117 – 2026 Plans for the Solidarity Apothecary

Welcome to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast with your host, Nicole Rose from the

Solidarity Apothecary.

This is your place for all things plants and

liberation.

Let's get started.

: Hello.

Welcome back to the Frontline Herbalism

Podcast.

Happy New Year to everyone.

I know the Gregorian calendar isn't everyone's thing, but not gonna lie, I love it.

As in, like, I love this time of year.

Like, I literally start planning my year, like

in September.

Like, I just can't get enough of it.

Any.

This episode I'm going to be talking about some of the plans for the Soledier Apothecary

It's just going to be a short one.

And then in the upcoming episode, I'm going to be talking about planning your herbal year.

I don't know if you've seen it, but I've created this lush planner which is free to

download for you to help kind of reflect and sort of orient yourself around, like, what you

want to learn with your herbalism, how you want to develop, like plants you want to build

a relationship with this year.

And in the next episode, I'm going to be kind of talking through some of those questions for

people who've downloaded the planner and are maybe a little bit like, ugh, I don't know

what to write.

I don't know what this means.

I'm just going to be kind of talking everyone

through it.

So, yeah, look out for that.

All right, so I'm just going to read through the plans for the Solidarity Apothecary that I

wrote as a post and I'll kind of,

you know, like, add little extras and stuff.

But if you're new to this podcast and the

Solidarity Apothecary, then yeah, the mission of the Solidarity Apothecary is to materially

support revolutionary struggles and communities with plant medicines,

strengthening collective autonomy, self defense and resilience in the face of climate

change, capitalism and state violence.

You know, just a small mission.

Each year I take time to reflect on the direction of the work and to name what I am

committing to in the year ahead.

So you might have listened to the last episode

But yeah, this year, like, my focus is around kind of depth and infrastructure and

collective support.

And my guiding phrase for the year is from urgency to infrastructure.

So, you know, like, after decades shaped by cycles of stress, adrenaline and reactivity as

an organizer,

the next phase is about building work with long term impact,

strengthens collective resilience for Survival.

So yeah, you know, I'm just, you know, I'm like,

I don't know how old I am.

I'm going to be 38 in February.

And yeah, been around the block, you know, been organizing and active in different

campaigns since I was literally like 10 years old.

And you know, you just see the same cycles, right, like the same kind of flavor of the

month struggle where like something interesting and exciting pops up and everyone

mobilizes around it and.

No, sorry, that's like a wrong phrasing.

I don't mean like interesting and exciting as

in some ******* horrible traumatic thing that's happening that like deserves a

response.

But I just mean like this cyclical pattern of

organizing where the focus is always on the like, immediate firefighting kind of like

crisis and you know,

like capitalism is ******* crisis.

And you know, people have to ******* organize

and mobilize in response to things.

Like, I'm all about resistance, you know,

like, if the state bring in like new legislation which will just kind of like put

loads of people in poverty, then of course it needs resistance.

You know, like the genocide in Gaza, like, of course that demanded like massive resistance

and still does.

But I'm just saying, like,

yeah, there's often like so much priority placed on kind of responding, responding,

responding.

And it's like, when do we kind of take the

offensive, you know, when do we go at our speed in terms of like building infrastructure

that actually supports literally like collective survival, right?

And you know, this is looking a lot like kind of preparedness around climate change, but

it's also, you know, like, how,

how do we like move beyond these like intense cycles of like depletion and short termism and

kind of like people just getting involved, getting super active for a year or two and

then disappearing because there's no infrastructure to enable people to keep going

or to feed themselves or have access to housing or access to childcare and like,

yeah, all of this stuff.

Like, I know if you listen to this, like

you're probably,

you know, into all that stuff.

But for me, I just feel like I really need to

move to like prioritizing things that are going to like have an impact like over the

long haul.

Do you know what I'm saying?

All right, so da da da da.

First big plan.

This is my like top goal, like hardcore focus project of the year and that is launching the

frontline herbalism membership.

So.

Oh my God, it's going to be ******* lush.

