Meet Asia Dorsey

We had the good fortune of connecting with Asia Dorsey and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Asia, how does your business help the community?
Herbal medicine is a people’s medicine is is now as it has always been. Harvesting and crafting our own solutions to wellbeing connects us directly with the source of our own regard and reweaves us into the fabric of the earth and our belonging. Practicing our people’s medicine, is a praxis of bodily autonomy, that is, practicing herbal medicine is the power to shape the reproduction of our life. The COVID 19 pandemic taught us to value the labor of our frontline healthcare workers and it also taught us to value the labor the reproduces our everyday lives. The more equipped we were to provide for ourselves and our communities the better our healthcare outcomes. The pandemic helped us understand that labor of our medical healthcare workers was finite and the the capacity of our medical institutional to hold us was duly limited. We had to address non-emergency medicine at home. I would argue that this is how it should always be. In an integrated worldview, everyday people, practicing the medicine of their own ancestors supports the ability of healthcare workers to do the heavy lifting that they are trained to do. In this way, we all have our place in a future of healing justice and resilience. And for that to happen, everyday people need their power realized. My work, as an herbalist and educator democratizes wellbeing in a way that is simple, safe, powerful. With 1:1 consultations, group mentorships and immersions that teach the medicine of each season, Bones Bugs and Botany helps our community to rise together in their power and live into the wholeness that is their birthright.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Bones Bugs and Botany is a consultancy that nourishes embodied liberation through food and herbal medicine education. We integrate ancestral culinary traditions and practices with botanical medicine in a way that supports gut-mind wellness. Bones Bugs and Botany begin in 2012 when I found myself in an unintentional apprenticeship with Kay Baxter in Wairoa New Zealand. I want there to develop her business, the Koanga Institute and ended up learning the most important lessons of my life under the gentle guidance of this wise woman. Stressed and depressed she suggested that I could heal my depression though healing my gut and taught me the techniques of fermentation, animal husbandry and nutrient dense gardening. I took these lesson home and transformed my body and mind with the power of Bones, that is meaty bone stock and Bugs, that is probiotic foods. Enlivened, I returned to Denver and inherited the Five Points Fermentation Company from Chef Milan Doshi, where I manufactured traditional probiotic foods and brews from local produce. These foods and beverages, enriched with local plants for flavor healed the bodies of those that imbibed in them and it scared me. I needed to know what I was doing. I begin learning about herbal medicine with a group developed by local poet and bruja Sheree Brown called the Ancestral Herbalism Healing Collective. This work put me on track to eventually study and apprentice for years with elder Herbalist Susun Weed. This work in combination with my ancestral lineage of Rootwork and other powerful teachers like Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride, helped me to know emphatically through personal experience, the wisdom of elders, case studies, scientific analysis and clinical practice, the art of easing a mind and a belly.

Bones Bugs and Botany is the accumulation of my own healing journey. I teach the medicine that transformed my wellbeing using pattern languages that are easy to engage in and implement. I am so proud of my clients and students who are now building and developing their own practices. I’m proud that I’ve built a community of empowered people furthering the movement and experiencing the liberation that comes from wellbeing.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Sweet Sibling. Lemme take you to my favorite place, Sloan’s Lake! Did you know that there’s a mermaid in the water? Sloans lake and the surrounding community is where I found my home in herbalism. I would take my friend to the stand of Linden Trees where I would show them how to place their spine on her trunk and let her take the pain away. We might browse the sagebrush along the perimeter and perfume ourselves with her essence. We might end up on a picnic blanket underneath the juniper berry tree. Watching the dogs play with their people. The mammas pushing along their little ones in strollers. We might feel the breeze and smell the scent coming off of the lake a reminder of the need to navigate this world with discernment. A reminder that harm happens to our waters and so harm will come to us as well. Underneath the Juniper, I might share the story of my grandmother and her infatuation with Gin. How the beverage rich in quinine, helped to protect her against the ravages of her lupus. If only she had the knowledge to go the the Juniper directly, the emptied spirit might have been filled with constituents that created more beautiful health outcomes. We might pour a little bit of tincture out for Betty Jo. And thank my first teacher.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’d love to give this shoutout to my wife for life, Karina DesRoses, my co-creator and the producer of The Petty Herbalist Podcast. Since highschool, Karina has walked with me on this herbal journey through thickets, briars and abundance only growing in her commitment and dedication to helping me bring embodied liberation to our people.

Website: https://www.bonesbugsandbotany.com/

Other: Patreon: https://patreon.com/bonesbugsandbotany?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink