Upon completing my studies, I was blessed with the opportunity to apprentice under the guidance of an incredibly gifted and old-school herbalist, Arthur Hyde. His knowledge and skill were not only honed through years of practice but inherited, passed down like a sacred family heirloom from his father and grandfather before him. Over the next 12 months, I eagerly traveled to the rural town of Grantham, 100 miles from my home, to absorb the generational wisdom he had gathered and so generously shared.
Under Arthur’s mentorship, I experienced the art of herbal blending in its purest form—the alchemy of synergism, where each plant’s unique properties melded with others to create healing potions far greater than the sum of their parts. I was introduced to the profound power of drop dosing, where just a few drops could tap into a plant’s spirit and catalyse deep healing. This apprenticeship didn’t just deepen my technical understanding of herbs; it ignited a fire within me, forging a more intimate, sacred connection with the plants and the secret teachings they whispered only to those who truly listened.
When Arthur retired, I was entrusted with continuing his legacy. I took on the responsibility of running the busy, well-established clinic that he had spent much of his life building. At just 25 years old, the weight of stepping into such big shoes felt overwhelming. There were moments when I doubted my ability to carry forward this lineage, to honour the trust Arthur had placed in me. But the plants, in their wisdom, supported me every step of the way, teaching me to trust in my own abilities, just as they had trusted in me.
After five rewarding years joyfully running the clinic, life called me in a new direction. In 2007, my family and I relocated to Rockingham, Western Australia, a land that felt both foreign and full of possibility. Within just five days of landing in this new country, I found myself standing at the front of a classroom, lecturing in herbal medicine at a college that trained students in natural medicine. This venture was both thrilling and terrifying. It was a bold new chapter, but the weight of it pressed heavily on me. The daunting task of learning an entirely new Materia Medica, filled with plants from the Southern Hemisphere that were entirely unknown to me, was intimidating to say the least. How could I teach these plants with no lived experience of their medicine, no intimate relationship with their spirits?
On my first day of teaching, reeling with self-doubt, I anxiously flicked through a book titled Medicinal Plants of the Southern Hemisphere. As I scanned its pages, I was overcome with relief when I discovered that many of the plants listed were familiar to me—European and North American species that had accompanied me throughout my herbal studies. They were the old friends I knew well. But in the midst of this relief, a deeper sadness began to rise, an unexpected grief that took me by surprise.
“What about the plants of this land?” I wondered. This question hung in the air, heavy and unresolved, like a dark cloud over my spirit. It was as if something essential was missing. I felt a powerful sense of displacement, as though there was a bridge I needed to cross, but I didn’t yet know how to find it. At the time, I believed this disconnection existed outside of me, in the external world—something I could learn or grasp if I just reached out far enough. Yet, unbeknownst to me, the call was from within, from the depths of my soul. The land itself was whispering, calling me to step into a new way of being, one that I had not yet lived or fully understood.
Three years passed, and the feeling of disconnection only deepened. I became painfully aware of my sense of being “on the land, but not of the land.” I had no other language to describe the growing sensation of being untethered—disconnected from Earth, from Mother, from the source of nourishment and sustenance that had always lovingly held me. I felt as if the very ground beneath me had shifted, leaving me stranded, unable to root into this new place I could not yet call home.
During this time, my marriage of 12 years began to unravel, and eventually, came to its inevitable end. I found myself sinking into a chasm of overwhelming grief. Standing at the edge of a profound life transition, facing the unknown. With fearful excitement, I began the journey of raising my two children alone, stepping into a new life I hadn’t fully anticipated. The pain of this loss was sharp and consuming— I was in the darkness of death. Yet, even within the ashes of this deeply painful ending, I could feel the stirrings of a new beginning.
The call that had been quietly whispering from the depths of my soul for years now began to speak louder, clearer. It was a call to return to myself, to reconnect with the Earth, to learn the language of this land and the plants that had been waiting patiently for me to hear them. In the midst of my grief, I felt the first sparks of transformation—the possibility of healing, growth, and a life more aligned with the whisperings of my heart.
This was the beginning of a new journey. A journey that would take me deeper into relationship with the plants, with the land, and with myself. A journey that would ultimately lead me home.
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