Ancestral Herbal Narratives

[0:11] Nicole Wines: Welcome. My name is Nicole Wines. I am here with a group from Rabbit Hole Farm in Newark, New Jersey. And for the Herbal Ancestral Narratives, oral history project. A lot of, as they reminded me, a lot of times in the, in different cultures, African cultures and, and Hispanic cultures, Latino cultures, the Caribbean, things are done as a family. The farming work is done as a family. And so we are interviewing as a family today. So if I could have you each just briefly introduce yourselves and just to tell us your name and where you were born, where you are now.

[00:51] Keven Porter: My name is Keven Porter and I was born in Newark, New Jersey. And we are still in Newark, New Jersey.

[1:03] Arelis Hernández: My name is Arelis Hernández, and I was born in Dominican Republic, and I’ve been in Newark since 1994. Um, yeah.

[1:13] Tika Jagad: My name is Tika. I was born in Newark too, technically, but, I lived in Edison most of my childhood, and then I now live in Orange.

[01:26] Nicole: Great. And I start off these interviews with a very big question and then narrow it down into the stories and the details. My big question that I wanna start with is, what does healing mean to you?

[1:40] Keven: Hmm. To me, healing means to make well, to make whole, you know, to to, to say to be sick is to be like, broken or fractured. Fragmented. But to be healed is to be whole, to make whole,

[2:10] Arelis:  To me, the first thing that came to mind was, to forgive.

[2:19] Tika:  Mm. I was thinking healing as something that’s a journey. And definitely like something that isn’t linear and feels challenging at times and rewarding at times at the same time. So a lot of like contradictions happening at the same time, but like for the betterment of yourself.

[2:47] Nicole: Thank you for sharing. In your lifetimes, what connection have you had, each of you, to herbalism and herbal healing traditions or any other healing traditions?

[3:00] Keven: I guess, really a few stories from my mother who, who passed. Who grew up in North Carolina, who would tell me that, her aunt, when she got sick, her aunt or my mother got sick, or any family member got sick, she would always send her out the back door into the yard, and she would have her pick up a certain herb, this plant or that plant, and bring it into the house. And she would make something with it, usually a tea or something. And so that was my first experience in hearing about it. My first experience, probably with experiencing it is, would be when I met Arelis, who is my wife, if you didn’t know. I came, I do, I’m a yoga instructor, so I came in from doing a yoga class and I had a bottle of Benadryl, uh, a tube of Benadryl that I picked up from the pharmacy. And she said, “What do you have there?” I said, “Benadryl.” She says, “What is that for?” I said, “It’s for my ringworm.” I had a ringworm ’cause I was picked up a mat at the swimming pool to do yoga on, and I picked up something and she said, “Did you open it?” I said, “No, no.” She says, “Don’t.” And she was cooking and she sliced a piece of garlic and said, “Put that on that, leave it on it a little bit. And then a little bit every day, just a little bit.” And she says, “In a couple of days it’ll be gone.” And in a couple of days it was gone. And I said, I thought that was the most amazing thing. And then what was the most amazing about it is that I took my tube back to Walgreens or back to the pharmacy, and I got my money back. So I says, $8 for this, got my $8 back. And the garlic course that was free. So, and, and that was the best experience I had. It’s that probably opened my eyes to, to, to plants, trees and what nature can provide that that’s there, that’s, relatively safe most of the time. And, you know, and inexpensive. Yeah, that was my experience.

[5:49] Arelis: So for me, I grew up in the Dominican Republic. I was born there and grew up there also my first half of my life basically. And being from another culture, like herbs is the first thing that you go to. Now it’s kind of changing a little bit ’cause of the access to pharmaceuticals and things like that. But I remember even going to the doctor as a child and the doctor recommended like even maybe something pharmaceutical, but at the same time also recommending something herbal. That was very common. Like as a young child, I grew up in the mountain, but then we moved to the city. And in the city my grandmother will have planned growing even in, in whatever she could like, can like, like whatever container she could. Like, she would have aloe vera, chamomile, passion flower, I remember, um, tree. I remember the property was like, she was surrounded by other the people. And on, on the edge of her property, she will have different tree, a avocado tree, mango tree, soursop, like all this, plant that belonged to her, but they were really hanging on the side of the neighbor. So, so nature was always part of our lives. Like from very, like, from the day that I was born to the day, and for some reason I just love it. When I was 14, the church that we used to go to in the Dominican Republic, they were offering a herbal class. My mother couldn’t go, so asked me to go. So I was 14 at that time. I just went for to, to get outta the house. So I went, but I just fell in love with the, with the whole class. It was a whole week intensive class. And I learned so much of what plant can do for you. That to me was amazing. And I think from that time, even though, I was already spoke from, from cultural family, but like taking the class that is really teach you how to make the tea, how to make different things and experimenting with what I learned is really like, wow. Like, yes, I love this. It was like a love. Of course you going to school, that is not something that you even mentioned in school. So, we came to the US I never did anything with it. I always have the passion inside and we always will look for herbs and and you know, tea and, and things like that. But it wasn’t until then we started Rabbit Hole Farm that we started again, that we started again. And we started just like a little, and, and it just turn into this beautiful thing. And herbs to me, my passion. And that’s why like Rabbit Hole is so herb oriented. But in my family, everybody, my mom has a garden, my sister has a garden, my brother, they all have a garden. Everybody has a garden, you go and then the, when you visit each other, you show each other garden. Oh, look at what I have. Oh, do you have this one? You want me to cut a piece for you? So it just part of that sharing. We also grow food like, um, a pumpkin and thing like that. One pumpkin that my uncle grows has to be cutting, like, oh, this piece for this person, this piece for that person. The other thing that we do is, my family now is, mostly in Florida, either travel back and forth and our suitcases, crazy. Like, my brother just came from Florida.

