hi! i’m rowan.
I am a facilitator, herbalist & writer. I love plants, ritual, somatics, folklore, research and deepening into ancestral practices of blood & community. I am a bookworm, lover of song, and shy Pisces heart in a Virgo shell. I’m an agender trans person of Irish, Lithuanian, Scottish, and Sicilian trancestry, who benefits from the settler colonial and white supremacist nature of the United States. My pronouns are they/them/theirs.
I’m the creatrix behind of hawthorn and yew. this is a sacred cauldron of learning, connecting, unsettling, cultivating kinship, and invitation into deeper aliveness. im trained as a community herbalist, somatic bodyworker, facilitator, conflict mediator, researcher, and abx doula. my work centers trans, nonbinary, and queer community, and reflects a lifeway committed to values of anarchism, biocentrism, anti-oppression, anti-white supremacy, punk DIY ethos and total liberation.
about me
i am trained as a Community Herbalist training in the vitalist tradition of so-called “traditional western herbalism”. Formal herbalism study includes CommonWealth Center for Holistic Herbalism in 2016, Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism in 2021, and the Advanced Clinical Herbal Skills program taught by Stachia, Ember & Vilda Chaya in 2023. I support community through herbal care via my own practice, as well as community mutual aid projects.
In addition to this foundation, I continue to tend this learning and deepening into relationship with plant kin through over a decade of self study and relational practices that are more aligned with my values. I love to read old books of my cultural lineages and learn from folks who are connected to undisrupted healing lineages. I am committed to unsettling TWH and reweaving anti-colonial ancestral herbalisms.
I live as a disabled person with long-c, and this too shapes me deeply. I am woven into communities of disability and madness, and am so so grateful for the care flowing in all directions.
i am a somatic bodyworker as well as a student practicing in politicized somatics in the living lineages of generative somatics and Strozzi somatics. I am a participant in the new formation of this lineage, the Center for Aliveness and Liberation. I have been in ongoing study and practice for the past 6 years. My most recent teachers include Ream, MawuLisa Thomas-Adeyemo, Erika Lyla and Staci Haines. With gratitude, I am in an ongoing somatic bodywork mentorship with MawuLisa Thomas-Adeyemo.
i studied conflict meditation and transformation in the north of Ireland, as well as dialogue facilitation there and later through additional development trainings. i continued to learn & practice facilitation over the past 10+years through local community organizing and anarchist, nonhierarchical lifeways. I have been involved in anarchist organizing for over a decade. I’m a teacher, facilitator, and creative person who loves to share what they know with community, for the sake of collective healing and liberation.
Most importantly perhaps, I am a deeply spiritual person, whose work is rooted, resourced and woven by devotion to the sacred, the land, and my ancestors.
If you are seeking support in your journey, I would be honored to collaborate with you.
I’m committed to facilitating qt community spaces for healing connection and collaborative learning.
I’m committed to queer4queer care, through 1:1 and larger community work. my work is centered in the reality of the world we are living in, and the world that might be.
Through pathways of plants, sacred practices & interconnection, I seek to spiral ever closer to holy embodied aliveness, and to help others do the same, in service to movements for justice and healing.
Living Breathing Community Webs
All the work I do is deeply impacted by the world around me, my teachers, mentors, peers and beloveds.
I wanted to name some of the influences that inform my approach to my work specifically, orienting myself in the wider ecosystem. (if you want a fuller, more detailed share, scroll down below – there’s more!)
Much of my work grew out of a childhood love of books & learning, a love for playing in the woods behind my house making mystery plant soups, and a family that raised me with an Irish American identity in the n east of the US. This groundwork was then built upon through institutional academic study in anthropology, Middle East Studies and Irish Studies (both undergraduate in NYC and then later, graduate studies in Belfast). My life was deeply impacted by spending extended periods in the SWANA region, both in Egypt and in occupied Palestine, as well as living in Ireland in the occupied north. As a lifelong student of cultural lineage, I love learning languages, song & dance, reading old books, ethnobotany, and talking to those of undisrupted lineage connection. I am an herbalist trained in the vitalist tradition of so called TW herbalism, and I am a commitment to reweaving cultural herbalisms for sake of justice and healing.
My perspectives have been deeply shaped by political movement spaces focused on anarchism, biocentrism and eco defense, healing justice, Palestinian liberation, the movement for Black Lives, Indigenous sovereignty on Turtle Island, and queer liberation. In my early politicization, I was deeply influenced by Palestinian, Italian and German anarchists while living abroad.
