The Prolific Hub Podcast
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The Prolific Hub Podcast
Ancestral Wisdom, Ritual & Transformation with Amber Holmes, Founder of I.Soul Naturals | Ep. 68
Amber Holmes, the visionary founder of I.Soul Naturals, takes us on the transformative journey of her work as an herbalist, entrepreneur, and energy healer. Discover how Amber's connection to the earth and the ancestral wisdom passed down from her grandmother and mother have shaped her holistic approach to healing and business. This episode highlights the role of introspection and the creation of personalized rituals in guiding others on their journeys of transformation, encouraging listeners to embrace stillness and authenticity.
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More from Amber:
- Visit & shop on isoulnaturals.com!
- Follow Amber & I.Soul Naturals on IG: @isoulnaturals
Related Episodes:
- Dream, Rest & Play ft. Colored Girls Liberation Lab Founder, Jenn Roberts | Ep. 26
- Wellness for Black Women ft. Aseanté Renee | Ep. 37
- A Free Woman's Journey to Love & Liberation: In Conversation with EbonyJanice Moore | Ep. 51
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Hey friend, welcome back to the show. I'm so excited today because we are joined by Amber Holmes. Amber is the creator, the founder, the owner, the alchemist, the healer, the practitioner behind I. Soul Naturals. Amber shows up with such incredible vulnerability. This conversation is rich in so many ways, so, without further ado, let's jump right in. Hi everyone, welcome back to the Prolific Hub podcast. I'm so happy that you're here and I'm so excited today because we have Amber Holmes on the show. Hi, amber.
Amber Holmes:Hello, hello. Thank you so much for having me.
Aliya Cheyanne:I'm so happy to have you and I'm so excited that you're here and we're going to talk a little bit more about your journey and Isolde Naturals and all of the incredible work that you're doing through your company. So with that, I would love to kick it over to you to share a little bit more about who you are in the world today.
Amber Holmes:Okay, All right. So, as Aaliyah said, I'm Amber, I am the what do I call myself? It has changed over the years because I, soul Naturals has been a brand since, I'll say, I had my first official sale in 2016. Yeah, yeah, but it is morphed. I have, you know what, I'm not even going to say morphed. I've grown into a specific entrepreneur and in that I've grown to who I am today. And who I am today is an herbalist, a ritual guide, an empath, a Reiki master, teacher all the things that are connected to energy and spirituality, and just feel good stuff. You know, the space that I take up in this world today is really about healing, just healing self through self-nurturing, right, tapping into our energy, tapping into the bounty that earth provides us, you know, and just using those things to create ritual around feeling good and being good to ourselves, because the reality is, when we are good to ourselves, we're able to be good to others and give to others and pour from that overflow.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yes, I love that. That's so beautiful. I really love how you speak about connection to earth, connection to ourselves. I think that's so important and it's my kind of conversation, because I love this stuff, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would love to talk a little bit more about your journey. As mentioned, I. Soul Naturals has evolved from how it started in 2016. Something that you also refer to yourself as in the past or maybe still currently, is an alchemist, and I think that's beautiful too. I would love to talk a little bit more about your journey with I. Soul Naturals and herbalism and how that's sort of evolved and grown. Well, first, let me pause a little, so I want to say that I was introduced to you through your friend, jen Roberts yes, also been a guest on the show. Most recently, my interaction with you was at a skip day retreat from the Color Girls Liberation Lab at Bali and Springs, and you led us through the most beautiful workshop that I've experienced in a while.
Aliya Cheyanne:Thank you, I really enjoyed it. We had an opportunity to do like a guided meditation and visualization practice, like imagining just light and energy traveling through us. I really set stage for the workshop and helped to really ground us in what we were about to do, and then we had an opportunity to make our own essential oils and name them and describe to each other what we were calling in, why chose those names, why we chose the herbs and the scents and and the stones and everything that we wanted to use, and it was such a lovely workshop. So that was like a reintroduction to you, because I had met you before, like, yeah, previous retreat that Jen and Ashante Renee had done together, yes, the CEO entrepreneurship workshop for Black women, and that was also really incredible. So I always like to say how I've met people, yeah, yeah. So I wanted to share that now In being experiencing that workshop and how you sort of pivoted the work that you do over the last several years.
