more. Many of which modern medicine cannot reliably test for or treat. The body absorbs that complexity in a single encounter, and the window for response matters.

    Tick Bite Defense was formulated to address that complexity directly. Every plant in this formula was chosen for a specific action: antiviral, antibacterial, lymphatic, blood-purifying, anti-inflammatory, or nervine. Together they form a holistic response that works on the infection, the blood, the immune system, and the nervous system simultaneously. This formula can be applied directly to the bite site or taken internally, giving you immediate options no matter what the moment requires.

    People have also reported this formula reversing alpha-gal syndrome, the red meat allergy that develops after a bite from the Lone Star tick, after consistent use. We share that as community knowledge, not as a medical claim. The body has a profound capacity to recalibrate when it is given the right support.

    Usage Protocol

    Application Guide

    Severe Symptoms Take every hour for the first 2 days immediately after bite. Apply directly to bite site to address topical swelling or pain.
    After Any Bite Take 2x daily for 21 days to purify the body and blood. Repeat this full 21-day protocol with each additional tick bite.
    Topical Use Apply directly to the bite site. Supports reduction of swelling, redness, and localized pain.
    Internal Use Take by mouth or diluted in water. Works systemically through blood, lymph, and immune pathways.
    This product has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The information shared here is for educational purposes and reflects traditional and community herbal knowledge. Consult a qualified healthcare provider regarding any tick bite concern or medical condition.

    The Formula

    Every ingredient is wildcrafted or intentionally grown. The base is agave alcohol, which preserves the full spectrum of plant constituents and delivers them efficiently into the bloodstream. A quartz crystal is included in each batch, working with the plant allies to strengthen the coherence and intelligence of the medicine as a whole.

    • Teasel
    • Black Walnut
    • Day Lily
    • Mugwort
    • Boneset
    • Blue Phlox
    • Cleavers
    • Bluets
    • Bee Balm
    • Fleabane
    • Rosemary
    • Mock Strawberry
    • Chickweed
    • Elephant’s Foot
    • Self-Heal
    • Dandelion
    • Agave Alcohol
    • Quartz Crystal

    The Plants & What They Do

    Teasel
    Dipsacus fullonum / Dipsacus sylvestris Antispirochetal · Deep Tissue Penetrant · Connective Tissue Restorer

    Teasel is one of the most respected plant allies in tick-borne illness work, particularly in the context of Lyme disease and Borrelia spirochetes. The spirochete organism that causes Lyme burrows deep into connective tissue, joints, and neurological tissue, places that are difficult for the immune system and most medicines to reach. Teasel root, and newer research on its leaves, which is why the whole plant is used, has a particular affinity for these deep layers. Herbalists have long observed that teasel draws out pathogens from connective tissue and drives them back into the bloodstream where the immune system can address them. This makes teasel foundational to this formula, it opens access to what the tick left behind. Teasel also supports structural repair of tissues degraded by infection, and its action on the musculoskeletal system makes it especially valuable when joint pain or deep aching develops after a bite.

    Black Walnut
    Juglans nigra Antiparasitic · Antifungal · Antiviral · Blood Purifier

    Black walnut hull is a heavy hitter in any pathogen-clearing formula. Its primary active constituent, juglone, is toxic to a wide range of organisms including parasites, bacteria, and fungi. In tick-borne illness, this matters because ticks frequently carry co-infections, not just Lyme bacteria but parasitic and fungal organisms that enter simultaneously. Black walnut works systemically through the blood, making it an effective blood purifier that clears both the primary pathogens and their opportunistic companions. It also addresses the candida and dysbiosis that often develop after any major infection or immune challenge. Black walnut’s astringent properties tone inflamed tissues while its antimicrobial action continues working. This is a plant that moves broadly through the body, clearing what does not belong.

    Day Lily
    Hemerocallis fulva Anti-inflammatory · Detoxifying · Topical Soother · Liver Support

    Day lily brings strong anti-inflammatory action to the formula, particularly valuable in the acute phase immediately following a bite, when the body’s local inflammatory response can be intense and the systemic inflammatory cascade is beginning. Applied topically to the bite site, day lily helps reduce swelling, redness, and pain. Taken internally, it supports the liver’s detoxification process as the body begins managing the pathogen load the tick introduced. In traditional use, day lily has been applied to draw infection from tissue and reduce heat. It works alongside the more aggressive antimicrobials in this formula by cooling and supporting, a crucial counterbalance when the immune system is under acute stress.

