Herbs, Healing, & Entrepreneurship; A Pod-Swap w/ Mason Hutchison of the Herb Rally Podcast

In this episode I did a little pod-swap with my good buddy Mason of the Herb Rally Podcast, and he had me on an episode of the Herbalist Hour. 

We talked about my time running of Mountain Mel's, my herbal products company & how Mason & I met over 10 years ago through that.  l shared stories of my journey into herbalism and my experiences owning an apothecary tea & smoothie shop, and my herbal product line. I even talked about the triumphs and struggles along the way. We chatted about the importance of understanding the medicinal benefits of herbs and their role in healthy living, and the importance of herbal education.

Of course, Mason wanted to know what I’m up to with my current projects, including my mentorship program for moms – Apothecary Momma, and her upcoming Holistically Healthy Families Summit. 

Oh ya, and herbs! We talked about HERBS! Things like the varying me

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Transcript

Hey everyone, this is Mason and you're listening to Herb Rally. Today's episode is another edition of the Herbalist Hour. And this time I'm joined by my good friend, Mel Mutterspah. 

Getting to Know Mel Mutterspaugh

So Mel is the founder of the Herbalist's Path and the host of the podcast with the same name. I've actually been interviewed on that show before.

So be sure to go and hit pause and go and subscribe to the Herbalist's Path on your podcast player of choice. She's also the former owner of. Mountain Mel's Tea Company. You may have seen Mel at various herb conferences over the years. That's how we originally met, but we get into a little bit about that in the podcast episode itself.

And in this conversation, we chat about how she got into herbalism, who some of her mentors have been, her journey with her incredibly popular tea brand, Mountain Mel's, plantain.  rosemary, thyme, her love of ashwagandha, and a whole lot more. It's always great to catch up with Mel. She's so knowledgeable, fun, and she's a great storyteller.

I know you're going to love this one, and if you do, please consider leaving us some sort of ranking and review in your podcast, Player of Choice. It would really mean a lot to us. 

Sponsor Shoutout: Oshala Farm

And before we get into the show I'd love to shout out our presenting sponsor and that is of course Oshala Farm. So Oshala Farm is a certified organic farm based in southern Oregon where they grow and sell over 80 medicinal plant species.

So if you're looking to purchase organic dried herbs that have been grown in the U. S. look no further than Oshala Farm at OshalaFarm. com. com. The owners, Elise and Jeff Higley, have been longtime friends, so I highly trust their growing methods and ethics. They also have various tea blends, elixirs, fire cider.

They actually have organic hydrosols now as well that they create right there on their farm. So one more time, learn more about Oshala Farm at Oshala Farm.  

Herb Rally Schoolhouse Introduction

Also a huge shout out and thank you to our Herb Rally Schoolhouse members. Your support really means the world to us. We couldn't do it without you.

If you'd like to learn more about the Herb Rally Schoolhouse, simply go to herbrally. com slash schoolhouse. There's a private member area, there's a bunch of classes in there, and you're also able to join us live on the Herbalist Hour if they're done on Zoom. So learn more at herbrally. com slash schoolhouse.

Use coupon code PODCAST  at checkout to get your first 30 days for free. 

Personal Updates and Announcements

Other than that, life is good. It's a whole one degrees here in Appleton, Wisconsin today, but yeah, yesterday we went out and inner tubed in the snow went downhill pretty fast. It was a lot of fun. Actually the other day we recorded our 100th episode of the herbalist hour with Christosina Dinos.

She was our guest host and we chatted for about. Two hours and 15 minutes or so. So stay tuned for that episode. Should be launching February 2nd on our YouTube channel as well as the podcast. So if you're not already subscribed to us on YouTube definitely head on over to our YouTube channel.

We've been coming out with new videos every single day herbalism videos, every day. So please give us a subscribe over there as well as the podcast. And all right, that's going to do it for me today. Hope all is well and we'll talk to you very, very soon. Bye. 

The Herbalist's Tower Begins

Welcome to the Herbalist's Tower, this is where community gather, merging the power of people and flowers, the sweet and the bitter to the salty to sour, umami, it's time for the Herbalist's Tower.  I got my Hawthorne infusion here. Nice. I'm just straight water at the moment, but I do have a little tincture that has Hawthorne, milky oats, ashwagandha, and St.

John's wort in it. You love your ashwagandha, I know that much. Oh man, I sure do.  It loves me too.  Alrighty, well, we'll get it rolling. Welcome back to the Herbalist Hour. Today, I'm really excited to have on my good friend, Mel Mutterspaugh. Welcome to the show, Mel. Thanks so much, Mason. It's always so much fun to get to chat with you.

You know, I was on your show. That was several months back now, maybe even a year ago now. So if you're not already subscribed to the Herbalist's Path. On your podcast player of choice. Go ahead and hit pause here and subscribe to the Herbalist's Path. There's probably a lot of overlap between our audiences, but you never know.

Mel has a podcast called the Herbalist's Path. She's also got like a website called the Herbalist's Path. She teaches mamas how to use herbs. I'm, I'm sure we'll get to a little bit of that, but for now, you know, I've known Mel probably for at least a decade now, I'd imagine but I don't, I don't know if I know the story.

Mel's Journey into Herbalism

In fact, I was reading your bio before we jumped on the call. It says you were born in Germany. So I'm just kind of curious what you were like as a kiddo and how you kind of fell into this whole herbalism thing. Yeah, what was I like as a kiddo? I was recently having this talk with my daughter who happens to be really, really shy and most people look at me and do not at all think of me as a shy being, but I was once a shy being.

So I was very much a little tomboy and I loved to play outside and make mud pies all of the time and I loved to play sports and I was That little girl just like, let me be outside. And I think when I was young that I had any clue I was going to be an herbalist. I don't even think I knew that was going to come until, gosh, into my 30s, I would say.

