How did I end up here, talking about sex and plants?

I contemplate this from time to time and giggle to myself. Of course, I, a Scorpio, would end up here, amongst all that is deeply taboo. A herbalist promoting self-sufficiency, medicine for the people, a relationship to the earth that degrades the hold the medical industrial complex has on human health. A sexologist, censored by platforms and peers for encouraging that which empowers because a sexually liberated person is an untamable one. And at the intersection of these two realms, something so undeniably spiritual that it corrupts the accepted experience of numbness as a way to move through society.

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They say you won’t understand the path until you get to where you’re going, and I truly never would have thought all my detours would lead me here. I guess you never know where a series of failed relationships, sexual trauma, school bullying, my own toxic habits, and a desperate need to understand it all will take you. 

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And yet, in a way, it all makes sense. I can see the threads pulling in from all the different directions. But for me, it was one love affair in particular that shaped me, encouraged me, expanded me.

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The most intimate affair:

Growing up in the rural foothills of the Carolinas, my family had five acres of beautifully forested land. I remember tapping my leg as a small girl, anxious to be done with homework so I could burst out the back door of our humble home and hear the leaves crunch under my feet as I ran wide. Fortunately, we had very few neighbors and property lines were nonexistent to my young mind, making five acres seem as fluid as a thousand mile sea.  

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In good times or bad, I always sought the comfort of nature beings- rocks beings, tree beings, water beings. All of whom seemed to seek me too. Far into the woods beyond the boundary of our property, was a creek that noticeably lit up when I arrived. Almost as though we animated each other. We craved each other. 

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I was held by her, Tar Kiln Branch Creek. I was cultivated by her. She showed me the magic of the world. I learned wonder and mysticism through the eyes of the forest. I learned my own soul. It seems of no surprise our intimacy would inspire me throughout my life in the way it has. Yet, water doesn’t carve a path all on its own, earth in some places denies and in others softens and gives in.  Therefore, my experience was shaped both by the land and by the circumstances that life provided.

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What life provided:

For whatever reason, I have been blessed (or cursed) with a sexual appetite of five pubescent boys. Eros is my animator, the creative force behind my curiosity for life. Ever since I was young, I knew more than I "should" and wasn't afraid to share when asked.

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I spent YEARS, pathologizing myself, seeking therapy, and begging for answers of why I am the way I am because I seemed so different than those that surrounded me. Through this search for understanding, I gained insight into myself and the world at large, becoming acutely aware of the many lenses I use to view the world. Some of them so thick and wide it was difficult to see the frames upon my face.

Fueled by productivity, competition, and adaptability, all of which were a reflection of my middle-class, eldest sibling upbringing. A survivor of sexual abuse, pleading to express my suppressed voice; yet, too caught up in being a nice girl to say what I really meant. Well educated, pretty and white, able-bodied with a supportive family. I realized I'm privileged as fuck. I humbly acknowledge my biases and work to understand them. But all the privilege in the world doesn't stop you from feeling pain. And I desperately yearned to discover how one can hurt so deeply and equally feel the ecstasy of life.

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As I explored my inner landscape, I became enthralled by the existence of all things. I needed to know the WHY for all that is and ever was. But as much as was explained to me, it didn't seem to make sense. The archetypal researcher embedded in my being wanted to uncover all that lies hidden in the unsaid, in the reverberations of silence. For this I turned to nature, where, amongst the trees, there are no words. 

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It was there, betwixt the wind and the water, that I discovered answers to questions I had about self and society. The dualism of grace and vulgarity so obviously concurrent in nature helped me to understand the ancient texts I read in college. Earth became my shaman. 

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Like many stories of lost devotees, the wisdom and nurturance I gained from my guru made me fall madly in love, pulling on those long forgotten threads of Tar Kiln Branch. And once again, I was forced to admit the undeniable attraction I have to Earth and its inhabitants. It is this love that shapes my work. It is this love that prompts me to offer a broader, more intersectional perspective of sexuality.

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As a herbal hedonist I see the pleasure I feel in my own body as a microcosm of the pleasure the larger planetary body is capable of feeling. Herbal Hedonism, then, is a philosophy of interconnection between sex and the spiritual, that the body is a vessel to god. It is an activist movement to dismantle inequities against the planet and all its beings. It is an art form through which beauty is understood as an essential piece for continued evolution. And it is my attempt to understand all that is taboo about myself and the world. 

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I believe education is the key to liberation and, so, my mission is to provide accessible education that seeks to understand sexuality opposed to demonizing it. My pedagogy is one of ecofeminism, erotic ecology, and sustainable sexuality, providing options for people to take health into their own hands by becoming a fully informed and empowered participant in their pleasure. By building knowledge of alternative ways of relating to Earth, self, and one another I know we can shift into the new paradigm.

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