About the Episode:
Bunny talks with founder and owner of Mañana Botanicals. “Mañana Botanicals was crafted with the intention of preserving the sacred traditions and ancestral wisdom associated with the local remedies that have healed New Mexican communities for centuries.” If you want to learn about how to live more harmoniously with the earth and just how abundant our desert landscape is here in New Mexico, you’re going to love this episode!
Links:
Manana Botanicals Website
Manana Botanicals Instagram
I Love New Mexico blog page
Bunny’s website
I Love New Mexico Instagram
I Love New Mexico Facebook
Original Music by: Kene Terry
Featuring:
Sarah Yocum
Sarah is the founder of Mañana Botanicals. Manana Botanicals is a local botanical brand. Sarah works with local, native, medicinal plants that have been used here in New Mexico for centuries to heal before modern medicine was available. Her brand is inspired by traditional herbalism of the southwest so she honors the plants that have been used but make modern creations from them. The plants she works with thus far are the pinon tree, hollyhock flower, willow from the river, and spearmint. She also makes a small batch biscochito tea.
Sarah’s inspiration came from fear that these practices may die and the ways of her grandparents will become extinct. Sarah’s grandma is from Velarde, NM and her grandpa is from Old Town ABQ. She grew up very close to them. Both their stories and culture reminds Sarah of a different way of life in New Mexico. Stories of our Native ancestors, Spainard ancestors, and living from the land is something she felt so connected with when creating Mañana Botanicals.
Episode Transcript
Bunny : (00:00)
Hi there. I’m Bunny Terry, and you’re listening to the I Love New Mexico podcast. Whether you’re a native New Mexican, who’s lived here for your entire life, or you’re just considering a visit, this episode is for you. Join us as we share a lot of New Mexico’s stories, talk about all things New Mexico, and include topics like what’s magical here, where you ought to visit, what’s happening, and the things you absolutely cannot miss in the land of Enchantment. We’re excited that you’re here, and we can’t wait to show you what an amazing place New Mexico is, because let’s face it, I love New Mexico.
Bunny : (00:51)
Our guest on the podcast today is Sarah Yokum with Manana Botanicals. And the minute we saw this website, we knew that we had to talk to Sarah because she, is practicing, um, a century’s old, um, craft and, and, and, and yet providing a, um, solution to problems that we face that some of us face every day. And Sarah, I love that your website says, um, the earth is our medicine. Um, and, and, and I mean, that’s, that’s where I wanna open because, um, we have to assume that we have folks on the podcast who are not from New Mexico and who don’t understand ancient healing arts. And, and we’re not talking something far eastern. We’re talking something very new Mexicans. So can you, um, tell our listeners exactly what it is that you do and, um, and talk a little bit about what AERA does?
Sarah : (01:56)
Sure. So, thank you, Bunny. So my name is Sarah, and I am the founder of Manana Botanicals. So, you wanted to open up with the earth being our medicine. So here in New Mexico, historically, modern medicine was not available or even accepted, probably until the 1950s. I mean, it’s not that hospitals weren’t here, but a lot of that pushback from the local communities was because of the language barrier, um, of Spanish and English. When hospitals came in and New Mexico started to become a lot more Americanized. So that being said, the communities really relied on the local plant medicine that was available in the Rio Grande Valley and in the mountains. And who are essentially folk healers, would administer these remedies or remedies, um, and hold the knowledge on what plants, what herbs, what concoctions could heal or cure ailments such as colds. Um, they would assist with birth, um, broken bones, just about anything. And here in New Mexico, our deep, rich, New Mexican culture really does revolve around, um, plant medicine and desert plant medicine. And it is quite abundant here, even though our environment is a tough place for plants to thrive.
Bunny : (03:32)
So when we, before we started, I told you it felt like, um, it felt like, um, bless me, Ultima for the 21st century, because, um, the grandmother, the abuelita in that story was a Curandero. And, I think that people, I mean, people don’t get that. Um, you can almost, I would I suspect you would agree that you can almost always cure anything with, with the plants that you can find around you. Is that a, is that a crazy idea or does that really work?
