Offerings

 “A new capacity for care becomes a common reservoir of strength to face the future together.”- Inhabit

Medicine Making and Plant Study Mentorship Sessions

By learning the skills encompassed in the craft of herbalism, you strengthen your connection to the Earth, your contribution to your community, your understanding of your own body, and your capacity to work toward liberation and health for all. These mentorship sessions are born out of a dream that everyone might someday know and practice their own healing traditions.

Mentorship sessions are also a great option because they are tailored to your herbal path. Whether you are a beginner looking for a way to get started, or a seasoned medicine maker looking for answers on a particular topic, mentorship sessions are a great way to connect with new ideas, resources, and herbal perspectives. Through sessions with me, you can learn about:

• Creating a functional home apothecary that can serve as a resource for physical and emotional ills
• Making various types of herbal medicine: tea blends, tinctures, oils, lotions, salves, hydrosols, vingegars, etc. and exploring different techniques
• Appropriately storing, packaging, and administering your herbal creations
• Identifying and using weeds and plants growing near you as medicine
• Growing and stewarding a medicine garden to stock your home apothecary
• Cooking nourishing and revitalizing foods with the kitchen magic of culinary herbalism
• Applying herbs for physical and emotional distress
• Finding the right herb for a specific person
• Creating community-focused herbal projects to provide health resources to others
• Connecting with legacies and traditions of anti-oppression herbalism, health justice movements, and ancestral herbal practices
• Strengthening your connection to nature, spirit, yourself and other humans, and the other-than-human world
• Forming ideas of health on your own terms

You can learn more about my herbal training and approach by reading this page.

Rates and Booking a Session

Sessions are offered at a sliding scale of $60-$90/hr. I consider the full cost of a session to be $75. Any payment above that number helps “pay it forward” so that folks who need to pay below that number can also access my services. If you are new to sliding scale or need to take a moment to honestly assess your economic means, please read this page. Thank you for your integrity when choosing what to pay.

If you are interested in having ongoing sessions, check out the Rose Magic tier of my Patreon. Patrons at that level receive a session every quarter, along with many other benefits.

I am currently offering these sessions over Zoom to anyone in the U.S. or in person in an outdoor, distanced setting at my location in Santa Cruz. Book a session using the Calendly link below. You will receive payment details in an email asking you to confirm your booking.

If you are looking for an herbal consultation about your own personal health issues, please read the Herbal Guidance Consultations section below. If you are looking for experiential education in the field, like experience identifying wild plants, please look at the Private Herb Walks section at the bottom of this page.

If private lessons aren’t accessible to you but you are still interested in herbal education, please check out the tiers on my Patreon, my monthly Open Hours, and my newsletter for affordable herbal education resources.

“We ourselves must begin practicing in the social realm the capacity to care for each other, to share food, skills, time, and ideas that up to now most of us have limited to our most personal cherished relationships…..We urgently need to bring to our communities the limitless capacity to love, serve, and create for and with each other.” – Grace Lee Boggs, The Next American Revolution

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Herbal Guidance Consultations

I am a folk herbalist. This means many things, but one important detail is that unlike a clinical herbalist, I do not have the level of training and skill to support you in complex or chronic health conditions. Herbal Guidance Consultations are a space where we can discuss your health issues, and together we can look at some herbs that may be helpful for you, and come up with a plan of research and safe experimentation. If you would prefer a higher level of clinical support, I am happy to provide referrals to some wonderful practitioners who work within a liberatory and queer literate framework. Please get in touch to let me know what you’re looking for.

How A Consultation Works

These consist of one intake interview, usually 1.5 hours long, in which I ask you questions about your health history, your emotional history, and your day to day health and life experience. I will also ask you questions about any previous experiences you have with herbs and foods you find particularly healing or helpful. Many people find that the intake alone is a unique and healing experience – it’s a chance to retrace your life’s path and a way for both of us to search for the roots of your emotional and physical patterns.

