Greetings ~ I’m Emily Grace…
I was birthed in northwest Wisconsin, to a woman who had decided to go ‘back to the land’ and grow her own food and raise animals on the family’s land in a cabin without any running water. Between my mother and father, I experienced a connection to the earth that continues to this day.
Hunting, fishing, gardening, animal husbandry, and food preservation were all part of my childhood makeup.
For this I’m incredibly grateful.
While in my teenage years I eschewed much of the natural teachings my parents instilled, and instead I became enamored with the trappings of current culture. After graduating high school, I went on to college with the intention of becoming a physical therapist and moving to a more citified area. But life is funny and I quickly realized that the medical direction I was traveling wasn’t the right path. After taking an Archaeology course, I decided that this was it…studying the Old Ways of the world was absolutely fascinating to me and I changed my major accordingly.
This led to field school held deep in the Belizean rainforest. Those summers spent there in the jungle were some of the most formative, exciting and mind-blowing experiences I’d ever encountered. It was during that time when the plants really began to speak to me. Instead of learning about settlement patterns and elite residential compounds, I wanted to know more about the wild jungle plants and how the Maya used them in daily life for ritual and medicine. That time period is when I truly took a deep dive into plant magic and medicine and it has continually evolved over my lifetime.
Again, the path diverged as I realized a life in academia was not for me, and after graduating college, I headed north to Alaska.
In 2002 I moved from Wisconsin to Skagway, Alaska in order to work seasonally and travel during the winter. Shortly after arriving, I landed a job with Jewell Gardens, an organic show and production garden. The plants were speaking loud to me then and I answered that clarion call and bought plant ID books and immersed myself within that mystical, magic mountain valley. That autumn as I helped put the garden to bed, the owner, Charlotte Jewell, asked if I would be her garden manager. I accepted and thrived in that role from the beginning of 2003 to the end of 2007. During the winter of 2005 I decided to dive in deeper to herbalism and completed a Certificate of Herbal Studies from American College of Healthcare Sciences (formerly Australasian College of Health Sciences).
My work at a wonderful natural foods store called You Say Tomato began in 2007, where I was in charge of the organic produce section. A perfectly part-time position that furthered my interest in food systems and organic agriculture. I worked there 14 years.
In 2004 I met my partner Tyler, and in 2008 we welcomed our first born earthside. Being pregnant was a huge turning point as I learned about natural birth versus medicated birth and how many of the medical interventions pregnant, birthing women and babies receive are often unnecessary and, quite honestly, downright harmful. After our son was born I realized quickly that working a full-time managerial position wasn’t the right choice for us. I had been making herbal teas, salves and tinctures from organically grown and ethically wild harvested plants for many years by that point, and a serendipitous offer to join a Farmer’s Market committee began the wheels turning on what would become Maiden Alaska Herbals.
Maiden Alaska Herbals was founded in 2010. I primarily sold herbal salves, teas and tinctures via local markets, local businesses and in 2013, started selling online. That was also the year of birth for our second child, a daughter. Fairly quickly, I became very busy, sales went up and up and more and more folks began to contact me for wholesale accounts. Skagway is a busy tourist port and during that time period people were wanting authentic Alaskan goods. However, I began to get a niggling feeling in the back of my mind about selling out the very plant that meant so much…Devil’s Club, the primary ingredient in my best-selling product. I was always careful to ask permission from the plants and to harvest lightly and with reverence from a given area, but over time, as the popularity of my salve increased, there was another part of me that felt the magic was being diluted. And that the thread of connection from plant to product to person was stretched too thin. At the end of 2018 it became clear that production style herbalism didn’t feed my soul and slowly I backed down on producing so much ‘product’. Charlotte Jewell had passed in 2017 and I ended up going back to work at Jewell Gardens as the manager in 2019, keeping Maiden AK alive but small. It felt wonderful to be at the garden again, seeing how much the trees had grown, creating the Sun bed, working with a team again, getting the messages of the Plants out to a larger audience.
Then the year 2020 brought immense change to that little valley town and I again found myself asking the plants, ‘what now?’ And the answer has been to open up the routes of connection between more people and the plant world, this website as a passageway to encourage that.
As 2021 came upon us it became apparent to my partner and I that living in SE Alaska was no longer serving us. We decided to move south into the land of his youth, southern Idaho. This was not an easy choice. After living in Alaska for 19 years, I was deeply rooted to the land and the gardens, and moving filled me with grief. Both our children were content growing up here (well, until all the challenges of 2020). My partner had good employment and our established home and gardens of ten years was just outside town. Despite these ties, on June 20th, the summer solstice, we loaded our two, filled to the gills vehicles, two kids, two dogs, a bunch of plants and a cat, onto the Matanuska ferry and rode three days down to Washington. Driving for two more days led us to the mountains and open valleys of Idaho. We spent two months living in a camper on our friend’s land in a rural area near the Wyoming border while we searched for housing and work. It was a tough transition. As time went on and I explored the area with the dogs and kids during walks, I connected with the land and that kinship with the plants was soul balm.
The Plants saved me from delving into sadness for too long; they helped me work through the pain of leaving what I thought was our forever land…
Currently we live in a small town in SE Idaho. Creating sanctuary. Digging up the yard by hand in order to plant gardens. Adding borders around the home to house the perennial herbs I brought or had sent from my Alaskan gardens…bringing some of my most valued plant allies along for the ride. Settling into this new area led me to change the name of my last venture, Maiden Alaska Herbals into: Archaic Joy.
The word archaic is reminiscent of the archaeology I studied in college. While taking that first class way back in 1997, I fell in LOVE with studying the humans of the past. What did they wear, eat? How did they cook and hunt? How did they care for their babies and old ones?
How could we learn from the past in order to balance our present?
The word ar•cha•ic (är-kā′ĭk) is described as: Relating to, being, or characteristic of a much earlier, often more primitive period, especially one that develops into a classical stage of civilization. No longer current or applicable; antiquated: synonym: old. Relating to, being, or characteristic of words and language that were once in regular use but are now relatively rare and suggestive of an earlier style or period. Primitive and ancient. Greek arkhāïkos, old-fashioned, from arkhaios, ancient, from arkhē, beginning, from arkhein, to begin.
And joy as: The emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires, delight. The expression or exhibition of such emotion, gaiety. A state of happiness or felicity, bliss. A source or cause of delight. Intense and especially ecstatic or exultant happiness, or an instance of such feeling. An expression of such feeling. To fill with ecstatic pleasure or satisfaction. Cheerful. To rejoice. Middle English, from Anglo-French joie, from Latin gaudia, plural of gaudium, from gaudēre to rejoice; probably akin to Greek gēthein to rejoice.
Archaic Joy is a return to the essence of the old ways of knowing the Earth. A deep remembrance of how to connect to Nature for healing and true sustenance. A gathering of mental fortitude to forge ahead in this world that we are creating. And I want to make this life a joyous one, while tending this beautiful planet we inhabit. I offer YOU the joy of learning about herbal medicines and growing your own plants. If what I write here resonates, if you’re wishing to create sanctuary in your life and the photos and writings you read spark delight or a longing within, please reach out and connect!
(Read more in Musings)
