Reflora & Co.

09/19/2026

The doors are open.

What began as a collection of ideas has slowly grown into a place of its own.

Reflora & Co. now has a home.

Inside are the worlds of Medicina, Litterae, and Mercatura, along with a few other places I've been creating along the way—the Doctor's Desk, the Renaissance Scroll, and the Reflora Haven.

Some rooms are already taking shape. Others are still waiting for what will eventually belong there. And I think that's exactly as it should be.

Please come in, wander around, open a few doors, and see what you find.

Welcome to the World of Reflora.

Reflora & Co.

09/17/2026

CELEBRATION OF ST. HILDEGARD

FROM LITTERAE
Knowledge Given Voice

THE RENAISSANCE SCROLLS: ST. HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
A Renaissance Woman Before the Renaissance

Come into the courtyard. Today, we unroll the Scroll for Hildegard of Bingen.

Long before there was a Renaissance, there was Hildegard.

Abbess. Writer. Composer. Healer. Naturalist. Visionary.

We would eventually invent a phrase for someone whose curiosity refused to remain confined to a single discipline. We would call her a Renaissance woman.

Hildegard of Bingen lived three centuries too early for the name.

Born in Germany in 1098, Hildegard entered religious life as a child and would eventually become an abbess, found two communities of women, write works of theology, medicine and the natural world, compose sacred music, correspond with popes and political leaders, and travel to preach publicly—an extraordinary undertaking for a woman of the twelfth century.

Her work did not fit neatly into one room.
Neither, apparently, did her mind.

She observed the natural world. She wrote about plants and healing. She recorded extraordinary visions. She composed music. She wrote poetry and theology. She counseled powerful people and challenged them when she believed it necessary.

And something about Hildegard feels remarkably familiar here.

Perhaps because she seems to walk straight through the five principles of Reflora’s Visual Manifesto.

WINGS OF IMAGINATION

Hildegard experienced a vivid interior world of visions and images and spent decades attempting to understand and record what she perceived. She imagined relationships among humanity, nature, the body, the spirit and the larger created world.

MIRROR OF TRUTH

She observed.
Plants. Illness. The natural world. Human nature.

She gathered what she encountered, considered it, recorded it and placed it beside what she already understood. For Hildegard, curiosity was not something to be confined to a single subject. It was a way of encountering the world.

SWORD OF FORTITUDE

And then she spoke.

She wrote to popes, bishops, rulers and ordinary people. She traveled and preached publicly. She founded communities and defended the authority to carry out the work she believed she had been given.

For a woman living in the twelfth century, simply possessing such a voice would have been remarkable.

Using it was an act of fortitude.

Here at Reflora, we have another way of expressing that idea:
The Feather Pen is the Sword.

LYRICAL ARTS

Hildegard composed.

Music and poetry were not decorative additions to her intellectual life. They belonged within it. Words, music, image, nature, medicine and spiritual understanding existed alongside one another.

She apparently saw little reason to separate them.
And perhaps that is why she seems so at home here.

PASSAGE OF TIME

Hildegard died on September 17, 1179.

More than eight centuries have passed. Her music is still sung. Her writings are still read. Her observations are still studied and debated. Her name still travels through gardens, libraries, churches, apothecaries and classrooms.

And in 2012, she was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church, one of only a small number of women to hold that distinction.

There is a small figure of Hildegard on the wall beside my desk.

Beneath her is a description that begins:
“Hildegard of Bingen, Patron of Gardeners, Musicians, and Women Physicians.”

That combination alone might explain why she found a home at Reflora.

But I think there is something more.

Hildegard reminds us that medicine, nature, literature, music, art, spiritual life and the work of the hands were not always asked to live in separate rooms.

She lived among all of them.
Imagination. Truth. Fortitude. The Lyrical Arts. The Passage of Time.

A Renaissance woman before the Renaissance.

And a rather extraordinary woman with whom to unroll our first Scroll.