[9:49] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[9:49] Arelis: He brought sugarcane, avocado, mango. Like, because, you know, that sharing what we grow is such an important thing. And, and even though I can get that here, you know, I don’t have to be like, carry, it’s just something about that like, came from my backyard, take it.

[10:11] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.

[10:12] And I, I remember that from childhood. Like visiting my nana. visiting my aunt, anybody who who has something and just share it with you. Go to the garden and cut and share it with you. So even like now, like my nieces and nephew, they’re first generation, so I have six. So three of them, they’ll ask for herb before. So, and I’m very happy. Wow. Because three, they will ask for herb before they do anything else. That’s very good. So we still being able to show that herb can work, is good for you. My niece will come and, and tell me, “Oh, tia I have this,” like, quiet, you know? And I will give her something. She will use them. So, so yeah. So I think it’s that connection, that family thing. Yeah.

[11:06] Keven: Mm-Hmm. That’s beautiful.

[11:08] Nicole: Yeah. Thank you for sharing. And you Tika?

[11:13] Tika: So similar to Arelis, but very different. My dad and my mom are also from, um, my dad’s from India and my mom’s from Jamaica. So growing up we did have access. My dad, my, well my dad’s father was a doctor, but a small doctor in the community that they lived in. And he, my dad was somebody who he knows a lot about Ayurveda and not in like the same way that Arelis knows, it’s more like a cultural thing. Like overall we know what we need. And when I was growing up, that was always something that was in my house, but we never really connected it to anything. Like, it was just part of our food ways, uh, the, the food that we ate, everything. But then like slowly I noticed that my parents, the longer that they lived here, they don’t have that connection anymore. My mom grew up on a farm, she has no connection to it at all. So the, once they’ve moved, migrated to America, they started to shift the way that they think about things. And the connection that they have to food and herbs shifted tremendously. So now with my interests, like I’m not as interested in herbs as Arelis and Keven are, but I really love doing farm work and the idea of relying on myself to feed myself that feels really, really, really important and valuable to me. That has also shifted them a bit to, like, we engage now and it’s sparked a relationship between us as a family that we didn’t have for many years talking about something that we now have in common. And I think it brings them back to a connecting point. So, for my dad’s birth, yeah, it was my dad’s birthday this year. We brought, I brought him bitter melon, um, bitter melon leaves, like just different things that we grew here, excuse me. So that he could, he could have access to and use. And he really, really appreciated it. And even anything that we do on the farm now, I could see, like when I talked to him about it, it’s exciting. It brings him back to where he, where he came from and an appreciation that he, that he kind of, I don’t think had the opportunity to reflect on before. Like, oh, wow, I come from a culture that really values  food and medicine in a really different way, and I like completely forgot about it or didn’t pay attention to it as deeply for the past 20 years, and now I am again. So I think that’s something that the farm has brought to my life too, like a closer connection to my family that, um, and an appreciation. But yeah.

[14:45] Nicole: All right. So it sounds like you all your, your exposure to herbs and herbal healing and herbalism really came from family and from it being, uh, something that was just around, it was just there with it to different degrees, whether it changed with immigration and migration or, or, or not. And Arelis that story about moving the fruits around and plants around is very familiar to me. I have washed soil off of many roots to bring them back with me. To bring plants back. Yeah. So, do you, uh, and Keven, you mentioned a specific memory of, of your mom, stepping out back to get the herbs when she was sick. Do, do you have any other specific memories or stories from your childhood that you, just stand out to you that of family members using food or herbs or plants as medicine?

[15:45] Keven: No, but I, I’ve lived here pretty much all of my life right across the street from the farm.

[15:42] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.

[15:53] Keven:  But our neighbors were farmers. My neighbor next door, we used to go next door and my father said ask Mr. Miller for some tomatoes or collard greens. A neighbor up the street actually had a farm in the, Flemington New Jersey. And he would, he would send his children by, with a shopping list every Friday. And on Saturday morning, he would have the produce available for us. You know, so, so that was growing up. So I was always exposed to fresh food. And back then when I was growing up, you’re talking about the, the mid sixties to through the seventies, there really weren’t that many fast food places. And Newark being, in, being a urban area, that that was probably the last place that fast food restaurants who were just experimenting would plant themselves. Now it’s the first place they would’ve plant themselves, but back then, nah, maybe not, you know. But yeah, that, that was it. I had, I was surrounded by farmers all the time.

[17:12] Nicole:  So you were surrounded by it. Now you’re doing it, keeping it, keeping it going within your neighborhood.

[17:18] Keven: When I was young, I used to go to summer camp and summer camp, I would always play in the soil and be playing with the plants and stuff. And one day we were driving by me, and if I was in the car, and I said, “What’s that smell? I love that smell.” And my father said, “That’s manure.” I, my, my mother says, “You’re going to be a farmer one day.” [laughs]

[17:43] Nicole: And here you are.

[17:45] Keven: Yeah. So she was right. Yeah. I just love the smell of nature. Yeah.

[17:52] Nicole: Arelis, do you have any specific memories or stories of, of seeing your family or community members engaged in healing practices?

[18:02]: Arelis: Oh, okay. So, so like I said, I grew up in the, I was born there my first six, seven year were up in the mountain. So definitely. One of the thing that influenced a little, my, my, my family is very Catholic and the, the whole village that I’m from, Catholic. Catholic. So, so they would use herb to a extension, like to a limit, because beyond a point could be taken as a witchcraft.