But when I look back on it and I think about like, my business name is The Herbalist's Path and it's very path oriented, I always wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to do something good for the world.  I fell in love with nature. The more and more I had time to be out in nature and I actually moved around a lot as a young child.

So very nomadic by, by nature for sure. But I've been in Oregon for a very, very long time now.  But anyways, I fell in love with nature and I remember at one point I was living in Georgia and I was looking through the NUNM paper catalogs because this is in the 90s and I was like, ooh, being a naturopath would be really magnificent.

I had no idea, no idea at all. And I ended up buying a 1978 Volkswagen Westfalia out of the junkyard and rebuilding it from the ground up with my boyfriend at the time and we took a six month drive across the country from Atlanta up to New York through like all the Midwest back through Nebraska where I used to live and then once we hit Colorado it was all dirt roads from there and I thought maybe one day I'll become a naturopath because it just sounded really cool. 

I didn't. I ended up going to school for environmental and experiential education and I really just wanted to connect more people with the beauty of nature, right? Like nothing made me feel more like. Wow, mind blown, and like, in awe, like the total definition of the word awe.  And so,  I ended up becoming a backpacking guide and a wilderness therapist, because I would do anything to get paid to be outside, right?

And, and because what a cool job, like. Pay me to walk you beautiful places, sure. And it was when I was doing that that I recognized so many people had nasty toxic stuff in their first aid kits and their backpacks and I was like, well that's not right, you know, I don't like this at all. It really really chopped my hide at that time and.

This was like the late 1900s, late 1990s  and early 2000s and at that point I had this dream like wouldn't it be cool to get a first aid kit into everybody's backpack that was more natural, like everybody that loved to play outside. This is what I want to do.  I didn't know what that was going to take. 

Like, I started reading books and absorbing all the books and trying other people's recipes and handwriting all my labels and passing them around my community and people were loving what I was creating. And I was like, that's cool. And I started going to like little skincare retreats at Brighton Bush and all these little things and I can look back on it and how it all has evolved has been a pretty cool story and a meandering path for sure. 

And then I started taking online courses back then, they were not amazing  but they got better, you know. Were they herbalism courses? Yeah, yeah, back then herbalism and skin care business and things like that, that I was doing, and  I fell into my product line, which is how we met, Mountain Mouths, which I no longer run.

Very long story short, did get those first aid kits into REI, eventually after an 18 year manifestation. I remember that. Yeah. That was exciting. It was super exciting. It was also one of the hardest things I've ever done in business. And  I ran my own herbal apothecary. What else did I do? Oh, I went to more in person herb schools.

I went to the Brighton Bush Herbal Conference. And that's where I was like, Oh my gosh, my first one there. I was like, these are my people. This is what I want to be when I grow up.  

Mel's Herbalist Path and Influences

Gosh, yeah, I dove in headfirst from there and started doing in person schools, and went to the Elderberry School of Botanical Medicine in Portland, and then I wanted to know more about the science, like why do these herbs work on the human body, what's really going on here, and I went to Portland School of Traditional Western Herbalism, I opened up my own herbal apothecary tea and smoothie shop, and  now I teach herbalism. 

Which is what, knowing you for so long, I remember every time I'd see you at a trade show, you were always the most excited about teaching herbs, but you were so all in on Mt. Mel's Tea that it was kind of difficult for you to do that. Just kind of rewinding a little bit, I'm just kind of curious, you mentioned the Brighton Bush Herbal Conference.

Do you recall that first one that you went to? Do you remember any of the teachers that were there? Like, what kind of influence they had on you? There was Rosemary Gladstar. There was Christopher Hobbs. There was Tim Blakely. There was Kim Green, James Green was there. And Mitty Green, not Kim. I didn't, I don't know where Kim was coming from.

But, it was definitely a reunion one. I think one of those was, that was a really special one for me as well. Because, I had I've been diving into books and, you know, my curiosity was there and I was doing some online courses, but I didn't know anybody at the conference or anything about it. Like, I didn't know I was going to be an herbalist.

I had no idea. And even though I was doing herbalist things, and I kind of decided to go on a total whim like two weeks beforehand.  I was already making my products and passing them around. I was dreaming of getting them into new seasons and things like that. And when I went there, Jodi Berry of Wild Carrot Herbals, if you know her, was there on the back deck and with her products.

And I had been following her and  dreamily, like, admiring her. And like, I want to be like that! And got to chat with her. And I just remember, like,  Being so like, this is so great. And we just hung out a bunch. I was so curious about like how to do labels. Labels were probably one of the hardest things I ever had to get through.

And  that was just beautiful because about a year or two later, I did get in new seasons. And when I got into new seasons, like I remember talking with Cindy Young was their wellness buyer. And  that was another funny thing too. Like I submitted my first aid goods, but I gifted her my herbal teas in my meeting. 

And she was like, oh, you do medicinal herbal teas. Great. We'll take those too. And I'm like, really? Okay.  But Cindy was like, you really remind me of Jodie Berry. And from then on, like people would just always say that. And so it was. It was always a very neat thing. So many little, like, full circle moments have happened on this path. 

Totally. The Herbalist's Path, if you will. Yes, exactly. Were you always known as Mountain Mel? How'd you get that nickname? Ooh, goodness, you might appreciate this one. I was not always known as Mountain Mel, and sometimes I always feel funny about that name. Do you know the band, Fruition? I do. They're kind of like a reggae ish, right?

I go more bluegrass. Like, bluegrass y, rock y. Oh, then I guess I don't. I definitely know the name. Okay, yeah. I know the name for sure. They're on Spotify these days and all that stuff, but Mimi is a mandolin player for them, and they used to play at the bar I worked at up on Mount Hood. And we would party late night hours, and Mimi was like, you're Mount Mel! 

