We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ash Ritter. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ash below.

Hi Ash, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

From a young age, I always knew I wanted to study plants. Yet as I approached my college years, the practicality or hire-ability of ethnobotany was limited only to careers in academia or pharmaceutical development- or so it seemed! Herbalism was still far from trendy, and had only recently been made legal for First Nations peoples of the United States. Nonetheless, I stubbornly pursued this passion, not with a specific career goal in mind, but a gut feeling that my joy, vision, and deep-seated curiosity would forge the path with me. I spent years volunteering and apprenticing with plant-folks of all types, peeking in to different versions of peoples methods, callings, failures, and successes. This was instrumental on my path- I began to cultivate a sense of self, a unique expression informed by the wisdom cultivated through exploring what resonated, what didn’t, and where I could get creative in between! Needless to say, 20+ years later, my life is the living example that with enough drive, clarity, and flexibility on exact measures of the “how” & “when”, dreams really do come true.

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?

I am a west coast born, desert-dwelling ethnobotanist, multi-disciplinary educator, writer, and poet in disguise as herbalist. For twenty years & counting, I’ve devoted my life to fungal & botanical studies, encompassing traditional, academic, clinical, and directly relational terrains. My approach places emphasis on plants, fungi, and planet as relations, and is manifested through my practice as fostering engagement with & as the living world, rather than “using” plants as commodity.

One-on-one longterm apprenticeships are the cornerstone of my training, with a focus in Druid herbalism, clinical botanical medicine, Cali-Mexican curanderismo & MacGuyver-style urban & wilderness first aid. I also attended acupressure school, permaculture certification training, and studied journey-work with Michael Harner, just to name a few of the adjunct teachings that inform my practice. I also worked as a professional cook and chocolatier for years! My bachelors degree thesis focused on botanical & fungal agents for initiation, and altered states as evolutionary technology. Over the years, my research has honed in on botanical and fungal traditions of my Bohemian ancestry.

I’m blessed beyond measure to have shadowed naturopathic Dr. Kenneth Proefrock in his office for 2 years upon my relocation to the Sonoran Desert, and almost went to medical school, until coming to recognize the potency of keeping my practice out of bureaucratic matrices. Previously, I apprenticed with history buff & lineage keeper Charles “Doc” Garcia, and worked for several years as a plant-based personal chef, and apothecarist in a bustling California Bay Area clinical herbal practice. So many stories could be told!

I offer herbal consultation services, create custom tonics, extracts, and teas, and develop wholistic healthcare plans in my clinical practice, Black Sage Botanicals. Herbal Candy of the Month Club is one of my passion projects, a subscription service providing small-batch, artisanal, beyond-organic botanical confections! It’s a joy to maintain a hand-made craft that emphasizes seasonality and deliciousness… and as Mary Poppins said, “… a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”- in this case, coconut sugar! I absolutely love teaching, and share my interests in history, mythology, and archeology through the lens of plants and botanical medicine via online coursework, international lecture circuits, and private mentorships. I am also writing my first book!! Hopefully the first of many.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Authenticity! I find that people who gravitate towards my quirky nature don’t support because they love a specifc product I create (though that does happen!), but rather, they support my work because they enjoy the passion and authentic excitement behind what I share. While this may seem cliche, it has taken me farther than I could ever imagine!

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

The art of observation and the practice of reverence teach me daily. Something I share with my students often is, “Find a tree or a plant in your yard, or nearby and simply observe it… How does it transform over the seasons? Do it’s colors change? What are it’s growth patterns? What animals or pollinators visit it? And now ask yourself, how do I change alongside it?” As we begin to slow down to the rhythm of nature, we begin to understand our inner nature, our cycles, our seasons, our tides. It is these patterns that teach me constantly how to be a better listener, a better steward to the nature within us and all around us.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.blacksagebotanicals.bigcartel.com/
• Instagram: @black.sage.botanicals
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/black.sage.botanicals
• Other: www.patreon.com/blacksagebotanicals

Image Credits
Ash Ritter