I am just enjoying creating the content for

this so much.

I'm just working on it every Time my baby is

asleep two hours in the evening.

Every nap time I'm just going hard at it.

And basically it's going to be a kind of

membership site in the sense that, you know, like people contribute a small amount each

month and it enables them access to the resources in the library and the forum.

But it's going to be like a long term home for herbalists who are taking action in different

ways.

Whether that's responding to acute needs on

the streets.

So people that are involved in street medic

work, for example, or supporting houseless communities or the working Calais, for

example, with the mobile herbal clinic,

as well as, you know, supporting communities that are navigating systemic violence or.

Yeah, just building herbal infrastructure for a rapidly changing and increasingly unstable

world.

So there's going to be three pathways which intersect and people can bounce about, like,

bounce about.

There's no pressure to complete one pathway, for example, but there's going to be a focus

on like herbal street medicine.

So that's going to like dive really hard into,

you know, like herbal first aid, advanced herbal first aid, wound care and infection

management,

you know, acute herbalism, like kind of the stuff that I did in Calais, you know, and I've

supported like thousands of people through that project.

You know, it's a collective project, an amazing team.

And I've learned so much from the clinical supervisors who, you know, have mentored me.

And I just think that access to that knowledge is like so difficult.

And I, you know, I did like every first aid course under the sun and these like emergency

care courses and things and.

But yeah, I just want to bring that skill set to people so that it's accessible to develop

those skills and kind of street medicine.

And then the second pathway is like disaster and crisis response.

So it goes through like different kinds of disasters, like for example, flooding or

storms or pandemics.

And looking at kind of, you know, like what are the common health needs and like emotional

needs of people that have been affected? What kind of mutual aid examples are there

from around the world of people that have responded to that crisis.

And then what are the roles for herbalists, you know, and there's going to be interviews

with herbalists that have taken action as kind of case studies.

But you know, there's also going to be a kind of not dreaming but a kind of, you know, like

look at the kind of potential here in terms of herbalism, you know, whether that's responding

to people struggling with like mold related illnesses after flooding or you know,

supporting respiratory health after wildfires.

There's Just so many opportunities for herbalism.

And yeah, so that pathway is really exciting and I'm calling it like the herbal responder

pathway.

And then finally community herbalism.

So it's like, how do we build that infrastructure in our communities?

How do we kind of successfully run free clinics and sliding scale offerings,

you know, for the long haul? Like what does that look like in terms of like

navigating safety and pharmaceuticals and you know, like funding and resources and you know,

the amount of emails I get from people about how do I fundraise for this thing.

And you know, so it's going to bring together like all of that kind of knowledge around,

you know, that kind of like backbone of like herbal infrastructure, like all the medicine

making stuff.

So yeah, there's going to be a forum, there's going to be like a monthly call where people

can ask questions and like offer up support to different people.

I'm gonna have a like solidarity Sunday guest spot where we're gonna pay a guest teacher to,

you know, run a session and then people can kind of pay to join that and that like who

aren't members and that money can be donated to like the person's like organization of

choice.

So yeah, it can be this like kind of engine for solidarity.

Yeah, and I'm gonna have different interviews with people who are organizing this stuff and

doing this front end work and a lot of them will be shared over here on the podcast.

And then other ones might be a bit more specific to the membership.

But yeah, but the idea is just to, you know, move beyond kind of like sporadic one off

trainings and to really like create people,

create opportunities for people to develop skills and access this knowledge in a very

like organized,

systematic, practical way.

But also to access like mentoring and support.

You know, there's going to be different people

involved, like who can, you know, like answer questions on the forum and stuff, you know, be

way beyond just me.

But yeah, just to kind of like get that, yeah, just get that like collective support to like

really help people move to implementation,

to you know, like, how can we get more projects started?

How can we have more clinics? How can we have a mobile clinic at every

******* border hotspot? You know, like how can we have really trained

like competent street medics, like responding when there's you know, demonstrations and

uprisings and all the things.

So yeah, as you can tell, I'm very excited about it.

I haven't made the kind of like info page waiting list stuff yet.

