Check back for our 2023 teachers in January, for now here is a taste of teachers we had last year.

Teachers 2022

For Kids Tent teachers click here and scroll to the bottom

Keynote Speakers

Olatokunboh Obasi MSc, RH (AHG), CNS is a wellness professional in herbal medicine, nutrition and indigenous ways of practice.  She is an educator/founder of Well of Indigenous Wisdom school for herbal medicine and African cosmology. Puerto Rico Coordinator for Herbalists without Borders International & Owner of Omaroti a wellness shop for wellbeing.  Birth doula, yoga and dance instructor, author, presenter and healer, her devotion is to serve humanity and care-take the earth.  
Phone: 787-988-3922 
Instagram & Facebook: Omaroti: Well of Indigenous Wisdom www.wellofindigenouswisdom.com 
Herbalists without Borders International: http://herbalistswithoutborders.weebly.com/puertorico.html
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Catherine Hunziker is a senior professional herbalist with many years of experience in formulation and education in her field. She is the owner of Colorado-based WishGarden Herbs, a source of organic herbal remedies for over 35 years with a reputation for uniquely effective formulations.

https://www.wishgardenherbs.com/​

Main Faire Teachers
(Alphabetical by last name)

​My name’s Leslie Alexander and I’m interested in practicalities. I enjoy bending ideas and shaping protocols to make them accessible and interesting. I think that this is most apparent in my clinical work, the mentoring I do and the Round Tables we teach. I work holistically, with an interest in many aspects of the mouth. In my clinical practice, I enjoy working with others to sustain well-being, to address chronic conditions and acute health-related challenges. I’m very interested in maritime medicinals and I enjoy making cyanotypes (sun prints) as well as weaving. I like food, kitchen medicine, talk, laughter and oh, I’ve a very cute dog!
Yuma "Dr. Yew" Bellomee is a Certified Holistic Health Consultant, herbalist, wellness advocate/educator, and musical artist, who has been featured in numerous radio programs, natural hair, health & beauty
expos, magazine articles, and community and school programs as a speaker and workshop facilitator on wholistic wellness since 2007. He is also the founder of Yew-360 Wholistic Health & Wellness, LLC, and a
member of the African Wholistic Health Association (AWHA), and the Collective Health Initiative (CHI) in Washington, DC. He works with family, private clients, community workers, and community events to
assist in improving thought processes, habits, and conditions around health; and he also provides herbs, herbal preparations, and natural supplements through his business, Yew-360.
Jared Bogdanov-Hanna is a passionate educator, organizer, designer, and market gardener in Oakland County, MI.  He has been studying and engaging with permaculture and food systems since 2007 and received his Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) through Midwest Permaculture in May 2008.  Jared has worked with various non-profits, businesses, organizations and homeowners in designing, building and educating on permaculture based organic farms, gardens for the community, business and homeowner, including with Gateway Farm as the Production Mananger and Oakland University as Special Lecturer, Farm Manager and Organic Farm Coordinator.  In his free time enjoys hiking, biking, camping and learning from Michigan’s diverse ecosystems.   
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Based out of Troy, Illinois, Kristine Brown RH (AHG) is a traditional community herbalist. She has studied with Rosemary Gladstar, Isla Burgess, and her mentors Leslie Alexander and Leslie Williams, as well as spent countless hours in research and study. She sees clients, teaches classes, hosts a study group focusing on the use of local herbs, and creates online/digital content teaching children about herbs, Herbal Roots zine and Herb Club. In addition, Kristine is the author of four books. In the past Kristine has facilitated a summer herbal workshop out of her home for children as well as coordinated the kid's camp for 4 years at the Midwest Women's Herbal Conference. She has also taught both adults and children around the country at conferences such as Traditions in Western Herbalism, Montana Herb Gathering, and Great Lakes Herb Faire. www.herbalrootszine.org
Who is Celena Chavez? Tis the question Celena asks herself at this point in time. She comes from the spaces in between, somehow fitting in but not always exactly, perhaps she's a shapeshifter of sorts. She's still a budding herbalist, only having played with and studied herbalism for over a decade. She's recently earned a masters degree in nursing to fuel her commitment to become a Certified Nurse Midwife, so she's still in between who she is and who she is becoming. She is, however, a lover of connections. She's a mother, a wife, a daughter, a partner, a sister, a doula and a lover of this planet we call home. ​
Mary Colvin is a Registered Herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild, a member of the American Botanical Council and corporate member of United Plant Savers.  She owns Ancestral Herbology, LLC located in Wakeman, Ohio and is dedicated to the education of her clients, students, and local community.  Along with being an herbal and reiki practitioner, she is a formulator for Sprigs Life Herbals with 15 formulas on the market and an author of many articles in Sprigs magazine, Motherhood magazine, and Living Healthy magalog.  She continues to inspire others in herbalism while furthering her own knowledge on a daily basis. www.ancestralherbology.com
