I chose to name my business after thyme because of my love and connection to the plant, and because of the meaning it holds for others.  As a culinary herb, it is popular and holds a solid place in culture, and many people have personal associations with this plant — perhaps with the way it smells and tastes, or the ways they like to use it in their cooking.  The name Thyme Herbal draws attention, for me, to the connection between food and medicine that I so dearly love, and is a reminder to us all that healing with herbs still remains — even if unintentionally — a part of the American kitchen.

Just as many of us may have learned to use thyme through tradition and practice, people have been learning how to use herbs by word of mouth for generations.  In fact, herbal medicine is the oldest form of medicine practiced on the planet.  There is a rich history embedded in our relationship to this practice and to the herbs themselves.  Our logo, what I call the Medicine Circle, represents this idea of process to me. It is meant to look like the rays of a sun dile, the sun, the hands of a clock, or even a compass. These images that represent time are meant to symbolizing that healing, health and being are all processes that take time and that are connected to the natural flow of the seasons – the rising of the sun and the moon, the processes of birth and death, growth and decay. The plants in the center of the Medicine Circle are in a co-creative relationship with one another – it is not just one plant, but many all growing together.

The 13 moons of the year, in their loose phases of waxing and waning, and the plant bodies giving way to new life, new plants… these serve as a reminder that living healthfully is about embracing the process of life in all its cycles.  The Medicine Circle acknowledges that this process is flexible and alive — as mysterious as it is predictable, and as magical as it is practical.