Leslie Korn - Natural Woman: Herbal Remedies for Radiant Health at Every Age and Stage of Life

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I traveled from my hometown in Boston on my way to the jungle of Mexico for the first time in 1973. En route, I stopped in Berkeley, California, for a week. During that week I went daily to a small bookstore on Telegraph Avenue called Shambhala Books. As a twenty-year-old feminist Jewish Buddhist and aspiring writer I thought, Oh, I hope Shambhala will publish one of my books someday. Thus, I was thrilled when forty-three years later, I was approached by Beth Frankl, an editor at Shambhala, who shared with me a vision for this book that you are about to read. The seed for this book began on that avenue in Berkeley and was nourished by the years I spent learning about herbal medicines in a little village in rural Mexico that became my home for over forty years. Without Beths invitation to write this book, publishing with Shambhala would have remained a long-forgotten dream. I am ever grateful to Beth Frankl for being part of the full circle this book represents as one of my treasured dreams as a writer.

Plants grow in communities, rarely thriving alone, and such is the case with a book like this one, whose development and life force benefited from the savvy of herbalists who worked with me as research assistants and interns, most notably herbalist Naneh Israelyn and skilled ethnobotanist and clinical herbalist Juliet Totten. These knowledgeable women provided research and ideas for rituals and formulas that they shared generously and, as a result, they gave breadth and depth to my work. My assistant, Leslie Sindos, is the essence of organization; she managed with aplomb the madness of an extraordinary amount of data, which enabled me to achieve the goals of this book. I could not imagine a better, more capable assistant. Alma Ftima Mora cheerfully brought her lyrical design to the books companion website. My husband, Rudolph Ryser, is always a steadfast supporter. He was a joyful companion in the kitchen and the garden, as we created, tested, and tasted many of the recipes in this book, and he was a willing editor, hand-holder, and an ever-patient poet during the marathon of writing and in the final rush to the finish. I am indebted to him for making my often clumsy phrasing sing a bit more on key, and I am gifted by his presence in my life.

INTRODUCTION