What is Sage Used for with Maia Toll

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This was a really fun interview for me as today’s guest, Maia Toll, touched on many themes that are important to my own life, like nature connection and working with medicinal plants daily, both as food and simply as a part of life. She also shared interesting back stories on what her book writing process has been like. And, of course, we talked about what is sage used for (Salvia officinalis)!

So, when might you reach for sage? Just to name a few…

► A cup of sage tea can be just the thing on one of those raw, damp days when the cold gets into your bones

► Sage honey can be powerfully healing and soothing to a sore throat

► When you want a delicious topping for eggs, savory soups, pasta, or just a yummy snack, try Maia’s crispy fried sage leaves. (Don’t forget to download your free, printable recipe card!)

By the end of this episode, you’ll know:

► What it means to invite magic into your life (and what Maia means when she says “magic”)

► How plants tell us about themselves

► How you can foster a daily connection with plants

► Why understanding place is a key to gardening success

► and more…

For those who don’t already know her, Maia Toll is the award-winning author of Letting Magic In, The Night School, and the Wild Wisdom Series. After pursuing an undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan and a master’s at New York University, Maia apprenticed with a traditional healer in Ireland where she spent extensive time studying the growing cycles of plants, the alchemy of medicine making, and the psycho-spiritual aspects of healing. She is the co-owner of the retail store Herbiary, with locations in Asheville, NC and Philadelphia, PA.

I’m thrilled to share our conversation with you today!

-- TIMESTAMPS --

• 00:00 – Introduction to Maia Toll
• 03:13 – Letting Magic In
• 13:33 – How plants communicate
• 16:31 – The importance of understanding where you’re gardening
• 17:29 – Maia’s writing journey
• 24:50 – What stepping into a nature-based way of living did for Maia
• 26:14 – Working with white sage
• 29:58 – Learning to appreciate culinary sage
• 30:53 – Crispy Fried Sage recipe
• 32:55 – Interacting with herbs companiably
• 35:16 – Sage is beautiful!
• 40:20 – Other ways Maia works with sage
• 42:40 – Herbal foot baths and other self-care
• 45:17 – Herbiary and The Wild Wisdom Series
• 53:32 – The Night School
• 59:50 – What Maia has in her herbal first aid kit
• 1:08:26 – Herbal tidbit

Get Your Free Recipe!

Connect with Maia

• Website | MaiaToll.com
• Instagram | @MaiaToll
• Substack | @Unkempt
• Herbiary | Herbiary.com

Transcript of the 'What is Sage Used for' Video with Maia Toll

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Hello and welcome to the Herbs with Rosalee Podcast, a show exploring how herbs heal as medicine, as food and through nature connection. I’m your host, Rosalee de la Forêt. I created this Channel to share trusted herbal wisdom so that you can get the best results when relying on herbs for your health. I love offering up practical knowledge to help you dive deeper into the world of medicinal plants and seasonal living.

Each episode of the Herbs with Rosalee Podcast is shared on YouTube, as well as your favorite podcast app. Also, to get my best herbal tips as well as fun bonuses, be sure to sign up for my weekly herbal newsletter below.

Okay, grab your cup of tea and let’s dive in.

Well, if I were to sum up Maia in one word it would be “impressive,” and that’s because I’m always impressed with her, whether it’s when I’m reading her fabulous books or having conversations like these. This was a really fun interview for me as Maia touched on many things that are important in my own life, like nature connection, working with medicinal plants daily as food and simply as a part of life, as well as interesting backstories on what her book writing process has been like.

For those of you who don’t already know her, Maia Toll is the award-winning author of Letting Magic In, The Night School and the Wild Wisdom series. After pursuing an undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan and a Master’s at New York University, Maia apprenticed with a traditional healer in Ireland where she spent extensive time studying the growing cycles of plants, the alchemy of medicine making and the psycho-spiritual aspects of healing. She’s the co-owner of the retail store, Herbiary, with locations in Asheville, North Carolina and Philadelphia. Keep up with Maia’s writing on her Substack, Unkempt, and find her online at maiatoll.com.

Welcome back to the Herbs with Rosalee Podcast, Maia.

Maia Toll:

I am so glad to be back with you, Rosalee.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Oh, likewise! I’m really looking forward to catching up because it’s been awhile; you were on all the way back in Season 2 talking about thyme. Now, you’re here talking about another favorite culinary herb which I’m excited to get into, but we have some other stuff first. I’m excited to have you back on because it’s been awhile. Usually, in the podcast, this is where I ask you about what’s your journey and how have the plants brought you to us today. You’ve shared that with us in the Season 2, which I highly recommend everybody give a listen to about thyme. Also, just this year, a few months ago, you published your memoirs, Letting Magic In. I’d like to start there with your memoirs and even maybe start preemptively of what does magic mean to you, Maia?

Maia Toll: 

It’s interesting. I started recently a little back and forth with a writer in England. We both have Substack, so we’re doing this exchange where we’re talking about magic. She’s a photographer and she does a lot of photographs that are like deep fog, like things emerging from the mist. For her, magic is this edge of mystery, this liminal space. It’s been really interesting having this back and forth because I had been using this word for—I don’t know—a dozen years without ever super clearly defining it. I just was like, “Okay, I need a word for this feeling that life is kind of enchanted and that we have connections beyond ourselves, that we’re not just solo in our human body and can’t touch outside of ourselves.” So, I started using the word “magic” and it wasn’t well thought out perhaps. I actually was on a radio show when the memoir came out. The woman went riffing off on this whole thing about the magic shop down the street from her, and I finally realized that she was talking about card tricks. I was like, “Okay, hold on a sec. That’s not what I mean by magic.”

