Steven Horne's Newsletter Articles

July 1, 2021

Correcting a Hiatal Hernia

When people are new to natural healing, they can often feel overwhelmed by the various supplements and modalities that are available. Often, they just don't know where to begin—especially when there are so many different companies and healers telling you to “buy our products!” Although I do recommend herbs and nutritional supplements, there are many things that are important to improving health that doesn't involve swallowing something. In fact, there is one key to helping people improve their…

June 29, 2021

Aloe Vera: Helpful for Burns and Burnout

I don’t know about you, but I hate getting burned, whether it’s sunburn or burns in the kitchen, burns are painful. Fortunately, I know how to treat burns quite effectively with herbs and one of my favorite burn treatments is aloe vera. That’s why I keep aloe vera gel in my first aid kit and have an aloe vera plant in my home. Aloe vera is well-known for its ability to treat burns, but it has many other uses which I’ll discuss after I relate my experiences using it as a burn remedy. Treating…

June 22, 2021

Grape: Health from the Vine

Hiking in Zion National Park and while exploring various canyons near my home in Southern Utah, I often run into wild grapes (Vitis arizonica pictured left), a cousin of the wine grape (V. vinifera) and the concord grape (V. labrusa), which I have planted on my property. While grapevines produce an abundance of food in the form of grapes, raisins, wine, jelly, and juice, they are also one of mankind’s oldest sources of medicine.Wine grapes are believed to be native to the Mediterranean area and…

June 15, 2021

First Aid Kit in a Plant

Most of the students I’ve had over the years use herbal products that have been commercially manufactured. If you’re one of those people, there is one plant you ought to know how to identify and use because you won’t find a better plant for minor injuries, snake and insect bites, and bee stings. I’m talking about plantain. Like dandelions and other medicinal weeds, plantain is not native to North America. It was brought here by the European settlers and spread across the land as they spread,…

June 8, 2021

The Wild Side of Lettuce

The salad lettuce you find at the grocery store, Lactuca sativa, has full lush leaves, but it's rough and tumble cousin, Lactuca serriola, has unkempt and scraggly leaves. Known as prickly or wild lettuce you might recognize it growing in rough and unkept spaces like cracks in sidewalks and vacant lots, or invading home gardens. As shown in the pictures, it’s an erect plant with leaves and flowers similar to that of the dandelion, which is in the same family. Wild lettuce contains a resinous milky…

May 28, 2021

Chaparral: A Healing Shrub from the Southwest Deserts

In the deserts near where I live grows a scraggy-looking bush known as chaparral, Larrea tridentata. It’s neither tasty nor pleasant smelling, but it does produce bright yellow flowers in the spring. The odor is someone reminiscent of road tar (hence the other common name for it, creosote bush). The herb is coated with a sticky resin that protects the plant from UV radiation, reduces water loss, and discourages or outright poisons insects and herbivores who try to eat it. A compound was discovered…

May 25, 2021

What Good Are Dandelions?

In spring, the bright yellow blossoms of dandelions start popping up in lawns, vacant lots, and roadsides. And I've often even seen entire fields emblazoned with them. I remember seeing one such field as a teenager and wondering why so many people seem to hate dandelions. From their yellow blossoms, which are so bright and cheerful, to their round seed heads, which have entertained so many wishes, dandelions are kind of fun. There’s something innocent and child-like about them. Years later, I…

May 18, 2021

The Controversy of Comfrey

When I started using herbs in the late 70s, comfrey was one of my favorite remedies. In 1978, I broke my wrist in a moped accident; my ulna was broken and my radius was dislocated. After three months they were still not healing properly. So, I started comfrey along with other herbs. I took three capsules of comfrey along with one capsule each of lobelia and capsicum twice daily. In the next couple of weeks, my wrist made dramatic progress after failing to heal for months. Comfrey leaf was part of…

Correcting a Hiatal Hernia

Aloe Vera: Helpful for Burns and Burnout

Grape: Health from the Vine

First Aid Kit in a Plant

The Wild Side of Lettuce

Chaparral: A Healing Shrub from the Southwest Deserts

What Good Are Dandelions?

The Controversy of Comfrey

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