Marlee Grace

 “I live in a rural town of 350 people, and most of those people are white, and most of those people are wealthy, and most of them are over sixty. And that’s a confusing choice sometimes. To choose to live in a place that looks really one way in many ways.  And I feel lucky to live so close to Oakland and San Francisco and I can participate in a larger arts community in front of my face. But I also don’t like going to the city that much so… I just launched this new hosting project called ‘Center.’ It was part of my hope when I ran a space in Michigan and when I had a podcast that I would have a range of voices in who I was interviewing and I’m feeling that same feeling here. I want to see art shows and music shows here by people of color, by trans folks, by trans women of color and I want it to be diverse in ages and abilities and physical stamina and, you know, religious doctrines. So I wish I was seeing more of that. There are difficult parts of where I live. I live in this epic paradise, which is part of the problem. We have so much public land and national seashore and not enough affordable housing. So I live in a complicated place. It’s feeling a little bit limited. But I also think it’s a slow process to unwind and unpack it, both personally and on a greater level. I don’t feel afraid to do it.”

Marlee Grace is a dancer and writer whose work focuses on the self, distraction, creativity, and art-making. Marlee’s practice is rooted in improvisation as a compositional form that takes shape in movement videos, books, and hosting artists. More info at marleegrace.space and @marleegrace.

Rachel Blodgett

“I think I’m just getting to the point where I’m recognizing that I can build things for myself, instead of just waiting around for my path to appear.  So I’ve been doing a little bit of journaling and visualizing and imagining what a dream life might look like for me, even if it seems ridiculous, because I think once you have a picture of it in your mind, you can tune into what that feels like to you. To me, finding your path is not about having there be certain things like a specific type of job or marriage or living in a specific place. It’s actually about how I feel. Figuring out when I feel joy and then tuning into the paths that resonate with that feeling in my body. So sometimes it’s unexpected and that’s part of what’s exciting to me. Rather than digging my heals into the idea that my path has to look a certain way, just releasing attachment to that and focusing more on how I’d like to feel in life.”

“ My main teacher has been my body. I never would have imagined I would be who I am right now and to have the life that I have right now a few years ago. Just because of how stuck I was. I believe now that the reason why I got so sick was because I needed a complete reset. I needed to let go of all my identifiers and let go of the way I treated my body and all of the routines I had.  My body led me to where I am now, even when my brain did not understand what was going on. All I knew was that I was sick and I needed really deep rest and to find a way to be at peace in my body.”

Rachel Blodgett creates garments and textiles that honor the connection between physical body and spirit in Northern California. Working with botanical dyes, Indigo, beeswax, and natural fibers, Rachel creates garments and textiles that honor the connection between physical body and spirit, serving as talismans of courage, liberty, and the life-sustaining power of hope. More info at serpent-and-bow.com and @serpentandbow.

Kelly Moody

“When you live a life where you have a regular routine… nine to five… you come home and make dinner at this time. You exercise at this time. Go to sleep at this time. Wake up at this time. You don’t have to think about what you’re doing in the world as much. You know? You tend to the daily needs and you just do the things. And living like this I’m constantly having to engage why I’m here all the time. It’s awesome and growth promoting… and sometimes I just want a 9-5. I almost crave that sometimes just so I don’t have to be analyzing. But then it’s just me denying or wanting to not deal with having to engage the heart or the intuitive place. Because it’s hard, you know?”

Kelly Moody is an artist, writer, traveler, naturalist, farmer and herbalist. She is also the main curator behind of sedge and salt, which gathers ideas about how we engage the land through creative work, plant based medicine and ethnobotanical research. More info at ofsedgeandsalt.com, @goldenberries and @groundshotspodcast.

Amelia Kaufhold

“I’ve spent the last few days at an ecological farming conference and Winona LaDuke, who’s a really well known activist in environmental and social justice, spoke and she said something that really struck me and I think it’s why I’m in this lifetime right now. She said that there was a prophecy in her tribe or her culture that she comes from, which is in the northern parts of the US and southern parts of Canada, and they said this is the time of the Seventh Fire. And the time of the Seventh Fire is when there has been a lot of burning happening and that there are two paths you can take to get out of the time of the Seventh Fire. One is to follow the path of the scorched Earth, which is going to be a really clear trail, or you can take the green trail, which is not a well-forged path, but is a path that will lead you into a time of growth. And then following that time is the time of the Eighth Fire, which is the chance for rebirth and renewal to happen. And so she spoke to the fact that we really are moving towards that and that we’re in this time of flux where we have the ability to choose one of those two paths, and if we choose the green path then it’s going to lead us to the chance to really work together to create something new and resilient. And so it feels like I’m here for that. I’m in this lifetime and in the work that I am and in the places that I am because I’m helping to work towards creating a more sustainable system for us to live on this planet. I haven’t done a lot of work with past lives, but I feel strongly that I come from a long line of witches in my maternal lineage, and I’m fairly certain I was someone who was hanged or closed to hanged at some point. I think it took a lot of time for me to come back from that and the way to come back from that was to come into a timeframe on this Earth where we’re able to start to change our stigma of how we view people who work close to nature.”

At the time of this interview Amelia Kaufhold was the Garden Manager at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in Northern California. She is a gardener, designer and earth steward. She is a perpetual student, studying from courses, mentors and most importantly from the land. Her work has focused on synergistic relationships between the land and people. Experience in education, gardens, restaurants, compost companies while working with bees, animals and community has helped her cultivate a diverse set of skills that are rooted in interconnected relationships and foster a passion for diversity. More info at oaec.org and @artemis_ramblin.

