One Family's Medicine LLC

09/02/2026

08/31/2026

Māmaceqtāhsaeh - “Little Indian”
Panax quinquefolius - American Ginseng, Wild Ginseng
Other common names: “Shang” or “seng”
Araliaceae Family

Uses: Cognitive functionality, Rheumatism, Cancer, Blood Sugar, Kidney, Liver, Fatigue, Men’s Reproductive Health

Wild ginseng is culturally significant for the Menominee people and has always been known to be a precious medicine. All parts of the plant; root, stem, leaves, berries, can be used for medicinal benefits.

Spiritually, it has been known to be an elusive plant, picking and choosing which year is right to sprout and flower. Menominee harvesters talk about how they’ve seen the plant; they look away for a second, look back, only to find that the plant has “disappeared”. There are a lot of Menominee teachings regarding Māmaceqtāhsaeh. One talks about the man root. Finding a root so big that it takes the shape of a little man with arms and legs. It has been said to eat the little man root for good luck and abundance.

This relative is extremely vulnerable and should be harvested with respect. In order to maintain a good relationship with Māmaceqtāhsaeh, the red berries/seeds must always be left where the plant was found and we only harvest roots that are determined to be 10 years or older. Roots that are younger than 10 years should be replanted in the same spot to continue growing. Māmaceqtāhsaeh can remain dormant in the ground for several years until the perfect conditions. Knowing this, there really is no concrete way to determine the age of the root. Each “ring” that you see is a year that a plant was sprouted and does not account for dormant years.

In honor of “Shang” season, One Family’s Medicine is promoting a photo contest for the best root picture, plant picture, and overall best Māmaceqtāhsaeh picture. The winners will be chosen on Friday October 23rd, 2026. Winning pictures will be used and published in the upcoming plant medicine book with full photo credit given to the winners. We will also reimburse your Menominee Ginseng harvesting license, $50.00 to each winner. The plant has to be from the Menominee Reservation EXCLUSIVELY and you must show proof of a valid ginseng harvesting license for 2026.

Drop your pictures in the comments below to submit for the contest or message this page with your photos.

Happy Harvesting!!! And always remember to put down your to***co!!

08/15/2026

08/15/2026

Posoh!! I will be set up at the Menominee Casino Resort for the Menominee Casino Craft Fair tomorrow:
August 15th, 2026, 9am-3pm

Chaga Tinctures 1oz and 2oz bottles.

Come learn about our beautiful Chaga Mushroom relative and support your local vendors!

Chaga Mushroom is a birch tree fungus that grows in cold northern climates. It looks like a black wooden conk or growth. In the realm of mushrooms, it is considered a dark, dense, mass of mycelium untypical from the usual cap and stem structure. When broken open, it has a soft brown core. The brown and the black areas are the most potent parts of the medicine.

Long long ago, Chaga was acknowledged by the Menomini people as being a life-saving food source during the Wisconsin Glaciation which began 11,000-75,000 years ago. Glacial Ice sheets slowly came down from Northwest Canada Glaciers melted and receded from Wisconsin; it’s rich lifesaving properties were an important part in the survival of the Menomini at a time that animals and plants weren't as abundant as they are now. Chaga was stored intentionally by the Menomini along the Ice Age Trail in storage pits for any traveler, Menomini or not, that needed a rejuvenating boost for their bodies and immune systems. Chaga's slow burning properties have also been used to carry fire while traveling distances. Northern Canadian tribes nicknamed this fungus “The Gift of God” due to its many uses and its intense medicinal properties. It was used in divination ceremonies where two lines of powdered Chaga were set on fire at the same time, symbolizing two paths in life. Whichever line burned faster was the lifepath you were destined to take. Many countries, nations, and cultures around the world acknowledge Chaga for the great things it can do for our bodies. Chaga should only be harvested in the cold winter months to avoid harming the vitality of the tree; January thru March.

Please consult your doctor before implementing into your diet while taking blood-thinning medications. Due to its impact on blood sugar, this could potentially cause risks for people on diabetes treatments.