Sarah : (04:11)
I think it’s a matter of, um, prevention. I think that, you know, you, there’s a lot of power in relying in this medicine and relying to the lifestyle. But in addition to the practices that were administered by Curanderos, it wasn’t the type of practice where you would show up only when you were sick. It was a year round maintenance and a lifestyle. It was something that you would live every single day, and you would live seasonally. So like, for example, we’re going into spring right now, what’s available in spring, dandelion. So dandelion, you would maybe take dandelion root, dandelion flour to clear the liver, the kidneys from a heavy winter of consuming meat and pinon, for example. Pinon is heavy and fat. So our body needs a good cleanse. And that’s how, um, the communities here in New Mexico lived. It was a mind, body, spirit type of mindset that was practiced year round, not only when you were sick. And a lot of the beliefs too, when you did get sick were not maybe an imbalance of really just treating the person, but also treating the soul, treating the spirit. Something else is unbalanced, and that’s where the illness really comes from, which is super interesting about, um, our culture here regarding that type of medicine.
Bunny : (05:40)
Well, well that’s interesting. Like I’m curious, how did you personally come to this? I mean, what, what led you to think this is what I wanna spend my day doing?
Sarah : (05:53)
So, great question, and I’m always excited to talk about it. , um, good. So I moved away. I’m from New Mexico, grew up in New Mexico, um, grew up, spent my childhood in Old town, New Mexico, Northern, uh, like the North Valley. And I have family in Northern New Mexico.
Bunny : (06:10)
Albuquerque, right?
Sarah : (06:11)
Yes. Of Albuquerque. And my grandparents are very old, new Mexican, very old, new Mexican. My grandpa’s grandma was a medicine woman. She was a Curandera, you know, and I’ve heard these stories just of this way of life and how I see my grandparents, how they lived. And I moved away. I moved to the east coast. I had a corporate job. I was in corporate beauty, and, you know, living a different life and being away from my culture really made me have a different perspective on it. And when the pandemic happened, we were in lockdown. My fast life completely stopped, and I started really engaging with nature on the East coast and around plants, you know, I engage with the plants and realized how special herbalism is and how it was also practiced by Native Americans on that side of the country. And then when I was there, I was homesick and really wanted to come back and pay homage to New Mexico and to my culture. So I started studying herbalism of the Southwest and felt so connected to it and saw how special it was and how it’s a way of life that is dying. Not really as prevalent as it was. And the plant knowledge that, you know, my grandparents had or aunts, uncles moms had is no longer, and every day way of life anymore. So I wanted to come back home and study that and work with those plants and really implement that into my daily life, and also create a brand out of it where people could experience it, experience the plants in the way they used to be experienced and also in a modern way.
Bunny : (07:57)
And so, there’s gotta be some, I mean, did you, are there written texts? Did you just, were there just family stories that led you to understand what, your sounds like great, great grandmother had done, I mean, where do, where do you get this knowledge?
Sarah : (08:18)
I think a lot of it definitely is talking to my grandparents. Um, I’ve spoken to my grandparents. I spoke to my great-uncle who did his own research. Um, and then there are some books, not many, a lot of this information is not recorded. It was spoken, it’s not written down, it was spoken passed along that way. So a lot of it is also just trusting my intuition, I think as well. I mean, I, it’s really interesting when people ask me that. I feel it’s just such a special connection to the plants. And when I first started on my, my herbalism journey, like I would be able to look at a plant and be like, huh, I wonder. And then I would do further research and lo and behold, the plant would be, um, medicinal. So it’s a matter of, it’s been a matter of learning the plants in English and also in Spanish, and learning what they were used by, used for, by new Mexicans and also what they’re used for in modern herbalism. But it’s really been a lot of kind of just that trust talking to, talking to elders, talking to the community. I really get to engage with the community when I sell at, um, the farmer’s market. I sell at the farmer’s market in Albuquerque, at Robertson Park in the summertime. And elders in the community will happily tell you, you know, they’ll see that I work with pinon and then they’ll, that opens up a story or that opens up things they remember and they ask, oh, have you ever worked with this? Have you ever worked with that? And it’s just about connecting with the community and learning in that way as well.
