About Us & Our Approach
For the past 25 years Amy and her husband Joseph have been stewards of classes and retreats at White Dove Herbal Sanctuary in Central Vermont. The 40 acre sanctuary has extensive gardens, nature trails, a young fruit orchard & a variety of berries, a sacred prayer forest and a small swimming pond. Amy says ‘the land here is a place where the Web of life has never been torn.’ White Dove has hosted many teachers, classes and retreats all offering ways to deepen our connection to the sentient green world. We celebrate the plants as our elders and trustworthy guides to the deepest parts of ourselves.
Who We Are
Amy Goodman Kiefer
Amy Goodman Kiefer is a Community Herbalist, an avid gardener, herb grower, medicine maker, practitioner and an herbal teacher. Her work is informed by her passion for plants and people. Over the past 30 years she has taught herbal classes at national conferences, had the delightful opportunity to be one of Rosemary Gladstar’s assistants for 14 years, taught herbal programs in Public Schools, housing sites and throughout her community.
Amy Co-founded the ‘Vermont Herb Camp for Kids’, which shared herbal knowledge with over 700 children ages 4-14. She is currently writing a book for adults who wish to share the magic of the plants with their children.
Joseph Kiefer
Coming soon!
How Do We Grow Our Herbal Medicine?
Here at White Dove Herbal Sanctuary we grow our herbal medicine with organic and biodynamic practices. We follow the biodynamic calendar as closely as we can, utilizing biodynamic “preps” when preparing open ground in spring before planting, and again in the fall after the growing season. Our seeds and seedlings come from organic sources and we spread organic compost from local sources and herbal preps from our garden plants. All the herbal medicine is lovingly tended and harvested by hand, dried and garbled by hand and stored in glass jars to best preserve the vitality of the plants.
We grow much more than just “herbal medicine.” White Dove Herbal Sanctuary is home to an abundance of local native plants who often have medicinal properties beyond their beauty. We grow annual and perennial flowers of all kinds, too! (We just can’t stop ourselves). We have more fruiting bushes and trees than we can count that have been planted here over the last 25 years.
We also are home to a prayer forest, looping trails and a small pond that has hosted beavers, otters, blue herons, salamanders and frogs. Come visit us to see for yourself!
Walk and learn about the local herbs. Make a bouquet or flower crown of your choosing. Sip tea and paint by a “Lucifer” Crocosmia or a Lupine. Taste the first honey berries or the Schizandra berries. Sounds divine? It truly is!
Where Do the Herbs Go?
The herbal medicine grown here at White Dove Herbal Sanctuary is shared generously throughout our community.We encourage our garden fairies to harvest for themselves, from the plants they care for, as the gardens tend to be over abundant each growing season.The plants are centrally featured in the classes and events held at the sanctuary.We dry the herbs for teas, and make tinctures and oils to share with our local community, as well.
Our two main mutual aid relationships are with Alicia Cook of Canoe Woman Herbs and Rose Core Collective. We also love to support Railyard Apothecary in Burlington Vt. by providing fresh and dried herbs grown here that are hard to source locally. Please check out their incredible work, which we feel so honored to support! Would you like to learn more and be a part of our community web of herbal distribution? Please reach out!