As a child I deeply loved the wild world and the land I lived upon, and believed that everything would be better if we took care of each other; as an adult, I hold those childhood truths close. My spiritual grounding as a practitioner of earth based devotion informs everything I do, as does my ever deepening relationship with my ancestors.
More recently, I am shaped as a student of and fledgling practitioner of politicized somatics, in the living lineage of generative and Strozzi Somatics. Some teachers I am lucky enough to learn from directly include: Staci Haines, Ream, MawuLisa Thomas-Adeyemo, Tesfaye Tekelu, and more. I am currently being shaped by the new formation in this lineage, the Center of Aliveness and Liberation. The combination of somatics and ancestral work facilitated by Marika Heinrichs and Stevie Joy Leigh via EAI has shaped my practices as well, as has the Lineage of Embodiment series from the Embodiment Institute.
More broadly, I am deeply influenced by the work of Prentis Hemphill, Susan Raffo, leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha, Staci Haines, Mary Oliver, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Angela Davis, Ursula Le Guin, and many other writers, healers and revolutionaries who work(ed) for a better world.
Other herbalists, artists and somatic practitioners whose work has impacted me include: Layla Feghali, Nicole Rose, Sirius Heart, hannah harris-sutro, Nazbah Tom, Pavini Moray, Phillippe Citrine, Nikki Minor, the Sage Femme collective, Nicole Rose of Solidarity Apothecary, Kelly of Attic Apothecary, Cody Cooke-Parrot, Becky Beyer, Ayelet Hashachar, Janet Kent, Tara of Catalyst Community Herbals, Ember Peters, Max Ruin of any way we can herbs, and more.
Others working in the field of politicized ancestral lineage work for settlers in diaspora who I deeply admire include MaryBeth Bonfiglio, Lisa Fazio, Marika Heinrichs and Stevie Joy Leigh.
Beyond these relations, I am just one in a long lineage of peoples who cared deeply about the world, loved the land beneath their feet, and dreamed of freedom. I listen and learn from my ancestors of blood and community, and above all, I live in service to the holy wild. May this work support us all in moving toward the dream of liberation.
want to learn more?
background
i was first politicized after spending time as a student in Egypt and occupied Palestine, and getting involved in anti-imperialism and Palestine solidarity movements. Over time, I deepened into organizing around ecocide and environmental justice, MAD pride, DIY generative health, anti-fascism, anti-racism, and supporting movements for Indigenous sovereignty – both here on Turtle Island / NA and in occupied Palestine.
I am deeply rooted in queer community, anarchic organizing and direct action.
with so much gratitude in my heart, i honor those who have done the work in the movements for MAD pride, disability justice and healing justice, who have impacted me deeply and changed how i move through the world.
since then, i have worn many hats. i have been a full spectrum doula, a gender + sex educator, a conflict mediator, an info shop collective member, a gathering organizer, a direct action trainer, a student in academic settings, and an herbalist trained in “traditional western herbalism” (read: european empire medicine).
I am a longtime witch, ritualist, and writer, and have been a member of many different organizing groups and collectives. I am a trained facilitator with nearly a decade of experience, having facilitated circles, dialogue, and meetings in a multitude of settings. I believe that deep connection and healing is possible in containers that are held with care, intention and attention – I have seen it.
lately my focus has been directed toward relational transformation and healing – with self, other humans, plantkin, land, transcestors, and Spirit. Ritual, embodiment, relationships with plants, and personal practice have all been cornerstones of my own healing processes, and are at the root of what i am currently sharing with community.
i am deeply committed to information + skill sharing, power sharing, and transforming together in community.
i feel curiosity around questions of anti-professionalism, real community accountability, and how even in radical spaces we replicate systems of harm and oppression.
I feel curiosity around the how of many processes, around how the process by which we do a thing can be just as important as the thing itself –
– how ancestral reconnection processes for settlers can be intricately tied to supporting Indigenous sovereignty and dismantling white supremacy on Turtle Island/NA in practice, not just in theory.
– how we build relationships with more-than-human kin
– how we tend to our inner shadows and wounds
– how we deepen in relationship with forces of nature, like Change and Spirit
– how we deepen into resiliency in this world.
