Elise Krohn

I am a native plant specialist and herbalist who has been working and teaching in tribal communities for the last twelve years. I began her training in 1995 with a Clinical Herbalist certificate at the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine and have since completed a two year program in advanced herbal studies, and a Bachelor of Science in Pre-Medicine. In 2005 I completed a certificate program in ethnobotany with the Center for World Indigenous Studies, applying that certificate to a MA, a Master of Education in Traditional Foods and Medicines. During my certificate program I designed and developed community gardens, researched and wrote about diabetes and explored pedagogical methods for Indian Country Between 2004-2007 I was the head gardener and educator for the People of the River Healing Garden at the Skokomish Tribe. I am currently an educator and program coordinator for the Native Plant Nutrition Program at the Northwest Indian Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center and for the Northwest Indian College's Diabetes Prevention Through Traditional Plants Program. In 2007, I published a book entitled Wild Rose and Western Red Cedar: The Gifts of the Northwest Plants. My second book Feeding the People, Feeding the Spirit: Revitalizing Northwest Coastal Indian Food Culture was co-authored with Valerie Segrest and was published in 2010.

Paul Bergner

Paul Bergner has studied and practiced natural medicine since 1973, with formal studies in naturopathy, medical herbalism, clinical nutrition, traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, flower essences, yoga therapy, and bodywork, including undergraduate studies in pre-medicine and psychology, and 50 semester hours of doctoral level medical studies at National College of Naturopathic Medicine. He has edited the Medical Herbalism journal since its founding in 1989, and has written seven books on medical herbalism, nutrition, Chinese medicine, ethnobotany, and naturopathic medicine. He has also edited periodicals on clinical nutrition and naturopathic medicine.

Paul directed the clinical herbalism programs at Rocky Mountain Center for Botanical Studies and the NAIMH for sixteen years, training more than 220 certified clinical herbalists in an 1100 or more hour education that culminates in an eight-month internship program. He has been adjunct faculty in nutrition at Naropa University, visiting faculty in nutrition and pathophysiology at the Tai Sophia Institute, and nutrition faculty at the Seven Bowls school of nutrition. In addition to directing the NAIMH, he teaches herbal materia medica and therapeutics, clinical nutrition, basic medical sciences, clinical skills, medical history and philosophy, and nature studies.

Erico Schleicher

Erico Schleicher is a practicing herbalist and acupuncturist. He has been discovering and working with plant medicines since 1994. His studies with Michael R.S. Moore at the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine put him on a path towards regional, accessible, empowering herbalism based on traditional principles. Upon moving to Oregon, studied Chinese Medicine at the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine, and he has been doing clincal work with patients in Portland since 2003.

Erico is deeply committed to sustainable directions for community health, with a site devoted to community herbalism. www.communityherbalism.com

Erico finds that when we work seasonally with locally available plants that have discovered how to thrive in our bioregion, we learn to perceive the many voices that teach us how to integrate our own health into the life of the land around us.

Erico's herbalism workshops have been featured at the Breitenbush Herbal Conference, the Northwest Herbal Fair, Tryon Life Community Farm, and the Montana Herb Gathering.

Erico is a board member of Tryon Life Community Farm and has served as Treasurer and Vice President of the Oregon Acupuncture Association.

Sean Donahue

Sean Donahue is a traditional herbalist, poet, and witch. He has also worked as a freelance journalist, a political organizer, and a nonviolence trainer. He is proud to be a regular contributor to Plant Healer Magazine.http He lives in Sequim, WA.

While he has been blessed to receive amazing support and guidance from other herbalists, Sean's primary teachers have been the wild and feral plants growing in the forests, fields, and swamps around him. He has trusted his own health completely to the plants since they first began helping him begin to heal the asthma he struggled with since childhood.

As a practitioner he looks to plants as allies in helping people remember their own beauty, strength and power and in guiding them to health.

As a teacher, he encourages students to build their own deep, personal relationship with the plants around them grounded in the experience of their own senses and their own hearts. He identifies deeply with the traditions of the edge dwellers - those who live in the places where the human and wild meet, bridging the worlds. For Sean, magic, medicine, and poetry are all expressions of a deep connection to the living Earth, and personal, cultural, and ecological healing are inextricably linked. He is currently working on his first book, a guide to plants for the underworld journey.

