Sara Taylor moved to Moab after a journalism assignment showed her the wonders it had to offer. She is a nationally certified bodywork therapist who enjoys being outdoors and would like the power to be invisible.
1) What initially brought you to Moab?
Fate and a final journalism assignment my junior year at the University of Texas in Austin. I created a mock-up magazine spread on Moab from seeing a Slickrock Bike Trail map a roommate brought home from a camping trip out west. Three years later- in 1995-I moved to Moab without ever visiting the place beforehand. I left Moab to study Clinical Herbalism along with many other modalities of bodywork and returned to the desert in 2008.
2) What do you love most about living in Moab?
The ancient, serene landscapes feed my soul and of course Mill Creek and the Colorado River are great watering holes to cool down in.
3) What do you dislike about living in Moab?
Nothing
4) What is your occupation?
I am a Nationally Certified bodywork therapist and provide botanical bodywork through a multi-modality approach including Craniosacral, Thai yoga, Swedish, & Zen Shiatsu, and I incorporate flower essences, essential oils, and plant spirit medicine into the treatments as well. Also, as a Certified Clinical Herbalist, I have been wildcrafting and making medicine since 2000, and I currently teach herbal medicine at the Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism and market an Eco First Aid kit and Flower Essences online at www.herbalrootsapothecary.com
5) If you could have any job in the world, what would you most like to do? Same job…location change. I would offer a Botanical Treatment center, kind of a human car wash with plants and spring water, and include all the lovely modalities of body work, saunas, etc., at the Hot Springs I own!
6) Describe a typical day in your life.
I wake up, meditate, have matcha and coffee, do computer work, walk in the nature preserve, hike, or bike-ride, see a few clients, do some marketing, prepare for upcoming classes I teach… and network out on the scene.
7) Some people have bumper stickers on their car that read: I’d Rather be Sailing. What would your bumper sticker read? I’d Rather Be…Right Here!
8) Tell us one thing people don’t usually know about you.
I am in the Healing Arts because I healed a TBI (traumatic brain injury) with herbal medicines, flower essences, craniosacral, visualizations, and mantras. In 1998, I was scrambling/climbing in Pack Creek and my dog, Lefty, kicked a large boulder off on my head while I was in the middle of climbing up a crag. I lost my vocabulary, couldn’t complete sentences, had slight amnesia, 2 complete partial seizures-grand mal, along with a complete “loss of self” when I was 27. My recovery led to the last 16 years of studying, learning, and now teaching all the modalities I healed with during that period of time.
9) In high school, you would have been considered the person most likely to…
Do it all!
10) What is your favorite Moab activity?
Rock hounding and floating on an inner-tube from the take out down to Big Bend.
11) Tell us your favorite non-Moab place to visit. Orvis
12) What do you consider your greatest achievement in life?
I am still alive!
13) If you were President, what’s the first thing you’d do to make life better in America?
I would create Grassroots Healthcare systems with botanical medicines through creating Herbal CSA’s in all towns. My mentor David Crow started this Herbal CSA movement on the East Coast with Goldthread Apothecary in 2009, and this is now actually happening in many towns across America, and perhaps Moab this year.
14) What superhero power would you most like to have? I think I have it already… Invisibility.
15) If you could be an animal, what would it be? Why? A hummingbird because they pollinate the flowers and enjoy the sweet nectars of life.
16) What is your all time favorite movie? “Midnight in Paris.”
17) And, your all time favorite book? “Power of Myth” by Joseph Campbell
18) If you were stranded on a desert island, what three music albums would you want to have with you? Any albums of Krishna Das, Bob Marley, and the Grateful Dead
19) If you could have dinner with anyone, living or dead, who would it be? Why?
The Dalai Lama. Perhaps by being in his presence, enlightenment or wisdom could be imparted directly to me.
20) What is your life philosophy?
Anything is Possible