[18:38] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[18:38] Arelis: But still, definitely like one of the, the, when we get together as a family, we talk about story. Like from my great-grandmother, my great-grandmother was kinda like the, the, um, curandera of the family kind of. So if, somebody wasn’t feeling well in the family, like, oh, go to a, la vieja Flora, you know, and she would do whatever. So we will sit in my uncle, my mother, they will talk about the circle. They were very, very poor. So they didn’t have access to, to, to any other medicine because in, in the mountain, and they don’t have the money to go out to, to see the doctor. So they had to really deal with asthma, like was a big thing in my, with my mother and my uncle. And they will talk about how my, my great-grandmother will get them and put coffee ground in the back with castor oil. They would give them castor oil. They would give them, like, they would go out in the wood and then get this like water from the pa, like a special palm tree. So they would like, like take that water and, and give, and give it to them for, for their asthma. They would also talk about how my great-grandfather would shower every six months. So I don’t know how true was that, but like, my great-grandfather would shower, and when he was going to take a bath, it was something very special. So he would, like, my grandmother would have to prepare, like all these different plants, and they would start talking. Yeah. And they would put the, the angel trumpet, like this plant, that plant the, bitter melon leaves. Even bones, even bones, like, like in the water, let it steam a little bit and then he will get in like in a tub and, and a take shower. The enema, enema was a huge, healing, thing that they would do until, I would say my generation basically, but from my mother generation down, enema was like, you have a headache enema, you have this enema. And they have a specific herb to use for whatever was the complaint. They also will use like bottles, like,  they call it bottles, botellas, which is like different herb together. A concoction is made and they will take it for whatever time. And usually bitter like the, that’s, um, bitter. My father has a beautiful story. My father economically, he was better than my mother, so he was not as exposed as my mother to herb. So when he would get sick, the father would go to the city to get pharmaceuticals. So my father had this beautiful story that, that he got sick, that, he was a teenager and he just got sick that he was having like anxiety, like a lot of anxiety. He was crying like a, like a nervous breakdown that he has. He said he didn’t know what, what happened. He just felt like that. And the father took him to the doctor. The doctor gave him like different, prescription medication. He did not get better. He stopped eating. He was very, very sick for a month or two until my grandmother begged my grandfather do something else, because the pharmaceutical didn’t work. And then my grandfather went to a curandero, got him the, the, like a one of those bottle, brought it home. And my father said, the moment he took that, that whatever concoction, my, my grandfather got him, he just felt something. And few minute later ran to the bathroom, and the next day he was fine. So, so we grew up just hearing story like that. Like my uncle, like he’s a great storyteller, would talk also about having chronic migraine. Like one time he had a chronic migraine, he was taken to the city because he couldn’t stand anymore. They check him in the city. The doctor couldn’t find anything. They just sent him back to the mountain. So when he went back on the way back, he was screaming of pain. And, um, and this lady asked, asked to for like, for his mother to come, my grandmother to come, and they asked my grandmother permission, can I, can I treat him? ‘Cause I think I can do something for him. And then my grandmother, of course, like, like anything. So my uncle said that, that the lady just did the, she put something on his head and something on the bottom of his feet. And then he said that immediately again, he felt something when she put the thing on the head, and he felt something from the head just moving down. And a few minute later, he asked to pee to, to go to the bathroom, to urinate. And the lady say, “Oh, it’s coming out. That’s it.” And he say, that’s it. Headache was gone and didn’t come back for years. So, so there, so many story that that just we, and to the day, to the day we get together, and, and they know that I love the other stories. So they will tell me, um, I try to document because they also have a beautiful story, not also using herbs, but also using prayer. They, which to me, it is amazing, because we stopped believing in the, in the power prayer. Like, uh, uh, when I say we, like my, my family, like my, my, I call it my people, um, because now we have pharmaceutical, we have this, we have that. So the power of prayer, I was even talking to my uncle about that. But because I will ask him, okay, and he will tell me this thing that he saw just with the power of prayer. And I was like, well, “Where did it go? Where did it go?” And he said “Well, we don’t need it anymore.” Now we have, um, we have pen, pen, penicillin, whatever, you know, like, you know, I was like, oh, that’s sad. Because the power of the mind is so, so big that, you know, and that’s how those healing were like possible. They will have a story about people being heal, animals being heal from, from distance by somebody setting a prayer on the all the town. So, so all these stories. So we grew up like listening to, asking about it. Yeah. So yeah,

[25:22] Nicole: I’m gonna come back to that because that’s very interesting and it’s connected to one of the questions that I have just a little bit later. But first I wanna ask Tika, if you have any specific stories or memories from your childhood of your family or community, practicing herbalism or any healing practices that kind of stand out to you in your memories?

[25:42] Tika: Yeah. I think when I was growing up, my dad would put, like, if we had a stomachache, my sister and I had like chronic stomachaches when we were kids. And he would say like, I’m gonna give you Variyali water. And I didn’t know what that was. And it was fennel seeds and water. So he would do that. We always had, when you were like, oh, I have triphala. I was like, oh my God. I grew up with triphala powder at the house. We always had turmeric milk before bed, like, just very, like, it wasn’t anything at the time. And I remember my mom and him in the morning, he would give me, I don’t even know what it is today, like in English, but it was Dant Kanti this like paste, and it was very chalky and dark and bitter, but then it was masked by a little bit of sweetness. And he would put that in my mouth, and then my mom would do cod liver oil. But he did that every day. And he would be like, you have to have Dant Kanti. And we would like, now we don’t take it. But when we were growing up, that was something that, it was almost like vitamins.

[27:02] Arelis: Mm-Hmm.