Based on this intake, I compile a list of recommendations for herbs, practices, and topics for you to further research that I believe may assist you in your healing journey. I will often suggest a group of herbs paired together as a formula in the form of a tea, tincture, powder, or another medium. Along with these suggestions, I also send along instructions for making these medicines and acquiring the herbs. I am also available to create these custom formulas for you upon your request (please see below for rates).

After the initial intake, you can choose to see me for 1-hr follow-up consultations. I offer follow-ups that are based in chatting about your progress and tweaking your herbal regimen, but I also offer more hands-on medicine making and herbal study sessions as follow-up options. These sessions can help your healing process feel more participatory and give you more background skills and knowledge when it comes to integrating herbs into your self care routine.

What Herbal Guidance Sessions Can Help With

Folk herbalism can be helpful for navigating a range of issues and life events. With my current skill level and training, I am able to provide assistance with:

• Managing occasional digestive upsets and overall improving digestion
• Healing sleep issues and supporting a restful sleep routine
• Finding herbs to connect with on a magical or ancestral level
• Exploring herbs to help with stress, anxiety, and challenging emotions
• Incorporating herbs into your diet and exploring herbs on a nutritional level
• Creating strategies for integrating and maintaining a self care routine
• Supporting immunity and vitality with nourishing herbal tonics

Please note that, as stated above, I am not able to help with complex or chronic health conditions. My emphasis is on bolstering your self-care and vitality-increasing practices. As examples, if you are working with a diagnosis such as an autoimmune issue, cancer, or if you are in recovery from addiction or surgery, I encourage you to seek out the in-depth support of a clinical practitioner and can provide referrals. I am stating this again because I am adamant about you getting the care you need, and would prefer that you see someone who is able to address your needs.

Rates and Booking a Consultation

An herbal guidance consultation costs $100-$130. This price includes the time I spend doing additional research and compiling recommendations for you following our session. Follow-ups are offered for $60-$100. If you’d like me to create custom medicine for you, custom tinctures cost $12/oz and custom tea blends cost $3/oz.

The sliding scale through which I offer my services enables me to serve people at a variety of income levels while also sustaining myself. I consider the full cost of a consultation to be $120. Any payment above that number helps “pay it forward” so that folks who need to pay below that number can also access my services. If you are new to sliding scale or need to take a moment to honestly assess your economic means, please read this page. Thank you for your integrity when choosing what to pay.

I am currently offering consultations over Zoom to anyone in the U.S. or in person in an outdoor, distanced setting at my location in Santa Cruz. Book a session using the Calendly link below. You will receive payment details in an email asking you to confirm your booking.

Accessing My Services at Lower Income Levels

If you are interested in a folk herbalism consultation but the sliding scale is out of reach for you, please get in touch. Currently I reserve four consultation slots every month at a Pay What You Can rate for low-income folks. I encourage you to do this especially if you identify as Black, Indigenous, a person of color, trans, or working class.

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Private Herb Walks

During herb walks, we mix the anecdotal with the experiential. I spend time pointing out different medicinal herbs and explaining their uses, while also leading a variety of activities to help you engage your senses and heighten your own awareness of the natural world and the plant communities around you. I am a former children’s outdoor educator, and play and fun are a big part of my style, just as much as time for quiet observation and introspection.

These walks can be tailored to fit your interests. For example, a walk could focus specifically on edible plants, native vs. non-native plants, wildflowers, medicinal plants, natural and human history of place, etc.

Locations, Group Size, & Pricing

I offer educational herb walks in a variety of locations in Santa Cruz County. Most often, herb walks are given at a public park like Pogonip or Moore Creek. When planning a private walk, we will agree on a location together.

Private walks for individuals or parties up to 8 people are available on request. Children are welcome to attend and these walks can be tailored to them, too! Rates for walks start at $60/hour for up to 3 people. After that there is a charge for $10 per additional attendee.

If you would like ongoing private herb walks as part of a learning project, we can discuss rates.

Contact me to start planning a walk!