The Elder Tree Podcast

Steve Cran is a Permaculture Aid veteran, teacher, social activist, climate change resilience specialist and a very handy guy to have around after a natural disaster. With a 30-year career in Permaculture, Steve has developed effective, sustainable, recovery solutions for communities affected by natural disasters, war, or long-term poverty. Steve takes on the challenge of assisting people living o...

What if reconnecting with traditional knowledge could revolutionize prenatal, birth and postpartum care? Join us as we sit down with Sarah from Bridging Worlds Midwifery, a dedicated holistic home birth midwife from Far North Queensland, Australia, who has built a career around blending traditional midwifery practices with modern healthcare. From supporting home births to teaching traditional meth...

Deanne Apostolou is a Medical Herbalist, Iridologist, educator and speaker, with over 28 years clinical experience. She’s a founding member of Estuary Learning, a collaboration of practitioners and mentors dedicated to enriching and supporting the art of natural earth medicine. Dee's also a mum of 3 adult children who have grown up with herbs and good nutrition. She  loves it when she  hears t...

This month, we do a special double episode with Nila Chandra, getting in to the specifics of how Nila uses herbs in ritual, magic and spell craft. She shares with Stephanie Hazel how to think of a spell as a sentence, using each herb you include in a ritual incense, tea, or potion as a different word of the sentence you are calling into being. They talk about magical properties of Blue Lily, Cacao...

Annaliese is here to be part of the Regeneration - People and Planet and is the creative director of the Change Makers Permaculture Design Course (an empowering two-week immersion connecting people back into the living systems of life). She draws upon two decades of local-to-global exploration of our world, learning from plant people, eco-communities, and Permaculture pioneers about regenerative p...

Today's interview is a great discussion with Cat Green from Everyday Empowered. Cat is a home herbalist and grassroots community herbal organiser and educator. She's passionate about making it easy -and normal - for people to make simple, effective herbal remedies at home. She believes home herbalism is all about reclaiming our capacity to care for ourselves and our families, as well as re...

Genna Pyewacket is a naturopath and herbalist with a special interest in functional medicine. Training in Canada as a teen under the guidance of a traditional herbalist, she continued her studies formally in Australia studying at Nature Care College in Sydney, where she graduated in 2004 with an Advance Diploma of Naturopathy and a Bachelor of Health Sciences (UNE), followed by an Advance Diploma...

What does it mean to be witch? Why is this word so terrifying? And does being a herbalist automatically make you a witch? Join Stephanie Hazel and Nila Chandra as they discuss all things witchy. If witchcraft calls you, you should definitely work 1:1 with Nila, who can provide private teaching, tarot readings and also consult with you to co-create a powerfully effective ritual for a specific purpo...

Sally Fields is a fifth-generation farmer from a long line of farmers, gardeners, and animal keepers. She cut her teeth in the Brigalow Belah scrub of Southwest Queensland on the family property “Mirri Mirri” in Barunggam country. On her pony Dolly and a big red quad, Sally learnt to hunt, muster sheep and cattle, and roam the land. It was here, in her parents' footsteps, that she cultivated a...

In today's episode I interview Hollie Wildethorn, a Psychotherapist, Clinical Counsellor, Coach and womens mysteries facilitator, who resides on Walbunja Yuin land in Braidwood, NSW. Hollie provides many inspirational offerings through her business, the Institute for Self Crafting, and her mission is to support people who know life can be so much more; to craft the best self-version so far. Ho...

Today I chat with Emma Caller, a naturopath and nutritionist who can thank her Italian heritage for teaching her how food can nourish us. She loves treating itchy babies and nervous kids as well as any skin condition. Emma has a clinic near Coffs Harbour NSW, where she is never not accompanied by her black and white cat Cookie Custard Some of Emma’s earliest memories as a child are steeped in plan...

This is a special edition episode - a deep exploration of all things ritual and herbal by Stephanie Hazel. In this episode, Stephanie delves into what ritual is, why it's important for us as healers and herbalists, and how to start creating and practicing rituals that make sense for your ancestry, life and culture. She discusses the myth of the world tree, the importance of the imaginal realms to...

Tatiana Lustre Dawn, also known as Twiggy, the multifaceted force behind Alchemilla Herbals and founder of The Elder Tree and this podcast. As a Mother, Herbalist, Teacher, Journalist, and Permaculturalist, she wears many hats with passion and purpose. Driven by a deep connection to plant medicine, Twiggy is dedicated to growing, harvesting, and crafting remedies, focusing on wild and naturalised...