[27:03] Tika: But I don’t know what it is in English now. And I’m sure we, if I asked him what it was, he could find it and I, maybe I would take it. But yeah, it was this strange paste thing. And then Arelis brought this like toothpaste. It’s called Dant Kanti, but it’s the toothpaste that you brought. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. And my dad always brushed his teeth with that, like, brought it back from India and still uses it. And seeing it yesterday, I was like, oh, we have that at home. So, it wasn’t anything, again, it wasn’t anything in our minds that stood out as, um, like healing necessarily. It was just like the food that my, well, my grandma and my dad have a good relationship over the,they talk a lot over the phone. So they would, she is more into like eating things healthily. She’s 95 or 96, and she’s never had to take medication. She’s extremely healthy. Her mind is still clear. She still walks now with a cane, but she can walk without the cane if she needed to. And yes, she tells my dad like, you have to do this. You have to do this. But then his, her biggest thing, and I think that’s what we’ve been talking about a lot lately, and what Rabbit Hole brings me to is stress. She’s also very prayerful. She like, is extremely meditative and has a really close relationship with God. But she talks to him about stress, and she’s lives a much, her and my dad’s brothers, they live together and they have a much simpler life. And they always tell him like, you, oh, sorry, you need to be happy. Like, you need to do things that make you feel happy and don’t worry so much. And I think that’s sticking with him. And I think it’s also really valuable to me too. Because yeah, I think we come from a culture, especially here where we feel a lot of pressure to be hyper successful. And at least right now where I am in my journey is I don’t want to feel that like I have to succumb to that pressure and deal with that level of stress, because I know that that also causes disease and living a more stress-free, connected life, wards off sickness and yeah. Brings joy. So, but yeah, other than that, um, just those little things I remember.

[30:04] Nicole: Great. Thank you for sharing. Another question. Do you consider yourselves herbal practitioners or herbalists, or do you more consider it just to be integrated into your daily life?

[30:18] Keven: Hmm. I consider it just to be integrated into my daily life. Yeah. It’s, you know, yeah. Even, even my doctors. I, I still go to the, the regular, I have a primary care. I have a Ayurvedic physician. And, and my doc, my my doctors know, she, I was there yesterday. She said, oh, you’re not gonna take this test. I said, yeah, you, you say, no. Yeah, you’re not gonna take this. She says, but this is, this is what this test is for and this is what this is for, and this is what we’re gonna do blood work on. And then I know from being around plant medicine long enough, what, where to go to, to fill those needs instead of going to pharmaceuticals. So that, that, that’s like, and I, and, and I really enjoy that.

[31:14] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.

[31:15] Keven: It’s like hacking something. Oh, oh, yeah, okay, okay. You say, I need this, I need this. Okay, I got it. You know, and then I go back for my checkups and it’s, it’s on point, you know, so it works, you know?

[31:29] Nicole: Mm-Hmm. Arelis?

[31:33] Arelis: So for me, like, um, and Keven and I can go back and forth about the whole word herbalist. So I, I, I, I kind of dislike the, the word herbalist because I did not grow up hearing that word. The maximum that we’ll hear was curandera. But that will be like when like a different setting. But the, the herb were just part of life, or, or herbs are just part of life. My, my great-grandmother knew all that, and she would do all that, but she was not curandera, curandera.

[32:14] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[32:15] Arelis: So she was not a herbalist. But she knew. So to me when we start labeling things, then they get more hijack and taken and oh, you’re the herbalist.

[32:28] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[32:29] Arelis: You’re the one thats gonna do that. I, so, so I try to treat herbs like, no, we all have the right to learn to know, to take care ourselves. To take care our loved one. So I encourage my, my nieces to always learn and know what I want, you know, what it, if they feeling in this, then what can they do to feel better, maybe. Well, I will not call myself a herbalist or practitioner, blah, blah, blah, not, I, I think it’s just like, I love it. And, and I love finding young people who also love this. And, and, you know, I’ve been to  very little school about herb. I did my little when I was 14, and then we went to Thailand and, and India and, you know, studied some herb and things like that. But otherwise, everything that we had learned is just by, through experience, through family, through the now the Rabbit Hole and taking care of ourselves. Yeah. Taking care ourself.  If I had something, it gonna come down to, to what I had to do. Okay. And that could be by walking in the garden and see what’s growing.

[33:42] Keven: Yeah.

[33:43] Arelis: Or that could be by, by I close my eye. And so this, like, it, it could be anything. And guess what, so far for me, it had worked. What I, I would not call myself a herbalist because of that. And if you come to me ask me, I would try to, you know, give you some advice, but it’s not that oh, you know?

[34:03] Keven: Yeah.

[34:04] Arelis: No. You also have to explore yourself where everybody’s different.

[34:07] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[34:08] Arelis: So that’s how well, herb plus it’s just, um,

[34:12] Keven: Yeah. Just, it’s the way of life.

[34:15] Arelis: Yeah.

[34:25] Keven: But, but, and, and again, we’re, we’re, we’re in the United States, we’re coming full circle because this is where we all started off, was no herbalists. We all just knew the plants that we needed to know in our vicinity that if we got sick, we need to have this, or if we wanted to be healthy, we needed to eat this.

[34:40] Arelis: Mm-Hmm.

[34:40] Keven: Or we need not to eat so much of this if we wanted to stay healthy. So it, it was just a, a way of life. But the way this society is, has been and becoming more would bombard you with  fast food and telling you that you don’t have enough time, and that this is the quicker way this treatment will work better. It, it, it’s not so, and people are beginning to realize that the data that, um, these companies are doing now, even the government companies are doing, are finding that yeah, these herbs, some of them actually work better and quicker than the pharmaceuticals. So they, it, it’s like, it’s coming full circle.