Some threads are not lost to time. They simply wait for another hand to pick them up.

The Scroll is rolled again.

But Hildegard’s thread will remain with us a little longer.

There is still the garden. The apothecary. The teacup. And the work of the hands.

We will follow it.

REFLORA & CO.
Medicina · Litterae · Mercatura
© 2026 Reflora & Co., LLC

09/13/2026

FROM LITTERAE
Knowledge Given Voice

THE RENAISSANCE SCROLLS

There are many ways to enter the World of Reflora.
Today, we make our way into the courtyard.

There are stories waiting here. Lives worth remembering. Old ideas worth reconsidering. Writers, artists, naturalists, healers, and wonderfully curious minds whose work has traveled across centuries to find us again.

This is where we will gather to read The Renaissance Scrolls.

And the first Scroll bears the name of a woman who seems almost destined to enter the World of Reflora.

St. Hildegard of Bingen.
Abbess. Writer. Composer. Healer. Naturalist. Visionary.

Her feast day is September 17.
On that day, we will unroll her Scroll.
And what a story it holds.
Come back to the courtyard.

REFLORA & CO.
Medicina · Litterae · Mercatura
© 2026 Reflora & Co., LLC

09/07/2026

THE WORLD OF REFLORA

There was a time when medicine, literature, nature, art and the useful things of everyday life were not considered separate pursuits.

The physician knew her plants.
The gardener kept an almanac.
The kitchen had its remedies.
Letters were written by hand.
Books were kept within reach.
Beautiful things were expected to be useful—and useful things were permitted to be beautiful.

Much of that knowledge remains.

It waits in old books and botanical texts, in gardens and kitchens, in remedies and recipes, in traditions and in the accumulated experience of those who came before us.

But knowledge was never meant merely to be preserved.
It was meant to be lived.

To meet the experience of the present.
To be questioned when necessary.
Tested against what we know.
Practiced and understood anew.
And carried forward when it still has something to teach us.

This is where Reflora begins.

Not by attempting to return to another time, but by bringing what is worth knowing from the past into conversation with the life we are living right now.

And from that conversation, things begin to take form.

A botanical encountered in an old text becomes the subject of new inquiry.
A forgotten preparation finds its way back to the worktable.
A field observation becomes a page of writing.
A remedy becomes a teaching.
An idea becomes something that can be held in the hand.

Knowledge is not merely preserved here. It is given life—and form.

Welcome to The World of Reflora.

It is gathered into three divisions:
MEDICINA · LITTERAE · MERCATURA

MEDICINA — Knowledge put into practice.

The study and practice of natural medicine, where traditional knowledge, modern understanding, careful observation and lived experience meet.

LITTERAE — Knowledge given voice.

The written and lyrical world of Reflora—literature, field guides, essays, history, art, education and the preservation of ideas worth carrying forward.

MERCATURA — Knowledge given form.

The useful and beautiful things that emerge from this world—botanicals, preparations, provisions, remedies, objects and things made by hand and chosen with purpose.

Three divisions.
But never three separate worlds.

A botanical may begin in Medicina.
Its history may become Litterae.
Its preparation may find its way into Mercatura.

Follow one thread long enough and you will often find it woven through all three.
That is the tapestry of Reflora.

And woven throughout are the principles of our Visual Manifesto:
Wings of Imagination · Mirror of Truth · Sword of Fortitude · Lyrical Arts · Passage of Time
To Imagine · Seek · Endure · Create · Honor.

There are old books here, but this is not a museum.
There are old ways here, but nostalgia is not the point.

We look backward when there is something worth retrieving—and forward when there is something worth discovering.

Sometimes we seek the thread.
And sometimes, the thread finds us.

The doors are open.
Welcome to the World of Reflora.

The website is currently under construction. More to come soon!...

09/01/2026

THE DAYS...
The Visual Manifesto of Reflora

Every house has its foundations.

At Reflora, ours can be found in five figures moving quietly across a painting created more than a century ago.

