Beyond Business Podcast Ep 17

Written By Debbie Lee

Episode 17

Collective wellbeing through herbs with Danièle Fogel

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EPISODE SUMMARY

Join me on this week's episode of the podcast where I welcome Danièle Fogel, a passionate herbal educator and founder of Yervika. Through Yervika, Danièle is working to bring herbs back into everyday life to foster more connection and belonging with each other and the Earth, as well as greater health & wellbeing.

She seeks to re-orient people towards nature and support the reclamation of ancestral knowledge and wisdom. She believes that this is what connects us to our inner power and opens a pathway to collective wellbeing. 

Danièle sees herbal knowledge as necessary knowledge for our collective future, and is dedicated to making this knowledge more accessible. She has worked for nearly two decades in education—as a classroom teacher, a teacher educator, and an educational researcher, and recently completed her PhD in education before launching Yervika in March of 2024. 

This is a conversation about herbs and so much more. We touch on the suppression of herbal knowledge throughout history and its impact on our connection to our past. We discuss how reclaiming this knowledge empowers individuals by reconnecting them to their ancestry, offers greater agency over our wellbeing and serves as a form of activism in service of the Earth.

CONNECT WITH DANIÉLE

If you would like to find out more about Danièle and her work in you can do so in the following places:

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

00:03 - Debbie (Host)

Welcome to Beyond Business, the podcast, the show for impact-driven ecopreneurs who want to be part of a bigger change and make a difference that reaches beyond your business alone. This week on the podcast, it is my pleasure to welcome Danielle Fogel. Danielle is a herbal educator who is super passionate about bringing herbs back into everyday life to foster more connection and belonging between people and the planet, as well as a greater sense of health and well-being. Through her business, yurvika Danielle seeks to reorient people towards nature and our inherent belonging to the earth. She's helping to facilitate a reclamation of ancestral knowledge and wisdom that connects us all to our innate inner power and opens up a pathway to collective well-being. This is a conversation that is about herbalism and so so much more, and I really hope that you enjoy it. Okay, we are on air. A very, very warm welcome to the podcast, danielle. It's so, so wonderful to have you here on what looks like a very bright and sunny day with you.

01:25 - Danièle (Guest)

Thank you, you, debbie. Yeah, thank you so much for inviting me um. The sun is taking a little bit to come out, but it's it's coming, so I'm happy and you're joining from um california. Yes, yeah I'm in northern california in the san francisco bay area oh, beautiful, beautiful.

01:43 - Debbie (Host)

Yeah, I'm really enjoying the. For the listeners who can't see, I'm really enjoying all the greenery in your background. It seems really fitting, considering what we're going to be talking about today.

01:54 - Danièle (Guest)

Yes, yes yes.

01:56 - Debbie (Host)

So, apart from the sunny greenery, I wonder how are you arriving with us today?

02:04 - Danièle (Guest)

Yeah, I'm, I'm very, again, very happy that the sun is coming out. It was a very gray morning earlier this morning. Um, and, yeah, I'm, I'm doing well. Um, I have some nerves.

02:16 - Debbie (Host)

This is my first podcast interview, so thank you, thank you for for hosting yeah, real, real pleasure to have you, and I was just saying to you there before we hit record. I'm I have so much curiosity about what we're going to be discussing today and I'm personally really looking forward to learning more about your work and all that you do and it's like a real topic of interest for me. Wonderful, I'm so glad. Yeah, and with that, I'll like lead us right in. So, yeah, you're the founder of the awesomely named Yurvika. Um, I hope I've got my pronunciation right there yeah and I.

03:00

I noticed you describe yourself as a herbal educator, which I imagine isn't a particularly common job title in today's fast-paced, busy world. So I wonder, to start off with, if you could tell us a little bit more about how this work came to be for you.

