Balancing our Fire as White Anti-Racist Herbalists
As white identitied herbalists, tending to our inner Eame and contributing to the communal fire is key to our anti-racist practice. When our fire is out of balance, we can cause more harm than good. Too much fire may cause us to operate from a place of burnout, domination and disconnection. We may have difficulty centering BIPOC voices as our fire rages out of control, taking up too much space, and negatively impacting comrades in movement work. Too little fire may cause us to operate from a place of silence, disassociation, unexamined privilege and complicity. We may do things like culturally appropriate BIPOC spiritual technologies in an attempt to feed our Eames.
When we balance our fire, we can operate from courage, clarity, creativity and accountability. We’re more capable of envisioning a world beyond white supremacy where we live interdependently with each other and the earth, and contribute from our highest place of purpose towards collective liberation. Join us as we learn to balance our fire element with plant allies and spiritual technologies gifted from our Ancestors. We’ll practice utilizing fire magic through ritual, art and medicine making as we stoke our imaginations in creating our desired world.
Kate Cavanagh (she/her) is a white anti racist witch who grew up on Long Island and in the woods of New Jersey in a big, extended Irish and Italian family. She is a queer, cis woman who is raising her three children with her partner and his parents while community gardening, and working at a large public high school in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
Laura Shmishkiss (she/ her) is the founder of Regeneration Herbals, whose mission is to cultivate a world grounded in justice, wholeness and liberation. Laura is also an equity consultant, coach and trainer who has committed her life to working for social and racial justice. As a white, Jewish woman, she has a vested interest in dismantling white supremacy and all other interconnected forms of oppression that live within ourselves and the world. As an herbalist, Laura believes that social justice work is inseparable from healing work which is inseparable from restoring an interdependent relationship with the land.
