Reflections from BotanicWise #2: I am not obsessed with Kat Maier 😆. But it sure looks like I am.

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 life, and she will never know this. 

In fact, she doesn’t know who I am. I never studied with her, and once she was truly on my radar it was too late for me. She is no longer teaching in that capacity, but you can catch her (which is what I have been doing) when she attends herb conferences. You can also purchase her book, which is extremely helpful, but just not the same for me.

Over the past fifteen years I’ve had the honor of both studying with and working with a number of esteemed herbal elders and mentors within the herbal world. Those whom I have not been able to study under, I have met and chatted with at various events. I have the pictures to prove it, because I still get a little giddy and fangirlish at seeing the ‘famous’ herbalists that I have known of for years. It’s hard for me to get up the courage to go say hi to them- what am I going to possibly say? Just - hi’? I love your work? I’m a big fan? So awkward. So not good at this. But somehow I’ve managed to push myself into doing it. Even with Rosemary Gladstar- the QUEEN herself, I had no major issues when I walked up and said “I really appreciated what you mentioned about Susan Weed”...as if I actually know Susan Weed (OK - also was able to go up and hug Susan Weed, too, on the random). 

But not Kat Maier. 

I am in awe of Kat Maier. For years, I’ve seen her at conferences, been around her at conferences, chumming it up with other well-known herbalists in that circle, and yet have not, CANNOT, speak to Kat. 

This is not her problem. This is mine. 

She is a lovely woman. A kind woman. There is not one thing about her that makes me freeze in my tracks and overthink another dumb conversation when I see her, finally alone, providing the perfect time for me to stop lurking and to just walk over and say hi, aside from the fact that she is simply amazing. 

And yet, in the last moment, literally last minutes, of the BotanicWise conference, I gallantly trudged forward, interrupted another (long) conversation she was having with, what seemed like, another enamored woman, and did the thing. “Hi. You don’t know me. But I’ve been waiting for four years to say hi to you, so I’m just going to do that now. Sorry.”

This blog wasn’t intended to be a retelling of that interaction. Suffice to say, it went well, I was mostly normal, and I can check the box and move on with life. I also got a hug, so yay. 

However, this gives you a sense of how impactful my, admittedly lacking, experiences with Kat have been for me. She speaks to the language of my herbal heart and soul, drawing out from me the pieces of my relationship with plants that are unfolding over time, helping me put the pieces together so that my understanding of my role in this space can best serve the people and the planet. And there is absolutely NO WAY I’ll ever be able to say any of this to her, no matter how much Kava or Elderflower cordial I’ll consume. 

Some of the biggest lessons learned in two of Kat’s classes that weekend were about the way we understand and communicate with plants, and about my clinical practice. I’m not sure if the intention was to help those who are in clinic, but I definitely left with a very profound shift in my approach to working with clients. 

One thing that I really value about Kat (here we go again…) is that she is able to navigate the duality of herbalism. As I frequently mention, I find it difficult to have one foot in the Clinical Herbalism realm while also having the other foot in the esoteric, folk, magical part of understanding plant medicine. I often feel like a see-saw, teetering more toward one end or the other to an extreme as I attempt to overcorrect my focus. There are a few herbalists who I have found can truly blend the nuance with the science with such mastery- they do exist, though. And I find solace in the fact that it can be done; these are the classes and workshops that I tend to lean into the most nowadays. 

One of the many random scribblings of phrases in my notebook from Kat’s class on the Heart as an Organ of Perception was a reminder that this seemingly woo-woo stuff is not woo-woo at all. It’s ancient.

That we need to ask permission of the plants before we start working with them, or even touching them, let alone harvesting them. That when you ask permission, nature is almost always a ‘yes.’ So when you hear ‘no’ - that’s a big deal. And to respect that. She taught me how to walk around a tree to let it get to know me before giving it a hug, because we wouldn’t just walk up to a person we don’t know and hug them, right? That plants teach us how to be human. And she reminded me that we don’t use plants- we work with them. And actually, that we’re not really working with plants. The plants are working with US. 

Dropping bomb after bomb after bomb. Bars on bars on bars. That herbal knowledge was raining down on me like big-ass hailstones. 

So many more things that I’m afraid I’ll forget. 

And I also was taught one of the most profound lessons that I’ve ever received when it comes to being a practitioner. Kat had us go outside and observe a tree. Just notice. When we went back inside she asked what we saw. Many people were telling the story of what they observed- the tree was hurt due to seeing where it was cut. The tree was sick because some leaves were spotted. As she reminded people that these were not actually observations- they were assessments- I knew where she was going. The lightbulb went off above my head. I could feel myself grinning and nodding. I knew the lesson. 

Projection. 

It’s hard to stop our mental wheels from turning and jumping to the analytical part without spending enough time in the objective observer space. So easily we jump to finding the answer before allowing a thorough, and simple, child-like ‘seeing’ of the person. 

And we, as humans, are apt to project our own feelings and experiences onto what we see in front of us. But that is our story. Not theirs. It takes a lot of practice to be able to note what you observe without jumping to the assessment step. We have to learn to see. This applies to both people and nature. It’s not about us. It’s about what is actually in front of us. 

On the drive home from the conference another realization began to unfold within me from that class. I need to stop needing. Needing clients. Needing to prove myself. Needing to prove to clients that this remedy will work. Kat says our role is not to convince people that this works; our role is to reveal. Boom. 

I’ll end with this last Kat Maier gem: 

When we no longer need, we are free. 

And I’m tired of needing. I’m dried up from it. I’m ready to reveal and not to convince. I’m ready to release my attachment to outcomes and instead focus on what’s in front of me. 

With all these bombs of wisdom dropped on my head over that weekend, it’s no wonder that I’m looking forward to some of the highlights that come with getting older. But you’ll have to wait till next week to hear about that epiphany!