Local Hero Spotlight Blanche Cybele Derby, you might know her as the Wild Weed Woman
I first met Blanche back in 1997 when I was a fledgling herbalist, she was reading from/and signing her new book “My Wild Friends; Free Food from the Fields and Forest.” That evening at the now defunct Globe bookstore (situated where Newbury Comix now resides) in Northampton MA, I learnt one of the most important teachings which shaped the future of my own journey. Since then I have taught 22 annual herbal apprenticeships and trained close to 400 herbalists.
The title of Blanches book says it all “MY WILD FRIENDS.”
We can be friends with plants. We can have relationships and form allyships with non human beings weeds, trees and plants because they too are living beings. Plants reproduce, excrete, breathe, and show sensitivity. Plants are capable of reciprocal relationships and deep fulfilling connections.
This is the take home lesson for so many of my past apprentices. Once you learn how to be in relationship with plants and other elements of the Green World you will never experience the same level of loneliness and disconnection. This realization puts you well onto your healing path and is the foundation of the Herbal Way. Listening to the way Blanche talked about Cattails, Day Lily, Lambs Quarter and Nettles, with the casualness and warmth of an old friend, I knew that my world was about to get much richer. Much richer.
When Blanche was studying and developing her repertoire of wild food recipes there were no apps to ID plants, no full sections of bookstores dedicated to Wild Foods, no @BlackForager on instagram! Blanche was a pioneer. Her love of nature begun as a child, she collected unusual leaves, flowers and seeds, placing them in a nature notebook. This notebook kept her connected to and gave her a sense of place in the world.
There was Euell Gibbons author of Stalking the Wild Asparagus (1962) and there was Ben Charles Harris author Eat the Weeds (1955). Blanche met the latter Ben Charles Harris who became a mentor. Like her mentors Blanche is a great storyteller, and often teaches about the plants through stories, typical in the Wise Woman Tradition of healing. When asked what books she recommends for the new forager she quickly mentioned the work of Doug Elliot author of Wild Roots: A Forager’s Guide to the Wild Edible and Medicinal Roots, Tubers, Corms, & Rhizomes (and many more). Doug is one of the best storytellers I have been blessed to meet.
If you are looking for books to begin your foraging/wildcrafting journey Blanche recommends the work of Samuel Thayer. Additionally please go back and read the following entries
🌿Ethical Guidelines to Harvesting Wild plants/Wildcrafting
🌿To work with plants one must first and foremost be a committed ecologist
As well as being one of my early teachers I am amazed by the number of my apprentices who also had Blanche as a high school art teacher!She is a beloved retired art teacher. Blanche also had a 20 year career as a freelance writer/illustrator with a regular column published in the Hampshire Gazette and and illustrator for Green Prints The Weeders Digest.
Blanche is presently is also a volunteer / guide at the Smith Botanical Garden. I have often been enthusiastically greeted by her and whisked away to a corner of the gardens to tell me about her latest well researched find! Blanche will be offering several pop up wild food walks around Northampton MA this Spring and Summer. To stay in touch with Blanche follow her on Social Media
Please enjoy my recent interview with Blanche Cybele Derby (April 6th 2023)
(apologies for the less than perfect audio…equipment upgrade coming soon)
During the interview I discovered yet another reason to love Blanche, not only is she a plant person, and an artist but she is also a cat woman! Joining the ranks of Leonor Fini, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and so many more. Her cat and plant room reminded me to get focussed on creating the cat wall I’ve been envisioning for years in my sun room. I’m so often torn between letting my “freak flag fly” as Greg Brown would say and reeling her in.
If you are an art, herb and cat lover stay tuned for next weeks interview with Visionary Artist Misa Chappell. Misa is also a past student at BSHS
Also; hair goals!