Some of my earliest memories are concord grapes off my grandparents' back fence, sticky hands, sun on my neck. My grandmother in her rose garden, her face tilted toward the blooms with an expression I could somehow smell, that particular rose scent that still stops me on a sidewalk decades later. My great grandparents' fruit trees, tended with a kind of quiet devotion, canned and eaten straight from the ground they grew in. My family's roots trace back to Italy, which is where the name aterra comes from. The earth. It was never a metaphor for me. It's just where I come from.
I've lived in a lot of places across the United States, and I now split my time between Austin, Texas and Todos Santos, Baja California Sur. Wherever I land, the first thing I do is find the dirt. If I'm not in the garden, I'm in the botanical studio formulating, or in the kitchen cooking something up. Food is medicine, and I've spent decades chasing that idea around the world, ethnobotany, traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, western herbalism, folk remedies, anything witchy enough to be true. I research it, I study with the people who actually practice it, and then I bring it home and simplify it into something you can actually use. A body oil. A cup of tea. Something honest.
My background is plant biology, horticulture, landscape design, and sustainability, with a minor focus in environmental practice. I also hold a degree in education and a master's in the art of teaching, and I've spent years as a private teacher, math and science, mostly. Those two halves of me aren't separate. Research, explore, learn, process, play, share. That's the whole loop, and it's how I move through everything I make, whether that's a skincare formula, a tea blend, a room, or an experience.
That loop is also why aterra has three pillars instead of one: ground, move, and nourish. Do those three things daily and your quality of life changes completely.
We start aging the moment we're born, and I'm not interested in fighting that. We're energy. We keep moving, keep changing, all of us pulled from the same source. What I care about is making that process as good as it can be, for your brain, your body, your emotions, and most of all for your community, because being with other people is the real secret to a long, steady, good life.
Move is the pillar people ask me about least and understand least, so let me make the case for it. I'm a runner. Marathons, specifically, and that sport has taught me more about the body than almost anything else I've studied. Here's the part that doesn't get talked about enough: unlike your circulatory system, your lymphatic system has no heart, no central pump of its own. It moves waste, toxins, and immune cells through the body almost entirely because your muscles contract around it as you move. Sit still too long and that fluid stagnates. Walk, run, breathe deeply, lift something heavy, and you're literally pumping your own immune and detox system by hand. That's not a wellness trend, it's basic physiology, and it's a huge part of why I run. Every mile is drainage, circulation, and clarity, for the body and for the mind that lives in it.
I raised my kids on that same belief, borrowing the best of both worlds, western medicine when it's needed, and the older, slower traditions when they're not. Gardener and farmer at heart, always, no matter what else I'm building.
Everything I make comes out of study I've actually done. Reiki I and II, currently working toward my mastership. Over 500 hours in yoga and meditation training, with a focus on Tibetan Buddhist practice. Years spent learning directly from herbalists and ethnobotanists around the world. I keep learning because I'm genuinely curious, not because it looks good on a label. When you use something from aterra, I want you to feel that. I want it to nourish you the way making it nourishes me.
Simple, clean, grounded in the earth. That's the whole idea.
With so much love and gratitude,
Jenn