Meet Shayle Sabo | Community Herbalist

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

Hi Shayle, can you talk to us a bit about the social impact of your business?
Keeping a community-centered approach to my business is the foundation of everything I do. Matter of factly, with Thinning of the Veil Apothecary (which I lovingly call ToVA for short), I have actually pushed very little product to this day, because I want to create a community first. I do this through content creation and engaging social media, and a lot of my focus right now instead of strictly developing herbal products is to connect with others and provide education about how to use herbs in daily life. In my mind, herbalism is something that should be accessible to all, because it is something truly innate to all of us. Somewhere in our lineage, no matter where we may be from in the world, people practiced herbalism and had a close relationship with the land they lived upon. In today’s world, there is a lot of disconnection from not only the land we may occupy today, but for many of us, we are displaced from the lands of our ancestors. Coming together to learn from the plants is a beautiful way to not only help us to build relationship with, and honor and respect nature, it also helps us to understand our role and responsibility in mindful tending and care of the earth, our connection with one another as humans, and helps us to heal.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I love to say that I was a feral child. Most often you could not get near me with a hair brush, I was perfectly fine being covered in dirt for days at a time, and found wearing shoes to be unbearable. I also was the child that named trees as if they were people and saw them as friends, and unfortunately tore up my grandfather’s beloved flower garden and would use them to make “perfumes” and “potions” in his backyard. My favorite memories are also those associated with picking huckleberries with my father, or stopping on a hike in the woods for him to point out a plant and how it could be used. So I feel like I had a deep connection with nature from the beginning and demonstrated very early inklings of a budding herbalist.

However, in my teenage years, I like many of us, wanted to just fit in. So I became more concerned with trends and the latest fashion and hanging out with friends than I was with being out in nature. I also was an ambitious student, who went straight to college after graduation and then immediately initiated my graduate school career, and this was the sole focus of my early 20s. I knew I wanted to make a difference in the world, and I loved travel and culture so I studied International Relations, Political Science, and eventually Disaster Resilience.

While it felt unfortunate at the time, something that I now see as a blessing is that after I finished graduate school, there was a six-month period where I struggled to get my foot in the door and land a job. And while I returned to the small remote Montana town (with a whopping population of 100) to work at a restaurant where I spent most of my summers and spend time with my grandmother to pay the bills in the meantime, I found myself with a lot of free time that I had not had since I started my academic career. I can’t say what exactly did it, but I remembered how herbalism was always something I had wanted to learn. That afternoon, I googled online herbal programs and found the Herbal Academy, and my journey was launched from there. I found something am now deeply passionate about and have incorporated into not only a business dream, but my every day life.

Thinning of the Veil Apothecary has been a dream of mine for almost 6 years now. Ever since the beginning, I’ve always felt like herbalism is something I wanted to share with others. Beginning to work with herbs awakened something I feel is truly ancestral in my being, and I wanted it to be a bigger part of my life than just my own personal workings.

The name “Thinning of the Veil” is a testament to the magic of thresholds. In herbalism, there is not only the physical benefits of herbs, but also the energetic and even magical benefits. For example, the vibrational essence of a flower can help to alleviate feelings of anxiety, and certain herbs such as calendula are believed to offer protection if hung over the doorway of a home. The concept of a “veil” separating our world from the “Otherside” or the place where those who have passed on before us or beings of folklore are believed to reside is something that is rooted not only in Irish folklore, a part of my lineage I am looking to reconnect with, but in folklore around the world. I believe the plants help us to navigate this threshold, and I love to celebrate all of the mystery that lies within that. It is a merging of both science and magic, that which is known and that which we have yet to understand. The concept of the veil is was also made more popular in contemporary times by the emergence of Spiritualism, and as someone who also loves all things spooky, this also felt like a fun piece to tie into my brand.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I have been a resident of Loveland for almost two years now, and each year it seems to get a little more magical. The city has a history of cultivating incredible artists, and is known particularly for the sculptures and forges that adorn the city.

If I had a friend here, I would take them to one of my favorite places for drinks in town, which is Henry’s Pub downtown. As someone who is an avid lover of Irish culture, Henry’s Pub has such a comforting feeling, feels like traditional Irish pub, and their drinks are great! They also have a delicious menu that never disappoints.

I’d also love to share a local metaphysical shop a couple blocks down from the pub that is run by special friends of mine called Willow Shaper. It sells all the best witchy wares, and their herbs are fantastic as well!

To get some light exercise, I’d encourage them to take a stroll on the beautiful river walk Loveland has to offer that is adorned with the most incredible Cottonwood trees, or the sculpture park that showcases many pieces by local artists.

Lastly, I would also love to take them on a quick drive north to Fort Collins and encourage them to take a class with me offered by Golden Poppy Apothecary. This is an herbal apothecary that is so beautifully community-centered, is near and dear to my heart, and every thing they offer to the community is crafted with such love and intention!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I first want to recognize the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color who we owe so much of our herbal knowledge to, particularly that which we recognize, and have often appropriated from, in Western herbal traditions, and yet have been erased or there is immense failure to recognize their contributions to this knowledge. Community-centered herbalism also includes responsibility in continuing to learn, and in understanding and acknowledging how and where appropriation happens so that we may endeavor to do better and make reparations.

Additionally, I owe so much gratitude and feel so much love for my teachers that have accompanied my journey to reclaiming and becoming the title of herbalist.

Firstly, I want to recognize the teachers and developers behind the online herbal curriculum at the Herbal Academy. I look at these programs with great fondness, because this was the first place I accessed herbal education and truly initiated my journey. In these introductory and intermediate courses, I developed my foundation and roots in herbalism here, and am grateful their program exists!

Secondly I want to take my apprenticeship teachers, Tonja Reichley and Marysia Miernowska, for they are the reason that my herbal practice deepened, and guided me on how we can reconnect to community and tend to the earth. Tonja, who trained me in ancestral herbalism, helped me to reconnect with my indigenous European roots, and particularly my Irish ancestry, learning folk practices and plants that are sacred and honored in my own lineage. Marysia, through the School of the Sacred Wild, not only connected me with an international community of fellow herbal students, but in addition to herbalism taught me how to provide healing back to the earth through permaculture, gardening, and song.

Thirdly, I want to thank Asia Suler as one of my teachers, who taught me the practice of intuitive plant medicine, and learning to commune with plants not strictly on a physical level, but on an energetic level as well, and how to gleam deep wisdom from plants as teachers.

Lastly, I’d like to thank my father. I often joke that I was raised by a total mountain man, and honestly, it’s because it is true. My father is the first person to really help me understand and connect with nature, and instilled in me the magic of wild plants as food and medicine. He sparked the love of foraging and spending time in the mountains. Funny enough, later in life, we really felt called to practice herbalism more fully without the other really knowing it, at the same time. It was a beautiful synchronicity that was another reminder that herbalism is biological, in our blood and helps us to remember our roots.

Website: www.thinningoftheveilapothecary.com

Instagram: @thinningoftheveil.apothecary

Other: TikTok: @tova.apothecary