The Elder Tree

30/08/2026

Come have fun in the medicine garden with us at our working bees! 🐝 The next one is this Friday 9.30am.

Please RSVP if you would like to attend. You can RSVP by PM or email: [email protected]

Here is a pin drop for our location. (Please park out on the road and walk in. Access is Via Mullumbimby Community Garden main entrance)
https://goo.gl/maps/k5VzRRvKdAiNrZVu7

We have a Whatsapp group for volunteers so let us know if you want to be added to that.

We are always looking for donations of garden tools and landscaping resources and things like bark mulch, soil, garden edging, etc.

*** we are particularly trying to manifest compost, manure and bricks and rocks currently **

We also need items for our morning teas like knife, chopping board, cups, plates, plungers etc.

Get in touch if you have some resources to share.

🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳
MORE ABOUT OUR GARDEN:
The Elder Tree Educational Medicine Garden is located in Mullumbimby, at the Mullum Gardens Eco-Hub alongside other powerful earth warriors and change makers such as Reforest Now, The Mullumbimby Community Gardens, The Men’s Shed, The Mullum Food Coop, and other powerful individuals and visionaries inspired to grow together and educate about growing sustainable food and medicine.

At The Elder Tree Educational Medicine Garden, we hold regular classes, courses, workshops and events and the medicine garden is an educational garden for students and practitioners. The medicine from the garden goes to volunteers and surplus will be gifted to those in need/sold at a low cost for fundraising.
The garden is a space to cultivate and evolve deep connection to and understanding of herbs. It is a small living library that will eventually become a botanical garden once we are on a larger patch of land.

We are so excited to be doing our part in building community resilience and coherence and connection.

The Elder Tree is a registered not for profit (charity) and we welcome financial contributions. If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation, please let us know!

To find out more about The Elder Tree, go to www.theeldertree.org

Follow us at The Elder Tree and IG: .elder.tree
Sign up to our mailing list here:
www.theeldertree.org/mailing-list

16/08/2026

Linda Bates is a fourth generation herbalist who trained in 19 schools around England and the Mediterranean. She was in clinical practice for 4 decades and is a truly inspirational herbal elder in Australia. I met Linda about a decade ago, at Pindari farm in Tasmania at a week-long medicine making intensive which was taught by her and Sandra Parker (who I interviewed in episode 17).

This episode is my first re-release and I do so for sad reasons. less that a year after I interviewed Linda, she passed away in October 2024.

I was (as many were) devastated when she passed away in. We had exciting plans together- she was going to develop programs for interns at The Elder Tree school, to train them in the deeper, shamanic elements of being a herbal practitioner. In the deeper work required to be a true space holder and healer. She was going to help teach this program and I mourn still that this never came to be.

But I am grateful that her knowledge lives on through her students and through this beautiful book that was published after she passed. When I interviewed her in late 2023, she was excited about this upcoming book. I love that the cover of this book has the same concept as The Elder Tree logo.... the plant medicine coming from the people to the people. I think a lot about legacy.... about succession... about impact. Linda's passing has me more determined than ever to facilitate preservation of knowledge from our elders, to facilitate spaces of recollection and reclamation of our own innate wisdom, and to provide spaces where healing and education meet.

I hope that you enjoy this wonderful interview, and may it be a reminder to listen to your elders and preserve their wisdom while they are still with us.

You can listen on Spotify here:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0xf1FbeO1pOZhkHmIoenZp?si=fUy5L-tYRWahn7bu8EGCTQ

You can also listen on Apple Podcasts and on Youtube.

SHOW NOTES

You can purchase Linda's book "The Medicine Woman" here.
https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-medicine-woman-linda-bates/book/9781801521727.html

*BUY ME A CUPPA*

If you liked the episode and want more, a cuppa fuels our work and time, which is given for free. Leave a comment and a few bucks here: buymeacoffee.com/theeldertree

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com/theeldertree⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

**THE ELDER TREE TROVE PATREON COMMUNITY**

You can join our Patreon and gain a deeper connection to our podcast. Pay only $2 per week to have access to bonus and often exclusive resources and opportunities- plus support the Elder tree at the same time! Access our Patreon here:

www.patreon.com/theeldertree

To find out more about The Elder Tree visit the website at www.theeldertree.org

Get in touch with The Elder Tree at:
[email protected]
The intro and outro song is "Sing for the Earth" and was kindly donated by Chad Wilkins.

05/08/2026

Come have fun in the medicine garden with us at our working bees! 🐝

Please RSVP if you would like to attend. You can RSVP by PM or email: [email protected]

Here is a pin drop for our location. (Please park out on the road and walk in. Access is Via Mullumbimby Community Garden main entrance)
https://goo.gl/maps/k5VzRRvKdAiNrZVu7

We have a Whatsapp group for volunteers so let us know if you want to be added to that.

We are always looking for donations of garden tools and landscaping resources and things like bark mulch, soil, garden edging, etc.

*** we are particularly trying to manifest compost, manure and bricks and rocks currently **

We also need items for our morning teas like knife, chopping board, cups, plates, plungers etc.

