Mulling over Mullein | Benefits and Uses with Yarrow Willard (Herbal Jedi)

Hey there herb nerd friends. It's mid-July and we have been dabbling with so many plants. The world is abundant out here. I've been picking all kinds of different things. But you know as of late there's been all these fires in BC and my mind keeps mulling over this one herb. Mulling over mullein. Why? Because mullein is one of the best herbs for this. So today I thought we'd make a video about mullein. It's also perfect time to be picking this plant. There's so many uses for this plant and I'm excited to share it with you. Let's take a look a little deeper at how to work with mullein. Mullein is super easy to identify but let's make sure that we have the right plant first before we get started. Come along. Mullein is such an impressive plant. I mean look at this thing. It's taller than me and it's only two years old. This is a bi-annual and what that means is first year it lays down its roots and its foundation with a small basal rosette set of leaves and then it shoots up this big spike in the second year. This is the flowering head and it's these flowers that we're going to work with as some of the medicine today. But we're also going to use the leaves. Now the other thing to note about it that I think is really interesting is that the flowers come all sporadically like popcorn popping off of the raceme spike. They don't all come at once like many other flowers where they start at one even level. These ones come all over the place. These leaves are an elliptical oval and they're very fuzzy like this. Now this has many different healing properties based on this fuzz. In fact one of the things that's really interesting is this plant was once used to help work with diaper rash. How? It was just made into a diaper. Just like that. So often it has a nice soothing effect. The other thing is obviously this makes great toilet paper as you can tell. But there are so many other uses of this plant. Where does it grow? It grows everywhere. I see it all over North America. It's an abundant plant. As you can see looking over here we've got it just sporadically popping up in our garden. We don't even plant this one because a few of these seeds pop out and poof they spread all over. You'd think this was native to North America by its reach being all across the country. But it actually comes from Europe originally. It likes turbid kind of waste areas or disturbed soils which we happen to be doing regularly. So that makes it a little bit of a people plant. The word people plant I tend to use for plants that follow people wherever they go. And mullein is a classic case of the people plant. Mullein has a lot of different health benefits and we're going to talk a little bit about that and some of the folklore history ways in which it's been used and some of the ways it can be used moving forward. I just love walking through the mullein jungle. It gets like this. Now there's some places in the Okanagan that I've seen enough mullein in one valley to feed 10 health food stores for years. It's amazing how abundant this plant has grown all over the place. And the thing that I think is the biggest reason I wanted to do a video about it today is that its main benefits are working with dry, inflamed, irritated bronchioles. Yes the lungs. Helping with that hack or that dry cough. Mullein was classically used for people who smoked too much or people who Also the doctorate of signature is that it grows in these hot dry arid places. I'd like to talk a little bit more about how to use the leaf and best ways to prepare it before we move on to the flowers. They say size doesn't matter but you know when you got mullein leaves like this maybe size does matter. I mean that's enough mullein there to help heal the lungs of three, four, five, six people. We can make this into a tea really simply but we can also make it into a poultice and we can make it into a fomentation. There's many other practical ways to work with mullein leaf. In fact when dried this was commonly used as a smoking mixture. We even have it in our herbal smoke blend from Harmonic Arts. But the idea is that mullein helps work with lung catarrh and moving that out of the body. Helping clear the mucous membranes. Matthew Wood, one of my favorite herbalists, talks a bit about how this little hair like protrusions are similar to the cilia or the hair like protrusions in the lining of the mucous membranes of the lungs. And what happens when we have a dry hot irritable cough is that those hairs get all worn down. So there's heat things like smoking too much or that kind of heat from a fire or just that hacking dry cough that gets worn down. And that's how mullein works in the lungs. Now of course this has been used way before his time for all kinds of tuberculosis, bronchitis and deep lung congestion. Working as an analgesic and antimicrobial in the lungs but also helping with spasm in the lung tissue itself. And helping move out and get clearer cleaner mucus going and flowing in the body when it's dried up and hacky. So that's one way we'd use it as a tea that way. But you can also make a tincture with these leaves. Very simple for making a tea. I tend to take the leaf dry it out whole and I rub it through screens that way it breaks down into small pieces and I can use the small kind of tea cut as my tea. Really easy to do. This midrib takes a bit of time to dry so sometimes I just peel it right off the midrib and leave the midrib alone and just take these big long leaves. One thing I wanted to mention about the mullein is there is no counter indications but I found if you don't strain your tea properly and you get a little bit in your throat it has all these little hairs can be quite irritating to the throat. So it's good to make sure you strain the tea properly if you're drinking mullein as tea. Not just one of those yerba mate straw type styles but a real strainer. Also like I said before this plant can be smoked and I know some of us think smoking is you know anything we in the lungs is going to be hard on the lungs but you know the natives classically smoked mullein after they had smoked too much knick-knack. After too much of some other kind of tobacco or marijuana maybe has been smoked mullein can be one of those great things to help