About Us

As humans, our original partners in navigating our lived experiences were the plants.  Since the beginning, they have clothed, sheltered, fed, protected and healed us.  We once knew them.  We knew their habitat, their fragrance, their taste and yes, their medicine.  

We used not only our minds to observe and collect data, but we used our hearts and our intuition to connect with them. 

The plants are longing for us to rekindle these attributes of our Human nature.

Know Thy Medicine is plant forward holistic herbalism. It’s an awakening to our innate human capacities to be in relationship with these intelligent beings.

As our elders we honor them, we approach them with a posture of respect, gratitude, openness, and a desire for reciprocal relationship.  It’s not just, “what can the plant do for me and my body?” But also, “How can I be a student of your wisdom? What can I do for you?”

With reverence, we are asking to be invited in.

The medicine we offer is made out of the holistic understanding of the Plant, the holistic understanding of the Human and a layering of these understandings over top of one another to give clear insight into how to work with one another.

We aren’t here to heal.  We’re here to be a vessel of the plants for the sake of fullness in Life experiences. And in so doing, healing happens.

At Know Thy Medicine we go beyond herbalism just for our healing. We recognize that herbalism, when we remember to get to know the plants in our approach to plant medicine, can awaken us to our full potential in our entire human experience, individually and collectively. 

Our mission is to be in service to the plants for the sake of 

re-enchantment of human-kind to live lives into the fullest of their Human experience.

Re-enchantment is the recovery of our innate nature as humans.

This can only be discovered through awakening to the understanding that we are part of nature and the cosmos and that all of nature contains all the cosmos within. It’s a reclaiming of the good work of our Ancestors, who knew and passed the wisdom of magic, beauty and connectedness.  

Without such, there can be no true healing.

Yet with it, there is healing on every level.

I remember the moment I realized the forest is not only alive, but it’s holding me, us.  I was hiking and I stopped for a moment and for just the blink of a moment I felt a pulse, some sort of energy of aliveness, connecting the entire forest.  I was a part of this energy, not separate.

It was like I was in a womb for a split second. This feeling never left me. This was when I awoke to the realization that Earth is truly, as they say, our Mother.

Family is everything to me. And Nature is part of that.

After spending a childhood on concrete and asphalt playgrounds, I found my home in the woods when my Dad and Stepmom moved to the Inland Empire, the Lands stewarded by the Ktunaxa, Séliš and Q'lispé people since time immemorial. 

Here I found healing, where the plant spirits reached out to me and we became fast friends.  At only 18 years old a mentor took me on a medicine walk and began pointing out the wild medicinal Plants all around us. It was this walk where I fell in love with St. John’s Wort.  You could say I have been in a relationship with St. John’s Wort for 29 years, and I still feel like we’re in our honeymoon phase!

I’ve been “Momma Sandi” since I was 19 years old when i was pregnant with my oldest daughter and immediately began drinking fresh red raspberry leaf and nettle tea.  From Momma Sandi’s first aid kits with arnica and plantain to “Momma Sandi’s” culinary wellness for these past 27 years. My kids lovingly call me a “witchy” Mom, always coming up with some concoction or other..

Today I find myself entering my crone era, grateful for the wisdom and the care of the plants who have been with me on this journey, humbled by their willingness to love and care for me, my family and our community.  It is this era in which I commit to shaping myself to be their conduit.

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Education

28 years as a Holistic Mom

1 1/2 years apprenticing with a nurse Midwife, attending countless pregnancies and 12 births

Ongoing studies through Xálish Earth Medicines

 Nutritional Therapy Practitioner through the Nutritional Therapy Association

Certified Herbalist through the Herbal Wisdom Institute

Functional Hormone Specialist through the International Association for Functional Hormones

Completion and attainment of Autoimmune Certified Coach 

Ongoing herbal studies through hands on apprenticeship

Ongoing studies in medicine making practices using different traditions which consider the plant holistically (i.e. alchemy, folk, biodynamic, etc)

Ongoing studies through Northwest School of Aromatic Medicine

Currently enrolled in Alchemical Herbalism through the School of Evolutionary Herbalism

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While many call themselves “master herbalists” I am joyful when I say that I am far from this, because it means there is so much more for me to learn!

I have come to understand that it is the plants, not I, who are Masters in Human wellness.  

The Plants are ready and willing and waiting.