Thomas Wilmer Dewing’s The Days presents five women, each carrying an object with symbolic meaning: wings, a mirror, a sword, a lyre and a wand.

Together, they have become a visual expression of the principles upon which Reflora stands.

WINGS OF IMAGINATION

The freedom to wonder, envision and explore what might be possible.

Imagination allows us to look beyond what is already known—to recover an old idea, consider a new one, make unexpected connections and create something that did not exist before.

MIRROR OF TRUTH

The willingness to look carefully and see clearly.

Truth asks us to observe, research, question and discern. It respects knowledge and experience while remaining willing to look again.

SWORD OF FORTITUDE

The courage to stand behind what we discover and believe worthy of preserving.

Fortitude gives conviction a backbone. It asks us not merely to know, but to speak, teach, write and act.

And here at Reflora, the symbolism takes on a life of its own:
The Feather Pen is the Sword.

LYRICAL ARTS

The place where knowledge meets beauty and human expression.

Literature. Art. Music. Craft. Storytelling. The written word. The handmade object. The pleasures of creating something simply because it brings beauty into the world.

These are not embellishments to life. They are part of a life well lived.

PASSAGE OF TIME

The final figure walks away from us, carrying her wand as the days continue onward.

Reflora honors what travels through time: seasons and cycles, traditions and old knowledge, memories and stories, things grown and things made.

Some things deserve to be rediscovered.
Some deserve to be preserved.
And some become the seeds from which something entirely new can grow.

Imagine · Seek · Endure · Create · Honor

These five principles travel throughout the world of Reflora—from natural medicine and the botanical world to literature, history, art, education, the garden, the kitchen and the mercantile.

They are not separate interests.
They are threads of the same tapestry.

Welcome to the World of Reflora.

Wings of Imagination · Mirror of Truth · Sword of Fortitude · Lyrical Arts · Passage of Time

08/28/2026

Sneak preview of new website!

08/28/2026

THE DOCTOR’S DESK
--with Dr. Debra

There is always something on the desk.

A materia medica for repertorizing a homeopathic remedy.
An herbal with a passage marked for another look.
A laboratory report.
A handful of garden notes.
A recipe scribbled in the margin of something entirely unrelated.
A flower essence or aromatherapy guide.
A question that has sent me down yet another rabbit hole.

Welcome to "The Doctor’s Desk"

I’m Dr. Debra Anastasio—a naturopathic physician, educator, gardener, researcher, maker, and lifelong collector of useful knowledge.

For more than thirty years, my work has lived at the intersection of medicine and everyday life. I’m as interested in what happens in the kitchen and garden as I am in what appears in a medical journal or laboratory report.

Here, we’ll explore natural medicine and nutrition, herbs and traditional remedies, new research and old wisdom, food and gardening, practical skills, recipes, curious discoveries, and the occasional subject that simply deserves a closer look.

Some posts will be distinctly medical.

Others may begin with a plant, a book, a bottle on an apothecary shelf, something growing in the garden, or a question someone asked me years ago that I never quite stopped thinking about.

That’s the nature of "The Doctor’s Desk"

Things accumulate here.
Ideas meet one another.

And sometimes something very old and something very new turn out to have quite a lot to say to each other.

So pull up a chair.
Let’s see what’s on The Doctor’s Desk in the days and weeks to come.
— Dr. Debra

08/24/2026

THE REFLORA HAVEN...Where the work begins.

I've been thinking about where we should begin.

And I don't think it's with a list.

I don't think it's with something you need to change about yourself either.

I think we need to make a place.

You probably already have one in mind.

Maybe it's that chair by the window that nobody really sits in but you. Maybe it's the end of the kitchen table in the early morning, before everyone else gets moving. It could be your porch, a garden bench, a corner of your bedroom, or an old chair tucked somewhere beneath a tree.

It doesn't need to be beautiful.
It doesn't even need to be particularly quiet.

