Coming Home to Arizkatt

I've sat down to write this post more times than I can count over the last year, and every time, I closed the laptop without finishing it. So let me just start.

In 2022, my marriage began to fall apart. I spent the next few years trying to hold it together, and this year, it finally ended in divorce. Arizkatt's Herbs went quiet during that time because I didn't have anything left to give it. If you signed up for a class that never happened, or reached out and never heard back, or just noticed I disappeared — I'm sorry, and I understand if that left you wondering what happened. Now you know.

I'm back. And I want to tell you not just that I'm back, but why Arizkatt's Herbs exists in the first place, because I don't think I've ever fully explained it, and where it's headed from here.

Why This Started

I've told some of you the practical part of this before: back in 2021, I enrolled in a community herbalist program, and part of it suggested something practical — start a business to help fund the classes. So I did. I called it Arizkatt's Herbs.

What I don't think I've said clearly enough, even though I've said it more than once: I never actually wanted to make herbal products for a living. I still don't. And every time I say that, someone who's tried one of my salves or teas pushes back, because it worked, and they want more. So I make things and sell them at pop-up markets, because there's real pressure to and because it does help fund things. But if I'm honest, standing behind a table has never felt like the point. What I actually love is sitting down with someone, finding out what they need, and making something just for them. That's personal. A table at a market isn't.

If you asked me what I really wanted to spend my life doing, it was never "sell salves." It was teaching. It was helping people walk outside and actually see the plants around them — not just learn their names, but understand them, respect them, and reconnect with the fact that we are not separate from any of this.

I believe, down to my bones, that if people truly loved nature — the plants, the animals, the insects, the whole tangled, imperfect balance of it — they would choose to walk with it instead of flattening it in the name of progress. I don't think most people are careless on purpose. I think most people have just never been given the chance to fall in love with what's already right outside their door.

That belief is what Arizkatt's Herbs was always quietly for. I just hadn't found the words for it yet.

What Came Out of the Quiet

This last year gave me something I didn't expect: time to actually sit still and ask myself what I really wanted to bring to the world, without a business plan or a curriculum telling me what came next.

What came out of that sitting-still was something I've been calling the Arizkatt Way — and out of that, a Constitution. I know that might sound like a big, formal word for what is really just a set of promises I want to live by: that knowledge should be shared freely, not gatekept. That we're stewards of the land, not owners of it. That every plant, insect, stream, and person is part of one balance, and when one part suffers, we all do. That teaching should come before selling, always.

Writing those things down wasn't an exercise. It was me, finally saying plainly what I'd been circling for years. If you want to read the whole thing — the Constitution, the Way, the promises I'm trying to actually live by — it lives here now.

Where We're Headed

So here's what's changing, and what isn't.

Arizkatt's Herbs is still the name on the door for now. But from here forward, everything I offer — the walks, the workshops, how I price things, how I talk to you — is going to flow from the Arizkatt Way underneath it. In the long run, I may end up calling the land and the place this becomes simply Arizkatt. That's a future chapter, not something I'm rushing.

What you can expect soon:

• Herb walks are starting back up now that the weather's finally cooling down. These need no venue but the outdoors, so they're the first thing coming back.

• Workshops will follow once I find the right space for them — mine fell through this year, so I'm actively looking.

• How you support this work is shifting. Instead of a strict price tag, I want contribution to look like what it actually is: financial support if you're able, but also volunteer time, native plants or seeds, tools, skills, photography, writing, help maintaining our gathering spaces, or simply inviting someone new. Knowledge is shared freely here. If Arizkatt has enriched your life and you're able, help make that possible for the next person.

  I want to be upfront about something, because I don't ever want this to feel like a bait and switch: this work still has real costs, and I'm working toward a bigger goal of one day having land — 20+ acres — for this community to gather on permanently. Sharing knowledge freely and needing resources to grow aren't in conflict for me. They're both true at the same time. So when I ask for support in whatever form you're able to give it, it's because I mean it, not because "give what you can" is a soft way of asking for money without saying so.

• You'll start seeing this show up on the website itself over the coming weeks, as I bring the site into alignment with all of this.

An Invitation, Not a Pitch

I'm not writing this to ask you for anything. I'm writing it because I owed you the truth about where I've been, and because I'm genuinely excited about what Arizkatt is becoming.

If you've been here since the beginning, thank you for your patience. If you're new, welcome — you're not late to anything. If you want to walk with me again (or for the first time), keep an eye out for the next Herb Walk announcement. And if you've got thoughts, questions, or push back on any of this, I'd genuinely love to hear it. This has never been something I want to build alone, or in a bubble where I'm always right.

We belong to this living world together. Let's start walking in it again.

— Athena