Health Gossip with Olivia Sabella Burr

Guest Questionnaire #61

Jul 27, 2025

#61: Olivia Sabella Burr

Olivia (@olivia__burr) is an artist, herbalist, and the creator of Earth Archive, a holistic botanical beauty offering bridging “ancient wisdom and modern wellbeing.” You may remember her from a previous Health Gossip feature, where she interviewed her mother, Theresa.

Olivia’s healing arts practice weaves her lymphatic, somatic, and energetic bodywork with her studies in European and South American herbalism traditions.

She has also practiced as a postpartum doula and private chef specializing in Ayurvedic healing modalities for birth and nutrition (check out her cookbook here).

Health Gossip with Olivia Sabella Burr
📍 Big Island, Hawaii
Leo/Sagittarius/Leo

What does health, or being healthy, mean to you?

Health encompasses the very essence of being alive and the progressive continuance of life. I think of it as being that which is in alignment with creation, that which is life-giving, that which is true.

I spend a lot of time in locations where the life-death cycles of nature move very quickly, and as decomposition is happening, something new has already sprouted in its place. Regeneration is a sign of health. So is adaptation. I think the way our mind works is one of the biggest reflections of our health. Courage, desire, passion, and intuitive impulse are all feelings that are health markers, too. It’s very healthy to emote. I try to infuse all aspects of my life with health. And when those are balanced, I feel that I can most easily access creation.

How would you describe your current lifestyle?

Romantic, bohemian, lush.

How do you start and end your days?

I’ve been in Hawaii the past month and basically live outside. The windows are always open and some of the walls are just mosquito netting, but most of my time is spent outdoors anyway. My body has become acclimated to waking when I hear the daytime birds and insects and sounds instead of the nighttime ones.

The first thing I do every morning is think about my dreams. I’ve worked with dreams for years and they provide a significant experience of life. I lay in bed in the liminal for as long as possible to recall what was seen and felt and draw whatever conclusions want to be drawn. I then go outside. Warm water with shilajit. Maybe eat a mango. Coffee. I like to either drink very maximalist coffees with milk + honey + collagen + pearl or tiny Americanos. Write. Read. Go on a walk. Spacious mornings are very important to me so I let them be what they want to be.

To close the day, I take a shower, cover my body in oils, smoke tobacco, and just sit outside for a while before going back into the dreaming.

Do you have a spiritual practice?

The many ways to pray. And singing. We can bring spirit into form through song and it’s one of the ways that I can best hear God.

What’s your relationship to self-healing?

We could all benefit from a greater sense of Trust and Grace. The nature of healing is very interconnected, and while faith in the ability to self-heal is important, I think we’ve largely over-emphasized the self. Personal healing is just a part of maintaining homeostasis in the grander web of life.

Regeneration is a sign of health. So is adaptation. I think the way our mind works is one of the biggest reflections of our health.

Do you work with any practitioners, texts, or modalities on a regular basis?

I regularly received acupuncture and lymphatic massage for years, and these were two of the most profound modalities to support my body that I’d found. Lately, I kind of just do my own thing but would like to get bodywork more frequently again. I work with a lot of herbs and plants and that’s probably the most regular modality at this point in time. It’s intuitive and has been developed over the years with learning to listen well. I rotate various herbal infusions and pay attention to how my body responds. For instance, adding moistening herbs if I’m leaning dry, or cooling herbs in hot climates. Bathing with plants is one of my go-to remedies — not in a bath tub, but by macerating specific leaves and flowers into a bucket with water, letting it sit, and then pouring this over my body to air dry on the skin.

How did Earth Archive come to be?

Earth Archive naturally evolved from creating for myself and friends over the years. I never really sought out to have a brand necessarily, but have always had an ever-evolving and shifting artistic practice and various projects in the works. Creating alongside plants became a method to encapsulate a full sensory experience of time, place, feeling, and memory. That’s how I view the products that live in the Earth Archive ecosystem (and those to come), as record keepers. Working with herbs and plants feels incredibly collaborative and a bit like writing little love letters with them. It’s always been more about exploring the intersection of artistry, poetics, ancient medicine, holistic healing, perfumery, and sensory experience rather than following brand conventions or categories. I truly believe that the frequency of what we interact with is vital when putting something in or on our bodies, and wish for that to be felt through Earth Archive.

What’s your formulation process like?

Formulation has become relatively intuitive for me over the years, kind of like cooking. Once you have a general familiarity with how to utilize certain plants in a formula, there’s a framework for how to go about formulating. This applies to both skincare products, as well as herbal formulas. But it can get tricky too depending on what you are making or what plants you’re working with. Obviously, there are formulations that are incredibly complex and are best crafted by a lab chemist.

