Mary Katherine Hawk

Mary Katherine Hawk owns Old Thyme Medicine in Front Royal, Virginia, where she works as a massage therapist and clinical herbalist. She is a licensed massage therapist, having graduated from Advanced Fuller School of Massage in Virginia Beach in 2017, and she completed medical massage education in El Paso, Texas, in 2020, covering clinical assessment and rehabilitation for chronic and acute soft tissue conditions. She later finished Manual Lymphatic Drainage training in North Carolina in 2024. She is the only therapist at the business who offers foot reflexology, and her massage work centers on deep pressure and finding where pain is located and where it begins.

Her herbal training started in 2010, when she began studying clinical and traditional herbal medicine. She has studied with Tammi Sweet, Rosemary Gladstar and Demitria Clark, has taken private classes in the mountains of Virginia, and continues through online programs and in-person classes when they are available. From 2010 to 2018 she lived in Virginia Beach, where she taught classes on modern herbalism at local shops.

Her herbal practice draws mostly on western herbs within the western herbal tradition. She believes the foundational principles of health and healing are found in plant medicines and alchemy. In herbal sessions she aims to help clients understand how to use herbs safely and effectively, and why each herb is recommended.