GINGER WEBB’S WORLD OF HERBAL MEDICINE
WORDS AND PHOTOS BY CHRISTINA GARCIA
As a self-declared “geek” who rejects pseudoscience around alternative healing, Ginger Webb still asks plants for permission before harvesting them. Though she once worked in AI and has a graduate degree in French linguistics, she’s “as woo-woo as they come,” she says when we met at her home in Wimberley.
Webb owns the Sacred Journey School of Herbal Medicine. She also owns Texas Medicinals, an apothecary she created 24 years ago after her herbal medicine training with the late founder of the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine, Michael Moore.
She’s a gentle presence as she offered me a cup of tea and led me outside to talk, pointing out a hummingbird fluttering gracefully nearby and then telling me how her life would soon change.
“After 24 years of running Texas Medicinals, I’m selling the business,” she says. Someone with vision and energy will expand it. I’m moving back to Austin. I miss my people. I miss being with my people.”
Texas Medicinals makes plant medicine, which Webb often grows and harvests herself before using it in healing work with clients. “A lot of healing happens because you listen to someone talk about their problems. I talk to people for hours,” she says. Connection is crucial, and Webb is generous as she shares her knowledge of field botany and medicine making.
Her elixirs and tinctures give succor to midwives and pregnant people, for example. The tiny bottles of liquid might help alleviate or manage mood, headaches, allergies and breathing difficulty.
She led me into her storage room, where we were surrounded by hundreds of bottles in large and small dark jars labeled for sale and storage. She carefully dripped half a dozen tinctures onto my tongue from small droppers. I didn’t try any of the pleasure extracts, but I do remember one elixir that felt fiery, like a drop of water evaporating on a hot pan. The names and uses for the tinctures she shared were like a small master class in herbalism.
The peach leaf extract, the one that burned my tongue, is known to cool emotions, physical heat and irritation. It can also help with hot flashes, irritated digestion and morning sickness. A tincture of Devil’s Club from the Pacific Northwest often makes people cry. Her Vital Stimulant extract is often given to people on their deathbed to help them become more lucid. Cotton root could be an ally to women who need to miscarry or those who wish to have a vaginal birth.
Webb has a few interested buyers for the apothecary, which, once sold, will leave her more time to manage and instruct at the Sacred Journey School. Created shortly after her daughter was born in 2001, the school began as a meeting of five women in Webb’s kitchen for the two hours when her daughter was in school. Last year, around 75 people enrolled in the various courses she offers.
“Every student comes to the table knowing how to do at least one thing with herbs: make tea. We grow from there,” she says.
When Webb’s daughter was young, she begged to learn how to “make spells,” and the course called Kitchen Witchery was born. It’s a short introduction to her most popular course, the 200-hour Foundations of Herbalism class.
Beerburg Brewing owner Trevor Nearburg recently went through Webb’s course pipeline. When we spoke over the phone, he said her course transformed his relationship to the outdoors, as well as his family’s and their friends.’
“Ginger’s whole reason for calling her school Sacred Journey is that she feels that for her students, you learn about herbalism and then see what it means to you,” says Nearburg.
Webb says she founded her school to help people feel more connected to the environment, and from her school, small businesses have sprung up as students create their own independent apothecaries like White Deer, Corazon Verde Yerbas and others.
Webb walked me to her garden where she demonstrated listening to plants. How? “Be open to the concept. Feel it in your heart. Plants are alive just like I am alive,” she says.
The pink evening primrose did not want to be picked, she says, but other plants there did.
We tried the cucumber weed. The tall lamb’s quarters are food, she says, pointing out the deep lilac powder they grow like fairy dust. Webb rubbed a bit with her finger and then touched her cheek, describing the natural blush.
We harvested fresh estafiate, or white sagebrush, for her students.
“People get about 100 herbs in a goodie box,” she says. Every Tuesday night from September to May, students taste the herbs together as teas. Optional outdoor classes meet one weekend a month in wild places, with students arriving from as far as the Valley, Houston, Dallas, Georgetown and Kerrville.
Outside in the garden before we went inside, she plucked a few more flowers for us to eat, careful not to overharvest.
Learn more about Ginger at gingerwebb.com.
About the Contributor
Christina Garcia writes about music and travel and recently became a published author with the 2022 release of 52 Things to Do in Austin and San Antonio.
