Karen Vaughan

Karen has been a clinical herbalist for over 25 years, working with both eastern and western herbs. She received a MS in Traditional Oriental Medicine from Pacific College, a four year Master’s degree certified by the States of New York and California. She has been on the faculty of the David Winston Center for Herbal Education, the Swedish Institute College of Health Sciences, and currently is on the faculties of New York College of Health Professions and the ArborVitae School of Traditional Herbalism.

Karen has lived in New York City since 1975 and her journey into this medicine was as tied with living in a city with many diverse herbal traditions as with growing up in an area of northern California where she had free range access to the woods where she learned to closely observe nature. Her grandmother, Gladys Archerd was from an Anishinibaag Indian lineage and had grown up foraging. She taught Karen about edible and medicinal plants..

It was after her second child was born and she was working in a community garden that she felt a presence telling her to heal people with the plants.  She started a pattern of learning that has not ceased. Karen has spent 25 years doing planetary herbal healing, studying with herbalists like David Winston, Michael Tierra, Amanda McQuade Crawford, David Hoffman, Susun Weed, Rosemary Gladstar and Ryan Drumm. She is a Registered Herbalist with the American Herbalists Guild, a member of United Plant Savers and The Acupuncturist Society of New York.