soothe the lungs. Now when we're doing this we might add some coltsfoot to it that's another great herb that's also soothing and has those demulcent emollient kind of properties that the mullein does. Soothing to any inflamed irritated tissues. So you could smoke this plant instead of smoking it like a cigarette I would suggest smudging it and breathing that in a little bit so that way it's in your environment and you're not having to chuff it back but you choose. Commonly it's said to harvest the first year's leaves but I tend to disagree. I find that the second year leaves are just as therapeutic even though the flower's gone this way and therefore more of the chi is in the flower there's so much more surface area to these second year leaves than the first year ones that I find early in the second year is the best time to harvest these leaves but anytime that they're not brown they can be harvested. Now these leaves can be used for a lot more like I had said before it could be used as a diaper for irritated rash they could be used as a poultice or a fomentation made with vinegar. One of the things that commonly they're done I'm sorry to break this big leaf but commonly this would be soaked in hot water and a little bit of vinegar and then used as a compress either on hemorrhoids or on any kind of irritated skin has antimicrobial properties in fact there's even been some science showing that it might even have some antiviral properties but there's a lot of antispasmodic what that is is spasm and the nerves but also analgesic slight pain reducing properties to the mullein so there's many ways we could make a compress or a poultice using mullein leaf as the base. There are definitely a few interesting ways in which mullein was used in our history especially because before we had a lot of science to back up the use of mullein it had a lot of uses for evil wind and evil spiritual influence so mullein was similar to how Saint John's wort might have been used as a protective plant so protect us from evil spirits and one of the ways was malaria was considered an evil spirit at one point and so settlers in Europe when they came here would tape or string mullein all around their arms and down on their legs to protect themselves from evil spiritual influence or whatever it might be that was causing them sickness. Now there's some truth to this because there are some antimicrobial properties to mullein though it's a pretty far stretch to protect us from that evil wind and that evil spirits. Of course it has been used for gout, it has been used for hemorrhoids, it has been used for so many different types of conditions. In fact mullein is talked throughout the literature from all the oldest oldest European herbalists and eclectics from way way back like Galen and Hippocrates even all the way up to Culpeper and these kind of herbalists have been using this plant for many different uses so it does have a rich history and it's one that's really worth knowing because it's so abundant. I mean look at this stuff. So really I want to talk a little bit more about the flowers because that's part of the reason I'm here is to pick all of these flowers. Now I can pick all these little ones coming down but I'm also going to pick these daily. Now why am I here to pick the flowers? Because they come so sporadically I have to come back every couple of days and pick them. What am I going to do with these flowers? Well the main thing is I'm going to make an ear oil and I brought a little sample. This is the one I've been working on right now and this is a mullein oil. I'm just macerating this in olive oil for a few weeks probably and I'll keep adding to this oil until it's full then I'll make another jar out of this one. So today I'm just going to harvest the flowers in here. I'm going to wilt them down for a day and then put them in the olive oil. The reason I'm wilting them because I don't want any of the moisture from the flowers to make the oil go rancid. Now this oil has so many health benefits. The main claim to fame for mullein oil is ear infection. It's one of the best oils for using for an ear infection. Now commonly this is mixed with a little bit of garlic oil because that's also another one great for ear infection but of course a lot of people have heard about garlic and botulism and so they they're weary of using the garlic oil. What I usually suggest is make your mullein oil and then take fresh garlic and simmer it in a bit of mullein oil and that can make a great ear oil. Just do that fresh as it is or use a garlic powder and you'll have no problem with your garlic oil. The other herb that I like to add to this is St. John's wort. We're gonna use the mullein and the St. John's wort to make ourselves a little ear oil. The flowers here have some antiseptic and anti-inflammatory and anti-analgesic properties which means they're helpful for pain and they're helpful for the inflammation and so they're also helpful for any kind of microbial type bacteria that's in the ear. Now if we're using this as an ear oil it's really important to make sure that ear's not been punctured because this isn't really for a puncture wounded ear it's for that kind of ear infection or that throbbing and that pain. Now there's a couple of different ways it works. It also can work with TMJ or that like tightened joint here and it's really specific if somebody's having regular ear infections usually due to dairy or wheat allergies or some of these kinds of allergies and this is a common common thing. If you're getting regular ear infections look at the diet because often it's a signal that there's something off in the diet. Mullein is a great one. What we can do is we can drop a couple of droppers in the ear and we're going to do light lymphatic tapping where we're just lightly lymphatically tapping help stretch the earlobe down and drain the ear a little bit. Whenever we have a plant that's in flower the flower is where the energy of the plant is and so in this case the majority of the energy of this plant is going into the flower right now so it's ideal opportune time to work with the flower medicine. And what I really like about mullein flowers is they're just so precious and small and beautiful to work with. There's something that makes me so happy about picking flowers. I don't know