About Deborah
I’m a community & clinical herbalist, a mother, a partner, a writer, an avid reader, a teacher, a cat lover,
a caregiver, a maker, a believer in magic, an earth tender & apprentice.
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.
STORY
Plants and herbal medicine are vital allies in supporting the body’s innate resilience, widening our capacity to show up for ourselves and our fellow beings in the living world.
My practice is rooted in a deep respect for nature, and trust in the plants. Plants were here long before other life forms. Our human bodies, our senses, the interconnected function of our organ systems evolved with them, in rhythm with cycles of light and dark, climate and season, eating wild food, cohabiting with other beings – animal, plant, and microbes. For most of human existence, this has been true.
I deeply value living in connection with the land, the water, the living beings, and the community of people I share a space with. Modern life, with the rise of capitalism, has edged us farther and farther from this way of life. Herbalism, and the plants themselves, can offer a way back into belonging. To care and be cared for. This is reciprocity.
All flourishing is mutual. ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer
I believe health care should be a human right, not an exclusive, cost-prohibitive privilege. The sliding scale model I use for my services, as well as a limited number of free/reduced spaces, honors the truth that people hold vastly different levels of access and resources — due to systemic inequities and collective histories of violence and oppression. My rates are set in order to sustain myself and my family to be well, so that I may support you to be well. Sliding scale invites those with greater access and privilege to support those with fewer resources, so they too may receive the care that we all deserve.
I am committed to transparency around costs of services, herbal product recommendations, or nutritional supplements. And I am open to discussing different forms of exchange in an attempt to support mutual and equitable flourishing.
VALUES
I’m a graduate of the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism’s three-year Clinical Herbalist program (1500+ hours). 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, Hannah Rae Behrens, Netta Mae Walsh, Joann Darling, Stephanie Boucher, and Cedar Landsman.