in Chatsworth, Grey Highlands, Southgate, West Grey
June 07, 2023
BY JOHN BUTLER — “Everything I do is about herbalism” says Sarah Tacoma, herbalist and health coach from Kimberley. She is about to share her knowledge at a free public presentation entitled Herbs, Botanicals and Health on Wednesday June 14 at 1:45 pm at the Kimberley Hall, 235309 Grey Rd 13 in Kimberley. This event, the latest in its Community Connections series, is sponsored by the Kimberly Community Association in cooperation with the Grey Highlands Probus Club and the Grey Highlands Public Library.
Sarah practices her healing art from her three acre Kimberley mini-farm nestled beneath Old Baldy, a property she and her family, including her husband (a visual artist) and three children, have called home since 2013. But her interest in healing plants came much earlier. She traces it to her time growing up on a rural plot of land near Guelph. The child of immigrants from Holland, Sarah is heir to the Dutch tradition of growing things. With nature all around her, she was attracted to the benign power of plants at a very early age. “I was drawn to be quiet in the presence of nature,” she says.
As a young adult living in Toronto, Sarah decided to pursue the knowledge that would allow her to turn her inherent interest into a healing career. Correspondence courses in herbalism filled three of her years in the city, followed by an apprenticeship with a local herbalist after she moved to Cannington, a town north of Oshawa. In this town, she began marketing her herbal products at the local farmers’ market. Concurrent with her burgeoning career as an herbalist and health coach, Sarah expressed her creativity as an artist and photographer, with a penchant for landscape portraiture.
Sarah has followed up these learnings by enrolling in the Master Herbalist program offered by B.C.’s Wild Rose College (she is well on her way to completing this rigorous program). On-line forums and discussions within the herbalist community also keep her up to date on developments in her field.
Her three-acre Kimberley greenery is a source of herbs from the extensive herbal garden that she tends in addition to her flourishing vegetable garden, and herbs grow wild elsewhere on the acreage. The family has been re-wilding much of their property since they arrived in Kimberley. The herbs grown in the garden tend to be those that are annuals, or that are invasive and need to be controlled, or that require what Sarah calls more “babying.” The mini-farm also includes a two-part workshop – one part for Sarah’s herbal practice, and one part as her husband’s studio.
In 2020 she took the plunge and established Bloem Botanicals, specializing in small-batch herbal products ('bloem' is the Dutch word for 'flower'). As its website describes it, “Infuse yourself with the power of our hand harvested plants. No preservatives, no added fragrance. No essential oils. Just nature at its simplest.” Part of Bloem Botanicals’ service is her one-on-one herbal consultations as well as custom formulations for “those feeling stuck in their healing journey”, and seminars and workshops she advertises on the website.
Her herbal workshop is open on the weekends, and at other times by appointment, at 235321 Grey Rd 13 in Kimberley (phone 705 928-0085).
She also forages responsibly for plants elsewhere in the Beaver Valley. The protected nature of the Valley’s ecosystem, she points out, fosters the growth of more delicate and water-loving escarpment flora. In spring, the peak foraging season, she spends about five hours a week foraging in the Valley for plants, some of which become toxic if harvested as the summer wears on.
From childhood, Sarah has been captivated by the multi-sensorial nature of forests and meadows, a predilection she can now enjoy on her own land and in her forested and meadowed Beaver Valley neighbourhood. “I love lying in the grass, until the sweet smell of the earth envelopes me and makes me feel at home” she says, harking back to a childhood time when both the scents of wild growing things, and the tastes of them on her tongue, made her aware of the connectedness of all things in the natural world. It’s a sense of wholeness that she loves to share and encourage through her herbal practice and health coaching.
Sarah points out that herbs have an important role to play in the prevention and management of digestive and sleep disorders as well as anxiety and hormonal imbalances and other health disorders — and they are cosmetics too. She particularly loves empowering people through her practice, as they learn how to use “herbs at the doorstep” in ways that were often well known to our ancestors.
Sarah takes great satisfaction in witnessing her three children’s’ embrace of the natural world where they are growing up, and their knowledge of what grows around them. Even as young children they’ve each been able to identify upwards of thirty herbs growing in garden, field or forest. She tells with amusement the story of one of her twin daughters who, at the age of five, stepped on a bee and rather than yelling “bee!” called out “plaintain!”, the name of the plant that soothes bee stings.
Please join Sarah Tacoma and guests at the Kimberley Community Hall on June 14 if you’re prepared to be infected by Sarah’s informed and entertaining passion for the green-growing, helping critters at our doorsteps.
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