24/25 Guest Experts
SEPTEMBER
Perdita Finn, Author & CoFounder of Way of the Rose
Returning to the Embrace of the Matri-Sphere
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Perdita Finn is the co-founder, with her husband Clark Strand, of the feral fellowship The Way of the Rose, which inspired their book The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary. They are currently at work on their next book together Circles Not Lines: Spiritual Community Beyond Patriarchy. To find out more about her devotion to “ecology not “ecology not theology” visit wayoftherose.org. Her book Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World is an intimate journey through her recovery of these lost ways. I highly recommend this beautiful book! Her next book is Mothers of Magic: Recovering the Love at the Heart of the World. She lives with her family in the moss-filled shadows of the Catskill Mountains.
OCTOBER
Chaya Leia Aronson, Womb Whisperer, Grief Ritualist
Embracing the Wild Woman in Every Season
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Since opening her practice in 2009 Chaya Leia Aronson has had the honor of supporting hundreds of women and wombkeepers in their healing. Her focus is on supporting healing from struggles related to menstruation, bladder health, digestion, pelvic health, pregnancy and postpartum. Her passion is supporting people to connect to their pleasure, whether that be sexual or not, with self or other.
Within the seasonal experience of Maiden, Mother, Queen, Crone, the Queen is the Autumn of our lives. Through the eyes of the Wild Changing Woman, Chaya will share embodied watery womb practices that apply to all seasons of our lives. These practices will range through kinesthetic, herbal and spiritual. Chaya has been doing womb work for nearly 20 years and has great passion for supporting women / wombbearers to connect to health, pleasure and vitality and can often be found mothering, communing with flowers and dancing.
NOVEMBER
Lana Smithner Greenleaf, Death Doula, Grief Tender
Death Meditation as a Portal to Rebirth
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Lana Smithner Greenleaf is a water ritualist, somatic grief tender, death doula, folk herbalist, animist, performing artist, and filmmaker. She believes that melding healing modalities with art and storytelling is the way forward. Her desire to support people in thawing their nervous systems so they can release into the grieving process and thus fully live and dream into pleasure is at the heart of all she curates. She’s passionately watering 4 large death/grief projects: the communal book “Mourning Elixirs”, “Grief Altars” around the world, “YOUR FUNERAL” a grief ritual comedy play about the climate crisis, and the documentary and service project “death, me, dying tree” which supports all forms of grieving and de-stigmatizes having a relationship with death. All of Lana’s projects are made through communal experimentation and contribution, please take part if you want by emailing deathmedyingtree@gmail.com or follow along on her Substack, which features these projects and themes.
DECEMBER
Christena Cleveland, PhD, Social Psychologist
The Black Madonna Into the Heart of the Mother
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Christena Cleveland, Ph.D. is a social psychologist, public theologian, author, and activist. She is the founder and director of the Center for Justice + Renewal which supports a more equitable world by nurturing skillful justice advocacy and the depth to act on it. An award-winning researcher and author, former professor at Duke University’s Divinity School, Dr. Cleveland is an avid student of embodied wisdom.
JANUARY
Medicine & Magic of Poisonous Plants
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Kathryn Solie is probably best known for her work as a "poisonous" plant educator. She feels that her current mission is to bring about a greater cultural understanding of certain aspects of plant consciousness, and ultimately help generate a community of unique practitioners in dialogue with one another, learning from and supporting each other, both in commonality and contrast. Her background in Eastern philosophy and psychology has deeply impacted the way she works with these often misunderstood plants.
Kathryn Solie, Poisonsous Plant Educator
FEBRUARY
Beyond the Algorithm: Understanding Your Cycle
Julia Ornelas, Certified Fertility Awareness Educator
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Julia Ornelas is an herbalist, movement facilitator, and Certified Fertility Awareness Educator who has helped women for the past 22 years to understand their cycles, themselves, and their relationships better and reconnect with their sensuality and zest for life.
Julia is passionate about being a mama, travel, flowy dresses, big earrings, and romanticizing every part of her life.
Her book, A Heart Aflame: Tales of a Journey with Lemon Balm and Tulsi comes out in October 2024.
APRIL
Ana & Jesse Smith, White Buffalo Land Trust
Living with the Land: Regenerative Stewardship
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Ana Smith is the Director of Programs and Engagement for white Buffalo Land Trust. She works at the nexus of business development and community dynamics. Her background in program development, event planning and production, project management, and creative direction play a key role in the experience our community has with the work of White Buffalo Land Trust, whether online or in person.
