Barrington, NH
Sanctuary Stewards: Jessica LaBrie and Steve McPhee
By Jessica LaBrie
Blackbird’s Daughter Botanicals is a center for Sacred Gaian Herbalism and healing, a dream continually coming true and a passion project that belongs not just to Steve McPhee and Jessica LaBrie, but to everyone whose contributions enrich the land and ensure its stewardship for the next inhabitants.
Located in N’dakinna, the ancestral homeland of the Abenaki, Pennacook, and Wabanaki Peoples, Blackbird’s Daughter Botanicals rests on a small portion of Scruton Pond Farm, a 125-acre intentional community in Barrington, NH. Steve, a master cabinetmaker, came to purchase this spot six years ago; his mind was made up as soon as he drove up the driveway and saw the cluster of white oak trees that grace the property. That sacred oak grove has formed the core of this space ever since. Quiet forest trails, a pond, bogs, vernal pools, and glacial erratic boulders are all part of this UpS sanctuary. When Jessica, a Sacred Gaian Herbalist, wisewoman, and educator, moved in with Steve, he built her an apothecary off the kitchen, filled floor to ceiling with glowing curly maple shelves. They painted the walls with turmeric, were married the following year, and immediately began to grow their hilltop home into a community sanctuary and educational center.
With Jessica’s vision and Steve’s technical carpentry skills, Blackbird’s Daughter Botanicals is expanding the current gardens to nurture even more at-risk and medicinal plants, many of which already grow on the property and will ultimately be re-introduced into the forests of New Hampshire. As Steve works to convert a small building into a classroom and apothecary, Jessica’s next goal is to terrace a steep stone hillside to create an accessible sensory herb garden – a monumental but rewarding task. Their loftiest plans are to finish a small space above the barn, “the Nest at Blackbird’s Daughter.” Once finished, it will be available to rent for herbal retreats and as lodging, in addition to campsites, for WWOOFers and guests.
They also look forward to expanding the gardens into a network of wheelchair-accessible teaching and healing refuge for all abilities and stages of life. This vision extends beyond the garden walls (quasi-protected from marauding deer by fences of beaver-felled blueberry branches) and into the surrounding wilderness. With the help of herbal apprentices, colleagues, and friends, they’ve laid a medicinal mushroom trail and have worked with a permaculturist to design and plant a food & medicine forest, including fruit trees and a nut orchard. Even though many of these trees won’t bear food during our lifetimes, their goal is to return this space to how it would have been in pre-colonial times.
“We believe everyone deserves access to hands-on education and time in nature” says Jessica, who firmly believes that no one should be limited no matter their age or abilities. “We’re co-creating this space in a way that this land wants. Sometimes, when I’m nearing the end of a project, I’ll walk back toward the house and notice that things begin to look different. Everything turns sepia, but one area will stand apart from the rest. I know that that’s the next place this space wants me to work and I honor that call.”
The call has blossomed into a number of year-round educational and enrichment opportunities, the majority of which are sliding-scale and offer social justice scholarships to BIPOC and trans/GNC folks. Programs include a three year, six-module Sacred Gaian Herbalism apprenticeship, herbal workshops, kitchen witch classes, and naturebased programs for all ages, as well as work-study opportunities. An ordained minister and practicing Green Witch, Jessica offers sacred studies programs, performs rituals, ceremonies, and community celebrations to mark the Year Wheel, and provides Wise Woman counseling and life coaching, including trauma-informed nature therapy. Clients appreciate visiting with the plants who they will later enjoy in tea and tincture, and participating in the “ground up” medicine-making process. They find solace and peace in forest-bathing and learn to practice mindfulness among the green allies.
Blackbird’s Daughter Botanicals is uniquely situated to welcome visitors to the magic of partnering with the plants. The small meadow and ever-expanding teaching gardens are home to many animals, insects, birds, fungi, trees, wildflowers, and herbs. Nestled in the gardens and throughout the protected woods are many at-risk and medicinal plants, including arnica, bilberry, black cohosh, blueberry, Canadian ginger, echinacea, elder, ginseng, gentian, ghost pipe, goldthread, hemlock, lady’s slipper, northern maidenhair fern, mayapple, partridge berry, pipsissewa, sarsaparilla, sassafras, trillium, wapato,among others. Scruton Pond Farm is also home to otters, beavers, eagles, hawks, a nesting pair of turkey vultures, ravens, black bears, coyotes, deer, turkeys, salamanders, snapping turtles, painted turtles, and many more animal friends who work in tandem with the land to create a thriving ecosystem.
“We are proud to be part of the UpS Botanical Sanctuary Network because we believe in the mission of United Plant Savers and have an opportunity to be of service. We understand that this land does not belong to us; rather, we belong to the land and hold all of the inhabitants, from wild turkeys to turkey tail mushrooms, in the highest regard. We are enormously grateful to live here in partnership with this sacred space and the communities of beings we share it with, and to share this reverence and understanding with others.”
Jessica LaBrie is the current president of the New Hampshire Herbal Network (AHG-chapter), co-owner of Mama’s Kiss Cannabis, LLC, and owner of Blackbird’s Daughter Botanicals, an AHG Herb School, United Plant Savers Partner in Education, and UpS designated Botanical Sanctuary in Barrington, NH. She specializes in supporting clients through a multi-disciplinary approach based in narrative therapy, archetypes, herbalism, ceremony, and nature therapy, and a host of botanical, spiritual, and multicultural wisdom traditions. Learn more by visiting www.blackbirdsdaughter.com.
