“I grew up in Philly and it’s a wonderful city but it was making me too angry to be there because there’s so much poverty and disconnection with the earth. I used to live in this old apartment complex with beautiful oak trees and ivy. There were some landscapers that convinced the super that some of the trees were dying and that they needed to uproot them. They weren’t really dying, it was a total scam, but they ended up cutting down these old oak trees and I could feel them dying. Me and one of my friends made an installation piece with 50 gallons of blood and we covered the oak trees. Some people were really curious and some people pretended not to see.”

“When I was little both my grandmothers had gardens and some of my really early memories were being in the garden scratching and sniffing things. They had lemon geranium and rose geranium, lavender…all these romantic things. As a little girl I loved that. When I got older I was dealing with a lot of health issues that my doctor couldn’t help me with so I got into organic food and visited Punta Mona to learn more. Once I was here I was cracked open to the organic movement and environmentalism. I always had that in my heart and soul. The love of plants starting really coming through at 19, I got into edible flowers, and then my mom gave me my first herb book. I don’t know what stimulated her to give me the book but getting that knowledge felt really natural so I started studying and reading everything I could.”