Explore the world of plants.

Hi, and welcome to the newsletter, Ursula’s Garden. My name is Elke Overstake and I am a budding writer and herbalist. I created this newsletter out of a desire to share some of the information and wisdom I have gathered while learning about herbs and healing. Most of this information is already out there as it has come to me by way of leading voices in the realm of herbalism and healing in the Wise Woman Tradition. I will also share my experience with the herbs and what has worked and not worked for me.

Firstly, I want to give thanks to my many teachers such as Linda Conroy, Susun Weed, EagleSong Gardner, and Julie Charette-Nunn. I’ve also gained much from people in my life, my grandmother, mother, and surrogate mothers both living and in the beyond and I thank them too. I also want to acknowledge influences such as Rosita Arvigo, whose memoir I read several times, Maria Sabina, the renowned Mazatec woman who healed with mushrooms, and Grace Sesma, a curandera who hosts community conversations to promote respectful spiritual practice.

Many ethnobotanists have influenced me as well, such as Kathleen Harrison, Terrence McKenna, Christian Ratch and Claudia Muller-Eberling, Richard Schultes, and Mark Plotkin. Stanislav Groff, Shonagh Home, Ken Kesey, Timothy Leary, all pioneers and wise ones in the realm of psychedelics have given me language to understand the psychedelic experience and its importance.

My focus of study has been to learn as much as I can about who we are as whole human beings. From the inner realms, to our place in nature, how is it human beings can come more fully into a harmonious dance with all that is? How can we come to know ourselves and create health while nourishing our environment? When we are sick, unwell, or mentally downtrodden, how can we integrate these challenges in an effort to build stronger and more resilient ways of being that sustain us, our families, and communities?

Herbalism has had the magic effect on my life of fulfilling many of the gaps in my “education.” Tuning in deeply with nature, literally speaking with and interacting with plants, trees, soil, I have remembered the aliveness of all things that every child knows. I have also come to greater peace with the fact that I am an embodiment of nature and therefore am ever changing and hold myriad aspects that make all of me.

Ursula is the name of the oldest relative that I can trace back in my mother’s lineage. She was my great-great-grandmother, lived in Mexico, bore eight children, was widowed, and owned land and cattle. I named this publication after her to honor those who lived long ago, and that their legacy extends far back, to our primordial mother, whose DNA exists within each of our cells in the mitochondria. And so, I give her thanks as I carry forth the messages from my teachers, from the plants, and from my own inner knowing into the future.

I strive to give accurate and in depth information in all my writings. I will share from my experience with the herbs and with healing in general, which goes back more than 15 years at this point. As a paid subscriber you will receive any and all offerings that I develop over time, and know that you will be supporting me in all I do. There’s much to explore, I hope you will join me!