I’ve always been a little bit of a dabbler in plants – making skin and body care items as a teen, tending a small garden of culinary herbs, drinking simple herbal teas to for mild health complaints, and using natural remedies to treat the various ouchies, owwies, and illnesses my children would pick up.

Then I attended an outdoor weekend of foraging for plants that have edible and medicinal uses. This lit the spark that made me want to really move past dabbling into a deeper study of plant medicine. I started looking at online herb schools the next week and that’s when I came across East West. I started with the Home Herbalist course at the end of 2019– just to get a feel for whether I could really commit the time to pursuing my own educational experience while also homeschooling three children. Completing that only made me want to learn more, so I signed up for the Professional course almost immediately afterwards.

Beyond continuing to help my family and friends (and myself!) in pursuing a healthier life, I’m still not exactly sure what else I might want to do with all my newfound knowledge. But I’m glad I’ve started preparing myself before knowing exactly where I am headed, and I am looking forward to seeing where I end up.

When I’m not studying or working with plants I enjoy learning gentle movement and breathwork practices, reading, sewing, crocheting, and a few other types of stitching. I also spend a lot of time hanging out with my (still homeschooling) family. These days we are particularly excited to learn about and apply permaculture practices at our recently acquired home on 5 wooded acres in the beautiful Pacific Northwest of the United States.