Um,

but yeah, it's going to be ******* amazing.

And it's going to be a perfect follow on for

people who've done the herbalism and PTSD course, for example.

Um, it's going to be suitable for you know, people with some like herbalism experience.

But there's also going to be a lot of content in there for people that are new to herbalism

and developing those skill sets and it will really complement like other training that

people are doing and like other clinical training.

So yeah, I'm super ******* excited about it.

Please email me if you're like interested and

if you you know, have suggest for guest teachers or things you'd really like it to

include.

Yeah, okay.

And the next one is deepening clinical practice.

So alongside the membership stuff I'm really focusing on deepening my clinical practice

with a focus on one to one clinical support group programs and the Black Flag Herbal

Clinic which I haven't announced officially yet.

But I'm gonna do a podcast all about that.

But yeah, I'll just briefly give those a rundown.

So I've been supporting a lot of people one to one since I graduated as a herbalist and even

before then and just like informally.

And then obviously I got pregnant a year, a year, two years after I graduated which kind

of like really affected the amount of people I could support because I was like really

critically ill with this thing called hyperemesis which is like I basically like

vomited 30 times a day for six months.

It horrific.

Do not recommend it.

And then since having my little one Lee, I've been kind of like seeing people who already

had,

who I already had a relationship with and trying to like cautiously not take on more

people.

And then this summer I spent a lot of energy investing in my clinical systems,

you know, like new software, stuff like that just to get really organized so that it's

like, I don't want to sound like a capitalist but as efficient as possible because I have

very, very limited time to do things because of the childcare situation.

So anyway, and then I had the Hawthorne crew.

So I supported nine people with like one to

one consults and support.

And that was like really fantastic and just made me remember like how much I love one to

ones.

Like I love going in deep with someone into

their kind of stuff and their health issues and the way their body is responding to the

world.

I love detailing herbal recommendations and nutritional recommendations.

I love seeing their transformation, seeing them fall in love with herbalism.

It's always super exciting when that happens.

And yeah, and so basically I'm going to be opening the doors for one to one clients so

you can actually go on my clinic website now.

It's ready for bookings.

And there's different.

There's different packages.

I'll do a different episode about this, I

think.

But basically I'm working with people over

five months because I think it really needs that amount of time for like, proper

transformation when someone is experiencing a chronic illness.

Or I've got like a different package where it's like just, you know, like one off calls

and.

And you can book them when you, like,

see.

Anyway, so I'm really excited about doing that

as a kind of,

you know, like, big focus of my work again.

And then because I've always had this like, blurred mix of some people paying.

Most people,

you know, not paying because I'm like, supporting them in solidarity, you know,

whether they don't have papers or are on, you know, disability benefits and have like, ****

all money.

Like, I've always constantly been kind of like negotiating this like, weird dance between

supporting some for free and then charging other people.

And it's always felt a bit kind of like messy.

But what I've decided to do is just see paying clients with the solidarity apothecary and

then have a separate project which is focused on providing free herbal support.

And that project can become like a collective thing where, you know, people fundraise for

it.

People donate medicine.

Like, I don't want people donating medicine to me that I'm then technically selling to a

client.

You know what I mean? It doesn't feel good.

So I just want to keep it kind of clean and separate.

So anyway, launching this clinic called the Black Flag Herbal Clinic, which is like,

specifically for anarchists, it's going to be international,

so I'm gonna brave the customs on the post to get things out to people.

But, yeah, I'll put a link in the show notes and I'll talk about it more in its own episode

of why I've gone in that direction, how it's framed, like my relationship to anarchism and

why that's important.

But yeah, I'm just, yeah, really excited about going in kind of deep with that.

And part of that clinic is going to be about mentoring, like, herbal students and them

taking some of the workload and having like a more liberating environment to practice,

literally practice herbal skills.

Because I know from my clinical training, like, a lot of,

a lot of herbalists, it can feel quite oppressive and disempowering and puts a lot of

people off becoming practitioners.

And I just want to create a very different

space for people.