Aliya Cheyanne:I would love to walk through that journey a little bit more with you how you kind of set out and started in 2016 and what led you to evolve to the place you're at now. Okay, all right.
Amber Holmes:Hold on, it's a windy road. So I've always been I've been what I would call a serial entrepreneur, right, and so I've dibbled and dabbled in all things creative, because that is just deeply innate in me, creativity, right. And I came about like so I'd say I'll just go back to when I had my daughter. So my daughter was born in 2011. I was a makeup artist at that time, so it took me outside of the home, right, being outside of the home it's hard to do when you have a baby, and you have a baby, you have a spouse that travels for work and things like that. So it became more and more difficult to continue with the makeup and it was just like, ok, well, I'm just going to kind of sit back from that.
Amber Holmes:And my son I don't know if I've ever shared this. I think I may have I have two only children, and I call them two only children because they're 20 years apart. So my son is 33. My daughter is 13.
Amber Holmes:Baby, he had eczema and with my grandmother I still had my grandmother at that time. That's where the herbalism piece comes in, because my grandmother had her relationship with the earth, she had her relationship with medicine and I learned from her, but it was in my mother. Like my mother is who spoon fed me this information, right? She? This knowledge, comes legacy from my mother and my grandmother. I sat at their feet right, but as I got older I stepped away. I stepped away from it. We move far away from what we're raised with. We move far away from what we learn. You couple that with just how I thought I wanted to be my own person. I wanted to be my own person. I didn't want to be vegetarian and that's what we were growing up. So I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to have, you know, grow all the herbs, have all the plants and all this stuff. But you see, now I'm back to. We return home, we get back to what we know. So fast forward to my daughter being born, she also had eczema Right.
Amber Holmes:So I was using the remedies that I knew at home, that I learned from my mother and my grandmother, and I was still trying to figure daycare. Her daycare providers were like what is this? Can we get some? We have other people who need these. You know who needs this? And I started gifting stuff to people and then one day it was just like huh, maybe this can be your business.
Amber Holmes:And I did eventually start making soap and body care, but I still wasn't into the herbalism, I still wasn't into the natural remedies. It was looking and like oh well, what sells is what smells good and what looks good. So I went about making what smelled good and what looked good, all the colors and all the fluffy clouds, everything that was aesthetically pleasing. That's what I studied and that's what I went about doing. And as the years went on, it was like why am I not feeling fulfilled? Why am I not able to really get behind this? And as time went on and I started turning more within and trying to understand me and understand where I am and what my purpose is, I had a reading. I had a reading in 20, because I made my first sale in 2016, and that was pretty pink. So from 2016, 2018, I still I was in business, but it was kind of ebb and flow, you know, like I would have these bursts of great sales, and then it was just like I'm not doing so.
Amber Holmes:Well, when I had this reading, the woman said you are a healer, but you're hiding behind your products and I'm like well, what does that mean? What exactly does that mean? I just went about the work of really sitting in and really hearing, trying to hear from my ancestors, trying to hear from spirit, trying to understand what exactly does that mean? And she said as a healer, your work can look like massage therapy. Really, the work is about you. You are the healer, not your products. You can use the products as a catalyst. However, it's not your products. And so I went about trying to figure out again, reading after reading, reading with different people. Like I'm looking for readings everywhere. Somebody help me, somebody help me figure out what this means. What am I supposed to be doing? But I had to get quiet.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yes.
Amber Holmes:I had to sit and get quiet so that I could hear and stop searching and really get into feeling right and understanding. And at that point, things started showing up in dreams. I'm starting to dream about chamomile and different herbs. And then I had a dream where my grandmother came to me and said you know what to do? And it's like what to do, what to do.
Amber Holmes:And then, as we sat deep into the pandemic, it was like okay, you know what's going on, like the way that people were calling and it's like oh, I have COVID and I don't want to take the shot. Or I took the shot and I want to do this and I want to do that, or I want to get in touch with myself. I'm just rattling off stuff. Oh, you need to take this. You need to take this eucalyptus oil and put it in the shower with you and rub your back with this and rub your chest and drink ginger. We need to be drinking ginger every day. And it was like huh. And it was like huh, this stuff is just pouring out of you. Yes, this stuff is pouring out of you. And it was like this is your work. Like you are to be back in touch. You're returning home to what you know. You're to be back in touch with the urds. You know, this is the stuff you know.
