Ancestral Herbal Narratives

[0:10] Nicole: Welcome. My name is Nicole Wines. I’m here with Raíces Cultural Center. We are conducting an interview as part of our Ancestral Herbal Narratives oral history project with Robin Rose Bennett, who was suggested to us by another project participant Gert Coleman. So welcome. We’re so glad to have you today, and that you’re here to share your stories with us. Could you start by introducing yourself fully? Tell us your name, where you were born, and where you are now.

[0:43] Robin Rose Bennett: Sure. So I am Robin Rose Bennett. I’m currently in northern New Jersey, and if we go in one direction from my home, I’m about one hour from the George Washington Bridge into New York City, where I got my start as an herbalist. And if we go three steps out my back door, we’re at 3000 acres of protected state forest. So a beautiful, kind of, it, it’s like, I feel like I, I am at the threshold or the gate, right? I, I have the wild at my back and the people at the front. And that is what I do, is connect people with the, with the wild. And I am the daughter of Judith and the granddaughter of Florence, and the great granddaughter of Esther. And beyond that, due to all of the, you know, ills of the world, I do not know the names of ancestors past my great-grandmother. And did I answer all your questions?

[01:57] Nicole: Yes.

[1:58] Robin: Okay.

[1:59] Nicole: Thank you so much. I wanna start with a, a big question, and then we will kind of narrow down into…

[2:05] Robin: Aren’t they all? Aren’t they all big questions? Yeah.

[2:08] Nicole: True. This one’s, I, I always consider this one extra big. What does healing mean to you?

[2:16] Robin: Yeah, that’s, that’s the biggie, isn’t it? So many levels and ways to answer that question, Nicole. So let’s see. On one level, we have the easing of symptoms, right? Or the ending of symptoms like, let us say a woman is hemorrhaging after a miscarriage. So then healing in the immediate sense is stopping that bleeding, right? Healing in the deeper sense is, and, and we want both, right? We want both. We want to bring about physical healing, but for me, healing is multidimensional, and it is the experience of living authentically as your unique self. So it is a state of inner peace and inner freedom. I ultimately, that is what healing is to me. And that is the, the essence of the healing that I seek to, you know, help people bring about for themselves with the, with the help is not a strong enough word. I’m trying to find the word with the relationship with the plants, with the, the amazing healing gifts that the plants bring to us. And I also, alright, well, maybe it’s not that moment. So let me, pause here.

[3:54] Nicole: Okay. Well, thank you for sharing. So I want to ask you about your connection to herbalism and herbal healing. How did you get connected to it? How did you get started in it? Who did you learn about these traditions from? And do you, go ahead.

[4:14] Robin: What I’d like to do is I wanna, answer you, but I wanna kind of spiral in another place for a moment. Okay. So, I have a, a book that just just came out really recently. And what I did, I like to use it as an oracle. It’s called A Green Witch’s Pocket Book of Wisdom – Big Little Life Tips. And I like to ask for a message and just open and see what it opens to. And I do that to guide myself as well through the day. But in addition, today, what I asked for was a message really central for our conversation. And I would like to share with you what I opened to. So I open to “Everything on Earth speaks and listens in its own way.” “Everything on Earth speaks and listens in its own way.” And then each page has an illustration, and it has a little bit of explanation. So the explanation under that is “You have to slow down to listen to a tree. You have to stop to hear the song in a stone.” And I’m gonna show you the picture, ’cause it’s one of my favorites in the, in the book, the bear hugging the tree. This was done by a local artist, Gail Staton, local to me. And so I think that the ultimate answer is that the plants called me, the Earth called me. And I bet you’ve heard that from a lot of people, that you’ve interviewed. So I was an herbalist for 10 years or so in Manhattan, the beautiful, I love Manhatta. And I, I got labeled The Green Witch of New York. And even though I’ve been out of New York City for years and years and years, that label has stuck, which is just kind of fun. But for 10 years or so, I was teaching and seeing clients before I ever had any idea that my great grandmother had been a renowned herbalist in Brooklyn. And I found this out in a quite roundabout way. And so, one of the things I did for our interview was I brought aspects of my, my family, right? My mother line with me. I love my father line as well. It’s from that line that I got the name Rose. But I brought some things. So I brought, this little owl that my mother had, you know, given to me. And I brought a picture, which I got, when my great uncle died, I got a picture of the herbalist. Of my great-grandmother, Esther. Can you see that okay? Yeah. And it’s funny because when I saw it, I thought, are those real flowers she’s wearing, on above her bosom? And then I realized, of course, they are. This was years and years ago, they didn’t have plastic flowers, so that’s Esther with her tiara and her and her flowers. So I brought her, and then I put her here in a rosemary plant. I’ll just hold up a little piece of rosemary. Rosemary for remembrance, right? Just as a way to honor them and bring them in and say that, who knows what’s calling us right? To the path of, of our self-expression. Right. So I thought that all of my ancestry spiritually was spiritual. I had no idea I had physical ancestry also, you know, in my blood, perhaps guiding me, you know, from that level of cellular level. Because I have strong memories of other lifetimes where I looked, differently than I look now. And I was part of different cultures, than and the cultures I, you know, grew up in. And so that always felt like enough, like a lot of my transmission has been spiritual. Guidance from who knows where. And, you know, the ancestors, the future generations. Like I know this is an ancestral project, but one of the things that I wanted to bring in is that for me, anytime I hear, or I’m working with ancestral energy, I always invite myself to remember that I will become an ancestor one day, right? And there will be those in the future, right? There’s a very few things we can be absolutely sure of, but that we can be sure of, right? So, you know, I think that especially in this time we’re in, that’s so evolutionary, so incredibly liminal in terms of one way of being on this Earth ending. And another one,you know, as that is being, is that is dying, right? This other way of connectedness is being born. Everything on Earth is listening, right? This is a really liminal moment. And, where I was going with that, I actually got caught up in this thought about the future in the past, and I forgot actually where I was going. Ah, yes, I got it back. Which is that, you know, I believe the guidance is coming from, all right, not only the ancestors who we honor, but also the future generations, right? May we leave them pathways of beauty. And, so yeah. So in terms of where I learned, right? Where I learned, so I was, a student of two wonderful spiritual teachers. Their names are June Graham and Jim Spencer. And they started with a kind of, well-known human potential movement course that I, I think, started, I think in the seventies called Silver Mind Control. But then they went on from there to create their own, their own work. And I was fortunate enough to be introduced to them by my mother who found them when she got ill. I write about some of these things in, in some of my other books, right? She had breast cancer, and she was looking for a way to bring healing, right? And so she began this kind of spiritual journey, and when she and my father were engaged with this and learning from these two wondrous human beings, I saw the transformations going on in them, and I was like, wherever they’ve been, I’m going there. I gotta, I gotta check out what is lighting them up like this. And so I worked with them for about 10 years, and I was very young, you know, I was in, I was late teens and through my twenties, and then eventually began to see that I needed a way to ground, these incredible spiritual teachings that, that did change my life,. How I walked in the world. I needed to ground it in daily reality. And I found an herbal teacher, and then I found another herbal teacher and another herbal, and then everything shifted on a whole other level because, you know, as I was getting older and like, my maturity level as a person didn’t match the spiritual insights that I had, right? And so this began to bring me together, right? Because it made it very grounded and earthy and day to day, like no less magical at all, if anything more magical because the magic was integrated. It wasn’t like, just, whereas before, it was like, okay, when we’re doing the spiritual work, then I’ll feel connected and I’ll feel high and uplifted. This is more, and this is the thing about herbalism where the healing hits all the dimensions and is so enriching and exciting and available, is that it becomes day to day joy. It becomes, you know, magic in every moment, as much as we can open to that. So I started with a teacher in the Wise Women Tradition. Then I began to go to conferences. And there were teachers of all, you know, of all kinds from all different places. The greatest thing was, and still is, learning to listen, to be taught by the plants themselves, and the animals. And the inter really, it’s the relationships more than any. It’s not one thing, it’s, it’s how we’re all woven, together. But I feel very, you know, I feel very fortunate. And then of course, there, I mean, when I started, there wasn’t the internet, right? So, you know, some, women who also studied, they were all more, I always felt not as authentic and herbalist as them because I was in Manhattan, and they all had beautiful places in Maine or Massachusetts or, you know, upstate New York. But of course, what I learned in New York was that if I could do that work there, I would do it anywhere. I could do it anywhere. And if I could feel that connectedness and aliveness of nature, I would find that anywhere. But anyway, these gals and I, we would meet, we would go from one home to the other, and we would basically make our own herb class, our own herb conference. We would, you know, smell and taste things and go, “Where do you feel that in your body?” Right? “Where do you feel that in your heart?” “Is that calming or is it, is it uplifting? Is it sedating? Is it?” So anyway, so I learned, I’ve learned from quite a lot of places, you know, and I, and I give great thanks to, you know, all, all those who have taught me and to the students, you know, who continue to teach me.