So yeah, if you're a herbal student, please check out the website for that.

And then, yeah, finally I'm going to be doing these group programs.

So I did Hawthorne last year, which is, like, for people experiencing oppression.

And what I'm doing is just keeping it sustainable.

I'm just doing, like, one program every three months.

So the first one in January is for people struggling with burnout called Rooted in

Struggle.

And then I'm going to do one for prisoner family members called the Rose Program.

And then I'll have the summer with the Bubba.

And then I'm going to do Hawthorne again.

And then after that, I want to do one called Healing After Incarceration, which would just

be for ex prisoners.

So, yeah, that's going to be.

My kind of pattern is, like, onboarding, like,

nine people,

you know, intensely doing all the recommendations and then having, like, group

calls and things.

And then in between then, you know, seeing

clients like, every week.

I can literally only see about two people a

week because of the baby childcare situation.

So, yeah, if you're interested, I would get in there now.

Don't want to blow my trumpet, but,

yeah, I've got very few kind of spots.

So, yeah, so that's going to be my focus, is like, just deepening my clinical practice and

kind of cultivating those skills and mentoring and supervising other people.

Okay. And then plan goal number three is growing the solid apothecary supporter base.

So this isn't about ******* vanity metrics.

Like, I could not give a **** about follower

numbers and stuff like that, but building a support base is really important to me because

it is something that is tiring but, like, really pays off.

Like, and in terms of, you know, I can put something on my newsletter, sharing a

crowdfunder or something, or doing merchandise for the Cali clinic and, you know, generate a

lot of sales.

And that's what I'm doing it for.

It's just to build this supporter base of

people that I'm in relationship with that I can, you know, reach out to for solidarity,

that I can share calls for solidarity with,

you know, that are benefiting from the work, that are sharing things in their own networks.

Like.

Yeah.

So anyway, so I think the last couple of years I feel like I've been quite kind of, like,

shrunk in terms of, like, the baby and, like, lots of crisis stuff with my ex and addiction

stuff and just like, with him.

And I've just had to kind of, like, shrink a

bit.

And I feel like now I'm just, like, able to expand again because there's just like more

resources in terms of like nursery and other people that can help with the baby and like

he's, you know, he's so much older.

I mean he's only like 19 months, but it's very different to newborn stage.

So yeah, I'm just excited to kind of like expand again, if that makes sense.

So I'm going to be focusing on growing this podcast.

So more interviews, you know, more solo episodes, like more reach.

I'm going to focus on like pitching myself to other people's podcasts.

So if you fancy an interview, let me know.

Yeah, just more kind of writing of articles and contributing to publications,

looking at alternatives to Instagram, basically things like Mastodon and Pinterest

and stuff.

Strengthening the newsletter and yeah, just sort of increasing the amount of people that

are coming to the website and just like the reach, the general reach of the Apothecary,

you know.

And in terms of collective support,

I have this goal of hiring a dispensing assistant.

I really would love someone that could work in my herb shed,

you know, putting the herbal care packages together, like making things in bulk.

Like if I've got a client and I need to send out their herbs, like they could bottle that

up for me.

Like, oh my God, it would be so dreamy.

So I'm trying to,

yeah, kind of like save money for that at the moment.

And yeah,

I really, really, really want to make that happen.

So working more effectively with existing admin and design support,

hosting more collective medicine making sessions.

And that's why like if I have this separate free clinic project,

be more comfortable with having people come over and we can do like foraging together and

medicine making together and stuff.

I also want to do more medicine making

sessions for Calais.

So I'm going to get that up on the mobile herbal clinic website if you're interested in

that and you're in Somerset or nearby.

If you email supportolidarityapothecary.org,

then we can link you in to when those might be happening this year.

And finally.

Oh yeah, and then just with the Black Flag Herbal Clinic, I really want by the end of the

year for it to be like a full collective project.

Like I haven't started it as a collective project because I don't quite have the right

mix of comrades that are like have the resources to really interact with it.

Like I know quite a lot of lush like anarchist leaning herbalists, but they're all kind of up

to their eyeballs in their clinical training or don't live anywhere near Me or kind of

maybe don't identify as an anarchist anymore.