Chaga has so many wonderful health benefits:

✨️boosts immune system ✨low calorie, high fiber, and ️loaded with antioxidants ✨️reduces inflammation ✨️reduces stress ✨good for heart health ✨️prevents and slows cancer cell growth ✨️lowers blood sugar ✨lowers cholesterol ✨Melanin for skin health

08/12/2026

Chaga tinctures coming soon!
🖤🩶🤍🤎🤍🩶🖤

08/11/2026

Took a little lunchbreak stroll in the woods at work and found myself in a mushroom wonderland
😍🤎🍄

08/04/2026

Askāh
Pine
Pinus strobus
White pine

Askāh Apēwanāskaton
Pine Pollen/Pine Pitch

Name:
Pinus, from Greek, pitus or pine, fir tree
Strobus, from Latin for gum tree from Carmania
Common name, soft white wood tree

Taxonomy: Kingdom Plantae, the plants
Division Coniferophyta, conifers
Class Pinosida
Order Pinales
Family Pinaceae, Pines, Fir and Spruce
Genus Pinus, Pines
Taxonomic serial # 183385

Physical Description:
Cones slender, tapering, 2-winged seeds per scale. Buds resinous and sticky, aromatic. Needles soft, green in bundles of five, evergreen. Branches whorled, slightly upturned at tips. Smooth spreading. Bark brown, thickening as tree ages, deeply furrowed with scaly plates. Roots spreading moderately deep, no taproot.
Height 90 to 120 feet. Age 250 years to 450 years old.

Habitat:
Shade tolerance is intermediate. Soils: All soil types within the Reservation. Favors wetland borders also well drained soils (sandy).

Insects:
White Pine Weevil (Pissodes strobi Peck).
Diseases: White Pine Blister Rust (Cronartium ribicola).

Dominates pine forest ecosystem. Lower soil PH limit of 4.0 New regeneration requires three years in microclimate from native plants to establish.

Fire:
Moderate fire resistance. Needles not highly flammable. Older trees Survive due to thick bark. Natural fire regime is 5–50-year intervals. Menominee fire regime long ago was seven-year intervals following four-year seasonal cycle. Upon movement to next seasonal encampment. Bark would thicken due to multiple low intensity fires. Fuel conditions consisted of continuous needle layer with low forb and Shrub layer and a dense understory young pine (colonization from Neighboring pine).

Companion Trees:
Black Cherry (Prunus serotina), Bigtoothed Aspen (Populus Grandidentata), Quaking Aspen (Populus remuloides), White Birch (Betula papyrifera).

Shrubs: Sandy sites- sweetfern (Comptonia peregrine), wintergreen (Gaultheria porcumbens), blueberries (Vacciniom angustifolium), Vacciniom myrtilloides). Moist sites- partridgeberry (Mitchella repens).

Herbs: Large-leaf Aster (Aster macrophyllus), Jack in the Pulpit Arisema triphyllum), Wild Saraparilla (Aralia nudicaulis), Woodsorrel (Oxalis Montana), Bracken fern (Pteridium Aquilinum). Clubmosses.

Animals: Mice squirrels and chipmunks feed on seeds and needles. White tail deer feed on twigs. Porcupine feed on limb bark. Black bears scratch bark to mark trails and for climbing. Black Bear tends to now favor pine plantations to den.

Birds: Bald Eagles nest in large white pine.

Ice Age: According to legend, Pine pushed slightly ahead of Ice sheet. Climate was milder then imagined. Boreal forest rode high upon ice sheet thus insulating temperature extremes. Understory plants were first to leave causing Menominees to move or adapt Boreal trees and plants as medicine. White Pine able to migrate as opposed to Red Pine which almost vanished as a species. Red Pine medicine not as strong as it used to be. White Pine valued like no other plant because of strength and it stayed with us despite approaching ice.

Reproduction: Sexually by seed. Great cone year every four years as of recent time. Previous was every eight years. Seed dispersal by wind. Mice also spread seed. Pollen bearing flowers at base of new growth. Cones take two years to mature. Trees shed pollen in May, fertilize 1 year later. Cones mature and drop seed in September. Seeds germinate in spring. Growth period ends in June in order to start storing nutrients for the upcoming winter months.