[35:32] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.

[35:32] Arelis: Yeah. Well, let’s remember also for the Native American tradition that they used to have the, the medicine pouch. Okay.

[35:41] Keven: Yeah.

[35:41] Arelis: And that was like something like normal. It wasn’t like a special thing. No. Every child or every person would had a little medicine pouch, pouch

[35: 49] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[35:50] Arelis: Because, there are a specific herb that I go for if you call yourself, just put it there. Like, we had, we in Rabbit Hole, we had yarrow, in my, my family my, my brother, who, like I said, my brother’s a nonbeliever but he believes in yarrow. Yeah. So, so, you know, so they are some herb that is so powerful and so good for everything that,

[36:12] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[36:12] Arelis: We travel with, with those herbs.

[36:14] Keven: Yeah, definitely.

[36:15] Arelis: It doesn’t mean that we have to be herbalist or whatever. No. It’s just like, Yeah. Share your life. Like,

[36:29] Tika: Sorry.

[36:29] Nicole: How about you, Tika?

[36:32] Tika: Yeah, I definitely don’t consider myself an herbalist either. But it’s part of my, herbalism is part of my life and a very just like, casual way. However, I will say I did like have, I was having like a skin, a lot of skin issues, as the seasons transitioned. And I was getting like, oh, let me just go get CeraVe, like something from the  from the CVS. Right. And I was, ’cause it’s the less the least medicated and it’s not scented and it nothing was working. And then I was like, okay, I have to make the oil again, and I just made yarrow colangelo oil on my face cleared up again. So it’s just, it wasn’t anything where I’m like, okay, now, this is something that is gonna, I don’t, I think also a lot of the time herbalists are, people go to them almost similarly at, at least the way the culture is shifting now, similarly to a doctor

[37:48] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[37:50] Tika:  It’s like, let me go to an herbalist. I’m having joint pain.

[37:52] Keven:  Mm-Hmm.

[37:53] Tika: Or I’m having skin issues. And that is not what I am by any means. I don’t feel comfortable. If I can’t sleep, I’ll drink a tea. I don’t feel comfortable telling other people what works for them by any means, but I know the few things that work for me, work for me. And that’s what I use.

[38:18] Nicole: Okay. I wanna come back to what you were talking about Arelis about the power of prayer. Because it seems like in a lot of cultures and a lot of different backgrounds that there is a close connection of, between healing bet[ween] plants and working with plants and prayer, spirit, energy, you know, different, you can call it different things and look at it from different approaches. But for each of you, how do you feel within your culture, within your traditions that you practice, or what you saw in your families? How do you feel you see the connection between healing and spirit healing and energy healing and prayer?

[39:02] Keven: Hmm. Well, in my family growing up, we, I I, I might have seen prayer on Sunday, Sunday dinner, even though we had dinner every day. I think it was Sunday. And we were the type of family that only went to church or anything spiritual, came up on a Sunday. And that was probably until I was maybe 11 or 12. And then, then that stopped. We, you know, we were on our own. But, I was always interested in spirituality. And so that kind of stayed in my mind. And I, I became a meditator maybe about 25, 30 years ago, which my mother would say I was a meditator from the day I was born. But, she says, um, yeah. And so I’d meditate and meditate. Meditation helps me connect with nature to connect with the plants, connect with the people around me. That, that’s my, my connection to my fellow human beings and nature, because we’re kind of all one. We are nature and we are one. So that’s my connection there. And I meditate probably minimum two hours a day. You know, that’s my minimum for the last couple years. Yeah.

[40:38] Arelis: Mm-Hmm. So for me, like I say my, I grew up Catholic. And my family is very Catholic. Not, not my only my family my whole life was very, very Catholic. My village, my, my, my family. So like I say pray, you needed to be careful how you manage that, that type of energy ’cause you can be accused of witchcraft. Even though they may not hurt you or anything like that, but you’ll develop a reputation and they will call you bruja, you know, and, and, and kinda like, outcast you a little bit. So, so, but they were people, not so much, let me see, what generation was, it was a generation of my great-grandfather. There were people that were well known by, performing what they will call ensalmo, which was a specific prayer for a specific situation. And one of the big ones that they will deal with up in the mountain, you know, animal were, precious, very precious, like,  you have a cow, you have this, so you will take care of that animal very well. So when a cow would get sick, and the, the risk of losing that cow was like, oh, like a financial, you know, like a big financial loss. So cow will get infections and there were people  that they would do a specific prayer for, for the cow to, to, for the infection to go away. And they didn’t, did not even need to be in the presence of the cow. It could be from afar. They will get so influential about the cow and just say the prayer. And even my aunt who is super Catholic doesn’t believe in anything, but whatever the Catholic church say, she, when I ask her about that, but what about this? Her father was one of those people. She will say, well, yeah, there are things, there are things. And, and, but when you pray on the, you know, the father, the son and the Holy Spirit, everything is possible. So, so they tried to still turn it into something else. So like, I never, I wouldn’t say I never, my brother, actually my baby brother. This is another, another story that, that is even like a little, oh, because when we were little up in the mountain, I was like, probably five, six, no, I was like four or five. My baby brother was in the stroller and he fell and something went, like, a piece of metal went right in between his eye. We talking about nine, nine month old baby. And he was just bleeding. So we’re talking about, we up in the mountain. Hours from the city and this baby is just bleeding. Like my mother said that when she left, she just started crying because the baby was just like the water. So she was crying, crying. So people were trying to help her like do anything, the compression, all the thing that they could do for him to stop bleeding and nothing would help. There was one guy visiting and he said, “I can do ensalmo. I can do like a prayer if you let me to.” My mother, the Catholic, Christian is basically like, you shouldn’t do that because then you’re not trusting, you know, but my mother will do whatever you have to do to save my child. You know, it doesn’t matter how Catholic at that moment, you know, save my child. And my mother said that at that, like, when he did whatever he did, my brother stopped bleeding. And you know,  and to today I always ask like, oh, so, so you so Catholic, what, you know, and, and they don’t even wanna talk about those things because they don’t even have an explain explanation for, my brother, probably that saved my brother’s life. Like that situation. And we have a lot of story like that, that, that people, and when you ask them a little deeper, they, oh, well, you know… So, so that I think was the close, the closer, experience or deep healing like that, that, that happened then, the story, like many, many story, you know, animal being healed, people being healed from. Yeah. And, and, later on now, the Catholic Church has this part of the, oh my God, how they call it? They have a, like, like a department that they more, they accepting prayer more as part of the healing, so that you go to, to the, to the group and pray. You know, so, so, my father’s more into that. I, I never grew up into that, but, yeah. So it, it’s very, interesting for I’m a meditator like, like Keven said too. I wouldn’t say I, I, I experienced that, but I really believe in that. I really believe that, that you, yeah, you can heal yourself. You can like, the minds so powerful that, that we, we give up so much by not understanding the mind, the power of the mind. And everything is like, oh no, it’s, if it’s not scientifically proven, you know, like, oh my God, we lose so much by, by having that, that attitude that how many studies? So you know who, who, you know, what proof you have? What proof I have? 5,000 years, many cultures using this or, you know, like in my case, I know it because I come from a family to the day we still use herbal medicine to the day we still talk about the different type of healings. So, so do I need your permission? I don’t know. Maybe not. Yeah. So, I think as we grow and, and meditate more, we, we, we can really feel it and see it more.

