• And the Plants Will Set You Free

    Through knowing and using the plants that grow around us—the ones in our backyard, the weeds that resist all efforts to control them, the abundance and diversity of the species in the Cascadian forests—we are more whole, secure and free. What’s right under our feet are, by their very nature, agents of freedom. [Read full post]
  • Design Thinking for the Creative Herbalist

    As herbalists, we are naturally using design processes all the time. Working in the plant and human world for the purpose of healing we are constantly dealing in very complex worlds. I want to push you to go past what you know is comfortable and reimagine your practice so you are doing the wildest, most liberating brilliant work that you can. [Read full post]
  • Aesthetic & Beauty in Practice

    It’s touching the dirt, digging roots, preparing and sipping beautiful garden tea blends, smelling the flowers, having my apothecary full of jars containing gorgeous, whole-leaf herbs. Microwaving a wack bag of herb tea is a completely different game. Authentic botanical practice is a lifestyle that honors the sanctity of life and the ecological patterns around us. It’s how we connect to the larger planetary system. [Read full post]

Tag Archives: social change

Spearheading Culture Change with Plant Traditions

This article originally appeared in the Autumn 2012 issue of Plant Healer Magazine. If you haven’t subscribed to this eclectic, thoughtful, extremely original publication, I highly recommend it. Subscriptions are affordable and support the Anima Lifeways & Herbal School, one which I proudly attend. Enjoy.  I absolutely love writing outside in the Summer. In the [...]

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Shaming & Blaming: The Adverse Effects of Conventional Disease Etiologies

Constructs of health are complex and multi-dimensional. Similarly, diseases arise from a variety of factors and may include genetic factors, lifestyles and behaviors, environment, and a variety of sociopolitical factors. How we frame these diseases and their causation (etiology) determines their role and function in the larger social sphere. Diseases are socially constructed entities. And [...]

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5 Innovative Community & Ecological Health Projects To Watch

There’s a lot of interesting, exciting, creative projects being founded and developed now. Be it hard times that encourage innovation or unique challenge that we face as a society, people are binding together and collaborating to make positive and creative changes in our world. I want to showcase some of these projects in a series [...]

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Ecological Medicine and the Grey Area of Individual Treatment and Systemic Change

I’m unreasonably excited about the ecological medicine movement. Here’s why. For my entire academic and professional life, I’ve struggled in committing (and therefore confining) myself to a particular discipline. Because of the way that knowledge is fragmented, playing within the bounds of one discipline confines my understanding to that portion of the whole system. None [...]

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