[14:42] Nicole: You, you spoke about, being in inspired to work with the spiritual teachers by your mom and, and her experience.

[14:53] Robin: Yes. Originally, Mm-Hmm. My first, my first two teachers, yes.

[14:57] Nicole: And that had to do with looking for healing, but it’s a little bit different than your mom having been engaged in healing practices.

[15:09] Robin: I’m not a hundred percent sure I understand the, oh, yes. I see what you’re saying. No, I had no herbal background to speak of in my, that I was aware of.

[15:19] Nicole: Okay.

[15:20] Robin: None. I mean, the closest I could think of would be, you know, my mother, wanting to teach me about making chicken soup.

[15:27] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.

[15:28] Robin: I, and I was young, and I didn’t really care. I wish that I had paid more attention. I’m sure there were little, gems that she had for me that I did not, you know, just didn’t pay attention to, didn’t get. And I’m sorry, sorry, mom. I, you know, I have to say, or I choose to say that I had the most exquisite dream about my mother last night, and it felt like connected with the fact that you and I are meeting when we’re recording this. It’s, it’s spring equinox. It’s the first full day of spring here. And, though I woke to snow on the ground. But I also think it was connected to that we were gonna have this conversation as part of your ancestral healing project. So I had this dream that I peaked out my kitchen window, curtain, and my entire front gardens were just filled with yellow flowers. Like filled with the most extraordinarily sunny, beautiful in circles of daffodils and dandelions. And, and, and then my mother stood there and began to sing, and she sang the most beautiful song. And at first I was a little embarrassed, right? Because, you know, she’s singing a song out in the front yard and guys are working nearby, and you, and then I thought, no, I’m proud of her. That’s so beautiful. So I felt like that dream was very, besides that, it’s just beautiful, very meaningful, because that really was the kind of things my mother taught me more than the making of the chicken soup or the, was about singing and, and being, enjoying life. That was the foundation I got. It wasn’t herbal healing, though, she and my grandmother and my great-grandmother were, I am now sure were witches, but they didn’t own that. They didn’t know that. One time I had a psychic reading, and the psychic didn’t know anything about me. And she said, “I’m really embarrassed and uncomfortable to tell you what I’m about, to what’s coming for me.” And I was like, “No, go ahead. Go ahead.” And she said, “Well, your mother and your grandmother are here, and they’re wearing like witch hats. And they’re saying, you know, ‘You come from a line of witches.'” And I was like, “Oh, yeah, don’t worry about it. That’s fine.” I, I’m glad to know that I didn’t know it was a physical lineage. I thought it was simply that which I had been directed to, or drawn to. And, you know, the green witch part is the part that really feels authentic for me. Great-grandmother Esther, how I first heard that she had that kind of, part of her, that magic maker was that in Yiddish, my great-uncle who told me about her, said she was known as a tisha maha, and I have no Yiddish. So I said, what does that mean? And he said, it means a mischief maker, a mischief maker. And I said to myself, “That sounds like a euphemism for a witch, right?” A wise woman, somebody again, like my mother, who knew how to have fun, right? So that married together with the healing and the deep healing, brings a particular flavor, you know, to the way I do my work. And I think we can make healing as challenging as it can be. We can also find great pleasure in it, and we can make our, we can make our medicines delicious, like the chicken soup, right? This is a delicious, you know, cup I’m drinking of, of Hawthorn berry infusion with some St. John’s wort tincture. And it’s absolutely so good. So yeah. So I like to bring music into my healing, which my first herbal teacher, well, first in-person, herbal teacher, Susan Weed, she brought in the singing. That is definitely something that has spoken to me. And again, we have it right in the dream last night with the flowers, and the dandelions will be out any minute, and the sunny yellow cults of flowers are just coming out. So, yeah, so the tradition of bringing in singing the traditions, of bringing in practices of gratitude, asking the plants, to be, you know, may I gather you? Talking to them, this is who this is for, what I’m going to use you for, you know? So these come from different places, and I know people get, there’s a lot of discussion, of course, about, you know, appropriation. And yet, and, and absolutely I am not, I am not in favor of that whatsoever. I believe in, you know, acknowledging where traditions come from. But I, and I also know that some of these things are so universal, and so that even though I wasn’t brought up with them, and maybe in, like, if we go back to my tradition that I didn’t have a connection to the Ashkenazi herbalism traditions, which were there in Eastern Europe and stuff, I just wasn’t brought up with them. You know, my grandmother died when she, when I was like seven. I didn’t, I don’t know. I’m sure they would’ve given me things. The only thing I remember is like a, a, a charm of, of my mother told me that they used to tie, a little garlic clove, to their undershirt as like a protection. But again, that didn’t pass to my generation because my mother’s generation wanted to be modern. They wanted to be scientific. They wanted to buy and cook frozen TV dinners, you know, and, and be knocked out for their births. And so, you know what I mean? It was like this big cut.

