About Arasa Herbals
Arasa Herbals is Dove Shepard’s offering at the intersection of plant medicine, personal transformation, and collective healing. The name Arasa comes from her Balanta heritage and means “the anger of the lion” - a symbol of peaceful strength, fierce protection, and resistance in the name of integrity and life. That energy lives at the heart of this work.. It reflects a commitment to living in right relationship. Through plant spirit medicine, archetypal guidance, and community-rooted teaching, Dove supports people in tending the parts of themselves that are often overlooked in a world that rewards disconnection and speed.
Dove’s current focus is on teaching plant spirit connection, emotional ecology, and shadow integration through the Inner Garden Oracle - a system of eight archetypes and accompanying flower essences, each representing a unique facet of the shadow self. She also shares devotional music as part of her classes, weaving sound and prayer into the experience of reconnection.
Arasa is for those whose medicine has been misnamed, whose ancestors were silenced, and whose power has never been properly seen. This work is for remembering.
Dove’s Roots
My grandmother, Annie Lois, is the one who acquainted me with dirt. I like to imagine she carried me into the garden on her hip and baptized me in red clay. After long school years in San Francisco, my parents would put me on a Delta SFO to ATL. My earliest summers were spent in rural Alabama with Nanny.
She showed me how to shell peas and spot hornworms beneath tomato leaves. Through tending the ground, her community, and me, she taught me the simplest lessons in belonging and rootedness.
Now, as a woman who has transplanted herself across states, borders, and ways of being, land and plant tending remains my soul rooter and community connector. It’s how I remember who I am.
My goal as an herbalist is to strengthen the thread of continuity between us and the Ancestors, to help the body be a place where Spirit thrives, and to build community so our roots can flourish.
Guiding Principles
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All life is equal and all life must be honored.
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Healing begins within. The more intimately we know ourselves, the more consciously we can live and love.
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When we know ourselves we’re better advocates for ourselves.
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We all deserve to choose our path, our healing, and our relationship to Spirit.
Teachers
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teaches clinical herbalism from an Afro-indigenous perspective through the Well of Indigenous Wisdom School in Puerto Rico. Dove is a current student of Olatokunboh.
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is the proprietor of Star Root Medicine and Soul Flower Farm where she teaches plant medicine through her seasonal autumn and summer Devas Daughters apprenticeships. Dove completed her first apprenticeship with Maya in the fall of 2021.
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is a Traditional Wisdom Keeper and Clinical Herbalist at Owl’s Heart Healing. Angela 6-week course, Decolonizing Wellness, helped calibrate Dove’s compass on the herbal path, guiding her towards herbalism honoring the healing wisdom of our shared and unique indigenous ancestors.
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Founder of the Going with Grace training program for end-of-life doulas.
Where Dove’s rooted now
I’m currently rooted in the Pacific Northwest and planting seeds for a second homebase in Mexico, where I’m building relationships with land, language, and community.
Let’s stay connected
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I’d love to walk this path with you.
All of the work you find here—words, archetypes, frameworks, and essences—has been crafted with devotion, rooted in my lived experience, ancestral connection, and slow, thoughtful process. It’s not meant to be borrowed or rebranded.