Herbalism and Esotericism
Sean Donahue gave a presentation at Flambeau Noir in Portland, Oregon USA on the weekend of April 27-29, 2018.
In his own words:
I am a neurodivergent/NeuroQueer/Autistic semi-nomadic wild forest creature. I am an herbalist, a writer, a poet, a teacher, and a witch. I make my home in Trout Lake, WA on the traditional territory of the Yakima nation and base my practice in Portland, OR, but frequently travel to offer workshops and teach at conferences across North America.
For me magic, poetry, healing, and liberation are inextricably linked.
I am an initiated priest of the BlackHeart line of the Feri tradition of witchcraft. In my tradition, we engage in ecstatic relation with ourselves in all of our parts - human, wild, and divine - and with the land, the gods, and the living world around us. We tend to ourselves, to each other, to our world, and to the turning of the stars in the sky. My own priesthood involves deep work with ancestors and the human and other-than-human dead.
From 2012-2016, I taught herbal energetics, mental health therapeutics, and phytochemistry at Pacific Rim College in Victoria, and supervised students in clinics at the college and the Victoria Native Friendship Center. I remain a member of the college's faculty, offering occasional workshops and courses.
Prior to becoming an herbalist, I worked as a freelance journalist writing about liberation movements in Latin America and as a political organizer opposing four Presidents’ wars in Iraq, making the links between economic justice in Latin America and rural New England, supporting veterans and military families dedicated to bringing U.S. troops home and give them the care they needed, protecting old growth forests in Massachusetts, and serving as part of the core organizing team that won rights for medical Cannabis patients and growers in Maine.
I am a columnist for Plant Healer magazine and a regular contributor to Gods & Radicals.