Uses: General Salve, Heart, Sores, Ulcers, Boils, Infections, Poison Ivy

07/31/2026

🌿❤️Plant Communication❤️🌿
“The plant human communication is always language. It is not always words.”

To understand the forest as a whole, is to study one single elder plant community over several years throughout my life.

🌱Key in on the movement of the plants in the community.
🌿Observe the outer edge plants that are not represented in large species numbers.
☘️Observe how new species are integrated into the community.
🥀Embracing this reality is the moment you begin to think with the heart. To learn directly from the plants is to think with the heart. Meeting the plant as your Elder.
🌷Acknowledgement of this connection contradicts Western insistence on the linear mind or the sight to brain observations taught to us throughout school.

Begin with a plant you are drawn to.

🍄This one plant that stands out as interesting. This is the start of a connection.
🍄‍🟫Sometimes, there is another kind of plant drawn to you, the one that doesn’t want to go away. You try not to notice, but it’s always there. They intrude until you begin to notice. These are often the most powerful of medicines.

Be sure to write out your feelings you notice.

🩷At first there will be one primary feeling. Then there will be several secondary feelings.
❤️The secondary feelings are the more complex communications from the plant.
🧡The plant makes primary and secondary chemistries. They create primary and secondary Electromagnetic rhythms and primary and secondary feelings.

As your body feels the impacts of these communications, it will respond at a level deeper than your everyday awareness.

🪷There will be an immediate physical response to what you are sensing.
🪻Because it is out of your everyday awareness, you must notice every little thing your body does, every stray thought, no matter how insignificant it may seem.

This is a language you are trying to relearn.

🌵Remember being a child, the world around held infinite possibilities. The world went on and on. Everything was fresh and full of adventure.
🌲Remember your body is the most important teacher when relearning this language. You must learn to trust it, respect it.
🌳Pay attention to everything when you sit with a plant.
🌴Relearn the sensitivity to the smallest movements of yourself and the forms they take. Write it all down.
🪾Give up your preconceptions that cloud what we see as adults. If you don’t, you will overlook what is important.

Each and every day we are touched by the world. This is information. Pay attention and write it down. This is a good beginning. It sharpens a specific skill, a balance point.

This initial feeling is the beginning of a connection.

🌻This is the key to understanding the plants uses.
🌼This feeling will return over and over as you refine your knowledge of the plant you are studying.
🌸Keep practicing to refine this skill. The feelings are encoded with communications and messages.
🌺To feel them is to connect.
🪻 I have never felt alone in this world since I connected. I believe it is a more ordered way of thinking.

To go deeper, is to feel the nonphysical energy field the EM field of the heart.

🎋Wrap the plant in this field. Feel it holding the plant within. Feel your heart touch the plant.
🍃Connect with it in every way you can. Let the beauty of the plant affect you.
🍂Notice how much you care for it; send out through the heart how you feel.
🌐Encoded in the fields of the heart are your feelings for the plant. The plant, like all life, will take this in, decode them and respond with its own message.

You will feel yourself slowing down as you do this, breathing more deeply. This is a sign that you are moving more into your heart. Your entire physiological functioning will alter.

🩷As you develop this sensitivity, the plant will feel as though it is moving closer to you. Engaging with you and matching your EM heart rhythms.
❤️It’s then easy to recognize the first instance when the two of you connect.
🧡At this point send a deep-felt message asking the plant how you can use it for medicine.
💛Tell it your need. There will be a response.
💚Pay attention to every reaction you have.
🩵Sometimes a phrase will emerge in your mind, or a picture will flash in your mind. Trust this ancient skill.
💙It’s hard to overcome this when your linear education has been reinforced so deeply.
💜We have forgotten so much.

Remember. Every person comes from plants on many levels. Shh…listen and respect.

Written by: Paemapameh (jeff grignon) 1964 - 2024