03:21 - Danièle (Guest)

Yeah, of course. So let's see, so I grew up. I grew up here. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. We have an abundance of really beautiful nature around, which is really a gift, and you know, growing up, my mother would give me herbs for various things that I was experiencing, including the herb lemon verbena for menstrual cramps, because lemon verbena is an anti-inflammatory and it relaxes the nervous system as well. I didn't actually know the name of this herb in English until I got into my 20s, because my mom is French and so it's known as verveine and I always called it the leaves growing up, but I never thought about this. You know, this and other other herbs that she she gave me growing up for various ailments. I never thought of it, as it was never talked about as herbalism or as herbal medicine or, as you know, she talked about, as no. These are just things that people know, right, and you know, I think a lot of people who are drawn to herbs and who study herbalism and who are herbalists will talk about feeling a pull towards the herbs and towards learning more about the herbs, and that was definitely the case for me. And so you know, just really enjoying nature here and, just like feeling most myself in nature, I decided to take my first herbalism class in the fall of 2019. And that was my first sort of formal study and that was when I really started understanding the depth of our you know, human beings relationship with herbs. And then I actually understood that what I grew up with, you know, yeah, with that, what I grew up with was actually herbalism and herbal practices.

05:28

And, yeah, then the pandemic hit. And you know, I've been in education for 18 years. I was a classroom teacher, I was an instructional coach for teachers and I also did my PhD in education, so I was an educational researcher. And so, and you know, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the skills that, yeah, that are going to be needed for the future. Right, I focus on teaching reading and writing as really important skills for people to, you know, be able to function in the world and in our society.

06:04

And I think, when COVID hit, you know there was sort of this panic, right of like our food chain is disrupted and you know, everything is sort of halted and stopped. And during that time, I felt an increased urgency to relearn nature-based skills, such as learning how to grow food and learning the medicinal properties of herbs. And so, in summer 2020, I started a garden. I had the privilege to start a backyard garden. I started growing my own food. I also started growing herbs, and so this experience sort of deepened my love of nature, but also really starting to think critically about how these are really important skills, some of which, a lot of which, have been lost, and especially in industrialized countries. And so, you know, as an educator, thinking about what are the skills that are important for our times, you know, in our increasingly chaotic and ever-changing and tumultuous world, I really, yeah, believe that these are nature-based skills, herbal-based skills, are going to be really crucial and are really crucial for our times and for the future.

07:19

And so you know, the second, that I finished my PhD last year, I entered into an herbal program to learn more and to deepen my own knowledge, and that just you know that only solidified my love.

07:35

I just continue, and I'm continuing to fall in love with the herbs and all of that.

07:40

They can teach us, you know about life, how they invite us into a relationship and you know how they can heal us. You know about life, how they, you know, invite us into a relationship and you know how they can heal us as well. And so, being an educator, I was like, okay, I want to. I want to sort of shift my orientation. I want to shift my orientation to doing education around herbalism, around you know how to use the herbs, and not just education for adults, but really thinking about you know what are students learning in schools and what are, yeah, what are the skills that are really, really crucial for our times and that could possibly be reintroduced, yeah, which is a daunting task because I don't know that schools are super open. There's a lot of liability issues. Any case, the the title herbal educator, you know it's it's really about, um, yeah, the importance of, of learning these, these skills, um, especially in places and communities that have where it's been lost yeah, it really.

08:59 - Debbie (Host)

The thing that has really stayed with me was when you described that, that you felt the pull like the herbs were calling to you and it gives. It gives a whole new dimension to you when people describe their work as a calling in your case, it seems like quite a literal calling in many senses.

09:22

Yeah, yeah, go ahead a really natural evolution into it sounds like you you've really followed your passion with this and and that calling and it's very naturally evolved into a business. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, yeah, um, I'm also struck that so when you talk about being a herbal educator, it seems that and from what I already know of your work, that that's educating people about herbs is sort of the tip of the iceberg.

10:00

If you like and like there's a lot more underneath the surface and I know you touched on some some of it there, like various different elements, but I wonder if you could say a little bit more about the bigger picture mission behind your Vika and particularly why you feel so passionately about reintroducing herbs into daily life yeah, um, there's been.

