Last weekend I left Tasmania for the Sunshine Coast and came home full - not just professionally nourished, but deeply grateful. The NHAA Herbal Medicine Summit was themed Cultivating Connection, and it delivered in ways I hadn't anticipated. From Kira Sutherland's closing keynote about redwood trees and the mother tree's roots, to rosemary crowns at networking drinks, to the quiet joy of seeing all of my communities in one room - this weekend reminded me that connection isn't a nice extra around the edges of real work. It's the substrate. The root network beneath us all. A reflection on lineage, community, and what it means to be part of a profession that is genuinely, quietly rising together.

Every autumn, basket in hand, I find myself moving slowly along the hedgerows of Tasmania harvesting hawthorn berries - and every year I'm reminded that somewhere along the way, herbalists put this plant in a box. Hawthorn became "the cardiovascular herb," and in doing so, we sidelined the berry: the part most widely used traditionally, and the part modern research is now revealing as a powerful, gut-mediated medicine. From TCM's Shan Zha to the latest microbiome science, it's time to bring the berry back to the table.