Raquel Jolie Massoude

19/08/2025

🎉 Facebook recognized me as a top rising creator this week!

08/06/2025

05/06/2025

I spent a plant walk in central park with Dawn Petter, the herbalist behind & fellow alum •
i've been following Dawn's work for a while, so it was sweet to finally meet and spend time with the plants together. we saw a bunch of spring herbs - cleaver, dandelion, garlic mustard, baby burdocks, lesser celandine, japanese knotw**d - and also a bunch of shrubs & trees including hawthorn, witch hazel, redbud, magnolia, willows, elm, buckeye & what i believe is horse chestnut. i was even lucky to meet duchman's breeches for the first time some kind of spotted trillium & mystery flowers with purple calyxes about to pop all in all it was a lovely time & everyone was super patient with me as i mouthed out contributions. laryngitis is not fun but we are out here y'all

check out Dawn for herbal consults, preparations, plant walks, and workshops in nyc and beyond. thank you again Dawn for getting us all outside today & sharing your knowledge! looking forward to meeting again when we can actually talk about all the things

05/06/2025

A big thank you to everyone who came out for yesterday's walk!! sharing about the plants & spending time outside with you all was so much fun & i'm grateful for everyone's willingness to connect 🥰

during our 2hr saunter we had the privilege of meeting: saucer magnolia, cleavers, linden, spice bush, japanese knotw**d, redbud, mugwort, goutw**d, not turkey tail x2 (violet toothed polypore & stereum mushrooms), and last but certainly not least - the enchanting at-risk spring ephemeral bloodroot! we talked about some beginner botany concepts - identifying growth patterns (alternate, opposite & whorled) and capped off the afternoon with a sunny picnic - sharing a jar of cleavers tea, goat cheese and cucumber sandwiches & argentinian chocolates 🍫

there's so many more abundant spring and summer plants that i'd love to help you all meet, so stay tuned for my next walk coming soon! 😌

07/03/2025

2022 🖤😊

01/03/2025

Grateful for the meal 🍽️

14/12/2024

scenes from an impromptu forage yesterday at fort tilden - rose hips, autumn olive, sea rocket, mugwort & two spiny pals. the video doesn't do it justice, but the iridescence on the underside of the autumn olive leaves was gorgeous-no wonder they're call Japanese silver berries ✨

10/12/2024

More of these amazing berkeleys from yesterday's forage! mushrooms are so fu***ng cool 🌝💞

11/11/2024

Life lately 💕🤼☕️🐈‍⬛🏡🪴📚

28/10/2024

wayward w**d by Natalie Brickajlik

A human among humans
some might think it's a sad story, but it's beautiful.
Day after day, another subway ride to another neglected community

Long stretches of hypervigilance and tight-belliedness beauty seems hard to find, and quietness is just for the storybooks.

time for tea to refocus your tired, blurry eyes noticing tiny, jagged, concrete cracks (summer steam and smelly sidewalks)
blooming with chicory, or burnw**d, or fuzzy spearmint from a nearby family garden.

an evening primrose to tease your senses
a meadow of Brownsville mugwort to pause and (lucidly) dream about where an apothecary should live (your own thing)
garden tenders and hungry neighbors come to look, too a newfound patch of hope and sparkly pollinators (it's a big, scary world)
to find new friends everywhere, little pops of color and shape and hardiness in the chaos
allowing the journey to just journey (as I grasp for an anchor)
to admire the needle point perfection of a passiflora or deep teeth of a dandelion leaf
to be a bumble bee in a swath of blooming catnip
I land peacefully.

Natalie Brickajlik is a second-year student at ArborVitae. She manages therapeutic horticulture programs with The Horticultural Society of NY, providing workshops that nurture the plant to people connection and helping to strengthen lower income communities across New York City 🌆 .

28/10/2024

It's been a journey to call this land our home — a place where all are welcome to come gather, learn and connect with the wisdom of plant medicine.

We are so grateful for this space and feel honored to protect, support + encourage growth and nourishment to the soil, the plants, the insects, wildlife and humans that find their way here.

Our flower garden has been in full bloom since late summer and is such a beautiful reminder of what grows with respect and care.

Thank you mama earth.
Thank you students.
Thank you teachers.
Thank you community.

All of our efforts cultivated this home, for plants to come back into our lives. 🍀🍃