I go back over and over again to a quote from E.M. Forster, who probably most famously, for people who don’t read his books but see movies, A Room with a View is something that he wrote. My favorite book by him is called Howard's End. The epigraph in the beginning of the book is “Only connect.” I’ve read this when I was 16 in Lit class in high school. That idea of connection and how do we connect, how do we find connection, has really been a driving force in my life. I would say particularly with my work with the plants it’s how do we find connection? First, human to plant, but then how do I, as a human, introduce this plant to another human? How do I pass that connection along? Pass that thread along?

For me, magic has to do with this idea of connection. I feel like once we can quiet the human voices in our lives, once we can quiet our own humanity and need to be a part of human culture, and start listening to the world around us, it’s so rich and so vibrant. There are ways of connecting with it. Once you connect with it, first of all, you feel differently in yourself, but you also begin to be able to sense larger patterns because you’re plugged in. It’s like you have your finger in the socket. To me, that’s magic. When we have these little moments I think we commonly label “magical,” there’s this I’m starting to see what this conversation I’m having with this other writer, that the people who are doing the “slow living” and the paying-attention-to-the-world-around-you, that’s one end of this kind of magical continuum because that’s the beginning of noticing the weft and the weave of what’s going on in the world around you.

The more you pay attention and the more you step into the flow and feel how things are moving, and then move them intentionally—which is what plant medicine is, you’re taking the energy of a plant and you’re moving it intentionally into a person—then we begin to participate in the magic that already exists in the world. We’re part of the weaving. That’s the best I can do today.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s lovely. So many things that you’ve just brought up are such big themes in my life right now, so my mind’s like “woo woo woo!” All these areas lighting up. One thing it makes me think about is how in the past several years I’ve began intentionally walking. There’s this different experience of going on a walk and thinking about a To Do List or thinking about steps or thinking about heart rates or whatever. This different experience of going on a walk and hearing the squirrel alarm call, somebody in the forest visiting a favorite tree that they visit all the time, noticing the different scents in the air. Right now, Ceanothus is this incredible scent that’s permeating the air; noticing the mushrooms that are popping up. Those experiences become magical things – really in tune with the senses, slower, really noticing the world and also feeling a part of the world. Like you said, it’s participating. It’s not just being an observer, but being able to participate in all of that in whatever way, shape and form, which for me is often nibbling on some rosehips along the way or the elderberries that are ripe right now, etc.

It’s just a different experience. Do I always go out and never think about my heart rate and the pace I’m going? That sort of thing and my To Do List? No. Sometimes there are just those days, but I would say those other days are the magical days and there are the days that deeply resonate. That’s something it makes me think about. It also makes me think about my steps as an herbalist. I luckily had that magical inroad when I first started, but I also had more of a—there’s an exciting time as an herbalist where you’re like, “Oh, my gosh! Herbs can do that? It’s so exciting!” Even the simplest things like, “Ginger can help with my nausea?” and it becomes almost this, “Let’s figure out all of these things that herbs can do.” I think it’s very easy if we are intentional that we can get stuck in herbs as pharmacy and herbs for XYZ, which is interesting. I don’t want to poo-poo it. It’s interesting. It’s one way that people are grabbed into herbs, but it’s this intentionality and connection that you’re speaking to that brings the magic there.

Maia Toll: 

It changes everything. First of all, I have to tell you this because this is just such an incredible, magical moment for me and I don’t know if you’ve had this experience, so I want to point it out to you in case you have an opportunity. I moved into the woods. I’m in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I’m on 25 acres. We have some protected space and we have a lot of black cohosh. I was out walking around the garden the other day and I was smelling something that smelled like jasmine. I don’t have any jasmine! I was like, “What is that smell?” I followed my nose around. Oh, my goodness! There is some autumn black cohosh scent that is like jasmine.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Interesting!

Maia Toll: 

I’ve never been around this much black cohosh. I’ve never had this opportunity before. I just had to point that out in case anyone else has an opportunity to be around a lot of black cohosh. In the autumn, I haven’t smelled it at any other time of year. It was very strange and very wonderful.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I have a different experience of black cohosh. Not with autumn scented and not in its native habitat, but I planted black cohosh by my doorway right on the steps leading up to the porch. The flowers, when they bloom in the summer time, smell like rotten death! I did not know that about black cohosh, but it took me quite a while to figure it out. I would just walk by. There are lots of plants around, so I’d walk by and it just didn’t even occur to me that a plant would smell like that. I was like, “What is going on? Is there a dead mouse around? There’s something wrong here.” After a while, I figured out it’s the black cohosh and I have had so many people come by and—this is not going to make me sound like a very kind person, but maybe a key person who loves to see people react to things. I invite people to smell. “Aren’t these beautiful? They’re called ‘fairy wands.’ Give it a smell.” My dad would say cheap entertainment. I’m not the only one who thinks it smells like death, but again, this is not its natural habitat and it’s in the summer. Now, I’m curious because jasmine is one of my favorite scents and I promise you that is not the smell coming off my black cohosh in the summer. 

Maia Toll:

Okay, this is fascinating because—have you ever smelled magnolia when it’s at the end of its bloom? Because it will start to smell rotten. You’ll start to smell kind of like an undercurrent of death. I’m wondering if we’re talking about the range of the same scent?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s interesting. We need other people to chime in on this.

