ABOUT

About Geanina

Keeper of Stillroom Ways

I don’t have a certificate in herbalism.
I have nettles in my skirt, thyme in my fingertips, and centuries in my basket.

I work in the old stillroom tradition — where herbs are known by touch and scent, where remedies are made slowly, and where care is woven into daily life.

The stillroom is not history to me.
It is a living rhythm: land and hands, fire and fragrance, listening and time.

I don’t gather plants to extract from them.
I gather them to meet them.

Through Time and Thyme: A Living Stillroom

For many years, I worked as a teacher, guiding others through landscapes, maps, and stories of the world. Alongside that life, another thread was always present — quieter, older, and closer to the ground.

I have always felt at home in woods and hedgerows, in kitchens and gardens, in places where hands are busy and attention is gentle. Crushing thyme between my fingers, walking slowly through fields, tending simmering pots — these are not hobbies for me. They are a remembering.

The women of the past did not separate life from medicine.
They did not rush.
They did not perform expertise.

They listened.

That is the lineage I work within.

How You Might Meet Me

Today, my work is intimate, small-scale, and rooted.

You might meet me:

  • in a stillroom workshop, learning to make simple historical remedies

  • on a foraging walk, moving slowly and attentively with the land

  • at my table, crafting oils, salves, syrups, or inks

  • through drawings and stories that carry lived experience rather than instruction

My workshops are not about mastering techniques.
They are about companionship — with plants, with process, and with yourself.

I don’t reenact the past.
I carry what still lives — and invite others to sit with it too.

If you’d like to step into the stillroom yourself, you’ll find my current workshops and dates here - Calendar 

And sometimes — though I don’t make a fuss about it — there’s a certain warmth in the room too.
A steady presence. A companionable Sun. ☀️

My Roots: A Life Woven in Land and Lore

I was not taught the old ways. I was born into them.

My grandparents’ hands shaped the land. Their wisdom was carried through seasons, through hardship, through stories whispered over harvest baskets.

I grew up in a world where self-sufficiency was not a lifestyle, but survival.

Water drawn from the well.
Fires kindled each morning.
Cloth woven from flax.
Rooms lined with pickles, cheese, smoked meats, dried herbs.
Everything was made by hand.
And plants — always plants — quietly known by heart.

We did not learn them. We knew them.
As if they whispered their names before we could speak.

Sweet acacia blossoms.
The nutty bite of mallow pods.
The golden juice of celandine pressed onto skin, just like our ancestors did.

Though village life was arduous, my happiest moments were always close to the land — beneath the vast sky, beside the rivers, among the meadows.

And even now, decades and miles away, I find my way back.

In the forests, under the gaze of old trees.
By the fire, stirring something fragrant, something ancient.
Under the stars, feeling the earth hum beneath me.

The old ways are not lost.
They walk with me still — in my breath, in my basket, in every scroll I send into the world.

💌 Curious about my work?

You’re warmly invited to:
🌿 Explore upcoming workshops
🌾 Join a foraging walk
📜 Subscribe to The Stillroom Table newsletter

The kettle is warm, the herbs are waiting, and there’s always space at the table.


My mum and her 5th-grade classmates, harvesting onions. Practical agricultural work was part of the school curriculum.

My grandmother Maria (on the right) and her sister in the 1950s. 
All their clothes were handmade.