And it's been that ever since. So, yeah.  So what made you land on living in Oregon? Out of all the places you've been, why'd you fall in love with the Pacific Northwest?  I, when I was a kid, I did most of my growing up around Nebraska, which is very boring. At the time I,  at the time I left Nebraska, right before then, my sister and her still husband came out to Oregon for a few dead shows and fell in love with it, and they moved here.

When they did their move, I moved to Georgia.  I was still a teen at that time and I worked for an airline so I could fly anywhere in the world for 20 bucks which was a pretty rad job. And I flew out to Oregon for my 18th birthday and the. Did a bunch of hot springs tours and cruiser on. We went down to San Francisco for a bridge school benefit show with Neil Young and  I went to Silver Falls.

If you've never been there or you probably have, you're from Oregon, but I went there and I just remember just being totally blown away and my heart literally jumping out of my chest and landing in the South Falls pool and,  and I said, okay, I'm moving here and I did a year and a half later. And that's 78 Bultwack Westfalia that I built from the ground up.

That's amazing. Did you ever go to Cougar Hot Springs? Oh yeah, of course. Okay, of course. That's the local staple. Yeah, for sure. And I know it's a much more populated place than it was back then. So, I moved out here in 99. And again, took a long road trip to get here. But I had a job when I got here, and I had a place to stay, and landed in Eugene.

Actually, no tie of all places. Oh yeah. It was supposed to be Lowell, but Things happened while we were on the road and it ended up being no tie and yeah. 

Sponsor Shoutout: Oshala Farm (Reprise)

Just a quick break from the show to thank our presenting sponsor, Oshala Farm. Oshala Farm is a beautiful and vibrant certified organic herb farm based in southern Oregon where they grow and sell over 80 different plant species. 

The founders Elise and Jeff Higley have been long time friends so I highly trust their growing methods. And ethics. You'll love the potency and vibrancy of all the herbs they have to offer to learn more and purchase their herbs and other organic goods. Head to osha farm.com. So thanks once again to OSHA farm for sponsoring the herbalist hour.

Now back to the show. Enjoy. 

Mel's Herbal Mentors and Education

I would love to have you shout out some of your like herbal mentors. It sounds like you went to the elderberry school in Portland. Is that where you'd accredit most of your herbal education to? Is the folks over there. I,  I would say I learned even more so at the Portland School of Traditional Western Herbalism.

That school was really amazing because I got to meet a lot of the plants. I got to understand when to harvest them at their peak, at their medicinal potency. Scott Close was an amazing spiritual mentor. I really started getting into there and, and falling in love with the plants and what they can do.

And Scott will actually be on my podcast. This week I interview him. So for the second time, so I can have you again for the second time.  So that was definitely wonderful for me. It was also a bit of a challenge because  how do I say this in the most lovely of ways? It was a little too hippy dippy for me.

And  like, I lived out in the mountains on 10 acres, surrounded by 64, 000 acres of wilderness, and I would drive to the city to go drive to another nature y spot, and they would say, here's how we commune with nature, and I'm like, but, but I, I, I do that every day.  So I wanted to know more of the science, and that's where I went to the Portland School of Traditional Western Herbalism, which rocked my world, because Chris Smaka, who's no longer with us, brought in some of the best herbal teachers  on our continent, from Chanchal Cabrera, to Seven Song, to Jim McDonald, to Lydia Bartholo.

I always pronounce her name wrong. I say Bartholo, but yeah. Thank you.  And gosh, just so many amazing people. Larkin Buntz, Paul Bergner. Paul is like one of, still to this day, one of my favorite teachers to continuously learn from. I feel like there's never enough. There's never enough herb learning, right?

Like,  there's always so much. Well, I was recently watching one of your Instagram shorts or whatever you want to call it.  So by the way, dear listener, go follow Mel. On TikTok, she's got like 80, 000 followers there, I want to say, and then I think 30, 000 on the Instagrams. But you were, you were talking about one of your recent Instagram posts about what type of herbalist do you want to be?

And you were essentially saying kind of what you're saying here is like, well, do you want to be more on the woo side or learn more of the science side that it kind of define your goal first and then base your herbal education around that. And one of the best ways you could do that is by listening to say Mel's podcast, The Herbalist's Path, because then you get like a taste of a lot of different herbalists and kind of  Feel out their you know, their, their specialties and whatnot.

Did I paraphrase appropriately? I think that's great. I'm like, wait, you were watching what, what did I say on those? Cause there's so many. You just  forget what you're saying on social media. I know I say herbs.  Right. You were essentially, you were essentially talking about.  If someone wants to be an herbalist, what path would they take, type of thing.

Right. And there are so many paths. That's exactly it. Like, just listening to my story right now, how many directions have I gone? And I think it's also beautiful to dance the woo with the science. Amen.  It's real, you know, the science is real. And so is the, the woo and the lore and the history. Like there's a lot of reasons why the scientists are not going to be paid to do the studies on many of the herbs that have worked for all of our ancestors for thousands of years.

So you have to dance that together. That's why I love herbalists because they really do balance out the woo and the science. And some of my favorite herbalists are like, say Herbalists slash nurses, you know, they have a strong background in the sciences and whatnot, but that they still get kind of witchy and whatnot.

I love that too. And that's what I've been discovering. It's, it's so beautiful in my Apothecary Mama program. Like I have so many nurses out of like the people that are in there, there's over 12 people that are nurses and there's only like 120 altogether. There's no other, like, career demographic that is duplicated in my small, intimate little membership, so.

Interesting. Isn't that great? I love it, though, because it means that more and more of those people are coming together, so. 

