Teachers 2023

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Keynote Speakers

Rosemary Gladstar has been practicing, living, learning, teaching and writing about herbs for over 50 years.  She is the author of twelve books including Medicinal Herbs; a Beginners Guide, Herbal Healing for Women, Gladstar Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Well Being and Herbal Healing for Men.  She is also the author and director of the popular home study course, The Science and Art of Herbalism.    In 2018 Rosemary was awarded an Honorary Doctorate for her life work from the National University of Naturopathic Medicine.   Rosemary is the co-founder and former director of  both The International Herb Symposium and The New England Women’s Herbal Conference, the Founding President of United Plant Savers, and the co-founder and original formulator of Traditional Medicinal Tea Company.   She recently moved from her home at Sage Mountain ~ an Herbal Retreat Center and Botanical Sanctuary where she has lived, taught and worked for the past 30 years ~ to a smaller haven where she plans to plant a small garden, dream more, do less, and spend more time with the plants.  www.scienceandartofherbalism.com
With a journey that began when she was a little girl mixing herbs on her grandparents’ farm, Lucretia VanDyke has had a lifelong connection to the plants and been in the wellness industry for over 25 years. Her quest for knowledge and storytelling has led her all over the world and throughout the south  to learn about remedies and ceremonies from indigenous folk  healers and keepers of the culture. One of the foremost experts on southern folk healing arts, Lucretia integrates rituals, plant spirit meditation, food /herbs, botanical skincare, and ancestor reverence into people’s practices.
Opening and Closing Ceremonies
with Schantell Puamaeole Taylor 
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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 somatic practices 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. She is a facilitator of self-care practices through ritual and ceremony.

Main Faire Teachers
(Alphabetical by last name)
For kids class teachers, please go to the kids tent page

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!
https://leslie-alexander.net/
​Robert Ayotte is Vice President of the Michigan Botanical Society and serves on the board of the Waterloo History Association. He has been leading interpretive walks in Waterloo State Recreation Area since 2009. He studied forest ecology with Burton V. Barnes (University of Michigan), and has worked for the U.S. Forest Service, The Woodcock Nature Center (CT), and the Michigan Natural Features Inventory.
​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 RH(AHG) is a Clinical Herbalist, Formulator, Mentor, Author, and Teacher with Ancestral Herbology located in Wakeman, Ohio. She formulates for Sprigs Life with the sale of multiple formulas currently on the market. She has just finished writing a book to guide self-taught herbalists in learning herbalism and helping them to create their own at-home apothecary. More information will be coming soon. Her philosophy has always been “Healing the way nature intended” and she teaches this philosophy to both her clients and students alike. She offers training, advice and guidance in the study of herbalism with classes, speaking events, and social media. She is the host of “Herbology Talk” monthly meet-up and future podcast dedicated to supporting the herbal student in their studies and helping each of them reach their goals. She is also the host of the Training in Herbalism series on TikTok. She enjoys connecting with the land, enjoying life with her family, and growing her own medicinal herbs and vegetables while preparing the trails on her land to create a future sanctuary for the United Plant Savers.