[21:51] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.

[21:51] Robin: Right before that, there were programs, and that was another big cut. And then in my ancestral memories, right, there’s witch burnings, right? So there’s all these, places where the doors got slammed shut. And yet everything on Earth is talking and listening and calling us to healing. I, I call the time that we’re in now, the, the evolutionary chaos of now, and that framework helps me with, you know, with the despair that can arise with all of the destruction and the cruelty and the denial of, you know, of what we’re doing to the planet. But when I put it in the larger frame of the, of our inevitable evolution, which I do believe it is inevitable, it, it’s a more healing story. And I guess that is my other strongest tradition is, is as a storyteller,

[22:55] Nicole: I’m learning, we have a lot of things in common.

[22:57] Robin: Oh, okay. Lovely.

[23:00] Nicole: Even ancestral things, on my mother’s side, we’re Ashkenazi Jewish. My father’s side is where we got Rose from.

[23:08] Robin: Oh, wow. Wow.

[23:09] Nicole: My grand, my father’s mother’s name was Rose. And that, has gone down to my niece.

[23:15] Robin: Ah, beautiful. Rose was a woman who was, my Rose was a woman who was, silenced and squelched and eventually electroshocked institutionalized to, there was no place for her kind of intelligence and free spirit in the time she lived in. So she was also someone I didn’t grow up knowing about. My dad, it was like a painful thing. He never spoke of her. So I actually took her name as I learned about her as a way to honor her memory. And, I did my own ancestral journeys. I found a, I found a cousin who was, at the time, a hundred, Sylvia. And apparently my grandmother Rose had lived with her and her mother for some years. So I got like firsthand accounts about this forgotten, grandmother. So, so that’s one piece. And then when I asked my mother about my grandmother, I mean her grandmother, my great-grandmother, I was like, “Mom, why didn’t you ever tell me that your grandmother was a witch and an herbalist?” And she said, “I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I only, the only memory I have of her,” she told me “is of her baking bread.”

[24:40] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.

[24:41] Robin: I was like, that’s a beautiful memory. Right? So I have the chicken soup with my mother. She had bread with hers.

[24:46] Nicole: Wow. Can you talk a little bit more about that discovery, about, about Esther? How did, how did that happen? Like, how did you, how did that information come to you and what have you discovered or pieced together since about that?

[25:02] Robin: Okay. I’m happy to, happy to share that. So yeah, so I don’t know all the ins and outs of why there’s various divisions in my family and why, who’s mad at who and all this things people do. But apparently one day there was a reconnection, with my, my mother and her great-uncle, who was my grandmother, Florence’s brother. Okay. And so that reconnection led to me meeting him, like for the first time, you know, and, and I was a young herbalist, and he was dying, and he was alone. I forget if he was in Brooklyn or Queens. I, I’m not sure. I don’t remember that clearly. He was in one of the boroughs, and I think I was living in Manhattan then. And I asked him if I could come and help him. And he was not easy to trust, especially at that point, but he said yes. And I think it was after I showed up more than once. And what I would do is I would make, he was dying of emphysema. He had shrapnel still in his lungs from, from having been shot in World War II, and I was coming in and doing mullein steam. I’m doing this, I, I had him.

[26:27] Nicole: Yep, yep.

[26:28] Robin: Had him sitting over a, a, a steam pot with mullein and with the towel over his head, him breathing it in. And he said it was helping him, which made me so happy. And I think it was the second time we were doing this. And he, like, he lifts the towel, and he looks at me, he says, “You know, my mother did this right?” And back goes, and I was like, “No, I, I didn’t, hadn’t have any idea.” And I said, “So, you mean like she would help the family?” She would, he lifts up again. He’s like, “No, no, no. People would line up like down the block to see her.” And I’m like, what? You know, now I wanna take the towel off his head, get up over that thing and tell me everything. So he didn’t tell me a lot, but he said, he kept trying to remember, like, she had this one herb she was especially known for, and she would use it to heal people’s eyes. He told me. So I’ve spent all this time since like, trying to Esther, tell me in my dreams, what was it? And you know, she says that she told me years ago, and I just still am not believing it. She just literally said it in my ear again. So I’m gonna tell you is lady’s mantle. And I love lady’s mantle, which is commonly used for, everything from, you know, supporting the womb to get pregnant, healing from miscarriage, hemorrhoids, like not for eyes, but that’s what, that’s what I keep hearing. And that it was the dew, in the collects in the leaves that is put on the eyes, and that I can believe, because that feels amazing. So anyways, so she, so he’s telling me about this. That’s when I went home and asked my mother, why didn’t she tell me? And he had said she was a tisha maha. So I gather she enjoyed, you know, life and try to, I try to see if I can see myself in her. I don’t know if I can, by the way, the back of this picture is a mirror, which I thought was kind of magical. And when he passed, my mother and father went to clear out his space, and they said, “Is there anything that you want?” I said, “That picture, that’s what I want.” And then if we, which obviously they gave me, and if we then, you know, so of course I leave her, she’s, this picture is usually sitting up in my, herb closet, you know, where I keep my dried herbs and some bottles above. So she’s sitting there. So every time I go in for an herb, there she is. And of course, I ask her to, you know, to guide me in whatever ways, she can, or that I’m available to. I think that I don’t, I think I am, no, I know, I, I don’t need to equivocate this. I know that I am guided far more than I am intellectually conscious of, because if I was aware of all of the messages coming through, I wouldn’t be able to function, you know, in the day-to-day world without tripping over, you know, furniture. So I’m super grateful, for guidance and just gotta trust that I, I sometimes know where something is coming from, where an idea, where knowing which plant to use or how to, you know, prepare it. And sometimes it won’t. Or sometimes I’ll have a, I’ll have a insight that is fantastic, you know, in terms of liberating myself or helping someone else. And I don’t know where it comes from, and sometimes I do, to wit, if we fast forward a few years, there was a time when I was so sick, that I thought I might be leaving the, this body, this planet. And, I believe it was because I was living six miles from, the oldest nuclear power plant in the country, which is Indian Point. And I believe it’s leaking.

