Nature shows up with signs all the time- even when you're teaching a class about nature signs! Here are some reflections from teaching at the Lost Skills Gathering.

I spent three hours furiously typing away three different blogs after coming back from the BotanicWise conference. The creative juices were flowing, albeit some better than others. However this particular and final blog has been creeping up on me for a year or so now. Unsure how, or why, or if I would ever say these words out loud (or on a screen), I choose to share my feelings on getting old. And I’d like to point out how seemingly ridiculous this sounds: excitement about ge

My new friend Jamie giving me moral support while I said hi to Kat In my last blog I ruminated on how my experience at BotanicWise left me with some pretty intense revelations, particularly that we need to help heal our home, the Earth, and we can do that by increasing the number of herbalists we have to reach their communities. I chose not to touch on the topic of Kat Maier in that post because I knew that once I started I wouldn’t be able to stop. Kat Maier has changed my

Getting ready for the drum circle in Kempton, PA Driving back from the Botanicwise herbal conference yesterday, windows down, radio off, allowed me to begin the process of digesting all that I had been exposed to over the past three days. I’m going to blog about this for the next few weeks, taking turns with different themes each week. Buckle up. This was my second time at this conference, and the second conference I had attended this year (I think). It feels like I have jus

There is something surreal as I slowly stroll the sandy banks of the York River in Barhamsville, Virginia. I’ve been standing in this particular spot for over thirty years, and yet now things seem to hit a bit different. Maybe because it’s almost the fourth of July on this, the two-hundred and fiftieth anniversary. Across the river from me, seen as a distant shoreline of hazy green trees, lies Werowocomoco- the (relatively) recently rediscovered stronghold of Chief Powhatan

The Sweat Lodge One of the very cool aspects of being involved with herbalism is that there are so many avenues to take. Just when you think you’ve ‘mastered’ the art of one understanding, you realize there are three more ways to understand them that you never knew existed. And sometimes we may have started on the plant path with one goal in mind, only to find a decade or more later that we need to circle back and revisit that goal. To work with herbs is a journey. You can c

Me and Peony Let me start out with- I love my home. LOVE. But there are times when home, no matter how amazing and magical it is, can be a bit too much. Working from home while maintaining a homestead can often feel very overwhelming. If my eyes are open I see dishes to be cleaned, floorboards to wipe down, jars of herbs to dust, or food going bad in the fridge. Even outside, I am bombarded by all the ‘shoulds.’ I should weed one of the gardens. I should divide and replant th

how plant medicine helped my panic attacks

Supplements and herbalism are two different things. Both have their purpose in supporting the body, but they are very different worlds.

Swapping out clinical herbal approaches for folk traditions. How animal guides can lead you to the right medicine.

A medieval herbalist, abbess, composer, artist, mystic, and scientist, St. Hildegard is a remarkable woman with a unifying presence today.

One of the interesting things about being an herbalist is that there are so many herbs to get to know. And when I say ‘get to know,’...

Anxiety. Remember when this word wasn’t part of our day-to-day vocabulary? When it wasn’t one of the common ways we described ourselves?...

Wild St. John's Wort OK. Here goes. I avoid talking about St. John's Wort. In my clinical practice I tend to dose pretty conservatively....

New Beginnings in Marblehead, MA I just came back from a weekend studying with renowned herbalist Margi Flint. I stayed at her house....

This is going to sound crazy. Allow me to get a bit woo woo for a moment. At the risk of sounding completely unprofessional and having...

This is a horrible time. I don't care who you are, what political lines you fall on, or how optimistic or 'enlightened' you are. You...

I’ve said this before- I’m a summer gal. Being a teacher for all of my professional life (aside from now) has left some indelible marks on me: being chronically on time, planning things in the Type A fashion which I am not, living for the summer, and having mixed feelings come fall. There is still this sense of both excitement and dread when summer winds down. I believe part of that is built into our DNA. In many parts of the world, for millions of years, winter was a time of

Sometimes, we are the loser. Not in everything. Not all the time. This does not indicate our entire life was spent being a loser. But...

Reflection on 10 years of herbalism and what truly led me to the plant path: the plants themselves. They find you when you need them.