Gate & Garden

I’m always working hard teaching my students herbalism, making you plant potions, tending the apothecary, and growing all of the herbs…

But mentally I’m in one of these places 🥲

tag ya self with where you are mentally or add your own in the comments - I could use the laugh !

The best apothecaries are full of a few tricks and a few treats 😉🖤🎃

I am so excited to be back peddling my plant potions at this year’s the Salem Night Faire THIS weekend, 10/17 & 10/18!

Come wander beyond the veil in the liminal pine tree tunnel portal of Salem’s Old Pioneer Village to get your spooky fill of artisans, crafters, snacks, & and ghost stories.

And if you dare, enter the gilded tent of Gate & Garden’s apothecary for a bewitching remedy. Be it ritual candles, spell oils, poison plant talismans, cauldrons, or mystery oracle fortunes alike, I have witchcraft wares & more aplenty!

you fly over
when it’s cold out
follow me home
back to the lighthouse 🕯️

Many of you know me as a deep lover of the land; a soil soul with mycelial veins. And indeed, I am- my solace is often found amongst pine groves & mottled moss covered branches.

But having lived my entire life near water, my cancer moon heart is deeply tied to ocean kissed shores.
Living on the south coast of Massachusetts, maritime culture is as much of my identity as anything else. The echoes of lighthouse beacons, salt spray caked calloused hands, and scallop shells reverberate through my body as a siren song.

I love the ocean in her truest form, for the Atlantic is angry & tempestuous. The spirit of water here does not show in reflective teal tide pools or soft sands, but rather in rugged & rocky shorelines and dark, foaming waves.

I’ve conjured much of my magic from these liminal depths, and I weave the mists of salt & sediment in all that I do. I am grateful beyond measure to the water spirits for their teachings; how to flow and yield and thrash all the same.

And as always, I am grateful for my dearest Kim Pettella , who somehow always manages to perfectly capture the intense devotion I carry for spirit of place. 🌊

HEAR YE, HEAR YE!

Enrollment for Wild Heart Herbalism’s 2027 cohort is now OPEN!

My flagship learn-herbalism mentorship is back for another year of to host more curious humans who want to develop practical herbal skills while cultivating a more intimate relationship with plants and place.

This choose your own adventure style mentorship offers both in person and virtual pathways for a customizable way to learn & grow. We begin May 2027, and I’d LOVE to have you join us!

If you’ve been looking for an herbalism course, herbalist training, or plant medicine education that brings together practical knowledge, embodied learning, intuition, and relationship with the living world, come take a look.

There’s a full link in the place where those live, and you can always comment or dm me ☺️
See you in the apothecary!

Introducing: 🥀𝔈𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔫𝔞𝔩𝔩𝔶 𝔜𝔬𝔲𝔯𝔰🥀
A the Salem Night Faire exclusive offering from Gate & Garden Apothecary!

Every year I vend the Salem Night Faire, I create an extra special & exclusive-to-the-market offering. Weaving inspired small details, iconic artistry, and ambience, I take care to craft something that honors one of my favorite weekends of the year.

This year I’ve truly made you something extra special: a custom coffin candle that encases dark delights as devotional talisman.

Custom crafted glass keepsake coffins created exclusively for Gate & Garden by the one and only Christina Haskins are each lovingly adorned with preserved garden roses & cemetery soil. Each ritual flame is fragranced with bright funerary florals, fresh shovel-severed grass, & damp earth.

As candles & bespoke keepsake vessels once emptied, these totems are symbols of the delicate & inescapable paradoxes of life. Love & loss, grief & gratitude, union & separation, shadow & flame.

May these embers remind you that we are all woven together in the grand tapestry of life, and that even in death, we are eternally together in soil, soul, & stars.

🖤 LIMITED AVAILABILITY- find these only at Gate & Garden’s apothecary at the Salem Night Faire 10/16 & 10/17 while they last 🖤

Happy Monday; I’m crashing out - as the youth say 🤡

As an herbalist and herbalism teacher, I have many HUGE problems with the increasingly common habit of marketing herbs or plants as “nature’s pharmaceuticals.”

It isn’t just inaccurate, it’s dangerous & completely misunderstands what herbalism even is.

Yes, many modern drugs were/are derived from plants. And yes, plants absolutely interact with human physiology. But reducing a plant to “nature’s Botox” or “nature’s flu shot” teaches people to see plants as inferior versions of something else, and that has a cost- and one I’m not willing to stay quiet about.

We lose relationship, ecology, spirit, tradition, knowledge, health sovereignty, and potentially, the freedom to practice herbalism outside of biased & commercialized medical systems.

This is why I care so deeply about *how we teach herbalism*, not just what herbs we teach.
My work is rooted in plant relationship, physiology, folk herbalism, animism, ethics, critical thinking, and the responsibility that comes with working with living beings.

Will it get me brand deals and high like counts? Maybe not. But I don’t care. Because we all deserve better than the posts that do.

💌 You’re invited to an INCREDIBLY special Samhain Earthwoven supper 💌
As the leaves turn and the spirits come home, Spoon + Board & I welcome you into a potent portal of devotion, edible alchemy, and seasonal celebration!

Juan Ferrer is a chef, witch, and woodworker that creates magick through the medium of cuisine. From hand carving his own cooking tools to reinventing classical cooking into innovative new ideas, he incorporates all things magical into everything he does. A practicing thelemic witch and occultist, Juan is not only a dear friend, but constant inspiration.

In this special Samhain ritual, chef & magician Juan will utilize the bounty of Gate and Garden’s home grown harvests to cook & curate an intimate, unforgettable, and ethereal dining experience that will celebrate the season and dazzle tastebuds.

Come & experience multi-course flavors and dynamic aromas that are sure to delight, and set the stage for a beautiful ritual that takes place around the table. ❤️

Spaces are very limited so RSVP soon, and we’ll see you around the hearthfire, witches!

What do yall know about a coven if it doesn’t have a chicken in it?! 😂🥹

For real though, I am SO grateful my dear friend Cait Hurley / Cait Hurley captured some really sweet photos of me & my favorite sister witch 🐓🎃

HAPPY OCTOBER FIRST, ALL!

You can keep your “love & light” “high vibe only”and “thoughts & prayers” magic because I don’t need that bu****it.

My hands are guided by fanged & forked tongue serpent, black widow, and baneful belladonna. By heretic, heroine, and harlequin. By the condemned, the damned, and the wild witch women of destruction.

Do not for one moment think that if I don’t publicly speak about any given horrific atrocity that I have nothing to say. Trust instead that my silence means that my full body, attention, and power are AT WORK.

A woman craft-weaving in felt, embodied, and channeled calculated rage is a dangerous woman.

And as Dr Estés says, “You stand in my danger. You stand in the aura surrounding me that is funded by my heart, my soul and my spirit that says, certain things of this earth are so precious, they can never be allowed to be harmed or vanish from the face of this earth. You stand in my danger. Because I will protect, I will help, I will create, I will defend, I will unleash, I will hold back, I will restrain, I will open up. I will carve doors in walls. You stand in my danger.”