TWHC History & Purpose

Today’s plant-based healers are the most recent in a long line of herbwives, root doctors, yerberas, mountain men, curanderos, grannywomen and village herbalists that stretch back through time and across cultures. From the hills of Vermont to the shores of Cornwall, the rainforests of the Amazon to the mesas and canyons of the Southwest, we are walking in the footsteps of our ancestors to bring together people and plants at a time when such work has never before been so necessary and urgent. Our teachers will again focus on practical application and the latest findings of cutting edge research as well as the personal, energetic and spiritual relationship between our kind and the plant world. They will each be stretching at this event, giving more personally revealing and conceptually adventurous talks than they usually feel free to, speaking from the voice of experience and practice rather than theory, with powerful instruction and insight based on real life work. This and every future Conference will feature a strong conservation component, addressing the ecology, proliferation and preservation of native plant species and the necessary natural habitat… healing ourselves and each other as we heal the earth. And it will be distinguished, more than any other way, by its Western, folk identity, consciously rough edged and unapologetic, insisting on hope, bucking the norm, combining self reliance with neighborly cooperation, rooted in experience as well as tradition. In the end, the conference was not so fae as feral, with a touch of norm-busting new science, the flair and attitude of cowpunk, true to and in keeping with the down home, dirt grounded, earth honoring, grassroots, self authorized, community building, alternative offering, chance taking, magic making and oft celebrating Folk Herbalism Revival.

Founder's Message from Kiva Rose

I have loved plants my whole life. From my first memories of Yarrow as a very small child, to my fascination with wild foods in my early teens to my current practice as an herbalist, I have immersed myself in the generous embrace of the green world. Throughout my exploration of natural world, it has always seemed important to me that the majority of my herbal allies and healing knowledge be rooted in the wisdom of place, and specifically in the land I call home. I don’t know of any more effective and sustainable way to be an herbalist than with the assistance of the land where we already are. The more we can depend on local sources for our food, medicine and other necessities the closer we will be to the earth and the more likely we will be to care for the environment and ourselves.

The growing interest of many students and practitioners in the re-emerging field of Traditional Western Herbalism spurred Jesse Wolf Hardin and I to create this the Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference. It is our gift to all of the plant people and herbal community who have long searched for a native healing methodology and philosophy -- who have longed for an herbal event seeded in a cell-deep recognition of our roots and spring-boarded by a dynamic vision of what is both necessary and relevant to the now.

Our speakers and presenters were carefully selected by Jesse and I on the basis of their understanding, preservation and passing on of the precious traditional knowledge and contemporary adaptation and application. The TWH Conference site was chosen for its breathtaking and transformational setting and even the music was picked with the intention of inspiring each us to both draw on our own roots and appreciate the power of adaptation and evolution. Every element of TWHC is meant to assist each of us in growing from the healing ways we were birthed into or have adopted as our own while also learning and improvising, forever expanding and deepening the vital traditions of our ancestors, the places we call home and the communities we practice within.

I welcome each of you you to your own rich heritage and to the wealth of wisdom that we’ve always had, and are finally remember. My gratitude goes out to all of our generous supporters, enthusiastic students and encouraging readers who have expressed their excitement and support for this project. To all of our volunteers, sponsors and speakers who eagerly signed onto this project without even knowing the details, and without whom there would be no conference. To Resolute for her clear head, deep love of the plants and practical yet tender nourishment of TWHC from its conception. To Loba & Rhiannon for all your love and care without which is so vital to our work, land and family. And finally, to my partner Jesse Wolf Hardin for always recognizing me for who I really am and providing me with the tools, support, place and nourishment to grow into my role as a teacher, herbalist and caretaker of people and place.

-Kiva Rose

Animá Lifeways & Herbal School

Founder's Message From Jesse Wolf Hardin:

“From what I’ve seen, animal and nature lovers tend to be happier than the average person, drawing nourishment as well as inspiration from a wellspring of wildness, beauty and mystery. When they are healers or teachers, conservationists or gardeners, bird watchers or seed savers, artists or song makers, activists or instigators – as often they are – it is because they are feeling more deeply as well, are more empathic or affected, with a capacity to love broadly the more-than-human world and an increased proclivity to celebrate and savor their own sensate experience of life. And thus it is with so called “plant-people” as well, often quicker to shed a tear over not only clear-cut forests but even the untimely loss of a precious potted vine, struck harder than most by the browning of Winter and miraculously revived by Spring’s first green. So I’ve found, anyway, amongst glad hearted garlic farmers and full bellied melon huggers, flower aficionados and treehouse fantasizers smiling for what might seem like no readily visible reason, wildcrafters made more aware by their passion and practice, herbalists healing in the process of compassionately helping to heal others. It was for folks like you that we first envisioned an annual Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference, not only herbal practitioners and community healers but everyone with an interest in self healing and self reliance in these difficult times. And for you of every culture, and from every age group, for whom a beneficial plant medicine, awe inspiring old-growth forest or even a single beckoning blossom may have ever served as the bridge between ourselves and the miraculous, purpose and action... betwixt the rest of the living world, and the caring and responding human heart.

So, a big welcome to you all, eagerly planning participants as well as speakers, volunteers, vendors and sponsors, thank you for ensuring this event will be as successful as it is informative and life altering. My thanks to conference supporter Resolute for doing so much to manage the event, and to dear Loba & Rhiannon for the special work of tending land and home. And regards to our partner Kiva Rose, for making possible the melding of herbalism and lifeways in the vital Animá tradition, bearing the seed and then bringing to fruition what could become many decades worth of Traditions in Western Herbalism conferences. I’ll be looking forward to sharing this amazing experience with you, now and for many years to come.

-Jesse Wolf Hardin

Animá Lifeways & Herbal School

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