Amber Holmes:And then I don't know if you remember, like at the height of quarantine, clubhouse was popping, everybody was on clubhouse and I remember entering these different herbalism rooms because it was just like huh, okay, let's see. And I would have conversations around the herbs and then there was this one woman where she had said, yeah, this is your work. And I say yeah, but I need to figure out where to get my certification. And she was like what she said what are you talking about? You received your certification sitting at the feet of your mother and your grandmother. Talk about it.
Aliya Cheyanne:Talk about it, talk about it.
Amber Holmes:Yeah, she was like people will have you believe that you have to be certified. People will have you believe that you have to know everything about every herb that grows, and that's just not the case. What comes is you understand what people need, you understand your people. You understand your people, you understand your community. So when somebody comes and says I need help with my blood sugar, you know, then it's like, yeah, you know what to tell them to do, because that's your people, that's your community and that's what you need to know. You don't need a certification. You don't need somebody to send you a bunch of slides to study and then you pass some little test, you know.
Amber Holmes:And the other thing that a lot of people don't realize is that there's no regulatory agency for herbalism here in this country. There's nothing to regulate. So who's to tell me I could not know one damn thing about herbs and still walk outside and say I'm an herbalist, you know, but I sat at the feet of my mother and my grandmother, so that's where my certification comes from. And that is what brought me to today is really understanding that that is my work. You know the intention oil workshop that you participated in. I could do that all day, without compensation, because it's from here.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yes.
Amber Holmes:You know. So yeah, I think that's the long answer to how I got here.
Aliya Cheyanne:That's a beautiful answer. First of all, thank you so much for just sharing your story and your testimony. So many things hit home for me while we're talking. I love the phrases returning home, returning to home, returning home that is such a powerful phrase. Home, returning home, like that is such a powerful phrase. And I love the way you also said, like I sat at my grandmother and my mother's feet. That's my certification. But even when you say that, that I feel something too when I hear it reminds me of I had had ebony janice more on the show too, and she talked about authority in her work. And she talked about that too, like who are some of these people in these institutions to tell me what I know?
Aliya Cheyanne:You can't tell me what I don't know from my grandmother, my mother, my great-grandmother. You can't. You know, and I feel like what you just said reaffirms that in so many ways, and it's the lived experience of so many incredible Black women in particular. Exactly Wisdom, ancestrally, or because it was passed down from our grandmothers and our mothers, and we live in a world that would try to discredit us and tell us otherwise because we don't have a document or paperwork Exactly To say that we know what we know Exactly.
Amber Holmes:And all they did was when I say they, you know, westernized. All they did was appropriate the information package. It put it in some PDFs and sell it to you and say, okay, you can pass because you answered the right. You selected the right dial next to the answer you know.
Aliya Cheyanne:So, yeah, yeah yeah, I am getting the sense or the feeling that through the evolution of your own journey and I. Soul Naturals you've really stepped more into yourself and become more of yourself and, like you said, return home and I feel like that's such a profound journey for you. But also I would love to know how you see transformation and alchemy happening for the people who work with you, the people you support. How I felt after that workshop, but I'm one person, so I would love to know more about what you see as you're working with folks day to day.
Amber Holmes:So what I see is really people the same returning home, returning home to self, because I am a firm believer in some moments of vulnerability was saying that I came out of a very, very dark period, yeah, um mid from summer 2023, um, until I was say, uh, when we had the workshop a little before, when we had the workshop, um, I had to. I had no choice but then to really just turn and completely focus on myself, because if I didn't, I was going to lose it, because I had spent the majority of my adulthood self-sacrificing and pouring into others. And I don't blame anyone. It's how I was socialized. It's how we talk about, how we grow up and some of the traumas that that happen and how that, how that creates the adults that we are. And with that, I had to get to a place where it was like it's Amber for Amber. And when Amber is for Amber, that means Amber being her most authentic self so that she can operate in her purpose.
Amber Holmes:Because in the person that I was, I wasn't operating in my purpose. As I shared that about not having the fulfillment, that was because I wasn't operating in my purpose. And you know when you are here, when you're here and you're moving about on earth, in this body. If you're not fulfilling your purpose, you are going to constantly and consistently get dragged, yes, and so there's a point where you get tired of the dragging right. And so it's like, okay, god, universe, spirit, everybody, please just work with me and let me know I'm open and use me so that I can fulfill my purpose Right.