Facebook @MaryColvinClinicalHerbalist, Instagram @ancestralherbology,
TikTok @simpletrainingherbalist
www.ancestralherbology.com
​Rowena Conahan is an herbalist, storyteller, and long-time nature connection educator. She co-founded and led Nature Learning Community, an outdoors education program, for 10 years. (Check out naturelearningcommunity.org!) These days she’s busy authoring books, supporting clients in building health through nature connection, and helping people learn to talk with, and build relationship with their homes and surrounding lands.
Constance Campbell Ferry: I have been growing, wild crafting, harvesting, preserving, making medicine and teaching for 32 years. I have taught in classrooms, university, libraries thru out the state of Indiana, Master Gardener Programs thru out the state, taught for our local AHG Chapter and for the IHA. I am a charter member of the Herb Society of Central Indiana, speaker and business member. My herb business is Hobbit Gardens Erth Gatherings Center in West Central Indiana where I teach thru the Herbal Studies Apprentice Program( 12 years) and the Garden Work/Exchange Apprentice Program (17 years). I live, work and tend the land of woods, ravines and pastures in West Central Indiana.
​Hobbit Gardens
Colleen Donahoe: Yoga found me in my mid twenties during a time of isolation, confusion, and depression. In 2009 I traveled to a Sivananda ashram in the Himalayas of northern India to take a 30 day intensive teacher training. I have been teaching and practicing traditional yoga ever since. I completed the advanced teacher training in 2012 and an accessible yoga course in 2015.
Through guided relaxation, yogic breathing (pranayama), personalized exercise (asana), and meditation I can help you train the mind and body to work together toward health and stability. www.persimmonherbschool.com
Geo Edwards (he/him) is an educator and healing artist whose practice encompasses art therapy, herbalism, and community acupuncture. Born and raised in Milwaukee WI, he is owner of Grain & Pestle, an apothecary and art therapy studio based in Detroit MI. Geo’s herb practice has multiple influences that include Chinese Medicine, Black Southern, and Maroon herbal traditions. Geo has facilitated workshops and plant walks on numerous topics ranging from ecology, the elements, mental health, and expressive therapies. 
​Lindsey Feldpausch RH (AHG), is a clinical herbalist helping connect plants with the humans who need them. She believes in our innate ability to engage the healing powers of plants, and one of her life’s intentions is to kindle this belief in others. An experienced educator, she aims to balance both science and the magic of the natural world within in her teachings.
​Vilde Chaya (she/her) is dedicated to mischief and trouble. She is irrepressibly spilly about how freaking cool plants are and the weird and sometimes powerful ways of herbal medicines. She is preoccupied with creating sweet, accessible and nurturing health care, education and connection for queer and trans people and communities. She co-founded the Wild Cherries Herbal Studies Program in Pittsburgh, PA to share her love of flowers with her community, and teaches radical,
 rans-affirming, anti-racist, anti-capitalist and loving herbalism at the Wild Current Clinical Herbal Program, and at large across her bioregion. She believes in our capacity for healing and wholeness and even sometimes joy, and knows that we are better off facing our life work with plants as our partners. wildcherries.org
Herbal Mentor, Margi Flint owns and operates EarthSong Herbals in Marblehead, MA. Her filters of wisdom include 20 plus years in galleries showing her etchings, over twenty years of labor coaching, certification in Polarity Therapy and Reiki, and forty-plus years of herbal practice. She is on staff at Pacific Rim College in BC. She has been caught lecturing at numerous amazing herb schools, Bastyr University, Tufts Medical School, and Mass. College of Pharmacy. She is author of the The Practicing Herbalist IV. The plants and her clients are her revered teachers. She is retired from active practice, focusing now on teaching, and learning how to play.
​Kyanna Frederick is an Aquarius born and raised in Michigan with roots in the deep south, is a RYT200, folk-Herbalist, and is passionate about re~membering and re~wilding our ways of healing, being and honoring our selves and Mother Earth. Ancestral and Indigenous culture and teachings as well as Yoga have played an enormous role in tending to the gap of disconnection, dis~ease, and anxiety in her life and it has always been a dream to share and grow with her community.
Erika Galentin is a Clinical Herbalist and Lead 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
Heather Herdman is a clinical herbalist, as well as a perinatal advanced practice nurse. Her passion is working with individuals to support them in finding their way toward heath and wellness, using an herb and food-based approach whenever possible. She believes that every individual has an innate understanding of what makes them feel and function best, if we learn to listen to ourselves. She combines her knowledge of clinical trial research data and traditional ways of knowing to support clients in wellness, and offers integrative options when clients are in the midst of Western medical treatment for a variety of conditions. Heather owns Sweet Willow Herbals & Café in De Pere, WI, which has provided organic herbs, herbal consults and classes for the past 9 years, and vegan/vegetarian foods (all with herbs featuring prominently!) for the past 3 years.
Sweet Willow Wellness
Heather Irvine has been working on bringing together herbalism and chemistry for the last ten or more years. Initially, this was an effort to help herbalists 'up their game' so to speak in communicating with health professionals, and also to help health professionals and herbalist's clients recognize that herbs do work on a physical level in
ways that we do understand. It was also a personal pursuit. Today more herb learners, researchers, and practitioners than ever recognize that nearly every aspect of botanical medicine can be explained by constituents in plants that communicate with our bodies, and make our physiology go 'zing!'.