Heron Brae

Heron is a northwest-born botanist, herbalist, and wildcrafter, fervently loyal to her bioregion and passionate about teaching and learning. She sees it as her mission to teach people skills to change our worldviews from one of alienation to one of connection with nature- acquiring deep knowledge of place. Her formal botanical education started in 1997 (though it started much earlier with a mother who taught her early on how to chew weeds into poultices for her childhood splinters and scrapes). Institutions deserving of credit for her education include diverse venues such as the Columbines School of Botanical Studies, Blue Iris Herbal Apprenticeship with Colette Gardiner, Wilderness Awareness Community School and Kamana Naturalist Training Program, Lane Community College, The Rocky Mountain Biological Lab, and most recently, The Evergreen State College, where she was awarded a BS in botany and ecology. She has enjoyed collecting plants for floristic research in the Puget prairies and the sagebrush steppe of eastern Washington. Currently she teaches at the Columbines School of Botanical Studies in Eugene, OR; she also teaches workshops at The Evergreen State College and numerous community skillshares and freeschools around the Pacific Northwest. She leads public plant walks, workshops, and consultations through Wild Rose Botanical Studies in Olympia, WA, and at large in the Pacific Northwest.

Kiki Geary

Kiki is entranced by plant~people relationships and has been studying herbal medicine for over 20 years. She is the founder of PoppySwap.com and Moxa Northwest, and the Co-Founder of the Northwest Medicinal Herb Network which is a community organization that unites local farmers and herbal practitioners who work together with a shared mission of cultivating high quality medicinal herbs. She is the past President of the Northwest Vipassana Meditation Trust and Herbal Pharmacist for Bastyr University. She has an M.S. in Traditional Chinese Medicine from Bastyr and for the past 12 years, has lived the joy of watching this medicine come alive in her full time community clinic. She lives immersed in an island ecosystem and the tranquil cedar forests of the Pacific Northwest. Poppyswap.com MoxaNW.com

Corinne Boyer

I am an herbalist with a passion for teaching, writing, medicine making, history and cooking. I have been studying plant medicine in some form for the past fourteen years, and have lived in the Puget Sound area for the past twelve years, learning about the amazing local plants of this place.

My education includes a Bachelor of Science degree in biomedical science, with an emphasis on plant chemistry. I have studied with local herbalists Carol Trasatto and Joyce Netishen focusing on both holistic herbal medicine and the spirit of the plants. I have worked at Radiance Herbs and Massage as an on staff herbalist, helping the community with plant medicine and learning about the industry of herbs. I currently teach weekly classes on plant medicine out of my home that focus on wild crafting, medicine making and folk medicine.

I am deeply inspired by wild places and by plants both Native and introduced- many plants considered 'weeds' and 'invasives'. I feel a magical connection with plants and old ways of living and using plant medicine. I passionately believe in the need to educate people about how to find medicine in their own backyards, not only for healing, but for spirit fulfillment and connecting to the natural world is so essential for mental and physical health. I am also passionate about local food, seasonal cooking and cottage gardening - that is small scale sustainability. I have a lot to learn, but look to each turn of the seasonal wheel for much inspiration.

I am beginning a free herbal newsletter with another herbalist to inspire others about plants and to satisfy my writing interest. I hope to bring a book to the world in the next five years. Many thanks to all of the plant people that walk their path in the world! I am ever grateful for community and connections that bring us all together.

Joyce Netishen

I am a gardener, herbalist and healer who loves roses and am passionate about the spirit of plants and the five seasons of life. I'm the owner and caretaker of Fire Rose Farm, a small, inspired, abundant herb farm, and a friend and I are in the intoxicating process of opening a fabulous and groovy herb and book shop, The Dreaming Rose, in McCleary WA. I received my WA State Massage License in 1984 and completed the Flower Essence certification course with The Flower Essence Society in 1990.

I trained in Plant Spirit Medicine with Eliot Cowan in 1991 and continued to work and study with Eliot for seven years. I am certified as a clinical hypnotherapist and have completed two, 12 year apprenticeships with the late Huichol Shaman and Elder, Guadalupe Gonzales Rios of Mexico. I am a keeper of the Sacred Fire, and I have been in private practice for 25 years. I teach classes and apprenticeships in the spirit of plants, shamanism, flower essences and backyard herbalism.

Sean Croke

Sean has been working with and learning from the plants of the Pacific Northwest bioregion for over 7 years. He is a recent graduate of The Evergreen State College where he studied primarily botany, chemistry, and herbalism. He has done some original research around the medicinal constituents of Devil's Club and Lavender. Together with his partner Rylee Uhrich he runs and operates Understory Apothecary, which produces small batch tinctures, salves, and teas of local wild and garden grown plants. He can be found at the West Olympia Farmer's Market on Tuesdays from 4-7p, and at Make Olympia on the third Saturday of each month from 11a-5p. Sean is planning on doing more plant walks and classes during the upcoming season, and is always available to talk plants and health. He is best contacted at 360.704,8102, or at understoryapothecary@gmail.com.