    Mugwort
    Artemisia vulgaris Antiviral · Antiparasitic · Nervous System Support · Lymphatic

    Mugwort carries a long lineage in medicine that spans cultures and continents. Its artemisinin-related compounds give it strong antiparasitic and antiviral properties, closely related to the artemisia compounds now used in pharmaceutical treatment of malaria and studied extensively against viral pathogens. For tick-borne illness, this is directly relevant: many tick co-infections including babesiosis are parasitic in nature. Mugwort supports the nervous system through this process, addressing the neurological irritation and sleep disturbance that can accompany tick-borne illness. It moves the lymphatic system and supports digestion under stress. Mugwort brings the biochemical work of an antiviral plant that has been used to clear organisms from the body for thousands of years.

    Boneset
    Eupatorium perfoliatum Deep Bone Pain · Immune Stimulant · Antiviral · Febrifuge

    Boneset was named for exactly the symptom it addresses: the deep, aching bone pain that accompanies certain viral infections. That bone-deep ache, the kind that makes a person feel as though their skeleton itself is sick, is a hallmark symptom of several tick-borne viral illnesses, including Powassan virus. Boneset directly addresses that specific suffering. It is a significant immune stimulant, shown to increase white blood cell production and activate macrophage activity. It reduces fever through diaphoretic action, encouraging the body to sweat and process heat, without suppressing the fever entirely, which honors the body’s own intelligence. Boneset also carries direct antiviral properties. In this formula it serves both the acute phase and the ongoing immune rebuilding work of the 21-day protocol.

    Blue Phlox
    Phlox divaricata Anti-inflammatory · Cooling · Nervous System · Land-Specific Medicine

    Blue phlox is a native woodland plant with a quieter reputation than some of its formula companions, but its presence here is deliberate. It brings cooling, anti-inflammatory action that supports the nervous system and eases the agitated, inflamed state the body enters following a serious pathogenic challenge. Blue phlox soothes inflammation of the mucous membranes and supports the body’s regulatory processes during immune activation. As a locally wildcrafted plant from Missouri woodland ecology, it carries the specific resonance of the land where this formula is made. In indigenous plant medicine traditions, the plant that grows from the same land as the threat is part of the original defense system. That intelligence is folded into this medicine.

    Cleavers
    Galium aparine Lymphatic Drainage · Blood Purifier · Kidney Tonic · Anti-inflammatory

    Cleavers is one of the most important lymphatic herbs in the Western herbal tradition, and it is indispensable in any formula addressing systemic infection. The lymphatic system is the body’s primary filtration and immune transport network. When pathogens enter the bloodstream, the lymph nodes coordinate the immune response and accumulate debris. If the lymphatic system becomes congested under the burden of a tick-borne pathogen load, the entire clearing process stalls. Cleavers moves lymphatic fluid, reduces lymph node swelling, and supports continuous filtration of dead pathogens and cellular debris. It also has a tonic action on the kidneys and urinary system, supporting elimination through that channel simultaneously. Cleavers is the formula’s drainage plant, the one that keeps the exit doors open throughout the entire 21-day protocol.

    Bluets
    Houstonia caerulea Nervine · Cooling · Topical Skin Support

    Bluets is a small, delicate native wildflower that carries a specific cooling and nervine quality rarely discussed in mainstream herbalism. In folk traditions of the eastern woodlands, it has been used for headaches, nervous agitation, and skin conditions, all of which can be symptoms of tick-borne illness. Its cooling action is particularly relevant in the acute inflammatory phase following a bite. Bluets brings a calming quality to the nervous system that is meaningful when the body is under the particular stress of a pathogenic exposure, that combination of fear, pain, fever, and immune activation that can destabilize the nervous system significantly. Topically, it soothes irritated skin at the bite site. Its presence in this formula reflects the wildcrafted approach: the small, easily overlooked plant that offers exactly what is needed in a specific moment.