Amber Holmes:And for that ritual is, save my life, and I think that's what I said during that workshop. Ritual saved my life. I created, I created my first intention oil based on having to be out in the world and have something to bring me back to myself, bring me back centered, to ground me. Right, the aura, water, all of these things became ritual. The baths like I live in a bathtub, I still do, just because water grounds me, and then I amplify the water by the herbs and all of those things, right, herbs and crystals and everything, herbs and crystals and everything. So with that, um it's, it really is just using ritual, like I had to heavily lean into ritual to save me, and so working with others is about helping them save themselves. Yeah, through ritual, through herbalism and ritual. And so, um wonder, did I answer your question or did I answer it?
Aliya Cheyanne:you literally just did. Okay, yeah, thank you for your vulnerability and your transparency. I I love to hear how you were able to put rituals and herbalism and systems in place for yourself to bring you home to yourself, and how, in doing that work, you are then able to help others do the same thing. Yeah, and it brings me back to something you were saying earlier, even before that, about how you were searching, searching, searching. I feel like there are a lot of us who can relate to that. I definitely can.
Aliya Cheyanne:I love a reader, I love an astrologer, I love a modality, I love all the things, and I can read everything and listen to every interpretation whatever, and still not feel 100% clear or satisfied, because that also requires sitting still and going inward, just like you said, and really being in tune with yourself and in tune with whatever you believe in God spirit, whatever you know like really just being still and listening and turning inward. So I think that's really powerful and profound too, and that's a great example for anyone else who might be searching, trying to figure it out Be still, go and create ritual for yourself that helps you to feel good, because then your light will help to pour into other people. Your light will help to spark something in others. Your example will help to show others the way. So I think that's really beautiful.
Aliya Cheyanne:Thank you. I would love to know just again. So you've evolved a lot with the business and I would love to know have there been any like hiccups with that evolution? Maybe some people who were used to you presenting a certain way with products and that pivoted over the years, maybe they they're kind of looking for the old thing or what has that transition kind of looked like for you?
Amber Holmes:Actually, the transition has not been as hard as I thought it was going to be. I thought that I was going to. I thought I was going to have to, like, scrap and start from ground zero, right. But the interesting thing is, while the products look different, I have always been who I am, and when they say that your customer comes for you, that is so true and I've come to realize that it doesn't matter and I'm not going to say that it doesn't matter at all what the product is, right. But I'll give an example.
Amber Holmes:One of my top selling soaps is a soap I call Nola Darling. Right, and with Nola she's pink and she's pink. And I was using a mica, a pink color, right. But now that I'm leaning more into plants and herbs, I highlight the oils that go into the product, but I'm also not using micas anymore, or I'm not using them as much. So I'm using rose clay mixed with something else to create that pink Right. And people are like I still love it, it's still NOLA, it's still NOLA. And now, with the pivot, it's more about highlighting the natural products, the plant aspects of the item and the energetics. So some of the items haven't actually changed, you know, and with that I'm grateful because I've always been at the core. The business has been, the business is still what it's been. Yeah, you know. So I didn't have to go through major hoops to change.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah, you know. Yeah, I love that. It's kind of random, but I don't know if you do. But I kind of wanted to ask like, with different products, like how you mentioned the Nolito is pink, like a shade of pink, for that pink color, do you apply any sort of like? I don't think color therapy is the right word, but, like you know, like there are some intentions behind certain colors, do you apply that with some of your products?
Amber Holmes:yes, there's certain. There's certain uh, there's certain intentions there's. There's intention behind every product. Right, there's certain intentions behind. There's intention behind every product. Right, there's certain intentions behind every product.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah.
Amber Holmes:Earlene's Lavender Dream. That's my Earlene is my mother, earlene is my muse that has purple Mm-hmm, and that is really about the royalty. That really is about her and just her being my muse. You know, people may think that it's about the fact that it's a lavender soap, but no, it's an ode to her. You know, with our deuces, our detox soap right, it's a charcoal soap, it's all black because we're really detoxing and protecting you know. So that black is about the protection you know.
