Kiva Rose
“We are dandelions busting concrete with delicate, yet infinitely strong roots. Every wild food, plant medicine & healing choice that takes us closer to wholeness is a revolutionary act and a step towards radical wellness on a planetary level.”
-Kiva Rose
I am a traditional herbalist and medicine woman, and my practice is focused on a vitalist approach to local plants, sustainability, whole person/whole plant understandings and earthy, practical ways of teaching people to work with the plants themselves rather than being dependent on experts.
My focus is firmly on accessible, grassroots herbalism that educates the individual and serves the community, both the human component as well as the larger earthen community. I strongly believe in restoring health at all levels and approach healing from the understanding that the body is a diverse and intelligent ecology, integrally connected to the planet as a whole. I frequently works in an integrative style, including herbal medicine, nutrition, counseling and other holistic therapies in my practice.
My medicine is made of soups, weeds and slow sipped teas. I prefer the empowerment of intentional preparation to the convenience of pills. I like getting my hands dirty, and gather most of my medicines myself. There is much healing to be found in the simple act of slowing down and smelling the flowers, feeling the soil beneath your feet and being deeply present as you harvest roots and barks, leaves and flowers from our plant allies.
With a overriding passion for the preservation and restoration of wild land, native plants and biodiversity, I am actively involved in the healing and growth of the Animá Lifeways & Herbal School’s 80 acre botanical sanctuary and wildlife refuge. Through my work in the reintroduction of indigenous plant species, propagation of existing species and an ongoing biological survey of the land, I continue to fall ever deeper in love with the unique beauty of the Gila bioregion of New Mexico. The riparian canyon I live and work in is surrounded on all sides by the Gila National Forest and is seven river crossings from the nearest road. Our rustic homestead is built beside thousand year old Mogollon ruins, and the ancient song of this special place is clear to all who listen.
My perspective in healing and herbal medicine been influenced by the Appalachian ways I grew up around as well as the Hispanic/Indigenous traditions I’m now immersed in here in the Southwest. I especially love the wisdom of the grandmothers and root doctors, medicine women and curanderos – traditional wisdom passed on to each generation, full of the knowledge and stories of past, present and place.
In addition to my teaching work and clinical practice, I also co-organize the Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference, an international event held each September near Santa Fe. TWHC is focused on providing a celebratory venue for bringing together the many and varied herbal traditions of the Western World while providing experience-based knowledge to students and practitioners.
I teach online mentorships and courses as well as on-site classes and workshops in herbal medicine, ethnobotany, botany, foraging, edible wild plants, traditional lifeways and primal nutrition through the Animá Lifeways & Herbal School, in addition to serving in the capacity of co-director. I also do guest teaching on similar subjects at regional and national events and conferences.
This is where I share medicinal plant musings, recipes, thoughts on rewilding, wild foods ideas, ethnobotanical information, forays into field botany, case studies and the river ramblings I’m prone to. Welcome to the Canyon, and enjoy!
~~~~~
Since I was a child I have loved all things wild.… I was always stumped by the widespread appeal of florist shop flowers and domestic vegetables. Why have these pale shadows, when we could be feasting eyes and mouths on sweetbriar and mulberry, dandelion and violet? Always creeping to the edge of the lawn, I was most fascinated with the lush plantain and fairy touched yarrow that lived there, the smells deeper and stranger than the greenest grass or carefully cultivated tulips. I begged my mom to give up mowing and let us grow sage and clover for a lawn instead, and refused to pull weeds from the garden.
Now I live in one of the wildest places left in North America, a large chunk of New Mexico called the Gila, where bald eagles and great blue herons are frequently seen just outside my cabin window, and lion tracks are found in the woods barely beyond the clearing. The plants here are fierce, almost ferocious in their display of wildness, spikes of banana yucca, barbed Parry’s agave and the prickly canes of cholla cactus line the paths here. Our fruit is the spine laden flesh of prickly pears and small sour berries of wild sumach. And my greatest pleasure is still all about getting down on my hands and knees to see it all close up, the microcosm of irrepressible life.
This land is my lover, and I love her well. The river winding through this narrow canyon beats against the bank with my pulse and the flowers glitter with my tears. Likewise, my skin is volcanic rock and snapdragon vine, my fingers rose thorns and vine tendrils.
I work and play with the plants here, for healing and vision and solace and sanity. I’m an herbalist and medicine woman, I’m a poet and dancer… I’m a girl in a fairytale, I’m as tangled and wild as the roses.
This blog is all about the wild plants, but it’s also about rewilding and deep ecology, the Animá Tradition of Herbalism and its place in the larger picture of Traditional Western Herbalism, and bio-regionalism and place-based wisdom… it’s about healing and bliss and life.