It just needs to feel like somewhere you can sit for a while and hear yourself think.

I'm calling it "The Reflora Haven."

Because we're going to be doing some things together here, and I want you to have a place for them to land.

Over the months ahead, I'll bring you things.
A question to think about.
Something happening outside that I think is worth noticing.
An herb or food we might want in the cupboard.
Something old that deserves remembering.
Something useful for the home.
Maybe something we're going to make with our hands.

And sometimes I'll bring you a thread.

That's been on my mind quite a bit lately—the tapestry of a life and all the threads that somehow find their way into it.

Some were handed to us.
Some we chose.
Some have been there so long we've forgotten how they got there.
And every once in a while, we get to choose a new one.

That's part of what we'll be doing here.
I think you'll want a notebook.

Nothing fancy.

In fact, I've made one for you.

"The Reflora Composition Notebook"

Accompanied, naturally, by a furry little koala perched on a good old yellow Ticonderoga No. 2 pencil.

It's unassuming on purpose.

No daily prompts. No boxes to check. No rules about what belongs on the pages or how often you're supposed to fill them.

This is a place to collect the pieces, at your own pace.

Open the cover and you'll find a bookplate that reads:

The Reflora Composition Notebook

This composition belongs to __________________

Began on __________________

Not "this notebook belongs to."

"This composition belongs to..."
Because that's what we'll be collecting here—the pieces of a life.

A recipe you don't want to lose. A leaf you picked up outside. A sentence that stopped you. A photograph. Something your mother or grandmother used to do. A sketch. A remedy. A seed packet.

Or a thought you had while driving home that you absolutely knew you'd remember—and then didn't.

Put it in there.
We're not trying to make it all make sense yet.
We're collecting.

Somewhere along the way, we may begin to notice the threads.
We'll get to that.

For now, look around your home and your yard and find your place.

Pull up a chair.
Find somewhere nearby to set your tea.
Bring your cotton tote holding the treasured composition book and your fuzzy koala perched on a pencil waiting to write with you.

And leave the seat open.
Reflora will meet you there.

Welcome to The Reflora Haven! Next week, we begin the exploration!

© 2026 Dr. Debra Anastasio · Reflora & Co.™ · The Reflora Method™
All rights reserved. Shared for educational and informational purposes only. Not intended as medical advice.

08/24/2026

THE REFLORA COMPOSITION KIT...For a Life Still Being Written.

There are certain things one cannot properly source from a catalog.

This is how I found myself, after an unnecessarily complicated journey, in pursuit of a koala.

Not an actual koala, mind you. There are limits.

I was looking for the sort that could sit comfortably upon a No. 2 pencil.

These things matter.

The notebook had been easier.

I found it almost exactly where you would expect: the familiar black-and-white composition book that has been recording the important affairs of American life for generations.

Spelling words. Algebra. Recipes. Phone numbers. Terrible poetry. Excellent ideas.

And things written in the back during meetings that had absolutely nothing to do with the meeting.

It was perfect.

No leather binding. No inspirational quotation embossed in gold. No ribbon markers or instructions requiring you to become a better person before breakfast.

Just paper.

Next came the pencil.

There are pencils, and then there is the yellow Ticonderoga No. 2.

You know the one.
Sharpen it. Make a mistake. Turn it around. Begin again.

A rather useful philosophy, actually.

The canvas tote came next.

Plain cotton. Sturdy handles. Enough room for the notebook, the pencil, perhaps a field guide, a leaf collected along the way, and whatever else you decide is worth carrying home.

Nothing more was needed. Or was it?

Yes, of course, the koala.
I had been warned that the finest pencil koalas were elusive.
There were rumors.

A small gray specimen had reportedly been seen clinging to a pencil somewhere beyond the stationery aisle.

So I went looking.
Eventually, there he was with all of his colorful friends too!

Furry. Entirely unqualified to assist with personal reflection.

Perfect.
I brought him and his friends home.