    Bee Balm
    Monarda fistulosa / Monarda didyma Broad-Spectrum Antimicrobial · Antiviral · Diaphoretic · Respiratory Support

    Bee balm is among the most potent broad-spectrum antimicrobials in the North American plant world. Its high thymol and carvacrol content, the same compounds that give oregano and thyme their antimicrobial power, make it effective against a wide range of bacterial, viral, and fungal organisms. Indigenous peoples of North America used bee balm extensively for infections, fevers, and respiratory illness long before European contact. In the context of tick-borne illness, bee balm works directly against multiple pathogen types simultaneously, making it ideal for a formula designed to address the full spectrum of organisms a tick might carry. It is also diaphoretic, supporting the body in processing fever, and has particular action in the respiratory system, which can become involved in certain tick-borne viral presentations. Bee balm is one of this formula’s primary antimicrobial workhorses.

    Fleabane
    Erigeron annuus / Erigeron canadensis Insect Deterrent · Antimicrobial · Astringent · Topical Anti-inflammatory

    Fleabane was historically used to repel insects and treat insect bites, which makes its presence in a tick bite formula entirely fitting. Applied topically, fleabane has astringent and anti-inflammatory properties that reduce swelling and help close the wound site after a tick has been removed. It has documented antimicrobial activity and has been used in folk medicine for intestinal infections and urinary tract irritation. As an astringent, it tones and tightens inflamed tissue. Fleabane also has a mild diuretic action that supports kidney clearance of pathogens and their metabolic byproducts. This is a plant that speaks directly to the event of a bite, working at the entry point and through the elimination systems simultaneously.

    Rosemary
    Salvia rosmarinus Antiviral · Antioxidant · Circulatory Stimulant · Neuroprotective

    Rosemary is one of the most extensively studied medicinal plants in the world, and its biochemistry is directly relevant to tick-borne illness support. Its rosmarinic acid and carnosic acid are potent antioxidants that protect cells from oxidative damage caused by infection and immune activation, the kind of cellular stress that persists and causes harm long after the initial infection is addressed. Rosemary is also a significant antiviral with demonstrated activity against multiple viral strains. Its circulatory stimulant action increases blood flow to the brain and periphery, which matters when certain tick-borne pathogens cause neurological symptoms and cognitive impairment. Rosemary is neuroprotective, helping maintain and restore clear cognition. It also drives the other herbs more effectively through the circulatory system, acting as a catalyst for the formula’s broader delivery.

    Mock Strawberry
    Potentilla indica Antiviral · Antibacterial · Topical Wound Healing · Blood Cooling

    Mock strawberry is often dismissed as a weed, which means its medicine goes largely unclaimed. In traditional Chinese medicine, it is used specifically as an antiviral and antibacterial plant with particular value in treating snake and insect bites, both topically and systemically. Its “blood cooling” action maps directly onto what Western herbalism would call anti-inflammatory, antipyretic support. Mock strawberry applied to a bite site draws infection, reduces swelling, and supports wound closure. Taken internally, it works against bacterial and viral pathogens in the bloodstream. Its presence in this formula is both a recognition of the wisdom held in commonly overlooked plants and a direct response to the specific nature of tick bite pathogen entry.

    Chickweed
    Stellaria media Cooling Anti-inflammatory · Topical Drawing · Lymphatic · Nutritive

    Chickweed is one of the most versatile cooling and drawing plants in the herbal world. Applied topically, it has a pronounced ability to draw inflammation out of tissue, reducing heat, redness, and swelling rapidly. This action is directly valuable at the site of a tick bite, particularly in the first hours after removal. Internally, chickweed has a gentle lymphatic action and is deeply anti-inflammatory, cooling the systemic inflammatory response that follows any significant infection. It is also highly nutritive, carrying concentrated minerals and vitamins that support the body’s recovery and cellular repair. Chickweed brings a softness to this formula, a yielding, cooling, nourishing quality that works alongside the more aggressive antimicrobials to ensure the body is being supported rather than simply driven hard. Healing requires both force and sustenance. Chickweed is the sustenance.

    Elephant’s Foot
    Elephantopus tomentosus / carolinianus Lymphatic Decongestion · Antimicrobial · Liver Support · Immune Activation

    Elephant’s foot is a native woodland plant of the American South and Midwest with a deep root in folk medicine that mainstream herbalism has largely overlooked. Its actions center on the lymphatic system and liver, two of the primary systems responsible for clearing pathogens and their byproducts from the body. It decongests the lymphatic system, particularly the deep abdominal lymphatic channels that become burdened during systemic infection. Elephant’s foot has documented antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory sesquiterpene lactones that work against pathogens directly while supporting the liver’s detoxification processes. This combination makes it uniquely suited for tick-borne illness: it addresses both the pathogen and the burden the pathogen places on the body’s clearing systems. It is a plant that trusts the body’s own intelligence while giving it what it needs to act on that intelligence fully.

