By Gussie Fauntleroy
Almost none of the creative interests that Jessica Forman is weaving together and offering to the world were evident early in her life: a passion for herbalism and other paths to wellness, intuitive communication with ancient ancestors, storytelling, poetry and other forms of writing, and teaching young children to be good humans — all these threads emerged over time. They arose in particular through travel and absorbing the ways of other cultures, through addressing her own health, and through motherhood.
Now 39 and reflecting on the place where she grew up — the semi-affluent suburban environment of Irvine, California — Jessica is grateful that it was “safe and comfortable,” with good schools and the ocean not far away. For a short time as a pre-teen, her spirit of adventure and hunger to explore felt angered and hemmed in by the familiar sameness of that world, and she dipped into troubled behavior.
As she entered high school, however, she somehow set aside the darkness and angst and moved through her teen years filled with the warmth of good friends and fun. “I truly think grace redirected me,” she said, sipping a cup of her own blend of marshmallow, rosemary, and rose tea at the kitchen table in her home outside Crestone in the Grants.
Still, the urge to explore had not disappeared. The summer after high school graduation, when a friend invited her on a Contiki tour of Europe — an organized bus tour for young people — Jessica’s view of the world suddenly blew open.
For the next few years she traveled off and on, usually solo, in Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Costa Rica, Thailand, and elsewhere. Every culture she experienced made it more clear that she no longer fit in with the friends and world she had known. “I was depressed at home and happy traveling,” she said.
Finally, a friend she met traveling suggested she pick a place and start a new chapter. Remembering the close connection she felt with her “wacky Aunt Lisa,” she moved to Florida at age 22 to live with her.
Lisa was knowledgeable about herbalism and other alternative healing modalities, and while she didn’t actively train her niece in these things, Jessica considers her “one of the special mentors in my life.
There was a transmission. I would just see how she was,” she said.
Actively gathering knowledge
At around this time, having been cleaning up her diet since late high school, Jessica learned of a center in Thailand for weeklong guided fasts and traveled there several times. Along with improving her gut health, she said, fasting was a “powerful spiritual experience. I was cleaning out an earlier chapter of life and getting ready for the next one, like a threshold.” That next and ongoing phase included a more active gathering of natural healing knowledge. She attended the Florida School of Holistic Living for herbal studies, the Coaches Training Institute for life coaching, and currently is enrolled in clinical herbal training through The Eclectic School of Herbal Medicine.
Just as importantly, spending time on her own in other countries provided a different form of essential education. “I was learning street smarts, learning to listen to and trust life and intuition, always just on the edge of magic,” she said. She also began another path of learning during the two years she lived in Florida. With ceremonial and medicine people from South, Central, and North America, she was involved for a time in sacred plant medicine, including a two-year training in ceremony-based energy healing through a Peruvian lineage.
It was this work that first brought her to Crestone, for vision quests. In 2016 she and her partner, Zac Bach, spent the summer here and decided to make it their home. They were drawn by the mountains and the community.
“It’s what I’ve always wanted, being with the land and mountains and forests. I feel like I’m in apprenticeship with the land,” she said. Their son Ash was born in 2019. While the couple separated a year later, they continue to have a brother/sister closeness and co-parent Ash.
Deeper listening and sharing
Jessica sees motherhood as the biggest threshold experience of her life to this point. One door that opened unexpectedly with Ash’s birth was a powerful connection with her own ancestors. She respectfully gave back to the earth the sacred items she had gathered from her connections with Peruvian and other lineages and began listening to her own, which she traces generally to the ancient Middle East.
From these ancestors she receives intuitive guidance for herself and her son. “It’s supportive and orienting, even in ways the mind can’t understand,” she said. In turn, she offers many forms of guidance to young children, not only Ash, but also through assisting in the local Forest School, established and run by Baca resident Kaylea Worm. The school, which Ash attends, provides experiential learning through play and other hands-on activities and daily immersion in nature.
Just as Jessica listens for guidance from the place where she feels her deepest being merge with her ancestors, she also opens herself by listening for words in the form of poetry. Such “wild harvested” poetry, as she calls it, “comes like the breath of the other worlds. It’s the edge of connectivity and creativity that come together,” she said.
Meanwhile, her love of language and her training in writing copy can be harnessed on a more practical level: in creating marketing material for others, “not in a cheesy way,” she said, “but to illuminate the essence of who you are and what you do, and clients who resonate with that will want to connect with you.”
Another of Jessica’s emerging passions is storytelling, recounting old fairy tales in particular from Norway, England, and Europe. “The old storytelling ways are ancient truths that are still relevant today,” she said. She hopes to share stories and offer classes in wellness and self-care at Laura Enzer’s forthcoming new downtown Crestone apothecary and community space, currently in the process of being remodeled. “Wellness really is the biggest foundation of what I’ve studied and lived,” she said. “How we weave these things into our lives through practicing taking care of ourselves and our families — it really is an art.”