Rejection

If you are denied a job on any given day -

Do not go to Buffalo Exchange with a bag of old coats in hopes that they'll take them for store credit.

It's guaranteed to make you feel like... a bag of old coats.

Blood Bank

Today I:

Had a preliminary meeting with a staffing service and
Took care of some banking business

Had some yerba mate!

Expectation and Pressure

I have decided that the herbal lists will now resume as follows:

I will share one herbal preparation that I take or prepare every day.

I will share one accomplishment of note. I will share two tomorrow and increase by one until I guess I feel like a whole person and not just a shadow of one.

Today's accomplisment
Today I booked three interviews


Today's Herbs
Today I took some cranberry juice

Day to Day

I have gotten interest before from friends and family about my services, and I have never really followed up. Lupus, menopause, eczema, energy production, weight loss...

Well now, Nu Era Botanicals is officially taking clients!

Patience

When I interview for jobs, which it seems, is all I do...

I am sure to use the expression, "meet people where they are."

[I'm almost positive I heard this from Dr. Franklin. He had a lot of real world, Southern advice. "You're allowed to have one vice. Chocolate and sex don't count." "Don't tell people they can't have something. Just tell them the things they need to have, and that they can then have whatever it is they want. Odds are they'll feel fulfilled with first and won't even go to those chips or that pop."]

I have to remember to meet myself where I am.

I am not an expert job-seeker. I am not even a great candidate on paper. I am fighting against my own experience (mostly a lack thereof).

When I come across those positions where I feel like I NEED this in my life, this would be so fulfilling, it's hard not to feel a real loss when it doesn't come through. And to this day, none have.

Is there a more active role I could take to make them see that I can do this work?

Do I show up, shake a hand? Introduce myself as one of the dozen (or hundred) faceless online applicants? Is that a nuisance? Is it expected?

Either way, I guess I'll be doing this for a long time, so I'll have to answer those questions myself.

Nu Era

As a day-to-day, being an herbalist requires that I wear many different hats. I have to be the professional who knows my craft, a counselor with boundless empathy, and a tireless researcher, but I also have to be fundamentally counter-culture.

What I mean by fundamentally counter-culture is that the work I do runs contrary to the way society and the economy are designed to be most efficient (and frankly, exploitative). The success of my endeavor and my craft is not measured by the financial means I "contribute to society." Nu Era is truly linked to a vast web of grassroots movements whose purpose is to usher in an age of wealth determined by health, and not material goods. After all, what use is financial security if we aren't secure in our well-being. Like they say, you can't take it with you when you go...

While I would love to be able to support my family and create a sustaining business from my herbalism, it is NOT the goal. The goal is to be an accurate and efficient resource for healing, first aid, family care, and personal fulfillment.

I'm not a prophesier. I don't ascribe to 2012 fantasies about the world's end. I don't think that a collapse of the current markets and societies will beckon a new age. I don't think it's the "dawning of the age of Aquarius." But I do think that a graceful transition from big banks, big pharma, and big agriculture to micro-economies, holistic health, and local, organic whole-food sourcing is a fight worth fighting. And individuals will drive this change! I want to be one of those individuals.

That is what Nu Era means to me. I hope that the clients I serve also have an eye on a brighter future for themselves and all those who will come after us. And, of course, she who we all came from-- the Earth.

Doing the Good Work

I once heard a reference to healers as being "light workers."  People who do reiki, or hypnotherapy, polarity, life coaching, or practice the art of herbalism have this training (hopefully) in subtlety and grace. We have to touch gently, or aggressively, but with an intention to the person's and your own practice's highest sense of good. Indeed the institute's motto, written right on the wall is, "Let me be an instrument and not an ego, in the peace and healing of others."

We tend to operate on another vibrational level. For me, it tends to be lower. Less fast-paced, with a sense of joy and ease. This is where healing lies for me. When I take another person into this space of learning and change, it is indeed with a light touch.

So, I understand the term light workers. But it's a little too heavy of a label for me. I do take a lot of responsibility in teaching others to use and heal with herbs. However, my art is tangible. There is a sense of control and restraint with clinical herbs. I like the term "good work."

To do the good work requires a few things. And I think the first is Patience:

Patience with the plants I employ, patience with the clients who have sought my guidance, patience with myself-- and patience with those who resist herbalism as a legitimate lifestyle and mode of healing.

A Day in the Life

It's been a few weeks since the first time I told someone I was an herbalist. It began as am apology. And when I finished the sentence it was a declaration. I recall this moment now as empowering, risky, and awkward. Someone who I've known a long time asked me how school was going and I replied that I had just finished. She followed this up with, "Oh! Congratulations, so what are you going to be when you grow up?"
She said it haltingly, in that endearing sort of way.
"I'm going to consult people who want to try herbs and teach them how to use them to. Heal."
I said it like that. I paused between the words. I let it sit out there in the air for everyone in earshot. And this included me. I was suddenly buzzing and a little off my feet.
I walked away confused and tipsy. And happy.

I had made the announcement, to myself mostly, but it was made. So, there is this door in my life now and I sit behind it most of the time. But it's one I walk through every morning. The door to the herbalist's laboratory.

It feels good there. It's warm and smells good. It's an office of learning. I make teas and I spend hours hunched over a desk. I make phone calls and I have visitors. The sole employ of this space is to serve as a public human good- for anyone with a question or a need. They can be herbal needs, or nutritional needs. Maybe a question about this plant or that article.

I have emails that need answering, business that needs sorting, worksheets and recipes to transcribe and formulate. I spend a lot of time planning and my thoughts wander. I am free to explore the moments between calculator and laptop to craft ideas in my mind about my practice and where I want it to go and be.

I don't make money, by the hour or otherwise. That will come in time. But, for now, I am doing the work and building slowly my own reality. It's my life and my creation. I am fortunate and patient to have this luxury. The luxury of being a professional and an artist. The tools and resources I have gathered, whether by merit or grace, are not squandered in this place.

It's a physical place, and it's lovely. But it's most lovely because it inhabits this place in my mind, and in this place I am my best. And now that I've officially begun, it's only going to get better.

Marta Orozco,
Herbalist