Who we are

We are a grass roots inter-generational, culturally diverse, interspecies collective committed to co-creating safe and brave spaces. Where we live and imagine respectful and regenerative futures. As we learn from each other we grow stronger, more relational and culturally rich.
We invite Indigenous, Black, Latinx, Asian, Muslim, Jewish, LGBTQIA2S+, and all persons who have experienced violence, oppression and discrimination for being who they are into our spaces, groups, workshops, trainings, gatherings and zoom circles to come together in our common humanity with our more-than-human kin.

As we share our trainings and natural knowledge about Nature communication, we strongly divest, disengage and condemn white supremacy, xenophobia, cultures of domination, human exceptionalism and Plant blindness.
We are a member of Catskill Unity.

A little about why we came together as one

In the summer of 2016, we came together in response to our perceptions of plant-blindness and the untoward actions on the ecology that surrounds us. Yes, the climate crisis, endangered animals and plant species, health equity and equally so, to be transparent when it comes to mental, social and structural colonial domination. So we came together.

We share our diverse skills. We live to emulate equality, justice and inclusivity for all and invite diverse backgrounds Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American, Muslim, Jewish and LGBTQIA2S+ to join our efforts and work as we join yours.

At Plant Pioneers, our primary classroom is outdoors. Though we started with Music of the Plants, a bio-resonance electronic device liberates Plant frequencies into sound we apply numerous teachings from aligned relationships and give credit to our indigenous Native elders who influence ecological relationships and knowledge. (see Trainings, Workshops and Resources.)

The Way In – Linda Hogan

Sometimes the way to milk and honey is through the body.

Sometimes the way in is a song.

But there are three ways in the world: dangerous, wounding and beauty.

To enter stone, be water.

To rise through hard Earth, be Plant desiring sunlight, believing in water.

To enter fire, be dry.

To enter life, be food.

Marguerite Uhlmann-Bower

*“We each are continental extensions of Earth’s mantle witnessing Herself.”*

Greetings friends,
my name is Marguerite Uhlmann-Bower,
Pronoun: She / Her / Hers
Identify: Ashkenazi

As co-founder of Plant Pioneers, a human-Plant relations movement and collective, we are interested in living rightly for Nature and each other. Always, we put Nature first. As a Clinical Herbalist consultant and retired Registered Nurse, my Earthist values speak for and relates with the-Nature-that-surrounds-us. As co-creator of EarthSchool teachings at the Root Cellar, this is my life, not my job,

My early childhood years, the landscape that informed me was the backyard garden in Manhattan, on the unceded Lenape territory known as Mana-Hatta – “Hilly Island”. I am deeply grateful and respectfully acknowledge indigenous teachings of this Land and attribute most of what I know to their teachings shared through my teachers who handed down this knowledge. Giving credit too, to visceral ancestral impressions I received from this city-scape backyard I lived amongst in my formative years. I believe they too informed my relationships that I continue to carry today with Plants, Trees, Land and the-Nature-that-surrounds-us. And, may very well be the reason I ended up in the Catskills of New York, on the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee since 1979.

I must admit, there was a time when human exceptionalism attempted to divide and insulate my mind from original teachings and teachers. Plants and the back-yard Landscape I grew up in Mana-hatta kept a lifeline trail for me that prevailed. So much so friends, that when ever I heard original truths spoken, they would stick with me and I kept remembering. Remembering to be a voice for people, Plants and Nature from being treated unrightly. And maintaining a place at being an upstander rather than a bystander. As I related and listened, my misguided trainings decolonized and still are decolonizing daily. As I took the time to be in sacred silence and wildcrafted, I understood how to start deconstructing and dismantling these ideologies of human superiority, privilege, extractive mind that were being replicated blindly in me. That human exceptionalism that causes humans to separate from themselves each other and Nature.

My Teachers - Undoing Colonial Mind, Racism, Plant Blindness, Human Superiority:
At EarthSchool, I credit the human-Plant relational exchange. Through many teachers that help us remember. My first human teacher that laid the path for me is Kate Gilday of Woodland Essence who still is my guiding light and force in this work and live I live as a Plant advocate and guide. Native America Cheyenne Nation elder - Cliff Eaglefeathers; Penobscot Nation elder - Sherri Mitchell; Lakota Nation elder - Tome’ Roubedeaux and more; Adrienne Maree Brown of Emergent Strategy; Jose’ Silva’s Altered States of Consciousness, Burt Hellingers Systemic Constellations, Deep Listening work of Pauline Oliveros, the work of Coherent Thought Sequencing - Dr. Steven Greer; and Blackfoot Nation teachings, the teachings of Plant ancestors themselves and more recently, Catrice M. Jackson of White Spaces Missing Faces and Amy Brown White a Public School Educator.

