We recently connected with Erika Ryann and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Erika, thank you so much for opening up with us about some important, but sometimes personal topics. One that really matters to us is overcoming Imposter Syndrome because we’ve seen how so many people are held back in life because of this and so we’d really appreciate hearing about how you overcame Imposter Syndrome.
By allowing myself to be human. Nobody is born knowing everything. It’s okay to make mistakes and it takes time to learn.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
At the heart of my existence is a deep connection to the land. I grew up in the forests of Colorado and have always felt at home in nature. This love has made its way into my songwriting, artwork, a lifelong career of and commitment to land stewardship and most recently a business of crafting sustainable herbal self care products.
My working background is in organic agriculture and sustainable land management. I’ve worn every hat from veterinarian, barn hand and chile harvester to tractor mechanic and handyman. I studied Horticulture at CSU but I’ve gained most of my knowledge with hands-on experience working on farms and ranches, studying the delicate balances of ecosystems whether in the garden or out in the grazing pastures. I have always been fascinated with traditional herbal medicine and working in these environments was an excellent way to collect, cultivate, and study plants, their symbiotic relationships in nature, and the benefits they can bring to other living beings.
It wasn’t until more recently, however, that I took my experiences and more or less began cutting my own path.
Maybe it started with burning myself out before the pandemic. I was going to school full time, managing a small horse ranch, picking up odd landscaping jobs, and playing in six working bands. I was close to some version of the dream but I was flailing, running myself into the ground and still broke.
When everything shut down I was really forced to step back and reconsider what I wanted out of my life and what was really important to me. I loved working with horses, I loved farming, but for me, laboring for someone else’s dream was no way to make a living. It was fun but often dangerous involving large livestock and heavy machinery. My body was breaking and I was still barely feeding myself at the end of the day.
Then I got a hand up. I was hired by a friend to help him clean up and maintain his garden. It meant working for myself, choosing my hours, and charging my own rate. By word of mouth I’ve managed to build my own gardening business, applying sustainable gardening practices on properties all over the front range of Colorado. I don’t have a property of my own for now so it brings me a great sense of purpose to encourage healthy growth and manage chemical free habitats for pollinators and other wildlife all while beautifying outdoor spaces for everyone to enjoy. It’s mostly just my truck, some tools, and me. It’s a lot of hard work and hot days. I get to plant flowers and work in a cloud of bees most of the year. I love it.
With a little bit more control over my time, I’ve been able to get back to some of my deepest roots: wandering the forest, foraging for plants and tree resin to craft my own teas and skin care products. I’ve been making a healing salve of Ponderosa pine resin from the woods where I grew up for years. I’d give it to friends and loved ones as gifts and used it every day at home. The fragrance of the pure pine resin is so calming, reminding me of my beloved forest, lifting my spirit. I wanted to find a way to share it with more people, to bring that sort of comfort and soothing from a sustainable source into more homes and self care routines.
With that, Volk Remedies was born.
The main focus of Volk is to sustainably craft herbal products from botanical ingredients I have either ethically foraged wild or cultivated myself. The knowledge of these healing arts comes from tradition and experience. Tradition teaches me which plants are safe and what they have been used for in the past. Experience has taught me how effective they might be for different ailments, where they can be found in the wild, how to look for signs of scarcity and where the ecosystem needs them more than we do, and how to forage in a way that encourages regenerative growth. It resonates deeply with me to know the land by its medicine. To tread carefully, ask permission, and give thanks.
What advice would you give someone wanting to get started in this field?
Remain humble and accept that you will never stop learning. Particularly in the field of horticulture or anything involving the natural world, you can never know everything and no one should expect that you do. It’s important to make peace with what you have yet to learn while still making moves towards achieving your dreams. It’s okay to learn as you go. You’re going to make mistakes. Embrace them, learn from them, and move on.
Tell us what your ideal client would be like?
The work I do with medicinal plants as well as sharing knowledge of the natural world is intended for literally everyone. I want everyone to feel welcome. My self care products are for everybody, every skin type, and positively gender neutral. The fragrances come directly from botanical materials such as pine resin, juniper sap, wild sagebrush and other medicinal herbs primarily from the desert. They don’t lean towards masculine or feminine, they simply smell like a sun warmed forest or a desert valley after a monsoon. They are intended to nourish body and spirit and as a way to demonstrate how these landscapes and flora can take care of us so long as the care and respect is reciprocated.
I think some people feel shy towards nature because they haven’t been introduced properly. A long time ago I worked selling trees at a huge nursery. Everything from massive shade trees with leaves that explode with fiery colors in autumn to ornamental flowering trees, trees you can make tea from and trees that produce fruit. It’s a lot of information to take in, especially if you want to make sure every client leaves with a tree they will be happy with, which will be happy with them. My favorite thing to do with new hires to get them excited about the trees (which in turn helps them sell the trees) was to take them to one or two trees in the field any time we had a spare moment and tell them what was special about those particular species. Their uses, their environmental preferences, sometimes a folktale. It’s one thing to memorize their names, but showing someone how sweet a serviceberry tastes or how wonderful a linden flower smells along with its health benefits fosters a more intimate relationship between us and the forest. If we don’t develop a more comprehensive relationship with nature, how can we know how to appreciate and care for it? I want to make this knowledge accessible for everyone.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/VolkRemedies
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/volkremedies/
- Other: If you’d like to keep up with my music and every other project I have going on, you can also follow me @erikaryann on Instagram. Be prepared for pictures of horses, classic trucks, lots of flowers, and an occasional song I’m working on.
Image Credits
MCA Holiday Market photo by Brian Buck