Alex Rae Crofoot is a Michigan based trained community/clinical herbalist and full spectrum doula. She is the co-owner of Black Locust Gardens herb farm, plant nursery and apothecary that is rooted in community care.  She is a mom, a herbal educator, and is passionate about accessible herbal care. She works on a sliding fee scale weaving together harm reduction, client and heart centered support for AFAB health specifically care around pregnancy loss, postpartum, and more. ​www.blacklocustgardens.com
​Colleen Donahoe is a yoga teacher, environmental educator, science enthusiast, and budding herbalist who has been sharing her love of science and nature for over 20 years. Based out of Indianapolis, IN she co-founded Wild Persimmon School of Wellness with her husband in 2015 to cultivate healing and community care through yoga, meditation, herbalism and land stewardship programs for all ages. For more information: ​www.persimmonherbschool.com or colleen@persimmonherbschool.com
Geoffrey “Geo” Edwards, L.Ac (he/him/his) is an educator and healing artist whose practice encompasses herbaliam, gardening, community acupuncture and art. He is owner of Grain & Pestle LLC, an herb apothecary, and creator of Nu Healing Arts Garden, a teaching garden and incubator for his studio and healing arts practices. In addition to his creative practice, Geo is Clinic Faculty in the acupuncture program at the Maryland University of Integrative Health. Geo often facilitates plant walks and workshops on numerous topics ranging from ecology, the 5 elements, and creative writing to herb cultivation and art-as-social action. He loves storytelling and building with his wife and sons about all things art, music, genealogy, food.
​Lindsey Feldpausch, RH (AHG) is a clinical herbalist, experienced teacher and medicine maker. She is trained in the art of western clinical herbalism and believes in our innate ability to tap into the healing power of plants. One of her life’s objectives is to kindle this belief in others and teach people the way of herbs.
Margi Flint owns and operates EarthSong Herbals, a busy family practice and clinic in Marblehead MA.  Over these many years she has become their “Village Herbalist.”   She is a mongrel practitioner blending over 40 years of herbal practice with years of labor coaching and polarity therapy, plus showing her etchings nationally and internationally.  Margi continues to teach Advanced Clinical Studies.  She is on the staff at Pacific Rim College in British Columbia and teaches nationally and internationally.  Her most revered teachers are the plants and her clients. Flint is the author of a textbook for herbalists, now in its third edition, titled The Practicing Herbalist, meeting with clients, reading the body.  Copies will be available for purchase. www.earthsongherbals.com
 My name is Kara Flowers and I have been a teacher for over two decades and am now an herbalist in west Michigan.  I first discovered herbs after trying many other traditional and natural remedies that failed. Growing up in Washington state, nature has always been important to me and my family as we spend many hours hiking and being still, observing nature around us. Three years ago I started my own business making herbal bodycare products called Healing Flowers.  When I moved to a homestead in west Michigan with my family of four last summer, I immediately started work on an herb garden and foraging for herbs. I currently am a student in the East West School’s professional course, which combines Eastern Herbal medicine with Western. In addition to getting my business started in Michigan again, I make foraging videos and children’s nature activities which I post on Youtube and TeachersPayTeachers respectively, under Healing Flowers.  I am excited that this forum allows me to combine my two passions – teaching and healing – into one.
Erika Galentin is a Clinical Herbalist and co-creatrix of Sovereignty Herbs in Athens & Columbus, OH. She holds a degree in Herbal Medicine from the University of Wales, Cardiff, UK and Scottish School of Herbal Medicine, Glasgow, UK. She is a professional member of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists (UK) and the American Herbalists Guild (USA). Over a decade of clinical practice has provided a platform for witnessing the efficacy of medicinal plants and aromatics within a clinical environment. As she is a firm believer in celebrating the role that emotions and the psyche play in the ecology of our physical terrain, Erika’s clinical approach to herbalism seeks to encourage positive, learned relationships between plants and people and people and their bodies.  Follow @themedicinegardener, @sovereigntyherbs
Giizhigad [Christy B.] [she/her/they/them], founder of Storyweb Collaborative, is an Anishinaabe artist, filmmaker & cultural producer based in Waawiiyaatanong [Detroit]. As a storyteller through the main medium of film, she is building a practice of filmmaking that actively embodies liberation by utilizing a creative process that is participatory, organic and emergent. Stories are told based on the exchange and collaboration on both sides of the lens. Her cultural work and organizing has included Anishinaabe based storytelling, language revitalization, environmental justice and healing justice work.  