[30:37] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.

[30:38] Robin: I think it’s been shut down finally, fairly recently. But, so at that time, I had moved out of Manhattan and living in paradise, a mile and a half up a dirt road up a mountain, you know, from Manhattan. I had to walk over half a mile to my mailbox through the woods. I was, I was so blissed out that I didn’t even, you know, anyway, so there I am, and then I proceed to start getting sick, and my cat gets sick. My cat is showing classic radiation poisoning signs. One cat dies, the next cat starts, and then I realize I’m dying. I am turning gray, my hair, my weight, everything’s, you know, long story short, I’m really sick. And Esther came, and this is the only time that it has been absolutely like you and I talking. She came, she told me what to eat. She told me how to prepare it. She yelled at me when I was cooking it and corrected what I was doing. No, you don’t cut the onion that way. You quarter it and you don’t go all the way through. I mean, I, it was so incredible. And here I am, you know, I healed. So that was, thank you again. So, I mean, that was just so, so, so beautiful and wild because there I am in my little kitchen, like weak as can be, and she’s over my shoulder giving me instructions. Kind of like, maybe a lot of us would long for that. Maybe some people would be totally freaked out by that, but then probably someone like, you would like love that, right? Like, I’d love more of that, but that was the only time that it was just like that clear, I guess, because it was so important. I was on the edge, right? I was really on the edge. And it, it was amazing. Which I tell the story by the way, in my book, The Gift… or pieces of the story in my, in another book, The Gift of Healing Herbs. And I give grandma’s barley recipe, great-grandmother Esther’s barley recipe. And the other thing I wanna share with you is that I mentioned that, So my first beloved cat died, right? Having gotten skinnier and skinnier. And, and then my other cat, like one day she lied down on the spot where the first cat had died. She lied down, and she didn’t move like all day long. And I was like, okay, if I stay here in this place, she’s going and I’m next. So we moved, we moved, which I don’t know that I would’ve been able to heal fully if I had stayed where I was. And when we moved, this cat was so weak. And long story short, but I just wanna talk about the intelligence and the power of the plants. She began. So she was, she cried. Like I had this ladder up to my loft bed, place was super magical. It had a little, little l like everything in it was triangles. And, and my, bedroom loft had a little tiny door, like an elf door that led out to a tiny deck that had an oak tree growing up outta the middle of it. It was fabulous. So, but anyway, she couldn’t climb up, this cat who had been super vibrant. Like she would race through the woods with me. She couldn’t even climb a step of the ladder. And she would hang on the ladder with the two paws and cry. And then I noticed she was licking the cauldron that was hanging over the fireplace. And I thought to myself, what would she be looking for? What is she trying to get from that? Because I really trust the intelligence of animals. And I realized it was probably minerals. So I gave her a bowl of seaweed water next to her water, right? Because never if you’re treating an animal, never just take away their water and give them just herbs. They need both. And seaweed had the dual thing of giving her both all the minerals, and it helps radiation get pulled out of the body. So she drank this water and drank this water, and drank this water. And I will never forget the day that this beautiful cat came flying up the stairs to my loft, ran across a beam, across the ceiling, and down the other side. And she’s like, I’m back. So the power of plants, because anybody looking at her would’ve said, she’s not long for this world.

[35:31] Nicole: Thank you for sharing all of that. It’s also interesting, it’s, there’s a lot of similar threads to a lot of the other interviews we’ve done in this series. There’s also a lot of things that are very, very different. Like, you didn’t grow up in a community of herbal practitioners.

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[35:47] Robin:Not at all.

[35:48] Nicole: Some of our interviewees did, some didn’t. Some, of our interviews have uncovered stories. Also, didn’t know that their grandparents, great-grandparents, ancestors were healers and found out some their parents knew and just never thought to tell them. Some their parents didn’t know. And it was uncovered later.

[36:08] Robin: Their shame, right? Again, as people are seeking to assimilate and become modern squelching, the racist squelching of, of traditions that are so important and beautiful.

[36:21] Nicole: Something I’ve learned by talking to people through this series is also there are people who just don’t see it as important until they realize other people are talking about it. And then all of a sudden they are ready to share. Because to say, “Oh, why would you want my story? Why would you want me to tell you about my grandfather, my father?” And then all of a sudden they watch one or two of the other interviews and think, okay, so if other people are talking about this, maybe it is something that’s important to put out into the world…

[36:53] Robin: Yeah, because…

[36:54] Nicole: And to think about…

[36:55] Robin: If you don’t see anything like, you know yourself, it is, there is that internalizing of that. It’s doesn’t, it’s not worthy, doesn’t matter. And you made me think of, one of the indigenous, elder, she was an elder at the time. I met her, medicine woman, scholar, herbalist that I had the great pleasure and honor to spend a little bit of time with and learn from. It was a woman named Keewaydinoquay Anishinaabe, herbalist. And she told me at one point that she said, you know, when people like you started coming to us for knowledge, for wisdom, for tradition ceremonies, you know, whatever, people came for, she says, it made our own young people turn around who had been just walking away, walking away, walking away, walking away, and come back curious like, well, wait a minute. If from the larger culture they’re coming to learn, maybe there is something of value here that we shouldn’t just walk away from. So I’ll never forget that that was a very, you know, a very poignant, thing to have shared, you know, to receive that story from her. And I, you know, I never went, got to go where she lived, but I’m the sort of student who, if you give me one piece, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go with that piece, you know, as deep as I possibly can. So even in my limited, times that I got to be with her and receive from her, and once I was with her on my 31st birthday, and she did a beautiful smudge ceremony for me, that changed my life, right? And, and really many people who I have only gotten a tiny seed from it, it, I, if it’s the right seed for me, I’m gonna take it and grow it. Yeah. With full respect, you know, full honoring of, you know, of, of the roots of where it comes from. But again, I, I remember coming from other places, so, you know, I, it’s, it’s a tricky thing when all the nuance goes out of the conversation, you know, this is mine, this is yours. You can’t, this, you can’t, that it’s like, there’s a big difference between stealing things that aren’t yours and embracing, things that you’ve been given and asked to share. So, you know, Shakespeare said it “To thy I known self be true.” Ultimately, you have to, I know I have to be true to what I know to be authentic for me, and I know my own heart. I know where I’m coming from, and you can’t please all the people all the time.

