LOLA VENADO

“Lola Venado—aka LoVe, aka The Botanical Bruja®—is a folk herbalist, cook, cocktail maker, writer, speaker, creative community gatherer. Born with river blood, magik bones, fire spirit, and moonlit heart, she believes story heals, plants are magik, and comida es medicina. When not traveling in her RV to the altars of desert, forest, river, and ocean, she’s cultivating connection to her desert home.”

The Xantico House Podcast launched in 2018, dedicated to centering the work of multi-cultural people of color whose Medicine stories are often underrepresented in communities of herbalism, folk magik, cookery, and other healing creative arts. (fka Branch & Bone Medicine Show)

Xantico House™ is where all my offerings reside. Namesake Xantico (pronounced shawn-tee-ko) is an Aztec goddess, “she who dwells in the house”, who personifies and protects the hearth, home, and precious things. Associated with fire and volcanoes, she can take the form of red serpent, representing the snaking rivers of lava.

She possesses both feminine and masculine traits, wears a female skirt and man’s loincloth, she is both warrior and midwife. It’s said she was punished by an angry god for breaking a fast. To me, she embodies taking care of oneself and others, even when how or why may be misunderstood. She is the care-taking, rule-breaking, hedge-walking protectress of my house.

May your heart(h) be filled with fuerza, fuego…and love.

xLoVe

Connect + collab with me here.

P.S. I am currently not offering my botánica products or energy work/readings. Thank you for your support in what was, and what will be.

P.P.S. Botanical Bruja is a title I created in 2016 as an alternative way of identifying my work as a plant witch, while giving reverence to my maternal Mexican heritage. I established use of the Branch & Bone name in 2015, and Xantico House was founded in 2018.