Susan Anderson is the owner and operator of Native Naturals Farm. Her family has lived on and worked the same land since 1826. The farm produces organically grown herbs, nuts and fruits, as well as grass fed beef. Susan comes from a long line of herbalists and healers. She began the study native plant medicine, collecting, growing and preparing, with her grandmother who was a well respected midwife and nurse. She is of both Creek and Cherokee descent, and has learned from traditional healers throughout the southeast. She is a traditional ceremonial person and draws heavily on her cultural roots in her relationship with the growing world. She has worked as a resource planner, journalist, educator and as a natural resource interpretive writer. She has served as executive director for two nonprofits, and consultant on numerous environmental and cultural projects. Her love of the land and respect for the food, fiber and medicinal value of native plants has been a guiding force in her life. She is a traditional fiber artist working primarily with native plant fibers and dyes. She has developed an intimate and comprehensive understanding of her land, its ecosystems and cycles, and how these things relate to the unique “medicine of place”. Her non traditional academic education includes degrees in sociology and religion from Florida State University. Graduate studies in urban and regional planning at FSU, and cultural sustainability at Goucher College in Baltimore MD.
Learn from Susan:
- Cultivating Resilience - This workshop will take a look at what it takes to develop and maintain physical, mental, spiritual and social wellness through adverse experiences and times of extreme stress. It will be part presentation and part open forum to discuss the challenges and opportunities we are currently facing as individuals, families and as communities. We will look at the roles of plant alliances, the natural world and the social constructs we maintain that either build resilience or inhibit successful high functioning individuals and societies. We will look at what an essential resilience garden looks like, what essential skills and values may be and how we might implement the ideals of those shared values and principles. We will also look at what practices may be needed to facilitate resiliency in our natural world. Come take the journey with me into the realm of infinite possibilities while we revisit the benefits and beauty of ancient wisdom.
- Bioregional Plants Important in Traditional Medicine - This presentation will open up areas of consideration beyond the pharmacological properties of native plants. We will examine how the spiritual and cultural relationships over many generations play important roles in plant medicine of traditional people of this region. It will allow a glimpse of what kinship with the animals and the growing world can mean to humans and for their place in, as well as their responsibilities to, the rest of the natural world.
