030, Katrina Blair: The Wild Wisdom of Weeds

Nature is inherently abundant. No one has to spray the forests or plant the wetlands in order for them to thrive in perfect balance. As such, food gathered from the wild has the highest potential to nourish us on a deep level. When we realize that we have access to this bounty without having to intervene and sweat and toil (the original definition of agriculture!)…when we truly know this, then we can begin to release our scarcity mentality, relax our grip, our need to control. This shift is particularly liberating.

Katrina Blair began studying wild plants in her teens when she camped out alone for a summer to embrace a wild foods diet.  She later wrote “The Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants of the San Juan Mountains” for her senior project at Colorado College.  She completed a MA at John F Kennedy University in Holistic Health Education.  She founded Turtle Lake Refuge in 1998, a non-profit, whose mission is to celebrate the connection between personal health and wild lands. 

Turtle Lake Refuge includes a wild living foods café, sustainable education center and community farm.  Katrina teaches permaculture and wild edible and medicinal classes locally and globally.  

She is author of several books including: “Local Wild Life- Turtle Lake Refuge’s Recipes for Living Deep” and “ The Wild Wisdom of Weeds: 13 Essential Plants for Human Survival.

In this episode…

• Early influences and experiences with plants
• On beginning a conservation-focused nonprofit that manages parks and open spaces organically
• How plants can teach us from the inside out
• The life-changing impact of cultivating space — in your day, in your diet, in your mind
• How wild foods affect your mind, body, and spirit
• When we realize that we’re part of Nature, and Nature is inherently abundant…something shifts inside us and we can release our scarcity story

Resources

• Turtle Lake Refuge
• The Wild Wisdom of Weeds: 13 Essential Plants for Human Survival by Katrina Blair
• The Essene Gospel of Peace
• The Hippocrates Diet and Health Program by Ann Wigmore