    Self-Heal
    Prunella vulgaris Antiviral · Wound Healing · Immune Modulation · Tissue Repair

    Self-heal is not named casually. This plant has demonstrated antiviral activity in research against herpes viruses, HIV, and other viral pathogens. Rosmarinic acid and triterpenoids are the primary active constituents responsible. In the context of tick-borne illness, where viral co-infections are real and where the immune system can become dysregulated in response to chronic infection, self-heal’s immune-modulating action is critical. It does not simply stimulate the immune system, it helps regulate and restore balance to immune function, which matters when the immune system is both overwhelmed and potentially misdirected by the complex organisms ticks introduce. Self-heal also promotes direct wound healing at the bite site through topical application, closing and restoring the skin barrier. Its name reflects what herbalists have always known: this plant teaches the body to do what it already has the capacity to do.

    Dandelion
    Taraxacum officinale Liver Detox · Kidney Support · Prebiotic · Nutritive · Elimination Support

    Dandelion is the body’s great eliminator, and in any formula asking the body to process a significant pathogen load over 21 days, it is essential. The liver is the primary organ responsible for breaking down and packaging toxins, including the dead cellular material and metabolic byproducts of pathogens the immune system is clearing. If the liver becomes overwhelmed under this load, the entire detoxification process stalls and the person feels worse despite the clearing that is happening. Dandelion root is one of the most reliable liver tonics available, stimulating bile production and supporting both phase-one and phase-two liver detoxification. Dandelion leaf adds kidney support, increasing urine output to move toxins through that elimination channel simultaneously. The whole plant is deeply nutritive, providing minerals and the prebiotic inulin that supports gut health and microbial balance during a period when the gut flora is under stress. Dandelion is the formula’s foundation of intelligent elimination.

    Agave Alcohol
    Agave tequilana, grain-free extraction base Extraction Medium · Preservation · Rapid Delivery

    The choice of agave alcohol as the tincture base is intentional. Alcohol is the most effective solvent for extracting and preserving the full spectrum of plant constituents, resins, alkaloids, volatile oils, and water-soluble compounds alike. Agave alcohol is chosen specifically because it is grain-free, making this formula accessible to those with gluten sensitivity or grain-based alcohol reactions. Tequila is also the only wild harvested commercial alcohol available. Alcohol-based tinctures are absorbed rapidly through the mucous membranes of the mouth and digestive tract, delivering plant constituents into the bloodstream quickly, which matters significantly in the acute phase of tick bite response when speed of action is part of the protocol. The alcohol base also makes topical application effective, carrying the antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory constituents directly into the skin at the bite site.

    Quartz Crystal
    Silicon dioxide — clear quartz, infused with each batch Amplifier · Coherence · Energetic Carrier

    Every batch of Tick Bite Defense is made with quartz crystal. Quartz is a coherent crystalline structure used in medicine, ceremony, and technology across human cultures for thousands of years. Its piezoelectric properties are measurable. In the context of plant medicine, quartz amplifies and organizes the energetic field of the formula, supporting the coherence of the plant constituents and the delivery of their intelligence to the body. This is the oldest layer of what happens in this work, the understanding that medicine is not only chemistry but information, and that how information is held and transmitted matters. The crystal does not replace the plants. It works with them, as it always has.

    The Holistic Picture

    What this formula does, taken as a whole, is create a complete defense architecture. Teasel and mugwort reach into the deep tissue and connective layers where pathogens hide. Bee balm and black walnut work as broad-spectrum antimicrobials through the blood. Boneset and self-heal address the viral load and the immune system’s capacity to respond. Cleavers and elephant’s foot keep the lymphatic and elimination systems open and moving throughout. Dandelion and rosemary protect and support the liver and kidneys across the full 21 days. Chickweed, day lily, and fleabane cool the acute inflammatory response and support the bite site directly. Bluets and mugwort hold the nervous system through the process. And quartz crystal ensures the coherence of the whole.

    This is not a formula that fights the infection for the body. It is a formula that gives the body everything it needs to fight for itself, which is exactly how plant medicine has always worked.

