Vilde Chaya Fenster-Ehrlich (she/her)

Community Herbalist

Vilde Chaya Fenster-Ehrlich is a community herbalist committed to sharing the bizarre and beautiful gifts of flowers, trees and fungi in accessible, inclusive ways centered on love. She creates spaces of care and growth for trans and trans-allied community. She has been involved with organizing free, multi-modality clinics in Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Arizona since 2010, and is presently an educator with Wild Current Herbalism and at the Wild Cherries Herbal Studies Program in Pittsburgh. Before working as an herbalist, she spent a decade as a standardized patient, teaching medical students about competent, anti-oppressive care. She grew up primarily in Munsee Lenape, Schaghticoke and Wappinger territory in New York City, and ultimately sought out connections with plants as a remedy to her childhood buried in wires and concrete. She loves herbal medicine as a weapon and a guide in the war against white supremacy, capitalism and the patriarchy; in her experience, healing work is intimately intertwined with resisting and surviving systemic violence and oppression, and plants are passionate pals in that fight.