The Journey and Challenges of Mountain Mel's

Absolutely. Well, I would like to delve more into Apothecary Mama and the Herbalist's Path, but before we do that I would love to hear more about your journey with Mountain Mills. I mean, you, you invested so much time into that business and brand, and it's how I initially got to know you, as we mentioned earlier, but like,  I would like to hear about your path, some of the challenges and then, and then also how you made the decision to essentially. 

I don't know if you sold it or not, but like how you decided to just move on to the next chapter of your life and the difficulty with that, because I could only imagine  how hard of a decision that must have been to have made. Super hard, super duper hard. That whole journey was beautiful and filled with so many highs and lows, which I think.

The entire journey of entrepreneurship is I never resonated with the word entrepreneur, but apparently I am one  like guilty of like, Oh, I've got an idea. Let's do it. Oh, I've got an idea. Let's do it. So again, I started mountain miles out of pure passion. I just wanted to save the world with herbs.

That's all I wanted to do.  No biggie, right? Just minor goals in the world. And so I started doing that. I started handwriting labels. I learned everything the very long and hard way. I achieved many things from the outside that people would say, wow, how freaking successful. Like, that's amazing for an herbalist business.

And I'll, truth be told, I had no freaking clue what I was doing with business.  No clue at all. I remember learning how to shift all my recipes from a teaspoon and a cup of this to like, here's a spreadsheet, here's grams versus, and milliliters versus ounces and teaspoons and whatnot. And learning how to use a spreadsheet, figuring out the labels, my gosh, labels were the worst for me forever. 

Learning the art of letting go. If there's one huge lesson I could take out of that whole 12 plus year experience is  team.  You are not the one that does everything the best and figure out where you are really great.  Yeah, it was a wild, wild ride. I ended up also, like, it started in my home, right? A tiny little, tiny little office, like I'm in right now,  and expanded to the kitchen, and then to the shops in the outbuildings, and then finally, once I got into New Seasons Market, for those listeners not from Oregon, it's a natural health food store in Portland, Oregon.

I love that store. I do too, very much. And so it was huge for me to get in there and it gave me this feeling of like credibility. Wow. The wellness department is keeping my teas on in stock and I was still, I hand labeled all of my products until like the last year of my business. Wow.  Don't do that. Do not do that.

I have like a whole long list of what not to do if you are interested in running your own herbal products business. Which also comes with a lot of what could, you could do. What else? What else? So, yeah, I did a lot of wholesale. I was in Market of Choice. I got into REI, which was super huge. And that was a whole other like beastly story in and of itself that's filled with magic and heartache all in one.

So  and gosh, struggles. Wholesale is a struggle.  Handwriting all your labels is a struggle. Learning to run a business with a toddler on your side is a struggle. The highs of, like, getting to these epic places and, and meeting new people and hearing from people how much my products help them, like, that's intoxicating.

That is beautiful. That is, like, worth everything. And I think the thing that kept me going the longest was just that I'm a very stubborn. individual. Very stubborn. I'm very determined and I'm like, you will not tell me I will not succeed. Like I am going for it. And I did. And I, I, I did a lot of fake it till you make it.

I met Mason at a lot of bigger trade shows where I probably shouldn't have had my tiny little business at. But I did stretch yourself. Yeah, I did that a lot. 

The Decision to Move On from Mountain Mel's

And  gosh, the decision to not do it, quite frankly, I wasn't making money.  And to do that for that long and struggle so hard, I remember in like 2017, I had just gotten another big account, and a good friend of mine was like, dude, Mel, you are straight crushing it, I had my apothecary tea and smoothie shop open at that time, I was still trying to do darn near everything, I had people making smoothies in the shop and what not, but,  Still trying to run all the other aspects of this like business that kept growing and I just didn't know what to do Like how to scale things.

Yeah, but I kept pretending like I did. Does that make sense?  Yeah, you're talking a lot about the struggles and thank you for sharing all this  I'm wondering was any part of the struggle also the fact that in the back of your Mind or in your soul, you actually wanted to teach.  I love that you asked that Mason and that you brought that up.

That's kind of what shifted everything. So I was working with somebody who's amazing, that I love very much, and she was like,  I, I, she was like, what are you, what are you doing right now? Like , I know you teach. And I had started to teach and I was still running the product line. She's like, do you ever think that maybe you wanna.

I had  to go to the river because that's where I love to meditate and and really figure things out and Chris and I my partner had gone back and forth like do we let it go no we can't it's so much of my identity how could I ever let go of my identity and I really had to get to the why of what I do and it's because I  do want to save the world, right? 

But I get so high and intoxicated when it comes to teaching people about herbs and I love to do that. I love to do that and that is. That is my gift.  So why am I running myself crazy doing all the other things? And it was a very sudden decision, kind of, like,  Alright, I'm doing it, two months, landlord, I'm moving out  maybe I'll start it up again, I still have the company name and brand and whatnot, Which, I don't know, maybe I could have done something smarter with that, But, hard to give up your name.

Well, I went to mountainmels. com and it rerouted me to the herbalist's path. com, which was a good, good call. Yeah. Yeah. Thankfully I had a gal that was like, Hey, why don't we reroute this? And I'm like, Oh, right. Yeah. You're smart. Thank you. I do miss making the products sometimes. Like I know I made really great products and I have people reaching out to me multiple times a week, asking me for those products, and I'm like, I'm sorry, I don't make them anymore, but I can teach you how to make them. 

So, yeah that's a great question. Yeah, I love teaching. I think when I was at events with you, like, that's what I loved. I'm talking to people, and teaching them about herbs, and how they can help people, and those times I would really shine, you know? Totally.  I had to be getting back to the root and the why, like, and I wanted to spend more time with my daughter. 

Well, and it's, it's difficult to do both if you are, if you do have a product line, because it's hard to talk about the herbs in a compliant way. When you're selling the product, you don't want to be making any sort of drug claims or anything like that. So now you have almost free reign in a way. I mean, I know you, you're, you're educated and you're very conservative at the same time.