Amber Holmes:So every product has an intention, and so I think you were. You were asking about the color and the intention, and I think what people call what, what, what society calls that is color theory. If there's any color theory, right, is there color theory? If there's any color theory, right, is there um color theory? I didn't seek out to um, I didn't seek out to use color. There um color theory or color therapy, but it just so happened to be in alignment because, again, it we are who we are, at our core, and so these things come into play as I'm creating and designing.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. It makes me think about, too, how like so much of these practices are just. They're really just innate in us and ancestral. But we do live in a world that likes to slap a label on everything and like repackage, right, ancestral wisdom is something. So sometimes I'm just like, okay, the world that likes to slap a label on everything and like repackage, right, special wisdom or something. So sometimes I'm just like, okay, but many of us just just know this stuff innately, like, even if that wasn't the intention, you know it. That's why you were led to do it that way.
Aliya Cheyanne:I only brought that up and asked because I recently did like a New Year's manifestation workshop thing online Nice and I thought it was really lovely. I enjoyed it. But one of the things that you have to do with it is like a little workbook to write your vision for yourself, write your intention for yourself, all the things. And I think that person was also using color theory, because they had us writing on pink paper with red pen and the pink was supposed to symbolize the intention or the vision being wrapped in love, and red ink was supposed to help us feel more grounded, like to start from the base of our from the root and, like you know, so that when our dreams and stuff are coming in, we feel grounded in them.
Aliya Cheyanne:It doesn't like smack us in the face and we feel overwhelmed, we feel like rooted in exactly and I was like I never heard that before. And let me make sure I'm right. Everything on pink paper, red pen.
Amber Holmes:Now yeah, yeah, and and so I'm just thinking of, like, how some people and this is random, but not when you talk about the red red how common it is for some women to go and grab red underwear, it's grounding, it's grounding Society will tell you that it's sexy.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah, but it's grounding. Yeah.
Amber Holmes:You know what I mean. That's, our root chakra is all, and our root chakra is at our hips yeah you know, yeah so, yeah, that's that's really random, but that's what I thought about when you said that, and I'm like we're feeding off of each other, but I even went down that road because of the pink soap and I was thinking you were able to take it a step further and explain that.
Aliya Cheyanne:Thank you for that. I think we're living in a time that's very interesting too, not to get deep into political stuff, but our country is moving further and further a certain way, their certain way, and more and more people who, unfortunately, are losing open-mindedness about a lot of things, um, and demonize it in a lot of ways, honestly. So I think, fortunately, you and I are in spaces where that's not our reality, exactly ourself, with people who are aligned. But even in that, I would love to hear your thoughts or your perspective on any sort of maybe in trying to expand or in trying to like get more people on board to support your work or garner new customers, have you faced any sort of like backlash or any aspects of like herbal healing that have kind of like made you pause a second to like reevaluate partnership or reevaluate like customer or anything like that?
Amber Holmes:Honestly, no. My intention, my prayer, my meditation is always about aligning me with my people, attracting my people and showing up in public spaces or social media. I would kind of temper what I'm saying, but I'm just now. It's just like this is me, this is my work. Yeah, I'm going to attract who needs my work.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah.
Amber Holmes:I'm going to attract, and in order for me to attract who needs my work, my people, I actually need to be okay with being front and center with what it is, and I wasn't. I can honestly say that I was not always that way, I wasn't always comfortable with that, but you know, like I said, I'd morphed it to, I've arrived at who I am, I've experienced a bit of a rebirth, so to speak. You know, and now it's, this is my purpose, this is what you get, and where are my people? And they're coming, you know, and people do fall off, yeah, and some people just don't understand, and that's okay because I believe that.
Amber Holmes:I believe that everybody gets to a point in life where they will understand yes whether they understand at a time where our paths will cross, that's left to be in question yeah yeah, I that is. That is my meditation and my prayer each day. Just have my people be open to me and be open to my people about how you had gotten that reading.
Aliya Cheyanne:Previously, the person had told you you were hiding behind your products. Yeah, and now you've stepped into a space where you're no longer hiding because you have returned home. So I think that's like a beautiful way to approach the way you show up online and the way you're marketing yourself and your services and your products and all of that. I think that's really beautiful. Something else that I kind of thought about that you said earlier too was that when you're kind of conjuring up this idea and this business and returning to yourself, you were dreaming about certain things. Your grandmother visited you. You were dreaming about different herbs. How much does dreaming still impact your work now? Like, are you still sort of connected in that way?