Her praxis in storytelling is rooted in her ancestral knowledge systems as an Anishinaabe person, where stories travel through spacetime and their meanings and lessons are multidimensional; stories have the capacity to heal, educate, as well as spark creativity, movement, and create positive change.
Cal Janae Wolfpack is a clinical herbalist, botanist, farmer & plant educator located in their home state of Iowa. They have been studying plants for their entire life: as a child they were led on plant and bird watching walks by their father before they could walk on their own. Later, they formalized their passion for the natural world and living sustainably in it with a degree in Ethnobotany from Drake University. Cal then studied and apprenticed with 7Song at the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine in Ithaca, NY where they then were employed and volunteered as a clinical herbalist at the Ithaca Free Clinic for several years. Cal currently works as an herb grower, a clinical herbalist & botanist in their private practice in which they offer sliding scale herbal consultations and provide herb kits to clients of Gentlyborne Midwifery, amongst other projects. In their free time Cal maintains a strong wanderlust and rapt interest in the botanical arts, bird watching & their dog, Bowie. Cal and their partner are excited to have welcomed their only child, Calyx, into their family in January of 2021.
In 1994, jim mcdonald's life changed when he drank tea from a wild plant he harvested from the land he lived upon. Since those first sips of strange tea, his life in the woods and meadows of southeast michigan has been centered on the plants & ecosystems of that land, and how he might share their virtues to restore wellness with those around him. jim's approach to herbcraft is deeply rooted in the land he lives upon, and blends traditional european folk influences with 19th century eclectic and physiomedical vitalism, which he conveys with story, experience, humour, common sense and lore to students, clients, random passersby and readers of his websites www.herbcraft.org & herbcraft.podia.com. He's taught classes throughout north america and is currently alternately writing “Foundational Herbcraft” and the “A Great Lakes Herbal”, in addition to articles for journals and other publications. jim is a community herbalist, a manic wildcrafter and medicine maker, and has been an ardent student of the most learned teachers of herbcraft… the plants themselves.
Esstin McLeod (Niganobe) is a member of the Mississaugi First Nations in Mid-Northern Ontario Canada. She is a practitioner of Anishinaabe Healing Methods, her work stems from a spiritual energetic perspective influenced by ceremonial practices and Elder Teachers. Through her 30 years of study and experiential learning she has designed and facilitated “Anishinaabe Wisdom Healing” a series of workshops promoting the healing benefits of Spiritual Development and Spiritual Plant Therapy.
Through her development of facilitating and promoting Anishinaabe Women’s retreat, her goal is to instruct women on how to achieve a balanced spiritual life, by initiating women’s sweat lodge teachings, women’s roles when conducting spiritual ceremonies and the use of plant-based remedies for blessings and prayers for Creation.  Her research is based on the Anishinaabe Medicine Wheel teachings identified as a Wholistic Approach to health and healing. Esstin can be reached by email: redroad4@hotmail.ca
​Greg Monzel is a community herbalist, foraging instructor, permaculturist and cofounder of Wild Persimmon School of Wellness in Indianapolis, Indiana. He has been practicing clinical herbalism and teaching plant-centered skills since 2007; more info at www.persimmonherbschool.com and greg@persimmonherbschol.com
Rachel Mifsud
Rachel is a lifelong student of the environment and primitive skills, with a special interest in understanding why nature creates those characteristics that give plants and animals their unique and useful qualities. She has her BS in Environmental Biology and her MS in Ecology. She has worked as field biologist and ecologist throughout the Eastern U.S., and is a lecturer at the University of Michigan- Dearborn. She has been teaching for over 20 years and has spent considerable time working with students in the classroom, in the woods, and on-line. www.willforageforfood.com
Stacey Quade, COTA/L-CHTP/I-Herbalist – has been an Herbalist, Certified Healing Touch Practitioner, and experienced energy bodywork practitioner since 2002. She received her Healing Touch Certification in 2004, and Level 1 instructor certification for Healing Touch in 2014, and Level 2 Instructor certification in 2018. Recently retired from 33 years of Occupational therapy at Essentia Health (1988 to 2022), those years have helped her to hone her skills in the practical application of whole health. Stacey’s herbal remedies are both grown and made by her. Stacey’s approach enables you to experience healing on all the levels of your being – body, mind, and spirit – engaging in an active role of regaining the awareness and focus of your life’s purpose.