[40:01] Nicole: That’s true. Can you talk a little bit about your, practice of, of herbalism?

[40:09] Robin: Yeah, sure.

[40:10] Nicole: I know now I know a little bit about how you got into it and who your teachers were and how you learned, which wasn’t just from people, but from directly from the plants, from observing and from your connections with people and sharing what it was that you were learning together as well. But can you talk about your practice now? What are the traditions that you practice? What is it that you practice can for yourself? What do you practice in community? How do you share your knowledge?

[40:36] Robin: Yeah, yeah. Pleasure to share that with you and anyone who’s listening. For me, I, I begin every day, with connecting with what I consider reality. The reality that underpins all of the drama of the day. So for me, that looks like greeting the elements, right? Working in the, in the circle of the air, fire, water, Earth below, above, and the center of love. I call it the med-, for me, it’s the medicine wheel of magic. I use magic and spirit synonymously, actually. The magic is spirit. It’s that connecting thread. So for me, that’s very important. And, you know, in my own personal practice, like, so if I have students here, I will also then do that with them. We do all of the work within a sacred, container, right? And it’s about remembering, that we are made of these elements, and that they are also resources for us in the sense of, let’s say maybe, the Earth element is probably the easiest one to explain. Like maybe someone is, is too up in their head. And so as they deepen their relationship with the intelligence of the Earth element, they can help ground them, bring them down. Or maybe somebody is too, you know, sunk down and in, and they need the fire, right? To bring a little more passion and, energy to them. So for me, that is the heart of finding inner peace, right? Is to connect with what’s real under all the stories, all the, all the horrors and the beauties of the, of the world. And, you know, connecting with what’s eternal and understanding that what’s eternal is also always, you know, in motion, right? It’s not like standing still. So, and then I write, I meditate and I write. So it’s sort of a, a form of prayer, but it’s really more, the elemental greeting is more of a blessing and a setting a tone for the day. It’s, and then it’s, the meditation is just to stop the world totally, and just find whatever piece I can, and then writing, because that’s like breathing for me, or like drinking water. I must, so I write whether it’s my dreams or, or who knows what, maybe it’s notes for something like this or, you know, or an upcoming ritual or some such. So that’s my personal, right? And then if I’m not doing, like, I celebrate the Earth holidays, which are probably familiar to most people as a Celtic tradition, right? This, although, wait, not really, because spring equinox is spring equinox, like wherever you are, even though the other half of the world from where I am, it’s autumn equinox, right? But as above, so below, here we are. So I, I honor the cycles of nature and that I’m gonna do, if I’m with people, if you’re coming over for tea and it’s spring equinox, we’re gonna have a little candle lighting. If I’m alone, I’m gonna do that. So right. At different moments in my life, I’m alone, or I’m with people, or I’m in a teaching situation. These things are vital. These things are vital to help all of us. So, and I also work with, so, but in terms of teaching, so I do, I have classes, they might focus on how to use herbs to help a body system, the respiratory system, the digestive system, the skin. So I have, I’ve been teaching for 30 something years. I can hardly believe that. And then I have a, a three year program that I’ve been doing for years of apprenticeship where people come here to my home. Since Covid, we’ve been meeting entirely outside, which has just been a glorious change. And again, so all of the teaching work that I do will include ceremony. It will include inner work, meditation, you know, how do you, how do you listen to that Rosemary plant? How does it talk to you? How does it teach you? Singing. Because we need to open everything up. We need to, you know, not be so left brain stuck and thinking that’s the way, right? So the learning is, you know, is is that way, it, it opens all the doors, right? So classes, plant walks, teaching people to identify, plants and learn about relationships between, you know, there’s like plant family relationships. But then there’s also notice how burdock and dandelion so often grow together. Or as Robin Wall Kimmerer famously wrote about, you know, look at the golden rod and the, and the, I think it was the loosestrife. Look at that purple and gold together, there’s gotta be a reason, right? So I look to nature to mirror the spiritual truths, otherwise I’m not interested in those truths, because they’re not necessarily truth. They’re a pretty idea. So I, I want grounded spirit. So, and that’s what I teach, right? And then to different levels, right? Depending upon if somebody’s with me once or they’re with me for three years, it’s different. And I see clients, not a lot, but regularly. And what I decided to do some years ago, maybe it’s 15 now, was to offer a sliding scale herbal clinic so that students who went through my apprenticeship program could see how I work with clients, and then they could, because I couldn’t explain it.

[46:55] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.

[46:55] Robin: Because it’s helping the person in pain to find the story where everything they’re experiencing makes some weird kind of sense. And then start to write a more expansive story, a more healing story, a story that allows for healing to happen. Because in the tradition I work in, we start with the understanding that the body is always oriented to heal. The mind, the emotions, everything is always oriented to heal. And another way to say, going back to your way back question about what is healing is it’s about embracing your unique wholeness, right? You’re already whole. Healing is knowing that you’re already whole, and that there is no one who is you. Right? Your expression, Nicole, and my expression is unique. How we put our love out into the world is only we can do, right? So, yeah. So in the teaching, it could be, again, practical classes like herbal alternative to antibiotics. I want people to be empowered and encouraged to know that it doesn’t have to be, you know, super complicated to bring about profound healing. In fact, one of the things that I’ve seen, and so practice, is that the more complicated the situation someone comes to me with, the simpler I go in my recipes and remedies and approaches. Like, ’cause, because I’m very interested in what works. Like I am mystical for sure, but I am super practical. I am interested in what really works and what’s really true.

[48:44] Nicole: Hmm.

[48:44] Robin: So like, if I’m practicing in a certain way and I see that it’s not holding up, I’m going to shift. I may get defensive at first. Like, darn it, I’ve been saying that and I’ve felt that, and I, and I think I’m not right. You know, I’m gonna get defensive, I’m human, right? But I’m gonna shift because I think there’s nothing more magical than reality. Like, so if it shows me something, I’m going to go with that. Even if I go kicking and screaming, I’m gonna go with that. And, you know, I think that’s the invitation really for all of us in the time we’re in particularly, is we’re gonna go, like, we’re gonna, things are shifting. Are we gonna go like full hearted? Are we gonna go kicking and screaming and being dragged? I prefer to go like, let me dance with this. Let me dance with this, and…

[49:35] Nicole: Interesting, one of my favorite lines from a poem was, is about how we, how we will choose to dance through the apocalypse.

[49:42] Robin: Ah, okay.