All pics (c) 2010 Jesse Wolf Hardin
Somewhat frustrated, with a hundred or so species of plants, bushes, trees, ground covers, herbs, native plants that very few know, utilize in their gardens; I have found your site, read your words and some energy/hope has flown within.
The frustration is consequence of the destruction, lack of care or interest in the maintenance of green areas according to laws of nature, needs of the environment.
Thanks for your words. Congratulations on your site/work.
I studied at the New York Botanical, with a certificate in Commercial Horticulture Landscape Management.
I strongly identify with your words! I live in Herefordshire in UK, and try to do similar stuff, I too prefer the empowerment of intentional preparation that you talk about. After years of practical teaching and working as a herbalist I am at present feeling tired and somewhat discouraged in the midst of a culture that seems so materialistic. So it is good to know there are others out there who share a similar philosophy! Thankyou.
I trained as a herbalist here in the UK and was a member of NIMH for 16 years, but no longer ‘practice’ professionally. I am making a new garden after building a sustainable house with my family. Time to refocus! Sending you my best wishes for your work….
Rowan
What a delightful, rambling monologue! I just adore the way you write- as if you were sitting across the table from me drinking tea on a sunny summer day. I am a wannabe medicine woman/herbalist/healer. But, I am at the very start of this exploration, though I recently realized that my chosen lifepaths have lead to this all my life. I have read several books, but have had no opportunity to talk with others who have more knowledge in these areas than my meager compilation.
Like a sponge, I will eagerly read all of your posts, gleaning as much knowledge as I can. Thank you for your bright, beautiful webpage and know that it is very much appreciated by this woman. May the Gods bless you!
Our SOUPoftheDAY business made us realized that the business led our family to appreciate the power of herbs. We uses herbs in our soup, bread and other products and we wanted to share our learnings to those who need to know.
I am so happy I have found your site and see the road where i am going.
I am a wanna be herbalist and dedicated to learn. We have a small herbal garden in our yard.
I am entangled with the way you communicate your passion, i am contaminated at once.
May you continue to shine to bring more people in this awakening!
I enjoyed the visit to your site and found it informative.
It’s nice to know there great folks out here on the net willing to help others learn.
Have a nice day
Love all your articles! I am in Southern Ontario so not many actually apply but those that do are very helpful.
I was pleasantly surprised to find your site while looking for nettle seed. I became a level one herbalist in 2000 and have been helping to treat my sister.
Bless you and thank you for sharing.
The plants are calling us all back. . .
Hello beautiful sister. i love you site, and your monolouge, there is the light of a healer raditating from your words. i am too a medicine woman, or girl more like as i am still young, but i resonated with your story. i live right above you in colorado, but i miss new mexico so much, the barren strength of the plants there is amazing. i went on here trying to remember how much water comfrey needed. do you have a grandmother that is passing this tradition on through you? i wish i did, so many seem to be so hungry for this natural path but so few live up to it. keep on being beautiful! peace and love and beautiful naure vibes my friend! may your life be filled with barefoot forest hikes and beautiful plant songs
Love your website and writings. The pictures of the plants are fabulous. What kind of camera do you use, lens, pixels, etc? Your approach to herbalism is very refreshing. All book learning can get stale. I will look forward to getting your book that is mentioned at HerbMentor.com. Thats how I heard about your site. All the best.
Thank you all for your beautiful and heartening comments!
Dodie, I’m glad you like the pictures, most of the older ones were taken by my partner Jesse Wolf Hardin on a Fuji Finepix 6900z and many of the newer ones are by me (you can tell in the newer ones by the copyright credits given at the bottom of the post) using a Fuji Finepix S9000. No special lens or anything, though if we’re using AF, then we often use the macro setting. Can’t remember the megapixels at the moment, it’s nothing really spectacular, just good middle of the road digital cameras. All in all, photography is way more about being able to see than what camera you’re using.
Yes indeed, healing is an experiential art and can’t truly be learned from book (although they’re helpful and inspirational in other ways).
Thank you all for reading!
Great website, you are so brave to live like this. I’m far too attached to modern day convieniances (traps
!
I’m a big fan of your site and visit often. I find the posts full of valuable information, the pictures beautiful and the language enchanting.
While in Monument Valley on the Utah/Arizona border I read some Navajo literature on the plant called, “Mormon Tea”. Among other things, it was used for urinary tract/bladder/kidney infections. At that time I’d been experimenting with various herbal remedies from the store for a painful and persistent UTI with no success. I thought about the article you wrote about how herbs can lose their effectiveness when gotten at the store and that it’s best to get them wild. When I later came across Mormon Tea in New Mexico I picked some and took it home to Seattle and used it. It is the only thing that has worked. Thanks for the inspiration!
