About Deborah

Professionally trained as an adult, my herbal education began in childhood, raised by parents who believed in food as medicine, free to roam wildly on our land. My early memories are shaped by wonder, awe, and a feeling of belonging in the woods and fields. Our more-than-human kin taught me what it felt like to be at home in my body and in my spirit.

I began studying traditional Western herbalism in 2010 when I was pregnant with my daughter and my midwife recommended nettle and raspberry leaf tea, to nourish and tone the womb. This tea was my doorway. In addition to self-study and learning directly from the plants, I have trained with and learned from clinical herbalists, folk herbalists, herb gardeners, medicine-makers, relational practitioners and activists. 

I’m a graduate of the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism’s three-year Clinical Herbalist program. These three years gave me a strong foundation of both modern herbal science as well as traditional energetic frameworks including Western energetics, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Ayurveda. I studied human physiology, nutrition, herbal chemistry and pharmacology, herb-drug interactions, practitioner’s skills, and in-depth coverage of traditional and clinical use of a wide array of medicinal plants.

At VCIH, I completed a yearlong supervised clinical internship. I had the opportunity to work with clients experiencing a wide variety of conditions and concerns, and to develop both my skills as a practitioner and to deepen my relationship with the plants, all under the guidance of a talented and dedicated group of faculty, including Larken Bunce, Betzy Bancroft, Kristen Henningsen, Linden de Voil, Ayo Ngozi, Julie Mitchell, Ember Peters, Guido Masé, and Hanna Rae Behrens.

My practice is also informed by cross-disciplinary background and experiences. I hold a Bachelor of Arts in Literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I have Master’s level training in Spanish Language Education. I’m also a Certified Public Librarian and community educator. 

To provide the best possible care, I am continually widening and deepening my knowledge.