10:38 - Danièle (Guest)

There's been a lot of disruption in relationship to herbal knowledge and so everybody has a connection to herbalism. Herbal medicine was everybody's first system of medicine and, no matter where your people come from in the world, there were herbal practices there and that connection has been disrupted by a variety of factors. And so for some people, you know, it's more recent in their lineage and for some people it's way way further back. But you know, I see herbal medicine and sort of understanding of an herbal knowledge as really being deeply connected to, not only reconnecting to ancestry, which is a really powerful sort of experience to have, especially if there's been a lot of disconnection there, but also as a way to reclaim power and to reclaim agency over our own wellbeing. There are things that you know, I think the I see herbal and a lot of herbalists see herbalism as complementary to the modern medical model. Right, it's not exclusionary, it's not like, okay, we need to do away with modern medicine, but it's actually can be complementary and supportive, and there are so many you know. Know, we're kind of trained in our modern society to go to the doctor for anything that we have. And you know, within the world that we're living in where, for example, becoming harder and harder to get doctor's appointments, um, there are things that we can do to address basic ailments, and a lot of that you know. Again, knowledge has been lost. I think there's I'm seeing, you know, especially in the United States and in Europe, an increased sort of desire to learn about, you know, natural healing ways, but there are. You know, if you have a cut or something like that, or if you have a cold, or if you have, you know, I don't know a viral infection, for example, there are things that there are things like herbs can help with those things, right, and it's just a question of knowing. And so knowing and relearning and I call it a relearning again we're all connected to herbs in really, really deep ways. But there's basic things that you know. If you know that, you know, for example, elderberry is a really powerful antiviral. If you know that, and you know elderberry grows wild in a lot of parts of the world, and if you, you know, if you have that knowledge, if you know that you can do something to, for example, prepare for winter, you know you can gather your elderberries, you know, in July, august, depending on where you live, and, you know, make your elderberry syrup, put it in the freezer and, you know, for the wintertime time, if someone gets a viral infection, you know you can take that out.

13:50

I think also, particularly in the United States, it's such a culture of just, you know, handing out pills and giving antibiotics which are, you know, really great for a lot of things and really harmful to our stomach.

14:03

Lining, you know so, and and knowing what herbs can do can be really really useful in, yeah, in in sort of that self-sufficiency element, um and the, the element of, of agency, um and of of power. It's really, you know, I don't love this word, but it is really empowering to learn and to know. Oh, my goodness, skullcap is good for the nervous system. What, or right, like I can make myself a simple tea or an infusion that can be deeply, deeply nutritive for my body and, you know, can help heal tissues which you know for like a chronic, you know, like issue that I have like arthritis issue that I have, like arthritis, right to to know that and not have to only rely on people outside of ourselves, on systems outside of ourselves. I think um is really profound um and and really deep and yeah, I, I love that you describe it as empowering.

15:06 - Debbie (Host)

I think, when I hear you speak there to me, there's something that really yeah, there's something empowering that really comes from the intentionality behind it as well so. I grow some basic herbs in my garden and I use them for cooking more than medicinal purposes well, they are medicinal in your cooking.

15:32

Yes, yes, yes unbeknownst to me yes, but even in that I really love the fact that you know I've tended to them. I've gone out and watered them. I've kept an eye that they're not. They're not like too often in the sun. I prune them every so often, and then when I need to use them. I go off and cut the bits that I need, knowing that they will grow back, and there's something that I find very therapeutic about that process in itself as opposed to.

16:09

I really get what you're saying about you know modern meds and having having its place, but for you know, even for simple things like a cold, for a common cold, it's a very reactionary thing like we get sick and then we look for the solution, whereas I like the fact. With the herbs, you know, there's been a process and like I dunno, almost like a relationship built with the plant somehow. Absolutely Before you need to make yourself it in that way.

16:43 - Danièle (Guest)

Absolutely, and that is also one of the you know, one of the virtues that herbs offer us is that reciprocal relationship.

16:53

They really invite us into a reciprocal relationship, right, and the studying of herbs and the learning about you know what they can do.