training in politicized somatics
- Center for Aliveness and Liberation, Ream & B Stepp, yearlong politicized somatics training year 1, 2025 – present, 16 hours
- Somatic Bodywork mentorship with MawuLisa Thomas-Adeyemo, ongoing
- The Politics of Trauma, Staci Haines, Erika Lyla, and Brandon Sturdivant, Sept 2024 – Jan 2025
- Somatic Bodywork Training Intensive, Strozzi Institute, Richard Strozzi, Erika Lyla, and more, Sept 2024, 5 days, 40+ hours
- Somatic Bodywork Training Intensive, MawuLisa Thomas-Adeyemo & Ream, generative somatics, 2024, 20+ hours
- Somatic Bodywork Training Intensive, Ream, gs lineage, 2023, 3 days, 20+hours
- Foundations in Embodied Ancestral Inquiry, Marika Heinrichs of WildBody Somatics, and Steve Joy Leigh, 2022-2023
- Embodied Transformation intensive, Strozzi Somatics, 2022, 4 days, multiple teachers including Tesfaye Tekelu
- Somatics, Trauma and Resiliency, Strozzi Somatics, 2019-2020, Staci Haines and Nazbah Tom, 3 months
other personal experiences: I have been lucky enough to receive coaching from Phillippe Citrine, Eliana Rubin, Zoë April Poulette, and more over the past 6 years in 1:1 and small group settings.
training in herbalism
Railyard Apothecary staff, 2021-2024
Advanced Clinical Herbalism Mentorship, 2023-2024, Stachia, Ember & Vilda Chaya
VCIH 2021, Community Herbalist training
CCHH 2016, Community Herbalist training
First herbalism class: Spicerack Medicine with Jade! Highly recommend <3
Other teachers that have shaped me in an ongoing way through workshops over the years include by Ember Peters, Ayelet Haschachar, Nicole Rose of Solidarity Apothecary, Kelly of Attic Apothecary, and more.
all of this more formal study flows alongside a decade of self study and devotional practice of fostering kinship with plants.
Teaching: I have taught via my own practice h&y, as well as Terra Sylva, BRSHM, Railyard Apothecary, Western MA Herbalism Symposium, Maine Herbalism Gathering, and more.
I have been offering 1:1 support since 2019.
My focus in herbalism is cultivating relationships in an anti-colonial lens, herbal allies for generative/reproductive autonomy, mental & emotional health, queer/trans care, and long covid support.
further training & practice
to bolster my capacity to support community [and because I love to learn!], i’ve also undertaking training in trauma-aware care provision, generative (reproductive) cycle education, full spectrum doula care, suicidality support, ritual creation and priestxing skills, acupressure, facilitation, breath work, and tools for supporting people through grief, crisis and bereavement.
For my own healing and transformation, I have been (and continue to be) supported through 1:1 gs somatic coaching, talk therapy, bodywork, queer kink, anti-racism education, 12 step rooms, continued politicized somatics training, ritual and daily sacred practice, ancestral tending, aerial practice, dance, ruptured cultural reweaving through language and song, and community mutual aid networks.
spiritual grounding
I practice an ancestrally connected, earth rooted devotion the to holy wild.
I am an eclectic witch with a love of lore and ritual. My practice is based on deep relationship with Spirit, the Creatrix of life. It is grounded in my ancestral Celtic Isles’ blood lineages, deep relationships with plant kin, and in the re-membering of queer magical lineages erased by white supremacy and settler colonialism. Furthermore, my spirituality is nourished by my ethics: biocentrism, anarchism, the importance of ancestral reverence, and my commitment to doing my part to rebuild a more liberatory world every single day. Community-wise, I am a witch of the Reclaiming Tradition and a member of the Earthspirit community, both communities having held me for many years.
As a trans agender person, I practice liminal gender blessed magic and honor my queer transcestors. They do not rest in peace; May They Rise in Power.
In addition to over a decade of self-study, I have learned from many potent sources: my sacred circle of beloveds; my transcestors and ancestors; teachers in the Earthspirit community over 8+ years, especially Juniper Talbot, Sarah Lyn Eaton, and Giariel Foxwood; Reclaiming witches in the Pleasures of Beltaine camp, Wild Maine Witchcamp, BC Witchcamp and Cloudcatcher Witchcamp communities; Pavini Moray, from whom I learned the language ‘gender blessed’; Murphy Robinson and Jamie Waggoner; Alexis Cunningfolk through their courses and other teachings; the staff at Asheville Raven & Crone where I was lucky enough to work as a staff witch; trainings through the Institute for Birth, Breath and Death; the covens of my youth; from the plants and earth and sky themselves; from writers, poets and storytellers; my ancestors; and from spirit.
May the work I do in this life help move the wheel toward liberation.
find me in community:
i collaborate with Max of anyway we can herbs in the project betony and birch, through which we offer online education for healing practitioners on providing affirming care for queer and trans clients. We also offer contract education in these areas for schools, agencies, and organizations. Some past and current organizations we teach for include the Asheville Doula Agency, Terra Sylva School of Botanical Medicine, and the Blue Ride School of Herbal Medicine.