Another TWHC has come and gone. I’m in the back of our van, 3,190 miles into our trip, and still four hours from home. My butt hurts from all the sitting, my sciatic nerve reminding me with every bump that it requires more movement and stretching than I have given it. I’m exhausted from the travel, the teaching and the late nights with friends I don’t see nearly often enough. And I wouldn’t trade a second of it for anything.
Kiva and Wolf have once again hosted an amazing conference, but more importantly they have continued to create a conference experience based around an amazingly strong sense of belonging and community. The herbal resurgence is well under way, with herbal medicine more popular now than it has been in a century. But herbal medicine is about more than popularity. It’s about more than a head knowledge of plants and medicine. Herbal medicine is about recognizing our place within nature. It’s about cultivating our green heart. It’s about seeing that green heart in others, and realizing that we are not alone.
When I started my practice there wasn’t another herbalist within a couple hundred miles. A decade later I finally started going to conferences and met healers from all over the place who shared my passion, and who at some point had felt just as isolated. It wasn’t until last year at TWHC though, that I experienced the sense of coming home, of belonging, of finding my tribe, that I didn’t even know I’d been missing.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you Kiva and Wolf, for all of the hard work you do, for your passion, and for your dedication to creating a better world.
-Thomas
P.S. The pictures were by Kiva and Stephanie. Thanks for letting me use them!