I truly feel the only place to put this is on my website. I will not take this down nor edit this after posting. My experience with Milk & Honey Herbs left me deeply disappointed, frustrated and angry. I enrolled in a class with high hopes of learning and growing and then becoming officially certified in medicine making, but instead, I encountered a situation that shook my trust in this organization/small business. During the first session of the course, I diligently worked on making the medicine. Afterwards, I updated my own website to reflect my experiences in the session, writing information on each plant and using my photos I took during the session. Consider this post as a summary of what happened between me and the owner of M&H.
However, a few days later after posting the blog posts to my own public Facebook page, she messaged me on instagram and the teacher said to source her materials she sent when I never used them in my posts. It came to light that the teacher was attempting to pass off my blog posts as her own material, saying I had copied or ‘summarized’ her writing, when I hadn’t and promptly excused me from class, I was shocked and outraged. As I explained numerous times I used chatgpt entirely to write my blog posts and didn’t even look at or reference the materials she had sent us. No one owns medicinal info on each plant as it has been passed down from our ancestors. There’s been several legal battles surrounding this; one locally, the Shire City Herbals dispute with two other herbalism business in this area in 2019. Not to mention she didn’t even include a sources section in her own materials!!! She is completely unhinged, a bully and a harasser.
To have my work, my intellectual property, essentially misrepresented by someone in a position of authority felt like a betrayal. It not only undermined my efforts but also eroded the integrity of the educational environment. This experience has left me questioning the professionalism and ethics of both the teacher and Milk & Honey Herbs as a small business. It’s disheartening to see such behavior tolerated and even perpetuated within the educational setting. In hindsight, I would caution others against enrolling in classes at Milk & Honey Herbs until they address and rectify these concerning issues. Students deserve an environment where their hard work and creativity are respected and valued, not exploited for someone else’s gain. I will not let her bully and harass me further on this issue. She claims this is her livelihood but makes rash decisions and isn’t understanding of the other persons’ perspective. That’s not a teacher!! Period.
Anyone associated from M&H do not bother contacting me on this matter.