We are back from the First International Health Congress on Integrative Oncology, in Geneva Switzerland, and very excited to share all of the new understandings we have gained. We have also added a few new products to our online store over the past weeks and months. Here is a quick review, with links!
Essiac with Red Clover - Our nod to Red clover, which is an herb that was in the original 8-herb Native formula, and one that Rene Caisse worked with as an alternative, adjunct therapy to the standard 4-herb Essiac. Available in 10g and 2 oz. sizes!
Essiac Gold - 4-herb Essiac with added Goldenseal. Now available in 10g and 2 oz. sizes! Previously only in the 10g size.
Essiac Sampler Pack. Try one packet each of our Classic 4-herb Essiac, Essiac with Red Clover, and Essiac Gold. Available in 10g and 2 oz. sizes and at a discount over the prices when purchased separately.
The Essiac Master Batch This is our wholesale option. We don't focus our marketing energies on large or faraway stores -- or advertising at all, for that matter! But when it comes to Buying Clubs, nonprofits and other grassroots groups, the Essiac Master Batch is for them. It is priced at 30% off the per ounce price of our 8 oz. size. It is our Industrial scale Essiac, weighing in at 2 lbs. 13 oz., but if you have ten people you will use it up in just a few months or depending on the occasion, a whole lot more people over a whole lot less time. It contains each herb bagged separately so folks can see for themselves the difference between how Sheep sorrel leaf looks vs. the root. Technically, you could make 1/4 of it up, using all of the Sheep sorrel root and none of the aerial parts, for Essiac with the Sheep sorrel content 100% roots! The Master Batch is for economy and also to help bring people together around Essiac, a favorite pursuit at Blue Moon Herbs. 😉
Essiac Topical Solution Herbs Essiac Topical Solution Herbs provide alternative ways to work with a higher content of Sheep sorrel root. The mix is a hefty 63% Sheep sorrel roots, a much higher overall ratio than the 4-herb Essiac tea. Can be used internally or externally.
The Ancestral Medicine Section of the First International Health Congress on Integrative Oncology and Ethical and Sustainable Patient Care was held on Saturday, June 29, 2019. The place: Geneva Switzerland! We were there to see Mali Klein's presentation on the subject of the relevance of Essiac to health and healing in the 21st Century. Following Mali's presentation on Essiac are presentations by her co-panel members Dr. Patrick Shan (France) - Traditional Chinese Medicine and Dr. Manan Soni (India), Ayurveda. The speakers are very informative and provide a great perspective on the nature of healing and the common themes that cut across cultural and temporal boundaries.
It's all in the attitude, I'm hoping. Plus, spring really is in just only about 2 weeks. We got stuck in Kalispell MT last Friday due to blowing snow and cold. Decided to go to Home Depot and get flower seeds!
I am really excited to plant all kinds of stuff in our gardens including the rainbow in flowers! And we are going to try a lot of different experimental ways of growing Sheep sorrel. I pried a big bag of organic potting soil out of a snowdrift in the outdoor garden center - they were on sale and just outside the automatic door which still opened.. 🙂 Damn shopping cart kept getting stuck in the snow and a big wind was blowing and it was dark out and well below 0...
The month of March has been record wintry weather for this time of the year even in Montana. It is way more like January than this last January was! This is very strange, actually. Anybody else having a record-setting March? Sheep sorrel isn't one bit scared of snow but is sure not going to sprout anywhere but inside for now in these parts LOL...happy spring seed starting everyone!
In 2018 we started a project encompassing our Flathead Valley and surrounding communities called the Glad To Be Here Project. There are many reasons for being glad to be in the heart of Western Montana, with the grandeur of Glacier National Park and the Mission Mountains and Flathead Lake right out your window. Glad to be here is a state of mind though, and the positive effects from Essiac can make it apply to wherever we find ourselves. There is beauty inside us no matter where we go. Read More →
Mali Klein talks about the role diet plays in the body's ability to heal itself and how working with Essiac as part of that can be beneficial. Mali gives some diet guidelines for cancer patients and emphasizes the importance of everyone making their own personal choices about what to do with their diet and other health factors in order to heal and even thrive.
Wishing all of our friends, colleagues and customers a very happy, healthy 2019! Above, from left to right are the team at Blue Moon Herbs with Mali Klein, who visited recently - Emily Angelo, Danielle Yoder, Anais Starr, Debbie Jakovac, Mali Klein, and Hannah Rostocki. Not pictured are Angie Vance, Danielle's and Emily's daughters and sons, who are Junior Blue Mooners 🙂 nor the many more who remain anonymous but have helped us help you better through their friendship love and support.