Maribeth Helen

“This path that I’m currently on was found through a lot of different things, but I would say the main thing is illness, which was really difficult because it can sometimes feel like it’s never-ending. But it one-hundred percent sent me on this path that I feel very connected to and that some days I’m very afraid of but other days I feel that purpose deeply. And that sense of purpose is certainly growing with patience and tending and trust, and continuing to just show up. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to hide from it and it always finds me. It’s not always the most comfortable awakening. So I’m trying to stay steady with what I’m learning and how I’m growing and just trusting the path that I’ve chosen.”

Maribeth Helen Keane is a folk herbalist, medicine maker, and writer. She is the author of “Self Care in Uncertain Times,” an introduction to navigating the uncertainty of the world we live in through the radical and deeply grounding practice of daily self care. She believes in self care as a radical, necessary medicine and the amazing ability of the plants, and of our own bodies, to guide us towards our innate wisdom to heal ourselves and within our communities, together. She works as a community herbalist and really enjoys going for walks in the bay area. More info at maribethhelen.com & @maribethhelen.

Niki Ford

“Most of the people that I meet that are important to me I meet in the context of doing something that I love. In my family upbringing it wasn’t modeled to me to ask other people about themselves and I’ve had to work on that over the years. In my family you perform what’s going on with you but I think it’s important to be curious about the people who you spend time with. Remember to ask them questions and to ask them follow-up questions to show them that you’re listening to what they’re saying. That you care about what they’re saying. But on the flip side of that, I find that in friendships, don’t go to the well if it’s dry. It can be really liberating when you’re not looking to other people for approval. And it’s important to pay attention to who is making you feel naturally good and supportive when you’re around them. I don’t know what causes people to feel threatened by other people, or what causes people to feel threatened by this ‘otherness.’ When people see you’re different they really rail against it. Don’t try to win those people over. If they happen to come around to you at some point that’s just a nice byproduct of you doing the right thing. But it shouldn’t be the goal.”

“It’s important to come up with solutions instead of focusing on why you’re not doing what you want to do. That having a schedule of when you want things done by helps. That having people you are accountable to helps. For me, it’s like a combination of practical and symbolic action. So I have my alter work. Sometimes when I feel stuck I pull a tarot card. Like I ask guidance in a certain circumstance and that is a really important part of my practice. It’s also important when I’m writing. Sometimes I think, ‘What angle am I going to approach this from?’ and I pull a tarot card. And that’s helpful. But I think it’s just sort of having a sense of what it looks like when you’re done doing the thing you set out to do and connecting with the feeling of that. And sometimes believing in that reality is sort of enough, in some ways, to get you to move towards it. Then there are these support practices that help to figure out all of the other stuff. And I learned this working with a coach to where she would say, ‘When do you want to have this done by?’ and I didn’t even like picking a time because it made me feel uncomfortable. If you’re having some resistance to something you’re trying to do, it just doesn’t make sense to try and disown that because it’s there for a reason, and it’s there to teach you too.”

Niki Ford is a plant and food weirdo living in Los Angeles. They were at Chez Panisse for six years, then at the American Academy in Rome as a part of the Rome Sustainable Food Project. As a Culinary Fellow at the Montalvo Arts Center in California, Niki spent a year testing out a more ‘plant driven’ menu concept in a community of artists from around the world, where they also kept a menu blog called Mountains in my Spoon. Niki was the opening Chef of Healdsburg SHED, and now works as a freelance chef and food editor for GFF Magazine. Niki is also involved with Salmon Creek Farm on the Mendocino coast, where they are working on a place-based cookbook with artist Fritz Haeg. More info at @nikifordnow.

Rachel Burgos

“I was moving to New York City to start my art career… but somehow ended up in Big Sur. I was living alone on a mountain caretaking for this man who was gone all the time, milking his goats because I knew how to milk goats. And all of a sudden, I had all this time to myself, alone, on this isolated mountain. No cell phone service, no internet, no phone, nothing at all. There was no way for me to contact anybody. I was just with the goats and I would have to walk them six hours a day in the mountains. I basically lived outside in a yurt completely off the land. And I just started communicating with plants. You don’t even need to ingest plants to receive their medicine. I think anytime you spend time with plants, even in a city sidewalk, you receive their medicine. But that was the first time I really saw it and felt that. From there I got interested in what to do with the plants, and some would tell me. Then I spent a lot of time being a hobbyist and continued down that path until herbalism was the only thing I wanted to do.”

“Energetically, emotionally, spiritually, I’ve been working on doing all the deep work I need to do to get into my heart so that I’m doing everything from that place instead of from the other human places that we operate from. It’s really, really hard to do. I would like to operate more from that place instead of the disconnected, Millennial, net-based and capitalistic go-go-go, must produce place and be more centered in my heart. Operating in a slower way. I feel like I’m doing those things. I’m doing my work, I’m taking tons of rose things and gold essence. Right now it’s really helping me get  in there. I’m letting myself be vulnerable and I’m working really hard on my dreams and my life’s work. Which I’m assuming is herbalism.

Rachel Burgos is an herbalist residing in the Mojave Desert town of Joshua Tree, California or occupied native Newe, Serrano, Southern Paiute, Chemehuevi land. She dedicates her clinical work to provide preventative health care and education using plant, stone, animal & earth medicines in a holistic way. This encompasses but not limited to focusing on the patterns of imbalance we create through various traumas, ancestral patterning for both chronic and acute, emotional, physical or spiritual imbalances. Her work is centered in social justice, activism, and healing for not only humans but the greater ecology. More info at snakerootapothecary.com & @snakerootapothecary.