Thank you for finding your way here to the Sacred Grove, home of the Rebel Herbalist and the Plant Witch Podcast. My name is Eryn Shrader,  and my family and I are in relationship with almost four acres of degraded woodland in South Central Pennsylvania. We call this land we love, the Sacred Grove. Everything I do, everywhere I go, every service I offer, comes from a deep root in this place. When you read my words, they are shaped by this land. When you hear my voice, it is carrying the breath of this landscape. I wish to represent this land well, and my hope is that you will get to know this place of beauty through my work, and my love. 

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I wish to also pay homage to my teachers and lineages:  Registered Nurse (York College of Pennsylvania),  board certified holistic nurse (American Holistic Nurses Assosciation), community herbalism (Northern Appalachia School, School of Evolutionary Herbalism, Rowan & Sage, and more!), 200hr Yoga Teacher Training (Create Karma), Spiritual Direction (Oasis Ministries), Master Level Reiki Teacheir Training, (Reiki Blessings Academy) Priestess of the Gnostic Celtic Church, Druid Companion within the Ancient Order of Druids in America, Druid Grade within the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids, and Second Degree Priestess of the Black Forest Circle and Seminary. 

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My ancestry is 11th generation Pennsylvania Dutch, mostly German Reformed pastors. laborers and farmers from Switzlerland and the German Palatinate region. One branch of my ancestry is Scottish/Irish (sometimes called Scots Irish) and another is English, but all the rest (as far as I can tell) are Germanic/Swiss/Austrian. This gives me a uniquely concentrated ethnic lineage to Western Europe, which has its boons and its challenges. I endeavor to discover and attend to the threads of this lineage in ways that are intact, healing, and available to folks like me who are part of the diaspora. 

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I acknowledge that my ancestors were active participants in the displacement of the Haudenosaunee and Leni Lenape people of Pennsylvania, and other smaller tribes whose names were lost to history. I endeavor to make amends to this land for the rupture of relationship with the people who loved, stewarded and tended it in ceremony and balance for thousands of years. I also endeavor to make amends to the people of this land, who are still here, and have been displaced by my ancestors. 

 

I have sought all of the above education (and so much more!) in response to an incredible hunger to understand human suffering, and alleviate as much as possible.  I spend most of my time in the role of tending; tending my home and family, the land where we live (lovingly called The Sacred Grove), and the larger web of community we are all woven into. I tend the larger community through herbalism and spiritual direction practice, by writing on the blog and podcast, as a mentor  to other Druids within the Ancient Order of Druids in America, and by cultivating peace and vitality within my own life.

 

I'm glad you found your way here.  

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Warmly,

Eryn

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