I love sharing the wonders of wild edible and medicinal plants, and I am fortunate to make a living doing that. I’m the author of the book, “Dandelion Hunter: Foraging the Urban Wilderness,” which Publishers Weekly kindly called “the funniest herbal adventure you’ll ever read.” I also write the herbal blog First Ways, and offer plant spirit classes and private plant walks where I live in Portland, OR. And I absolutely love doing energy healing with plants in my Plant Spirit Reiki practice. I am passionate about herbs and I love introducing people to them. Often it’s a very special and empowering experience for people, because our culture has really become disconnected from nature, and people are eager to reclaim that sacred, primal connection that is still within all of us. The plants are such amazing beings.

Before I started studying with East West, I had a lot of experience with plant identification and had been wildcrafting herbs in the city and surrounding wilderness areas and making tinctures and salves, and I got to see them cure myself and friends overnight in a number of acute instances — for example strep throat, urinary tract infections, and other occasions that call for herbal antibiotics — which was amazingly inspiring to me. Because I was documenting this on my blog, people would sometimes write to me and ask about treating chronic conditions or complex diseases, and I didn’t really have much to offer them because I did not have an understanding of how to use herbs holistically. This course has been extremely useful to me in helping me develop an understanding of how herbs work for chronic conditions and how they can balance each individual’s body energetically to enhance health and prevent illness.

I’m very much looking forward to the upcoming herbal seminar this April. I’m excited to deepen my knowledge and meet the inspiring teachers who created this wonderful course.