Lifting the Green Veil with Vanessa Chakour: A Practitioner’s Perspective
A Conversation with Author and Naturalist Vanessa Chakour
Evenings at the Wolf Conservation Center of New York were always marked by the howling of the 30-odd wolves under the non-profit’s care. After a long day of plant identification and foraging, our group would gather around the campfire, beside a garden certified by United Plant Savers. Occasionally chiming in with the wolf-songs, we’d review what we’d learned while sipping hot decoctions of medicinal plants and scribbling notes into overstuffed notebooks.
For years before the pandemic, Vanessa Chakour’s organization, Sacred Warrior, functioned as a collective focused not only on herbalism training but also on deepening relationships with the natural world. At the heart of her work were partnerships—not just a clinical approach or extractive plant tourism—including one with the Wolf Conservation Center.
A sampling of my notes from Vanessa’s woodland lectures gives a snapshot of a rich day of ecological exploration. One paragraph reads, “Jewelweed and poison ivy grow near one another; the former acts as a natural remedy for the latter.” Another one, “Burdock, a common biennial invasive species, has a taproot that tastes like oatmeal in a decoction for digestion—and as a pickled root vegetable, prominent in cuisines across Asia, it is rich in fiber and amino acids.” Later, I noted, “While gardeners know that red clover fixes nitrogen in the soil, herbalists know that it improves circulation, helps with balancing hormones, and acts as both an expectorant and diuretic.”
For three years, I worked with Vanessa as her apprentice and support, helping organize camping trips for budding herbalists and wildlife enthusiasts through partnerships with organizations in the Northeast, Costa Rica, and Scotland. It’s now been eight years since I first met her, and Sacred Warrior has since evolved into new forms. Vanessa continues to advocate, build relationships across outdoor education organizations, and offer opportunities for people to connect with their local landscapes.
Vanessa is the author of Earthly Bodies: Embracing Animal Nature (Penguin Life, 2024) and Awakening Artemis: Deepening Intimacy with the Living World (Penguin Life, 2021). Her work, as well as longform writing, has been featured in Orion, Terrain, The Journal of Medicinal Plant Conservation, Psyche/Aeon Magazine, Yes! Magazine, Psychology Today, Ravenous Zine, and more. She has been invited to speak at institutions such as the United Nations, Brown University, and the Muhammad Ali Center. She is a long-time member of United Plant Savers and an Artist Ambassador for Project Coyote. Since 2022, she has served on the Advisory Board for the Program for the Evolution of Spirituality at Harvard Divinity School.
Natalia: Over the past three years, the Thinking with Plants & Fungi initiative has explored the intersections between the “vegetal turn” in the humanities and emerging research in the biological sciences on plant neurobiology and forms of sociality. Your work stands at a similar crossroads, and I’m curious: how does the idea of plant consciousness or sentience inform your practice?
Vanessa: As a nature writer, naturalist, rewilding facilitator, and herbalist, I see myself as a collaborator within a biodiverse ecosystem, building relationships with plants and fungi as active participants in my work. Teaching herbalism, for example, may start with which plants offer healing through tinctures and teas, but the deeper work is about building authentic relationships with plants—respecting them as kin, not commodities. Spending time with a single plant, cultivating a kind of friendship, reveals their unique personality and fosters transformative, rather than transactional, relationships. Many of my efforts are focused on lifting what I call the “green veil”—helping others see the wild beauty of countless species who are all too often overlooked in a wash of green.
My partner Enrique and I also collaborate with land as part of the United Plant Savers’ Botanical Sanctuary Network, paying close attention to the interspecies relationships that may be missing or in need of support. The network aims to nurture biodiversity and restore habitat for native plants and other wild neighbors. While Enrique and I used the term “stewards of the land” in the context of this work, I’ve come to feel this suggests a one-sided responsibility. Instead, I consider myself a student of nature, constantly learning and unlearning. And as a student of plants, it is obvious that they demonstrate remarkable awareness and responsiveness. Beyond responding to light, they find creative solutions to threats and react to touch, sound, and scent. Stephen Harrod Buhner, a late mentor of mine, described root systems as functioning as a kind of brain or neural network—an integral part of a wider ecosystem. This has inspired me to wonder: rather than assuming plants think like humans, what if we thought more like plants? Their clarity of being contrasts with the ways human consciousness often complicates our stories about who we are and our role in the world.
Natalia: In my experience, people ask two primary questions when they begin to develop an interest in herbalism—whether that involves foraging, gardening, or a combination of practices. First, they ask: if plants are conscious, how do I eat them? Second, if plants have agency, how do I cut or kill one ethically? How do you field those questions? Does the agency of plants play a dominant role in your conversations on foraging with students or readers?