You're not, you know, you're, you're, you're safe with your teaching, but like.  You can't really do as much when you're selling the product for internal use. That was another really great perk too. Like, I'm like, Oh, I can start telling people what's going on. Like, I don't have to lie to you or be like, I can still use my witty ways, but I can like let you know what's, what's really happening with these herbs and not worry about getting in trouble from the FDA.

Yeah. But yeah, also still doing it in a safe manner. Not like  this herb is going to heal your whole world.  Well, events have come up a couple of times and I was originally going to ask this, but it came to mind. So just for those out there that are listening and do have like, say a product line, like they sell tinctures or teas or whatnot.

Do you recommend folks?  Go to trade shows, herb conferences, have tables, that kind of thing. Was that a beneficial way to sell your product and market it?  I loved going to trade shows and events and conferences. It definitely got me a lot of wholesale accounts. So if you're looking to do wholesale,  yes.

I will also say that. Herb conferences aren't always the best places to sell your herb products. They're great places to network with people unless you have something really, really specific and niche. For me, the herb conferences were really great because I'm like, cool, this is on the business.

Trade Shows and Business Struggles

You know,  I can write that up and I can have a good time and meet great people. But it was never like a hugely profitable event. I really loved trade shows. It was. It's great, but my personality also fits trade shows. Good point. They are very hard work, as you know, with all those huge booths you set up for Mountain Rose Herbs. 

And, if you get set up next to Mountain Rose Herbs with your herb product company at a trade show  It could be a detriment. I was gonna say, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Probably. I mean, it's not always the best thing, but it was super fun anyways. I could make good of it. It was a good, fun show anyway.

So I loved the trade shows. I will say I did go to Expo West too early in my journey, not really fully prepared for that. That's a whole nother level of trade show. Yeah.  One of which I've never been to. Right. 

The Cost of Business Growth

And yeah, that's the other thing is like,  I think I would have had a lot less struggle if I had a lot of money backing me. 

So, and that's, that's, it takes capital to grow your business.  Unless you do it nice and slow. I don't remember the, the fees for Expo West, but that was like, holy shit, that's a lot of money. Not to mention the travel, the hotel, and so on and so forth. Yeah, I did get some pretty special grants to go, so like I had a two, two foot.

section where I got to share my stuff with the state of Oregon. So I'm not saying I paid for a full Expo West booth. No way.  No way. But still, you know, you're traveling, you're bringing someone down there to help you. You've got your hotel, you've got food, you've got all the things. So,  yep, live and learn. 

The Entrepreneurial Path and Learning by Doing

That's right, that's the name of the game in this entrepreneurial path. I am very much a jump first and then think about it kind of person, and maybe I'll grow out of that in my older age, but maybe I won't.  Yeah, I think it's a positive thing. I would say I'm pretty similar too. You, you You jump in and then you learn along the way, because otherwise I would just overthink everything and just take way too long and never actually do anything, so.

Yeah, there's a lot to be said about that, and I always laugh at that because I went to school for experiential education, like learning by doing, and then I'm like, what am I going to school for this for when I can go do it?  Yeah. So that was always a funny little thing but yeah. Yeah, it's ironic.  I mean, you're going to learn one way or another.

You can go to school for it. You can dive in head first and be like,  well, that works.  That didn't.  Totally. Well, why don't we I'll go for it. Just one more thing on the business thing. I know many of your people might be listening. 

Encouragement for Aspiring Herbal Medicine Makers

Like there's so much greatness and having your herbal product line. Don't let my, like.

trials and tribulations scare you, learn from them and  do it. We need more herbal medicine makers out there, especially in your community. Like we need people that make great remedies from the plants to make herbalism spread like wildflowers. So 

Hashtag spread like wildflowers. That's your thing. I want to say. Yeah, it is. And there's this sunk cost fallacy. It could be, seem like you you did all that work for nothing, but in all reality, it's, it's made you who you are today. There's so much you learned. Now you're able to share it with the other medicine makers.

And who herbalist's path eventually, like how to do a herbal, you know, business of some sort, but Definitely in the pipeline.  That's awesome. And, and I really appreciate your self awareness. Like you said, you don't want us to scare other people off, but maybe, maybe that's their purpose. Like you said, we need more medicine makers.

Your purpose now is to teach and you knew that. So, so good on you. 

The Herbalist's Path and Apothecary Momma

Let's, let's do talk more about the Herbalist's Path as well as Apothecary Mama. Can you tell us what the, your, your membership area is all about? Yeah, so I have Apothecary Mamas, and it's an herbal mentorship for moms, so I've kind of set it up almost like it's an encyclopedia there's many small lessons ranging from 5 to 25 minutes teaching you about the different ailments that, as moms and dads, yes, dads go through this too,  but I'm a mom, so it's more of a A marketing thing.

I'll be very straightforward on that. And, and I love to help moms. So all the ailments that we have to face in parenthood from having cankles in pregnancy or varicose veins to like what herbs are safe during breastfeeding, which there's all kinds of conflicting information on the internet to colicky babies, to your teens going through their hormonal shifts to oily acne skin to anxiety and ADHD.

And in each of those lessons, we first talk about like, here's the ailment. Here's what's going on in the body with this particular thing, because I think it's incredibly important to understand what's going on in the body before we're just like, throw an herb on it, which most people in our society are trained to want to throw an herb on it or a pill on it is what we're trained.

We need to think differently with herbalism, right?  So we talk about what's going on in the body, and then we talk about lifestyle shifts that could help, and then we talk about the different herbs that you might want to choose for those particular situations. We give out recipes for each of those, so that's like the never ending encyclopedia library. 