Aliya Cheyanne:and are you like inspired by your dreams, and yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Amber Holmes:I keep because I'm of a bigger age, I don't always remember all of what's happening. So I, I have little notebooks everywhere, so I have a notebook beside my bed because I got to, I got to get it out if I wake up, because I, honestly, I don't always have dream recall, right. So when I do and it's specifically something that you know we would consider a download I got to write it down, got to write it down. So, yeah, being in touch with not just sleep dreaming but daydreaming, you know, day visioning, write it down. So yeah, I am very connected and still very much. Sometimes I even ask, especially my mother and my grandmother it's and they both are deceased, right, I'm like come to me, please, let's talk, give me some information, let me know if I'm on the right path here. Yeah, you know. So, yeah, very, still connected.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah, that's beautiful. I love when I connect with and meet people who are also, like, very in touch with their dreams, because I am too I with their dreams, because I am too. I'm like I need to get better. I need to do what you're doing and keep the notebook by my bed. I used to, and then I stopped doing it. A lot of times I do have dream recall like I can, but then there are some days where it's just like on the tip of my tongue.
Amber Holmes:I need to get like you and make sure I have the notebook by my bed, yeah, and then, when you want to be intentional about your dreaming like you want to bring in lucid dreaming and be able to have the recall, have some mugwort before you go to bed.
Aliya Cheyanne:All right, there's plenty of that in my neighborhood. I like the foraging group. Yes, that's beautiful. Yeah, a couple of years ago, and like once I actually learned how to identify mugwort, I was like this is everywhere in my neighborhood, it's everywhere in my neighborhood.
Amber Holmes:Yeah, take it up. Take it up, thank the earth for it. Yeah, absolutely, try it. Dry it in your oven and ground it up for some tea.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah.
Amber Holmes:Yeah, definitely, and the fact that it grows rampantly in your neighborhood means that it's there for you. Yeah, that's what. That's the belief. That is my understanding. That is the belief. That is what I learned and gathered from my mom, my grandmother. Most herbalists will say you know, if it's growing, if it's growing freely and rapidly in your area, then it's for you, it's for you and whoever your community is. There's a lot of dandelion that grows in my neighborhood, and so a lot of dandelion and a lot of a lot of goldenrod during the spring, and so these are things that this community need yeah, I think that's so beautiful.
Aliya Cheyanne:It's making me think about my grandmother, who is still very much here beautiful, but she loves gardening and very much into her gardening and not just flowers but also herbs and nice, you know, food like. She's very much into growing and some years back I think even pre-pandemic she had gotten a bunch of like free dandelion seeds. So she, she and a friend went around like the neighborhood just like putting it everywhere.
Amber Holmes:So now every year when they pop up, I'm just like, okay, grandma, look and you know, you know people with dandelion growing in yards, people think that it's so, that it's weed, and they're like cut all this weed. And I'm like, wait, let me grab that before, before you cut your grass.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah, it's good for. It's good for a lot of them with heart health and all kinds of all yeah, heart health, kidney health yeah, yep, I had seen something once. I don't remember what medication it is, but there's a specific heart medication. They actually use dandelion in it. But of course they make people pharmaceutical industry, they make people go buy the medication instead of being like hey, you can forage this and exactly Do it on your own Lower.
Amber Holmes:Yeah, that's my biggest gripe with the pharmaceutical industry, because it's all really based on on, on, you know, plant medicine.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yes, yes, that's right. Your work and the work of everyone who's doing plant medicine and herbalism is so important, and I'm just really grateful to be chatting with you today. But I would also love to know. I feel like you probably draw inspiration from so many different places, and I would love to know what sort of inspires your creativity still like in this current season of your life. Where are you drawing your inspiration from?
Amber Holmes:Honestly, my inspiration is drawn from Mother Nature, yes. And then the people, just people, people around me. I'm inspired by so much. I'm inspired by people like you, jen, yeah. Yeah, you know, I mean because, like I said, shared earlier, I was not always in a space where I felt free to be me and do my work. So to witness people, specifically women, doing you know what they're called to do, what they feel led to do, it's beautiful and it's inspiring. I've been inspired by my work. My work inspires me.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yes.
Amber Holmes:I find appreciation and inspiration in almost everything.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah.
Amber Holmes:I will cry at the drop of a hat, because something just moves me, you know yeah.
