Episode 115: The Asylum on the Hill, Flowers and Herbalism With Katherine Ziff

Digitally painted photograph of The Ridges framed by cherry blossoms by Barbara Fisher. 2022. This is taken across the Hocking River among the cherry trees gifted to Ohio University by Chubu University in Kasugai, Japan in celebration of the OU’s 175th birthday.

Morganna and I were happy to finally bring Dr. Katherine Ziff onto the podcast. It should have been simple, because she’s a neighbor, but all sorts of things, including me falling and hurting myself, happened.

But finally, we talked with her over winter break and we get to share this episode with you now.

Katherine wrote a wonderful book about the history of the former Athens Lunatic Asylum. Called The Asylum on the Hill: History of a Healing Landscape, it tells the fascinating story of how the hospital was conceived, how it came to be built in Athens, the and healing philosophies of “Moral Treatment,” and “The Kirkbride Plan.” The hospital, Ohio University, and the town became entwined together, with generations of Atheniens living, working and visiting the campus of the hospital for over 100 years.

Yes, the place is haunted—it’s called The Ridges now, and is owned by Ohio University. And it’s still tightly tied to the town. As I said, it is haunted, but the university would rather people not talk about that or lurk around waiting for a ghost and they absolutely forbid ghost hunting in any capacity.

But the history itself—is fascinating enough on its own. So, we talk a lot about that, as well as the history of mental health treatment from the seventeenth century onwards.

And we talk a little bit about Katherine’s second book, Art Break: A Creative Guide to Joyful and Productive Classrooms, too.

But, we move on from there and dive into Katherine’s newest book, Flower Essences: Partnering with Nature in Southeastern Ohio.

From that discussion we go all into herbalism, the history of flower essences and their uses, the history of medicine, the Applachian traditions of healing with plants, the spiritual nature of working with plants, and the healing powers of food, and on, and on and on.

As a bonus you get my recipes for dandelion greens and my special secret method of making pesto that stays green in color and has a huge amount of iron in it.

We hope you enjoy it—we had a great time talking with Katherine and hope to have her back to tall traditional Applachian storytelling sometime.