[47:26] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[47:26] Arelis: My family, you, they, they very religious and now very devoted to the doctor. Very devoted to the doctor. Yeah.But they still, they still, like, we had tea. They will still like I’m making a lot of, elderberry syrup now, my whole family. So we all wait when you the elderberry syrup for you [laughs]. So, so, you know, last night, actually, I was, texting with my niece who wasn’t feeling well. So she was asking me, okay, what to do? So I was giving her all that, okay, do this. You’re like, so, so it is nice to see that, even though, yeah, you know, you’re doing, we’re still doing this, you know.

[48:10] Nicole: Mm-Hmm. Great. And how about you Tika? What do you see as the connection between herbs and herbal healing and spirit or energy?

[48:21] Tika: I, I grew up in a also very religious house. My parents are two different religions, but they’re very religious people. And I think for a really long time I rejected it. It’s funny you mention Arelis, how your mom is Christ[ian], like Catholic and what’s,and leaned on something that was like magic.

[48:44] Arelis: Mm-Hmm.

[48:46] Tika: As they see it. But, my mom does that too, where she is Christian, but if something happens and there’s a pickle or she feels like she needs a little protection, she has her person that she calls. And then, it was funny, I had candles lit a few years, two, two years ago. Because I was feeling stressed or whatever I was feeling. And she was like, oh, that’s like, that’s nothing, that’s like nothing magic. She was like, this is made up, you need to do this and this and this. And I was like, oh my God. And she, and when my sister and I talked to her about it, afterwards,’cause, so we confronted her, so you do this all the, whatever it, it’s, it’s in conflict. And she is like, only in a case of emergency type of thing. But she does, she has someone I can tell now ’cause we have the same Amazon account. If she’s buying almonds or like something that’s very weird, you have to get a scotch bonnet and step on it, like different rituals, but whatever. That’s her relationship. My dad is Hindu and has his relationship with spirit, but both of those, I don’t, I never felt deeply connected to growing up. I I spend a lot of time both in the temple and the church. And it was hard for me to feel comfortable in either setting. Yeah, I just, I really had a hard time connecting my whole life with both of their faiths, even though it was so prevalent. And my sister and I are very close and my sister if anything completely rejects spirituality ’cause she’s like this. It just really was a wedge in our lives. But now I’m starting to explore what my relationship looks like with spirit and myself. And I was also talking to my parents about that. It doesn’t necessarily look the same as theirs. Certain rituals I, I don’t subscribe or prescribe to and feel better, like what they do. But there is something connecting me to outside of myself that feels real to me. But yeah, I would say that I’m really early in that journey because I think for a really long time when you are inundated with religion, you feel like my partner is the same way. Both of us grew up in extremely religious households, and she is even more, it, it scares her a little. Like, oh God, what are you gonna tell me now? I’m a bad person because I decided to walk on this side of the road today. Like, so I think redeveloping a relationship with a spirit outside, something that we can’t see or touch, but we feel is new. It’s new. Yeah.

[52:29] Arelis: So I, I would like to share also my father, he, his, my, my family is religious, but my father is extra religious. In, in, like a few years ago, probably five, six years ago, he had, heart attack and a stroke, and he was hospitalized and, and his room became a church. All his church friends came and, and it was constant prayer in that room. My father he almost died and doctor didn’t think that he was gonna ever be, be able to walk or anything. They wanted him to go from the hospital to a rehab, and all these thing. So my father was determined to, to, you know, to go home, to walk again and to, you know, not being like a hundred percent how he was, but you could walk in that room, even the nurse and the doctor, they would walk in the room and they would feel what was going on in there, in there. And my father is, you know, went home from the hospital, went home and walking basically. When the doctor didn’t, didn’t believe it, okay. So again, the power of the mind ’cause I would tell him like that you said yourself because you say you were not going to a rehab and you believe it, and then yeah. That, that’s why you, you home. And you said that you were not going to be in a wheelchair and you believe it. And so that’s why you are walking, you know, and, and, and of course all that prayer support for that belief to, to, to come through.

