ABOUT
Earthen Spirit Apothecary offers land-based offerings and eco-centered practices with the intention of supporting folks in their healing journey through accessible care that encourages their connection to the animate Earth and the wisdom of their own bodies. Care here is centered around re-wilding, untangling harmful conditioning and patterning of patriarchal colonialism, and coming back into right relationship with ourselves, others, and the Earth through practices rooted in connection, presence, and reciprocity.
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​​We are existing in a time of ecological crisis where we are bearing witness to and experiencing the ongoing detrimental effects of colonial violence. This is not a time for spiritual by-passing. There must be space made for rage, grief, and restorative change. Earthen Spirit Apothecary is built on principles of ecological and social justice and collective liberation-knowing that we desperately need radical systemic change that re-centers the Earth, mothers, and children now more than ever.
Hi there, my name is Kate.
I am a writer, herbal medicine maker, and spiritual practitioner from the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania. Earthen Spirit Apothecary was birthed out of my love for this land, her waters, and all of her beings.
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I hold space for and honor grief and rage in this time of Anthropocene where we as humans have been disconnected from Earth, while running towards ancient and new ways of existing in reciprocity and wholeness. My work is informed by Divine feminine teachings, eco-psychology, eco-feminism, somatics, earth based wisdom. bioregionalism. As well as my own lived experience navigating chronic illness, and being failed and even harmed within traditional western care and more naturopathic or spiritual models as well.
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After years navigating chronic health issues and pursing a master's degree in clinical mental health counseling, I realized there were many things wrong within "healing" spaces, many things that were not fully in alignment with how I experienced the world or how I wanted to support others. I could not unsee the ways in which modern healthcare systems were byproducts/ perpetuators of colonialism, our masculine forward world, and our separation from our true nature. I pursued my metaphysical and herbal studies in the hopes of creating a more holistic and ecologically centered model of care that was accessible, supportive, and empowering.
Through poetry, embodiment work, re-wilding practices, apothecary offerings, and other healing arts, I serve as a channel to connect folks to the wisdom and medicine that is abundantly available within their own bodies and the sentient Earth.
Credentials
Kate has received a Bachelor's degree in Creative Writing and is a published poet. She received an additional degree in Metaphysical Science and is a certified Metaphysical Practitioner and Level 2 Reiki practitioner. She has been studying herbalism for over 4 years formally with the Herbal Academy, and intimately with the land she has ancestral ties to in Appalachia. She considers this landscape to be her greatest teacher. ​
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Kate has formally studied somatic counseling at the master's level but is not, nor does she plan to become, a licensed counselor.
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Kate acknowledges that while certifications and degrees represent time and energy invested in studies, they are only a fraction of the process and a byproduct of colonial and capitalist systems and paradigms. She believes that a piece of paper cannot possibly contain or represent the years spent embodying a practice or what it is like to learn the language of plants. She humbly invites you to remember all of these medicines are yours to reclaim.
The current paradigm is changing, old structures are crumbling, and we are remembering and yearning for a better way of being.
This is a space for those of you experiencing the weight of these shifts— to help you reclaim your relationship with your gifts, innate knowings, and the sentient Earth that birthed you into being.
You are capable and deserving of coming back home to the magic and truth of your own nature.
Here you can be supported in
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Sensuality- deepening your perception of the world through your senses
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Untangling yourself from harmful patriarchal conditioning
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Healing relationship patterns and dynamics
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Re-orienting your relationship to chronic illness to find peace in your body
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Cultivating and deepening ritual practices around threshold experiences/ rites of passage/ transitions/ and grief
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Nature literacy and more-than human kin communication
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Myth, story, archetype re-wilding and reclamation
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Voice harnessing and writing as a spiritual practice
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Cyclical attunement-moving in accordance with the seasons and cycles
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Ancestral wisdom reclamation
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Herbal medicine-creating your own co-creative relationship with plants
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Eco-eroticism and cultivating more embodied ways of being in relationship with the sensuous Earth
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Shedding patterns and releasing yourself from old stories, paradigms, and dynamics
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Deepening your intuition and attunement to other forces and intelligences
The body is a microcosm of the Earth– we are an expression of its consciousness, a strand in the ecological tapestry of being, in constant relationship and communication with the land, the waters, and our more-than human kin. Being your fully embodied ecological self opens your receptiveness to wisdom, pleasure, and transformation.
A Matriarchal Model of Care
Both Western models of care and holistic models of care still exist within the system of capitalism. It is nearly unavoidable and as long as we exist within this system we are somewhat dependent on monetary exchange to survive. In the hopes of making care as accessible as possible and the exchange of energy fair, Earthen Spirit Apothecary offers a sliding scale model, or opportunity for trade if the financial cost of care is a barrier.
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I have also put together a list of podcasts, books, and creators I hope will help support you in your journey. You can find it here:
Care takes a village, and you are deserving of it.
On loving and being loved by land
Earthen Spirit Apothecary was birthed out of my love and blood ties to the area now referred to as the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania- land that was meant to be owned by no one. This is the land that birthed me into being, where I hear the songs of my ancestors in wind and plants, whose waters have carried me in and will carry me out of this world. All medicines and musings and offerings have been co-created with this magical landscape.
The Laurel Highlands was originally home to the Algonquin, Iroquois, Monongahela Shawnee, Lenape and other Indigenous peoples. To this day, colonial violence, exploitation, and extraction still wreaks havoc on the land, its waters, and all its beings.
Earthen Spirit Apothecary exists in devotion to right relationship with land, as an ode to the Laurel Highlands, as hope that her medicines will help you return to the home beneath your own feet.
Let's Connect
Please feel free to ask any questions, say hello, or just to make any of this feel more human.