And then I bring in a guest teacher every month, some other brilliant herbalist, naturopath, pediatrician, somebody that teaches on their specific topic. Because again, going back to my herbal education at the Portland School of Traditional Western Herbalism, one of the greatest things was that I got to learn from so many amazing herbalists.

And I'm certainly not the only one that knows anything. So I don't want my, my Students thinking like everything Mel says like you're the guru. Yeah, I'm not. I do love to share, but yeah I love learning from others still too. So we do that. And then every month I do a deep dive workshop on some particular topic and then we do live Q and A's.

So it's like having a clinical herbalist in your pocket. If something's going on, you can be like, what do I do here? Or, you know, what about this? What about that? And then I've added in another like little thing that's kind of a side shoot, the Kids Save Herb Club. So every month we're doing a deep dive study on one herb and then we do herbal show and tell at the end of the month.

So everybody is sharing what they learned and what they created and how they use that herb for the month. Where I'm really trying to encourage my students to look at plants beyond the one thing they're known for. You know, like chamomile. What do you, what's everyone say when they hear about chamomile?

Oh, it's the sleepy time herb. I take that when it's time to relax. But like, there's all these other ways you can use this beautiful plant and you don't have to know 150 or 200 herbs to heal your family.  You can know a few of them very well. So that's, that's a little mentorship in a nutshell. It's a beautiful community of mamas and grands and a safe space to learn about natural health care and herbalism with your family. 

I kind of started it because when I remember being young in my motherhood journey and searching for answers and going to Facebook groups and there'll be a mom like, Oh my gosh, my kid has cradle cap. What do I do? And then there's like literally a thread of 150 different answers,  most of which are not from any kind of healthcare professional.

And then that sends that mom still stressed out and spiraling even further. down that Dr. Google rabbit hole, and  who's got time for that?  You know, so, I wanted to create a safe space. I love that you created a business and a website that's basically what you wish existed in the world. Thank  you. Yeah. 

The Importance of Niching Down in Business

That's really, really nice. I guess I just,  sometimes I don't even think about that, I'm just going for it, you know. And trying to help in the ways that I can.  So, apothecary mamas, like, under the  Herbalist's Path umbrella, are there other things under the Herbalist's Path umbrella as well? Yeah, so I do medicine making mamas as well, which I consider taking the mamas out of that and some other M just because confusion.

So, medicine making mamas is like, here's the science and the folk behind making really great remedies and how to make them so they actually taste great. Hmm. Because A lot of herbal products do not taste great, and if you have kids, you know that  Getting them to take something they don't like can be a struggle, getting yourself to take something you don't like can be a struggle, and that's one of the things I always focused on at Mountain Mouth, like I made functional herbal teas that were really freaking delicious, so that you can bring them into your body on a regular basis, on a day to day thing, and it's not torturous medicine taking, it's a lifestyle, right?

So, that's what I teach inside of there. We dive pretty deep into all the, like, what's soluble and what kind of extracts and all that kind of stuff because  there's a lot of people dabbling in the world of herbs and I wish I could reach through the social media screens and just be like, hold on, you can't get those polysaccharides in your alcohol, like, you can't get those polysaccharides in your alcohol, like,  80, 000 TikTok followers.

I'd say you're doing a pretty good job at doing that. Is, is the medicine making mama's class, does that open like once a year? Or is it evergreen? It is evergreen, but I launch it twice a year. So I'm actually like, we were talking before the show really started how like business is always evolving and you're testing and you're learning and like, how can you serve your people best?

And It is evergreen, so I'm about to put on the, actually this week I re record a new class entry into it that gives people a cool little discount after the class and and then, yeah, I kind of do a quarterly launch, one or the other. But I'm doing something new that I didn't even tell you about when you reached out and asked.

I'm hosting my first summit in Q1 of 2024 and I'm very excited about it. And it's just Holistically Healthy Families Summit. That's cool. a lot of professionals in holistic healthcare from across the board talking about how we can rely a lot less on big pharma and the drugstore shelves and do a lot to empower ourselves to take better care of our families.

Amazing. And who are some of the confirmed speakers so far? I'm working on that this week. So I have a lot of really amazing lists. And I'm really, I'm, I'm so excited about it. It's a whole nother process. I'd love to chat with. Probably not relevant to this show.  Super, super neat. So, I'm excited for it.

Well, this will probably be released maybe a few weeks after we record this. So if they want to learn more or register  would that be theherbalistpath.  com to register? It'll be I'm going to buy Holistically  Healthy Families.  summit.com and then that will forward them to the herbalist path.com holistically Healthy Family Summit.

So, perfect. Yeah. Okay. Well, you, me, , earlier you mentioned  you went with Apothecary Mama. I, I don't.  Hopefully I paraphrased this correctly. You said you did that as a marketing thing, and I'm just kind of curious, is that you niching down, and would you recommend that to other herbal entrepreneurs?  Ah, yes, it is me niching down.

I wanted to step out from my colleagues that are also brilliant educators in all the herb schools out there. And I also saw, A corner in the market that really needs this kind of thing. So I'm learning a lot as I go along with this. Sometimes I wonder, did I niche down too much? When I first started it, my intention was not to get people that wanted to be herbalist, but to get moms that wanted to heal their families naturally in there.

Right. And then of course they get in there and I'm going to teach them more than they thought they needed to know. But yeah, sometimes I wonder, because I do hear a lot of feedback, like, Oh, I'm not a mom, oh this, oh that, I love learning from you, but I'm not this, and I'm not that, and I'm like, huh, did I niche down too much?

I don't know. So a lot of businesses, testing, tweaking, learning, and figuring it out as you go.  Yeah, herb rallies. Oh, go ahead. Sorry, Mel. I do think niching is important, but really knowing your market is important as well. Like,  I am very much, like, I get all targeted for all the herbal programs on Facebook with ads and things like that, and I'm like, okay, I see what you guys are doing, I see what's going on over here  it's an interesting way to go, for sure.