[49:44] Nicole: Choosing how we want to do it.

[49:46] Robin: Yeah. Yeah. So moving the body is also such an important part of healing too. I mean, just being literal about the dancing.

[49:54] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.

[49:54] Robin: So, right. Because the mind cannot like, deal with all that is going on. Really. It can’t. So for me, right now, in my work with, with people and communities.

[50:08] Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[50:09] Robin: The nervous system is the system that I am most addressing helping people with because it is, it, it is interwoven with every other system in the body. And if we can get the nervous system, and I say this from my own healing perspective, like my personal healing, to get the nervous system into a state where we’re more resilient and fluid and flexible is a very vital thing. It’s a very vital thing. It can change everything, you know, in how you wake up to greet the day with dread or excitement.

[50:53] Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[50:53] Robin: It really does. And some things you just can’t do in your head. You have to move it into the body or into rituals. So that, like, talking about working with the elements, that’s a ritual that I do. But ritual in general is a very big piece of what I do. So plants that enhance ritual, plants that I use in sermon. Here’s one. Like, this is an artemisia that I brought back from Portugal. I had the great good fortune to be teaching in Portugal in October. And this is their artemisia. It’s not the same, species that I use here. This is artemisia princep, or principe I forget exactly which one. You can look that up. It’s very beautiful. And I work with artemisia a lot, because she grows around here as a wild plant.

And I say, I like to say artemisia is the plant that helps us. It’s the intoxicants that helps us remember. It’s not a good plant if you wanna zone out and forget for that, you know, drink some wine, right? If you wanna remember dreams that matter to you, you know, smoke some artemesia, drink some artemesia. There is a caution about using it in pregnancy. I’ll just put that in.

[52:18] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.

[52:18] Robin: But as I was telling you that there’s something important I didn’t say. In the tradition that I work within, which how I was born into it was the Wise Woman Tradition these days. So as a baby herbalist, these days, I actually think of it more as the Wise Wild Woman Tradition. And that’s more encompassing of the, the nature of it for me. But what I didn’t say that I want to, because it’s so important, is that the fancy word for what we also practice is bio regionalism, meaning wise women of any gender, work with the plants that grow right around us mostly. I’m not saying I never use a plant that comes from California or Morocco or what have you, right? But mostly I work with the wild plants, the weeds, because they’re the heartiest medicine plants that we have. And if I live with them, they resonate, right? We are sharing the same land and water and air. And so there’s a relationship already there. And that healing relationship, when I can help someone get into the relationship with the plant that’s helping them, and to even begin to understand that that plant is, is their healer, and that will work with them, not do to them or at them.

[54:02] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.

[54:03] Robin: Then that’s a, that is a great thing for accelerating healing, deepening healing, and for resolving the epidemic we suffer from these days of loneliness, of alienation, of isolation. It’s the killer. It is what leads to all of our worst illnesses. I’m convinced. Well that and environmental, pollution and poisoning. Right, but this sense of of being separate is devastating to humans. We’re not meant to be living, without understanding that trees are communicating and so forth.

[54:49] Nicole: I believe the same. And I think that segues into, into my next question, which is the idea of connection of culture to herbs. And what may have changed in your mind, in your experience, in your memories, both, physical and spiritual, about, how these practices are, are, are, are shared in community or practiced, right? How these traditions are practiced.

[55:15] Robin: Yeah. I mean, when people are shamed out of their traditions, it has a devastating effect when they’re ridiculed, you know, like, what are you talking about? I’m not going to do that. You know, I have cancer. What do you know what’s right? I have, you know, or it could be something less, but still, I’m, I, I,..

[55:32] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.

[55:32] Robin: I need an antibiotic. What do you mean? I can use thus and so instead? So when, when that happens, right, and it, it is faded out of the culture, that’s a huge problem and it’s a huge loss. Then we see, so here’s a little story. When I was a new herbalist, so we’re talking 1985, October was when I did my very first apprenticeship. I’d done some reading before that, right? But that was when I did my first apprenticeship and learned that herbs were plants like before that they were the things in jars in the store. You know what I mean? I didn’t really fully get that. I did not fully get that they were living beings, that I could learn from not just about, right? That’s so like, changes everything. But I remember calling up my teacher and saying, you know how in advertising, nothing is placed in an ad that is not intentional, right? If we lived how they do advertising, we’d all be manifesting our dreams a lot more easily, right? Everything is intentional. So I said, I just saw an ad on television, I still had a television. I just saw an ad on television where this woman had allergies and she goes to her medicine cabinet to get her whichever pharmaceutical they were advertising, but the bottom shelf of the medicine chest had tincture bottles, herbal tincture bottles. I said, so that means we are infiltrating the culture, right? Because that is just an acknowledgement. And this was back then, so now, right, of course it’s exploded into multi-billion dollar business. So the difference is, and one of the hugest problems is right, that now this sacred relationship is being, has been, they’re doing everything they can to turn it into just a commodity. And so I hope that not only me, but many of the people you’re interviewing, I hope, and I know many herbalists who are doing this, that it is bringing it back into this relationship between people and plants, between the living Earth. Because then if a plant helps you out of pain, say for example, then you wanna protect that plant in a much more like personal, like, it matters to you in another way than if you’ve never experienced something like that, and it’s a foreign concept to you, right? Like, I, I’m a Sag[ittarius], I’m fiery, and so I have to work to remain like just remind myself to be patient, that that shifting takes time because I’m so aware that of the urgency of the shifts that we need. But, so in terms of culture, it’s so important that herbalists keep this truth of herbal medicine in the mix. Like, we’re not gonna stop herbal business, you know, this, this is not gonna happen. But we can do our part to keep that, keep the truth, the true essence of it alive, because that’s where the real healing is. And I remember once also seeing an ad in a magazine, and it was a herbal magazine or a a, some wonderful magazine. I, I can’t remember right this minute, which one it was, but it was, and then it was a beautiful full page color ad, from a big herbal company, reputable, even company, like, and some guys were up in ladders in the trees, and the, and the caption was, you know, we, we gather this for you so you don’t have to. And I’m like, ah, ah, you know, like, okay, great. I do love to buy some things like soap I don’t wanna make. So, you know, yes, I’m not against herbal companies. It’s just a, a size thing. Like, like I love to support herbalists who are companies or of a size where they’re, they’re, they’re supporting a community.

[59:51] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.