Bunny : (09:54)
Wow. It sounds like a really, uh, like a storytelling, oral history tradition that, um, is, is also really practical. So, um, so you were saying in the spring, um, dandelion root, right? That’s something that you can use what happens in the other seasons? I’d love to hear about that.
Sarah : (10:16)
So yes. So dandelion is all about, or springtime is all about detox. Dandelion is great for that. Those are weeds and we see them as weeds, but really they have a lot of benefits. You know, we’ve kind of become so modern where we’re like, oh, they’re just weeds. But they served a purpose during a different time. Um, summertime, it’s hot, we’re in the desert. It’s all about cooling the body down and staying hydrated, right? Trying to maintain hydration, you know, it was a simpler life then. So that’s what the focus would’ve been. And you would focus on drinking, um, hibiscus or hamika, which is really good for cooling the body, you know, opening up the blood vessels. Um, you would eat things that were musculovenous maybe like, um, nopalas or prickly pear cactus that helps to maintain the hydration.
Bunny : (11:06)
What was that word you just said? What does that mean?
Sarah : (11:10)
Musculovenous? It’s the consistency of aloe vera, how it’s really sticky.
Bunny : (11:15)
Oh, okay. Um, so kind of mucusy.
Sarah : (11:19)
Yes, mucusy, a lot of the herbs. Aloe vera is great too, to drink for hydration and just cooling the body down. But a lot of herbs are plants that are in full bloom in the summertime have that type of consistency. So prickly pear cactus, alovera, um, even Scarlet Mellow, which is a little orange weed that grows around in New Mexico. I know that weed and then fall. Yes, it’s beautiful. And then fall would be more so about going inward, um, pinon season, starting to, you know, pack, maybe eat the pinon, start to store fat for the winter, and winter is about rest. So that’s how it was, you know, that’s how it was done. It was a seasonal practice
Bunny : (12:06)
And you create, um, and sell and some, some items that,, that reflect some of what we’re talking about. I’d love to hear about what you are creating and what people can get from you directly.
Sarah : (12:22)
Sure. So yes, my passion and knowledge about, you know, new Mexican culture, new Mexican herbalism, it’s its own really special little capsule thing. It’s this, it’s a journey that I’ve had in itself. It’s a completely separate journey. But what I did was, um, I created Manana Botanicals. So that stands for remedios or remedies of yesterday and tomorrow, because I honor the practices of yesterday, I turned to the plants of yesterday, and I do honor some traditional remedies. But I also am creating modern ones for the modern person that’s here in New Mexico. And, the plants that I work with currently are the pinion tree, the Holly Hawk flower. Um, and then I make some tea blends, and I’m also gonna be working with, um, Scarlet Mellow. So every single product I have has a wildcrafted element, which means I go out and get the plants from the wild. When you harvest plants from the wild, um, they have stronger benefits in them because they have to, you know, fight to survive. They’re not cultivated and cared for, like you would a house plant or a plant in the garden. But when I created Manana, it was really about establishing something that people could connect to that were from people from New Mexico could connect to. And then those who were not from New Mexico, I wanted it to spark their interest and be like, oh, like Holly Hawk flower, um, pinon tree. I’ve never seen that. I wanted to create something really unique that made people excited, but they could still connect with and maybe not even know why they felt connected to it. So it’s been my channel to connect with the community, and it’s been really fun.
Bunny : (14:13)
I’ve never heard, I mean, I’ve heard, you know, my, um, grandparents homesteaded in Eastern New Mexico and raised 10 children, all of whom survived into adulthood e each set of grandparents, um, and fa and in fact, my parents are still alive at 88 and 90. And I heard, I always heard my grandmothers talking about, um, making different teas, even though they’re culturally different. You know, I don’t come from a, a Hispanic tradition, um, some Native American, but not much. But, but I never ever heard anybody talk about Holly Hawks. What I’m curious, because they’ll, that’s the one thing when people think of New Mexico, they think of the desert and they don’t realize that, I mean a Holly Hawk can grow in a crack in the concrete on a sidewalk. I’m, so I’m interested to know what Holly hawks can do, what they, how they can help.