Update as of February 9, 2019:The light is now noticeably coming back here on the 47th parallel, both in length and intensity. January was a bit of a winter no-show as we watched points east of Montana getting the business. But ever since February came, it has been blizzarding and making up for lost time. I'm just about done dreaming of hills blossoming in green and gold and planting Sheep sorrel and a candy store's worth of vegetable and herb seeds, many from Strictly Medicinal Seeds and, snow or not I shall plant seeds next week! Inside. Ho hum! Outside and planting and prepping the irrigation system, adding lots of wood chips, etc., all too soon by May or maybe even April it'll be time to trade in the parka for gardening duds! Its been a few years of getting underway with infrastructure in our garden in Hot Springs Montana. Just recently we tested our Sheep sorrel seed and it is ready and viable, 50% germination rate, and those tiny seeds guarantee a good outcome.
This original blog was posted on January 12, literally just a few days before...you guessed it...winter officially really started nailing us... 🙂 Boy do I sound naive!
How Bout the Weather this Winter!
"Another six short weeks and what so far is the warmest winter I can remember in my whole life of living in Montana won't have enough blast left to make a cold snap. Hopefully there will be moisture of some sort coming, though. Our area is naturally on the dry side and we need snow in the mountains in the winter to produce a spring runoff for the valleys.... I could even rake the yard but I am holding out for snow in hopes it doesn't come to that!...It is so seductive to think maybe we'll get away without a real winter. But it being Montana and all...it always seems to come...and actually I really do like it like that. It feels 'normal.' All I know is it is Way Too Soon to call winter a no-show..." Winter has shown! It is still showing!
The Glad To Be Here Project
2018 was dedicated to strengthening our community connections. Danielle, Emily, myself, Hannah and Angie began volunteering at the local soup kitchen. Soup kitchens are great places to give Essiac away as there sure are ample folks in need who appreciate it. Essiac is a new idea to many, often welcome and encouraging.
In this vein, we have started a project encompassing our Flathead Valley and surrounding communities called the Glad To Be Here Project. There are many reasons for being glad to be in the heart of Western Montana, with the grandeur of Glacier National Park and the Mission Mountains and Flathead Lake right out your window. We believe a little bit of the healing energy of this place is in every packet of herbs we put out.
Glad to be here is a state of mind though, and the positive effects from Essiac can make it apply to wherever we find ourselves. There is beauty inside us no matter where we are.
However...there are people here, just like everywhere else, that live with poverty and despair because of health and other problems. We are giving Essiac herbs and/or made-up decoction ready to consume to anyone in our area who would like to try it for a few months or if in need, longer, at no charge. We will be keeping close track of the folks who want to take part in our follow-up research but for those not wishing to share their personal information, no questions asked. Essiac doesn't care about all that.
The heart of our mission is to simply put people and Essiac together. That is truly what we are about more than anything - that and encouraging others to do what we are doing, in their own communities. Say Yes to being an Essiac tea-maker and/or Sheep sorrel grower (for the root). There's a big change coming and it's returning herbal medicine to its well-earned place at the table. "Essiac is a worthy vocation." - Gregory Klein
The Glad to Be Here Project is putting Buddhist philosophy (lovingkindness, gratitude, service) into action and it is also an experiment to see how high quality local Essiac can make a difference in lives!
The big projects and huge organizations have a role to play but we all do. What it ultimately boils down to really is about making a difference in a direct way, with benefit for giver and receiver alike from one-on-one connections, one person at a time, one day at a time. Saying "Yes" and keeping promises.
It was Rene Caisse's dream that Essiac become freely available for everyone everywhere. We CAN change the world. We were told that one person was not going to be able to, but the rest of the story is that people coming together to heal what is broken opens the doors of miraculous positive change where anything is possible. May the Force be with you!
We have a new partner for sourcing Essiac done properly in Europe! We have been working closely with a team based across Germany and Switzerland, Arupa AG, to produce a fresh organic crop Sheep sorrel. It's been two years in the making and I have now received word that the sorrel roots and tops have been successfully harvested and will be available to us in the next couple of months. Germany has long held a reputation for producing some of the finest herbal medicine in the world and we are very pleased to announce we will be offering an international sampler: Essiac with German Sheep sorrel and Essiac with US Sheep sorrel - both top quality and certified organic!
