Imagine yourself living in a tiny village in Europe in 1682. There are a little over 200 people living in your village of varying age groups. Your village is a three-day horse ride or week-long walk from the nearest city and you haven’t got a physician living there yet.
Most of your friends and family know how to wrap up a wound if you sliced yourself while butchering a hog or scything the wheat. Occasionally your little sister gets a stomach ache from something she ate and you have a little herb garden by your back porch where you know you can pick her some peppermint and make a tea to soothe her.
But what do you do when your grandmother is suffering from a lingering chesty cough for months on end? Or when your mother is having her next baby and needs help delivering? Who do you call when you suddenly are dealing with a bad stomach ache and diarrhea for days on end, your body feeling weaker by the hour?
You call the village Apothecary. The Midwife. The Herbalist. The Witch.
Women have been historically persecuted as witches for hundreds of years by a patriarchal society who viewed their skills and knowledge as dangerous to the establishment of masculine control over Western society. However, most “witches” were simply doing the same thing I do: living in harmony with nature and practicing healing techniques with herbs.
When there’s an emergency or a serious problem with your body, your cousin will ride the three days into the city to find the doctor, but in many cases by the time he returns it will be too late to help the sickly person. The village Herbalist can help treat or heal that person long enough to get through the wait. Sometimes, she can even heal the problem on her own.
That’s what I would like to be to you. Your village Herbalist. YOU are my village.
I’m actually pretty positive I have held this role (or a similar one) in several previous lifetimes. I’d just like to get even more practice in this one.
Have you ever heard the term “Third Space?” Third spaces are places outside the home besides work where people go to interact with their community and other people. Someplace you can spend your time without being required to spend money or have a transaction with another person. Examples of this are parks, Libraries, and festivals.
The loss of third spaces over the last 25 years or so has been well-documented. Think about it: where can you go “hang out” and meet new people today? There are fewer and fewer of these types of places in existence across the globe as more of us live and work from home, having lives almost completely over the internet.
Now, I understand that your relationship with me is over the internet. But you are part of my village. And I want to help you.
If you’ve already joined my Tincture Club, then you have access to the dozens of medicinal tinctures I make here on my farm or from plants and mushrooms that I forage for in the woods. I created Tincture Club partially as a way to protect myself and my business and partially as a means of cultivating a small Community.
For Tincture Club Members, I want you to know that there is a special online forum where you can ask me any questions you want or make requests for herbs or blends that can help your specific condition. You can access that forum HERE. You also have my blessing to email me your questions.
For those who have not yet joined my Tincture Club, I want you to know that you can join any time. In the future, as this grows, the price may go up. But for now, it’s just $50 for the year up front and you get a $45 store credit after signing up. That means you’re paying me just $5 a YEAR to access all the same high-quality herbal remedies that I make and take myself. (Note that oils and topical products are still available for purchase by anyone, regardless of their Membership.)
I want our village, even though for now it has to be over the internet, to be one of your Third Spaces. I’m working on creating an in-person retreat you can go to in order for us to physically enjoy and learn from each other. We’ll spend a week in the woods, foraging and cooking and creating remedies, and becoming a real village community with each other. Members of Tincture Club will be the first ones to know about that once it opens up.
So… do you have a village apothecary that you go to? Do you want one? I’m here in my hut… brewing tea and waiting for you.