Maia Toll: 

If you’re out there and you have smelled black cohosh, we need you to let us know.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

In what stage? Where was it located? We need specifics here.

Maia Toll:

That’s crazy. Okay. You know what? This is, to me, the joy of herbalism. I spend a lot of time. I studied with David Winston, so trust me I spent a lot of time memorizing chemical constituents and “This does this and this does that,” and TCM, Ayurvedic and Native American properties. I’ve done all of that. Your brain can get very full very fast. It’s these moments of just encountering the plant and smelling jasmine or smelling death to me are so fascinating. I love thinking about this. What’s it telling you with its death scent? What’s it saying with its jasmine scent? They’re living beings and they communicate by scent, by touch. They communicate in different ways than we do, so all of this is information. I’d be so curious how the medicine would be different and how the subtle energetic layers of the medicine would change depending on what scent profile it’s in.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I definitely think the difference between jasmine and rotten death is not so subtle, so that would be very interesting.

Maia Toll:

But the thing is here, I’m using the word “energetics” and making it sound like magic, but if you think about it, there’s a chemical reason why it’s going to smell one way or smell the other. It has to do with the soil. It has to do with the time of year. It has to do with how much water. It has to do with nutrients. It will have a different chemical profile if it has a different scent.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love that when herbalists get together. I remember many years ago watching an argument between two herbalists from different parts of the country of whether or not a plant was astringent and to what degree until it was finally, over time, this was resolved by understanding the plant in one location is very astringent, whereas in this other location it is not. I love that plants cannot be standardized no matter how hard humans try to do so. It really comes back to that connection and knowing the actual plants that you’re working with, not even just in a general generic sense, but literally the plants that you’re working with--tasting them, smelling them.

Maia Toll:

Sharing the landscape with them, which to me that’s such an interesting piece of this. We’re going to get to my herb towards the end of the podcast, but the reason that I chose sage is because we have voles. We have horrible voles. I have planted the garden twice and they’ve dug up everything and so I finally researched they don’t like sage and they don’t like alliums, so I now have a garden full of sage and alliums.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It sounds delicious.

Maia Toll: 

It’s just such a very different garden than I would have planted given my druthers, but it’s teaching me so much about this particular place and what can survive here. What can survive the wildlife here? I think that that’s such an interesting piece of the puzzle. We go straight to the medicine making, but some of the medicine is in the understanding of place, and of interaction, and of connection.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

So true, Maia. Let’s go back to your memoir a bit. It’s Letting Magic In. We’ve talked about what magic may mean. Not card tricks, more about this connection and participation. So, why a memoir? I also guess I just want to say you are such a prolific writer and you’re such a beautiful writer. Your prose is just so stunning and I know that your book has received very high praise for the writing in general, but also for the journey that you take us all on. I want to hear from you about it all.

Maia Toll:

This is the book I’ve been trying to write since 2016. My first book, The Illustrated Herbiary, started as a little chapter headers as I was trying to write this memoir. I realized way back in 2016 that I didn’t have the chops yet. I didn’t have the writing skill to pull this off. When I was workshopping the pages, people kept being like, “We’re not so sure about this story, but those little herb descriptions are amazing!” So, I yanked those out and actually, in my publishing contract for The Illustrated Herbiary, I have explicit permission to reuse them in a memoir, which I didn’t end up doing. I went for a slightly different format, but I was so concerned that I was going to use them up on the first book and wish that I had them later, that I had that written into the contract.

The first book came from the first attempts to write this story before I was an herbalist, before I even knew that an herbalist was a thing that a person could be or that person could have wanted to be. I was a writer. I started writing when I was eight or nine. I was actually—I thought late in life when I was in grad school that I’m severely learning disabled. I started reading super, super late. Actually, I think I started reading when I was eight or nine, way later than most kids start reading. I started reading because a camp counselor started a book with us, with my camp cabin. She didn’t finish it by the end of the summer and I had to know what happened. This book was called Taran Wanderer. It’s by a guy named Lloyd Alexander. He wrote on a pretty typical hero’s journey arc. A hero’s journey is—most of your movies are heroes’ journeys. You have your person. They’re bumbling about. Their life is not so great. Something happens that we call the “call to adventure,” where they have to step up and be a better dad or take a job in a different place or save the maiden from the dragon. Whatever it is, the protagonist has to step up and do something different than they were doing before. They have a series of trials and tribulations that eventually end with them getting it together and saving the princess, being a better dad. Whatever the thing is.

Anyway, the story format was engrained in my being from a very young age. I kept trying to write stories, but I just didn’t seem to have a story in me so I spent most of my younger days trying to write stories. They kind of went nowhere. I described a character, but they never did anything. I didn’t have that arc. After my Ireland adventure, I was like, “Oh, my goodness. This is a hero’s journey arc. I just lived through a hero’s journey arc. I now know what this thing is. I did it. I can write it.” It was like the story I was waiting for. I’ve been saying all my life I am a writer without a story, and all of a sudden I had a story. I knew that I wanted to write this book personally, for myself, because this was always a goal.

Beyond that, the other thing that I had realized was that there weren’t many good stories out there for people who were spiritually seeking, for people who were trying to step out of the known ways of doing life and do it differently. These weren’t stories I could find when I was going through this process and wanting some guide post, someone wanting to trailblaze for me. I’ve really wanted to write something that allowed other people to have a sense of breadcrumbs. Your journey is not going to be the same as my journey, but here are some trail markers so that you can find your way. It was very important to me to find a way to do this that was inclusive, that allowed people to look at my journey as an example, but still be able to see their journey running parallel to mine and understand how their journey and my journey spoke to each other.