Our new partnership with Arupa AG means that we will also be able to offer our overseas friends and customers a more local source for good quality Essiac herbs. This will help bring down the high shipping rates considerably as well as reduce the delivery times. For more information click here. All teas are now in stock and can be ordered online from the link.
Thank you everyone for a great 2018! May our world be blessed with peace and prosperity for everyone everywhere in 2019.
Debbie Jakovac
Owner, Blue Moon Herbs
"This is the Way of Peace: overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love." - Peace Pilgrim
This video was shot in Polson MT in June 2018 when Mali Klein came to visit us at Blue Moon Herbs. Mali has been involved with Essiac since November 1993. Her full final analysis of the subject is in the pages of the Essiac Essentials Handbook. Mali shares her insights into the big picture of Essiac's journey from when it came into the greater world from the wilderness in the early 1890s and how it progressed over time to its present place in herbal medicine. Enjoy!
Mali Klein, author of the best books in existence on Essiac and Rene Caisse, is coming to Polson Montana in June 2018! This trip will be a short one but we plan to cram a lot in 🙂 We'll be shooting lots of video to share with you on Vimeo (The Essiac Cafe) and YouTube.
For Blue Moon Herbs, 2018 is the Year to Get Active Locally. We have spent the last two years digging Sheep sorrel roots but this year is not desperate in that department, and we are officially returning to our main focus - providing the info and inspiration for folks everywhere to do what we're doing - making Essiac like Rene Caisse did, using the roots as well as the arial parts of the Sheep sorrel plant, and providing it for friends and family, community and region. Selling Essiac on the internet has been an amazing experience, but local is really where Essiac's heart lies. Locally produced Essiac. Local Essiac caregivers. Small farms. Micro-businesses. Folks feeling good all over again :). Local economies too!
There is much good to come from people sharing information and finding answers together. In anticipation of Mali's visit we are having a little tea party! We're looking for a small group of local residents who would like to explore the beneficial effects of Essiac in the coming weeks before Mali's visit. Come on down if you are in the area on April 24, 2018! That is, 103B 3rd. Avenue East (Mrs. Wonderful's Marmalade Cafe), Polson, Montana, USA.
If you can't make it, stay tuned! If you are interested in being part of the group for the anecdotal study, but you don't live near Polson, MT contact us. The Essiac Spring Tea Drinkers Guild Study Group is a state of mind and an idea ready for the times 🙂 Read up on Essiac and its history and practical uses in Mali's new book - The Essiac Essentials Handbook - available exclusively through Blue Moon Herbs in June 2018 in softcover version, English. It is currently available online via Amazon in English, French and German and is well worth the read for anyone who wants to know the true story from the women who knew it. The rest of the Klein/Snow books still in print and a handful of other good reads including Rene Caisse's own I Was Canada's Cancer Nurse, are available from our online store. A no-cost option is to visit the online Rene Caisse Room and watch hours worth of videos and read the Homemaker's Magazine article that put Essiac back in prominence in 1977, where it has remained ever since. Enjoy your Essiac!
Update as of May 18, 2018: The Essiac Essentials Handbook by Mali Klein is now in print! It is a beauty! Just drove to Pine Orchard Press in Moscow Idaho to pick the new books up! Mali Klein is arriving in just over one week and we'll be looking forward to sharing our visit via video, with all who love Essiac! Stay tuned 🙂 Click HERE to order the Essiac Essentials Handbook!
Sheila Snow and Mali Klein are the light-bearers of the truth when it comes to Rene Caisse and Essiac. They have collectively written a total of nine books about it. Now the number is eleven! Mali and Sheila began a collaboration in the mid-1990s following the death of Mali's husband Gregory. Mali was starting an Essiac charity in England to honor how it had helped in their journey with a brain tumor. Mali traveled to Bracebridge Ontario to meet Sheila, who had written The Essence of Essiac in 1993. (The charity, Clouds Trust, has been very successful and is still in operation and thriving in 2018!)
Mali returned for many more visits over the years, and she learned more and more from Sheila and Mary McPherson, Rene's other long-time friend and associate. It became apparent that there was more to the story than the public had been told, and there was substantial misinformation circulating. After Rene's death in 1978, there was no one left who knew the whole truth about Essiac, except Mary and Sheila. A trend towards stronger concentrations of the decoction and higher dosages that began in the U.S. had begun to obscure the ways in which Rene had worked with the formulae.