The talk titled "Living with the Land: Regenerative Stewardship" will be presented by Jesse and Ana Smith of White Buffalo Land Trust. It will delve into their approach to land stewardship, exploring how they apply regenerative principles and contextually appropriate practices to restore ecological function to the land, increase biodiversity, and improving soil health. The discussion will weave in the artistry of working within natural systems, creating a landscape that is both ecologically vibrant and productive. Jesse and Ana will share how they embrace regeneration as a process and not a destination, not only on the land but also in their family, kitchen and personal / professional growth.
MARCH
Alison Gayek, Granicera Weather Shaman
Nature is Alive: Teachings from a Weather Shaman
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Alison Gayek brings a wealth of knowledge to her healing and teaching practices with over twenty-five years of experience. Alison trained under Eliot Cowan, and began her clinical practice in the late 1990s. In 2002, Eliot Cowan invited her to begin teaching with him and in the ensuing years became a fully trained teacher of Plant Spirit Medicine in the Eliot Cowan tradition.
Alison is also initiated as a Granicera (Weather Shaman) and healer in the Nahua tradition indigenous to Central Mexico. She holds a Masters degree in History from Yale University and worked as a writer and editor for over a decade before turning her attention to Plant Spirit Medicine. Alison maintains a clinical healing practice in North Carolina where she lives with her family.
https://www.instagram.com/plant_spirit_medicine/ Website: https://www.plantspiritmedicine.org/
MAY
Chelsie Diane, Founder of Poems & Power
Poetry for Manifestation: Creating Life Through Your Pen
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Chelsie Diane is a poet, mother and founder of Poems and Power the international community of women focused on women writing their truth and waking to their power, reclaiming their one precious life as their own.
She lives in the canyons of southern california with her three children and Cozy their crosseyed cat.
JUNE
Panquetzani, Mexican Folk Healer, Teacher, Author
Reclaiming La Cuarentena & Ancestral Care Practices
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Panquetzani breathes life into ancestral traditions, offering time-tested wellness practices inspired by Mesoamerican medicine + Mexican folk healing. She uses her sacred hands to heal via bodywork, traditional foods, + herbalism. Using inherited Indigenous knowledge from her Valley of Mexico and Northern Mexican lineages, Panquetzani has been serving her community since the year 2000. Since 2008, Panquetzani has dedicated herself to healing la matriz + disseminating Indigenous wellness practices to her people, helping 3,000+ folks feel their wombs. In 2012, Panquetzani founded Indigemama: Ancestral Healing as a direct response to the womb wellness needs of her communities. Panquetzani provides online and in-person programs, healing services, + education worldwide. Today, Panquetzani has ushered over 8,000 BIPOC members through her online school, Indigescuela.
Links
IG: @indigemama, @indigescuela
Website: indigemama.com
Book: indigemama.com/book
Past Guest Experts
DECEMBER
Grandmother Lánésaán,
Healer, Teacher & Guardian
Night Medicine: Becoming The Wisdom Of What’s Hidden In the Dark
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LánéSaán Moonwalker has been an oracle, healer, spiritual teacher, and environmental guardian for more than 45 years. Holder of the Moonwalker lineage, she comes from a lineage of curanderas, and has dedicated her life to creative expression as a weaver, painter, dancer, singer, and teacher. A licensed minister and founder of the Philosophy of Universal Beingness within the Whole, LaneSaan shares how to work with nature in a sacred way and how creative expression is a doorway to spirit. LaneSaan is a part of @aniwa.co a global platform where indigenous elders from around the world share ancestral wisdom through an online portal and in person events.
AUGUST 5 - 10, 2025
FEBRUARY
The Matter & The Mother: Composting With The Magdalene
Sophie Strand,
Author, Eco-Mystic, Poet
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Why has interest in the Magdalene surged at a time of extinction and climate collapse? What wisdom might she have to offer us about cycles of decay and rebirth? Drawing on Strand's research into the anti-imperial ecologically radical teachings of early Christianity, microbiology, and Magdalene folklore, we resurrect death as a womb and the tomb as the soil matrix that germinates more-than-human miracles. Sophie Strand is the author of The Flowering Wand, The Madonna Secret, and a forthcoming memoir, The Body is a Doorway: Healing Beyond Hope, Healing beyond the Human.