Get in touch if you have some resources to share.

🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳
MORE ABOUT OUR GARDEN:
The Elder Tree Educational Medicine Garden is located in Mullumbimby, at the Mullum Gardens Eco-Hub alongside other powerful earth warriors and change makers such as Reforest Now, The Mullumbimby Community Gardens, The Men’s Shed, The Mullum Food Coop, and other powerful individuals and visionaries inspired to grow together and educate about growing sustainable food and medicine.

At The Elder Tree Educational Medicine Garden, we hold regular classes, courses, workshops and events and the medicine garden is an educational garden for students and practitioners. The medicine from the garden goes to volunteers and surplus will be gifted to those in need/sold at a low cost for fundraising.
The garden is a space to cultivate and evolve deep connection to and understanding of herbs. It is a small living library that will eventually become a botanical garden once we are on a larger patch of land.

We are so excited to be doing our part in building community resilience and coherence and connection.

The Elder Tree is a registered not for profit (charity) and we welcome financial contributions. If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation, please let us know!

To find out more about The Elder Tree, go to www.theeldertree.org

Follow us at The Elder Tree and IG: .elder.tree
Sign up to our mailing list here:
www.theeldertree.org/mailing-list

21/07/2026

🌳A message to all Elder Tree Volunteers in the Northern Rivers🌳
Hey there lovely humans, it is Tatiana here. I am wanting to tune in to see if there are some of you that may like to become more deeply involved with The Elder Tree. We have a MASSIVE existing family of volunteers in this region (and Australia-wide).

Most of you here are casual or core crew of our Educational Medicine Garden, and some of you are involved in other aspects of The Elder Tree, like our podcast, our newsletter, or helping at events. Thanks for the dedication you give with your hands and hearts.

What I would love to invite, is for some of you to become more involved with your minds in a sense (and still your hands and hearts!!)

I would love to have monthly meeting circles for our educational garden so that together we can dream, plan and strategise the movements of the garden and HQ.

There is also the dynamic of the fact that our garden and HQ is nestled within a broader community- the Mullum Eco Hub, where we exist alongside and in synergistic relationship with other amazing Earth-centred community groups like Reforest Now, Mullum Community Gardens, Mullum Coop, The Mens Shed, SEED Northern Rivers etc.

The Mullum Eco Hub has been undergoing a restructuring over the past while, since around the time The Elder Tree joined the site in September 2025. We have been together planning a future for the Eco-Hub, and we have regular monthly (sometimes twice monthly) meetings where we plan these changes and also tend to all site issues (like break ins/vandalism/water pipes busrting etc etc).

So far, I have been the only person attending these meetings, at least once per month for the past 10 months as I am there representing The Elder Tree. There are certain things we have been offered such as funding for buildings onsite, opportunities to form more synergistic relationships with other groups onsite and other opportunities.

For me it feels like I am the voice and the mind of The Elder Tree in these meetings, and I feel like the main mind of the gardens. What I would love to see is us form our own little circle of beautiful humans that comes together to plan things for our garden, like:
* plan upcoming courses/classes/events.
* ⁠plan what we should be planting and the seasons of the garden
*dreaming for the future of our garden and HQ
* ⁠getting some things really anchored- planning our office building/apothecary supplies building onsite

So please do send me a PM or an email if this sounds like something you would like to be involved in. We could have monthly meetings and time them to start before or after working bees in the garden.

Also, if anyone would love to become involved in other aspects of The Elder Tree, we would really love that!!!!! And if you would love to become a dreaming, planning, strategising brain for the entire project (which is waaaaaay bigger than just our sweet garden) then let me know and I can invite you to our next strategic dreaming/planning session.

We have many steps to walk before we can create our fully fledged grassroots herbal medicine school. We can have a lot of fun while we are at it but it also takes some hard work and committment. I am calling in more people who would love to show up to that kind of committment, knowing the kinds of rewards that it brings. That commitment could look like 2 hours per week, or more depending on what you sustainably have capacity for.

Thanks for reading this! Have a beautiful day.

With love,
Tatiana

[email protected]

20/07/2026

It is with a tear in the eye that we say goodbye to the beautiful Jess Bosscha Naturopath, who is no longer the presenter on the 'Self Care with Herbs' segment on The Elder Tree podcast. Jess has been a dedicated and diligent presenter, and such a valued contributor towards The Elder Tree's goals of grassroots herbal education and community connection.

In her final episode, Jess shared these reflections:

"Hi folks, and welcome to the very last episode of Self Care with Herbs that I'll be hosting. Life is taking me in a different direction, and I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect, say thank you, and share a few final thoughts before I step away from The Elder Tree Podcast. When I first joined this podcast, I hoped that together we could explore something that's often forgotten in our busy lives. The quiet wisdom of plants, and the simple acts of caring for ourselves.

