Herbal Salve Making and Indigenous Plant Medicine

Join community herbalists Katherine Elmer (Celtic) and Carl Brokenhorse Koehler (Haudenosaunee/Seneca) for an introduction to medicinal plants from two Indigenous lineages and go home with a tin of first aid salve made from local healing plants!

Carl BrokenHorse Koehler (they/them) is an author, historian, sacred activist and medicine keeper of European and Haudenosaunee descent. BrokenHorse grows traditional Three Sisters, corn, beans, and squash, in addition to native herbs. They connect the people to the foods of their ancestors at seasonal ceremonies and gatherings. Coming from this Indigenous line of peacemakers and orators, they use the written word, spoken story, the power of Indigenous tradition and the seasonal medicine wheel to decolonize, rematriate, and heal the people. Professionally, BrokenHorse is a preschool teacher and an active community educator and gardener.

Katherine Elmer grew up in the green hills of Central Vermont (Abenaki territory) and revels in the opportunity to connect with folks around a shared love of place and nature through whole foods nutrition and herbal medicine. She is a clinically-trained community herbalist, a national board certified health and wellness coach at the UVM Health Comprehensive Pain Program through the Osher Center for Integrative Health, and has been teaching courses for nearly 2 decades on herbal medicine, integrative health and food systems topics at the University of Vermont and Vermont State University. Katherine completed professional herbalism training through the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism. She manages medicinal plant gardens on UVM campus and is the faculty advisor for the UVM student Herbalism Club. Katherine is founding director and a clinical herbalist at Spoonful Herbals (a local educational non-profit) and co-founder and former co-director of Railyard Apothecary in Burlington. To learn more, check out community classes and educational resources at www.spoonfulherbals.org.