FEBRUARY
Herbal Aphrodisiac: Let’s Make Chocolate Truffles
Alyssa Cox,
Kitchen Witch
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Learn how to make deliciously luscious chocolate truffles. We’ll infuse them with aphrodisiac herbs, and decorate them with rose petals, for a titillating treat! Alyssa Cox is a professional chef based in San Francisco, CA. In her 20-year career, she’s done everything from cooking and traveling with rock and roll bands to teaching online cooking classes in natural egg dyeing. Her passion is creating delicious food with beautiful, natural ingredients. When she’s not cooking, you can find Alyssa walking among the wild oats near the Pacific coast, and singing on the weekends with a local San Francisco band.
Benki, Indigenous Leader
& Environmental Activist
SEPTEMBER
Guardians Of The Earth: Living In Reciprocity With Mother Earth
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Benki is a spiritual leader from the Amazon from an Antaviari lineage in the Ashaninka culture. A recipient of the UN Equator Prize, Benki has replanted over 2.5 million trees and is an environmental and indigenous rights activist, working to help indigenous groups recover their culture. Founder of the Yorenka Ãtame agroforestry center, he has worked to rehabilitate drug and alcohol-addicted youth by teaching them to work with nature, thus bringing people and endangered animal/plant species together again. He also established the world's first eco-market, which exchanges plastic for food in Amazonia. Benki is a part of @aniwa.co a global platform where indigenous elders from around the world share ancestral wisdom through an online portal and in-person events.
OCTOBER
Celeste Larson, Pagan,
Witch & Author
Magick In The Portal of Samhain & Healing The Witch Wound
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Celeste Larsen is a pagan witch, ritualist, retreat facilitator, and author of the book Heal the Witch Wound: Reclaim Your Magic and Step Into Your Power. Her work covers a range of esoteric topics including folk magic, paganism, polytheism, animism, ancestor veneration, ritual practice, magical self-healing, and more. Celeste’s personal practice weaves together threads of various ancestral traditions, focusing on Nordic and Celtic spirituality and magic. Originally from the United States, she currently resides in beautiful County Cork, Ireland.
AUGUST 5 - 10, 2025
NOVEMBER
Miranda Rondeau, Singer
& Frame Drum Artist
The Frame Drum & Voice: A Portal of Devotion We Sing To Remember
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Miranda Rondeau is an internationally recognized singer, musician, and frame drum artist. She teaches original frame drum "circle songs" as a way of sacred remembrance and has been teaching since 1999 — as encouraged by her teacher, Layne Redmond, author of When the Drummers Were Women. She created and maintains an online presence for Women Frame Drumming and is dedicated to the reclamation of the drum and voice as sacred tools of remembrance.
SEPTEMBER
Cheryl Angel, Lakota Activist and Water Protector
Being a Good Relative in the Era of Climate Change
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Cheryl Angel is an Indigenous leader, venerable Lakota woman (Sioux), water protector, the mother of five children, originally from the Sicangu tribe in South Dakota. With the slogan “water is life”, she has been a fundamental activist and water protector at standing rock and continues the nonviolent struggle together with the Lakota people while being a beacon for nonviolent activism, education and healing.
OCTOBER
Kimberly Ann Johnson, Somatic Practitioner
Activate Your Inner Jaguar: Building Nervous System Capacity
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Kimberly Ann Johnson is an author, teacher, Sexological Bodyworker, Somatic Experiencing trauma resolution practitioner, Structural Integration practitioner, birth doula, and single mom. Kimberly is the author of “The Fourth Trimester,” “Call of the Wild,” and “Reckoning,” co-authored with Stephen Jenkinson. She is the host of the Sex Birth Trauma podcast as well as the creator of Activate Your Inner Jaguar.
NOVEMBER
Mamo Rodrigo, Spiritual Leader of the Kogi People
Restoring the Heart of the Earth: Wisdom of Trees
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The Mamos are spiritual leaders of Columbia, from tribes that fled to the high sierras, avoiding colonization. Since the beginning of time, they make “pagamentos” (offerings/ payments) On behalf of all humans, for all that we receive from nature. In the 70s they began to come down from the high mountains to tell their “little brother” (us) that theyll no longer be able to maintain balance in the heart of the earth if we dont join forces & work with them to restore balance. Mamos are identified while still in the womb & spend the first 9 years of their lives surrounded by love & in training in a cave, without ever seeing the earth. After 9 years, they emerge from the cave & it is said that they never recover from the immense beauty. They then spend 12 years apprenticing to the plants & learning directly from the land, before serving as a Mamo.
