The name Walking Medicine conveys so many meanings. What is its story?
I was sitting in a place on the farm we call the Blue Lagoon, listening to a small waterfall and trying to work something out about authenticity and self-love. Looking at a little pipsissewa plant, I heard the phrase: be the walking medicine you are. Later, I wrote a poem about that experience— the silent things that had passed through my mind as I sat there having epiphanies.
I usually think of medicine as a plant: something rooted in the ground, taking in minerals and offering a rare quality. But not everything that heals grows in one place. Moving through the world, each of us carries something specific and connective—something that can be an answer to another’s need. When I wrote the poem “Walking Medicine,” I was reminding myself not to diminish what I carry by trying to be anything other than who I am.
I chose the name because it was a mantra I needed—and one I believe the world needs too.
What was the first song you wrote?
In college, while interning at Handance Farm, I’d bike twelve miles there and back each day. One late afternoon riding home, I wrote “Ohio.” It’s the oldest song on Peace in the Middle.
When I finally matched the guitar chords to the melody in my head, it felt as though the song had come from a ghost—a long-lost woman from one of the old homesteads I passed along the way. Even now, I’m not quite sure where the lyrics came from.
What’s been some of the most meaningful feedback you’ve received on your songs?
I’ve been told I have a clear and strong voice and have been compared to Joni Mitchell, Nanci Griffith, and Emmylou Harris. I grew up listening to those iconic singers—especially Nanci Griffith, whose cassettes played on the screened-in porch during summer evenings of my childhood.
But the feedback that has stayed with me most came from a neighboring old-time fiddler and friend. After hearing me sing, she said, “Jenny, that moved something in me. I didn’t expect it, but I just started crying. You have to share this.” I had no idea my voice could open that kind of response.
Better than any formal praise, I value the words that come from everyday people—those who connect with the realness, or find poetry in a line. There is a mystery to that exchange that reminds me to remain present when performing, just as I was when the raw feeling that formed the song first arrived.
How did your single “Songbird” come about?
I create most prolifically in solitude, with enough space around me—psychic and otherwise—to find my own cadence. When I wrote “Songbird,” I had been in a deep period of hermitage.
One night, lying in bed and listening to the rain, a melody came to me. Without thinking, I began singing stream-of-consciousness, letting out a lot of bottled-up emotion. The song became a quiet promise to myself: I wasn’t going to settle in love or in life, even if it meant taking harder roads.
Declaring, even in an empty room, that I would sing all my life was the first step toward fully owning myself.
What connections do you see between performing, designing landscapes, and your relationship with the land?
Whether I’m performing or designing a landscape, I’m learning how to stay grounded in who I am. Both require presence—being attuned to the space, the energy, and the connection between self and place.
Designing landscapes isn’t just about aesthetics; it’s about reading the land, listening for what it needs, and creating something that feels true and alive. Performing is similar. It’s not about reflecting back what people want to see, but about showing up as you are—open, honest, and willing to be witnessed.
The challenge in both is holding space for authenticity. On stage, there’s the concentrated energy of being watched; in design, there’s the responsibility of shaping a living system. In both, I strive to stay rooted—to offer something real.
Much of my songwriting and design work draws from a life intertwined with nature. The imagery in my songs and the landscapes I create are both conversations with place—reflections of the quiet, relational ways we belong to the world and to each other.
How did you develop your deep love of the land?
Nature is my oldest companion and truest teacher. I was raised on and by this land. My mother often said to love it “like a child, mother, father, friend,” and I took that to heart. Much of the beauty in our lives emanated from it—and still does.
The land has taught me patience, rhythm, and how to listen. Creating, whether writing a song or designing a landscape, feels like a conversation with place. It’s about paying attention to what’s already there and responding in a way that honors it.
As I get older, I can’t always tell whether this love was something I was born with or something that grew through years of learning the language of place. Likely both. What I know is that it continues to shape who I am, guiding me back to myself again and again.
What are some of the histories of the land you live on?
The land I’ve called home for forty years carries deep histories. Long before Europeans arrived, it was inhabited by the Sissipihau—people who dwell among the hau, the stream or river. The headwaters of the Haw River run just south of my home, where herons, otters, and freshwater mussels still thrive.
My grandfather purchased this land in 1954 after seeing it from a small plane and becoming captivated by its beauty. It had been a tobacco farm, scarred by erosion and extractive practices. Over three generations, we’ve worked to heal it—restoring hardwood forests, conserving watersheds, and practicing regenerative land stewardship.
I grew up in a log cabin built in the 1920s, once a hunting lodge. My parents filled it with homegrown food, flowers, and winter fires. That rhythm continues, though I now carry those roots to new soil. The lessons of this place—how to belong, how to heal, how to stay—go with me.
Your work explores themes of belonging, self-acceptance, and connection to place. What thinkers or ideas are influencing you these days?
“Peace in the Middle” was born from a moment of deep hurt—and the realization that even when someone tries to wound you, it’s rarely about you. Their actions reflect their own struggles, not your worth.
I long for more examples of people who radiate confidence—not ego-driven or success-based, but rooted in a basic love for themselves. What would it look like to model an optimism of and for the self? To be lit up by the tiny fires that build true joy? To rest so fully in presence that conflict ceases to exist?
Thinkers like bell hooks and Henry David Thoreau challenge me to hold these questions close—to think critically about what it means to live deliberately, to love deeply, and to cultivate inner peace that ripples outward. Their work reminds me that belonging begins within, and from there, it extends into everything we create, tend, and share with the world.
If you could share one lasting message through your art, what would it be?
“Peace in the Middle” came from a growing understanding of what it means to define myself on my own terms.
The lyrics speak to claiming that space. In places where accommodation and quiet compliance are often expected, the song becomes a declaration: I decide who I am.
I believe in humanity’s capacity for goodness and healing. We can find peace in the middle of all things if we’re willing to listen and recognize how deeply bound we are to one another.
Don’t be afraid to be your authentic self.
Keep discovering who you are.
Be the walking medicine that you are.