Aliya Cheyanne:It's really beautiful, thank you, thank you for sharing that. I would love to ask you, especially as someone who is in the wellness space and you have all of these rituals and systems in place for yourself to take care of you. You have customers. You do like workshops, like you've done with Color Girls Liberation Lab. What does I feel like I could get an understanding of what self-care looks like for you? But what does community care look like for you in your personal life, whether that be through your work or if that's just you directly? Like could look like friendships, it could look like anything. What does community care look like for you?
Amber Holmes:Community care looks like exactly what you said. You know friendships, being able to connect with women like you, jen, being able to go and have a skip day at Ballion and facilitate a workshop but then play, and be able to just sit and be with women, be with my peers. Community care looks like somebody calling and saying, hey, I'm not feeling well you know, and we just have a conversation and then it's like, ok, what's your address?
Amber Holmes:And I send a care package and the same happening for me. You know, community care. So we grow up having friends right, and friends and and sometimes our family, are our closest friends. At this point in my life I realized just how important community is Because, like I said, going through that period and I'm still in it but I'm on the light side right, I'm on the side where I got through the darkest days I've experienced the dark night of the soul right, and community got me through those days.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yes.
Amber Holmes:The women who supported me, the women who just held me up, the women who said girl, we got you. And they not only said it, but they showed me, they held me. And then, as I started to come out and experience my transformation and experience my rebirth, and I'm questioning whether I could do this work, whether people wanted this work and could feel this work, because I'm very much a feeler, I'm feeling a way about this work. But will others feel the same?
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah.
Amber Holmes:Community, my people that's, who were like girl, this is you. I've always been waiting to see her. So, in seeing myself through those eyes, I wouldn't have been able to without community.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yes.
Amber Holmes:Yeah, community care. Yeah, community care Community care. Yes, yeah, really community care. Yeah, community care Community care is necessary.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yeah.
Amber Holmes:We cannot, cannot traverse this earth by ourselves, yeah, and be successful in success, it's relative.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yes, yeah, we can't do it alone. I I love what you said about the women in your life who held you up when you't hold yourself up. That's so powerful and, yeah, it just makes me think about the time we're in A lot of people, especially on the other side of lockdown basically, I won't say COVID, because COVID still exists, but on the other side of lockdown, so many people, their relationships have transformed. Their sense of community has transformed Absolutely. We were experiencing loneliness before, like the percentages of people only feel more lonely now, like there's just a lot going on.
Aliya Cheyanne:And in every opportunity I get I try to remind people that you know community is important. And one thing I was intentional about the last couple of years and I still am now is like finding my community, growing my friendships, meeting new people, and I did intentional things to do that. And one place that that's led me is one of my new friends, iman. If she's listening, she has an effort that she's working on to have more community care sessions and that's look like women getting together and talking and connecting and playing. You know it matters so much it does. I love what you shared about that in your experience. Thank you, I would love to know, if you feel comfortable sharing, what are you dreaming up next, for I. Soul Natural.
Amber Holmes:I am very comfortable sharing because it's a work that is very near and dear and I was trying to figure out, like in my introduction, you know, I said, ok, I'm an herbalist, I'm a Reiki practitioner, I'm a ritual guide, so how do we marry all of these things right? And um, as I said, ritual saved my life. So did um, reiki. Yeah, you know, because in my darkest period, one of my good friends was like well, aren't you a reiki practitioner? You know you need to use those tools. You need to use those tools on yourself. Like, don't forget that you had this ability and I had forgotten because I was just so down in the mud that.
Amber Holmes:I forgot, you know, and turning to that was transformational.
Amber Holmes:Yeah it was transformational. Yeah, it was transformational, and so the work that I'm doing now, or one of the things that I will be rolling out now, there's two things specifically. Well, three things, the more the merrier. So, prior to the holiday season, there was lots of chatter amongst me and some friends about, like, I take baths. You know, I'm a spiritual bath person, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Amber Holmes:So my girlfriend was just like you know, you really need to bottle, sell these spiritual baths. You know, sell it as a ritual. And I'm just like, oh, I don't know what that's going to look like. You know, because I can send you a whole bunch of herbs and I can send you, you know, the guide on what to do. And she said, no, actually brew the bath, brew it with all of what you do the intention, the crystals, the woods, the resins, all of that. Do that, bottle it with instruction and basically make it a concentrated bath. You pour it in your bath because people don't want to have to clean their bath with a whole bunch of herbs and all that stuff. So that's one thing, because I gifted the spiritual bath to this girlfriend. She wanted one custom for the new year, yeah. So I gifted that to her and she's like, yeah, this is, this is a thing, you need to be doing this. She was like this is a thing, this has to be a thing, so that's coming.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yes.