    Tick Bite Defense is available in the Magical Mothering Apothecary.

    Get Tick Bite Defense
  • Gardening

    I have been a forager for over 13 years, but I have only gardened 6 times. I kept feeling like I failed, year after year, unable to produce enough food to create a stocked pantry.

    The two biggest aspects of failure, were not having soil, I have grown the soil on the property from rock filled clay, to composted wood shavings filled with rabbit manure and worms.

    And the lack of water. We have our garden and home on the top of the hill, away from the flood plain and neighbors, which means we completely rely on the rain for our water. And for several years now, we end up having droughts for a portion of the summer that spans for weeks to up to two months! This is devastating when I have my garden thriving and then am unable to water, and then we go into drought conditions.

    I feel like I finally get it though. I have to mulch my garden extensively in order to help retain the water in the soil, and to not have to water so much. And now that I have soil, I can grow more than just squash, which love fresh wood chips.

    In fact, I have watermelon coming up this year that I planted last year, simply because the mulch has turned to soil, allowing it to sprout!

    Our property is clay and rock filled ground, it seems to grow rocks rather than soil, and it has taken years to actually create soil that I can trowel through, that is deeper than a few inches.

    But I will tell you, seeing radishes, beans, peas, mustard sprouts, corn, potatoes, watermelon, onions, broccoli, and various flowers coming up by just being placed into the soil, feels like pure magic.

    I also tried seed snails this year. This is done by taking rolled paper, laying it out, filling it with soil, then rolling them up. This is such a great way to start seeds with minimal space. I have 3 containers of them, that I take out to the fenced in garden each morning to get sun, then bring in at night. I have tomatoes, peppers of all kinds, marigolds, artichokes, thyme, cauliflower, lavender, basil, parsley, with other things that haven’t yet sprouted.

    And the fully fenced in yard is another aspect. I had opossums, rabbits, cats, and chickens all digging up my garden faster than I could have it planted. We invested in fencing, and chicken wire, to help keep the animals out, so that I could actually have a chance at growing decent food for my family this year.

    So here is what finally clicked for me, though. Gardening is not putting seeds in the ground one time. I used to chaos garden, putting my seeds all in the soil at once, hoping they would come up at some point. But that is not how real, successful, growing food steadily happens!

    It requires putting seeds in the ground, every 2-3 weeks, the entire spring, summer and fall!! This has been mind blowing, but it is proving to be working. Planting in either seed snails or in the soil, the things that don’t mind the cold air. Then working your way to more warm loving things such as peppers and tomatoes, week by week. I have been putting seeds in the ground for the past 2 months, and I am seeing the progress of doing this. My mustard greens are ready. My peas are climbing. The potatoes I left in the soil last fall, are sprouting, along with corn that overwintered.

    I have flowers, like ironweed, dahlias, and coneflowers returning. I just planted all of my wildflower and butterfly attracting seeds, as well as my echinaceas. Pumpkins that I threw out for the goats and chickens, seeds that didn’t get eaten are finding their way through the soil, in various spaces, in the goat pen, a raised bed, and out in the lawn. I love seeing the abundance of nature being prolific, and creating new life all on their own.

    Our woods are naturally filled with mulberry, wild plum, persimmon, black raspberries, blackberries, dew berries, wild blueberries, hazelnuts and tons of other medicinal trees.

    But back to gardening. Gardening takes a type of patience, for allowing. Allowing the warmth of the soil to match up with the seed. Allowing the seed the time it needs to sprout. It requires patience for mulch to decompose into nutrient dense soil. And gardening without spending money, requires extra patience.

    Last year, my word of the year was “Garden.” I wanted my life to be a garden, filled with abundance, friends, community, and nutrition. And I can see how that year has created a palpable shift in my awareness with this years garden. It is like a light bulb finally turned on, and I can see how a garden works. I can see how the placement, the timing, the flow of water run off, the fencing, the plants around the permitter, the flowers, the sun, the north and south side, all play together to create a mosaic or piece of art with living plants. And it is truly a masterpiece as it blooms and opens.

    I am seeing open spaces in my garden and thinking about the fast growers, such as carrots, radishes, lettuces, will be there for the next month or two, and what will be there in the fall, that is a slower grower. I can see it all playing out in my head like a movie watching them grow and sprout.

