In My Mothers Kitchen

21/05/2026

May is the season that weaves lady finger bananas, slightly burnt banana bread and threads of community into our lives.

And lady fingers are exceptional weavers of the threads that bind community together.

The challenge with lady finger bananas is they often ripen all at once. And there is only so much banana recipes one can stomach. Thus they are shared. A text message. A gift at the gate. And slightly burnt banana loaf.

In gratitude to May and the human and non human weavers amongst us.

07/03/2026

Sometimes when the mind feels busy or the body feels on edge, slowing the breath can help bring a little steadiness and grounding. Wherever your feet are, nature can tend.
A gentle breathing practice I often share is:
🌹 Imagine walking into your favourite garden & smelling the roses
Take a soft, slow inhale through your nose.
⏸ Hold the scent for a moment.
🌼 Then imagine blowing on a dandelion
A long, gentle breath out through your mouth, imagine the seeds (& your worries) drift away.
“Let the garden tend you.”
You might try this for a few breaths and notice what shifts.
Like many grounding practices, different things work for different people — take what feels supportive and leave the rest.
This post is for general wellbeing information and isn’t a substitute for individual psychological care.




MindfulBreathing
NatureBasedTherapy
WomenAndWellbeing

07/03/2026

Sometimes when the mind feels busy or the body feels on edge, slowing the breath can help bring a little steadiness and grounding. Wherever your feet are, nature can tend.

A gentle breathing practice I often share is:
🌹 Imagine walking into your favourite garden & smelling the roses
Take a soft, slow inhale through your nose.
⏸ Hold the scent for a moment.
🌼 Then imagine blowing on a dandelion
A long, gentle breath out through your mouth, imagine the seeds (& your worries) drift away.
“Let the garden tend you.”

You might try this for a few breaths and notice what shifts.

Like many grounding practices, different things work for different people — take what feels supportive and leave the rest.
This post is for general wellbeing information and isn’t a substitute for individual psychological care.

04/03/2026

Sometimes when the mind feels busy or the body feels on edge, slowing the breath can help bring a little steadiness and grounding. Wherever your feet are, nature can tend.
A gentle breathing practice I often share is:
🌹 Imagine walking into your favourite garden & smelling the roses
Take a soft, slow inhale through your nose.
⏸ Hold the scent for a moment.
🌼 Then imagine blowing on a dandelion
A long, gentle breath out through your mouth, imagine the seeds (& your worries) drift away.
“Let the garden tend you.”
You might try this for a few breaths and notice what shifts.
Like many grounding practices, different things work for different people — take what feels supportive and leave the rest.
This post is for general wellbeing information and isn’t a substitute for individual psychological care.

18/02/2026

From kitchen garden to PhD 🌱

I’m quietly excited to share that this year I’ll be starting a PhD in Health Science with the School of Health and Biomedical Sciences at RMIT University in addition to my clinical and group offerings.

The research will explore how our everyday food practices and the places we source food from connect with the gut microbiome. But at heart, it’s really about food as relationship — with place, soil, seasons, community, and one another.

Research doesn’t always begin in a lab. Sometimes it begins in a garden - in soil under fingernails, shared produce, overgrown strawberry patches, and homemade cherry pie.

I feel very grateful to be able to deepen my learning while continuing to do the work I love, and I’m thankful to the many conversations, stories, and lived experiences that continue to shape how I think about health.

And I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to speak for the role of food growing in understanding our relationship to place.

Bucketloads of gratitude 🌱

27/11/2025

This.

You are invited to treat yourself with tender compassion, as if you were a fragile creature being cared for by something magical and kind. By first offering yourself that gentleness, you cultivate healing energy within, which can then be shared outward, spreading kindness and beauty into the world as effortlessly as pollen carried by the wind. It’s a reminder that self-nurturing becomes a gift that naturally ripples into collective blessing.

© DailyShaman 2025

27/11/2025

It was a lot of fun reflecting on my work and sharing my knowledge and experience about the benefits of therapeutic horticulture and time in nature with UQ Contact magazine for the November issue.

https://stories.uq.edu.au/contact-magazine/gardening-and-well-being/index.html?fbclid=IwVERDUAOUzwlleHRuA2FlbQIxMABzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAwzNTA2ODU1MzE3MjgAAR7ftFanyD1uB3ueSNC21u618rdy3XPbDNLhA5fo7KgEH9mK2G_Sbblxl0CWBg_aem_BqQSOcKWZ1GBD_dcsTDSaw

28/10/2025

Registrations close tomorrow

If you have been curious about adding nature based therapy into your work, this is your last chance to join us.

Nurtured by Nature is a hands on professional development workshop for clinicians who want to explore how working with flowers and plants can support emotional regulation, engagement, and connection with clients.

Facilitated by Kristy Howard and Carla Anderson you will learn how to integrate therapeutic horticulture and floristry into your clinical practice in ways that feel safe, creative, and incredibly meaningful. These approaches help clients express and regulate when words feel too hard, and they also bring a calming presence to you as the clinician.

This small group workshop at House of Hope Gardens is designed to be both restorative and practical. You will leave with new confidence and tools you can use right away.

🌿 Monday 3 November
🌿 Sunshine Coast
🌿 $445 including GST
🌿 Registrations close tomorrow

Reserve your place now and discover how nature can become part of your therapeutic toolkit.
🎟️ Book here: www.trybooking.com/DFOHZ

25/10/2025

This mornings strawberry collection. Super sweet and only a few bite marks ( ). The begining of the seasons crop is tricky, most of our strawberries go to the slugs and other critters waking up hungry from winter. But by the end of the season they must have full bellies and avoiding the heat so we finally get to have our share. The secret to a strawberry crop (without sprays) is to go big! So we all get to share.

In gratitude to our forever growing strawberry patch and the bugs leaving us some.