Amber Holmes:The other thing is just the realization that people don't know seasonally what, what herbs they may need seasonally. So I'm creating a seasonal herbal medicine cabinet, which is I'm just going to send a box. You know, it can be a subscription or you can order for whatever season you want, but I'm going to send a box of some herbs that you need to have in your home for that season and it will be for you to use medicinally and with ritual. So that's coming as well. And the big one which is really close to my heart, it's a program where we sit and we have a conversation, right Reflect, we have a reflection. Upon what comes out of that reflection, I do a Reiki session to clear whatever blockages or amplify whatever energy is there and then we create remedy around what you need and ritual around what you need. So that's a four hour process.
Aliya Cheyanne:A reflection.
Amber Holmes:Reflection, reiki remedy and ritual. So we're just trying to figure how to package that right now. Yeah, but that's what's coming.
Aliya Cheyanne:All of those sound amazing. Sign me up for everything that sounds so good. Especially, I'm thinking about the spiritual baths, because when I started getting into into those, I was really trying to find someone that I trust to help me with that. And I got guidance from someone that I trusted and I did a series with them and I felt like that made a difference for me at the time and that was just, you know, still kind of curious and trying to trying to figure out who to go with.
Aliya Cheyanne:And admit, in the past I've gone with a few different people trying to figure out what to do and I and I personally don't like mixing all of that. So the idea of someone that I know, that I trust, like doing that, it sounds very nice to me and I'm I just excited. I love the idea of like some sort of subscription to like help people have the right herbs in their home. Like that's beautiful too. I love the program. However you package it, it already sounds nice to me, so I'm like okay, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Aliya Cheyanne:That is so exciting and so beautiful, so thank you for sharing that.
Amber Holmes:Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm excited.
Aliya Cheyanne:Yes, very exciting. In addition to those things that are coming down the line, I know there's plenty of things you already have. So where can folks find you to get products, to get services, to support you in your work.
Amber Holmes:So the website is isonaturalscom and I am isonaturals on all platforms. Yeah, isonaturals on IG, twitter, because I'm not going to call it X, I better call it that. Yeah, exactly, I'm not that active on the tickety-tock. I'm not active on TikTok. I love TikTok, you love TikTok. No, I had a couple experiences where I was going to upload something on TikTok and I look up and it's two hours later and I have been down the rabbit hole. It still didn't upload what I was going to upload and I was like no, I can't mess with TikTok, tiktok is going to steal my time. They call it TikTok for a reason. They call it TikTok for a reason. They call it TikTok for a reason, absolutely. Yeah, I know that struggle.
Aliya Cheyanne:Okay, that's great. I will make sure that I link all of those in this episode description so that folks can find you easily. Thank you, thank you, thank you. This has just been so wonderful, amber. I'm so glad to have had this time to chat with you and thank you, aaliyah more and being so vulnerable, this has been really beautiful.
Amber Holmes:I appreciate you and this opportunity. I love your work, I love the podcast, so I truly appreciate you inviting me to be a guest.
Aliya Cheyanne:Thank you. What an incredible conversation with Amber. Amber, thank you so much for showing up so vulnerably, so authentically, so in your power and in your purpose in our conversation. I really enjoyed chatting with you and I know everyone listening will enjoy our conversation too. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to share it with a friend.
Aliya Cheyanne:If you're listening on Apple Podcasts and you haven't rated or reviewed the show yet, what are you doing, friend? Please, please, please, leave us a five-star rating and a positive written review. It goes a long way. It's free to do and it's really meaningful and helpful for me and for the show. If you're listening on Spotify, you can leave us a comment there and also hit that fifth star. Leave us a five star rating on Spotify as well, or any other podcast platform that you're listening on. If you're watching this on YouTube, leave us a comment, follow the channel and share this video with a friend, right? Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. Thank you for lending me your time, your energy and your ears, and I will catch you on the next episode. Bye.
