Environmental Grief & Herbalism | Featuring Emily Ruff

Herbal Radio

This week on Everything You Didn’t Know About Herbalism, we are sharing an awakening conversation surrounding the intersection of herbalism and grief with the author, educator, non-profit leader, and environmental advocate, Emily Ruff. Driven by her profound dedication and compassion, Emily sits down with us to dissect the individual and collective impact that environmental grief has on our communities, and how redefining its influence may play a key role in re-establishing a symbiotic relationship with our planet. We’ll explore how this can be accomplished by leaning on our plant allies in times of loss, which will not only provide us with the medicinal value of a botanical but also strengthen our gratitude for the gifts nature provides us. In turn, this strengthened connection allows us to join the planet on its journey toward healing, hand-in-hand.

In Emily’s words, "Working with herbs for grief does not erase the causes of grief or the need for us to continue working towards collective liberation and justice, but hopefully, it gives us more fortitude and resilience to be able to do that."

🌿 Emily Ruff is a community herbalist who has practiced the art and science of plant healing for two decades. She is an author, educator, non-profit leader, and environmental advocate.

Emily's background in gardening and botany came in childhood while wandering the wilderness and digging in the sandy soils of Florida with her grandfather, a sustenance farmer, and her father, an earth and space sciences professor. Her studies continued through apprenticeships in Guatemala under the tutelage of local healers on the southern coast of Lake Atitlan, in the mountains of Vermont at the feet of Rosemary Gladstar, and in the Central Florida apothecary Leaves & Roots with herbalists Carolyn Whitford and George D’Arcy. Emily received her Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Central Florida and a certificate in Curanderismo at the University of New Mexico.

In 2005, Emily founded the Florida School of Holistic Living as a 501c3 non-profit dedicated to cultivating a sustainable community through education in Central Florida and a robust online curriculum serving students globally. Inspired to cultivate regional community, Emily founded the annual Florida Herbal Conference in 2012.

In 2018, Emily formed a non-profit organization to carry forth Rosemary Gladstar's legacy of conservation, education, and healing through stewardship of Sage Mountain Botanical Sanctuary, where Emily currently serves as director. She has served on the local Selectboard for the Town of Orange and currently sits on the Regional Clean Water Advisory Committee.

Emily’s dedication to preserving bioregional medicinal plant traditions led her to become a board member of United Plant Savers. She served multiple terms as president of the Herb Society of Central Florida and as co-founder of Homegrown Local Food Cooperative. In response to the tragic shooting at Pulse Nightclub, Emily founded the Grief Care Project and later formed the Herbal Action Network to continue weaving the web of compassionate herbalism into community engagement. Emily is an instructor in the Herbal Academy Advanced Herbal Training Course and the Ecoversity Herbalism Program and is a Bach Flower Registered Practitioner.

In 2022, Emily received the American Botanical Council Herbal Community Builder Award in recognition of her service to the community and planet.

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