maybe it's the old flower child in me but I just love love love to pick flowers. I find them and themselves are anti-depressing just connecting with the flowers. Mullein is also very flammable and has been used as a candle or a torch so the whole plant can be picked and this can be dipped in some kind of oil and turned into a torch. If you're an area where there's forest fires I really encourage you to work with this plant make it into a tea pick it dry it smoke it whatever it might be it's going to help work with the lungs and heal the lungs that way. This mullein flower oil is also really helpful for eczema and inflamed skin any kind of hemorrhoids or piles or this type of thing but really that inflamed skin or dry cracked skin. This is one of the best oils for it so I'll often add this to my chickweed or calendula oil to help soothe that inflamed response externally on the skin. I just love how some of these plants grow this one's growing some secondary heads it's got one of the thickest stalks I've seen and it's just like oh mullein there's a lot of chi in this plant you can tell it's going to have good medicine by the vigor that it grows with. Inside these little flowers are all these great little stamens see that just open that up and they are delicious. Now I know if you've watched any of my videos it looks like yarrow eats everything and sometimes I do I just love nibbling on the plants to deepen my connection with them and I invite you to do the same because a little nibble of a part of a plant that's not toxic but maybe not food is going to help you connect it deeper into your body and let your own intelligence start to connect with the intelligence of plants like mullein. Now picking flowers like this could be a bit of a meditation but you know that's part of the medicine of this plant it's just meditating with the mullein. Personally this was one of the first plants that really helped me with a deep lung infection that I had and I grew a lot of respect for it because you know I was hacking up a lung and you know my mom made me some mullein tea and this is one of the best ones that I ever had. Now it was way better than the whorehound tea I'll tell you that but of course that whorehound really works too and so mullein mixed with whorehound and coltsfoot and a little bit of lobelia is one of the classic kind of teas as a remedy for lung and cough. We also add it to some more antispasmodic lung herbs like the blue vervain and the motherwort. Those kind of like lung nerve herbs can be helpful too for that type of cough. We've got all these nice big mulleins but there's one there that's just fallen down I want to take this whole one up. The root of mullein was also used as a medicine. Wow the smell is so strong. The root though not commonly used nowadays was often used as a decoction where they lightly simmer the root down that simmered root would then be added with a like a cotton cloth or a diaper of some form and patted onto those hemorrhoids and boils and this kind of stuff but it was also drank for a tea for dropsy and a uterus issues abdominal pain and also cancer this was one of those roots that was commonly used for cancer. Now I don't know where the science is to prove this or provide that but it is interesting that this was considered one of the stronger parts of the mullein for some of the more deep down issues and you could try it. In fact I'm going to take these roots home and try it because I've never tried mullein root. The flower essence of mullein is a powerful one. Now this flower essence is for connecting deeper to source and to getting in alignment with your divine self so if you're feeling like you're being dishonest with yourself or telling lies or not living in full integrity mullein flower essence is going to be one of the perfect essences for you. In fact it's good for a lot of people in the modern world because commonly we find ourselves compromising our inner values for an external environment that we find ourselves in and this is where getting an alignment can be a powerful powerful health ally. So mullein flower essence is simple we'll do the same thing I've been doing today where I'm harvesting these flowers but then we'll put them into a bowl of distilled water cover the surface of the water and allow sun to shine through the water for four hours. We'll then pull this off and we'll fix it and what I mean by fix it is we'll add alcohol to it to fix the energetics and the energetics of that water are that mother flower essence. Now we take a couple drops of this put in another bottle of water take a couple drops of that put in another bottle of water and that vibrational medicine gets more potent and then that becomes a wonderful flower essence. Mullein is one of those great ones but there's so many other herbs that can be worked with in flower essences. So I'm picking mullein flowers today right now but you know you can do a lot of different herbalism at once like right now I'm picking these flowers but afterwards the Saint John's wort is ready and if you look back there all those calendula flowers are ready. So commonly when it comes to herbal pharmacy it's nice to get a few different things going at once so we're doubling up on the processes. So I recommend you look for other plants that might be useful as an oil when you're making your mullein flower oil. Of course it helps to be in an herb garden. It helps to be in an herb garden. I'm having so much fun picking mullein with you today. Thank you for joining me. This is one of those great herbs that you can just you know cozy up to and feel connected to wherever you go. I hope you get out and play with mullein a little bit. I hope you learned something about working with it today and I would love to hear from you about your experiences with this plant because I know you know this plant you've been around this it's everywhere and so tell me more about how you've connected with mullein as well as any other herb you'd like to. Always here to connect, share, and deepen our connection with the natural world. So ciao for now. This is Herbal Jedi Yarrow Willard signing off. We'll see you next time. There we go. Look at that. One mullein half-picked. Keep us healing and jealing and wheeling from everywhere. I'm not just here. I'm not just there. I'm everywhere.