ON HONOURING THE TEACHINGS, AND HOLDING THE TEACHER ACCOUNTABLE

ON HONOURING THE TEACHINGS, AND HOLDING THE TEACHER ACCOUNTABLE

I've been holding up #SusunWeed as one of my teachers since I completed a Green Goddess Apprenticeship in August 2016. Susun Weed is an herbalist based in the Catskills of New York State, an author of women's health books, and the formulator of the Wise Woman Tradition that is focused on folk traditions of herbal medicine, and how to make home remedies. She is the OG of herbal sexual health. She is also a Green Witch and priestess in the Dianic tradition, and infamous for her essentialist definition of women, and her vocally anti-trans position. She claims membership in and espouses a line of discredited indigenous teachings through the Grandmother Twyla who claimed secret women's teachings through her Seneca heritage. Susun Weed is also now famous for her abusiveness to students and apprentices that I attest to. In the years since I was a student, Susun Weed has faced criminal charges and investigations for alleged strangulation and other acts of physical abuse, alleged drugging possibly with pokeweed or hypnotics, and even human trafficking because of her work exchange practices. How can I still acknowledge her as one of my Teachers?

I have quoted her Wise Woman Tradition in my newsletter. Her abusiveness now overshadows her value as a teacher, and I do not uphold her behaviour against the survivors of her abuse. #weedoutabuse. You can listen to the podcast Uncanceled: Surviving Susun Weed to learn more. Someday I will make my own full account that includes my own inner learnings.

But here is where I am at. I witnessed the delusion of plastic teachings - cultural and spiritual appropriation. As a white cis woman working within herbalism, I've got a lot to keep seeing and interrogating within myself. I learned that I hear you is good to hear and to say - if you do. I felt affirmed that essentialism can lead to harmful nonsense. Susun Weed sees herself as a Baba Yaga, an enigmatic or ambiguous character from Slavic folklore who ferociously challenges young women, who are then guided by Baba Yoga to overcome their struggles. Being a fan of Russian folklore, I realized that she saw herself that way even before Susun said so. I honestly think she believes that her abusive behaviour is guiding her students towards becoming a "shaman" and a "Goddess". I have a student who told me that she had a useful breakthrough through Susun's verbal abuse.

The most important lesson I learned is that a human being cannot really learn while they are terrorized - except for how to avoid more punishment.

