Cottonwood Medicine Collective Update

 A big hello to everyone who has been involved in the Cottonwood Medicine Collective (CMC) in the past and may have found our web pages more recently. This is an update to let you know what is going on with us these days. The onset of the covid-19 pandemic coincided with giant shifts in the lives of CMC’s core team: Susan, Kate and Elena. Graduate school, a new baby, moving, relationship shifts, and new jobs were changes that radically transformed our lives and took up a lot, if not all of our time and energy. We took a pause from CMC operations when the pandemic hit, and suddenly we find ourselves three years later. We are in completely different places and focusing on other projects in our lives. Kate is working as the apothecary manager at Red Root Acupuncture and Herbs, she is the perfumer, owner and manager of Feral Lore Perfumes, she teaches at UNM Continuing Education Herbalism Program, and has the full-time job of single mama. Susan is busy with a new job and projects in the community. Elena recently completed graduate school and is working at Land of Mañana Counseling as an Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapist. We have realized that we do not currently have space in our lives to renew our work with CMC as it was before and it is sadly time for CMC to enter a period of a more permanent hiatus. CMC was a source of great joy, connection, community, growth, learning and herbal adventure for us. We are so grateful for all the incredible support we received over the years and all the people who made CMC happen: the people who were part of the original herb group from which CMC was born, the volunteers, everyone who came to our fundraisers, everyone who played music or performed for our fundraisers, all who donated and everyone who came to our classes, medicine-making parties, and clinics. Thank you so much for making this incredible, community supported herbalism project happen! CMC and our years working on the project will always hold a very special place in our hearts. We are hopeful that in the future we will return to places in our lives where we have the time and energy to devote to resuming the work of CMC and the project can be born again, new and even better. In the meantime, putting CMC into hibernation means the donation of the apothecary to healers in the community and the donation of the money in our bank account to Abuela’s Medicina, a cooperative group of healers and organizers here in Albuquerque. We will miss all our herbal connections and we hope to see everyone out in the community!

Herbal blessings,

Kate, Susan and Elena