About Deia

Deia Pauline, RH(AHG)
Clinical Herbalist | Educator | Community Health Organizer
Atlanta, GA | she/her

I'm Deia Pauline, RH(AHG), a clinical herbalist, educator, and community health organizer. I believe herbal medicine is most powerful when it strengthens people's capacity to care for themselves, one another, and the communities they call home.

For me, herbalism has always been the people's medicine. It lives because people continue to practice it, share it, nurture it, and pass it forward. I believe individuals and communities already hold immense capacity for care. My role is not to create that capacity, but to help cultivate the conditions where it can be recognized, strengthened, shared, and sustained. My work is grounded in helping people understand the patterns they are experiencing, the conditions that have shaped their health, and how plants, nourishment, relationship, and community can support greater resilience and capacity.

Throughout my work, I've been drawn to building environments where knowledge, care, responsibility, and relationship can circulate. That work has taken many forms: educational programs, community clinics, operational systems, mentorship, and clinical practice. The purpose has remained the same: helping knowledge, responsibility, and care continue to circulate so more people feel empowered to participate in the care of themselves, their families, and their communities.

What Guides My Work

I believe the strongest healthcare grows from the ground up, rooted in knowledgeable communities, meaningful relationships, and the enduring wisdom of the people's medicine.

Over the past two decades, I've taught in classrooms, community settings, herbal clinics, festivals, and grassroots organizations, helping students, clients, volunteers, and fellow practitioners deepen their understanding of herbal medicine.

Throughout that work, I've been drawn to building the structures that help care endure. I've developed educational programs, training systems, and operational frameworks that strengthen the conditions where knowledge and care remain shared practices rather than specialized commodities.

My clinical work is informed by traditional Western herbalism, physiology, nutrition, evidence-informed practice, and years of study with extraordinary teachers, including Karyn Sanders and Sarah Holmes, as well as the many mentors, colleagues, organizers, and communities who have generously shared their knowledge with me.

I approach health as something continually shaped by lived experience, environment, access to nourishment, stress, relationships, history, and place.

Herbal medicine begins with relationship: to our own bodies, to one another, and to the plants themselves. I believe caring for people and caring for the living world are inseparable practices. Ultimately, I see myself as a steward of the conditions in which care can flourish.

This practice exists to keep care alive inside a system that actively devalues it. Grassroots Apothecary exists in service of that living tradition. My hope is to contribute by helping knowledge, responsibility, and care continue to circulate so more people feel empowered to participate in the care of themselves, their families, and their communities, while keeping herbal medicine rooted in relationship rather than reduced to a commodity.

My Journey

My own healing journey, teachers, professional experience, and the plants themselves all deeply inform my practice. Growing up in a chaotic household, nourished by the Standard American Diet, I experienced migraines beginning at age five, a depleted immune system, chronic fatigue, depression, and anxiety.

Discovering herbal medicine helped me understand my body and my place within the living world. Plants and fungi supported my immune and nervous systems. Nutrient-dense foods, probiotics, breathwork, and herbal medicine helped me cultivate resilience, reconnect with my deepest nature, and rediscover a sense of wonder. Today, in my early fifties, I feel more resilient than I did in my twenties.

I offer deep listening and client-led, nonjudgmental care rooted in curiosity, collaboration, and respect for each person's lived experience.

I remain endlessly fascinated by the intelligence of plants and the extraordinary living systems that make life possible. Outside of work, you'll usually find me with a very good cup of coffee, dancing beneath the open sky, or caring for my cats.

Publications

Best Practices Guide for Herbal First Aid and Wellness at Events and On the Front Lines(Author, 2012-2024)
A 144-page field operations manual covering risk assessment, scope of practice, team structure, legal frameworks, sanitation, trauma-informed care, anti-oppression protocols, and more than 50 clinical protocols. Adopted by multiple instructor teams and event producers as a foundational training resource.

Ask First! Better Practices with Local Indigenous Peoples When Producing Events on Their Lands(Co-author)
Protocol guide for event producers on Indigenous consultation, territorial acknowledgment, and cultural appropriation policies. Adopted by festival producers and hosted by White Noise Collective.

Herbal First Aid Aftercare for People Harmed by Police Violence(Co-author)
A practical harm reduction guide covering decontamination, wound care, trauma response, and herbal support protocols for individuals and communities in the aftermath of police violence. Developed for street medics, mutual aid networks, and community care teams.

Professional Background

Clinical Herbalist (2008-present)
Private and community practice throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, Arizona, and Atlanta. Registered Herbalist, American Herbalists Guild (RH(AHG)) since 2014.

Guest Instructor (2024-present)
Berkeley Herbal Center, Therapeutics & Village Herbalist II Programs

Guest Instructor
Scarlet Sage School of Traditional Healing Arts

Guest Instructor
Gathering Thyme Herbal School

Lead Instructor (2026-present)
Reading the Terrain: Herbs & Body Systems Clinical Immersion Series, Atlanta, GA

Veterinary Assistant Program (2025-present)
Penn Foster College (NAVTA-approved), in progress

Integrative Care Team Member (2008-2018)
Harborside Wellness Center, Oakland, CA

Wilderness First Responder (2004-2023)
Renewal planned.

Emergency Medical Technician (2005)
Chabot College, Hayward, CA

Community Organizer, Street Medic & Mutual Aid Practitioner (1997-present)

Medicine for All Seeking Health and Healing (MASHH) (2011-2019)
Herbal clinician, clinic coordination, and education at large outdoor gatherings throughout the Pacific Northwest.

SoundMind Institute (2021 & 2022)
Two six-month masterclasses in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for clinicians.

Being True To You (2021-2022)
Addiction Recovery and Integration Coach

Polaris Insight (2021)
Training in the principles and procedures of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy.

The Dhyana Center (2014-2015; 2018-2019)
Two 10-month programs in Ayurvedic foundations, diagnostics, aromatherapy, herbal medicine, and whole food nutrition. Teacher's aide and internship, Sebastopol, CA.

Blue Otter School of Herbal Medicine (2009-2011)
Clinical and Energetic Herbalist Programs, Fort Jones, CA

Berkeley Herbal Center (2005-2008)
Herbal Foundations and Therapeutics Program

Catalyst Project (2008 & 2012)
Anne Braden Anti-Racist Organizer Training Program

Santa Rosa Junior College (2019)
Managerial Leadership, Conflict Resolution, Business & Public Speaking, and Drug & Alcohol Counseling

Board Service

Vice President, Board of Directors
Whisker Lounge Cat Research and Therapy Center (501(c)(3))
Atlanta, GA | 2026-present

About Grassroots Apothecary