Page 26 - The Noise November 2016

ilent in awe, I listened intently as two women threw
around traditional ethnobotanical knowledge and herbal wisdom as if it were the weekly gossip. This evening
I sat between Donna Chesner, an esteemed herbalist and overall wise woman from Tucson, and my mentor, Phyllis Hogan. Donna and I had come to Ms. Hogan’s house to observe her practice her keynote lecture for the American Herbalists Guild 27th Annual Symposium in Pittsburg, Penn. This symposium is a milestone for Ms. Hogan, owner of Winter Sun Trading Co. — an apt celebration for the 40-year anniversary this November — of this local center for herbal supplies and guidance.
It all started because Phyllis wanted to heal her children. Phyllis and her daughters, Denise and Deanne, lived in tiny Coolidge Ariz., in the early ‘70s when she realized that she couldn’t just keep giving her girls the antibiotics doctors prescribed for every flu or cough, only to see them get sick again just a week later. Intuitively, she knew that it was ruining their body’s natural biome and debilitating their immune system. Hearing of a traditional healer named Señora Valencia, the concerned mother sought her out.
Señora Valencia had a trinket and novelty shop on the main drag in Coolidge, with a few jars of herbs in the back room. Valencia was careful about who she told about the herbs, but Phyllis was a persistent customer, and soon Señora Valencia was teaching my mentor. Señora Valencia’s favorite herb was
Yerba Manzo, which she often rubbed on the temples of Denise and Deanne when they had headaches.
Señora soon retired, and her knowledge of herbs was passed down to Ms. Hogan, who opened the Native American jewelry and herb store, Wintersun Trading Co., for the first time in Coolidge in 1986. Valencia and her story would have then faded into the Sonoran sunset, if, as Donna said, women like Phyllis weren’t around to carry on her legacy. Señora Valencia’s spirit lives at Winter Sun as guide for the lineage of herbal apprentices here.
Eventually Winter Sun made its way up to Doo’k’o’slid and Flagstaff, starting in a shop on Route 66 (or Front Street, as Phyllis always says) and then moved a few streets North onto San Francisco Street within the Babbitt building, where it currently resides.
Starting with a small crock-pot in the back room, Denise created the revolutionary Supersalve, which would end up saving the fungus feet of many Grand Canyon river guides. Her little sister Deanne has consistently been making cutting edge skincare and makeup that leaves certified chemists stunned. Then came along Bodhi Kai, Deanne’s son, Phyllis’ pride and joy, who often rides by the shop now on his scooter towing his dog Luna-Shines-Bright-Julia-Brown.
I was born in Flagstaff Arizona 18-years ago to an artist and a river runner. My mother, Jodie Rohrbacker originally
faced the same mothers’ dilemma having to give endless antibiotics to my little sister Ember Lou and I. Supersalve was scattered around my home near Mars Hill for my father John Crowley to use while on the river. Tinctures and herbs from Winter Sun rolled-off the shelves — my mom rummaging
for lavender every time Ember or I couldn’t sleep. This was common knowledge to me: who wasn’t taking Grindelia or Osha whenever they got a cough? In high school though, it became clear to me that many people didn’t know that plants could heal you, that they weren’t just nature’s ornaments pumping-out oxygen for our use.
My interest in herbs apparent, my mother came to Phyllis to see if I might intern for her. Happy for a new apprentice, Phyllis took me under her wing. I distinctly remember the first day
of work down in the lab cutting the Yerba Santa. My hands smelled like it for at least a week, and hand-held tacos tasted of this lung-clearing herb.
I began interning more frequently, consistently asking questions and listening as the herbalists gave customers tinctures and herbs for every illness. By the end of the year I was both in the lab and the herb room, and finally moved to the gallery when we found out I wasn’t a bad saleswoman. In and out of both areas of Winter Sun, I listen with one
ear to herbalist Melissa Quercia explaining ear cones and supplements to one customer, while the underground mayor of Flagstaff, Anthony Delagarza buys a Katsina from a carver.