The Rose Core Collective is an herbal medic project in so-called Central Vermont working and living on unceded Abenaki land.
We are herbalists and organizers who grow, formulate and distribute herbs in solidarity with local and national BIPOC frontline organizers, healers, and local houseless people. As a group currently comprised of white settlers who came together in the spring of 2020, we have focused our efforts on epicenters of uprisings for economic and racial justice including Minneapolis, Philly, and NYC, responding to requests through ongoing relationship with people in these communities as well as here in Vermont.
We see our effort as one thread of mutual aid in the web of liberation work, in which we act as a conduit for plants to work their medicine and magic in the world. Reciprocal relationship with plants themselves, taking their needs and desires into account, is a core part of how we orient to this work. Queerness and a commitment to dismantling white-bodied supremacy inform and are central to our understanding of organizing and culture change.
You can read more about us in the 2022 Journal of the American Herbalists Guild. Find our interview with editor Jay Bartel here.
Rose Core Collective is currently comprised of: Chris Siegriest (they/them), Tessa Micaela Landreau-Grasmuck (they/them), Morgan Southgate (she/her), Sophie Cassel (she/her), and baby Arlo. Past beloved members include rory, Ayelet Hashachar, and Lenna Wartenbaker.