Judith Berger is an herbalist, poet, writer and physician assistant. Born and raised in Brooklyn, her earliest contact with nature was through the prism of fairy tales, the wilds of her father’s backyard garden and the dark corridors of the local plant nursery,
where she first cherished the scent of soil. In Ithaca, where she went to University, she experienced her first encounters with the forest that would eventually lead her to study, teach and write about medicinal plants.

After obtaining her P.A. license, Judith returned to writing poetry, as a way to balance the left-hemispheric central nervous system focus of the medical field with the imaginal, mythic world so interwoven with nature. Over the years, Berger has ventured deeper and deeper into the woods, spending much of her free time backpacking in the Catskills and Adirondacks, studying animal tracking and mushroom identification as she continues to harvest plant and mushroom medicine for her clients, family and community and write about her encounters with the natural world.