Heather learned at the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine, Cornell University in the College of Life Sciences, and the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism, and while working in a busy naturopathic clinic, and in conversations with customers and clients. She has nearly as many hours as any making herbal preparations, having engaged in a busy and profitable one-lady herbal product business for ten years. She is semi-retired from squashing and schlepping plants and now teaches every day, year round, and in quiet sprints, when the work is done, she is drafting a one of a kind book. ​Heather has been developing audio lessons about medicinal plants "Sound Wise About Medicinal Plants" which can also be found here: Learnmedicinalplants.com ​
Angie Jackson: ​In her 25 year career she has designed and executed award winning beverage programs for Chicago's top bars and restaurants, numerous Midwest distilleries, national distributors, as well as global brands and celebrities. She is a graduate of the Academy of Spirits and Fine Service, BarSmarts Advanced Bar Education Program, and the Advanced Culinary Mixology
Academy. Angie taught mixology (HOS 123) in the Culinary Arts, Food Beverage, and Hospitality Department at Kendall College in Chicago before moving back to Michigan to nurture her home state's growing culture of farm to table culinary experiences, local agriculture and distillation, wild crafted elixirs, as well as herbalism and foraging. ​www.TheElixirHouse.com
​Jocelyn Kirkwood (she/they) is a community herbalist Currently residing in Pittsburgh, PA where they are apart of the Stonefruits Community Herbalists, teaching at the Wild Cherries Herbal Studies Program and an herbalist at the Three Rivers Free Clinic for the People. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, they were a Co-founder and herbalist at the Lake Effect Free Alternative Health Clinic for nine years. Jocelyn specializes in harm reduction, first aid, LGBTQ health, chronic conditions, mental health and trauma. She has also been a sexual health educator, teaching sex ed in schools and the community and has worked in an abortion clinic for seven years where she does patient education and support through the abortion process. Trained in Somatic Experiencing, they also support clients with body based practices and herbal allies. Jocelyn believes people can feel more empowered in their life with the use of plants and loves connecting people with plants through the incredible world of herbal medicine. ​Wildcherries.orgwww.wildcherries.org/
Amanda Klain What began in the 1990’s as a piqued interest in herbs, soon developed into a passionate lifetime dedication to plants. I have been working professionally with the Michigan flora since 2006, and have extensive knowledge in plant identification, botanical field work, herbarium work and more. I currently work as a field botanist conducting rare plant surveys and researching both invasive species and rare plant species. Plants are my go-to medicines! Some of my most memorable herbal medicine studies and teachers include Susun Weed’s Green Witch Correspondence Class 2002, Linda Diane Feldt 2000-2003, Herb Pharm work-study program 2004, Jim McDonald’s first-ever Lindera Herbal Intensive 2005, Bronwen Gates Herbwyfe Program April 2006-2009, Bronwen Gates Healing Journey with Flower Essences 2009-2010. Flower essences have taken center stage through the years and are now a central pillar in my life. I am currently doing the Flower Essence Practitioner Certification Programs with Flower Essence Society and Alaskan Essences. 
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.
​Kara McNabb helps people navigate chronic stress, anxiety and get to the root of hard-to-figure- out health problems through a combination of somatic therapy and traditional naturopathy. Her practice is infused with myriad modalities and lineages, from plant medicine, energy work, and craniosacral therapy to using personal energetics as insight, resource and healer. Kara is an advocate of presence practice and conscious communication with self and others. Kara has studied at the Naturopathic Institute for Therapies and Education, with herbalists, somatic therapists, Enneagram coaches, and various other teachers and works with clients through her practice Magnolia Wellness in Grand Rapids, MI, and online.  Kara McNabb
Rachel Mifsud 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 owns and runs Will Forage for Food, providing foraging classes and camps throughout the southern Great Lakes, and the Great Lakes Foragers Gathering, the largest annual gathering of Foragers East of the Mississippi. 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
​Greg Monzel is a student of nature with a gift for nourishing deep connections between people and plants. He first experienced the medicinal power of plants as a teenager when he successfully treated his chronic strep-throat with raw pineapple. He has been a practicing herbal educator, medicine maker and grower since 2008. He and his wife Colleen Donahoe co- founded Persimmon Herb School in 2015 to hold plant centered space and build a healing community in central Indiana.  www.persimmonherbschool.com 
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: [email protected]
Angie Pietraszewski is a clinical herbalist who was previously a registered nurse. She left the field of nursing to become a feet in the mud, hands in the dirt, digging in the earth kind of herbalist, and to serve her community with the plants growing around us. She is the owner of Lavender & Honey Herbal Apothecary based out of both Manitou Beach (farm) and Blissfield (apothecary) in Michigan. Her passion is providing "for real" natural products and helping folks take charge of their wellness with local herbs and the natural world. Her approach helps shift patterns of health and wellness by using herbs that improve structure and function to maximize the vitality of the body. Her business is led by faith and continues to grow in a tiny country town. When not playing with herbs Angie loves spending time with her horse Gemini and trail riding. www.lavenderhoney.com
Taylor Rae is an Herbalist, Herbal Educator, and Activist based in upstate New York who aims to center community and a collective reclamation of histories in her work. Taylor studied botany, ecology, and environmental science at Northwestern University and has been formerly studying herbs for 5 years now, though she has been an apprentice of the plants for most of her life. Her goal is to encourage healing and growth through rekindling our relationships to our inner selves and ancestral knowledge. The plants have been by our sides since the beginning of human existence and Taylor strongly believes they are the key to each of our own unique expressions of well-being and balance. She hopes to help reignite our connections to the earth and clarify its innate ability to invigorate our physical, emotional, and spiritual beings. Rae Flower Holistics