Herbs have an incredible way of reminding us that healing isn't always loud or dramatic. Sometimes it's found in the gentle ritual of brewing a cup of tea, tending a small garden, inhaling the scent of lavender at the end of a long day, or simply taking a moment to notice what's growing around us. Over these episodes, we've explored many herbs together. We've talked about their traditional uses, their stories, their history, and perhaps most importantly, how they invite us to slow down and reconnect with nature, with our bodies, and with ourselves. One of the greatest gifts of herbalism isn't just what herbs do for us physically. It's the relationship they..." (get full episode and transcript below)

We invite you to listen to Jess's goodbye episode- only 6 minutes but packed with so much parting wisdom.

Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/183-a-farewell-jess-bosscha-on-self-care-with-herbs/id1646328719?i=1000776572129

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4IASnujki3SPSWDSmVU8wA?si=952ca0f64b724473

Our podcast has being going strong for 3 and 3 quarter years, sing spring equinox 2022, and Jess is the first presenter to leave. We have such a solid container of wise women creating this valuable project. We are sad to see Jess leave but we bless her path moving forward.

Thank you, Jess, for everything you've poured into this podcast and this community. You'll be so missed, and we wish you every joy in whatever comes next.

02/07/2026

Thanks to Kaja Skraskova of Herbae Thylacini for such a wonderful Advanced Oils and Salves workshop on Sunday.
We had a wonderful group of herbies come together to take their medicine making to the next level. We learnt different methods of oils extractions including the alcohol intermediary method. We learnt about many wax options for balms and salves, when beeswax is not an option.

It was a wonderful day and we were so blessed to have Kaja come all this way to share her wisdom and experience with us. We look forward to welcoming her back later in the year for a cream making workshop.

The Elder Tree will continue to bring amazing teachers like Kaja to this community. Follow our socials and sign up to our newsletter if you would like to be kept in the loop.

The Elder Tree links:

Website:
www.theeldertree.org

Instagram:
www.instagram.com/the.elder.tree

Facebook:
The Elder Tree

Mailing List:
www.theeldertree.org/mailing-list

Podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-elder-tree-podcast/id1646328719

Thanks to Mullumbimby Community Garden for hosting us on your wonderful space.

🌳

27/06/2026

We love having Tamaras wisdom in our humble herbal news rag. Here is the link if you would like to buy a digital copy of our newsletter (supports a good cause):
www.theeldertree.org/shop

26/06/2026

Check out this beautiful offering by one of our wonderful presenters on The Elder Tree Podcast, Taj Scicluna of Botanical Education.
This is a valuable opportunity to learn from this wise woman.

I don't use Essential Oils...

Here you will find out why I only use hydrosols, or the very limited and respected use of essential oils.

The essential oil industry is incredibly unsustainable (unless you do your research and buy small-batch, local oils). The amount of plant material needed and the amount of land needed to grow this material on such a large scale means the essential oil industry is not environmentally centred in its practice.

Essential oils are extremely potent, and, that isn't always a good thing.

Here we learn about more sustainable practices and gentler options.

This is our SENSORY CLASS

All about PLANT DISTILLATION and the making of hydrosols and essential oils, and how to make bioregional botanical incense at home!

One of our most loved classes of The Herbal Apprentice.

The Herbal Apprentice Online
MODULE SEVEN

💜Plant Distillation: Hydrosols & Essential Oils
💜Making Bioregional Botanical Incense

DOORS ARE OPEN! (Only for 3 more days!)
Check the webs!te or comment APPRENTICE

26/06/2026

Only 2 days to go until the "Advanced Oils and Salves in Person Workshop" with Kaja Skraskova of Herbae Thylacini.

For makers ready to go deeper!
Explore advanced herbal oil infusion methods, incl. intermediary and blender methods, plant-based waxes, salves, balms, texture & consistency, and formulation choices through sensory exploration, demonstrations and guided discussion.

Sunday 28 June 2026
11.00am - 3.00pm
Mullumbimby Community Garden
$90 AUD | BYO lunch

You will take home:
- 2 herbal products
- Concise workshop notes
- Clarity & confidence
- A tonne of inspiration

Get your ticket here:
https://herbaethylacini.com.au/products/advanced-herbal-oils-and-salve-in-person-workshop

And RSVP on the event page here:
Advanced Oils and Salves with Kaja Skraskova

You have mastered the basic techniques of herbal oils and salves making and now you are wondering if there is more to the process. Turns out there is!

Kaja Skraskova be partnering with Tatiana Dawn of The Elder Tree and Alchemilla Herbals to bring you this exciting in-person workshop, where we will get to explore the depth of herbal oils and salves together.

The workshop will be an interactive sensory exploration, during which you will get to explore a number of oily preparations.

In the first half of the workshop, you will learn about the intermediary (also known as “alcohol-mediated”) method and the blender method of herbal oils infusion.

In the second half we will explore a range of plant-based waxes to make herbal salves and balms of various consistencies.

There will be multiple demonstrations during the workshop and an opportunity to be involved in them.

You will also have a chance to ask questions and discuss your making projects.

Each participant will take home 2 herbal products, concise workshop notes, clarity, confidence and a tonne of inspiration.

Spaces are limited!

Refunds are available if cancelled more than 7 days prior to the event.

For any question, contact Tatiana:
[email protected]