It took a bit of craft. It took a bit of writing craft that I had to develop over six or seven years to be able to feel like I could share the story in a way that was useful to other people. I didn’t just want to write something for myself. I wanted to write something that really gave the readers something that they might need in their life.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

This book is loved by herbalists and non-herbalists alike. Like you said, I saw a lot of people remark you on how it gave them those breadcrumbs as they’re on their own spiritual journey of looking for that magic.

Maia Toll: 

Yeah, yeah. I think that we all have something we’re questing toward in life. Some people are looking for how you connect with them. Other people are trying to figure out how you find purpose. We all have something that’s at the core of our being. We’re trying to answer that question for ourselves. I think, for me, my question was “What’s my purpose?” and that was mixed in with a god question like, “Why the heck are we here? What does this all mean?” I found that stepping into a more nature-based way of living melded both of these things. It gave me a sense of peace within to start living by more natural rhythms, to start interacting with the natural world as a member of the community instead of this “power over” thing that humans have with nature. It calmed something in me and allowed me to feel like my actions had some meaning and some purpose and that I was part of something larger than myself.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That has definitely been my—I have a very similar path and I’m so grateful for it too and grateful that you’re sharing that with those breadcrumbs and however ways you said people might be finding their path in different ways. It helps to see the trail—the different trails that had been led before us. 

Letting Magic In is available wherever books are sold. Congrats on another book. Wonderful.

Maia Toll: 

Thank you.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Let’s talk about sage. It’s a lovely, aromatic plant. We kind of heard why you chose sage. You apparently are having lots of sage in your life right now.

Maia Toll: 

I have so much sage in my life. It’s interesting because I feel like we all have plants that we really resonate with and work with a lot and sage was not that plant for me. Culinary sage, I should say. I developed a relationship unexpectedly with white sage. It’s one of my greatest plant teachers. I share the concerns that are out there about the wild harvesting and how that impacts not only the plant but people who are Indigenous to America and their practices.

I also truly believe that when a plant decides that you are its disciple, you say “thank you” and you listen. If you’re a person who has a relationship with white sage and feels guilty about it, what I do is I try to grow it here and it was miserable. It does not want to be in a rainforest. There is an organic farm that I buy from. It’s farmed. It’s not wild crafted. Out west, my store, Herbiary, carries it. I feel like I’m supporting an organic grower which always feels good and buying in a way that’s sustainable. I started working with white sage because it started whispering to me. It’s a really interesting plant. 

It has, for me—I realized that there’s a masculine energy that’s often associated with it, but for me, it kind of has “grandma” energy. I find that when I’m burning it and working around a person, the plant tends to spiral at a place where something needs attention. Then if I can just point that out to the person like, “Hey, what’s going on with your right shoulder?” It’s gotten even more subtle than that. Sometimes it swirls counter clockwise or clockwise. There’s all these different ways that the smoke talks to me. It allows me to kind of get into dialogue with a human right back to that idea of connecting like, “Hey, what’s going on there?” Once you start the conversation, then the person is able to pull up and out like we talk about sage being used for clearing. They’re able to unravel something that was stuck in their body. I found that to be an amazing experience.

I have not had that experience. I’ve dried culinary sage and tried to use it the same way and have not had the same experience, but kind of backwards because I think most people work with culinary sage first. I started working with other members of the family because I had the relationship with white sage and because all of a sudden I had sage everywhere. No kidding. I have a ridiculous amount of sage. I was introduced to the culinary sage when I was learning herbs, but it wasn’t something that I deeply connected with. So, now that it’s all over my property, I’m learning to work with it. It’s drying, which is actually great in this rainforest where I’m always damp. That drying quality is wonderful and cooling.

For me, what I’ve really enjoyed doing is trying to figure out how to use it more as a culinary than as a medicinal because I live in a rainforest. I’m always damp, so that drying is something that I want all the time. I’m interested in the daily use as opposed to the medicinal dose. I started just playing with it and seeing what could be done and I found that recipe at one point for fried sage. It’s fried y’all. I am aware. We are frying, but it is ridiculously good.

The trick with this is you want dry leaves. If it rained the night before, you’re going to end up with a soggy fry which is gross. You really want the leaves to be dry. Get yourself a handful of very dried leaves and then you can use butter or oil and you’re frying them same way you would with a bacon or something like that. Put them on a paper towel afterwards and soak off all the extra oil and they’ll crisp up as they dry on the towel. It’s such a great topping for eggs, for a squash soup. You just crumble it up. Also, they’re beautiful when you get whole leaves and fry them and then blot them on the paper towels like Thanksgiving dinner. Butternut squash soup, whole leaf floating on the top that’s decorative design. They look wonderful. Obviously, not a daily thing, but the fried sage is a wonderful little treat. I eat them like potato chips. I have to.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love this recipe. It’s one that I’ve made several times. I fry mine in coconut oil and I love them with cheese--with a soft cheese. It’s a nice digestive herb with some cheese. Definitely, that squash soup garnish sounds really beautiful.

Maia Toll:
It’s really good.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you so much, Maia, for sharing this recipe with us. For the listeners, if you’d like to download your free crispy fried sage recipe that’s beautifully illustrated by Tatiana, then click the link above this transcript.