17:02

It's almost a process of reverence as well, right, because these are, I mean, the natural world is incredible, right, and can teach us so many things, as I've learned, you know, from listening to your podcast with other interviewees, just like, really, and your work, right in general, it can teach us so many things and I think, with herbs, you know learning about oh, what is this?

17:33

You know, tending to them, like you're saying, like it is a relationship and we do. You know they can help us, they can just, yeah, it's hard to put into words actually actually like all of the things that they can do for us, um, and also you know that we do for them, like you were describing, tending to your herbs in your garden. That's a way of of showing love and you know like showing them care and and you know so, yeah, and cooking is also cooking with herbs. Um, I think, one of the main ways that people interact with with herbs, and you know why we use the herbs that we use in our cooking, you know, again increases the medicinal virtue or the sort of, like you know, minerals or whatever we're getting from what we're eating or whatever we're getting from what we're eating.

18:52 - Debbie (Host)

Um, so, yeah, yes, I know that you mentioned that. I know I've heard that before somewhere. Yes, that's right. Yeah, that's so interesting, and so when we talk about it in this way, to me it sounds so obvious that we would want to retain this knowledge, and yet that hasn't been the case. So I wonder if you could say a little bit more about how this knowledge has got so lost along the way yeah, well, patriarchy, colonization, domination all these things right, I mean the witch burning in medieval times and that intensified in the 16th and 17th centuries.

19:37 - Danièle (Guest)

That was actually a scholar, ramon Grosso-Hogel, who calls it one of the four genocides in sort of 16th and 17th centuries, and he calls them genocides and epistemicides, right. So epistemicides killing a way of knowledge and killing knowledge right, if you kill people, you kill their knowledge. And a lot of these women in that time held herbal knowledge. And so you know with, yeah, just with, you know, imposing one system on another, which is also what colonization did. And you know modernity and you know just being like, okay, this is, you know, prioritizing sort of the mind, separating the mind from the body. You know, with Descartes, yeah, imposing sort of Western science and saying that it's better than all other forms of knowledge. You know forcibly displacing people from their land. I mean, you know, if you lose contact with your land, you lose contact with your medicine, in that way, which is a deep relationship. And you know, specific herbs grow in specific places and climates and we use specific herbs because they grow in our climate, right? So, yeah, so many systems of oppression and, I think, also fear.

21:10

I think there's a fear around herbalism. I'm finding myself using the word herbalism less. I'm using the term herbal knowledge or just herbs, because I feel like when I say herbalism, people are especially around educators or schools and people are, like you know, there's some sort of fear. I think and I don't know if you've seen herbal, like you know, preparations in the store or something there's a very scary disclaimer that's on all of them because you have to. So, like you have to, and even for doing herbal education, you have to start with a disclaimer.

21:52

I am not a medical doctor, I am an herbalist. There is no, you know, federal board that licenses herbalist, and so you kind of like at the beginning of your spiel or talk, you're saying, just in case, like I have to tell you that everything that I'm telling you is not founded in science. And and then you, you know, then you talk about herbs and what they could do and all this stuff, but you have to give that disclaimer and I think that's based in fear. I think it's based in capitalism as well. Right, if people know how to heal themselves, then capitalism is impacted and yeah, so I think fear and money have a lot to do with it.

22:36 - Debbie (Host)

Wow, yeah, and money have a lot to do with it. Wow, yeah, it takes me back just what you say about the, the earthy woman, being the holders of, so much of this knowledge and isn't it so interesting that we think that those times have passed, and yet? Yes yeah, there it is like living on in today's society where that fate I imagine that is a large part of where that fear stems from.

23:02 - Danièle (Guest)

Absolutely that really carries on, absolutely. The power of women or female-bodied people, right Intuition, the threat that that poses to science or logic or you know which. You know, really, the separation of the mind and body really continues to pervade in our, in our societies. Um, yeah, that are our western societies yeah.

