Today we’d like to introduce you to Saidy Lauer Corneglio.
Hi Saidy, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I discovered plant medicine in my twenties while studying cultural anthropology and photography in San Francisco — a period that launched me into doing fieldwork and photojournalism through Mexico, Central and South America, Morocco, Southeast Asia, and Europe. Watching how different cultures related to the plant world, how healing traditions developed independently across continents and arrived at remarkably similar understandings, permanently shaped how I approach this work.
I went on to Rosemary Gladstar’s herbalism program at Sage Mountain Herbal Center and have studied under Asia Suler, Yarrow Willard, and Sajah Popham. I’m currently completing my Advanced Herbalism Certification at the Herbal Academy to prepare me for clinical work.
Mystic Sister began in Toronto, where I was keeping biodynamic beehives across the city and making my first small batches of herbal medicine for farmer’s markets downtown. I eventually landed in the Texas Hill Country, where I’ve spent several years building a permaculture homestead — medicinal herb gardens, biodynamic beehives, edible gardens, and a flock of ducks. The full estate-grown apothecary line grew from that land and those relationships.
Today Mystic Sister includes handcrafted flower essences, herbal tinctures, raw and infused honeys, beeswax candles, herbal teas, salves, and a botanical perfume — all made by hand in small seasonal batches. I’m currently working on my first online course called, The Living Essence, launching August 8th. It is a course on growing, wildcrafting and making your own Flower Essences.
What continues to guide my work is this: plant medicine works best when it’s made in relationship — with the land, with the traditions it comes from, and with the people it’s made for.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Smooth is not the word I’d use..
Building a handcrafted apothecary business while homeschooling four children on a working homestead comes with its own unique challenges. Learning to work with natural cycles rather than against them — in the garden and in the business — has been one of the biggest lessons. The move from Toronto to Texas was a significant transition. Starting over in a new climate, new ecosystem, new community, learning which plants thrive in limestone soil and brutal summer heat — that took time. Some things I’d grown easily in Canada simply wouldn’t cooperate in Texas. The land required me to embrace “beginner’s mind” all over again with a whole new gardening education.
There’s also the ongoing challenge of running a business rooted in slowness in a world that rewards speed. Everything I make takes time — essences infuse for hours, tinctures macerate for weeks, honey infuses slowly without heat. I can’t rush any of it. Learning to build a sustainable business model around that reality, rather than compromising the integrity of the process to scale faster, has been a constant navigation.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Mystic Sister is a handcrafted herbal and honeybee apothecary — flower essences, herbal tinctures, raw and infused honeys, beeswax candles, herbal teas, salves, and a botanical perfume, all made by hand in small seasonal batches from our estate farm in the Texas Hill Country.
Flower essences are my specialty and what I’m probably best known for. I make 14 garden essences from plants I grow myself, plus a one-of-a-kind Honeybee essence made from the energetic field of our own biodynamic hives — not from a flower. That Honeybee essence is something genuinely unique. I haven’t found anything else like it in the world of flower essence medicine. You can find my self paced, online course on flower essences here: www.mysticsister.us/the-living-essence
What I’m most proud of is the integrity of the process. Everything starts on the land. I grow the plants, tend the hives, harvest at peak potency, and make each product by hand in small batches. Nothing is outsourced or scaled beyond what I can do with full attention. That slowness is intentional — it’s part of the medicine.
What sets me apart is probably the combination of backgrounds I bring to this work. Most herbalists come from a purely botanical or wellness tradition. I came through cultural anthropology and documentary photojournalism before I ever formally studied herbalism. That background means I approach plant medicine with a cross-cultural lens — tracing where traditions come from, who holds them, and how to work with them ethically. It shapes everything from how I formulate products to how I write about them.
That writing lives in The Mystic Sister Field Guide, my free Substack newsletter — essays on plant medicine, cultural history, and the slow art of making things that heal. You can find it at mysticsisterapothecary.substack.com.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I am so grateful for the incredible music scene and the gorgeous rivers and creeks running through the city.
I would say what I like the least is the homeless crisis. It’s quite heartbreaking.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mysticsister.us
- Instagram: @mystic.sister
- Other: https://substack.com/@mysticsisterapothecary
