Soul and Soil Shoppe is an interwoven practice of healing and art. Vanessa Oliveira Augustine, the founder and creatrix, holds a deep reverence for Mother Earth and an aspiration to bring forth wisdom of the past to modern life. This is where she created the slogan to represent her mission; Unearthing Our Origin, Inspired By Tradition. She began walking a more conscious path after she graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Post college, she found herself studying Western Herbalism and working directly with healing plants on an herbal medicine farm in West Greenwich, RI. The knowledge she gained through the years of studying plants and art are at the foundation of Soul and Soil Shoppe.
Moving forward, Vanessa experienced the conception of her first child and her family was born. She had a free birth in 2022 and spreads the tale of sovereign birth to as many women she finds open to the message. Since then she has been committed to embodying motherhood and being the centripetal force of her home. Soul and Soil Shoppe is designed to be a family, collective company where the involvement of other family members is crucial to upholding the integrity of the business, and so her work does not have to separate from the vital roles of mother and wife.
The inspiration for the start up of this business was Vanessa’s husband, actually. He chronically had facial redness and ordered beef tallow seeing if it would help. He asked Vanessa to infuse the tallow with jasmine tea as if she were making her other homemade salves. He used what Vanessa created which was extremely basic, green tea infused tallow, and the redness he struggled with for most of his life was healed. This is the unique story that inspired Vanessa’s path to expressing her wisdom and talent into being. There was healing in real time and it was a profound personal enlightenment which sprung Vanessa into action. She knew that if what she created could help her husband, it could help others, too.
Vanessa creates with intentness and the secret ingredient: Love; the most powerful force which is crucial to the virtue of the medicine she puts forth. At Soul and Soil Shoppe’s core is family, love, and the natural world. Blessings and beijinhos to all!
From the Earth,
for the body
The relationship of the sower to the soil to the flower to the grower is a constant nourishment feedback cycle. To work in the spring and reap in the summer, the herbs Soul and Soil Shoppe grow are what fortify the force behind it all. The connection to nature is with gratitude when working so closely to the plant medicines. Our herbs are grown in nutrient dense, wormy eco soils. Pesticides or toxic soil destroyer practices are forbidden. The process of seed to solvency is honored in each cycle of the farming season by planting closely to the moon’s circle. Soul and Soil Shoppe’s herbs are either homegrown, wildcrafted, or organically sourced. The tea blends are loose leaf because they are designed to making tea time ceremonial and sensational. The benefits of the tea will deepen when one can see the colors and smell the aromas and touch the roots and petals of what they are about to infuse. The herbs of Soul and Soil Shoppe are grounded in growing for the intention of making herbal remedies a ritualistic part of our lives for overall vitality and nourishment.
ABOUT OUR HERBS