23:29 - Debbie (Host)

So I wonder on the actually no, I'm gonna say so to touch on what you said, when you just like at the start of the answer there, where you like, reamed off you know all this, I think it's really struck me in these, maybe the last year, but certainly the last few months in particular, like how overlapping all of these systems are the systems of oppression that seem to pervade and, like I noticed how you didn't pick out just one or two, it's like they all combine to create the world that we now live in.

24:08

And here's another really tangible example of how that's laid out, and so I guess I like to take from your work that herbs are almost an antidote or a form of activism in some sort, like against those systems of oppression. And I wonder and I wonder, um, yeah, I wonder what your views are on how herbs can foster like a greater sense of connection between people and like a sense of belonging, and particularly I'm thinking in terms of maybe bringing communities together or bringing people from diverse backgrounds together, somehow.

24:58 - Danièle (Guest)

Yeah, yeah, I mean I wanna you know, I think it's really important to acknowledge that well, so the connection and sort of belonging piece is really, you know, it's I think it's something that the herbs invite us into and it's a different orientation to the natural world than typical Western cosmologies. But it's really an indigenous cosmology, right, that we are one with nature, we are the earth and our health is deeply connected to the health of the earth and vice versa. Right, that there's not any separation, you know. So, right, like indigenous people here talk about, everything is our relative, right, so this, this plant being is, is my relative and so this I just. Yeah, I think it's really important to ground this conversation in that it stems from Indigenous cosmologies that, despite so much oppression, have retained this cosmology right, have retained this worldview that we are connected because we are one. Right, I am my, I am my, I don't know. I am my sage plant, for example, or I am my ashwagandha plant, right? Or my echinacea plant, like there is no difference between it and me and yeah, so that cosmology, you know, is an indigenous one, and one I think that has also remained within herbalism, this understanding that there needs to be a reverence for the plants, there needs to be a reverence for the planets, there needs to be an understanding that we are one, because otherwise we are in a situation like we are today with climate chaos. But, you know, I can also speak to my own sort of journey along this, because I think my understanding or desire to, as an herbal educator, to bring herbs to foster connection and belonging really does stem from my own experience of starting to, you know, starting a garden or even just being in nature and just feeling like I belong, right, feeling whole, feeling grounded, feeling just connected, right. And I think that just sort of that deepened when I started studying the herbs in a more see, I said the herbs, studying herbalism in a more formal way, right Of really that, especially during, you know, covid times, where there was a lot of isolation, lot of isolation, and I think there's a lot of potential in turning to nature, you know, and really understanding what nature can do for us and what we can do for it, right as like being in a relationship with nature. And so, yeah, studying herbalism, I experienced, I did right, I developed, started developing a deeper relationship with the herbs, like what you were talking about before for yourself just tending to herbs in your garden and I experienced it actually helped.

28:30

For me, this process has helped counter these feelings of isolation and disconnection. It's been a reminder that we're not separate from nature, that we're part of nature and therefore, I don't know it helps to heal that. You know, sort of, yeah, that sense of loss or sense of isolation or sense of I feel like isolation and disconnection don't really even capture the depth of sort of what a lot of people went through and what we're going through. But yeah, I think learning about the herbs and just being in a relationship with nature can really do a lot to counter those feelings of isolation and disconnection. And, you know, learning from being in relationship with specific herbs, for example, has helped me to learn how to be in better relationship with other people so, yeah, yeah, loneliness is the word that comes to me, like I know, that loneliness is such a it's so prevalent in our societies and, um, even you know and I I don't think it it necessarily even affects people who are, like, physically isolated.

29:45 - Debbie (Host)

It can. It can equally be someone who you know seems to be surrounded by people all the time and like maybe live within a community and work in an office, and yet that sense of loneliness can still be there. And, as you said, this seems like such a nourishing way to like, form a relationship yeah, that can really inform our relationship with other people as well.

30:15 - Danièle (Guest)

Sometimes it's easier to be in a relationship with plants well, I know and I've really enjoyed.