Sarah : (15:12)
So Holly Hawks, is Manana Botanicals claim to fame. There are no other brands that work with Holly Hawk flowers, so that was what kind of made us special. But the Holly Hawks were really fun to work with because that collection in Manana Botanicals is the cowgirls.
Bunny : (15:30)
I saw that everything. I love that. Yes,
Sarah : (15:32)
Yes. It’s the cowgirls. And everything about Manana is new Mexican inspired. So those are inspired by the old glam Route 66 West, cool cowgirls, Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, just a really feminine part of the brand. And when I was deciding what plant to use, I thought, what better plant than a Holly Hawk? Like it screams Herb cowgirl to me. And those are great because they are related to the Mallow family, which is, um, cooling. So the properties in there are, they’re really cooling. They have that, those misogynous benefits that we spoke about earlier. And they’re great. You can make them into a tea, the flowers into a tea for a digestion, for digestion. And then, I make them into skincare products. So they’re amazing for the lips, they’re amazing for eczema, they’re amazing for, um, irritations and bug bites and, um, it’s great. People love them.
Bunny : (16:35)
So do you think…
Sarah : (16:36)
People love Those.
Bunny : (16:36)
I mean, is it, is it the flower? Is it what what part of the Holly Hawk is the most powerful? Is it the root?
Sarah : (16:46)
You could use the whole plant. So the root is probably the most medicinal. You can eat the leaves and the flowers are a little bit more mild.
Bunny : (16:56)
So you can eat those kind of furry leaves that they have?
Sarah : (17:00)
You can eat the leaves when they’re young. Yes.
Bunny : (17:02)
Okay. Okay.
Sarah : (17:03)
And they’re nutritious
Bunny : (17:04)
What’s right now?
Sarah : (17:07)
Yes, exactly.
Bunny : (17:09)
Okay.
Sarah : (17:09)
Exactly.
Bunny : (17:11)
And they’re good for skin.
Sarah : (17:15)
Excellent for skin. Excellent. They’re really good for, um, eczema because of the cooling benefits that they offer.
Bunny : (17:21)
Wow, that’s so cool. So I saw on your website the urban cowgirl bomb. Is there something else that you offer as well, that has the, Holly Hawk?
Sarah : (17:32)
Yes.
Sarah : (17:32)
The two cowgirls have the Holly Hawk. So there’s the lip balm and then the cowgirl garden bomb, which that’s the best seller. And that one is all about, um, ode to the Garden flowers. Flower powers. It has holly Hawk, calendula, Rose, lavender, and then plantain. So it’s just a herbal medicinal powerhouse, but also very feminine, very urban cowgirl.
Bunny : (17:56)
. Oh, well, I have to guess I love the scent of Calendula, and I don’t even, is calendula a a plant?
Sarah : (18:03)
It’s a flower.
Bunny : (18:04)
Wow. Wow. Um, somebody gave me something that had calendula in it, and I have, of course, we live in this dry climate. And my, in the wintertime, the tips of my fingers start to crack. I mean, that just happens here, it seems. Yeah. I mean, don’t let it keep you from coming to New Mexico, but I’m telling you, it is dry. And so when I started using Calendula, that stopped.
Sarah : (18:31)
Yes. It’s amazing. It’s amazing what plans can do.
Bunny : (18:34)
So tell me about, you talked about how, I mean there, there’s so many practical applications and there’s, there’s so many, like as you said, um, like you can eat the leaves of, of, um, the Holly Hawk. I mean, I knew somebody who grew up in a very traditional New Mexico family, and they used to eat baby tumbleweeds. It’s like mm-hmm. , are you kidding? It was like, they would go out in the spring and gather new tiny baby tumbleweeds, and that was their, that was sort of their greens. And he said, I craved them all year.
Sarah : (19:16)
Yeah. The nutrient dense. It was just, you know, a different time. We ate a different, we ate a different way. We lived a different way, and I bet we were a lot less sick.
