Third Root Practitioners
Stephen Switzer
stephen@thirdroot.org
Stephen Rye Switzer is a graduate of the Swedish Institute of Health Sciences and is a Massage Therapist (pending licensing in August 2011). He specializes in Shiatsu, Deep Tissue, Reflexology and Swedish Massage. He has a certificate in Herbal Studies from the Third Root School of Herbal Education. Stephen is committed to helping heal fellow organizers, activists, queers, elders and anyone with a desire to take back their healthcare from the medical industrial complex.
At Thirdroot Stephen has many roles, including bookkeeper, gardener, herbalist and massage therapist. He administers and supports the Herbal Education program and manages the herbal apothecary. Stephen helps to support the gracious, beautiful Thirdroot volunteer crew and helps to manage the front desk.
Stephen grew up white and poor in rural Arizona in a strong single-parent household. He has listened to the teachings of the earth from a young age - learning to love and respect plants from his Italian grandmother and herbal knowledge from his German, Polish and Cherokee elders. Always interested in healing, but frustrated with the allopathic system, Stephen attended Middlebury College and has worked towards environmental justice for the last 10 years. After moving to New York and working in community greening, Stephen recently returned to school to become a full-time massage therapist and herbalist. He has been committed and exposed to social justice since his teens, through attending summer camps for poor and POC youth, and always keeps a vision of health justice in his heart.
Outside of Thirdroot, Stephen is the co-founder of TreehausBrooklyn, a housing cooperative of 13 people. He promotes cooperative living with coopNYC - a network of housing coops in NYC. In his spare time, Stephen practices yoga, makes tea, rides his bike, makes jam, and dances.
