Welcome to Ursula's Garden!

Let me tell you about myself and about this newsletter

My name is Elke and I am a mother and an herbalist. My journey has been one of many adventures that began with being raised in an unconventional family. I was born in Berkeley, CA to my parents who immigrated to the United States from Mexico and Germany respectively. I was raised tri-lingual believe it or not. At the age of four we moved to Eugene, OR, where my younger brother was born. I grew up in this green state and continue to make this place home.

We would often travel to visit family in Mexico and occasionally to Germany as well. Once in college, my love of travel took me to countries in Latin America and Europe where my language skills were an advantage. In 2010 I signed up for the Peace Corps and spent two years living in a Quechua speaking village in the Cordillera Blanca of Peru. My love of nature and the surrounding mountains was solidified here. And while I was somewhat beholden to the “Peace Corps mission,” the exposure to indigenous life was very rewarding and awakened something within me.

Always drawn to the counterculture of the hippy era and spiritual traditions such as Buddhism, I came back in 2012 with a broadened sense of who I was and the kind of life I wanted to live. When I met the right man, Kyle, we quickly became inseparable and shortly after getting married in 2013, had the opportunity to purchase a rural property. We didn’t hesitate. Here, we chose to have our three children at home. I learned to make the woods my home and found the forest to be deeply healing to my somewhat battered psyche. And it is here, that I came to know the plants.

I had already been using herbal medicine as a natural alternative to anti-depression drugs. I had felt their ability to help me change and grow without reliance on drugs that often have nasty side-effects. But I wanted to know more, and I was still having some mental health struggles. It was shortly after our son was born in 2015 that I began to identify some of the plants growing wild around our land. Not long after this I found herbalist Susun Weed online after she had presented a talk in Eugene for an event hosted by Mountain Rose Herbs. Immediately upon seeing her picture, smiling and laughing, with a cascading waterfall behind her, that I knew I’d found something special. I went to her website and found a wealth of information.

From this point on there was no going back. I read as much as I could and began listening to her podcast call-in show. Wow! What a force, and what an introduction to the plants. Of course, one of the first preparations I heard from her were Nourishing Herbal Infusions. These are the mainstays for health, for energy, for emotional and mental fortitude and I’ve been drinking them for the last five years.

I have now completed mentorships with noted Wise Woman Herbalists (more on this later) and am in a long-term correspondence course with Susun herself. In 2019 I attended the Pacific Women’s Herbal Conference in Washington state, and this last Summer hosted a handful of herb walks here in my hometown of Cottage Grove, OR.

Inevitably on this path of herbalism my interests in healing traditions have led me to explore shamanic practices, history, science, and psychoactive plants and fungi. There is so much to discover! And so much to share that I’m bursting at the seams. That is why I have created this platform. Because I hope to share some of the healing ways that have helped me and those I love, and because I have so much yet to learn. I’d love to create a community that wants to come along for the ride.

In gratitude,

Elke.

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