Mamo Sewigu Kakamukwa (Mamo Rodrigo) comes from a lineage of Mamos that goes beyond his great-great-grandfather, his family comes from the Kakamukwa lineage and there has been Mamos in his family in every single generation.
MARCH
Vaidya Jay, Masters In Ayurveda
The Essentials Of Ayurveda
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Vaidya Jay is a world-renowned speaker, professor of Ayurvedic medicine, and a NAMA registered practitioner with 21 years of experience in Ayurvedic practice and teaching. He is a professor of Ayurvedic medicine and a faculty member at the Southern California University of Health Sciences, and the Japan School of Ayurveda. He is the Founder and Director of the Athreya Ayurvedic Integrative Health Center, in Long Beach, California, and the founder of Athreya Herbs.
APRIL
Isabel Barreto,
Meditation For Mamas
A 40 Day Practice of Feeding The Inner Fire
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Isabel Barreto has been applying the technology of Kundalini yoga and meditation through practice in her life for over 20 years. When she gave birth to her first child in 2013, she began to utilize the powerful techniques of breathwork, movement, mantra and meditation as tools for energy management, to curb anxiety, and to stay connected to herself — to develop an inner anchor. Isabel teaches workshops, works one-on-one with clients as an intuitive empowerment coach, and leads a 40-day meditation experience container through which students learn the breath of fire practice. Breath of fire is an incredibly energizing breath work practice that strengthens the entire nervous system, aids in the removal of toxins, tones the vagus nerve, purifies the blood, clears the brain, moves stuck energy, and makes space for prosperity and new experiences.
APRIL
Lily Mazzarella, Clinical
Herbalist & Nutritionist
MAY
The Path to Nourishment: Bitters To Support Vagus Nerve & Digestion
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Lily Mazzarella, MS, CNS, is a clinical herbalist, nutritionist, certified Forest Therapy guide, and owner of Farmacopia, a walk-in apothecary and integrative clinic in Santa Rosa, California. She is the formulator and creator of Farmacopia’s line of herbal tinctures and botanical skincare, and co-founder and formulator of Reishi Roast, one of the first functional coffee substitutes on the market. In 2019, Lily helped co-found The Botanical Bus(501c3), a bilingual mobile herb clinic that empowers holistic health by-and-for Latine and Indigenous people.
MAY
Stephanie Burg, Somatic
& Soul Healing Guide
Breathwork Healing For Embodied Alchemy & Creative Expression
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For the past decade, Stephanie Burg has provided women with the spaces and tools to liberate themselves from trauma, past conditioning, old storylines, and everything the world tells them they “should” or “shouldn’t” be. She was a professional ballerina for over a decade and is now a trauma-informed, Certified Integrative Health & Transformational Life Coach, Certified Breathwork Facilitator, Somatic Healing & Embodiment Guide, international retreat facilitator, and steward to plant medicines. Stephanie believes that we are here to be the way-showers of a brave, new paradigm - a legacy in which our fullest expression of ourselves impacts the change we wish to see in our lineage and the world.
JUNE
Susan Ilka, Green Witch,
Author, Herbalist & Medium
Midsummer Magick: A Witch’s Celebration of Light Within & Without
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Susan Ilka Tuttle is a green witch, herbalist, spirit medium, author, and photo artist living in rural Maine. Enjoy her book Green Witch Magick, where she explores 13 essential herbs for the witch's cupboard through herbalism and magick-based projects. Visit her botanicals shop, learn about her spirit mediumistic readings, and follow her on Instagram.
Hamsa Nguyen,
Ceremonialist & Herbalist
MAY
Transgender Herbalism: Wisdom For Living Beyond the Binary
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Hamsa Nguyen (she/they) is a trans woman from a long lineage of mystics, healers, and farmers. She is the founder of the Elderflower Mystery School, a QT+POC celebrated collective and apprenticeship for reviving the ecological mind through trauma-informed healing arts and decolonization work. Her work roots in San Diego, California, where she also offers plant spirit ceremonies and Yoga is a Butterfly, a karma yoga community garden for queer and trans* individuals.