Coming Back Home

The garden always has a way of drawing me back, immersing myself fully in her abundant beauty in its exquisite entirety – curved edges overhanging with supple juicy fruits, bouquets of bold color pleasing to both the eye and heart, and enticing blooms luring me in to linger longer with their tantalizing scents. The contrast of colors, textures, and shapes is an exploration for my mind and soul. As I connect with the plants and their ways in the garden, so too do I infinitely connect more deeply with myself.

What began as a hobby garden to experiment with growing fresh, wholesome, organic ingredients for my farm-to-table meals, quickly unfolded into my passion for tending to medicinal and therapeutic herbs. During long hikes near the refuge of the creek, up to the rim of the lava basalt canyons, I would find thick patches of wild medicinal plants and harvest a small amount of seed to bring home. With these seeds, a commitment to daily hand watering, and a dream for growing my own medicine, my modest edible kitchen garden expanded into a holistic treasure chest to support optimum health and vitality—for mind, body, and spirit.

Quickly, I became enchanted by the way my domesticated garden evolved into its more wild expression. I loved to see my strawberries planted as productive groundcover snuggling with plaintain and violet, with mullein and mugwort standing tall near the stinging nettle. I had created a tiny symbiotic ecosystem, and in the process I had also created an environment that was inhospitable to the pests that had plagued my previous gardens. Now, my garden was a haven for ladybugs, butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds, who all seemed to make an appearance when I needed it most.

Within the first year, I started Rooted Wisdom Herbals, where I cultivated and wildcrafted every single plant that I dried or immersed in organic oils and alcohol to transform into soothing salves, nourishing teas, and tinctures. Everything I created was infused with not only the potent herbal compounds, but with the hopes and dreams of providing abundance for myself in an independent, empowered, and connected way that was harmonious with nature and her seasonal rhythms.

When the optimal time for harvesting arrived, often in connection with the flowing cycle of the moon, I would make an offering to the garden in gratitude for all that I would be receiving from it and begin to trim back my plant allies with prayer, love, and intention. What was not gathered from my home garden, was ethically wildcrafted from the local region on foot—basket and snips in hand—handled with equal, if not greater reverence, as their domestic relatives. I meticulously strung small bundles of herb clippings with organic cotton twine, my fingers worn at the end of the day from the process of tying all of the tiny bows. I hung each bundle with care to dry in open shade, kissed by the warm Northern California summer air until complete. Then it was time to start the process of crafting my medicine.

After six weeks of anticipation grounded with daily gentle rocking and solar infusing, it was finally time to strain. The immune boosting elderberry tincture and nervous system soothing milky oats tincture went directly into amber dropper bottles, ready to be adorned with hand-drawn labels crafted from handmade recycled paper. The rich, colorful, and potent oils were married with local beeswax and essential oils to create perfect pots of salve—healing balm for heart and soul.

Each of my recipes was inspired by making the most out of the abundance around me, or to address a particular personal ailment. During my third season tending to the plant spirits, I became pregnant, and yet again I found my teacher and muse for creation in the garden. While I practiced the values of patience, presence, and openness each day in the garden that would prove vital in my journey as a mother, I listened to the whispers of my plant friends to create a new line of products to tend to the needs of pregnant and postpartum women. I crafted belly balm to support a blossoming baby bump, nipple butter to help new mamas weather the storm that often accompanies establishing breastfeeding, and an ear elixir to eradicate ear infections that seem almost inevitable in those early years.

I am so grateful for my garden and the lessons, abundance, and sustenance that it has provided me over the years. While motherhood has put Rooted Wisdom Herbals on hold, the spirit of the garden and all of its wisdom continues to ring true and relevant. Today, I enjoy fresh snips of my edelweiss lavender to bring a calming element to my day. Where more formal labels once graced my products, hand-drawn and hand-trimmed labels now embellish this season’s herbal oxymels and elixirs. Like the garden, I have learned to flow with the seasons of my life, and sip in the small, beautiful miracles that bless me each day.

Postpartum has truly been the longest winter of my life. So much of the time I have spent turning inward, like a caterpillar constructing its chrysalis in order to reemerge as a butterfly, or a tree shedding its leaves to concentrate its energy into its trunk and roots, making space for new growth in the spring. In many ways, it has felt like a rebirth, and after mourning the death of my ego’s past life, I have been harnessing my spare energy to establish greater clarity and direction for the vision I want to create for myself in this next chapter as my newly evolved self.

I hope to return to cultivating the medicine again soon. The garden has already begun calling me home to cut back old growth to make way for new life, provide water to discover which teachers want to show up with lessons of strength and resilience, and reseed the beds from the dried blooms of last year. Like a bee finding its way to the sweet nectar of a flower in its peak, I know that I too am ready to embark upon my soul’s evolutionary spring and summer—wild with ripe ideas and the energy to manifest them in ways much bigger than I ever imagined would be possible.