[54:10] Nicole: Mm-Hmm. Yeah. We are getting close to the end of our interview. I have one more major question and then a closer minor question at the very end, a fun one. But, do you feel that we are in danger of losing our connection to these healing practices that we’ve been talking about? And this knowledge, these traditions? Or do you think that it’s being preserved and passed down in different ways? And also as part of that question, why is it important to preserve these practices and this knowledge?

[54:48] Keven: I, I, I feel that there is a resurgence because when, when I go somewhere and, and I’m just talking in general, somebody may mention something about herbs and, and stuff. And then we start to talk, the conversation flows. We just come from Nepal and we were, we were kind of like there for maybe two, three weeks. Nobody said anything about herbs then we,

[55:18] Arelis: We asking.

[55:19] Keven: Yeah.

[55:19] Arelis: Nobody knew.

[55:20] Keven: And we’re asking.

[55:21] Arelis: Nobody knew.

[55:21] Keven: And then the, this guy shows up 28 years old farmer Benoit, and he knows herbs. And he says, oh, there [unsure] trees out there. There’s, what’s name of that? The, the

[55:38] Arelis: Sena. The Sena.

[55:39] Keven:  Sena. Yeah, Sena. So he took us around, we were surrounded by plant and tree medicine all over the place. So there is a resurgence I can see in the, in, in the Americas definitely through the urban farming from the urban farm you get people looking at holistic ways of living and, and, and healing themselves. You know, and, and that’s kind of like what we do at Rabbit Hole Farm. It’s not about growing this or growing that. It’s about connecting with people and, and finding a way for them to connect with their selves, because I’m a meditator, but it may not be for everybody, you know? So we, we have sweats, we have drum circles, we have other events that kind of  draw people into themselves. And then from there they can begin to explore and experiment with different things and find a place in spirituality ’cause we’re all spirit, that they can feel who they truly are. So, so that, that, that’s what we kind of do.

[56:53] Arelis: Mm-Hmm. Yeah. So, so how can I say this? I, I really optimistic about the time we live in. Of course I don’t watch the news, so, but the world I see is amazing, all the thing that is happening. So everything is open, like a circle up and down, and then with the herb here in, in the, in the West, I feel the herb is now the thing.

[57:24] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[57:25] Arelis: You go to Whole Foods and you see all these thing.

[57:27] Tika: Mm-Hmm.

[57:27] Arelis: Or you go to, to different store and you see this herb.

[57:30] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[57:32] Arelis: And, and, and it concerns a little bit because then herb can be treated as pharmaceutical if you’re not, being careful, even the package, could look very pharmaceutical, the way people talk about it or the thing like that. But it definitely people are getting a lot more interest. And I think one of the reasons is because of the subtle, the side effect that we’ve seen from pharmaceutical. People are trying to get back to natural ways. Do I believe that it will go away? I don’t think it will go away because like even in China with the, the, the Communist Party to cover at the beginning that all those traditional thing were like forbidden. Like they were outlawed. So they were still able to bring it underground and preserve it. And now it’s like again, oh, you know, modern medicine and Chinese medicine together all the time. So I think theres always gonna be a way for things to survive.

[58:33] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[58:34] Arelis: It may change of course with time, but it’s so important to, to, for us to, to preserve it. So to do projects like this that is so important for us to continue talking to our, um, um, children.

[58:47] Keven: Children.

[58:47] Tika: Mm-Hmm.

[58:48] Arelis: And to make it something normal to, to, like my niece and my nephew, they have a, something come and rub a little, a little leaf on them. Not so much it gonna work or not, but for them to be comfortable with the idea of herbs. Okay. Because some, the people could be, oh, what are you doing? You know?

[59:06] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[59:07] Arelis: But I’m very optimistic now especially with social media. You know, like Benoit as an example, we met him in Nepal. Nobody wanna talk in Nepal. They, the, they on the, on the opposite. They going to pharmaceutical, they’re really growing to pharmaceutical. That’s their, their belief they are right now. So all this traditional thing is like, um, that for poor people that, for the villages that for the, so people don’t really wanna show up, but they still use it because when, when we were able to get out on the village, that’s what they use. Because, you know, pharmaceutical, you have to have money for that and the herb are free. It’s just the know that, that you need to, to preserve and to have. So, so when we travel, we always try to find out what’s going on.

[59:49] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[59:50] Arelis: We looking like, what are the plants here? Like I can connect with that. And it’s more for that too to mention you know, it just continue, continue. Yeah, that’s how I feel. I think. I don’t know. Like, it, it’s great to preserve it. Yeah. I I think it’ll be around forever. It’s already been around forever, so it’ll continue to be here long as there are people. Yeah. Yeah. It, you know, and this could be tricky. Like I mentioned China, for example, when, when, they outlaw the traditional Chinese medicine, but now they brought it back up, you know, so, so I, the system will do things trying to push things down, but sooner or later they’re gonna know, no, this is good. And they’re gonna bring, bring it back up.

[1:00:38] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[1:00:38] Arelis: I get a little, little scared sometimes because the capitalist system is to make money out everything. So, and I feel sometimes they push it down until they figure out how to make money out of it. They bring it back up. And, and, and that’s one thing with the herb, I feel the herb like, you know, it’s a gift from our mother.