And then, when you peek inside the cover, you find the real invitation—an entrance into the world of "Reflora Composition", one that belongs entirely to you.

What happens on the pages from there?
That's your adventure.

We simply gathered a few provisions for the journey.

Especially the koala.

THE REFLORA COMPOSITION KIT: For a Life Still Being Written.

The Reflora Composition Notebook
Botanical Reflora bookplate
Ticonderoga No. 2 pencil
Furry Koala Companion
Natural cotton Reflora & Co. tote

© 2026 Dr. Debra Anastasio · Reflora & Co.™
All rights reserved.

TEXT OR CALL TO BRING HOME YOUR KOALA COMPANION AND BEGIN THE COMPOSITION OF YOU! 203-271-1311

08/23/2026

THE RENAISSANCE SCROLLS: Readings from the Courtyard at Reflora & Co.

Scroll No. 1 — What We Chose to Keep

Come in.
The courtyard is open, and there is room at the table.

This is where we will gather to read from old books, examine forgotten manuscripts, wander through gardens and kitchens, visit museums and libraries, and occasionally follow a curious footnote wherever it decides to take us.

Some of what we find will be centuries old. Some will be much closer to home.

We will look backward, but we are not trying to live there.

We are looking for what was observed, recorded, practiced, made, grown, prepared and passed along—and asking what deserves another look.

Before we unfurl our first scroll, however, I thought we might take a little tour.

Come with me into the archive.

Behind the glass are words written by people we will never meet.
Some bear the name of their author. Others do not.
And yet, a manuscript can tell us quite a bit about itself.

Look at the material on which it was written. Papyrus, parchment, vellum and paper each leave clues. Organic materials may sometimes be radiocarbon dated. Ink and pigments can be analyzed. Handwriting styles, letter forms, abbreviations and language can help place a work within a particular time.

Later papers may carry watermarks. Bindings, stitching and decoration offer further evidence. A passing reference to a ruler, battle, feast day or astronomical event may narrow the possibilities even more.

No single clue necessarily gives us the answer.

The manuscript becomes something of a historical puzzle.

And then there are the marks that have very little to do with dating it.
A darkened corner where countless fingers turned the page.
A correction squeezed between two lines.
A second hand appearing in the margin.
A stain.
A repair.

Perhaps a recipe added years later by someone who had no idea that centuries from then, another person might be studying those very marks.

These are not imperfections to hurry past.
They are evidence that the object had a life.

And that brings us to one of the most interesting questions in any archive:
Why was this kept?

Some writings survived because they were considered important. Some were protected by monasteries, universities, libraries, collectors and families. Some survived because scribes patiently copied them. Later, printing allowed a work to exist in many places at once.

And sometimes something survived for the wonderfully unremarkable reason that no one threw it away.

But preservation has another side.
What was not considered important enough to preserve?

A household remedy.
A grandmother's recipe.
A gardener's observation.
Local knowledge of a plant.
A letter.
A scrap of instructions.

A method everyone knew so well that no one thought it necessary to write it down.
Much of ordinary life disappeared precisely because it was ordinary.

And perhaps that is one reason old writings deserve more than a passing glance.

An archive is not simply a room filled with old things.
It is a record of what someone, somewhere, chose to keep.

Here in the courtyard, we will keep looking.

We will open the old herbals. Read the marginalia. Examine the household books. Walk through gardens. Visit kitchens, apothecaries, museums and libraries. We will compare what was once believed with what we know now—and leave room for the possibility that an old observation may still have something useful to teach us.

We will ask:

What did they know?
How do we know they knew it?
What still holds true?
And what is worth carrying forward?

And while we do, we will leave a few records of our own.
The first scroll is open.

Welcome to the courtyard.

© 2026 Dr. Debra Anastasio · Reflora & Co.™ · The Renaissance Scrolls™
All rights reserved. Shared for educational and informational purposes only. Not intended as medical advice.