30:20 - Debbie (Host)

I know I've seen um on some of your social media postings, like pictures of community gardens. I remember even one you posted of a school garden where they'd built it and I like I just imagine that being such an an awesome way to foster relationships not just with the plants but between people as well, in that calming environment where people are there, probably talking while they tend to the earth and like using their hands and being in the soil and maybe swapping tips with each other like I, literally what fertile soil for?

31:00

yeah, human to human relationships as well.

31:03 - Danièle (Guest)

Yeah, and telling stories within that context, I think is also really powerful. You know um yeah, absolutely.

31:14 - Debbie (Host)

Um. So if anyone listening is inspired by what you're sharing, do you have any words of recommendation or words of wisdom to share about how they might start out on their own journey of learning more?

31:32 - Danièle (Guest)

Yeah, I think the first step, to be honest, is're making you feel, or just, you know all of that. We have very busy lives and you know we have to get. You know, this meal on the table and you know, do this and all of that you know. If, if you're someone, for example, who drinks chamomile tea in the evening, that's also why do you drink chamomile tea in the evening, how does chamomile make you feel?

32:23

But there's, you know it can just be a simple moment of sipping that you know, paying attention to how you feel before sipping that sip of chamomile tea, and paying'm paying attention to how you feel after and during. And you know it can be really small little moments throughout the day of just, oh, I'm drinking an herb, I'm drinking you know something, or I'm cooking with an herb, right? So I think it can start with just simple moments of mindfulness and becoming more aware of the impact of whatever herb you're in relationship with, because you are in a relationship with it, even if you don't sort of be it that way, because we're deeply connected to herbs, are deeply connected to herbs. Um, but yeah, it can be. It can even start with those moments of intentionality and just becoming a bit more conscious um about. Okay, you know, because chamomile tea in the evening it's a relaxant, it's a calm, it helps you digest, right all of these things yeah there's a really good reason why it becomes so popular, Right right.

33:37

Yeah, it's really Go ahead. That's one place to start, and then you know there's other kind of things to do from there. But you know, for example, for you as someone who grows herbs in your gardens, you can start to learn a bit more about. You know which herbs you're growing, what are their medicinal um, virtues, um. And on google, just a tip uh, if you're googling medicinal like virtue or medicinal benefit of whatever herb, it's going to give you all these scientific studies. But if you put herbalist or herbalism before your search, you'll actually get results from herbalist so excellent, I know what I'll be doing this evening.

34:31 - Debbie (Host)

Amazing and um, yeah, how about your work then? I wonder where we can find you, online or or elsewhere yeah, thank you, um.

34:43 - Danièle (Guest)

I mean I'm on Instagram. It's at yervika Y-E-R-V-I-K-A. My website, wwwyervikacom. There's links to services and ways to get in touch, and my email is also yervikaherbs at gmailcom.

35:12 - Debbie (Host)

Awesome, thank you. I'll make sure to share all of those in the show notes as well, so people have a direct link there thank you, thank you oh, thank you so much. I, um, yeah, I definitely feel like I I got what I anticipated from that conversation. It's really I, I physically feel that you know the the like bubbliness of inspiration. I just it's still like because we're in midsummer in Scotland.

35:39

Here it stays light for a long time, and so I'm really looking forward to wandering out in my garden to say good evening to the herbs wonderful. I love it wonderful yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate you sharing so warmly and generously and with so much passion around what you do. I really, I really feel it and um, yeah, you have such a powerful journey and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the next stages of your Vika bring thank you so much, debbie, for for that reflection and for having me.

36:15 - Danièle (Guest)

I really appreciate the invitation and you hosting in such an inviting way as well.

36:22 - Debbie (Host)

Thank you Anytime, anytime, all right. Enjoy the rest of your day.

36:27 - Danièle (Guest)

Thank you, you too, bye, bye.

36:34 - Debbie (Host)

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Beyond Business. If you've loved what you've heard, I'd be incredibly grateful if you could leave a comment with me To get together, we can create a global ecosystem of changemakers pioneering business. Until then, I look forward to speaking to you in the next episode.

Debbie Lee
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