My journey with herbalism stemmed from a series of experiences of being poorly met in standard hospital settings, and initially came more from necessity than desire. [Read: experiencing ocular migraines + panic attacks without any explanation for what was going on. I could have really benefited from someone connecting me with better tools + mental health resources].

Thankfully, I was put in the path of some incredible plant people (shout-out to Katherine Elmer, Kara Buchanan, and Guido Masé who were some of my early herb mentors) who helped open the garden gate to herbalism. Connecting with plants offered me impactful support during a chapter of heavy grief and anxiety, and gave me greater feelings of safety while I explored building deeper relationship with my body and tending parts that needed healing.

I eventually landed at the VT Center for Integrative Herbalism, where I met my fellow plant-nerd community (many thanks to my teachers: Betzy Bancroft, Linden DeVoil, Larken Bunce, Kristin Henningsen, and Ayo Ngozi, and to my cohort that I call friends to this day). I learned that herbalism isn’t just about loving and building relationship with plants, it’s about envisioning a deeper healing potential for the world through social justice, mutual aid + relationship tending, and reciprocity. It’s about working alongside the earth and listening. It’s about holding grief, and celebrating joy! I love that herbalism can be the basket in which I hold all of these paradigms and emotions - it gives me a place to return and settle, or to help process something through.

I view herbalism as a way to build better relationship with the world around us - with our backyard if we have the privilege to access one, our public parks + forests, our mountains, our oceans. We can learn how to become better stewards of the earth, and in turn be able to tend, harvest, and use plant medicine to support our own healing and the healing of our communities. I love that not all plants work in the same ways for all people - that it really does require building your own relationships to uncover your plant allies and see who is here to grow beside you.

Personally, some of my plant allies that I can’t imagine living without are calendula, california poppy, tulsi, milky oats, rose, yarrow, skullcap, and anise hyssop. I call on these plants as friends and mentors, and look forward every spring to welcoming them from their slumber or sowing their seeds so that I can enjoy their growth, delight in their blossoms, and then savor them in my tea blends + medicines during the rest of the year. There is something about honoring the plants life cycles that also seems to help hold my own evolving relationship with life, death, and rebirth. What a beautiful thing!

I chose to explore herbalism as a career path not only because I saw it as a way to continue supporting healing while also bringing together a lot of my interests (art, gardening, energy, community building, making herbal goodies), but because I thought it looked fun! And it is! I truly love what I do. Connecting people with plants and each other, unlocking ‘a-ha!’ moments or sparking new friendships (with plants or people!), and feeling like I’m a part of something bigger helps to keep me engaged with my life.

Many thanks to the plants, and to all of y’all. Let’s keep creating the world that we want to be in.