[59:52] Robin: You know, not necessarily like the international, you know, or full national because your quality changes. It can’t not change. So, so that’s what I see. I obviously, there’s more acceptance of herbs in contemporary culture, but then there’s also more stealing of herbal medicine. You know, there’s many places in Europe now where you can’t go buy an herb unless you have a prescription from a doctor. Like, this is not the direction that I wanna see things going.

[1:00:30] :Do you think that has, the, the idea of the kinda, you said international, and I’m almost picturing in my, in my mind, growing herbs on a piece of land where herbs are grown and you care for them and you love them, and, and you have a relationship with them as, as a grower, whether you’re an herbalist or not as a, as a human being. And then I think of it so much the same in the food industry. A small farm, a small family farm with, with workers who weed the fields by hand, even if it’s 60 acres.

[1:01:00] Robin:Mm-Hmm.

[1:01:01] Nicole: Versus a 600 acre, monocrop of soybeans to produce oil or feed for cattle, right? So the difference, but I think that there’s an energy that goes into that as well, because you said the quality of the, the plant and the herb material. What, what, what in your mind does that have to do with energy and spirit right? In, in the working of that land and how that might affect the healing process as well?

[1:01:29] Robin: Believe it or not, that’s a really easy thing to answer. Land, plants, animals, everything responds to respect, love, and care just like I do, or you do. So you think about, you know, a story where you hear about a teacher going into a school where the kids are underperforming because they’re under resourced and, and you know, underfunded and, and they don’t have the same materials and opportunities. Some kids over here across town have, and they get one teacher who comes in and looks at them and says, I believe in you. I see you. I care about you. Like the care is cannot be overstated. The importance of that. And then lo and behold, magically they blossom, right? This, you hear this, you can find this story over and over and over again, whether you’re talking about an elementary school or a music program or this or that. And it’s the same with land and plants. If I care about them, they grow differently. I’m not saying that everybody who cares about the plants is a great gardener, you know, we all have different gifts, but there is an energy, and it is respect. It is care. It is, attention, loving attention. Like, you know, what you just described to me, the beautiful phrase to describe that is reciprocal blessings. You know, it’s reciprocal blessings. You know, if I, if I, when people say to me, oh, I just grabbed some, I just grabbed some violets to make the tea. I’m like, please don’t, don’t grab the violets like anymore than I’m, you know, you wanna be grabbed, right? Unless with your permission, right? Right. Yeah. You wanna, may I? Right. It’s simple. May I, may I please. As plants are giving you their, their life, especially if you’re digging a root, they’re giving you their life, and they are sentient beings not processing thoughts in the same way you do or I do, but they are absolutely aware, as, as science is catching up, science is now it being able to record, you know, how the mother tree sends out the, you know, the messages to prepare for the insects that are eating the leaves. Right. But, you know, this is, I understand many people need scientific evidence. I’m, I’ve never been one of them. Keewaydinoquay, the women, Anishinaabe woman I mentioned earlier, women of the Northwest Wind, that translates to, she said, what’s true is true and what isn’t isn’t. And no amount of, you know, anything you do about is gonna change that. And, you know, I’m, I’m good with that, but I understand that others need more than that sometimes.

[1:04:27] Nicole: But I like that statement. It’s true. Whether you can measure the truth or not with an instrument.

[1:04:33] Robin: Totally.

[1:04:33] Nicole: It’s still true. True. Yeah.

[1:04:36] Robin: Right. You know, it’s like, and I often say, well, like, can you measure love? Right? Can you see love? Right. But does anybody say it doesn’t exist? I, I’ve never yet met anyone of, I may, I never meet anyone who says that doesn’t exist. Right? So, I mean, greatest, you know, it’s often, I often think that these days, right now, the greatest crimes are legal, unfortunately. And the greatest truths are just, they just are. They simply are. They don’t need proving. You know, like that what we do to the Earth matters. That how we treat the water matters. That that water is a living thing. I just read a really great piece of news, yesterday, about, a group of women, I don’t remember the name of their, of their tribe, but they just won an, a, like a landmark lawsuit that this river that runs through their land, that it was declared by the, by the courts to be a living entity with rights. I wanna see more and more of that. And I feel like that is also another piece of the puzzle of how I like to work, is let’s envision the, the solutions like really clearly. Because if we spend all our energy reacting to the problems, and I’m not saying we shouldn’t react to them, but all our energy, then we just don’t have anything left to create the world we know is possible. And that we all desire, you know, the world of caring, compassion, connection, recognizing everyone’s right to, you know, to live. Yeah. So herbalism is just so, what I love too is besides that, it attracts all kinds of eccentric individuals and, and groups and arts, like the arts are so much a part of the healing. Like herbalism seems to inspire people to write and to write poetry and to paint and to dance. And I think this too, like even if you see it in protests, if, if art is brought into the march, it’s more joyful if we have music and we have puppets and we have, you know, than if we’re just rah, rah, rah, rah. Because it gets exhausting.

[1:07:08] Nicole: I think that’s part of the energy and the enhancing of the, the spiritual aspect because art and, and the expression of it all has to do with that. I mean, that even goes all the way back to how we started the interview. And you telling me about your, your dream that you had last night and your and your mom singing in it. It’s another thread that’s run through some of our, some of the other interviews is, is the use of music, sound, song, mantras, chants as part of healing.

[1:07:36] Can I offer a little chant since we’re talking about it, because..

[1:07:38] Nicole: Of course.

[1:07:40] Robin: Yeah. Okay. Let’s see which one comes, hang on. Okay. We are one with the soul of the Earth, Mother Earth. We are one with the soul of the Earth, Mother Earth. I’ll do it one more time. Three for magic. We are are one with the soul of the Earth, Mother Earth.

[1:08:29] Nicole: Thank you for sharing that.

[1:08:31] Robin: You’re welcome. It makes me wanna do one more. Could I do one more?

[1:08:35] Nicole: Yes, you may.

[1:08:37] Robin: This one I, I wrote: Earth, air, fire, and water. We are your sons and daughters below, above and the center Mother Nature you’re our mentor. From below and from above. Infuse us through and through with love. Help us walk, enjoy the whole day through in sacred harmony with you. Blessed be.

[1:09:15] Nicole:
Thank you for sharing that too. That’s beautiful.

[1:09:18] Robin:Thank you.

[1:09:20] Nicole: I have just a few more questions for you before we wrap up. Do… I know the work that you are doing to preserve and to share since you now I, I knew a little bit from my research, but also the way that you described it and I I I, I understand, what it is that you are doing. Do you feel in general that we’re in danger of losing these traditions, with the changes that we’re having modern, you know, in modern culture, do you think there is enough work being done to preserve them, to pass them down?