from Facebook 9 February 2022

Quick Take: I DO NOT SUPPORT IN-PERSON TEACHING BY SUSUN WEED.
I've been holding up #SusunWeed as one of my teachers since I completed a Green Goddess Apprenticeship in August 2016. Last month, I quoted her in my newsletter. But now her abusiveness has overshadowed her value, and I do not want to present as if I uphold her behaviour against the survivors of her abuse. #weedoutabuse
Last night, I was asked directly if I was abused by Susun, and if I reported to the police etc. I listened to the podcast Uncanceled: Surviving Susun Weed and scoured the internet for photos and accounts. I wish I could find and consult with my fellow students of that time. I need to briefly respond, and someday will make a full account that includes my own inner learnings. You can search Facebook for some of my anecdotes over the years. Some basic context:
* I was verbally, but not physically abused by Susun.
* I was part of a group of 10 interesting, accomplished and self-possessed women I admired and learned from.
* Our program was only 10 days, and it was a retreat rather than a work-study format. I did not do work exchange but rather paid the full fee.
* I had read about Susun's anger and yelling. Susun phoned me in advance to give me a canned explanation for her yelling about mistakes (if I let the gate open and the goats got out, was the example she gave) to obtain my "consent" and so I felt quite prepared for it and went nonetheless.
* I took time to reintegrate in my journey home, and with a day by myself on the islands, and at a festival with a good friend.
I corroborate the elements of the stories survivors have told.
* Susun is verbally abusive. Not occasionally. Regularly. Daily. Habitually. She yells and screams over minutae such as when a helper who had prepared our dinner used the "wrong" spoon retrieved from Susan's kitchen. We all witnessed a half-hour yelling attack on her live-in apprentice for some mistake made in sequencing the refrigeration of the goat milk.
* Susun's home and the apprentice's house are dirty and deeply unclean. The former garage the three of us stayed in was filled with mice and possibly other animal poop. Susun uses the word "clear" instead of clean. She thinks cleaning is patriarchal.
* One is not allowed to drink water when you're there, only the daily nourishing infusion. Fill up or go thirsty!
* It was strongly implied that one ought to only do what one is told to do. (So I snuck around to do things like write or smoke, not wanting to chance Susun's wrath.)
* I sensed that Susun put on moods, perhaps to be interesting, probably because she believes it's educational.
* Susan used gaslighting as a teaching tool. She poked and poked at us, perhaps hoping to break us out of some wrongly held self-esteem. I honestly think she believes this is her job.
* Susun thinks she's Baba Yaga. I was thinking that, and then she just came out and said it.
* Susun's pattern of verbal abuse, gaslighting and picking on are interspersed with seemingly genuine, but probably equally acted out praise. It's a technique used by abusers. It also works. When she initiated me as Miranda Joy and blessed my owl backpack, I was glowing inside with her approval, finally. I choose to cherish that moment still.
* Susun does not take care of her students and isolates them. One of our group, Kathy, seriously injured her knee a few days in - probably a torn ACL - while on goat tending duty. She was given an anti-inflammatory herbal compress, but gaslit all to hell when she did not continue to make compresses for herself. Given how terrified we all were of doing something wrong, and how immobilized Kathy was, I can understand why Kathy did not - what? - raid Susun's herbal stash and prepare another compress in her kitchen? Kathy was not taken to any medical aid, and Susun told her to follow up when she got home. On our way back, Kathy wondered if she'd need surgery...
* Given the restriction on showers, and how filthy the Nettles bathroom was, I only bathed once, and that was with a fellow student guarding me, and in the spare / library/teaching house where I spent a lot of free time hiding.
* Susun is thoroughly entrenched in 70's hippie cultural appropriation. "Shamanic" teachings were never rooted in a specific European tradition or any tradition. A wte woman called "White Feather" taught us our early morning "7 Directions Movements" that seemed to be an adaptation of Tai Chi, as taught to Susun and her crew by a discredited Seneca woman, Grandmother Twylah. Then we had a lesson in our colours of destiny, akin to astrology, that supposedly come from a secret women's tradition, accounting for why the Seneca don't acknowledge these teachings. From this, we painted our "Medicine Shield" in a daily after-lunch lesson with another kindly wte woman helper. I love my painting and know it hasn't anything to do with Seneca traditions. One night we spent hand drumming continuously, sleeping in shifts. I suspect that most of us thought these teachings were fraudulent.
* The washroom facilities are filthy and there is no cleaning routine. We were admonished to keep them tidy. After using the nearby port-a-potty a few times, I felt a UTI coming on, so I only used the toilet in the library house or peed in the woods.
My corroborating observations:
* Susun's home was run down and ramshackle, and really really cluttered with clippings pasted all over the walls with yellowing tape. Susun excused it, as if reading our shocked thoughts, by stating "It's a lot of information". I believe the state of her home is an indication of mental incompetence.
