"Lowland is, that's where water goes. All medicine wants is pain to cure."
Years ago, this line from Rumi's poem "Cry Out in Your Weakness" shifted my thinking about healing, and eventually healing work.
From Lise Wolff I received the gift of being told I was an herbalist and being encouraged to act like one. Lise’s knowledge, discernment, and steady dedication to her craft deeply inform my practice, as do the tireless research and revival efforts of her teacher, Matthew Wood.
My time at the Orphan Wisdom School has shaped the way I approach the plant world, my own labor, and the unknown, and without the teachings of Stephen Jenkinson and Nathalie Roy I might not have heard the call of this work.
There were people who kept holistic healing practices accessible to me and my family when my kids were small. May their generosity continue to appear in my own offerings.
The history of the land I live and harvest on is a history of deep indigenous wisdom and also deep trauma at the hands of European settlers. I live today in the wake of this history, and seek to be in better awareness of it all.
Every day we are kept alive by the generosity of the plant world. May we remember to live as though it is so.
