On a gorgeous early Summer day in June 2024, a couple of PMP volunteers gathered in Montague to harvest herbs for the PMP Apothecary. Little did they know that they would actually be reuniting as friends and colleagues from the work they do together at Mothers Out Front. Surprised to see each other but excited to reconnect, we had a lovely time harvesting Elderflower, Rose, St. Johns Wort and Yarrow, and learning about their connection to PMP and Mothers Out Front as well as glean a little bit of their wisdom as long-time gardeners and activists.
Below is an interview with Madeleine Charney and Jennifer Atlee about their history as gardeners, plant enthusiasts, and changemakers for climate iniaitives and health justice.
An interview with Madeleine Charney:
Would you briefly describe who Mothers Out Front is as an organization?
“Mothers Out Front is a climate activist group that does an array of actions, from speaking and writing to legislators, to rallying, to gathering and learning about climate change issues. We like to also support youth. We’ve shown up for a lot of sunrise activities. I could go on and on. We have done so much teaching on topics like electric buses and induction stoves, anything that helps to cool the planet, bring people together and protect all children in a nutshell.”
“The connection to People’s Medicine Project is because in Massachusetts, we have the Healthy Soil, Livable Future Action Group, and so our greater Amherst chapter decided to work with the People’s Medicine Project, initially with a no till community garden plot, at the Fort River Farm Conservation Area. There we grow some of the plants for them. It’s like a small model garden that we can show the community and promote PMP.”
How long have you been a gardener and plant enthusiast?
“Well, I grew up with a garden in our Long Island backyard, so as a kid I was aware of gardening. And then had my very first garden in 1989 when I moved to Amherst and I rented an apartment with a plot. And I was so excited just to get my hands dirty. And then I went to the Northampton Community Garden and I had four plots adjacent. Long story short, I wound up working on a kibbutz and helped on an organic farm in the Arava Desert in Israel for three months. Then I went to the Conway School of Landscape Design. I also did permaculture design certification in 1998 in Coldstream Scotland with Graham Bell. And after the Conway School, I did the Master Gardener course. And now I have an acre in Amherst that my husband and I steward together. “
Who are your closest plant allies?
“Well, I do love Mugwort. It’s so funny because when I first learned how, you know, wonderful a plant Mugwort is, I put some in a pot and was tending it. And now I just see it everywhere. It feels very mineralizing. I also love Motherwort. It’s very comforting, even though it’s bitter. I love bitter things and I love the imagery of the fierce protective mother with all the little thorns protecting the little pink babies. So those are two that I really resonate with.”
What would you say is your relationship to plant medicine?
“Well I’m a backyard herbalist, so self-taught and I just love playing around and trying new things. I have a closet in my Home Office that’s like my apothecary, with plants hanging and drying. I do nourishing herbal infusions with Comfrey and Mullin and Yarrow. I made my own incense recently. I had all this Tulsi that was a little too dried and old. I grounded it in my herb grinder and then put in marshmallow root, which made it stick together. Then I shaped it in cones and dried it and it really worked. Wow. Yeah. That was my favorite thing recently!”
What advice do you have for a new gardener and herbalist?
“Go slow and observe a lot. It’s so fun to try to grow so many things. It looks so small when you plant new little things and then they start to fill in. It can feel crowded and hard to enjoy everything. And then there’s a tip that I learned from Susun Weed about foraging and harvesting- Don’t overstress yourself harvesting a lot at once. Just do it for 15 minutes and enjoy it. As soon as it starts to feel like ohh, my back’s hurting, stop, just do a little because you don’t need that much usually at once anyway. This is a pacing that I’m trying to learn myself, so I’ll pass that on to newer people as well.”
An interview with Jennifer Atlee:
How long have you been a gardener and plant enthusiast?
“I moved around a lot when I was a kid but I think I always liked being with the plants. Growing up we had a a three-square foot garden in between the concrete walks in Oakland. So I’ve been gardening for a long time. I need to be with the plant beings to be happy.”
Who are some of your closest plant allies?
“I love so many plants. I love marshmallow, but I haven’t learned as an herbalist quite how to work with them. Motherwort for my own physical psyche needs.”
“I’d love to talk about my friend Margaret because she’s part of the reason I ended up being a a major contributor to the herbs at People’s Medicine Project. She came here for three weeks to support me through surgery recovery. She is an Indigenous herbalist. She has Western herbalism and Indigenous herbal knowledge. I was recovering from surgery, so I had to slow down. Having her here was totally amazing because I had to move at the pace of being really present with the plants. That slow pace of mindful and attentive harvesting and getting to know the plants differently. The joy of working with her, having been a gardener for so many years was really precious for me.”
What advice do you have for a new gardener and herbalist?
“I would second what Madeline was saying about going slow and harvesting mindfully and less. I think it’s really good advice. You should never take the first and never take the last. When planting, do attend to spacing, especially for shrubs and trees. But then the other thing that I would say is just do it. Don’t plan forever. Going ahead and experimenting with the way you learn. Messing up. Saying I’m sorry, trying again.”
“And sort of both the importance of learning to grow your own plants and variety- working with enough variety, recognizing that depending on what a year is like, some plants will grow and some plants will struggle and you know, our zones are shifting. The more deep roots and variety we can make, the better off we’ll be. I could imagine for somebody brand new, maybe a little overwhelming.”
“The plants in Mama Earth are doing their damnedest to thrive. I think there’s a message thread that sometimes shows up in the world about humans being a detriment to the Earth. We have it in us to be a real positive Co-creative contribution to this world. Humans aren’t crazy-we have a crazy culture. There are other ways to live, understanding that there are plenty of ways to be human. Let’s learn. Relearn, learn new ones, cultivate new ones.”
