Welcome to my new online lair/layer! It is I, Goody Twoshoes, your friendly neighborhood herbalist. This blog is where I’ll be sequentially expounding on the infinitesimal wonders of the green world and the multitude of connections between humans and our healing allies…I mean, among other things. Never been one for a narrow focus heh heh- 

I thought of the title for the blog ages ago, “The Herban Underground”- It’s mostly because my workshop is in the basement, and I’m an urban herbalist (and also Cause I might tend towards the dissenting side- I mean I’m not a “card-carrying” radical or anything. Mostly cause my kinda eco-femme anarchism makes me a tad too… for clubs that hand out cards hahaha). So you know, the name’s almost too perfect- but it turns out that the actual deed of setting out, in not too many thousands of words what it is I hope to do in said Herban Underground (and whether it will remain underground either politically or otherwise) and heck, when it is that I’ll be able to start doing it- have thus far proved much tricksier tasks. 

Ack. Because caretaking. Because life. And also maybe because writing to you (you virtual myriad you!) all about who I am and what I believe all of a sudden seems a wee bit scarier now that it’s upon me. Maybe ‘scarier’ is the wrong word, important maybe? It’s all real n stuff. 

So – me? Well, here’s me: I’m a plant healer, (both in the herbalist and the find the dejected houseplant specimens at grocery outlet and bring them home to fix them way) Professionally I do herbal wellness consults and make stuff in the herbal home care/yummy cosmetic vein. I’m trying to start a community-supported herbalism project in my hometown of Sacramento, CA. So non-pharmaceutical medicine wellness is my jam (and therefore botany, mycology, biology and physiology and chemistry are also my jam) but I’m kind of universally nerdy also: ecology! Textiles! Candy making! Prehistoric silviculture! Fishing nets? Maps? Rocks? Ain’t nothin (nature/culture-al) I can’t dork out about. I’d love to say that I love the green things that root and twine and photosynthesize the most but I confess to being scandalously in love with fungi. I get a lil silly about the whole amalgam that is lichen. Marveling at the “ome”s of bacteria and archaea is a pastime I indulge in. I’m panamorous about all the kingdoms really. Positively indecent the way I can’t stay in my own lane, uh, herbally, that is. 

I guess that’s because viewing health through my particularly ecologically political lens fosters interconnection. And Rendering the complex weave with which we are already woven into our environments is one of my ways to whistle (hellloooo?) way into the dark of the (when-the-hell-is-it-gonna-be-the-post?) Capitalist Age I find myself living through.

I mean, I love me some science- but I’ve got no time for the way indigenous medicine and botany alike are either discounted or sidled into “just not as awesome as” synthesized” medicine. I’m tired of disease-focused paradigms and pathologically centered mindsets. I want something different. I want the poetry of secondary metabolites friends. I want concepts like “tonic” and “adaptogenic” and “alterative” to wend their ways through my every day. I want transparent medical science that is firmly rooted in critical race and ecological theories. Do you? Gosh, I hope so. Cause I’m fixing to rhapsodize about that kinda stuff here in my blog.

I guess the long and short of it is that I’ve been compelled to add my own voice to the cacophony of plant-y health musings out there if only to extol the presence of the myriad (my word for the staggering numbers of minute organisms we coexist with) and their role in wellness. (But more likely to inveigle my way into the chasms of botanical therapies and the /mystery of health narratives  with my trusty ecopolitical lens) . Awww come on- it’ll be fun!! 

I hope you’ll come along and ride on the fantastic voyage that I hope to make this blog. I look forward to our conversations!