As a result, each successive Snow/Klein book has had more to say on the subject. The first book Sheila and Mali co-authored was Essiac Essentials (1999). Essiac the Secrets of Rene Caisse's Herbal Pharmacywas published in 2001 and The Essiac Bookwas published in 2006. Mary died in 2006. Sheila passed away in 2008. Sheila had spent years collecting Essiac history and all the papers and pieces of it were passed on to Mali in 2010. Yours truly Debbie Jakovac began working with Mali to preserve the Essiac legacy that same year. In 2011 The Complete Essiac Essentials was published as part of that collaboration. We brought Mali from Europe for a visit in 2010 and brought her back to the US again in 2012, 2013 and 2014 and Mali and I spent time in Bracebridge Ontario, Rene's home town, as well as in the NW US giving Essiac classes. Since then many more have joined us on our journey and mission to keep the knowledge of Essiac accurate and to keep the herbs available to all who wish to explore this simple and safe key to good health. It is very heartening to see how Essiac and herbal medicine have begun to be recognized more widely again. It is also very heartening to see how the importance of Sheep sorrel root in the Essiac formula has become known more widely known largely because of Mali Klein's work!
As Mali became more and more aware of the importance of Sheep sorrel roots in the Essiac formula she felt the public had a right to know. Especially considering how strongly Nurse Caisse felt about it in her correspondence with the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center during the 1970s when they researched Essiac.
“You can buy the crushed leaves but they are no good alone. I found this out when I needed so much, when treating three to six hundred people afflicted with cancer every week for eight and a half years. I do know that the whole plant is needed.”
Each Snow/Klein book had a little more to say about it as a result.
The first book, Essiac Essentials, placed little emphasis - 'One level teaspoonful of it is sufficient for each 16 ounces of the powdered summer harvest of leaves." In both Essiac Essentials and Essiac The Secrets of Rene Caisse's Pharmacy (Snow/Klein, 2001) the recipe simply calls for "Sheep sorrel, powdered." But then when The Essiac Bookcame out in 2006, Mali recommended that 25% of the Sheep sorrel portion should be roots, officially breaking the 'code of silence'.
In The Complete Essiac Essentials (2010), Mali reported, "The root contains important additional elements in comparison to the aerial parts of the Sheep sorrel herb and must be included in as great a quantity as possible in the decoctions." (emphasis added) Mali herself uses 100% root but it is still difficult to source Sheep sorrel root, so it is difficult to include that much for most people unless they grow their own. (It is easy to grow.)
Mali has now completed her thesis and made her findings on the key to what made Essiac so effective when Rene Caisse operated her Cancer clinic in the 1930s. Coming available in softcover format from Blue Moon Herbs in the summer of 2018 is The Essiac Essentials Handbook. Its here!!! As of May 15, 2018 we are so pleased to announce that the new book is off the press and available!! They are really beautiful books, with full color illustrations throughout and if it is true that the best comes at the last, then this proves it out. Mali Klein, thank you!
The Essiac Essentials Handbook is also currently available in English, French and German on Amazon, with excellent translations. The book illustrates how the Essiac formula was altered after Rene Caisse's death. The ebook even has an audio file of a telephone conversation between Dr. Charles Brusch and Sheila Snow wherein he confesses he does not know the Essiac formula. Mali makes a powerful case for formal research of the original Native American 8-herb Essiac formula (not to be confused with present-day 8-herb formulas on the market, which only have some of the right herbs). Lastly, this book really shows Mary's personality more than the earlier books have, and it is a delight to get to know Mary a little better inside these pages.
Mali Klein also released another ebook book in April 2017 - this one is available free of charge, just click on the link: A Dangerous Sweetness.It is the life story of her husband Gregory Klein. Much of the book is based on his memoirs covering growing up in Buffalo NY, service in the Marines in Viet Nam, being discharged as a disabled veteran, and his subsequent journey to becoming a Theravadan Buddhist monk and one of the first four to bring this form of Buddhism to the Western World. It also chronicles his service-based brain cancer diagnosis and the poignance of that lesson in impermanence.
Last but not least! Mali is coming back for another visit! ...And lo and behold, that time has arrived! Mali will be here from May 28-June 3 and we're very excited to share the visit via video! Stay tuned as we visit about Essiac and contact us if you have something you'd like us to discuss. Mali Klein is a living encyclopedia of Essiac knowledge and we encourage your questions!