[1:09:52] Robin: Probably not. Probably not. So thank you for what you are doing. I mean, you know, as, as whole cultures are going down and, and, you know, being, people who do these practices, people who are protecting, you know, water and land in the Amazon are being murdered, right? By people who want their, their resources, the fuels and so is these elders and, keepers of traditions and, are are being, you know, either are naturally dying out or are being literally killed. Of course we’re losing traditions. Like we’re losing land fast. We’re losing our most precious, thing. So every project like this is, is a gold. It’s golden. It’s, it’s so heartening, because we’re going to need this wisdom more than ever. You know, it’s just the sheer, sheerest grace and luck, whoever is not in a conflagration, right? Because all over the world there are so many displaced people. There are so many, you know, people without water. Just, just so many, many things going on. And knowing what plant you can eat or what plant to heal a wound is, it’s just gonna be ever more important. So this is, essential. It’s essential. So I also take great, encouragement from the young people who are, you know, who are being drawn into the practice of herbalism. And I see so many who are doing it in a really beautiful way, like a really beautiful way. So just like with farming, it’s really an undersung reality that a lot of young people, I mean, we need more, but that a lot of young people are being drawn into, you know, small scale farming, farming that serves a community. So I take great, yes, we are in danger of losing, and at the same time, there are those who are, rebirthing these traditions as well in ways that work now. You know, I don’t think we’re going backwards. We can’t, there’s no going backwards, but learning how to weave old ways into now is what will sustain us through whatever comes, right?

[1:12:36] Nicole: I’m really glad to have met you through this process so that we can, we can share some of this with one another and be in relationship with one another that I’m aware of more people in our community, because I consider you as a part of our community. You live in New Jersey, you’re in our, our bio region, and you are doing this work in, in our home as well, you know, and where, where we live, just like you’ve discovered us now and what we do in.

[1:13:02] Robin: Yeah.

[1:13:02] Nicole: You know, in your region. So hopefully we will continue this relationship.

[1:13:06] Robin: Absolutely.

[1:13:07] Nicole: Connect in other ways.

[1:13:08] Robin: Yeah, yeah. Let’s do for sure. And, you know, I even think about it, there’s been babies in the, in the last few years in the apprenticeship circles, there’s been babies. And I like to think about that, you know, both in womb and then out and you know, so they’re starting from like where I wish I had started from, right. You know, so yeah. So we can, we can have some faith in that in the, in the next generations.

[1:13:36] Nicole: I think so too, but there’s still a lot of work to be done for sure.

[1:13:40] Robin: God, God is, yes, there is indeed.

[1:13:43] Nicole: One last question. It’s a fun one, I think. And it’s, is there any particular plant that you are in super close relationship right now in terms of either learning or working with that just really, really stands out to you, calls to you, talks to you, speaks to you, sings to you that you wanna share?

[1:14:01] Robin: One?

[1:14:02] Nicole: Or more than one?

[1:14:04] Robin: Okay. I mean, because at the beginning of your question, one popped up, but then you kept going and they all, you know, there was one after another. So let’s see. So many, oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. And then they get mad if you don’t, talk about them. I’ll say the first plant that ever called to me in a dream, and so became my first herbal ally, which is a plant that will do anything for you, was the elder tree. And the elder tree is super magical, and grows in so many places. And though her berries are famous, best known, right? It is the flowers that are my favorite part to use. And, elder is a great plant to get to know. So I have a poem I wrote for elder. It’s in my, this book, The Gift of Healing Herbs. I’ll, I’ll just pull a few stances out of it. Few verses if I may.

[1:15:08] Nicole: Of course.

[1:15:09] Robin: Sure. “What a treasure you are. Your spirit is strong. You are grandma elder. You ease so much that is wrong. You came down from the stars and up from the Earth. That’s what she told me. Mysterious healer of inestimable worth. You have tooth leaves and pears with one on the end. Your flowers and berries make you a great healing friend. Your creamy white blossoms all bob on the breeze and are brewed and infused to stop a cough or a sneeze. When we breathe in the steam of fragrant hot tea, our sinuses and ears won’t feel all clogged and stuffy. Your rich purple berries loaded with iron help when any new flu brings its symptoms. So tiring, flu, fever, coughs and colds, rough skin and sore eyes. Gentle guide through chaos. Grandma, elder, you’re so wise.” So she’s like my first and forever ally. And just, and is, it’s like perfect because on the spiritual level, well on the heart level, I do a little cheat sheet. Mind, heart, buddy soul with each of the main plants in the book. So the on the heart level, what I wrote was, “Opens the heart to receive ancestral guidance,” right? And on the spiritual level, and this was definitely a direct transmission, is “This plant offers guidance through the chaos of transformation.” That’s this spiritual medicine, right? Just as the ancestors do. If we ask along with the future generations, I’ll remind people. So elder always sings to me. Elder always sings to me. And I, in my medicine wheel of magic, I have, an animal ally in each direction and element as well as a plant ally in each. So in the center of my wheel is a triple ally is elder, plantain, not the banana plant, but plantago, which is a very, very, very abundant and common plant all around the world that I always say, if I could only have one plant, it would be that plant. Fortunately, I can have more than one though. And that the reason for that is because that plant does so many things and does no harm, right? But in the center of my wheel is elder, the elder tree, the plantain and rose. So those, that triple ally is something that I often will take every day, like a little tincture of the three together because I feel like it, they, they not only have physical healing, that’s great for me, but also it brings me right into my center. They help me be in my center, walk from my center. And that’s just a precious, you know, precious gift that the plants help with. And the other thing I’ll, I’ll just add is that what plants, this is such a key. Each plant knows who they are. So when we take a plant into us, they help us know who we are. And that’s everything. Because once you know more and more who you are, if you choose to be true to that, which I hope you do, then what to do is as natural as the exhale that follows the inhale. You don’t have to agonize so much. I always thought I was gonna be one of those people who would not really know what I was here for or what I wanted to do till I was like, you know, 80. So I was pleasantly, very pleasantly surprised to find my path, right, as an herbalist and a writer and a teacher. But it came out of that commitment to become who I’m here to be, which is myself. And I always tell people, there’s the secret of life, in case you were wondering. It’s the secret of life has become who you came here to be, which is yourself. That’s who we need.

[1:19:37] Nicole: Well, thank you so much for sharing your stories, your time, your knowledge, your experiences, a slice of it with us.
[1:19:45] Robin: Thank you too.

[1:19:46] Nicole: Yeah.

[1:19:46] Robin: I look forward to hearing your stories.