On listening, knowing, and weaving

by Kathryn Maslak

Editor’s note: As part of monthly homework assignments, students are asked to share class reflections. This post is taken from Kathryn’s reflection of Breath & the Respiratory System with instructor, Sam Perry.

Herbs hold a multitude of stories. In the simmering. In the steeping. In where they choose to live. In how we talk about them. In how we write them down. 

At the end of one of my favorite days of learning, we were offered a tea infusion of an unnamed herb. We were only invited to taste and observe what unfolded in our bodies as we drank, resisting the temptation to name it. The flavor was striking; bitter, deeply rooted, almost dirt-like. There was something raw and unearthing about it, reminiscent of tobacco in its depth but lifted by a faint floral note. I felt it awaken movement in my stomach, a gurgling that seemed to stir things from below. The bitterness challenged me at first, yet as I continued to drink, I began to recognize its warmth, its potency, its quiet insistence. 

Afterward, as my classmates shared their own vastly different experiences with the tea, Sam revealed that the herb was elecampane (Inula helenium). I had not known this plant before. He then shared the myth of Helen of Troy. As I listened to the story while still tasting the herb on my tongue, something in me shifted. Helen, treated as property and stolen from one place to another — her beauty both her gift and her curse — cried tears that, according to legend, gave rise to elecampane wherever they fell. The plant was born from grief, from violation, from the resilience of one who was never truly seen. It is not a plant for light work; it carries the weight of transformation. And I felt that truth in my body. 

That night, I dreamed vividly. The dreams felt wild, alive, and filled with meaning, as though they were messages from the plant herself. I have thought often of elecampane since that evening, wondering how I might sit with her again, how I might listen more deeply to what she has to say. 

While the profound experience with elecampane came at the end of class, the day itself made visible something I had not yet been able to name about my time in herbalism school. It revealed that this path is not only about learning plants, their properties, or their medicinal uses, but about cultivating a deeper way of seeing and being with the world. This lesson helped me to understand the image of the web we are weaving as herbalist–storytellers. To truly know someone is to know their stories. It is through listening that we do our most meaningful work as herbalists. This practice calls us to understand the anatomy of a person, the botany of a plant, and the narratives that live within both. It asks us to recognize constitutions, tissue states, and the intentions that guide the healing experience. In this way, our work becomes an intricate act of weaving; an interlacing of story, science, and spirit. We are not merely healers; we are matchmakers, facilitating the meeting of human and plant in a shared story of restoration and remembrance. 

In reflecting on this idea of connection, I began to see how the same tenderness we bring to pairing a person with a plant can also shape the way we understand human behavior and the stories held within our habits. Therefore, the class conversation about the act of smoking deeply moved me. Sam offered a profoundly compassionate perspective: rather than condemning the habit, he invited us to ask why someone smokes in the first place. What solace does it offer? What longing does it seek to fill? He said, “You will not find a dedicated smoker who is not sensitive,” and I felt my eyes well up as those words lifted a veil. I began to think of all the dear souls I have known who smoke; their tenderness, their ache to mend, to feel deeply, to create, and at times, to conceal. What struck me most was the quiet liberation in realizing that addiction does not need to be villainized. It can instead be met with empathy, with the gentle curiosity that seeks to understand rather than to shame. 

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Kathryn Maslak is a first-year student at ArborVitae.