    But then again I have dreamed of a full garden before, but had little actual produce. But this was a grow once and hope they make it. Just like life, a garden takes putting seeds in the ground consistently and constantly.

    If a zucchini plant gets eaten by those squash bugs, start it over immediately. If your cabbage gets eaten, grow another one immediately. I can settle into failure mode, and get down on myself as to why things aren’t working, but that doesn’t need to be the case. Who cares if a plant dies, try again! Who cares if something does’t work out, try again! We put so much effort on the way we think things will work out, that often times we forget we can just try again. Over and over and over again!

    I feel like this is what human animals have done for hundreds of thousands of years. We just simply tried and tried again, over and over again. From turning mustard into broccoli, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, and cabbage. Nightshades into potatoes, tomatoes and eggplant. We humans are capable of so much, but it usually doesn’t happen in a single generation. The work we do is built upon, by seven or more generations. It takes time and patience to create new life.

    But unfortunately, we are currently in a destructive time of our existence. One where individuals have the ability to create drastic change that affects billions of humans.

    And when I think about the control that some of the individuals have over the pollution, air quality, data centers, I think about what it is that I can do?

    I can grow a garden. I can learn. I can fail. And I can try agin.

  • The House of Cards

    An AI image of Trump as Jesus. Is that the line? I know that the line has come for many trump followers who have left MAGA. But now the Christian Nationalists are saying that Trump is the Anti-Christ. Many people who are not religious, or who have deconstructed from the church have been saying this for 10 years. Amazing that his followers are just seeing it.

    Him unaliving, eating, and graping children wasn’t upsetting though. Him depicting himself as Jesus, in the red and white robes. A fake picture was the line. A fake picture was the breaking point. This feels almost surreal, because they still don’t care about all the allegations, pay offs, and proof of what he has done.

    I want to sit with that for a moment, because it tells us something important about how belief actually works. It was never about facts. It was never about evidence. It was about which symbolic violation finally broke the frame they were living inside. And an image of their president dressed as their savior broke something in the architecture of their faith that nothing material ever could.

    Here is where it gets stranger.

    The Christian Nationalists who have turned on him are not turning away. They are now saying he is the Anti-Christ. And in their theology, that is not a reason to remove him. The Anti-Christ is necessary. Evil is required to trigger the return. So they disapprove of him now. They see him as a vessel of darkness. And they are still not moving to stop him, because in their framework, stopping him would be interrupting the plan. Not the real man that was born in Palestine as a Jew, not a Zionist. But Jesus as a white man floating down from the clouds is what they have in their imagination, while they are murdering all the Palestinian men, who if Jesus had returned, is in a pit filled with thousands of others, covered in lime, that were genocided by Netanyahu.

    I have family I love who are inside this. Not at arm’s length. In my actual life, in ongoing relationship, people I sit with and talk to, who are also actively trying to convert me so that their end times can happen. That is the reality I am navigating. Watching people I love be pumped full of millions of dollars worth of Facebook propaganda, targeted, refined, algorithmically perfected to reach exactly them, and believing that what they are receiving is revelation.

    They are being catfished by billionaires who need the end times narrative to keep people passive while the restructuring happens.

    I have been watching civilizational collapse patterns for fifteen years. This is what it looks like up close. Not a dramatic single moment. Cards coming loose, one at a time, while the people holding the deck keep reshuffling.

    Now Melania, bringing the Epstein files back up, she was definitely tying to get ahead of a long time friend, who supposedly her ex-husband had her deported to Brazil. She was here for decades, but he wanted control over his 16 year old son. So he called ICE and a favor in to his influential wealthy friends, and got her deported. This man is also the one who introduced Trump to Melania. He is a modeling agent or a pimp to some.

    The woman’s name is Amanda Ungaro.

    She has nothing left to lose.

    She is now saying she will share everything. She was in Melania and Trumps inner circle. She knows the connections they had with Epstein.

    Why does this all matter?

    The threads are being pulled. The whole thing is unraveling.

    Meanwhile, Iran now has more control over the Strait of Hormuz, more nuclear positioning, fewer sanctions, and more consolidated regional alliances than it had two months ago.

    Everything the current administration has touched has inverted. Every pressure point has released in the opposite direction. Every deal has cost more than it gained. We are watching a governing strategy built entirely on dominance discover, repeatedly, that dominance applied without intelligence does not produce submission. It produces realignment.