Vanessa: The practice of asking permission before harvesting wild plants is something I’ve learned across cultures from teachers I’ve studied with. This practice initiates a conversation with plants, acknowledges their ability to say “no” and their role as active participants in our relationship. Asking permission is more than a symbolic act—it’s an acknowledgment of plants’ agency and relationships within the ecosystems they inhabit. In this way, plants invite us to slow down, pay attention, and listen with our whole being. The guiding principles of the practice are simple: quiet the mind and listen to plants’ subtle language, take only what is needed, and ensure there is enough for all members of the ecosystem: pollinators, birds, and other wildlife. After harvesting, a gift such as a song, a note, or a strand of our hair is another common practice I’ve learned. One that fosters reciprocity and deepens our intimacy with the land.
Natalia: I appreciate that your suggestions are rooted in careful, daily practice. However, learning to interpret permission from plants can be intimidating. What would you recommend for people new to the plant world? What book or article would you recommend to folks interested in relationality with plants?
Vanessa: This is a difficult question because there are so many incredible books and articles available. What has helped me most, though, is setting an intention to build relationships with plants by getting outside and into the field. I encourage others to begin with a good field guide tailored to their local ecosystem and venture out without a phone. Leave the apps behind for a while; instead, bring a notebook to document your observations and approach plants as if you were seeing them for the first time. Notice the details: the texture of bark, the shape of leaves, and how a plant interacts with its surroundings. Knowing a plant’s name is just the beginning; true connection comes from slowing down, paying attention, and being present. Observe how plants thrive, with whom they thrive, and how they respond to their environment. When we slow down, plants become our teachers. Building a relationship with plants is not something that can be fully captured in pages. It’s a lived experience.
Natalia: I get the feeling that stories are central to that connection. Like any other friendship, a narrative emerges between a human and a plant; when we reflect on how that relationship was built over time, each interaction weaves into an unfolding tale of subtle shifts and spurts of growth. I’m wondering, is there a story about a plant and animal—whether from folklore or your own research—that doesn’t feature a human as the protagonist that you find particularly compelling or beautiful?
Vanessa: As I attune more deeply to my environment, learning how to be a better neighbor to the creatures around me, I’ve become increasingly drawn to real-life, wild stories unfolding around us all the time. Since it’s spring, and birds are returning to the northeast, the drama that comes to mind is the mind-blowing migration of the ruby-throated hummingbird, which travels over 2,000 miles from Central America to North America, including a nonstop, 18-hour flight across the Gulf of Mexico.
Since moving to Western Massachusetts, I’ve spent the last few years observing ruby-throated hummingbirds pollinating jewelweed, which led me to learn more about the beautiful relationship between the two species. The relationship between ruby-throated hummingbirds and jewelweed is so interconnected that jewelweed patches often wait to flower until hummingbird populations approach their peak. Because jewelweed produces a small amount of nectar per flower, hummingbirds are drawn to visit many blooms, spreading pollen across numerous plants in the process.
This also ties into what I mentioned earlier about being a student of nature—asking permission, observing the animals that rely on plants we might harvest, and recognizing these life-sustaining relationships unfolding everywhere, even in urban environments.
Natalia: Critical Plant Studies as a research field intersects significantly with ecofeminism, decolonial thought, and queer studies. For example, Michael Marder, who spoke at our May conference, wrote a piece called “Resist Like a Plant: On the Vegetal Life of Political Movements” during the 2012 election year. In that piece, he called for a philosophical meditation on how political resistance can draw inspiration from the way plants live, grow, and endure. The state of politics has only become more turbulent, unsettling, and divided since then. Authors such as Natasha Myers, Anna Tsing, and Amitav Ghosh have emphasized a similar point—we can learn from plants as we learn to evolve in the face of complex, shifting political systems amid climate catastrophes. What does “resist like a plant” mean to you?
Vanessa: I think of so-called weeds like dandelions that burst through cracks in the sidewalk and reclaim spaces that may seem inhospitable. Dandelions keep showing up and thriving despite adversity. At the same time, they offer nourishment to pollinators, heal soil, and provide food and medicine to animals, including humans. Wildflowers like dandelions remind us that resistance often begins in the most unassuming forms. Our grassroots movements mirror this kind of plant-like resistance. They grow from the ground up, cluster together, adapt to change, and refuse to give up. To resist like a plant is to trust the power of growth, resilience, and persistence, even in the most unlikely places.
Natalia: Beautiful, thank you, Vanessa. May we all be more like dandelions in these complicated times!