A career in the business world gave me the opportunity to afford to study with some incredible teachers.  I was Ms. WorkSeventyHoursAWeek which enabled me to feed my book addiction.

Spanning four decades in corporate America gave me the best of both worlds.  I could firmly be grounded managing a sales staff, producing spreadsheets, and traveling to trade shows to meet with customers while collecting a nice paycheck.  On the flip side, I was constantly honing my craft, using my intuitive skills, dispensing alternative healing modalities to peers and clients.  One of my bosses actually called me “The Edge” for years.  He could not figure out how I could instantly ”read” a co-worker or customer.  I never told him.   “Parlor tricks”, I said smiling.

Early on people were stopping by my office to see what remedies I had for paper cuts, computer eye strain, headquarter headaches. Simple things.  Simple traditional remedies.

As a road warrior I traveled with my own version of a business first-aid kit.  Elm bark for intestinal distress, candied ginger for nausea, sleep pillows, and Gotcha Covered Healing Salve™ for all the cuts, bruises and injuries in setting up a trade show booth.

The corporate world was so ingrained in me, yet the herbalist side of me had been a natural path since early childhood.  An early recollection is me walking in the vast woods that were across from my home in Weymouth and eating ferns, mushrooms and stripping plantain kernels off their stems and eating them with milk.  These early experimental practices explain so much, don’t they? 

I’ve had the best of both worlds and as all worlds go they peacefully co-exist within me.