Heidi Wedd is a herbal educator and the author of "Wild Flower Walker: A Pilgrimage to Nature on the Bibbulmun Track." She is passionate about reawakening and deepening our innate connection with Nature, and facilitates circles in nature connection, herbal alchemy & plant spirit communication. Her history is deeply embedded with plants, herbalism, homeopathy and midwifery. In this in...

Nena Aleschewski BNat IBCLC is a naturopath, nutritionist, herbalist and International Board Certified Lactation consultant. She has been in clinical practice at Goulds Natural Medicine in nipaluna, Hobart, Tasmania for over 14 years and has a passion for optimising the health and wellbeing of women, babies and children. She particularly loves to weave the magic of herbal remedies and food-as-medi...

Daoist Tonic Herbalism is an ancient tradition from China that works with adaptogenic and tonic herbs to extend life, and support soulful ageing. In this episode, Stephanie Hazel interviews Mason Taylor, one of Australia's major proponents of this tradition through his business Superfeast. They ponder the often ignored question: What does it take to age well? And what's the point of ageing...

Dan Winter is a multi-disciplinary bodyworker and Epigenetic Health Coach who supports his community to understand their body better so they can live empowered and meaningful lives. Dan believes that when we understand the fundamental laws of nature and apply them in our lives, we unlock our capacity to heal. Ever since he can remember, he has been curious about human potential. The challenges he&...

In this episode of the Elder Tree Podcast, Twiggy Dawn interviews herbal elder Pat Collins who resides on  Wanaruah land down in Musswellbrook. Pat has been a herbal teacher and herbal clinician for 32 years and opened the Total Health and Education Centre down in 1997 which is an inspirational place incorporating learning and healing for her community. Pat really advocates home herbalism and love...

Twiggy Dawn is a Mother, Herbalist, Permaculturalist, Educator and founder of the Elder Tree.  Folks if you want to hear all about the vision for the Elder Tree from our founder, this episode is for you! Twiggy is passionate about growing, harvesting and making medicines and also has a keen interest in wil & naturalised medicines. She loves connecting people to the plants and also to their own anc...

"The body cries the tears the soul cannot shed." What is healing? How do we bring ‘the Sacred’ into a natural medicine clinic? Is this necessary for true healing to happen? These are the tricky questions untangled by Jimi Wollumbin and Stephanie Hazel in this episode of Sacred Herbalism.  (TLDR: Jimi’s take is that Healing is not the absence of disease, but rather the roaring presence of...

In this illuminating episode, join Tonielle as she unveils the transformative world of Sociocracy as a way to collaborate within groups and how dynamic decision-making tools can ensure facilitation can be fun and effective. She explains Sociocracy as a governance and meeting process and who it's most useful for. Drawing from her experience and training, Tonielle provides insights into the dive...

Greetings everyone from Lutriwita AKA Tasmania.  I am down here on an incredible herbal adventure-  of which one of the main goals and pivitol points of the trip was to go to Goulds farm and meet Greg Whitten.  I have wanted to meet Greg ever since I purchased his massive book "Herbal Harvest" 13 years ago (it was released 25 years ago).  I have never come across anything like this book...

Kaja Skraskova is a scientist and plant lover. When she was 11 years old, Kaja dreamt of opening an old style apothecary- a place sought after by people who needed to reconnect with herbs to heal. Kaja’s roots are in the Czech Republic and after embarking on a pharmacy degree in Prague and being lured down the research path, it was a research trip to Tasmania that set in stone her path towards cre...

Can knowledge belong to a place? Can knowledge belong to a people? And what happens when we force other cultures to prove that their ways of knowledge also have a place at the table? What is lost when we lose the ability to hold many perspectives at once, and what happens when languages that knowledge emerges from disappears? In this more-academic-than-usual (but hopefully still relevant and mind-...

Join us on this episode as we delve into the world of permaculture with Robyn Rosenfeldt, the visionary behind Permaculture Pip magazine. Robyn wears many hats – from being the founding publisher and editor to an art director, photographer, writer, bookkeeper, and the tea lady. Amidst the hustle, she finds solace in surfing, balancing a life that revolves around her haven in Pambula, NSW, with her...