I continue to learn: from my garden, from my students, from clients, books, and mentors. I continue to be excited, humbled, and curious about/by the plants and their seemingly ever-giving kindness. I especially appreciate how good they are at interweaving people and community.
In 2005 I graduated from what was then called the Tai Sophia Institute, with a Masters degree in Herbal Medicine. It was a wonderful three-year clinical program that was really quite bookish and I worked at the Smithsonian Institute and the American Horticultural Society in parallel. My teachers had/have great heart and it was after herb school that I feel I really got to *know* the plants in my body and Spirit.
I moved to Boston and with good fortune Dr. Mary Bove kindly invited me into her naturopathic practice as she sat with kiddos and pregnant and postpartum Mamas in her Brattleboro, VT clinic. Those three years of Thursdays were always very special for me! During that time I was a student in Rosemary Gladstar’s Advanced Herbal Apprenticeship at Sage Mountain in Vermont. One weekend as we were gathered there, I remember admitting to our visiting teacher Deb Soule that I thought I was maybe crazy because I was beginning to hear the plants talking to me. She invited me to apprentice with her at Avena Botanicals in Maine the following summer. What a magical time!!!
During the school year I substitute taught, vendored my teas and tinctures at a Cambridge farmer's market, offered classes through Cambridge Adult Education, and sat in Tommy Priester's Plant Spirit circles. I began to trust myself (really, my connection with the plants) more and more. Eventually, through a series of unusual events, I worked at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences supporting pharmacy students in their elective clinical rotations.
My last year in Boston had me studying midwifery with the Massachusetts Midwifery Alliance (with many thanks to Rainbow and the Iris plant for guiding me in this direction) and co-teaching an herbal apprenticeship program for the Boston School of Herbal Studies with Katja Swift (just before Commonwealth School of Herbal Medicine come into being.) And then I moved to Canada on a work visa, where I more deeply connected to the plants of the northeast bio-region.
Returning to the US, I discovered my Home in Portland, Maine, where (after several years of wonderful odd jobs and getting to know my community), I was honored to work at Birthwise Midwifery School in Bridgton, Maine for five years before their doors closed.
I now facilitate bridging connections between Plants and People. I offer Beginning, Intermediate, and Clinical Apprenticeships, retreats, as well as one on one herbal and CranioSacral sessions. I'm grateful that I can send people home with herbal blends specific to people's stories, as teas, tinctures, and powders from our well stocked Apothecary.
My daily practice includes consciously connecting with The Plants and my ancestors, a practice that continues to guide my journey through all the beauty and weathers of Life.
Honoring my primary herbal, shamanic, midwifery and CranioSacral teachers: Simon Mills, Kevin Spelman, James Snow, Dr. James Duke, Claudia Joy-Wingo, Teresia Boardwine, Mary Bove, Rosemary Gladstar, Deb Soule, Tommy Priester, Madelon Hope, Robin Rose Bennett, Pam Montgomery, Kaye Lawrence, Joyce Kimball, Susun Weed. May you know blessings.