Welcome to 2009 and our Student of the Month for January:
Jodi Snyder
Jodi Snyder is a family generational herbalist. In her family, this art is passed from grandmother to granddaughter. In 1984, while living in Portland, OR, she began to examine the difference between what she had already learned about herbs and what was taught at the New Oregon College of Oriental Medicine. Her studies were interrupted with the raising of seven children, but her family tradition now continues as she teaches her own granddaughters.
Jodi found a renewed interest in Traditional Chinese Medicine in 2004 and ultimately enrolled in the East West School of Planetary Herbology in 2006. She received her Certification of Herbal Training in 2007, and another in 2008. Accepted into the American Herbalists Guild in 2008, she will complete the three-year program at East West Course in Planetary Herbalism in May of 2009.
A native Iowan, Jodi now lives in the Mississippi River Valley Reserve close to La Crescent, MN, with her husband T.J. Along with her work as a Therapeutic Herbalist, Jodi tries to find time to volunteer with the Department of Natural Resources finding and counting endangered species of plants, as well as finding new uses for invasive ones. She teaches field classes in botany and earth science for youth. Jodi also enjoys photography, writing, and web design.
Jodi’s background is in Social and Earth Sciences. She is a trained phobia and anxiety coach and taught at the Iowa Center for Individual Peace for two years in Des Moines. Her own need to more intently experience a broader range of herbs while studying led her to develop the East West Herb Identification Kit containing 170 herbs which is now sold online at her own Principle Herb Shoppe.
In the future, Jodi plans to develop educational tools for herbal college students and lecture at Traditional Chinese Medicine-oriented schools. She has an interest in helping develop programs which teach the value of herb crops in the Midwest, in a time when both farmers and herbs are finding it difficult to survive the demands of society.