Growing up, I spent countless hours trailing behind my grandmother through the fields and woods surrounding her farm. She was part Cherokee Indian, deeply connected to her roots, and her knowledge of natural medicine was nothing short of magic to my young eyes. As a child, I’d watch her pluck weeds from the ground, chew on the bark of certain trees, or brew teas from plants I’d never have given a second glance. She’d tell me, “Everything we need is right here, if you know where to look.” Those lessons, etched into my memory from a time before I even thought to write them down, are the heartbeat of why I started naturalhealth.website.
Back then, it was just the two of us—her with her weathered hands and me, a curious shadow—searching for remedies hidden in plain sight. She’d point out a scruffy patch of plantain and show me how to chew its leaves into a paste for a bee sting. Or she’d strip the inner bark from a willow tree, handing me a piece to gnaw on when my head ached after too much sun. “Nature’s aspirin,” she’d call it, with a knowing grin. We’d hunt for blackberry roots to settle an upset stomach or gather yarrow to press against a scraped knee. Every plant, every tree, had a purpose, and she knew them like old friends.
I wish I’d recorded more of her wisdom. I can still hear her voice, calm and steady, explaining why slippery elm soothed a sore throat or how sumac berries could perk you up when you felt run down. But as a kid, you don’t think about preserving those moments—you just live them. Now, years later, I find myself piecing together those fragments, chasing the threads of her teachings through books, stories, and my own fuzzy recollections. It’s not just nostalgia driving me; it’s a longing to share what she knew, to keep that connection alive.
That’s where naturalhealth.website comes in. This project is my way of honoring her—bridging the natural remedies of her Cherokee heritage with a world that’s hungry for simpler, earth-rooted solutions. She taught me that healing doesn’t always come from a bottle or a store shelf. Sometimes it’s in the weeds by the barn, the bark of a pine, or the goldenrod swaying in the breeze. Here’s a taste of what I learned from her, remedies tied to the Cherokee way of seeing the world:
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Willow Bark: Chewed or steeped into tea for pain and fevers—nature’s own aspirin, just like she said.
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Plantain: A quick fix for bites or cuts, mashed up and pressed on the skin.
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Blackberry Root: Boiled into a tea to calm a churning stomach.
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Yarrow: Crushed for wounds or sipped to chase away a cold.
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Slippery Elm: A soothing balm for throats raw from coughing.
These were her tools, pulled straight from the land around us. She didn’t need a pharmacy—just a sharp eye and a trust in what the earth provided. I’ll never know all she knew, but I can still feel her guiding me toward those plants, urging me to listen to the woods the way she did.
This blog series is my journey back to those roots, a chance to explore the natural remedies she loved and share them with you. It’s the beginning of something bigger—a space at naturalhealth.website where we can rediscover what’s been growing under our feet all along. I hope you’ll join me as I dig into these old ways, one plant at a time.
Written by Jeff Gilder