Like you said, it's constant testing, and yeah, Herb Rally is like, almost you couldn't be more broad than what Herb Rally is doing, like, we're getting, trying to, our, I guess our niche is trying to get as many voices as possible from every nook and cranny of the herbal community, but sometimes I wonder that, thank you, I'm trying, so we're constantly tweaking, trying to learn new things and continually iterate and improve, but all that to say, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a learning journey, but I guess before we move on, I'm just curious, who was the last guest teacher you had inside of Apothecary Mama?

What was the class about? So, our last guest teacher was amazing. Her name is Jacqueline Clemens, and she is this beautiful, powerful, brilliant postpartum doula. She came in to teach about nourishment during postpartum times. which I'll talk about again here in, or talk about more in just a moment. But she also founded this nonprofit that is amazing and it's actually, she doesn't know this yet, but I'm about to let her know.

She'll be a speaker in the Holistically Healthy Family Summit.  I think I'm going to have her nonprofit be one of the beneficiaries. So it's called anu and what they do is support bipoc families during the postpartum time. So they are creating this huge network of therapists, mental health, clinicians doulas, people to feed and nourish them.

They come in and bring the family warm, nourishing meals. They give them mental health support circles and community to like just.  support during this like very trying time in life. So I love what she's doing with that. And her class inside of Apothecary Mama  brought one of the students to literal tears.

It was that beautiful and powerful. And one of the things that stood out to me, my daughter's 10 now, right? So I'm not exactly thinking about the postpartum time so much, but she was like, postpartum is forever.  And I think everybody that was there was just like, 

This can be a challenging journey and she really spoke about nourishment beyond just the food but she talks a lot about how the food is really important and during that time you want very warming, nourishing foods and you want to be able to say to your community, yes, make me this soup, yes, make me this and make me that, like.

Don't be afraid to accept help and how it's also so important to nourish our minds and give ourselves that time, even if it's that three minutes you have alone in a bathroom, we all know it's really hard to have a new baby in your family,  whether you have a huge family supporting you or not, you know it was a really beautiful class.

It was really powerful and went beyond what I was.  And recently we had one of your favorite teachers as well. Missy was in teaching about medicinal mushrooms, which was really great to have her. And yeah, that's so cool for you. Herb rally listeners, anybody that wants to come in and teach something that you think would be really important for moms to know about herbal medicine.

I love. bringing other brilliant features into the circle. That's fantastic. So and that's mel at the herbalist path. com, right? Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Maybe one of the listeners will take advantage of that. I love that. And shout out Missy Rose. She was one of my teachers at the Arcto School of Herbal and Botanical Studies in Portland, Oregon, along with Grady Proctor.

That's right. Well, very cool. Learn more about Apothecary Mamas at Theherbalistpath. com. Why don't we do a little rapid fire here? Pre, pre call I was, I was asking Mel, Hey, what do you want to talk about? And you know what Mel said? She said herbs. So let's talk a little bit about herbs.  You could take a, as long or as little, but I'm just going to say a plant.

And then you could say what you love about it. How's that sound? I've never done this before but it sounds fun. I'm like, I hope I know the plant. You will. They're all ones that I've heard you talk about before. 

Herbal Love: Plantain, Rosemary, and Ashwagandha

So, hey Mel, what do you love about plantain?  It's everywhere you want to be. It is so abundant and when in doubt, plantain it out is kind of what we say in our family and there's so many ways to use this medicine and it's Again, it's everywhere.

It is so abundant. Like, it's sitting there as your neighbors are spraying it with their nasty Roundup or pulling it up so frustrated at it being a weed in their perfected lawn, yet it's like, yo, hey, look at me. I'm medicine for you. I can heal your gut. I can take care of that bee sting. I can  draw your splinters out.

I can help with your respiratory infection. Like, I'm amazing. Love me.  It's interesting to me that dandelion's like the poster child of the, the weedy herb, but plantain really should be right up there too, I'd imagine. I agree, and I really talk about it a lot, so I'm hoping that with those followers, more and more people listen.

Like, dandelion's amazing, right? I think it's because it's so beautiful, like, plantain, plantain is now beautiful to me, because  I understand the plant, but Yeah, dandelion has those beautiful yellow flowers, like, I think I, I was just saying this in a class I was teaching, I had found a quote, and I'm gonna butcher the quote, but it was something to the effect of, if dandelion did not grow so wildly and prolifically, it would be something that people would plant and be like, I want dandelions in my yard, you know, but because it's everywhere, they're like, Oh, we got to kill this weed.

Must be a weed. Yeah, that's hilarious. I never thought about it that way, but well, well said. All right what do you love about rosemary?  I love the flavor, the scent of rosemary. I drink rosemary almost every day. Really? It's one of the main ingredients in my Where Is My Mind tea at Mountain Mills because it does a wonderful job of bringing circulation and oxygen up to the brain and is very well known to help improve memory and  Kind of bring about some clarity and focus.

So that is some of the things that I love about rosemary and the fact that it's just  heavenly, like it is so delicious. I love it in all the ways. There's, that's the thing about culinary herbs, right? There's so much good medicine inside of them that we don't really think about. We're just like, hey, yay, let's, let's flavor our food.

But wait, there's more to that than just flavor. So yeah. Yeah. That's, I love, I love rosemary for that.  I was thinking when I wrote down rosemary, I was like, you know what? I don't feel like I use rosemary  too often. And then it occurred to me, just now when you were talking, rosemary was actually the very first tincture that I ever made.

I remember watching some really old YouTube video, like how do I make a tincture, and rosemary was the one. So that was fun. Also I gotta ask, where is, where is my mind? Is that a pixie's? Reference, you know, it's,  thank you.  We can definitely be friends now.  Did you know that? I'll go for it. Yeah.