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Abigail Ruby is first and foremost an eternal student of nature and the plants themselves. She is an herbalist and student midwife. Abigail’s main herbal passions are in women’s health and wellness, fertility care, pregnancy and labor, and home folk herbalism. She resides under the Oaks and Lindens in Madison, WI. Abigail Ruby received a degree in Western Herbalism at The Southwest Institute of Healing Arts under JoAnna Sanchez in 2019, but has been practicing, in some way or another, for her whole life. Ruby Roots
Brandon Ruiz (he/him) is a Community Herbalist, Urban Farmer and Chef based in Catawba land (also known as Charlotte, NC). He has been working with plant medicines since a teen and established Yucayeke Farms (formerly known as the CLT Herbal Accessibility Project) an ongoing herbal and agricultural project cultivating culturally-relevant herbs and foods for his community. His lineage is based in Boriken (Puerto Rico) and his practice focuses on Caribbean and Appalachian plants.
VIVIAN SAKELLARIOU aka ASTARA loves learning and has practiced and studied many healing modalities that helped her on her self-discovery and recovery journey. Among these, she has learned and sometimes taught Dahn Yoga, Reiki, Hypnotherapy, Coaching, Angel / Card Readings, Akashic Records Readings, Shamanism, Intuitive Dance, Tantra and Breathwork.
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Through movement and the breath, you can open up, discover and access deeper emotions, limiting beliefs, and the liminal spaces where deeper healing and self-connection can be experienced. Exercises that encourage feeling, sensing and being with what is, is so important, as this is where the most rooted and embodied healing can happen. Rather than repressing ignoring, fighting off or resenting the sensations, it’s to become aware, notice and feel it in order to heal it. 

