About Tegan
My Approach
Herbalism is a partnership: between herbalist and client, between humans and our plant kin, and among science, folk tradition, and intuition. I show up to herbal consultations present, compassionate, and ready to listen deeply. As you share your health history, experiences, and goals, I look for patterns and root causes, asking questions and guiding our exploration. You are the expert of your own body, and I honor the experiences you share with me. Pairing your expertise of your body with my knowledge of body systems and plants, together we envision the type of herbal formula(s) best suited for you. Taking into account health goals, taste, budget, and time, I craft individualized formulas for your specific preferences and needs. Our work together is a joint endeavor, and you have complete agency every step of the way. Goals can evolve, needs can arise or resolve, and preferences can shift.
Like all humans, I am growing and learning every day. I come to this work as a queer cis white woman (pronouns she/her), doing my best to practice herbalism as ethically as possible on land that is not the land of my ancestors, on land where herbal wisdom was stolen and appropriated through slavery and genocide. I am in a continuous state of learning and unlearning, and I honor feedback given as a generous gift. If you are BIPOC and would like to work with an herbalist of color, you are welcome to contact me and I will do my best to connect you. In the spirit of reparations, my packages and sliding scale for BIPOC are adjusted as a small way to recognize the impact systemic oppression has on financial resource and access to health care.
Queer community and family is near and dear to my heart, and I see how often my trans and non-binary loves are mistreated in the health care system. I am committed to being a practitioner who is trans-competent and celebratory, welcoming to sex workers, weight neutral and fat positive, and honoring of how personal and ancestral trauma impacts daily health.
Photo: Greeting an unfurling blue cohosh flower among the ramps
My Story
I’ve loved concocting potions ever since I was a little kid, stealing flowers from my mother’s garden and climbing up the kitchen counter to raid her spice cabinet. While I’ve refined my methods a bit since then, the joy of crafting and blending herbal formulas is soul deep and still very much alive in me.
Although my childhood involved intentional connection with our plant kin, for many years I (sadly & naively) had no idea that practicing herbalists still existed and that I myself could become one. Luckily, when I was working on a farm in my early 20s, I met a woman who had just finished an herbal apprenticeship. She lent me her books and let me tag along with her on harvesting adventures. Those experiences reawakened my childhood passion for plant healing, and from then on, I knew that learning about and practicing herbal medicine would be one of my life’s devotions.
Photo: mixing “potions” circa 1992
My Learning
In the years following my reawakening of plant love, I dove whole-heartedly into learning as much as I could about the plants surrounding me in the Great Lakes Region. Through a combination of self-study, classes, local workshops, and mini-apprenticeships with Michigan herbalists Janice Marsh-Prelesnik and Sokhna Heathyre Mabin, I deepened my relationship with and passion for herbal healing. Because I wanted to study clinical herbalism through an anti-oppression framework, I moved from my home state of Michigan (Ojibwe, Odawa, Mississauga and Potawatomi land) to central Vermont (Ndakinna, Abenaki territory) to study at the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism.
Starting with the Roots Apprenticeship, I got my hands in the dirt, getting to know the plants from seed through to harvesting and building relationship with the land where I was newly living and working. From there, I completed VCIH’s Family Herbalist and Clinical Herbalist training programs. In these programs, I studied anatomy, pathophysiology, herbal therapeutics, herb-drug interactions and safety, formulation, nutrition, medicine-making, energetics, and much more. The final year of the Clinical Program includes an internship in the VCIH supervised student clinic, where I worked one-on-one with clients to address a broad range of health concerns and goals. During this internship, I began filling herbal formulas for the student clinic in the VCIH apothecary, where I now work as a staff member. Through this learning and experience, I have found that my current passion lies in working with people who are seeking support with mental health and/or trauma healing, as well as those seeking to live more embodied and pleasure-filled lives.
Photo: Mixing “potions” in the VCIH Apothecary, 2020