And like, yeah, there's just certain values that are maybe clashing.

So I just want to kind of like open the net a little bit wider and just hope that people can

get involved that really share that vision.

And also, like with the baby, it's like I just,

you know, like, I need to have a structure where I'm seeing people for free and that.

That's kind of its own thing and then that can develop, you know, because I never been around

the block.

Like I said, like, I've been in like a million one meetings and done things in groups my

whole life.

And it is a joy and essential for collective

liber me.

It can also be tiring and shitloads of work.

So I just thought, right, I'm just gonna

launch this thing and do what I'm basically doing already, but with a structure and then

howl for my pack.

So maybe you're like, that's my pack too.

So you might contact me and we could

potentially work together, which would be awesome.

All right.

And some personal and learning goals.

So. Personal goals,

I just want to feel more like integrated across my identities, particularly around like

motherhood and anarchism.

So like, I kind of, you know, been going to

lots of like baby things and it's like I don't feel like that much affinity with people other

than we've both like created a human.

We don't really have much else in common.

And then I feel like a lot of anarchist types are like quite anti children and kind of not

inclusive.

So it's like frustrating, but I just need to

find that ******* niche in the middle.

And I just want to be myself more and accept the fact that I am a ******* mum now, you

know? And it's a huge.

It is the hugest part of my life life.

So,

yeah.

Other goals, I really want to expand the kind of childcare support I have.

I really want to build stronger local friendships in my community.

I'd really love to like find a paddleboarding club or someone or some people to go

paddleboarding with are in Somerset like for the summer months.

And I want to invest like more energy into my spiritual practice and my learning pathway.

Goals include completing the functional medicine training with the Institute of

Functional Medicine.

So I've been doing a handful of those courses.

Expensive but amazing.

Like, I've been blown away actually by the

content and how useful it's been with people I've been supporting one to one.

So I'm definitely gonna, yeah, try and set money Aside, to complete that,

I want to invest energy in developing mentoring and clinical supervision skills.

Want to do some advanced training around herbal constituents.

I'm doing this amazing program called Deconstructing Motherhood with Toy Smith.

And,

yeah, it's basically lots of kind of readings every.

There are monthly calls, but I haven't been able to participate in them because of the

childcare situation.

So that's been gutting.

But, yeah, it's all about kind of learning about motherhood and the difference between

motherhood and mothering and all this,

you know, like, radical analysis around it.

And, yeah, she's ******* awesome.

And just.

Yeah, I'm just learning a lot, basically, from

working through that material.

So that's ongoing.

And then working through this decolonization in Ireland course.

And, yeah, I'm hopefully.

A guy called Jimmy Billings has created that,

and I'm hoping to,

yeah, ask him to come on the podcast sometime because it's really, really impressive

material and super interesting.

And for people who love plants, I think they

would be really into it.

Okay, so the word of the year is devotion.

So,

yeah, I love devotion as a kind of alternative to discipline.

And to me, it's like,

it's tiring looking after a baby, but having that devotion to be like, right, he's gone to

sleep.

I've got two hours where I'm, like, devoted to

building this membership and, you know, doing the best I can.

And. But then when I'm not working on that, being devoted to my son and just giving him

everything I can in terms of my love and my presence,

and then, yeah, just devotion to Lancy and Sky through spiritual practice and relationships.

So,

yeah, okay, so soon I'm gonna record this podcast about designing your herbal pathway.

Please check out the Planner if you're interested.

And,

yeah, and then I'm gonna do a podcast with just, like, a rundown of all the offerings.

You can see the post on Instagram where I've tried to share things.

And I'll put a link to the post in the show notes of this episode, too, so you can see,

like, everything that's going on this year and links to different things I've mentioned.

But, yeah, thanks so much for listening, and I can't wait to just ******* get stuck in.

All right, take care.

Bye.

Thanks so much for listening to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast.

You can find the transcript, the links, all the resources from the

show@solidarityapothecary.org podcast.