Using the first product launched in the Earth Archive collection as an example, I went in with an idea of what I wanted to create and some general parameters for how I wanted the product to be experienced — I knew I wanted to create a face oil that was hydrating but light on the skin, absorbed readily so that I could layer products, with particular ingredient benefits (high antioxidant, sun protective, barrier restoring and skin regenerative) and with a low essential oil content (especially compared to many oils that have irritated my skin on the market) but I still wanted a beautiful sensory experience.

To anoint with fragrant, natural extracts is to adorn the body with gifts of protection, beauty, and earthly wisdom — inscribed upon the body.

Then there was the inspiration side of it. I was falling in love with spending a lot of time in the Amazon and loved the way my skin looked and felt there. I didn’t use anything except for water to cleanse and just had a very natural, dewy glow from the humidity. There was a particular scent profile that I wanted to evoke as well that could translate how I was experiencing life there. It felt like I was co-formulating the product with that place and my experience of it.

I selected ingredients mostly from that region of the world, sourcing from Indigenous-owned small family farms or wildcrafters. Nature often reflects what it can provide for us — the plants containing naturally high antioxidant and sun protective properties due to growing so close to the equator, and with wound healing benefits that can help with scarring, acne, inflammation, and pigmentation. Then it was time to draft a formula and tweak with lots of trial and error until I came up with what felt like the perfect oil <3. This generally feels like how I see formulation — the conceptual, mystical, artistic, inspired side merging with the practical, time-tested, efficacious, and scientific side.

Oil has been a favorite medium to work with and the foundation of the two products in the collection at the moment since it is such a powerful and ancient delivery method of medicinal plants. The body oil is infused with whole herbs like Calendula, Blue Lotus, Mugwort, and Rose both for the skin and nervous system. Oil penetrates through the skin and to the nerve endings — this is the primary principle of Ayurvedic abhyanga bodywork, and why oil can be so healing. When we have dry and brittle skin, we have dry nerve endings. Sometimes we can forget that our physical nerves are our nervous system, and that hydrating the nerve endings through oil can create a somatic shift to deeper safety and ease within the landscape of our bodies. The tradition of anointing with oil has been a massive inspiration to me as well. To anoint with fragrant, natural extracts is to adorn the body with gifts of protection, beauty, and earthly wisdom — inscribed upon the body.

Do you have any herbs that you feel particularly drawn to?

It varies! There are definitely ones that I feel especially close to, or work with more regularly, but it shifts depending on where I’m at, too. Right now, I am most drawn to hibiscus, rose, ferns, orchids, mamaki, and blue turmeric.

When do you feel the most nourished?

Love letters that take many forms. Spending time with my friend’s children. Moments of uncontrollable laughter. Long walks alone. Having my hair touched. After sitting in the sun for a while. Being in beautiful places is very nourishing — how our senses take in beauty and we can allow it to transform us and our experience.

I’ve been known to disappear into the jungle with my phone off for extended periods of time.

How do you reset?

Swimming in oceans or rivers or waterfalls. I’ve been known to disappear into the jungle with my phone off for extended periods of time.

Do you have a favorite meal?

I love fruit and eat it everyday. My favorites are mango, papaya, lilikoi, blueberries, cherries and plums. I’ve been eating a lot of lychee here, too. Something about being sticky with fruit feels very feral in a way that just does it for me. I greatly appreciate both etiquette and becoming undomesticated.

I’ve learned my body very well over the years and like to eat very simply, but beautifully. Presentation is important to me. I think food should feel a little poetic. I love being in markets and think there is something inherently beautiful about the fruits from people’s gardens or their homemade banana bread. My friend here has a milk cow which has been such a treat. The milk is so fresh and she makes yogurt, ice cream, and cheeses with it.

My other favorite foods are honey, sweet potato, plantains, coffee, oysters, herbs, whipped cream, flavorful broths, meat, tartare, butter, and olives. Certain foods that access feelings or memories are some of my favorites as well. Slowly deboning boquichico and learning the architecture of its anatomy. Crab for special occasions. Tiny Italian cookie nostalgia.

I drink a lot of hibiscus and have been making marshmallows with grass-fed gelatin, raw honey, and a vanilla bean often. I am also skilled at baking, but really only become the most inspired when I am falling in love.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Dance the dance, babygirl.

To the person reading this?

Integrity is golden. So is joy.

What would you like to see or create more of in the world?

Courage of the heart. Awe.