Meet Mel

Hi, I'm Mel Kasting, RH (AHG), thanks for checking out my website. It's a bit of a mess right now, but I am working on it. Bios are difficult, because humans are complex and so much more than the few whittled down paragraphs we squish ourselves into.

 

I am  a passionate clinical herbalist, clinical mentor, poet, activist, emergent facilitator and amateur wild foods chef living back in my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri after 16 years exploring the wild and mountainous parts of this country. I am also the Clinical Program Director and Free Clinic Manager at the Eclectic School of Herbal Medicine. We are lucky to be able to do most of this work online, if you are interested it what I do/teach for the ESHM program, head over to their website :) In addition I am working on writing a book on relational health and clinical skills for the herbalist and I have been in  practice for 9 years, offering in-person and distance consultations all over the world.

 

Through my clinic work, art and class facilitation, I explore the intersections of herbalism, botany, society, and somatic experiencing to support plant-centered botanical medicine and the celebrate of the teeming diversity life brings.

 

I am trained in functional herbalism, a modality that blends traditional western herbalism with clinical nutrition and functional medicine. It is a systems-based model that honors traditional plant based care, while recognizing the importance of lifestyle modifications, herbs, and supplements, alongside functional laboratory testing, to address the whole person rather than an isolated set of symptoms or disease. I blend this modality with somatic herbal practices and a deep and person understanding that addressing trauma, personal and society, is a part of the healing process.