Astara's excited to co-teach on Friday and share sensual embodied practices with you in one of her favorite places to be, outdoors among the sun or stars, trees and plants in nature. Viv-idhealing
​7Song: At the age of 12 years old, 7Song was found in an abandoned mall, no one knows how he got there. In the mall, he was raised by a family of kindly lab-escaped mice who took him in as their own. They taught him how to use the plants that grew in the old planters and the cracks in the overgrown, disused parking lot. He was eventually found by a small cadre of vagabond herbalists who started living in the mall. They took him out to the fields and showed him the medicinal plants and trees. In return, 7Song taught them what he learned from the mice (which was initially difficult, as he only spoke ‘Squeak’). When they demolished the mall to put in an exclusive high-rise, he hitchhiked to Greenland, where he lived in an ice cave and only ate the foods he could forage in the nearby fjords. Fortunately, 2 caves over, lived a pair of herbalists who continued to teach him the uses of medicinal plants. Around 1994, the ice cave was cleaved by climate change, and he slowly drifted to the US, where he continued to pursue his interest in plant medicine. 7Song.com
Rivka Schwartz: I have loved plants and the outdoors since I was a child. If not outside, I could frequently be found cooking in the kitchen. After marrying my husband, Laurence, and giving birth to three boys, these two passions combined. The experience of watching out for the health of my family led me to realize the importance of diet and how herbs can be used to promote health, not just when ill but to encourage everyday health and vitality. To build my knowledge of health and herbs I completed a two year course in herbal medicine and continued on into advanced clinical studies. I am always actively learning and increasing my knowledge and skills; reading, keeping up with herbal and medical studies, attending workshops and classes and working with other experienced herbalists. Every client adds to my knowledge and understanding as well as adding the joy of being able to help people. I studied a the Mayo Clinic and received a certification as a Wellness Coach. Over the past 20 years I’ve been helping people with health concerns using natural medicine and taught about wellness issues and diet. Since college I have been an environmental educator. I enjoy the time I spend creating healthy foods and herbal preparations and love sharing these skills with others. 
Health and Hearth
​Lottie V. Spady , Community Educator, Wellness Media Maker, and Practicing Herbalist is the founder of Earthseed Detroit, an educational community health program that is focused on imagining and co-creating the afro-future of our health through love, wellness, respect, and deep joy. Earthseed Detroit centers social justice, community empowerment, health, local access and affordability through healthy media making, herbalism for healing, medicinal plant identification, foraging, gardening and the creation of wellness supports such as tea blends, tinctures, elixirs and salves. Lottie currently teaches “Do It Yourself Community Health” classes in seasonal plant identification, herbal formulations and medicine making, and wild edible cooking. Other courses include herbs and tarot, plants as spiritual allies, and self-development through vision collage. She also holds sacred space for nature based healing  retreat work, camping/glamping, outdoor education and botanical studies in rural Michigan. Earthseed Detroit
Crystal Stevens co-owns Flourish Farmstead, a medicinal herb farm, apothecary, education center, and botanical sanctuary, with her husband and two children in Godfrey, IL. Together, they run Flourish Folk School where they offer a myriad of plant-focused educational offerings including ethical wild foraging, herbal medicine, plant identification, and gardening.
Stevens is an Author, Folk Herbalist, Regenerative Farmer, and multi-disciplinary artist. Stevens has written 3 books published by New Society Publishers. Stevens speaks at conferences and Mother Earth News Fairs across the U.S. Stevens Co-founded Tend & Flourish School of Botanicals.
Jane Hawley Stevens: A pioneer of the organic farming movement and the natural products industry, Jane is an advocate for health on earth. Recently named Midwest Organic Farmer of the year (2020), her sustainable farming practices are the roots of her herbal wellness line, Four Elements Organic Herbals. (est. 1987) When Jane is not busy writing, propagating herbs, or managing the business, you may find her foraging in the woods, reflecting in her Chakra Garden, or camping, biking, skiing, or skating with family and friends.
​ Four Elements Herbals​
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.  ​
​Alexander Weyer has been working in collaboration with the Planets through the study and practice of Astrology for over 19 years. Primarily a self-directed student of the Cosmos, Alexander is a former member of the American Federation of Astrologers (AFA), as well as the Association for Young Astrologers (AYA). They have been professionally working with clients in the Detroit area and beyond for the past 9 years. Their primary training in Herbalism has come through the teachings of Jim McDonald’s intensive course ‘Lindera’ in 2016, as well as Sajah Popham’s Alchemical Herbalism program. AWAstrology
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​Kathleen Raven Wildwood has been studying and teaching in scientific, shamanic and western herbal traditions over 20 years. Since 2003, she has run one of the few in-person Herbalist Apprenticeship Programs, including a Clinical Program, in the Upper Midwest. The former President of the Madison Herbal Institute, she has taught classes at Meriter Hospital, UW Medical School, Olbrich Botanical Gardens, and Edgewood College. She is known for her passion and enthusiasm for plants and herbal education, which shines through all her work. Her mission is to bring the plants to the people and the people to the earth.
​wildwood institute
Leslie Williams ​
​Summers visiting the shores of Lake Superior and Lake Michigan and years living in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, as well as Cincinnati, OH have given me a good connection to the great lakes bioregion. I have been living a wild and rambling herbal life for more than 70 years, and I want more herbalists in this world. Ordinary Herbalist
Ethnobiologist Marc Williams has studied the people, plant, mushroom and microbe interconnection intensively while learning to employ botanicals and other life forms for food, medicine, and beauty in a regenerative manner. His training includes a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Studies concentrating in Sustainable Agriculture with a minor in Business from Warren Wilson College and a Master’s degree in Appalachian Studies concentrating in Sustainable Development with a minor in Geography and Planning from Appalachian State University. He has spent over two decades working at a multitude of restaurants and various farms and has traveled throughout 30 countries in Central/North/South America and Europe as well as all 50 states of the USA. Marc has visited over 200 botanical gardens and research institutions during this process while taking tens of thousands of pictures of representative plants and other entities. He has taught hundreds of classes to thousands of students about the marvelous world of people and their interface with other organisms while working with over 100 organizations and particularly as a key contributor to the work of United Plant Savers, Plants and Healers International and online at the website www.botanyeveryday.com.  Marc's greatest hope is that this effort may help improve our current challenging global ecological situation. ​
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
 ​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 & homesteading with their family. Facebook page 
​IG: @profoundexistenceherbs

Kids Tent Teachers

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