Since the early 00’s I’ve felt moved to put my energy into projects and efforts that forward collective liberation and fight against the hell-world so many of people experience daily. It has looked many ways; infoshop and community space building, hosting reading groups, organizing against imperialist wars and pipelines and coal plants, giving medical support to protests and getting supplies to resistance movements, showing up against the growing fascist tide, serving free food, setting up wellness clinics, training street medics.

That’s where my heart is and where I feel a strength in offering care. Clinical Herbalism is an extension – when we feel better, we can do better. I myself deal with chronic health issues and know what a challenge it can be to show up for our lives when we don’t feel well.

Some of my formal herbal study has been at The Northeast School of Botanical Medicine (2011-13) in Ithaca, NY, Clearpath School of Herbal Medicine (2014) in Montague, MA, and the Commonwealth School of Holistic Herbalism (2016-present) in Boston, MA, where I’m currently faculty in the Clinical Herbalism Program. I’ve apprenticed at United Plant Savers in Rutland, OH, the foremost medicinal plant conservation organization in the US.

Informal study happens every day. Gardening, making medicine, living in urban and rural environments and observing the plants and how they act and what they tell, always nibbling and touching and smelling and watching.

I’ve practiced in a range of settings with people I feel honored to support, from private sessions to backwoods protest encampments, free clinics like the Ithaca Free Clinic and the People’s Medicine Clinic, festivals, pop-up clinics in Dinetah (Navajo Nation) and Appalachia, and Indigenous-led mobilizations.

Additionally, I stay engaged with areas of study that build a robust herbal practice, like taking college-level courses in human anatomy and physiology, emergency medicine (EMT) and nutrition, Gestalt Therapy, as well as attending conferences and workshops when I can.

 

You can read about what ideas shape my practice of herbalism here.