One of the most interesting parts of running a questionnaire-based newsletter is watching the themes and archetypes that naturally emerge. If I asked you to describe the Health Gossip Girl, you could probably come up with a list: flower essences, dry brushing, nightly herbal infusions, daily grounding… (Or, as Zoe Latta put it a few months ago: the “friend who’s constantly referring to her osteopath.”) You know the type, probably because you are the type.
Lately, another characteristic has emerged, what friend-of-the-letter Carlisle has called the lymph nymph. The lymph nymph remains deeply attuned to the state of her lymphatic system on a daily, if not hourly basis, frequently engaging in self-massage, tapping, brushing, and jumping. Some people question the lymph nymph, uncertain if her lymphatic system actually needs to be manually pumped (it does), and yet, she persists — snatched, based, and glowing.
Today’s guest, Ashley Mountainstone, both fits this mould and departs from it. Ash is a true Renaissance woman, a master herbalist and folk doctor who, in a previous life, was a renowned fine-art photographer. On her X account, she posts some of the most truly esoteric (as in, not often spoken about) takes on light, breath, beauty, and, yes, the lymphatic system.
Below, she opens up about the late-stage Lyme diagnosis that forced her to step away from her photography career, the long unraveling and rebuilding that followed, and her slow life on the prairie today (“where every lake meets the sky”). Enjoy.
#103: Ashley Mountainstone
Minnesota, USA
What does health, or being healthy, mean to you?
Living within the rules and laws of proper right relationship, where our body, minds, and spirits are integrated within the greater sacred hoop of nature. Vital in a way that aligns with greater goods and our life purpose.
Health, for me, deeply equates to a physical and emotional vitality and resilience that is embodied and lived on those levels, with a healthy nervous system and adaptable capacity. A body that is nourished enough to be harmonious in its purpose and in what we need from it.
How would you describe your current lifestyle?
I am a total loner at present. I live and breathe herbalism, Eastern medicine, and creativity from a house tucked into a hill that I lovingly call OMOTH (“Old Man on the Hill,” so named for the lovely old weeping Spruce along a sandy creek out back).
How do you start and end your days?
My days always start with slow waking, warm water to warm the body up, and at least 20 minutes of slow and equalizing nasal breathwork. I try to do 10-12 seconds in and out in a 360° at the diaphragm to power up my body and keep this area exercised. I will also start to work on my lymph and open up the lymphatic drains for the day, or start to stretch into my body. Lots of light when it’s possible.
In the evenings, I usually work on a nature-based sound & wellness app my beau and I have been building for the last three years. Either making content for that or working on the art so it can launch this year. After that, I am such a Taurus in the winding-down portion of pre-bedtime. Usually, a podcast or some true crime, as I mix up clays or herbs for a mask on some nights, or just gua sha on others.
I love cleansing my room with fresh juniper smoke bundles or some mugwort and cedar, or lilac and sweet grass if the room needs a “sweetening.”
I always do my nights only by beeswax tea lights. This is also when I’ll take a short wander, even if it’s just around the house, to move the lymph before sleep and then a thorough dry brushing before bed. I usually comb out my hair and braid it up as it’s reverent and protective of the spirit.
Can you recall a moment when you became more aware of your health, or your relationship to it changed?
Yes, deeply. In my twenties, I burned my candle at both ends. So much light in it I could have lit up a sunset.
I was a world-class photographer in conceptual and fine-art portraiture. At that time, I lived out of a suitcase and didn’t sit still for almost a decade. In my 29th year, after a home renovation in my duplex apartment and a case of shingles that developed from the stress of a breakup, I developed (almost overnight) a very strange illness, which would eventually be diagnosed as late-stage neurological Lyme. I was at the height of my career in the industry and on the ascent. Huge productions, complicated shoots with many people, and then a book deal in the works. I had agents and was being asked by many a celebrity to photograph them. This was all while galavanting as free as a bird around the States and Europe. It all came to a screeching halt after what began as being too tired. Then, within a year, flu-like states would come in the evenings, the whole thing constantly cloaking me in that feeling of “too tired,” and then even more so the next month or season. It just declined and declined until I had to give up the life (and career) that I loved so much.
The best self-healing is proactive; our health should be revered.
What’s your relationship to self-healing?
I’m a huge believer that the only real healing is and has to be self-healing. I studied everything I did to better understand my own experience and how to heal. We can love our bodies and nourish them into a place and state where they can (and will) speak to us.
We should seek out doctors and practitioners who resonate with us whenever we need guidance and help, though. For me, I prefer those methods to be outside of Allopathic/Western medicine (usually, though not in every instance) and to be most healing when we enter the realm of somatic work, limbic retraining, fascia, and a healthy lymph, body-wide nutrition and hyper nourishment, and Eastern medicine. There are also times and situations where something as simple as a bundle of herbs and a spirit bath of well-chosen plants can heal you. The best self-healing is proactive; our health should be revered.
