We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Andrea Webb a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Andrea, thanks for joining us today. How’s you first get into your field – what was your first job in this field?

I got my first job in the field by, quite literally, making it up. Bruce Lee said, “To hell with circumstances, I create opportunities.” and I had scribbled those words onto a worn, old sticky note in my journal. I was in my twenties and starting over nearly from scratch after a rather intense divorce. I had two toddlers, no college education, very little ‘formal’ work experience and more determination than was probably wise. I needed a way to make money in order to support myself and survive the ‘brave new world’ I had thrown myself into, and I also needed a way to care for and tend to my sons – which I felt impossibly fierce about. I had more obstacles than options, and so I started creating. I had some skill and many years’ experience working with plants and herbs – it’s what I knew and had some confidence in sharing. I started the first sketch of my current business during naps and after bed, staying up all night designing labels, creating formulas and marketing on Facebook and then spending the day hours caring for my kids and dealing with meeting our daily needs.
I created a small line of organic herbal salves that I sold tin by tin to friends and neighbors. I blended a variety of herbal teas and offered samples. It was very slow going, but the work fed me in a way I’d never experienced before. Pushing past exhaustion, I decided I could probably teach some of these more basic skills and I set up my first workshop – “Salve Making 101”. We met in an old barn after bedtime and I had served warm, homemade scones. I made a batch of salves in front of the generous and curious group that attended, carefully explaining each step which I also outlined in a small booklet of printed notes folks could take home. That night I made over $500- and with it I bought my Life. It was so much more than just the grocery, gas and bill money I badly needed; it was Confidence, Hope and Freedom. I had never been that happy or felt that Alive. I called my mom and told her I was going to be ok. After a rather long life of surviving, I found what I wanted to do forever. I wanted to start a school that helped people develop kindly working relationships with their local herb folk.
It’s been an arduous path, but in January of 2023 I was able to make the leap and open my private practice full time and start that little school. I am terribly happy and pressed to the ground with gratitude to have been able to create the first step that’s lead me here, now.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Andrea {Andi, she/they} and, in short, I am an astroherbalist who offers counsel and support for human souls and the bodies they haunt.

As a community herbalist and astrologer, most of my work revolves around sitting down and asking, “Where does it hurt? What’s haunting you?” My work can feel a bit like mediumship in that regard; bodies and souls feel trapped in difficult situations, unnatural lives, stagnant nets and then begin to terrorize the space with their longing for Peace. Knocking pictures off walls, turning out the power, scratching at the doors – trying to communicate over the disconnect. We call these attempts at communication ‘symptoms’ and they’re often either dissociated from or frantically suppressed for as long as possible. How do we ‘connect’ with something that seems hell bent on being a pain in the ass? Sometimes that point of pain is the introduction we’ve been needing.
I sit with folks and offer them a secure space to have a look at what is trying to get their attention.

Over the years, both through personal and professional experience, I’ve developed something of an ‘Agony Encyclopedia’. All the various, nuanced ways in which Souls and their current bodies can ache- haunting instead of experiencing an integrated life. I see themes and patterns and roots. Astrology gives me language to describe the underlying aches while plant folk offer their expertise at Engagement, helping to shift what is stuck and hurting physically, emotionally, mentally, or energetically.

The “why’s” of the Humans I work with are more varied than I could have imagined, everything from anxiety and depression, to figuring out why they’ve never ‘felt like a Gemini’. I help folks choose herbs that are energetically compatible with their next ritual or spell and create signature herbal oil blends for massage therapists. I formulate teas to help with flatulence, postpartum nourishment and social anxiety. I offer flower essence therapy after the death of a loved one, or to help find direction and clarity during a change in careers.

This is not an exorcism – I don’t rid anyone of their ghosts – if anything, it’s a Welcoming, a rebirth into the body and mind. Leading what is lost home; opening doors that have been scratched at for years. One of the most common comments I receive from clients is that they feel more at home in themselves, more comfortable, more confident. “Engaged”, “Awake”, and “Aware” are other words folks have used.
While working with me is significantly less theatrical than the seance scene in “Beetlejuice” {and slightly less musical} the outcome may be just as dramatic. Being at peace with and within oneself is something very precious. To trust and be trusted by, to see and be seen by your SELF is life changing. I speak from experience.