I came across an article in the New York Times about your neck of the woods – the Gila Wilderness. Here’s the link:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/travel/escapes/12american.html
Kind Regards,
Katie
Can anyone tell me how to find out about kivas correspondence courses? i cant find it on the site.
Hi Claire, it’s under studentships on the Anima site but there will be new descriptions of the herbal course up with the new websites in the next week. Let me know which course you’re most interested in (Medicine Woman Core, Medicine Woman Herbal, Shaman, Path of Heart or ReWilding) and I can send you the most up to date info on it (or them, if you’re interested in more than one).
Blessings,
Kiva
Awesome!
So very glad to have been turned on to your site!
cheers!
I am so grateful to have found your site! It is as refreshing as a walk in nature after a cool rain when the sun is shining brightly and the air still smells fresh! Thank you so much for providing this to all who search. I look forward to receiving it on a regular basis with your newletter!
This is stuff I definitely need to sit down and learn. It’s been difficult over the years separating the wheat from the chaff in the world of natural medicine, but there is SO MUCH good there! Sometimes I wish I’d taken the path of the doctor rather than the engineer, but I always adore learning new things, and one can never know enough about healing, or about nature.
Oh, and for the record, you’re beautiful.
Greetings from sunny South Africa! I am so enjoying reading all your blogs and learning so much as I go along. I have a rather large garden which is partly semi-wild and gradually I am adding as many herbal plants and medicinals as I can, but it is time consuming and takes plenty of money as well. For this reason I am turning to seed-buying instead of plant buying and have got some wonderful seeds via internet – that being how I found you.
One day I would love to do the herbal self-study course, but at present, with the exchange rate it is just too much so in time – I believe it will happen one day and meanwhile I can enjoy reading here.
I have been trying to find a place to buy estafiate, and though you have many many articles on it you never say where you can buy a plant, seeds, or dried herb. Do you know and can you please tell me.
thank you
Jennifer. I don’t say because it’s an extremely common wild plant throughout the Western US, so there’s little need to buy it. If you want to find seeds or life plants you might try Horizon Herbs, they probably have it. The dried plant, I dunno. You could use A. vulgaris instead, almost any herb store will carry that and although it’s not nearly as strong it’s still useful.
Kiva ~ do you sell any of your preparations for those of us who can’t forage or get the correct herbs in our location? I’d love to hear your opinion on using tea tree oil instead of triple antiobiotic cream ~ I had several surface moles removed that the antiobiotic cream and latex-free bandaid adhesives are causing a terrible rash around the wound! surely there must be others who cannot tolerate those creams and bandages, but how to avoid infection? Is using pure straight tea tree oil a better substitute? Any suggestions are so welcome, I hate to cause myself more problems with the angry rashes.
You are truly a blessing in our lives, you cannot even imagine the scope of help you are giving!
Kiva,
Your site is beautiful and truly touches my heart.
I am trying to locate a gallon or more of cottonwood oil. My spirit sisters and I are gathering in July to prepare a healing green salve in the Lakota way, with the help of 2 Elders. Cottonwood oil is very difficult to locate here – Ohio. Do you have any suggestions about where we might purchase some? I’ve searched the internet and have had no luck.
I am hoping to prepare it myself for the next season.
Thank you so much….you’ve really given me inspiration!
I really like your site. I have relatives and history on the Gila northwest of Lordsburg, NM. I tracked my Third Greatgrandfather from Fayetteville, AR to Knight’s Peak, wjere he was killed by Apaches in 1878. Beautiful country.
Nice to meet you
What a treasure you are! Your site is a priceless gem! I too am a lover of New Mexico though I live in the NorthEastern region. My husband and I recently moved to Raton from MN. We came here for one reason only and that was simply the call of New Mexico. So very nice to meet you here and I hope you can visit my blog sometime.
My Best, Kristy
http://starkravingzen.blogspot.com/
so thankful i found this site, a gift.
i know that inside me has all the information, my love of the plants, it’s all there, but it certainly is nice to find a human guide online when i have a little question, wondering or need inspiration.
you are beauty!
give thanks!
mb
Dont’ know how i arrived here from Italy.. but thankyou for your work and your SOUL.
la Zia Artemisia
I would love to come to your conference. I, too, have Appalachian roots. The farm I love to roam is surrounded by beautiful Jessamine Creek, and you can feel the Great Spirit there. I leave it wild, and people ask me “What are you going to do with your farm?” First, it is God’s farm, second, it is doing what it wants to do–be wild. You would be a good daughter to have. So daughter, thank you for your poetry and ZING-UNDERSTANDING.