Alexandra Jane Williams - Herbalist

Print series collaboration with my ❤️

This mornings nettle harvest 🌿🥰 gonna make Jessica Prentice’s last Spring Tonic Nettle soup!

New print in the ongoing landscape series — this one is Walden pond, a place I’m missing so much right now. Can’t wait to be immersed in that water again ✨

Scenes from yesterday’s snow morning ✨ happy tree + lil bb Solomon seal sprouts (!) @ Somerville, Massachusetts

Another Monday in the viral void 🕳

Hope everyone’s having a nice Sunday we’re playing dominoes & eating pistachios & feeling very grateful for our home 🖤

Baby nettles are the one of the first signs of spring in my garden 😍 they’re super nutritive (fulllllll of minerals) and also pretty drying so great to pair with a demulcent herb like marshmallow or linden OR my favorite way to consume nettles is in broth alongside mushrooms, bones when I have them, seaweed, astragalus, juniper berries, garlic... and whatever else I throw in that day. I’ve been making lotsss of broth and freezing it lately In case I (or someone in my community) gets sick and needs easy-to-consume nutrients.

Good morning! I’ve been reallllly leaning into herbs during this time of isolation. Here’s today’s blend: red clover, linden, tulsi, mullein, and elderflower ✨ red clover to support and move lymph, linden to calm, cool and moisturize, tulsi all day everyday for stress, mullein for lung support and elderflower to open the periphery and release stagnant energy ✨ what are you drinking right now??

First post of 2020 and, wow y’all, it’s been a dark and wild ride so far. All I can say right now (mostly to myself) is keep trying. And thank you to every essential worker out there who is risking their health for the greater good 🖤

Sending calming / flowing / water support to all you Monday warriors 🌊 As the days get shorter, I’m trying to embrace every opportunity to be outside before the dark and cold set in 🖤

Apple season means spiced apple jam 💓🍏 & it’s super simple! Apples (skin+) sugar, lemon (zest + juice), allll the warming spices (cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, vanilla), and anything else you see fit — I added a little kava root tincture to this batch (a lil relaxation support never hurts!)

Sometimes my job is to paint abstract shapes over and over again. This makes me very happy. 🖤 Feeling ever grateful for this ongoing collaboration with

Thanking yesterday’s self for making this schisandra, elder berry and hibiscus tea ✨ I like to think of this blend as a gift to my heart + immune system + mood ✨ thank you for the tip about schisandra and honey (so delicious!)

Went to Narragansett last weekend and caught these late summer beach beauties ✨ rose hip ✨ goldenrod 🐝💓 @ Narragansett, Rhode Island

More end of summer flowers making space feel ✨

Ever inspired and humbled by the beauty and perseverance of Mother Nature. Standing with all the activists engaged in today’s Climate Strike - May this be a catalyst for the meaningful change that is so desperately needed.

this past weekend when captured me in my happy place, watching the waves roll in. Wishing I was at the beach. Always. @ Nahant, Massachusetts

It’s Monday and I’m feeling grateful for ✨goldenrod✨ and all the late bloomers keeping the bees happy (and let’s be honest, they’re keeping me happy too)

Sunday food prep color story 🔮 also - anyone else notice how great the eggplants have been this summer? Eggplant can be kind of tricky, I used to avoid it because I felt like it was too hard to cook, but I’ve found that slicing them super thin, coating with olive oil, salt & pepper & roasting or grilling them until they’re a little crispy is a pretty fail proof method 👌 OR you can always throw them into a pan with a bunch of other purple things and eat them with rice. What are your fave eggplant recipes??

End of summer in the NE means giant sunflowers 🌻🌞

Food prep for the win! Are you someone who does weekly meal prep? What are some of your go-tos?? Mondays are a marathon for me so every Sunday I make it a point to prepare some easy to access veggies for the week — it eases some of the stress that can result from hangrily trying to prepare a meal after a full day of work followed by a class, and it also ensures that I have something good to put in my body (making me less likely to eat chips and salsa for dinner, which, while very delicious, do not constitute the nutritious meal I need after said marathon day). ALSO, I have so many cucumbers to process rn — slice them thin, throw them in a jar with a little salt and lime juice, and you’ve got a delicious + refreshing salad to add to any meal of the day. 🥒🥒🥒 (also also, how is there a sliced cucumber emoji????? 😂)

✨Saturday✨ with feminist media + chill vibes

✨rose offering✨ for all of the broken hearts today - aromatic, sweet-smelling, comforting rose that we instinctively give as a sign of love. There's a reason for this - rose is a cooling and calming tonic for the heart and nervous system, as well as a wound-healer for both internal and external inflammation. It's a beautiful example of how the energetics of a plant derive directly from the constituent actions in the body. May rose soften the pain that so many are feeling today, this week, this month, this time we find ourselves in.

🌿meditating with linden 🌿 today I had the honor of supporting with her brilliant contribution to the conference at Harvard Medical Center — she held space with singing bowls and introduced a room full of scientists and spiritual leaders to the magic of the linden tree. I have so much more to say about linden, it’s one of my very favorite herbs, but I’ll save that for another day. For now, feeling super grateful, humbled and inspired ✨

✨mint✨ in the garden, bringing joy after a long week. Warm, dry, relaxant, mint has myriad medicinal benefits — carminative, antispasmodic, antiemetic, antimicrobial, antibacterial, analgesic, diaphoreric, anti-inflammatory, anticatarrhal — I like to work with mint when I’m experiencing digestive upset, and when I need to release heat, stress, anxiety 🌿 TGIF y’all 🌿

✨clean space✨ in my last newsletter I talked about the ever-popular topic of self care. In a world where we’re so often encouraged to buy a product or experience as an act of self care, i find it helpful to identify and embrace the daily (and free) routines that keep me feeling organized and calm. A big one for me is cleaning my space — last week was a long one (mercury retrograde anyone???) so this weekend I took some much-needed focused time cleaning my house... it may sound mundane, but waking up this morning to a clean space is a huge privilege and DEFINITELY counts as self care.

It’s Friday and I’m as happy as a butterfly on milkweed 🙌🌿🦋

I love how rain breaks the heat. It feels like such a needed re-set, a cleansing for the air, earth, and all of us who are living here — including these cute lil garlic chives 🌿🥰

Turkish mint, peppermint and lime balm from the garden before they turned into watermelon margaritas yesterday 🌿🍉

TGIF!!!!! Daydreaming about immersing myself in a cold pond. Stay hydrated out there folks, it’s gonna be a scorcha! 🌞🌞🌞