An intense and disorienting awakening experience at age 19 sent me on a quest to explore what it means to be human, beyond my personal, cultural and ancestral conditioning.
I first sought out intense experiences, which were probably needed to crack my hard head open! However, this left me feeling an enormous gap between my inner and outer life, between the sacred and the mundane, between the extraordinary and the ordinary, Spirit and Matter. The need for integration and the reclaiming of lost parts of myself and who we are as humans became central.
My quest led me to explore and train in various modalities, including Plant Spirit Medicine in the Amazon, Tantra and Feminine Sexual Awakening, Womb Wisdom, Massage, Herbal Medicine, Organic Farming, Non-dual Wisdom.
This quest also included a lot of travelling, exploring how being human was expressed in different cultures & searching for exemples of cultures living in an harmonious way with the natural world. This led to wonderful discoveries, as well as hard truth around cultural appropriation & western tendency to romanticize some traditions, often forgetting that they also have their “dark” sides.
Along the way, I obtained a Master in Psychological and Psychiatric Anthropology, which focused on the Western Use of Ayahuasca in the Amazon. This was fuelled by the desire to understand how individual shifts in perception could bring about cultural changes. The intersection between social/cultural evolution & embodied spirituality/actions has always been close to my Heart.
This, along with my reconnection with Plant Medicine & a pull towards Ancestors work, steered me in the direction of reconnecting with Western Ancestral Wisdom.
In parallel to this seeking and two intense periods of long dark night of the Soul, the mystery of Life was unfolding through me. Beyond my relentless seeking, the Intelligence of Life was working Her magic, leading me to drop more deeply into the Wisdom of my body and the Wisdom of the Earth. I let myself be guided by the Feminine Principle.
After emerging from deep depression, the call from the Earth to bring the Women back to Her became louder.
After spending more than 15 years of my adult life abroad & as a nomad, I felt called by the Land to come back home to my Ancestral Land of France & become the Earth apprentice.
I am still navigating this physical homecoming, as I now live within a triangle of where my close ancestors (grand-parents on both side) lived as well as more ancient ancestors (Cathars or Albigensian who practiced the Ancient path of Love).
I grow herbal medicine on the land that my grandparents used to farm, taking care of plants from seed to finish products. Handcrafting soulful products to support your mind body & soul.
It is here, at the foothill of a medieval village called Cordes-Sur-Ciel, near Albi and Toulouse, in Southwest France that I am inviting you to explore the listening of your inner wisdom, body Wisdom and become intimate with the Land & the Plants.
MY PLANT PATH
I first was called to the plant path through entheogens who broke my head and heart open. They opened me to the deep wisdom contained within us/the Universe/the Earth and the Beings that inhabit Her.
Those experiences were invaluable, however they were very intense and I did not leave enough time for integration which left me with a huge gap between what I had experienced/my inner life and my outer life/the way things were in the world around me.
It then became obvious that I had to let go of my work with these plants of power, and a long dark night of the Soul ensued, where I didn’t know how to live life anymore as nothing seemed to have any meaning.
After over a year, life started stirring again, and I “forgot” about plants as I explored different modalities and started intense inner work, once again, as I had done with entheogens, to find THE thing that would “fix” me and once again creating a split between the inner and the outer.
In the midst of all this, I started taking classes in herbal medicine and this was the revelation, the reuniting with a long lost Love I never knew I had. I started seeing treasures in every hedges and wasteland and deepened my intimacy with the Natural world and Earth natural Rhythms as well as reconnecting with Ancestral Wisdom that had been in the hands of a long line of Medicine Women before me.
My focus was on the ways plants can provide support for our emotional and spiritual evolution. However the plants rapidly made it clear that I needed to deepen my knowledge of their physical properties if I wanted to develop my relationship with them deeper (and calling me out on the fact that I once again was creating a split between Spirit and Matter).
I have since trained in herbal medicine with various teachers, with a focus on holistic/vitalist herbalism and an interest on western, local plants. Those studies have helped me understand further the ways in which outer/inner microcosm/macrocosm are intimately interconnected.
In parallel, the plants called me back to my homeland of France, to study organic agriculture, and plant medicine growing in particular, and I was blessed to work on various farms as well as wildcraft medicinal plants for myself and those around me throughout the seasons, once again deepening my intimacy within myself and with the Natural world.
Through a course of events that were not what I was wanting – but Life knew I needed – I found myself back to my ancestors’ homeland (I have since found out that I can trace ancestors on this land at least up to the 1700’s).
I am now growing herbal medicine on the land my grandparents used to farm & continue to deepen my relationship with plants & the very soil of the Earth. I also teach training in herbal medicine & Feminine plant Wisdom locally.