Maia Toll:

I have noticed for myself that I went through a period, a dozen years, where I was working as a clinical herbalist. It was what I was doing all day every day. I was treating the herbs pretty much solely as medicine. I was using them in tincture form and formulating. It was very technical and removed. Since I’ve moved more towards being an author that’s my daily life I don’t see clients anymore, I’ve really tried to figure out how I can interact with the plants on a daily basis in just a more gentle, companionable kind of way. I really love this ability to just run outside, grab a handful of something, bring it into the kitchen and use it in my cooking, use it in my tea, although I have to admit I’m a huge black tea drinker. I don’t drink as much purple tea as maybe I should.

I use a lot of herbs in cooking. You’re just talking about the digestive quality. Sometimes after dinner I just go out to the garden and I nibble as that digestive. I remember a friend who lived in France talking about how her family would just do that--just go out to the garden and stand in the garden and nibble. It was just such a beautiful image. I tried to incorporate that into my daily life like, “Oh, I need a little bit of this. I’m just going to run out and grab it,” instead of the herbs being precious and set aside for medicine. I’m looking for the daily connection – the scent, the tactile quality, the reminder that I am a part of this larger ecosystem and community.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love that so much, Maia. Again, very similar paths on that, including the black tea. One thing that I did not know before I grew sage in my own garden was how incredibly beautiful it is. Before I grew it, I was familiar with it cut and dried. Those whole leaves are so beautiful. They come in all different—you can buy all different kinds of hybrids, but that silvery green in itself—Salvia officinalis—is so beautiful, but then it’s the flowers that blew my mind. I had no idea. Those flowers are so prolific with all of that wand of purple sage flowers, which was so intensely beautiful. I just had no idea. That was one of the biggest surprises of growing herbs, actually. I can imagine your garden is just filled with purple flowers at some point.

Maia Toll:

It’s full with purple flowers because a lot of the allium have purple flowers as well. The thing that surprises me about sage is how large it grows. It’s really big. My sage usually keeps going straight through the winter, which is also really fun. When the rest of the garden is dead, I go out and there’s sage, which makes me wonder if that’s part of the association with wisdom. Because winter is often associated with the elders and there's sage – still beautiful and silver and going strong straight through the winter. I always notice because Thanksgiving, when I go to grab herbs from the garden for whatever I’m cooking, everything else is miserable and there is the sage. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s funny. I’m in Zone 4, so not in the temperate rainforest. We often have snow on the ground by the time Thanksgiving is, but I know that there's usually not too much snow. I know I can go out there and dust off the snow and get my fresh sage. We usually stuff the turkey with sage, as well as do all the stuffings and everything. Sage heavy our Thanksgiving is. That’s funny that we both have that same experience, but different. Even under the snow, I can just brush off the snow and there’s great looking sage under there. Not many plants you can do that with. 

Maia Toll:

No, not many plants you can do that with at all. It’s a really interesting one. I think I learned that it was incredibly drying, like super astringent. I think that that’s part of why I avoided it for a long time. I was just concerned about its extra action, but I don’t find in cooking with it that it has that ridiculous potency. In tincture, yes, but in culinary form, I think it’s lovely. If you’re super vata, super, super dry in your constitution, it might not be a good choice for you, but I think for the rest of us it’s really a lovely herb. It’s an aromatic so it’s going to be antimicrobial, antiviral, anti, anti, anti. Sometimes I will mix it with honey just to counterbalance some of the super dry. This is one of those I don’t often like to talk about ingesting essential oils because I feel like Americans are so bad at subtlety.

With the essential oils that you can ingest, you need to be ingesting them at such low levels. If you can be a subtle person, I’m going to tell you something. If you can’t, fast forward 10 seconds so you don’t screw yourself up. If you can be a subtle person, take a 1/4 cup of honey and put one drop, no more, sage essential oil. Make sure that it’s organic so that you’re not getting crap. Mix it in with the honey and then put that into a cup of tea. This is great for a sore throat, those really painful sore throats like the strep sore throat. So good, but it is so easy to overdo it and it is not good for you. It is not good for your liver, so when I say one drop, I mean one drop. If two drops go in, then you got to add more honey to dilute it further. Also, sage essential oil is not good if you have seizures. This is what to avoid if you have seizures. The essential oil form is very grounding. Sometimes if I’m feeling really out in space, I’ll just put a drop of sage essential oil on the bottom of my feet.

The other thing that I’ve used it for—there’s two other things I’ve used it for that are fun and interesting. I’ll put fresh sage leaves in a bucket of super hot water if I have a migraine, and then I put my feet in the bucket of super hot water. The hot water is going to dilate the blood vessels of your feet. It’s going to change the blood flow in your body, which can really help with the migraine. I would say it works 60% of the time. It’s not if I had the 100% cure all for a migraine, I’d be rich. You need the water super, super hot. The sage is not necessary, but when I get migraines I get shakes with them, and that the sage just helps with that grounding. Just getting your energy down when it’s getting very frantic.

The other thing I love it for is mix with apple cider vinegar and let it sit as if it were a tincture and then that’s a great hair rinse. Especially if you have dark hair, it’ll add a little depth and shine. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Do you dilute that when you use it? Or do you just use it straight apple cider vinegar? Put in a separate bottle? 

