An appreciation for the teachers
- Lauren Snyder
- 19 hours ago
- 6 min read
As the school year gently drifts towards summer break in my little corner of the world; and my children weave their way through the last few months of studies for the year, I can't help but take a moment to pause and appreciate all the ways in which learning is woven throughout our lives.
I am a big believer in being a lifelong learner and finding opportunities to gain knowledge and understanding every chance you can; but that doesn't always have to be in the form of sitting in a classroom. Some of my greatest moments of learning have happened organically and in unconventional learning spaces. So, I thought I would take a moment here and give honor to some of my teachers; because nothing I share with others is new, nothing is "mine", it is all an amalgamation of the wisdom and learning I have gathered over my lifetime distilled through my own unique lens. So, while it may appeal in new ways or connect with new audiences, it is because of that gift of learning given by others before me.
It all started with a seed...
My connection to the land and the plants around me started in childhood. Around the fourth grade to be precise. My fourth grade teacher, Mr. Scofield would take our class on plant walks up the nearby canyon trail adjacent to the small country road where our elementary school was located. Being that the school was incredibly small and rural, it was a pretty commonplace event to take classes or even the entire school on field trips around the upper valley. And, it was on these trips, that I was first introduced to the names of the sages, monkeyflowers, poison oak, and more. Mr. Sco (as we affectionately called him), was an artist at heart and saw the world through the lens of creation and beauty. He shared not only the names of plants, but taught many of us how to play guitar, basic woodworking, and art. Mr. Scofield wasn't the only influence in my youth who inspired me to build a foundation of connection to the land. Local Ojai Chumash elder Julie Tumamait-Stenslie would, back in those days, go around to the local elementary schools and share with us Chumash stories, crafts, and connection to the land. It was only maybe once or twice a year, but those visits are deeply embedded in my psyche as pivotal moments of understanding and foundation. Julie not only taught me to see the land, the plants, and the animals as family; but also helped my young mind to understand that Ojai was Ojai, long before it was "Ojai". That there were people here many many eons before colonization; a people still living here today, with deep roots going back time immemorial. Julie's lessons planted those first seeds of understanding about all of the lineages that were severed by colonization and the attempted genocide of native California peoples. The moral and ethical compass of my work is deeply deeply informed by these early lessons with Julie. And then I stepped into a bookshop...
Throughout my young and formative years; I always had a connection and reverence to the land, but I didn't really have the language to describe exactly what I felt or the education to realize the direction I was being pulled in. As a young parent, I dabbled in herbalism, experimented in the garden, and played in the kitchen...but I really didn't have a destination I was journeying towards. And then I read Braiding Sweetgrass. Robin Wall Kimmerer's language for describing plants and her relationship to nature was everything my heart had been searching for. I read her book cover to cover numerous times; I read it aloud to my children; I listened to it on audiobook; and I joined Braiding Sweetgrass book clubs. It was the first book I had read that gave some kind of form to the deep knowing that I felt in my heart. And honestly, for a while that might have been where things stayed, had I not come across yet another pivotal book.
One fateful day wandering through Bart's Books here in Ojai, I stumbled across a massive 500+ page book called "Evolutionary Herbalism" by Sajah Popham. I don't know if it was the title or the cover art or just some little intuition nudging me along; but I simply HAD to have that book! So, I bought it, brought it home and started reading. It would take me a further two and a half years to fully read the book; but that book is what led me to sign up for Sajah's Vitalist Herbal program in 2020, and what ultimately began my journey into formally studying and practicing herbalism.
Once I started Sajah's program; that was it. I began taking classes, courses, and reading books with exuberance. I simply could not get enough. I wanted to know everything I possibly could. I took courses with Herbal Academy, American Herbalist Guild, and then signed up for Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine's course to deepen my study of herbal gardening. I read books, listened to podcasts, and downloaded countless PDF pages of classical herbal texts to pore over. As a lifelong student and frequent practitioner of hyper fixation on particular subjects; the desire to dive in deep was nothing new; but the depth of connection to the material and the unshakable ease with which I retained what I was learning was something new. I WANTED to study constantly, I WANTED to sit with the plants, I WANTED to know how they grew and tasted and felt. So, finally I went on a walk...
One thing that was missing in a lot of my herbal education thus far was a sense of community and lineage; something not always easily attained during the years after a global pandemic, in the midst of raising two kids, managing chronic autoimmune disease, and helping with my father who had been diagnosed with cancer. But, then I did something I had been waiting years to do. I joined an herb walk with local native plant educator, Lanny Kaufer. I had known about Lanny's walks for years, but kept promising myself "maybe next month I'll sign up for a walk", "maybe when things get a little easier", "maybe when I get some more free time". But, as life often does, it never did quite slow down and so out desperation to not miss out on this thing I had been promising myself, I took my kids in tow and decided to try out our first walk with Lanny on the exact same trail I had first learned about these plants with Mr. Scofield, some thirty years prior. (Talk about a full circle moment!)
Lanny's teaching was like a final puzzle piece sliding into place. After that first walk, a friend of mine convinced him to lead a Field Botany course and (after hesitating yet again, because apparently I didn't learn my lesson the first time) I finally joined the first cohort about six months after it started. Now, nearly a year into studying with Lanny, and I am starting to find that space in my journey where the road ahead is becoming clear. It has always been the plants of this valley that spoke to me; through Mr. Scofield, through Julie, and now through Lanny. I love herbalism; but I love the herbalism of the plants in my hometown, the plants nourished by the earth that raised me, the herbalism of the valley where my family's story has been woven, where the story of my partner and my children's lives has been woven. That is the herbalism I want to pursue, that is the herbalism I want to share and that is the herbalism I want to spend the rest of my life learning about.
And, I would have never reached this point in the journey without the many wisdom keepers before me; so today I write this in their honor, with gratitude for their gifts, and with reverence for the threads that wove us together. Thank you, thank you, thank you...for everything.
*This list is by no means an exhaustive list of those who have educated, inspired or guided me; but this is a small handful of those who had a significant or memorable impact on my journey into herbalism. If you're curious to learn more about some of my teachers, or to explore their books, courses, etc. please check out the links below:
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