    Showing a door dash grandma, who isn’t paying tax on tips, but has to pay medical bills and continue to work past retirement, to pay them, is actually ridiculous to other countries. Baffled. The insurance companies control the pharmaceutical industry that controls the doctors that controls the trials. This is not a conspiracy. This is a documented structure. A sick care system, not a health care system, because sick people are an economy. Healthy people are not.

    I don’t want America healthcare to be universal, because we live in a sick care system. That is just capitalist Healthcare, continuing to make insurance CEO’s and the health care billions of dollars, while people continue to get more chronically sick.

    And yes, I am all over the place, but it is all connected.

    Our food is poison. Our vaccines are produced inside the same captured system. Our medicine is designed around chronic disease management, not healing, because healing ends the revenue stream. These are not fringe positions. The data is there for anyone willing to read it.

    The MAHA movement found the women who already knew this. Midwives, herbalists, home birthers, free-spirited women who had already done the work of stepping outside the system. Women with real knowledge and real grievances. And it used their legitimate understanding as a door. Opening into a room that walked them directly into a political party that serves the pharmaceutical companies, the agricultural lobbies, and the food manufacturers they thought they were walking away from. The facade was built specifically for them, using language they recognized, because the people building it knew exactly who they were recruiting.

    The food pyramid has been upside down since it was designed to serve agricultural lobbying interests. Grains at the base. Fruits and vegetables as an afterthought. We are Sacred Embodied Human Animals. We grazed. We moved through landscapes eating what was there, what was available, what was in season. Greens in the spring because that is what springs. You cannot eat large amounts of meat without protein poisoning. Your liver and your heart will tell you. We spent hundreds of thousands of years eating what was actually available in actual time, and we have spent a few generations pretending that protein shakes and manufactured macros are nutrition.

    Eat what is growing right now. That is not a diet. That is a relationship.

    All of this is connected.

    Property is not more important than human life.

    That sentence should not need to be said. And yet we have watched warehouses full of property treated as a crime scene while the crime of the warehouses themselves goes unexamined. Billionaire propaganda has been so effective, so deep in the water supply, that people will defend the right to property and corporations over the right to breathe, to be housed, to exist outside of debt.

    People are starting to wake up to the fact that we are in a debt slave system. If we aren’t paid enough we rely on debt. It used to just be being in debt for 15 years for a house. 3 years for a car. But now they are talking about 50 year house loans. People have 7 year car loans. They pay school loans for 30 years. These are lifetimes of debt that keep people enslaved in working until they die.

    Their is another way.

    Quit your job. Sell everything. Live in connection with nature. Yes, it is extreme. And it will completely rewire your brain.

    If you don’t want to do that, stop complaining. Stop asking when you get to quit your job. The answer is: whenever you decide to stop being a slave to a system that will take your life, your passion, your joy, your health, and leave you empty.

    Things are shifting quickly.

    Grow a garden. Plant radishes, they grow quickly and are ready to eat in a month. Grow lettuce, it is about the same. Peas are quick and satisfying. Meet your neighbors. See if you can grow a community garden in an empty lot on your block.

    Learn what is edible on your land. If you want to go further, go further. Sell the things that are costing you more than they are giving you. Get closer to the ground. It will rewire your brain in ways that nothing else will, because you will remember, in your body, that you are an animal in relationship with the earth, and that relationship is not optional. It was never optional. We just forgot.

    Think about all the ways you are dependent on the systems at play. Could you live for a week if the electricity went out? Could you live for a month if there were no grocery stores getting deliveries? Could you still commute to work getting the same amount of money if gas went up to $10 a gallon, and afford your cost of living? Are you able to afford your cost of living at the moment?

    There is so much here, and I know it doesn’t seem relevant but it is all connected. We are waking up collectively, but some people will uphold the very system that enslaves them until they die.

    So will the house of cards fall?

    I have been sitting with this question for fifteen years.

    Here is what I know. The cards come loose. They have been coming loose. Each one reveals something that should have been the line and wasn’t. Each one reshuffles into a new configuration that protects the people at the top. Billionaires do not fall the way the rest of us fall. They restructure.

    What I do not know is whether enough people will wake up before the data centers cover the last of the arable land. Before the aquifers are gone. Before the air is unbreathable in the places where food used to grow.

