When she’s not hard at work crafting your favorite Ned blends and leading Nedquarter’s daily drop-everything-and-plank sessions, she’s raising composting worms, learning to speak Comanche, and spreading love for Mother Earth.
Ned: How would you describe yourself?
Vida: I’m a bilingual agroecology instructor, soil health nerd, and urban farmer. I am also a bold, tenderhearted everyday person who can barely contain her VERY enthusiastic fascination with Mother Earth’s beauty.
Ned: What’s something not many people know about you?
Vida: My family is Comanche and I’m learning to speak our language. There are only 250 people who are fluent in Comanche. There is no textbook or traditional online class to learn, so the process is slow and requires loads of perseverance.
Ned: What are some of your hobbies?
Vida: I love to dance to Salsa, Merengue, Cumbia and Afrobeats music!
Ned: What do you do at Ned?
Vida: I am the Production Manager!
Ned: Why do you love working at Ned?
Vida: Ned is teaching me new ways to be an effective advocate for regenerative farming and how to practice eco-accountability in a business.
Ned: What’s your favorite Ned product and why?
Vida: I love the Full Spectrum 1500mg. I take a dropper at night and then again in my morning coffee! I love how it takes the edge off of anxiety and/or coffee jitters and gives me a softer perspective on life.
Ned: What’s involved in the five week process of producing Sleep Blend?!
Vida: I don my surgical cap, mask, gloves and turn Binaural and Earth frequency beats in the production room. Mood set, I proceed to extract gallon upon gallon of organic oat straw, lemon balm, passionflower, and skullcap by cooking them separately in organic mct oil. After the herb sits in oil for two days, I strain out a beautiful, silky oil, each with its own color and aroma. Skullcap oil is a bright Shamrock green. Lemon Balm has a soothing, floral aroma. After the 4 constituent oils are stained, I combine them into a base oil that I use to make Sleep Blend.
Ned: What are the core values that guide you in your daily life?
Vida: Authenticity, accountability, and growth.
Ned: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Vida: It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.
Ned: What’s something you’ve learned this past year?
Vida: This last year has challenged my sense of self and life path in a powerful way. I’m learning to own the unexpected turns of my life because they are mine.
Ned: What’s wellness to you?
Vida: Wellness comes from feeling love and connection to the land I live on.
Ned: What does Plants Before Pill mean to you?
Vida: It’s a statement of loyalty and gratitude for medicinal plants and the traditions of plant-based healing that have consistently and effectively helped us be healthy long before pharmaceuticals entered the scene.
Ned: What’s your idea of contentment?
Vida: When someone laughs at my jokes.
Ned: What’s your best tip for managing stress?
Vida: Do the above!
Ned: What’s a super simple practice you do that’s improved your life?
Vida: I swear by planking. It’s a fast, energetic reset for the whole body.
Ned: What’s the smallest change you’ve made that’s had the biggest impact?
Vida: In the last year, I decided to keep composting worms as a hobby. Composting worms are small but their ability to morph the life force in soil is HUGE.
Ned: What’s something you want to start doing?
Vida: I’d like to find opportunities to help youth cultivate wellbeing through gardening, cooking, and herbalism.
Ned: What’s something you want to stop doing?
Vida: I want to eat less meat.
Ned: What’s your favorite morning ritual?
Vida: I adore and cherish my morning coffee.
Ned: What’s your favorite nighttime ritual?
Vida: Spooning my boyfriend.
Ned: Who do you follow that really inspires you?
Vida: Author, professor, ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer! Her observations are a unique portal to the immense beauty and intelligence of the natural world.
Ned: What’s something you’re grateful for?
Vida: I am grateful that my mother taught me to be resilient and resourceful.
Ned: What’s something that would make the world a better place?
Vida: If we learned from an early age how to relate to each other and Mother Earth in a reciprocal way.