Bunny : (19:27)
And so what do you think it is, um, what do you think happened to our diet and to our lifestyle that, um, got us away from this way of, of, um, I mean, it seems like a simple answer, but if somebody wants to go back to the kind of lifestyle you’re talking about, how do you, how do you accomplish that? I don’t even know how it would work.
Sarah : (19:49)
I think that it happened because of Americanization for sure. But you know, it’s actually pretty simple. You just live simply. My grandparents have eaten and they’ve eaten beans and chili three times a week, their entire lives homemade tortillas, and they’re the healthiest people in their seventies that I know. I mean, if we think about the antioxidants, the fiber, the anti-cancer benefits that are in beans, it makes sense. I think it’s just living more simply.
Bunny : (20:24)
So, talk to me about, I’m really, I’m also interested in this yurba Vena, um, spray. Is that like a, like a hydrating mist? What is that, that I saw on your website?
Sarah : (20:37)
So that is a, yes, it is a hydrating mist. It’s a detoxifying face mist, um, that I created from Spearman or ya and Willow, wild Willow from the real grande. Um, wild willow or willow from Willow is really, really good for the skin. It’s anti-inflammatory, it’s detoxifying. And same with spearmint. Spearman is cooling, it’s slightly cooling when you spray the spray on your face. And it also helps to calm the inflammation and the skin down. But the set of it is so amazing. It smells like New Mexico summer.
Bunny : (21:15)
And, I was just, I mean, I was looking, I was about to place an order when you got online, because I thought, wait a second. I saw, um, the Trementina salve and I, I, I mean, for folks who don’t know, I grew up not far from Trementina, and I had a cousin who, the, the town and I had an uncle who had a ranch there. But Trementina is really, um, is it, it’s a sap of some of, of what?
Sarah : (21:45)
The Pinion tree. So it’s the sat from the pinon tree. And that product that I have is a traditional new Mexican remedy, really simple, um, olive oil, the from the tree beeswax, and then I add a little bit of shea butter, and it does exactly what it’s supposed to do. It’s great for burn scrapes, drawing qualities. And that product, or that recipe has been used here in New Mexico for centuries as a healing aid.
Bunny : (22:11)
Wow. And you call it working monos. So it’s for your, for it’s, it’s gotta be good for your hands, right?
Sarah : (22:17)
Yes. It’s excellent for those hardworking hands.
Bunny : (22:21)
Okay. And I, and there’s the urban cowgirl whip bomb, which we talked about already.
Sarah : (22:26)
Yes. And all of the flowers, all of the flowers from the urban cowgirl come from my grandma’s garden.
Bunny : (22:33)
What? Wow.
Sarah : (22:35)
Yes. So that’s something that’s really special about that product line as well, that I didn’t share. All of those flowers are from her garden. She has hundreds of Holly hawks.
Bunny : (22:43)
I have hundreds of Holly Hawks, and most of them are just because they showed up. They’re, I mean, they’re the hardiest, um, as I said that in fact, they seem to thrive when they’re treated badly. Yeah. You know, I, we live in Santa Fe and I’ll drive down the street and I’ll be at a stoplight, and I’ll look over at First United Methodist Church. And there are Holly Hawks growing out of a tiny crack in the sidewalk where, you know, nobody has watered them, nobody has fertilized them. They’re, they’re exceptionally hardy, which is maybe a piece of why the plant life here is so, um, has, has so many healing qualities because it grows in such harsh conditions.
Sarah : (23:27)
Absolutely.
Bunny : (23:28)
. That’s so cool. I also wanna know about, hang on, what was this next product? Oh, the desert Face Elixir. What? What’s that?