Schantell Puamaeole Taylor is a seeker and keeper of Hawaiian culture. Protector of land, and advocate for culture-based education. She is a practitioner of Hula and holds space for others' transformation and healing that uses dance as a grounding practice. She has studied and practiced lomilomi, cranial sacral, chi nei tsun, aroma therapy, acupressure, wellness consulting, breath work, esthetics and yoga.   ​
Shana Weddington is a Michigan based clinical herbalist, writer, and local food systems champion. Recognizing the impact that herbs and diet had on her own health, Shana dove deep into study and practice over a decade ago and has primarily worked with the youth and elder communities. Shana is the owner of Giving Root Wellness, an education based service that focuses on building health and resilience through connection. Shana also sees clients through The Eclectic School of Herbal Medicine's Free Clinic. You can find Shana teaching classes, offering consults, growing the local food and herbal economy, and hosting community events at Agricole Farm Stop in Chelsea, MI.  ​
Leslie Williams (aka Leslita) is an herbalist who works with humans, dogs and horses. Focus is on plants, ethics, tree medicine, local food and medicines, healthy aging, chronic concerns, queer health, addiction recovery and empowering others to be herbalists. Leslie grew up among Caribbean, rural southern and Illinois farm people and lived many happy years in northern Ohio. Leslie plays banjo. 
Sarah Williams has been studying and working with plant medicine for the past 15 years. She is a wildcrafter, gardener, clinician, teacher, potion-maker, and - always - a student. She believes that the ability to care for our health, and that of our loved ones, working with what grows around us, is our birthright and a crucial part of being human. She seeks to foster a heartfelt connection with the living world, as well as understanding and respect among both people and plants. www.willowmoonbotanicals.weebly.com
Leah Wolfe is the archetypal herbalist. You know the one. The one who lives at the edge of town, at the edge of the woods, with all the weird plants. Oh, and all those weeds! The homestead stands  a few miles from the shore of the Great Lake of Erie, mostly wooded with an understory of medicinal plants. A hoop house provides greens nearly year round, a barn made of salvaged grain bins houses goats and chickens, and a small building made of clay, sticks, and straw bales is Leah’s studio and classroom. Everything surrounded by the Tall Standing People. After a sojourn in consensus reality as the executive director at an arts center, Leah is sinking back into the liminal and fertile spaces between the elements and the plants. More at trilliumcenter.org and stickmedicine.org. 
Nathan Wright (Spiritual name: Spiritman from the Sun or Giizus Su Win en eh) of the Crane Clan, is a tribal member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians with First Nations ancestry. Nathan is a descendant of medicine people on both his parents sides. Nathan continues his ancestors’ legendary plant medicine work by ethically wild harvesting and making medicines from the same areas as his ancestors. He is the owner of the Herbal Lodge, which is a USA made, certified Native American and veteran owned company focusing on natural/organic skin care, pain relief and medicinal tea products using natural/organic and wild harvested herbs or mushroom ingredients. He has traveled the world in support of his business. He is an Indigenous Herbalist and certified mushroom expert. Residing in Petoskey Michigan Nathan is a firm believer of his Anishinabek cultural teachings. “If you do things in a good way, good things will happen,” is one of his favorite teachings. He offers many online videos for culture and herbal teachings. He has taught plant related classes at University of Michigan Biological Station, Michigan State University Extension, Northern Michigan Small Farm Conference, Annual Great Lakes Foragers Gathering, Virtual Intertribal Food Summit, Great Lakes Herb Faire, Tuskegee University Earth Week and Master Gardener Association of Northwest Michigan.  www.herballodge.com
​Lynn Zukowski is an herbalist and the founder of Blue Lake Botanicals, where she makes herbal teas and skincare and teaches classes in her “retirement”. She is a lifelong organic gardener with a degree in biology with a varied background including research assistant at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and naturalist at the Dayton Museum of Natural History. Studying herbalism has been her passion since 2010 and has included learning through books and recordings, as well as conferences, workshops and correspondence schools. She is an Usui Reiki practitioner.

Kids Tent Teachers

Visit the Kids Tent page to view our 2022 teachers and class descriptions.