[1:00:56] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[1:00:57] Arelis: So we have to be very careful how to, to make a profit outta this. Like, it’s, that’s

[1:01:04] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[1:01:04] Arelis: Different, but it’s that gift from our mother

[1:01:07] Keven: Yeah.

[1:01:07] Arelis: For us so

[1:01:08] Keven: Yeah. We have to respect it.

[1:01:10] Tika: Right.

[1:01:10] You know, and, and usually when it goes into people that are just looking to make a profit, it’s abused. It’s misused and it’s not not even delivered to the person that’s taking it in the right format, in the right way. You know, they’re, they’re fractionating something that’s meant to be a whole. And, and so like we talked about healing earlier then, then you give somebody an unhealed plant. It’s not whole. We need the whole plant. Yeah. Because it’s healthy to make us healthy. Cutting and dissecting and pulling out molecules and cells out of a plant. No, no. Mm-Hmm.

[1:01:55] Tika: Yeah. I think I also see a lot of young people coming around.

[1:02:00] Arelis: Mm-Hmm.

[1:02:01] Tika: Like that’s a huge example.

[1:02:02] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[1:02:02] TIka: Of how, then our farm would be empty.

[1:02:06] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[1:02:07] Tika: If there was no, there were no, nobody interested in this.

[1:02:15] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[1:02: 16] Tika: We had an apprenticeship, like a, a very, very simple, basic level apprenticeship this year, and we had to turn a lot of people away. Yeah. So it does show that there is interest in this and that people are committed to kind of challenging what they’ve been taught and unlearning some of the things that we, we’ve been taught were right.

[1:02:45] Keven: Mm-Hmm.

[1:02:46] Tika: And so I think we’re in a period of unlearning. I do think, um, like Arelis was saying, exposure through social media and the internet, news in general, a lot of us are like, wait, what is going on here? There’s, we’ve been led to believe something that doesn’t actually serve us or our communities at all. So I do think we’re in a period where people are leaning on each other more. And through that, this whole resurgence of like, wait, let’s like connect with land together, let’s like, figure out ways to feed each other, cook together. There’s so much of that there. I know what, at least my friend group, we spend more time cooking meals together than going out to dinner. And I don’t think that would have been the case, in my early twenties at all. We would go out, but now it seems really like, let’s share a meal like that,  that wasn’t something that we thought about like right away. So I think, yeah, even if we live in this bubble, sometimes it, I think it seems like we live in a bubble. I do think overall, the consciousness of everyone outside of the bubble that we think we live in is shifting a little bit.

[1:04:23] Keven, Arelis: Mm-Hmm.

[1:04:27] Nicole: Well, thank you so much for sharing your stories today and sharing your ideas and your experiences, your information. I really appreciate getting to know each of you a little bit more. Last question is just a fun one, and I just wanna know, is there any particular plant that you have a close connection with right now that you’re really interested in working with or learning about? Any one special plant friend that is, you know, just like very present in your life right now?

[1:05:01] Keven: Well, my favorite plant and my wife will this. Oh my goodness. It’s comfrey only because it’s a bit of a rebel and it’s a little bit of an outlaw. So that kind of like attracts me. Not only that, I’ve experienced healing from it. So I, I’ll leave it alone. Comfrey is good for bones, joints, and ligaments. I love it.

And it grows easily. It grows, I think most places. Yeah. Most places. I, I didn’t see it in

[1:05:35] Arelis: Florida it doesn’t grow too well.

[1:05:36] Keven: Well, I didn’t see, I didn’t see it. Okay. Yeah. But it, it grows in a lot of places. Yeah. Oh yeah. And I love that plant. Yeah. And I usually have a cup of, um, comfrey tea in the morning, in the summertime. I like the smell, the taste, everything. That’s, that’s my favorite.

[1:05:54] Arelis: Wow. Well, that’s a tough question for me because I have many favorites, I would say all of them are!

[1:05:59] Mm-Hmm.

[1:06:00] Arelis: But I will say last year, like for the past, I would say two years, one of the plant that I personally I was using it was red clover. And I really love red clover. I, I usually, my sister is the main farmer in the, in the garden. And I would tell her, make sure that plant here has to have at least three or four benefits. Don’t be, bringing a plant here only with one benefit. So in red clover one of those that has so many benefits for the garden, for the pollinator, for the for the body, for as a food. But if I had to pick one and I’m forced to pick one then would say, maybe red clover. As a woman, it helped me to, for my hormonal and keeping my breast clear from some cyst. And I, and I can feel it like, like the, the whole women energy really being helped by, by me taking red clover tea. But like so many other yarrow, Yarrow, chicory with, you know, like comfrey, red raspberry leaf. So there’s so many, so many, so many that, and they all are my favorite, but, but I, if I had to pick one its red clover,

[1:07:23] Nicole: Don’t worry. I’m not gonna hold you to it. That’s why I said right now [laughs], because I also know that it changes. How about you Tika?

[1:07:32] Tika: I really like shiso. Arelis made a tea with it. And every tea that you, we tried two,  two mixtures and both of them were my favorite. I really love shiso. I, I think next year I’m gonna try to, I said that last year, but next year I’m gonna really try to focus in on it because I like cooking with it too.

[1:08:00] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.

[1:08:01] Tika: And me more than like, making tea. I really like cooking with different, the herbs in the  farm and experimenting in that way. So I’m gonna try to learn it more than just enjoying it in my food.

[1:08:17] Nicole: Great. Well thank you once again. Thank you so much for sharing, for taking the time today. I was really, really happy to meet with all of you and to learn more about, about you and your stories.So thank you once again.

[1:08:32] Keven, Arelis, Tika: Thank you.

[1:08:34] Tika: Bye.

[1:08: 34] Keven: Peace.