Sarah : (23:39)
So that was my first product I ever created. Like I said, I was in the beauty industry before, um, all of this, and it was luxury beauty. So I wanted to create a luxurious facial oil or luxurious oil that worked, that was top of the line, like nothing I’d ever tried. And the story behind that was, that was supposed to actually be a body oil. It was supposed to be the most luxurious body oil you’ve ever used in your life. And I created a really luxurious body oil out of the pinon tree. Smelled amazing, was super grounding when you put it on. Felt so good. And I sent samples of it home to my family to try. And at the time, my sister, she had, um, really bad acne but was dry, and she was putting it all over her face and it cleared up her acne. So I reformulated it into a face oil. That’s how Desert Face Elixir was born. And Desert Face Elixir is wonderful because it has the pinion in it, which is a skincare powerhouse, really good for, um, those drawing qualities. So if you have bacteria in the face, it’ll pull it out. But also healing, it’s like I mentioned, it’s healed skin ailments here in New Mexico for centuries, and then it has prickly percet oil, which has the highest amount of vitamin E that you can get in an oil. So it’s just an overall healing oil without being too heavy.
Bunny : (25:02)
So It’s like, I can throw out my vitamin C serum and just have this
Sarah : (25:05)
Bye , say goodbye. Yeah. No, it’s super nourishing, especially for desert skin. It really is excellent for skin in the desert.
Bunny : (25:14)
So tell me, what’s next for you? I mean, is there, is there something that you’re, that you’re working on now that we, that we’re not gonna know about for a while, but you’re, I’m, I’m always curious to know what you’re dreaming of Yes. For the New Mexico line of products?
Sarah : (25:31)
Yes. So I have a hair oil coming out, and that is gonna be made with, um, or global that’s been used for hair here. My grandpa told me stories of his grandma using it on her hair, and she, it’s one of the things that they say about it is if you use it on your hair, you’ll never get white hair, but it also helps with growth. Wow. . Yeah. So I’m creating a hair oil. And then also in the future, down the pipeline, maybe the next two years, I want to open up a physical space, um, a cafe apothecary really that honors old food, you know, food of yesterday and tomorrow, really healthy food. And, um, create a modern apothecary where people can get these herbs and have access to herbs and have access to this way of life in a modern way.
Bunny : (26:25)
I love that. I, you said something earlier that stuck with me. Um, you, you said, my grandparents have eaten beans and green chili and homemade tortillas at least three times a week. You know, my husband has a guy who, who, um, is from Chimayo, who has worked for him for years. He’s like 73, he’s still working for him. Mm-hmm. and one of the most physically fit people I’ve ever seen. And he eats be, it’s, he’s, he lives alone. So he eats beans and tortillas and green chili every single day. And, you know, out in the world people would say, oh my gosh, you’re gonna be as big as a house. I’m like, no, this is clean eating. This is clean living. It’s, um, I could do that. I could ha, I could . I would be happy to eat like that every day. Right.
Sarah : (27:22)
No, really, I mean, if we think about it, it’s simple, simple ingredients, no additives, no preservatives. It’s straightforward. It’s, it’s different. You know, it’s the healthy way to be in today’s world.
Bunny : (27:34)
It’s, um, like Michael Pollen always said, um, in his food rules, if, if you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it. Uhhuh . And it feel, it sounds like you’re also saying, I mean, every skincare product that I pick up has something in the, um, ingredient list that I can’t pronounce.
Sarah : (27:55)
Right? Right. And when you’re working with this type of skincare, it’s straightforward and, you know, we’re extracting it in a natural way. Everything is solar infused, so you’re extracting the, the purest form of the ingredient without watering it down. You’re getting the purest benefit you can get from whatever that plant has to offer versus having it buying something from the grocery store and having it watered down with 70 other ingredients.
Bunny : (28:23)
Wow. So Sarah, I want people to know where they can find you online and then where they can find you at the farmer’s market whenever you head that way.
Sarah : (28:33)
Um, yes. So you can shop Manana Botanicals online. You can also find me at the Downtown Grower’s Market at Robertson Park in Albuquerque. Um, and then also on Sundays in the Santa Fe rail yards. Um, and then I’m also in a few local stores here in Albuquerque as well. Um, one of them is Luna and Luz, and another really cool store I’m in is one called Novo.
Bunny : (29:00)
Cool. Well, we’re gonna post links and, um, I can’t wait. I’m ordering today. I gotta get some, uh, the face oil. I’m dying to try. That.
Sarah : (29:11)
Sounds great. Well, thank you so much.