DeLand Author Supports cause with new book on Teas

DeLand author supports cause with new book on teas

By Halie Brown For Hometown News

The Desert Sage Lifestyle Wellness Store at 101 Artisan Alley in DeLand was filled July 26 with dulcet folk tunes as friends and family gathered to celebrate the launch of DeLand author Lorna Owens’s fourth book, “Desert Sage Wonderful World of Tea: From Ancient Leaves to Modern Wellness.”

The book was published in May and is not only a book about the origin of various teas and the rituals associated with them, but an invitation for readers to slow down, listen and sip mindfully, according to its description. It is illustrated by Andrene Bonner.

The book is a concept that has been percolating in the back of Ms. Owens’s mind for two years, and it’s one of many books she has written and self-published in the last two decades.

In 2020 she published the book “My Journey with Food in a Time of Coronavirus,” in 2007 she published “Everyday Grace Everyday Miracle. Living the Life you were Born to Live,” and in 2003 she published “Daily Sustenance: Scriptures for Meditation, Comfort and Daily Living.” All of her works focus on topics of wellness and mindfulness, while supporting a grander cause: the Footprints Foundation, which she founded in 2010.

Decades before Ms. Owens founded the foundation and opened her storefront in DeLand, she grew up in Jamaica. It was there, at 12 years old, she told her mother that she always wanted to become a lawyer, she said.

“She said lawyers didn’t go to heaven,” Ms. Owens said with a chuckle. “So I became a nurse and then, eventually, I went to law school.”

It was her combined experiences as a midwife and lawyer that gave her the foundation she needed to create Footprints, which she established after she saw in 2010 a 60 Minutes segment entitled “War on Women: Rape as a Weapon of War,” a news segment that told the story of women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo who had been victims of rape and sexual assault, she said.

“I’m like, ‘Dear God, how come no one is doing anything about this?’” Ms. Owens said. It was this video that led her to create Footprints.

Every two minutes, a woman dies due to pregnancy or childbirth complications, according to a 2023 World Health Organization report.

The foundation aims to reduce maternal and infant mortality rates internationally, creating programs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Jamaica and Somaliland that support infants and their mothers, according to its website.

“And I started going there, started taking nurses and doctors there to train. But I wanted a vehicle. I thought, ‘I need something as well that I can contribute a percentage (to support this work.)’”

So, Ms. Owens set up the Desert Sage Lifestyle Wellness Store, named after the lush wild sage plants in the Kalahari Desert, a herb associated with both cleansing and spirituality. Setting up the storefront was a natural next step as she always loved candles, fragrance and supporting wellness, she said.

However, tea was not originally a part of the storefront’s line-up. The diverse selection of teas sold in the shop, which includes white teas, black teas and matcha, was a rabbit hole Ms. Owens fell into when pitching her products to Williams Sonoma. And now, she sources organic, fair trade teas from small farms in China, India, South Africa and Nepal. Later this year, she is planning on focusing more on obtaining teas from Kenya, which has a developing tea market, she said. “Tea is part of my DNA now.”

Ms. Owens donates 15% of sales of her store and books to Footprints, she said. In 2021, Hometown News Volusia reported Footprints Foundation had committed to training 100 midwives in Somaliland within five years. Since then, “we’ve trained hundreds,” Ms. Owens said.

She will continue writing and supporting the Footprints Foundation through her works. Her fifth book, “Becoming Whole: Letters to the Woman I Am,” a personal reflection about lost love and becoming whole, will be published at the end of this year, she said.

“It’s easier if you write what you know,” Ms. Owens said. “And if you’re lucky, you write something you’re superbly passionate about, like I am to tea -- I want everybody to drink tea and understand what tea brings.”