Roots, Rigor, and Why I "Say Hi" to the Mullein

For much of my pre-LeeHouse career, I worked for a mental health non-profit. At the time, there was very little understanding of the specific disorders we advocated for. As a result, the backing and support of the scientific community was critical; it was the only way to build legitimacy and awareness in a world that preferred to look away.

But that legitimacy came with a specific set of boundaries—and a cost.

The framework of clinical review is, by necessity, very careful and specific. Back then, if you suggested that a client’s diet might be impacting their symptoms, or that meditation could support therapy, it was sidelined. And we certainly didn't dare speak about energy work or—gasp—chakras!

Within the institutional standards that gave a disorder legitimacy, if the data hadn't yet been codified, we couldn't speak to it. We had to remain silent even when, in our hearts and in our lived experience with real people, we knew it to be true.

The cost? People didn't get help they needed. Healing was delayed. Instead of hearing, "yes, you may want to reduce sugar intake." clients were told, "there is no evidence to support a link between sugar and your symptoms."

Now, twenty years later, the things that were once outside the clinical lens have become mainstream. Diet is now undeniably linked to mental health symptom management. Meditation, and even chakra work, have earned a seat at the table—at the very least as respected adjuncts for wellness.

I brought that experience with me to LeeHouse.

I realized the same "Scientific Lag" exists in the world of plants. The industry often treats herbs as a simple commodity, focusing only on the metrics that can be easily measured in a lab. They harvest with massive machines in far-off lands, let the crop sit in bulk bins for months (if not years), and package it in boxes to sit in a warehouse. They claim the "vitality" of the plant is an unmeasurable variable—that as long as a specific chemical compound is present, it is "the same."

I disagree. And my relationship with Mullein is a daily reminder of why.

Beyond the Bulk

At LeeHouse, we don’t buy our Mullein in bulk. We grow it ourselves. We sit with it. We talk with it. We say "hi" to it every time we walk out the front door. Within the necessary rigors of scientific review, "saying hi" to a plant might be sidelined as folklore. But to a practitioner, it is Stewardship.

It is an acknowledgment of the unseen networks and the limits of human understanding.

Beneath our feet in the Ben Lomond soil, there is a vast, pulsing web of mycelium. For decades, science treated fungi as a footnote; now, we know it as the "Wood Wide Web"—the neural network of the earth that allows plants to communicate and share vitality.

But we don't stop at the soil. We look up, too. We harvest our Mullein in alignment with the moon cycles. Just as the moon pulls the tides of the ocean, it pulls the "tides" within the plant. When the moon is waxing toward full, the sap and vitality rise into the leaves—that is when we harvest the Mullein Leaf. When the moon is waning and the energy retreats into the earth, that is when we harvest the Mullein Root.

When a plant is harvested as an isolated object, stripped of its connection to the earth and the stars, it loses its "source code." It loses potency. And, frankly, it loses purpose.

But when we harvest at the peak signature, we are respecting the mycelium and the moon. If I told you that Mullein gives me a little "wiggle" when it's ready to be harvested, it might sound unconventional. But I believe that wiggle is a biological signal sent through that very network—the plant’s way of communicating that its vitality is at its full and ready to be shared.

The Proof is in the "Shift"

Don't get me wrong: I love to see ancient remedies and "folkloric" practices validated by science. But science is necessarily slow. We don't need to wait for a lab report to tell us when a remedy is effective; we look for the "shift" in the people who use it.

One member of our community recently shared that after trying every Mullein tea, gummy, and capsule on the market, our tincture was "the one that actually worked." Another, a 12-year practitioner of plant medicine, called our Mullein Root "the most powerful medicine" they had ever tried for a long-term, painful, structural support issue.

These testimonials from real people is all the proof I need to sing the praises of Mullein. It is what leads to science—real people, sharing real experiences, proving that things work.

At LeeHouse, we pair old-school herbal wisdom with a new level of rigor. We respect the science, we trust the process, and we honor your body’s ability to heal—even if it takes the rest of the world another twenty years to catch up.