Oh, I was just saying when I ran mountain miles, I always had fun, like taking song names and turning them into my T names because.  That whole FDA claims thing, you can't say a lot, right? But what a perfect name for that tea that was. I also did Sweet Dreams Are Made Of Teas, and a bunch of other fun stuff. 

Yeah, musical puns. And the last time I saw you in person was at a Modest Mouse show, so I know you love your music. Yeah, that's right.  I used to work in the music industry, so yeah.  I either get paid to play outside or get paid to watch live music. Amen. Yeah. Or to play with herbs and talk about them. The, I'm pretty sure the lead singer of the Pixies lives in Eugene, Oregon.

I don't know if you've heard that is also true. Yeah. Yeah. So, little connection there. Well, why don't we do one more? I had a few more listed, but we're, you know, we're getting close to the end. I want to leave room for the other questions, but let's go with Ashwagandha. Hmm, why do I love ashwagandha?

Ashwagandha has held me in ways when I needed it more than ever before. When I was going through those very stressful times, running that product line, not knowing what I was doing, and really overworking myself, ashwagandha was there for me. And it's such a beautiful plant in the way that it works for me and my body.

It was also my where's my mind tea. And I would notice it significantly when I was not taking my  ashwagandha. When I would run through the hard times, I'd be like, Waaah, hard times! And just want to cry! And then I'd get ashwagandha on board again and it would just be like, I'm here for you, Val. I will hold you.

I will help you be strong. And  that is Forever fantastic. I, Ashwagandha is such a powerful herb and yet gentle in the same way. The medicinal benefits to that plant are way longer than your show can handle. Right. Yeah. But it's  I wish that we could dose the world with Ashwagandha.  But it's a nightshade.

Some people might, you know, not like that. Touche. The soul and ACA plant family. I want to say, recalling when I was on your show, I don't remember what brought this about, but when I think of like, say, Cayenne or something, my mouth starts watering. It's like this automatic thing that happens this reflex.

And I remember you bringing up during my interview on your show you said you could just like look at a, a jar of dried ashwagandha root and immediately feel calm or maybe just look at the tincture or something like that. And it had this like automatic reflex for you. Did you see it in my face when you brought up Ashwagandha? 

Yeah, totally.  I do that with linden as well. Like linden is one of those plants where  it's, I, when I, I can say the word linden and I immediately picture the tree and it's beautiful, loving, I say arms, but they're branches wrapping. around me to hold me and squeeze me and love me and say, whatever I'm going through today, it's going to be okay.

And I would see this happen also when I ran my product line, I had a tea called unfrazzle your dazzle and it was to help calm and support people and really lovely tea. And I would  like. Let people smell pre Covid, right? Smell my tea at this event and instantly I would watch people's shoulders drop and just go  and I'm like, that tea relaxed you just by smelling it and I've gotten to that point where I can hold it as well and just be like, Oh yeah,  it's okay, you know, whatever is tough right now, which I think a lot of toughness is happening in our world today for many, many people. 

Yeah. We can really look to some herbs to support us in those ways, so.  Absolutely. Yeah, Linden's another great one. Definitely one of my plant allies as well. Well you know, I tried this question last time in my last interview. If you were to give a TED Talk on anything, what would it be, what would it be about and why? 

Ooh, herbally speaking, what would it be about and why? You know what?  We could even go outside of herbalism if you want. Yeah, right.  That's what I talk about all day. You know, I think I would want to talk about how herbs aren't an instant fix pill and how one herb is not going to treat every single person the same way and that it's bigger than that. 

Yeah, that seems to be a lot of your work lately. I've, I've heard you mention that a few times in various posts and whatnot, so you seem to be very, very passionate about that. Like pills. You you have some class called, like, Pills Not  Herbs or something? From Pills to Plants. From Pills to Plants, that's right.

I butchered that, but well, awesome. Thanks for sharing that. Couple more questions. 

Why Every Household Needs an Herbalist

I have to ask, why does every household need an herbalist?  Goodness, so we can make this world a better place. So we are relying less on pharmaceuticals so people can feel empowered, so they can save their families money, so they can heal themselves and their children, so we can have deeper connection to nature, right?

Just a few things. That was more Rapid Fire style. The rest of it, I haven't done a very good job at Rapid Fire.  No, that's perfect. I will say this, dear listener, I want to say it was either your last episode or one of your last few episodes, you actually have like a full 30 minutes on this. Am I correct on that?

Yeah, I do. I mean, I ramble about herbs a lot, so it's highly likely I talk about that. I, I, I do think it would make this world a much better place. In so many ways. Maybe introduce more compassion too. Kindness,  calm.  Very good. Well, I've already said this a few times, but be sure to go subscribe to the Herbalist's Path on your podcast player of choice.

Probably the one you're listening to this episode on right now actually. Where would you like to send folks to learn more about you and your work? Theherbalistpath. com. You can learn all the things there. You can follow me on all the places. I'm at the Herbalist's Path and yeah, if you're up for it, the Holistically Healthy Family Summit is coming up in late February, early March, so. 

Well, this has been a lot of fun, Mel. I learned some new things about you. You've inspired me and I'm sure you inspired the audience as well, so I really appreciate it. 

Closing Thoughts and Appreciation

Do you have any closing thoughts before we wrap up and get out of here? Mason, thank you so much for having me on your show. I adore you and watching everything you're doing with Herb Rally and everything you're doing for the world of herbal medicine.

You are magnificent at it and I'm so grateful that the world has you and your voice to shout this stuff out. So thank you. Oh man, that made me feel amazing. Thank you Mel, I appreciate that.  Well yeah, this was a lot of fun. We'll definitely have to do a round two at some point, but in the meantime To your audience, please go check out the herbalists path.com.