* Susun's teaching methods trained us in Learned Helplessness. We were universally terrified of her, sometimes paralyzed not knowing what to do. After yet another damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't scenario thrown at us, Susan came back to the porch and yelled at us for not making the infusion, or salad, or whatever. Apparently, there was a lesson she meant to teach us: if you are faced with not doing, or doing it wrong, just do it. When a hot infusion was due to come out of the kitchen, an always considerate fellow student wiped down the painted metal table on the porch with a soapy washcloth. Susun screamed at her for apparently doing something bad to her table. When I hastily whipped a very worn potholder under a hot stockpot, I got screamed at. At length. We were told to only do exactly what we were asked to do. We were also told "A Goddess asks for what she needs" in the sense that one ought never to step in to help unless asked directly. It was impossible to anticipate exactly what Susun wanted and to do it precisely the way she wanted, and at the same time not step in to do something out of courtesy. We were individually and as a group very quickly in a state of Learned Helplessness.
* Susan's methods breed division and isolation. I noticed by the second day that whenever Susan attacked someone, I was trying to become invisible. Avoiding eye contact. Certainly not stepping in to defend the victim. We all behaved this way. I tried to fight this throughout our time. It seemed particularly evil.
* Unlike survivor's accounts, the lunches and dinners were a highlight of our short apprenticeship, with a well-thought-out menu, and always on time. We picked the salad. Susun did not like us to pick out the slimy bits from yesterday's salad, though, because other animals don't (Susun yelled.). Breakfast were up to us, scavenged from the sketchy Nettles Patch apprentice house with the mouldering fridge. I ate an outrageously expired tin of sardines one morning, for which Susun praised me (although I expected her to attack me, of course). I keep the nostalgic cardboard box on my bulletin board.
* Susan has a problem with oversharing, and out of context, too. Autistic trait? Or does she have a set of anecdotes that she plans to tell, and slots them in? We heard about a group sex event as a friend was dying of cervical cancer because her last wish was to orgasm together. I rather thought that was Susun's way of shocking us for amusement, and to seem like a cool queer.
* Susun's tirades often made no sense at all. When Susan decided to pick on a fellow student who had been serving an indigenous elder in Peru for years, Susun ranted at us about how ayahuasca is a death weed, and LSD is pure. Susun has pet peeves she will not let go of or hear any responses to: essential oils are POISON, aromatherapy is drugging, GMOs are the future because she met a researcher, and would that researcher want to hurt us?, one should buy dandelions, not pick them, in order to support dandelion farmers, it's unethical to advise a client to use an herb AND sell them the tincture etc. I am pretty sure she dredged some of this stuff up on the spot to pick on a particular student.
What I am left with:
* In the introductory circle, I brought out my notepad and my iPad and wrote a few lines before Susun grabbed my iPad out of my hands and tossed it. She said no totes, just listen. She was making an example of me, because had she thrown the iPad out of genuine angry impulse, it would have shattered. I fully 100% regret not journalling, taking notes, or taking photos out of terror of being caught by Susun.
* I don't doubt the accounts of abuse one iota.
* Susan isn't transphobic, she is an outright TRANS HATER. If you weren't born with a uterus, you can never be a woman - this in spite of the fact that the woman beside me during the moon circle told us she was born with 2 vaginas and no uterus. I loathe essentialism.
* I still worry about apprentice who was there when we were. I think her name is Lisa. If she doesn't have PTSD, I'd be shocked.
* I wonder about the kind and gentle women around Susun. What are their stories? Are they still around Susun?
* Reading more recent accounts of Susun's physical abuse, including drugging possibly with poke weed or a hypnotics, I imagine that she has gotten worse. Criminally worse.
* I really value the Wise Woman Tradition, although I realize that it's made up, or in the least put together, by Susan.
* I work on the premise that we must restore folk medicine and the use of herbs to our everyday lives.
* I value Susun's organization of medicine into The Scientific, The Heroic and The Wise Woman Traditions.
* I value Susan's dedication to applying evidence-based herbalism to (primarily European) herbal traditional medicines.
* I value Susan's inspiration, Juliette de Bairacli Levy.
* I recognize that both Susun and Juliette were not taught through any herbal lineage, but gathered herbal information from indigenous sources, Juliette from Roma and Sinti peoples among others in Europe, and Canaanite peoples in the Levant, and Susun from European writings as well as indigenous North American sources, some possibly made up by Grandmother Twyla.
While the Teacher is flawed, the Teachings must be honoured. I am not the sort of person who experiences Life Changing Events. I emerge from retreats, conferences and learning environments with HMMMs not AHAs! Knowledge seeps into me, I hope more from the plants, their scents and effects on me, and from gathered information, than from people.
I envision my retirement as a time of reading, and writing and teaching. May I grow in wisdom and compassion, and never elevate my weaknesses and flaws. May I never harm a student, but let the Good Teachings I've been given pass through me.
The most important thing Susun Weed taught me is how not to teach.