    What I hold onto is this: every single tradition that humans have ever built: every religion, every cosmology, every ritual calendar.  Was a humans attempt to organize what the body already knew. The body knows we are animals. The body knows we need soil and season and each other. The body knows what a fifty year mortgage costs. The body knows when it is being catfished.

    We are waking up. Some people will uphold the system that enslaves them until they die, because that is what they know and the knowing is a kind of comfort. But some people are remembering.

    The question is whether we remember in time.

    That question is not rhetorical. I am asking it for real. And I am asking it because the answer is not certain, and I think we need to stop pretending that it is.

  • April 7, 2026

    The whole world watched a clock tick all day, only for the deadline to be postponed two more weeks.

    Notice what just happened in your body when you read that. The exhale that isn’t quite an exhale. The relief that doesn’t feel like relief. That is not accidental.

    This is what abusers do. This is what cults do. This is what empire has always done to the people living inside it. Hold the body at the threshold of threat long enough and it stops being able to discern. Stops being able to organize. Stops trusting its own perception. Another deadline. Another postponement. Maybe it’s all theater. Maybe you were overreacting. That doubt is the point. A nervous system held in chronic threat state is a nervous system that cannot revolt.

    And it doesn’t matter who you voted for anymore. Because nothing has been done to stop what Trump is doing. We are all guilty of this monstrosity. We are all responsible. We compared Trump to Hitler, and our own family and friends didn’t listen. They couldn’t be bothered or they listened to his lies. And now we all have to pay for what is being done.

    People wonder why people cut family members out of their lives. Kamala shared that this exact thing was going to happen. Bashar said Trump would start world war 3. And now the whole world was anticipating 8pm eastern on April 7, to see what will happen. If a red button will be pushed.

    Trump posted this morning that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” if a deal isn’t reached by his 8 p.m. deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. NPR He has been threatening to destroy bridges, power plants, and water treatment facilities. Even before that deadline, US forces struck Kharg Island, Iran’s key oil export hub, and dozens of military targets overnight. NBC News

    Iran called on “all young people” to form human chains around power plants in case of strikes. MS NOW Those people standing in human chains are real civilians trying to shield their infrastructure with their bodies. That is not metaphor. That is what desperation looks like when a government has already been partially destroyed and the next wave could take the lights off for an entire country.

    The war has already caused an estimated 7.5 million barrels per day of crude oil to be shut in across Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain. Dubai Humanitarian, the largest aid hub in the world,  has seen the number of countries it can supply drop from 25 in January to just nine in March. CNN

    I talk a lot about civilizations collapsing because I have seen this coming for the past 15 years. I purposely moved off grid 8 years ago. Quit everything because I knew it would take time. And I am seeing this happen. Right in front of my eyes.

    This is what the Sacred Embodied Human Animal has always known. Not as prophecy for its own sake. As body knowledge. As the thing that lives below ideology and above argument. Empire is not the natural state of human life. Control through annihilation is not the natural state of human life. The body knows this. It has always known this. Every tradition that ever existed was layered on top of something far older, something that remembers what it means to be an animal on a planet, accountable to the living world, not to flags or deadlines or men with red buttons.

    Every empire that has ever existed has ended. After every ending, people were still growing food. Still gathering. Still holding their children. Still watching the stars.

    Grieve tonight. Feel the full weight of what this is.

    Allow for the rage, the disappointment, the tears, the sadness, the knowing that nothing will ever be the same. This is time for processing. Breathe. Stay in your body. Allow these emotions to move through you, so they don’t become stuck.

  • Celestial Sanctuary 15- The dive into the Spring Equinox

    As I continue to travel through the Celestial Sanctuaries from the Earth’s perspective, I had spent 4 years connecting and traveling through these sanctuaries with the moon, before I realized that the Earth goes through these as well. Not just the sun from a zodiacal perspective. I can feel distinctly the shift as each one happens.

    Keep an eye on your energy as we come toward CELESTIAL SANCTUARY 16 · 192.858°–205.714° · Apr 5–Apr 18 Star- Spica

    I am building a Celestial Sanctuary portal on my website, and have several of the sanctuaries now listed, if you feel like going to main page you can click on the sanctuary as well.

    https://stephaniebacquetmathews.com/celestial-sanctuaries/

    https://stephaniebacquetmathews.com/celestial-sanctuary-15/