Maia Toll:

I make straight apple cider vinegar with the sage. The way that I use it is usually standing in the shower. I pour it over my head so it’s getting shower water. You know what I mean? I don’t put it in. I know people who put it in and let it sit. I don’t have that kind of patience. I pour over and the shower water is happening and stuff. I would say if you want to put it in and let it sit, I would dilute it.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Nice. Those are really—all those sound like so much fun. I haven’t done essential oil and honey, but I don’t think a year goes by that I don’t make sage leaf and flower infused honey, just the whole herb. That’s one of my favorite things and like you said, it’s incredible for a sore throat. With that you can take it by the spoonful or I put it in my teas a lot. I just go through it through the year either out of enjoyment or for a sore throat, depending on what the needs are. I just don’t go a year without making it. It’s one of my favorites. That’s so cool about the herbal baths because I feel like herbal foot baths are just underrated, so thank you for that too.

Maia Toll: 

I love a good herbal foot bath. I love those little things that people kind of forget to do that are such a treat. I love putting honey on my face and place some herbs in a bowl of water, pouring hot water over the herbs and then the honey is on your face. You have all the aromatic herbs in your bowl and you take a towel and you go under and you steam off the honey and it drips down your face and drips into the bowl. That would be great with your sage honey.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Nice.

Maia Toll:

Yeah, Yeah.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s lovely. I’ve never done that. I’ve only done that kind of thing is like I have congestion in my sinuses and lungs kind of thing, but never—it’s like a self-care, but I’m sure it’s lovely.

Maia Toll:

Pore cleaner. It’s so good for your skin.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Lovely. Was there anything else that you would like to add about sage? I feel like we’ve covered so many bases here.

Maia Toll: 

I feel like that’s a really good beginning although I want your particular recipe for sage honey.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It’s so simple. Just chop those babies up. I like it fresh, fresh sage leaves. It could just be the leaves but it’s fun to add the flowers too if that happens to be going on. Put those up, fill a jar gently and then add the honey that’s been—liquid honey—and give it a good stir. Let it sit for a bit.

Maia Toll:

Do you put—whenever I do honeys, I always try to find somewhere warm to put them. I used to have a house with radiators and I would put them—the jar in a water bath on the radiator. But I don’t have that now. Do you…?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I just put it on the counter. The honey is so cool because it’s that hydrophilic—I forgot the name for it—it pulls out the water. With the aromatics, I think it pulls it all out. You can just—I always leave the sage in there. I never strain it again because I can’t be bothered with that.

Maia Toll:

I’d say woman after my own heart.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

But the longer you leave them in, they just get dry and crispy in there. What I do is I just put them in with my tea when I’m infusing it or even to just eat it is fine. I think it pulls it out just fine.

Maia Toll:

Nice.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Maia, for people who don’t know you, I feel like we should talk about these herbal things you do because people might not know about Herbiary. They might not know about your other books which I adore as well. I think you have a new journal out too. I just said them all, but let’s go for it. Tell us about Herbiary.

Maia Toll:

Okay, so when I came back from studying in Ireland, I opened a store called Herbiary. It started in Philadelphia. We sold the store there and then I moved down to Asheville, North Carolina and we have a store here and we’re online. We carry medicinals. Sometimes we joke and call it “The Soapiary” because there’s always fabulous local soap makers. We can’t help ourselves so we buy all the natural soaps made with essential oils. We had zillions of them – natural skincare products, essential oils. We try really hard to have a good variety for people who are using herbs as medicine and then also, the things like soap that we call “gateway drugs” to get people into using more natural skincare products and things like that. That’s the stores and then…

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I have to say I love Herbiary online. I hope one day I can visit. I have long wanted to go.

Maia Toll:

You are so welcome here. You come [crosstalk].

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It’s just a couple of states away from me, all of them. It’s a little bit far, but I hope to go one day.

Maia Toll:

I would love to have you so come visit. The books? I write a lot of books because I made the mistake of looking up the big guys like Stephen King. How many books do they do every year? I’m like, “Oh, I have to do a book a year,” which is crazy, people. It’s crazy. I’m going to slow down, but I’ve been doing a book a year for a while.

The first set is based on the ancient medicine kingdoms. If you studied Taoist medicine, there are three ancient kingdoms – animal, vegetable, mineral. We have the Herbiary, the Bestiary and the Crystallary. They’re all based on the actual characteristics and properties of the herbs, the animals and the crystals. The crystals are really interesting because in Taoist medicine crystals were put in water and then the water was sipped. That sounds crazy pants on the surface, but if you take supplements, if you take iron, if you take magnesium, if you take calcium, we now do this with pills. They didn’t have pills at that point, so they were putting the stone that had the iron, like hematite in a cup, letting the stuff get into the water and drinking it. You don’t really want to do this because stones are often many different things. If you know you have a pure stone, that’s one thing, but a lot of times the hematite and also asbestos or whatever, which you don’t want to drink. Thus some problems with the ancient medicine. Really fascinating how for thousands of years people have understood the property of different minerals and used it in their medicines. That was the first proofing and then-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Before you go into the fourth book, I just want to interrupt. I remember when The Herbiary was published, the book, I was excited for it. The illustrations are stunning. The preliminary artwork and stuff is fun to see. My thought, I remember is being like this is going to be a fun, cutesy book about herbs with little tidbits here and there. I remember being absolutely floored at the wisdom that you’ve captured in the book. I remember the next one came out about animals and I was like, “Oh, we’ll see.” I’m the kind of an herbalist, a little biased towards the plants. We’ll see. That one also, again, the wisdom that you’ve captured through these animals. Those are just a phenomenal set of books. The cards are so much fun. Of course, the illustrations are so stunning. It was surprising to me. Now, having known you for a while and knowing just what an incredible and insightful writer you are and thinker, it’s not surprising. That was back in the beginning, so…

