Flower child's daughter savors life amid weeds

January 6, 2006

Dawn De Busk\Frontiersman reporter

PALMER - Born in 1975, Stella Silberlyn grew up in Berkeley, Calif., as the only child raised by a single mom who was one of the original flower children of the '60s.

Her mother worked for the University of California Botanical Gardens, and tried to infuse a love for horticulture in her daughter.

Weekly demonstrations and marches in Berkeley were the norm, as well as visits to practitioners of Eastern medicine in Chinatown.

Later, Silberlyn rebelled.

&#8220No, I didn't rebel by becoming a conservative. My mom controlled weeds all day, and they ended up becoming my favorite plants. I work with herbs,” she said.

She also drives a Subaru with a trio of eco-friendly bumper stickers and works at the trendy Vagabond Blues coffeehouse.

&#8220Someday, I will write a book titled ‘Ode to Needles, By The Gardeners' Daughter,'” she said.

Until then, the Palmer resident keeps herself occupied with her herbal business Red Moon Rising - she studied under Susun Weed of Woodstock, N.Y., who spearheads the Wise Woman Way movement, the tradition of herbal healing in which Silberlyn works. She hopes to become Weed's apprentice one day.

Silberlyn heads the Palmer Weston A Price Foundation, helping to connect people with locally produced whole foods.

In addition, she helped coordinate a share-a-cow program so interested residents could get &#8220non-pasteurized, non-homogenized, and other wise unadulterated” milk from a local dairy farmer. The recipients take turns taking the drive out to the farm, and Silberlyn's house is the central zone for drop-offs and pick-ups.

In the afternoon, she puts on an apron and makes espresso, among other drinks, at Vagabond Blues - a Mecca in Palmer for free-thinking individuals, artistic expression, renowned musical performances and a variety of healthy food.

While thoroughly engaged in what some might coin a hippie lifestyle, her &#8220permanent” home arrangements are no less or more concrete.

She has known she loved Palmer ever since her gaze fell upon the mountains and she dragged from Eugene, Ore., to the Last Frontier her immediate family - a now-former husband and two sons, sixth-grader Khepharan and third-grader Alaya.

&#8220I fell in love with the mountains. I love the way they amplify everything. Here, everything is on a large scale,” Silberlyn said.

But her lease on a tri-plex behind the Matanuska Valley Credit Union ends in July and she figures she'll move to a new dwelling - hopefully, a more secluded setting, she said. The living arrangement affords her close proximity to schools, stores, banks, her job and just about everything else in Palmer.

She said she moved to the tri-plex for her sons so they could enjoy living in town. Although she'd rather be in the backcountry, she reaped some rewards, too.

&#8220There was a lovely little raised-bed garden that had gone to hell. It was filled with all my favorite weeds. I was eating salads out of it every day. Then, a few weeks later, the landlords tore it out and made a parking lot,” Silberlyn said.

Through Red Moon Rising, she provides dried herbs and oil and does private consultations - which come in ebbs and flows, she says. She's also started teaching classes.

&#8220A lot of people come to me with this idea that I'm going to clean up their act. I approach my work from a place of empowering people to embrace their own wholeness,” Silberlyn said.

Contact Dawn De Busk at 352-2252 or dawn.debusk@frontiersman.com.