#66 Karyn Schwartz, community herbalist: Finding our relationship to plants

Karyn Schwartz is a community herbalist what starts out with exactly what we need to know about herbalism, "If you are interacting with plants in any way, you are doing herbalism. If you are cooking with plants in your kitchen, you are doing herbalism. If you are making tea, you are doing herbalism. If you are sitting and listening to the grass, you are doing herbalism. There are so many ways to have relationships to plants and we are bound to them- we are always in relationship to plants. There's no oxygen without plants. We're not here unless we are in relationship to plants. Even before we talk about the consumption or utilization of plants, we have to recognize we are wholly dependent on the plant world for our existence." From there, we have a wide-ranging conversation about the ways in which relationships with plants can inform our experience in life. Karyn shares how she met different plants, like the high joy being around buckets of basil and the experimenting with making ink from choke-cherry juice. Although she didn't grow up encouraged to be close to plants, her persistence, curiosity and humility helped her learn bit by bit what this relationship is and how knowing plants makes us more human. 

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