Maia Toll:

I’m also kind of ridiculously serious. I was even annoyed at how cutesy the illustrations were. My publisher was in charge of that and I wasn’t. I remember when I saw the cover of The Illustrated Herbiary, it looks like the farmer’s almanac! My editor is like, “Great!” I’m like, “No, not great!” I was going for—I want white and crisp and tone poems to the plants, which luckily, my editor was smarter than I was and realized what people would want and what would hold their attention. It’s been an interesting journey for me because even using the word “magic”—I am a person who has way too many academic credits. I just—I have always had an academic curiosity and always wanted to know. I want to know why and I want it proven. That was a lot of the hurdle when I went to Ireland—was that I was kind of so rigidly intellectual. My teacher really felt like she had to shake that out of me. I don’t like a lot of Letting Magic In, thus the title, going from this person who was very rational and very rigid in her rationality trying to let this sense of wonder and enchantment into my own life. I always read it in books, but it was this thing I escaped to because I didn’t think it could infuse my own life. It was separate. It was in a book. Learning how to pull it into my own life was magical.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I think that’s a perfect segue into the fourth book in the series, which is a book that was, again, meant a lot to me. I didn’t even know that that series could get any better. Tell us about the fourth book, kind of the capstone. 

Maia Toll:

The fourth book I named, The Wild Wisdom Almanac, but it got renamed the Wild Wisdom Companion. Don’t ask. It is a Wheel of the Year book. It’s about how to take the three medicine kingdoms, animal, vegetable, mineral, and incorporate them into your life around the Wheel of the Year. It’s like how do you make friends with all this stuff and use it. People who have read the series—so many people it is their favorite of the series. I hear this over and over. It’s fascinating and I blame the name. It is the least seller when I look at the stats. It’s like the baby book, but so many people who are deeply into this world, this herbalism and slow living and finding ways to live with nature, it’s their favorite book so… [Crosstalk]

Then from there, I wrote a book called The Night School, which I’ve been dabbling in mysticism. I studied philosophy in college. Philosophy and mysticism, especially if you go back to the ancient Greek and Romans, are pretty close to each other. I’ve always been curious about how ancient mysticism and philosophy have fed our current thoughts about spirituality. So that, plus I kept saying to myself, “What would you learn if you actually went to Hogwarts?” Those two questions informed The Night School.

A lot of books about mysticism are really, really dry and really, really hard to read, so I wanted to create something that was fun and that was engaging and kind of gave a primer for different forms of mystical study and how we use them today, and what the roots are because I feel like so often, people get books that have a spell in it. They just do this thing without any understanding of where that thing came from or why it might work. I feel like once you understand the building blocks of mysticism, then you can create your own magic. You can understand the reasons behind something instead of just reading someone else’s words and being like, “Okay, now I have to take rose petals and sprinkle them counterclockwise and say these words.” I’m always like, “Yuck! Don’t tell me what to think and to say.” Instead, I want to know why rose petals? Why clockwise? What are these words? And then I can go, “Oh! Okay, for me, I’m going to use carnation and not rose. Who cares about the counterclockwise? Those words don’t make any sense to me at all. I’m making up my own.”

Once you understand the why you can create ceremonies and rituals and moments that are meaningful to you—going back to the idea of connection, the point is to connect. You need to find the symbols, the scents, the plants that tap into your own subconscious because what you’re doing with any kind of a ritual is talking to yourself, really. You’re reinforcing, “This is what matters to me. I feel strongly about this. I’m putting my energy towards this. I’m putting my intention toward this.” You want to use these symbols that are meaningful to you in doing that. For some people that might be religious symbolism. If you’re a person who is of a particular faith, then you have symbols and language from that faith and you can take that and use it to reinforce your own thinking. It’s like a mantra. 

Spells are not so mysterious. A spell is really just kind of saying to the universe, “This thing is important to me. I’m going to put my energy toward this particular thing.” I think that that works best because what we’re trying to do is bolster our self when we use the symbols that speak to us personally.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love that. I really resonate with that a lot.

Maia Toll:

The Night School is really to help people understand those foundations and fundamentals so that it becomes very easy to make your own magic, to make magic that makes sense in your life and your world for you.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It’s a very insightful book. I love the beginning and the invitation to wait ‘til it’s night time before you dig in. It has a very particular feel to it. It’s not—I don’t think it’d be easy to feel neutral about that book. It evokes a lot of feeling within it.

Maia Toll:

I really wanted to come up with a metaphor for that kind of soft misty, sideways way of thinking. For me, the night became the metaphor for when your defenses go down, when you put your rational brain aside like you’re done with your work for the day, it doesn’t have to be this kind of perfect rational world. Everything is a little soft and misty and fuzzy and different things seem possible.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

You brought up the Hogwarts reference, so I’m not going to hold back anymore. When you went talking about letting magic in, it made me think of—in my mind, it’s like the journey from muggle to whatever we end up at the end of that. [Crosstalk]

Maia Toll: 

That’s so funny – the journey from muggle to wizard. It is. I feel like it is that kind of real world transformation. It’s not external stuff. It’s internal stuff. It’s how you choose to see the world, how you choose to interpret the information coming in because we always have a choice. How we choose to think about things is a choice. You have to train your brain sometimes to think differently.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Maia, thank you so much for all the work that you put out into this world and all the ways that you show us magic and ways to let it in. At the end, here of the interview, I love to ask everyone a question. You and I chatted and you were so excited to talk about what’s in your first aid kit. We’re breaking tradition a little bit here to go back to a Season 9 question, but I’m in charge so it’s totally allowed. What is in your first aid kit? Your herbal first aid kit...that’s obvious. If you say Neosporin, it loses a bit of magic I have to say.