Do you have a spiritual practice?
Yes, I would say it’s a mixture of animism, sacred practices, and nature as my guide. I learn from them, and they make me better. I also work a lot within ceremony and shamanic practices. I am formally and extensively trained in several lineages of these traditions by elder teachers, each for about 6 years. I practice mostly in South and Central American, Andean, and Peruvian earth-based wisdom traditions (Curanderismo), as well as in the medicine of the Celts, sometimes called Celtic Shamanism or Celtic Spirituality. The Celtic branch of my training also encompasses a huge portion of Folk Medicine and its many old traditions, including herbalism and spirit doctoring.
I tend to live within a certain band of daily ceremony, as it helps so much. I would say I live in very close contact with these principles and with nature. More recently, I have also found Mary Magdalene and the History of Christ consciousness, even the Bible, to be worthy of study, and its teachings something my younger self would be so surprised that I find beauty in. I also truly appreciate some of the spirituality of the Far East, particularly relating to Taoist internal alchemy, Qi Gong, and TCM, since I work as a practitioner of TCM in equal measure to the more esoteric energy practices that utilize the spirit force of nature.
You are incredibly sacred, and whatever impediments keep you from living within that perfect knowing should be uprooted and replaced.
Do you work with any texts or practitioners on a regular basis?
I love, love, love finding ancient Chinese medicine books and texts. Everything I can find, and just translating or soaking it up. I most often work in Folk Medicine, Eastern and Western Herbalism, TCM, including internal alchemy and Qi gong, and then in Shamanic healing. I have several long-term mentors, but I do work with a few local practitioners.
When do you feel the most nourished?
When I’m in the arms of my partner, or when I’m living my purpose helping others heal, or when I’m writing and creating anything artistic. All of these take a back seat to when I’m in nature alone, especially out on a prairie or in a wild storm or buttery sunset cutting through the forest line.
A nice 75° gently winded infrared laden sunset. Mmm.
I feel nourished when I see nature do something so beautiful it requires a level of presence, like the way the wind hits a million pine needles in the deep golden light at the end of the day, or the autumn rain and wind bending the trees in the last light (where they become just dark silhouettes).
How do you reset?
Meditation, without exception. I’ve been meditating almost daily since my early to mid-twenties. It’s the best gift I ever gave myself. Sometimes I will also reset with a good drama, full of beautiful color grading and cinematography. A good film is a true pleasure.
Do you have a favorite meal?
I eat extremely whole foods and only organic wherever possible. I rotate a lot, but always try to keep pomegranate and Valencia oranges around, fresh garlic and onions, good mixed greens, and deep orange pasture-raised eggs. I’m also a person who drinks tea daily. I have more tea boxes and bulk herbs than I do food ;)
What advice would you give to your younger self?
That she needs to care less about what anyone thinks of her. That she was and is very unique and to believe in herself.
My younger self worried too much about the acceptance of others and being seen as important. My illness has shown me so much, and erased the need to be important. It’s more important to be healthy inside, have boundaries, and take care of ourselves than push ourselves to perform and burn out. I would perhaps also teach her about balance.
What advice would you give to the person reading this?
You are only here for a short time. Heal your trauma, get back into your body, wake up and look up at the morning star (this is all yours).
I would say to go to the woods by yourself at sunrise or sunset (safely, of course) and do this repeatedly until you see how incredible it all is. Go into nature until you interact with it enough that it teaches you the answers to whatever you are needing to learn.
I would also tell anyone reading this that they (you) are incredibly sacred, and that whatever impediments keep you from living within that perfect knowing should be uprooted and replaced with better seeds. Every one of us feels incomplete in some way, or unable to move forward towards the thing we really want. People often believe something in them is unlovable, unknowable, broken, or incomplete, or they don’t trust themselves enough to listen to that body wisdom or intuition that is always speaking. These are all artifices that are ego or survival. Go past them. It’s a superficial point in the spirit, just like a trail by a parking lot is a superficial part of the true wilds and the heart of a forest.
You are an entire universe. Reweave your belief systems and core beliefs until you are both the person you want to be and the person your younger self needed to have.
What would you like to see or create more of in the world?
I would like to create more awareness around how sacred we all are and inspire others to not engage with a sick society or culture in ways that don’t honor what we are truly capable of as human beings. We are an entire lineage, an entire ancestry, an entire soul. I want to teach and inspire others to honor what that really means and how to ground into that. An homage to how to truly be in a body and in a mind.
Sacred and deeper topics touch the soul. This provides purpose, discipline, and incredible joy. It creates a state of coherent beauty within and without. The world is in great need of the ripple effect. Be someone who experiments with what happens if you detach from all of that.
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“even the Bible to be worthy of study”?