Meet Shel Moring | Poet, Herbalist & Educator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Shel Moring and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Shel, how does your business help the community?
Creations by Florea is an herbal apothecary offering simple remedies in small batches. Extensions of my apothecary include virtual and in-person workshops that explore the intersection between poetry and BIPOC herbal knowledge. My work as a facilitator, herbal medicine maker and artist always contends with my ancestry and my embodiment as a non-binary person.

I’m a deeply sensitive person who seeks to equip my QTBIPOC community members with tools for maintaining energetic hygiene so that we can feel safer in the world and more empowered to affect change. Energetic hygiene starts with ancestral reverence and relationship to the land where we live, so my work emphasizes prayer and herbal knowledge.

I want a world where Black diasporic herbal knowledge is honored, and where Black folks feel safe to connect with the energetics of plants and the land, because this relationship has been fractured due to slavery and colonization. And a world where more POC feel safe to connect with ancestral applications of herbal knowledge means that our communities will be more equipped to take care of each other. So not only does my work honor the rich lineage of BIPOC ecopoets and healers, but it situates myself and my community members as students and seedkeepers for the next generations.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Have you ever met an herbalist-poet? They’re really cool people who have this natural reverence for living beings, and they likely have some kind of herbal remedy on hand at all times.

I situate myself in this lineage of strange, knowledgeable and introverted artist types. The creative spirits that influence me really enjoy setting a mood, so my art takes many forms that interact with each other — poetry, herbal remedies, workshop curriculum design.

I self-published three poetry collections, the most recent one being Fish Songs which you can purchase at Libelula in Barrio Logan. As of January 2025, my work also appears in the publications For the Wild, Lucky Jefferson, Braided Way and New Words Press. But poetry by itself doesn’t scratch the creative itch for me, so I’ll usually bring in meditation, guided writing prompts and somatic exercises to create an atmosphere of embodied artistry for anyone attending my events. With the Fish Songs book release, we jumped around and played with power words, and then dropped into a free-write before I read my own poems from the book aloud.

My poetry draws on my relationships to plants and my ancestors. I worked as a houseplant educator for about 5 years and have always grown things from home — lemon balm, mugwort, tomatoes, plants that I work with often. And I’m really curious about my family history, like learning who liked to cook which meals and how my ancestors liked to express themselves. So I usually situate myself, in my poetry, within that ongoing conversation between ancestors, land and memory. It’s an extension of the work I do for my community, but it also gets to be an enjoyable private practice that sometimes results in a book or a published piece when I feel like sharing.

In 2024, I was published four times. Before that, I was really scared to submit my work anywhere because I didn’t have an M.A in creative writing or poetry, and I’d only done a couple of open mics. It can be really hard to talk about my poetry to new people or in public settings, but I was curious about adding my work to the pockets of literary discourse that I enjoyed. Authors and poets like K-Ming Chang, Danez Smith, Sandra Cisneros and of course Audre Lorde have all inspired me to be precise in my language and experimental in my content. I’m glad I started submitting my work! It’s pushed me to take my writing practice (and editing) more seriously, and to celebrate the words that will outlive me and that I’ve grown so attached to.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Yoga flow at Bird Park
Roller skating by Rady Shell
Drinks from Lovesong Coffee in North Park (Rose Garden with almond milk, for me!)
Verbatim Books
Thai lunch from Plumeria on University Ave
Low-cost art supplies from ART FORM in North Park
Ethiopian dinner from Abay Market on El Cajon (Veggie combo platter will feed 2 hungry people!)
Artisan cocktails from Botanica
Jazz night at Future is Color in Barrio Logan
Dessert from Stella Jean’s
Ski-ball and shenanigans at the Lafayette

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I name my benevolent ancestors, Earth parents and garden spirits. Thank you for everything.

Portrait photos by Ell Treese

Website: https://yinflowercreations.wordpress.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creationsbyflorea/