Why Are We Doing This:
All this work is for making sense of safe and grounded working spaces with Nature impressions and surrendering to ego so true and congruent messages can emerge. It is here where we remember our inter-relationality and reciprocity. Dropping separation, leaning into unity consciousness and living rightly with all beings committed to ecological, racial, and social justice balance.

Our Hopes and Goals:
As a radical wild-crafter and person born of the Earth collectively we encourage and undo colonial domination and oppression. We’re on a inter-species relational path where all are stakeholders at the decision making tables.

Contact Info:
If you’re curious about how to do this in your life, that is, how to bring Nature into our every day living capacities please give us a ring, a call or a text [see below]. Review our 4 day / 32 + hour program “Cultivating Cognitive Agility with Our Plant, Tree and Nature Allies” objectives. See what you think. Write us for more information. Become a trainer in your own community.

Contact: Marguerite at 3moonsisters@gmail.com or call/text her at 607-437-1218.

Carolyn Clark Pierson

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Uprooted, rootless, if I still have any tendrils connecting me to the Earth, they are withered and weak. Like many European Americans, I have a history of picking up my roots and moving on. I’ve lived in seven places on two continents. I got a BFA in sculpture, but making art fed my ego, which I prefer to keep subdued, and not my bank account, so I’ve earned a living in many ways – as a travel agent, a maid, a salesclerk, a teacher, a waitress, a manager, a makeup artist & wigmaker (my favorite) and am now an English tutor at SUNY Delhi. I was born a liberal but raised in a conservative family, an environmentalist who continued to live as if she weren’t, a feminist in a long line of “eccentric” women. The last man I accepted money from was my father, but artist friend JG sorrowfully informed me, “That’s what men a FOR, dear.” I am in fact struggling financially, so maybe she was right (… Naaa). I’ve tried many different modes of thinking and ways of looking at our World, but have stubbornly held onto 3 beliefs: (since age 4) Plants are sentient beings; (age 13) there are too many humans on Planet Earth; and (age 15) the Greenhouse Effect/Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Emergency, whatever we have chosen to call it, we made it, it’s real and it’s been adversely affecting our home planet since well before I was born around 70 years ago. I’ve spent my entire adult life grieving for our losses. We can’t seem to save ourselves, much less our nonhuman neighbors, so maybe the Plants can. I am certain they are far more intelligent than we, and certainly more reciprocal and benevolent, so I still have hope – in the Plants.
Miki Aso

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Miki grew up in Tokyo and Los Angeles. Feeding off city energy she moved from one big city to the next eventually landing in NYC where she fried her nervous system before fleeing to the Hudson Valley. Miki's sense of Nature was shaped by 80's horror movies set in the woods, she was afraid of the dark and Nature until a few years ago.
She has a B.S. in Environmental Science and worked as a Human-Centered Designer and Researcher. Her job was to deeply understand humans and their experience of things, like receiving cancer care or working on a construction site, so she could make recommendations to keep what’s working and improve what’s not.
While doing this work, Miki's heart began to ache. She couldn’t ignore the consequences of excluding Nature as a living, breathing, sentient being that our very lives depend on any longer.
She wondered if she could deeply understand Nature the way she could understand humans. Could we communicate with Nature? How could we hear them? Will we understand their language?
Miki began apprenticing with Marguerite Uhlmann-Bower in March of 2022 and completed Cultivating Cognitive Agility training in July 2022. Marguerite’s deep wisdom and nurturing guided her back to what is innately in each of us, in each of our cells, the ability to sense, send, and receive information from the natural world. Miki continues to work with Marguerite, now as peers and partners, to restart EarthSchool in a renewed form. As co-creator of We Are All Kin (link : weareallkin.earth) she facilitates Plant kinship experiences to support our remembering and sense of belonging.
Miki lives nestled among the Sugar Maples with her loving and furry family of human and more-than-human kin no longer afraid of Nature or the dark.
Meer Singh

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Meer grew up in the Leatherstocking region of Central New York. He was raised by his single mother and was unschooled by her, always being encouraged to listen to his heart and march to the beat of his own drum. Through this intuitive upbringing, Meer naturally found his way as a reciprocal and respectful being of the earth. In 2022, Meer met Marguerite when he was seeking herbal medicine for his newly diagnosed Lyme’s Disease, and they immediately connected. Marguerite began to teach Meer about plant medicine and identification, and Meer deeply relished learning about and listening to the natural world around him. Through meeting Marguerite, Meer has met a wide variety of humans and plants. He feels lucky to be living his birthright of a relational existence and to be a part of such a beautifully rich and diverse ecosystem of creation. He recognizes the ordinarily interconnected nature of life and continues to incorporate earth reciprocity in all of his life– in his music, art, work, academics, friendships, and community. Currently, Meer works as a collaborator with Marguerite, Miki, and a number of other people in the Plant Pioneer community, organizing community events and workshops that foster connection with the landscape around us. Meer is also a student at Hartwick College. He is completing his degree in a major of his own design– “Culture, Origins, and Creation”. His academic plan amalgamates all the relational work he has done in his life thus far, and he is very excited to see where this marvelous journey continues to lead him.
Barbara Aspland-Wolf

