Herbalism, to me, isn’t just about remedies. It’s about relationship. It’s about walking barefoot down the dirt road near our home, or wandering through my parents’ timber, or pausing in a meadow—and staying open. My eyes are always scanning the ground, not just for plants, but for the lessons they carry. It’s a quiet kind of learning, guided by curiosity, reverence, and faith.

As lawn culture took hold and industrial farming expanded, native botanicals—those same plants used for generations to nourish and heal—were labeled “invasive,” “unwanted,” and “unruly.”

Plantain, goldenrod, milkweed, mullein, chickweed, cleavers, violets (plants that show up exactly when and where we need them) were sprayed down and plowed under.

We lost a connection to creation that reminded us: healing was never meant to be out of reach.
It was placed here, by a loving God, right beneath our feet

No matter what Grandma was doing when we arrived, she’d stop everything just to give us the warmest, tightest hug. I spent countless nights in the upstairs bedroom, where mornings always greeted me with the smell of breakfast cooking and the sound of a meadowlark singing just outside the window.