A Winter Gathering with Ashley Bissonnette-Murphy, Clinical Herbalist, PhD, MPH, CHES
We spend so much time walking among trees that it is easy to forget how long human beings have also lived with them.
Trees have given us food and medicine, shelter and warmth. We have brewed their leaves and needles, gathered their bark, burned their wood and resins, carried pieces of them for protection, and woven them into our stories, celebrations, rituals, and seasonal traditions.
This winter, we are going to look more closely at three familiar trees—birch, pine, and oak—through the eyes of a clinical herbalist.
Together with Ashley Bissonnette-Murphy, we’ll explore these trees through their folklore and traditional uses, their sensory qualities, and what modern science can tell us about plants with which humans have had relationships for generations.
Winter feels like a particularly beautiful time for this conversation. Much of the green world has disappeared. The garden has gone quiet. Wildflowers and herbs have retreated beneath the ground. And still, the trees remain.
Birch, pine, and oak each have their own stories and their own long relationships with people. We’ll spend time getting to know them individually, while also exploring the ways they have been gathered, prepared, and brought into everyday life.
And then we’ll bring some of that old knowledge into our own winter.
Ashley will share simple ways to work with these trees through tea, food, aromatic practices, nourishment, and seasonal ritual, helping us consider what it might mean to know a tree not simply by its name or its folklore, but by living with it.
Participants are encouraged to bring a little of the winter woods into their space for our gathering and, when possible, have birch, pine, and oak nearby to see, touch, smell, and experience as we learn.
During our gathering, we’ll explore
Birch, pine, and oak through story and folklore
Their traditional uses and long relationships with people
Their sensory qualities and what we notice when we encounter them closely
What modern science can tell us about these familiar trees
Ways they have been used in nourishment and everyday seasonal life
Simple ways to work with them through tea, food, aromatics, and winter ritual
How we might begin creating our own more intentional relationship with the trees around us
There will also be space for conversation and questions with Ashley.
About Ashley
Ashley Bissonnette-Murphy MPH, PhD, CHES, is a clinical herbalist, professor of allied health sciences, and certified health education specialist with a focus on women’s health. She has also worked as an archaeologist and Senior Researcher for the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center uncovering indigenous medicine for nearly two decades. Her insights and expertise have been recognized in various publications, including The International Witches Magazine, Witch Way Magazine, Visual Mag and other outlets like the CommonWealth Herbs Podcast, the Brave Daughters of Providence, Rowan + Sage Herb School, and the Boston Women's Market. She now works with clients 1:1 virtually around the world, supporting women through every stage of life—from puberty to menopause—using a holistic, nature-centered, evidence-informed approach. Her work centers on clients, helping them to feel more grounded, balanced, and supported in their whole-body well-being. Ash lives with her partner and toddler in forested Connecticut (USA), and when she is not in clinic, she is busy foraging the medicinal woods.