19 Oct 2026
What Plants Remember: Ethnobotany, Ancestral Healing & Folk Wisdom with Mackenzie Loren
What if the plants that grew in the landscape your ancestors lived in are still carrying their stories and you just need to know how to read them?In this episode, Eileen sits down with Mackenzie Loren, herbalist, horticulturalist, writer, archivist, and founder of The Ladybird Company, for a conversation about plants as portals to ancestry, the wisdom encoded in old names and folk traditions, and what it means to be in right relationship with the more-than-human world.Mackenzie was raised in small-town Peace Country, Northern Alberta, surrounded by women who passed down lived plant wisdom across generations. She has spent her life following those threads through genealogy, ethnobotany, old books, oral histories, and the stories hiding inside Latin names.In this episode:● Growing up in an intergenerational community where plant knowledge was passed down woman to woman● Why so many elders associate folk plant wisdom with poverty and won't share it and what that tells us about what we've lost● Plants as a way to understand your ancestors beyond names and birthdays: how they spent their days, what they valued, how they celebrated● The power of etymology: what Latin plant names are actually telling us, and why officinalis is one of the most important words in herbalism● The Ladybird Archive: weather journals, oral histories, and old texts being gathered and preserved before they disappear● The Ladybird Public Library: how to borrow rare plant books by post● What ethnobotany actually is, its complicated colonial legacy, and the ethnobotanists worth reading● Catherine Parr Traill's Pearls and Pebbles as a starting point for Canadian plant folk wisdom● How to begin your own ancestral plant research● The responsibility of relationship: approaching plants as a practice of reciprocity, not extraction"We were completely connected to plants for all of human history up until a few hundred years ago. If you look at the names they called things, you can understand how they used them, why they valued them." — Mackenzie LorenBIO:Mackenzie Laurin is a herbalist, horticulturist, writer, archivist, and storyteller; founder of The Ladybird Company, and co-founder of Hearth & Heritage Family Farms. She was raised in the Peace Country of northern Alberta, and is now based rurally in the County of Vermilion River, near the border of Saskatchewan.Website: www.theladybirdcompany.ca (www.theladybirdcompany.ca)Social Media Handles: the.ladybirdco (https://www.instagram.com/the.ladybirdco/?fbclid=IwY2xjawNKWMhleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETBVZ0c4R2NtRkE3QndQaGppAR7qS-ieVh6ZYeQQDqaLbDQsKLEwaPN_2WAJJM06UNrzq0xkcMGxfs3r4DxXBw_aem_2Kvzc2x096gOkKIh3IBhNg#) (Instagram), The Ladybird Company (https://www.facebook.com/p/The-Ladybird-Company-100095259102147/) (Facebook)Join Eileen for the next Wheel of the Year Ceremony: https://www.myluminouslife.ca/wheel-of-the-year-ceremonies (https://www.myluminouslife.ca/wheel-of-the-year-ceremonies)Subscribe to Eileen on Substack: https://wisewildwomanhearth.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile_chips (https://wisewildwomanhearth.substack.com/?utm_campaign=profile_chips)Take the Which Witch Are You Quiz: https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/101667/92633449696855773/share (https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/101667/92633449696855773/share)Order Awaken to the Magic Within https://www.myluminouslife.ca/awaken-to-the-magic-within (https://www.myluminouslife.ca/awaken-to-the-magic-within)Connect with Eileen on Instagram / iameileenmarch (https://www.instagram.com/iameileenmarch/)Follow Eileen on Insight Timer https://insighttimer.com/iameileenmarch (https://insighttimer.com/iameileenmarch)Send Eileen an email at eileen@myluminouslife.ca