I see my work as being truly complimentary to other modalities, including more conventional healthcare resources and I believe at my core that being in relationship with our Well-Being should be accessible to every single person in every single community. I offer many sliding scale / “no one turned away for lack of funds” services and am very grateful to have a client base which believes in the critical importance of this commitment to accessibility and willingly join me in it.

As a neurodivergent mother with C-PTSD, I am intensely passionate about supporting the well-being of the nervous system and our mental health. The bulk of my clients – whether they seek astrological counsel or herbal support – are dealing with the mental/emotional pressures and wounds of being a Human in Society. Much of my work and my continued education is focused on seeking creative, compassionate, and sometimes unexpected/controversial ways to support folks where they’re at. Again, the goal is not to get rid of the ghosts; it is not my job to “fix” people so that they fit in. Gods forbid. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, we seek to be “creatively maladjusted”. We won’t cure anything in the system by ‘fixing’ ourselves into it. Finding ease in our personal and community well-being is a completely different path than the removal of anything which isn’t “normal” or “nice” by societal standards.

I’m not sure if “pride” is the right word, but I am so fiercely held – by the throat, if you will – by this conviction, I do feel that it sets me apart from some of the wellness brands you see today. These convictions, along with my own passions and desires, informed my vision for The Herbal Heathen Mentorship Program. This program is a seven-month educational container for those who wish to learn community herbalism but feel they are “outside of the norm”; it is a living love letter to the misfits and hedge-dwellers, the Queers and the Seers and the Others who just don’t feel they fit anywhere else. We are wrapping up our first year of the program and it has been so much more than I ever could have imagined, expected or hoped!

I have indulged in a great deal of education – both experiential and more traditionally sourced. I graduated from the Herbal Academy of New England’s Advanced Practitioner Course and am forever enrolled in the School of Evolutionary Herbalism’s Vitalist Practitioner Course. I have trained as a postpartum doula with Birth Arts International, and have certificates from the Baylight School of Homeopathy {First Aid and Acute Care} and The Human Path {Herbal Wilderness First Aid}. I’ve studied flower essence therapy extensively through the years and am a member of the Flower Essence Service of America. My love of astrology has been fed from many sources as well, from Liz Greene {Jungian/psychological astrology} to Sajah Popham {medical astrology}

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

Have a really solid business structure! I am thankful Every Day that I invested in some small business training when I was financially able to do so. Learning how to confidently file my taxes correctly, how to set up an automated scheduling system, and manage my books has truly added so much pleasure and ease to this work. Every moment I spent setting up systems and operational practices has been worth its weight in gold.
My advice to anyone – but specifically folks who may not feel that the structural part of business owning is their ‘strong suit’ to invest the time and knowledge in creating a really smooth, solid foundational container for yourself. That’s how you grow! Consider the roots on an oak tree versus a sunflower – you’re only going to be as enduring as your foundational roots.
I took the time to build a much bigger foundation than I needed {more strict and explicit bookkeeping systems, more involved automations, detailed standard operating procedures, etc. right from the start} and it has been so much easier to grow *into* it rather than running to catch up and trying to build something underneath myself.
Second to some small business running know-how, I would say Humor and your ability to just have a laugh about *everything* is a great tool for success. You have to laugh, or you’ll cry!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn how to “package” myself. I’m a relatively unique individual {aka ‘weird as hell’} and for a long while I thought it was vital to my success to package myself in a way that sounded “successful”. More tamed, more professional, more beige. It was this mindset that lead to a lot of stress, feelings of bitterness and frustration and competition {which leads to imposter syndrome, and all sorts of unhelpful bullshit}.
The longer I do this work {and I know it hasn’t been long, so take this with a grain of salt} the more I see that, in a way, *I* am the “product”. ME and all my weirdness, my experience, my perspective, my relationship with these communities- ME. There are a hundred herbalists in my state and they’re all amazing in one way or another. There are dozens of astrologers. If I am focused on competing, or trying to mold myself into something I think will be more “universally acceptable”, I’m going to lose my mind and my business. It just doesn’t work.
When I realized that the folks who needed me and my work {and who were going to hire me} could only find me IF I WAS BEING MYSELF, there was a huge shift and my whole gameplan changed.
I am an acquired taste and I let it be known. I’m loud about what makes me different, weird and unique. I really work on my own feelings of inferiority and competitiveness so they don’t get too much in the way. And the right people find me.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.everylightwellness.squarespace.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/everylightwellnessllc
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/everylightwellness

Image Credits
Andrea Webb, Every Light Wellness LLC 2023