Before the white coats.
Before the insurance codes.
Before you had to fill out five forms just to be told to take Tylenol and “come back if it gets worse”…
There was Grandma.
She didn’t have a certificate on the wall, but she had a pantry full of jars, a strong sense of smell, and eyes that had seen both miracles and misery.
She wasn’t a licensed practitioner, she was something far older: a keeper of knowing.
🫖 Healing Came from the Land, Not the Lab
Grandma didn’t ask you your symptoms like a script. She looked at your face.
“Too pale,” she’d say, handing you some liver and onions. “You’re running cold.”
Or, “You’ve got fire in the belly, we’ll calm that down with chamomile and licorice root.”
There was no “WebMD,” but there were books, stories, dreams, and instincts.
She learned from her mother. Her mother learned from hers. And so on, back before the land was paved and the garden became a lawn.
🌾 They Called It Witchcraft, Then Took Notes
Let’s be honest, a lot of our folk were burned, silenced, or laughed at.
And when the world needed real healing, guess whose medicine chest Big Pharma raided?
Willow bark became aspirin.
Foxglove became heart medicine.
Moldy bread turned into penicillin.
They scoffed at the remedies, until they could patent them.
🧅 Poultices, Pot Liquor, and Prayers
Grandma knew how to make an onion poultice for a chest cold.
She knew comfrey would knit that bone.
She knew chicken soup needed the bones and the vinegar, not just the broth.
She taught us to pray while we stirred.
To talk to the herbs.
To walk barefoot so the earth could pull the sickness right out of us.
She didn’t need a PhD to understand the body.
She lived through real sickness, not sanitized textbook versions.
🥄 Why We Need Her Wisdom Now (More Than Ever!)
Today, they tell us not to trust what isn’t FDA-approved.
Huh… you know what is FDA-approved? Food dyes, seed oils, and ingredients we can’t pronounce.
Grandma taught us to trust what we could grow.
What we could make.
What we could feel.
And now, in a world flooded with pills, screens, and disconnected experts, we’re finding our way back.
Back to gardens.
Back to bone broth.
Back to her.
✨ Be the Grandma Now
You don’t need a license to care.
You don’t need a clinic to heal.
You just need your hands, your heart, and the courage to remember what we were told to forget.
Keep the tradition alive.
Grow the medicine.
Tell the stories.
Write the knowledge down.
Teach your kids how to pick plantain for a bee sting.
Let them hear the old songs while they shell peas.
Grandma didn’t need to go to school for this, because she WAS the school.
Yard 2 Yield! 