Maia Toll: 

There’s no need for it.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Totally allowed, totally allowed.

Maia Toll:

I don’t need to have Neosporin in the house. The thing that we use the most in my house is bentonite clay. We use so much clay in this house. It’s crazy. For those of you who don’t know what it is, bentonite clay is a high-mineral clay. It comes powdered. You can add water to it. After you add water, you can put essential oils in. Sometimes I’ll mash up plantain and mix that with the bentonite clay. We use it for everything. We use it to dry poison ivy.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’ve seen it for that. It’s amazing! I mixed it with hydrosol for that. It makes such an interesting substance. It was so effective. We don’t have a ton of that here, but a four-year old got into it. It was horrible and it was just amazing for her. Anyway, continue. I was-

Maia Toll:

I mix it with apple cider vinegar and that for poison ivy. Bentonite clay is on the counter. We have a little jar of it on the counter in the house. We put it on mosquito bites. It’s very drawing. It pulls things out. Bee stings it will put the stinger out, so it’s super useful. I have about 17 forms of arnica. I have homeopathic pellets. I have oil that you can rub on. I have tincture which is—that’s another super low dose. That’s one drop in a big glass of water. Interestingly, comfrey is the East Coast version of arnica. Arnica is more of a West Coast plant, so when I have comfrey in the garden, I’ll use fresh comfrey instead of arnica. Arnica for all your bumps, bruises, scrapes—I actually take that back, not scrapes. You really don’t want to put it on broken skin, but your bumps and your bruises--that’s arnica. Have a basic “heal all” salve. That’s your plantain, comfrey. I think there are some jewelweed in the one we usually have. Because I have the store, we’re always trying different things, different brands and different people’s products, but it’s got to have comfrey. It’s got to have plantain. The other ingredients tend to shift a little bit.

Lavender essential oil is like—it is an entire pharmacy in one bottle. It’s amazing for any kind of burn like sunburns, all the way to second degree burns. With really bad burns you do lavender oil, cool water, lavender oil, cool water and you keep alternating. I have watched things that are screaming and starting to blister just slowly cool down and the skin returns to normal. It’s crazy. It’s crazy. You want lavender angustifolia for that. Some of the other varieties work but not as well and you really want to make sure that you have essential oil and not fragrance oil. Fragrance oil does not do didly-squat. It’s not from plants. If it doesn’t have a Latin name on it, it’s not an essential oil. Those are my big ones.

My other kind of strange thing, especially for travel, I use an herbal deodorant that’s lavender, thyme and vetiver. When I’m traveling, I have this essential oil blend that’s lavender, thyme and vetiver that’s always with me. Thyme is antimicrobial and antiviral. Lavender is also antiseptic. Vetiver is very grounding. Vetiver is also kind of thick and sticky. It has a little bit of that “holds things together,” so I use that on everything when I’m traveling. If I think I’m getting sick, I roll them on my hands and put my hands over my nose and smell. If I get a little cut, I just roll it on. That deodorant-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

These are diluted in oil then? I’m assuming.

Maia Toll:

Actually, they’re neat because there’s enough lavender in there. That lavender becomes the base. That underarm deodorant roller is used for everything when I travel. It’s the thing.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wow. These are awesome first aid kits. I can see why you’re excited to share them.

Maia Toll: 

I travel quite a bit, especially with book stuff, and you want something that gets super small that you can put in your little clear plastic, show in airport people pouch. I’ve dialed it down at this point.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love it. Thank you so much for sharing those and thanks for coming back on the show sharing so much wisdom, so many things about sage that are just fantastic. I was so pleased to have you here.

Maia Toll:

I am so thrilled to be here. Thank you so much, Rosalee.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you, Maia.

Thanks for being here. Don’t forget to download your beautifully illustrated recipe card above this transcript. You can also visit Maia directly at maiatoll.com.

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One of the best ways to retain and fully understand something you’ve just learned is to share it in your own words. With that in mind, I invite you to share your takeaways with me and the entire Herbs with Rosalee Community. You can leave comments on my YouTube Channel, at the bottom of this page or simply hit “Reply” to my Wednesday email. I read every comment that comes in and I’m excited to hear your herbal thoughts on sage. 

Okay, you’ve lasted to the very end of the show, which means you get a gold star and this herbal tidbit:

I had to do a bit of searching for this episode’s herbal tidbit because Maia already shared so many interesting things about sage. I also have a solo podcast about sage where I’ve shared a lot there as well. So, what I did is I checked in on recent research and found this observational study from March 2023. In this study, 74 patients aged 13 to 69 were given Echinacea and sage lozenges for an acute sore throat. The herbs were well-tolerated with no complications. The cool thing about this study is that they not only took subjective feedback to see that the lozenges reduced throat pain by 48%, but they also saw that the viral loads in those taking the lozenges were reduced by 62% after taking a single lozenge. The researchers concluded Echinacea salvia lozenges represent a valuable and safe option for the early treatment of acute sore throats capable to alleviate symptoms and contribute to reducing viral loads in the throat. 

Go sage and go Echinacea!