we transition from the Year of the Wood Snake to the Year of the Fire Horse. And if you've been feeling the shift already—restless, volatile, ready to move—you're not imagining it. The energy is changing, and it's not subtle. Here’s the herbs you can work with to make this year your own.

A drink that takes you from proving yourself to expressing yourself.

Unlike the government, your body knows what it wants. Sometimes it just needs a little encouragement.

A beverage for rebellion

You are rebellious and domesticated, you are a devoted lover and a dirty slut, you are iconic and a nobody, you are an oracle and just a shit head.

A mocktail for accessing the Oracle within.

A mocktail for intimacy, self-love, and building boundaries.

The world is hungry for new models of leadership, especially ones that center care, courage, embodiment, and truth. That is the new path forward.

You don’t have to sacrifice your health to avoid pregnancy, there are powerful alternatives to hormonal birth control that work with your body, not against it.

The fate of humanity could rest in the hands of a few powerful men who no longer see women as biologically essential. Controlled reproduction, designer babies, and gendered hierarchy engineered in code.

You see where this is going, right?

Because in the face of global grief and systemic violence, we need care strategies that are accessible, ancestral, and deeply restorative. We need tools that help us stay human. And we need the kind of healing that doesn’t just patch us up so we can go back to capitalism, but instead re-roots us in our bodies, our truth, our communities, and our power.

She could bleed without dying. She could create life without lifting a finger. She was a portal between spirit and matter. And in that witnessing, a question formed: If she can do that, what can I do? And instead of turning inward or asking the Earth, he turned outward. He decided to control her. To dominate. To violate. To take what he could not make. He would implant his power into her body and call the child his own.

From that moment on, it was a sin to be woman.

Pleasure in activism is not disassociation, avoidance, or spiritual bypassing. It is not turning a blind eye to injustice or standing idly by while harm unfolds. It does not mean detaching from the struggle under the guise of "self-care" or pretending that love and light alone will dismantle systems of oppression. Rather, pleasure in activism is the deep knowing of when and how you can show up fully and effectively for the causes you believe in.

As a proper feminist, I wasn’t about to let my hormones stop me from enjoying altered states. I just had to find another route.

Tantric touch is the antidote to this disembodiment. It’s not about sex, but about sensation. It’s not about getting somewhere, but about being with. It’s a sacred, intentional practice of connecting with your body, your partner, and the life force that moves through you.

Dong Quai is said to "return the body to balance.” That means helping your body get back on track when it feels off. The root contains natural plant chemicals that help relax muscles, ease pain, reduce swelling, and support smooth blood flow.

While society loves to pathologize libido—too much, too little, too wild—we know the truth: pleasure is your power. And plants want you to remember that.

For centuries, herbalism has been the people’s medicine. Not because it was trendy, but because it was necessary. When midwives and medicine women were outlawed or burned, their knowledge went underground.

Now, we are the ones digging it back up.
And we’re not doing it in secret anymore.

Let’s be real—humans have always looked to nature to alter consciousness. Whether for ceremony, connection, or just a damn good time, plants have long been our co-conspirators in expanding the mind and softening the edges of reality.

They came to my body like a shrine, hoping to find their own worth mirrored back to them. They didn’t ask permission. They didn’t have language for what they sought. But they wanted to feel powerful, and my energy made them believe they could. Even if they disrespected me. Even if they left. Even if they discarded me after. It didn’t matter. Because for one moment, they were close to the source.