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Barbara Aspland-Wolf is an Herbalist, Flower Essence Practitioner, and Reiki Master/Teacher. Becoming a member of Plant Pioneers is a wonderful melding of her science background, work with plant medicine, and energy work. Plants as beings are a part of her education to others. She is the owner of Garden Gate Herbals and an herbal teacher with an education background in high school earth science, geology, and chemistry. She has taught at Sage Mountain, Herbstalk, the Northeast Herbal Association retreats, and local Adult Learning Programs. In addition to nature walks, she has written for United Plant Savers, the Northeast Herbal Association journal, Aroma Culture e-magazine, is co-editor of the Northeast Herbal Association newsletter, and writes a monthly blog. Barbara is past President of the Northeast Herbal Association, a member of Plant Pioneers, the Northeast Herbal Association, United Plant Savers, and the Native Plant Trust.
Karin Edmondson

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Karin was lucky to grow up in North Riverdale across from Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx seeing Pin Oak, Black Locust and Sycamore trees from her childhood apartment windows.
After a minor career in the music industry, she obtained an M.S. in Landscape Design from Columbia University and embarked on a successful fifteen-year journey as an ecological landscape designer. She's known for cultivating biodiverse gardens in the Catskill Mountains alongside her beloved dogs Bella, Ollie, Arthur, and Suzie.
One day, she sat underneath an American Ash tree reading Call of the Trees and cried the whole way through. That day, Ash Tree, Yellow Dock, and Bull Thistle called Karin to study with Marguerite Uhlmann-Bower at Earth School in Delaware County, NY.
Further investigation into books by Penobscot Nation author Sherri Mitchell, Esq., artist, writer, musician, storyteller, teacher, healer and leading thinker Martin Prechtel, and ecophiloshoper Derrick Jensen continues to shape and form Karin’s relationship with plants, winged, four-footed and furry creatures and Mother Earth.
Currently identifying as a reformed landscape designer, Karin has ceased working on design projects that cause violent ecological destruction and is seeking a path where she may work with plants in subtle, healing ways.
Lacy Johnson

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Lacy is an herbal practitioner, metalsmith, biologist and creator of Foxtooth Alchemy. She has properly studied herbalism with Marguerite Uhlmann-Bower, a trained herbalist/retired R.N., and Dr. Lori Rose.
Her herbal training and personal journey has led her to the birth of Foxtooth Alchemy where she creates herbal products with bioregional ingredients that she feral-harvests or grows in her own garden. She also uses metal and stone to create talismans and jewelry. She is most at home when working with plants and being in nature.
In her free time, Lacy enjoys camping/hiking, making jewelry, & being in the company of her pets, loved ones and garden.
IG: @foxtoothalchemy
Email: foxtoothalchemy@gmail.com
Judith Millar

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Judith Millar is an herbalist, educator (public school & university), Reiki master, and environmental educator. She has recently retired from a home-based practice in NJ, through which she worked with clients and offered classes and workshops in foraging and herbalism. She has also held monthly women’s gatherings for over 10 years.
As Judith shifts her working structure, she hopes to devote more time and focus to plant intelligence, and how to work in harmony and reciprocity with Nature. She is moving from suburban NJ to Michigan, to live in the forest overlooking a lake. Judith happily anticipates this immersion in Nature and looks forward to the many teachings that it will offer.
Iruka Toro

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Iruka María Toro is a visual artist, herbalist, healing arts practitioner and researcher. Originally from Puerto Rico, her Caribbean ancestry is a huge part of her protection and power. She is interested in devotional rituals, community medicine and magick.
Bonnie Kavanagh

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Bonnie Kavanagh is a second generation nurse and herbalist with over 35 years experience in health care. Bonnie is a graduate of the Rosemary Gladstar Art and Science of Herbology Apprenticeship and now teaches this program and other herbal and gardening classes at 7 Arrows Farm in Attleboro , Massachusetts where she is the community herbalist. Bonnie has been a presenter at many conferences including the Northeast Women's Herbal Conference, the Mid-Atlantic Women's Herbal Conference, the International Herb Symposium and the Rhode Island Herbal Conference. She loves to introduce people to the many benefits living a plant inspired life can offer. In addition to her herbal work Bonnie is the Director of Sales and Marketing for Fairland Farm, LLC a privately owned cranberry farm in Southeast Massachusetts. Bonnie is a member of the board of directors for the Hope Street Farmers Market and is passionate about educating people on the benefits of supporting local agriculture and artisan food businesses in her community. Being a part of the Plant Pioneers Movement is a dream come true for this consumate plant lover.