Our Speakers

Brigitte Mars

Brigitte Mars is an herbalist and nutritional consultant of Natural Health with almost fifty years of experience. She teaches Herbal Medicine at Naropa University, and The School of Health Mastery in Iceland. She has taught at Omega Institute, Esalen, Kripalu, Sivananda Yoga Ashram, Arise, Envision and Unify Festivals, and The Mayo Clinic. She blogs for the Huffington Post and Care2. She is a professional member of the American Herbalist Guild.  Brigitte is the author of many books and DVDs, including The Home Reference to Holistic Health and Healing, The Country Almanac of Home Remedies, The Desktop Guide to Herbal Medicine, Beauty by Nature, Addiction Free Naturally, The Sexual Herbal, Healing Herbal Teas, Rawsome! and co-author of The HempNut Cookbook. DVDs include Sacred Psychoactive, Herbal Wizardry for Kids of all Ages, Natural Remedies for Childhood Ailments, Overcoming Addictions, and Natural Remedies for Emotional Health. Her latest project is a phone app called iPlant. Brigitte and her daughter, Sunflower Sparkle Mars run Herb Camp for Kids in Boulder, Colorado. Brigitte’s other daughter is world famous activist/yogini-actress/ international model, Rainbeau Mars. Please check out www.brigittemars.com.

Erin Smith

Erin Smith is a clinical herbalist and ethnobotanist with more than 30 years experience working with medicinal plants. As an ethnobotanist, she worked internationally supporting the work of indigenous communities to promote their traditional knowledge and community based conservation efforts. With 15 years of experience in the herbal product industry, she has specialized in sustainability and social impact, product development, and research.  She is on the Board of the American Herbal Product Association, the ERB Foundation, and Advisory Board for American Herbal Pharmacopoeia. Passionate about sustainability within the herbal industry and broader herbal community, she is Chair of the Sustainability Committee of the American Herbal Products Association and a Stewardship Council member for the Sustainable Herbs Initiative. She teaches internationally on herbal medicine, ethnobotany, sustainability, and the human/nature relationship. 

Mindy Green

Mindy is an herbalist, esthetician, aromatherapist, and author, writing and teaching extensively on herbs, essential oils, nutrition, skin care and natural lifestyles in her 50-year career. A natural foods enthusiast, she owned a vegan restaurant, herb and health food store in the 1970’s. She was a co-owner and faculty member at the California School of Herbal Studies and moved to Boulder in 1995 to teach at the Rocky Mountain Center for Botanical Studies and work for the non-profit medical library – The Herb Research Foundation. She is an advisory board member for the American Botanical Council (HerbalGram magazine) and the American College of Healthcare Sciences. She teaches the therapeutic uses of plant therapies to medical professionals at the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine in Tucson and the Academy of Integrative Heath and Medicine in San Diego. Mindy is a founding and professional member of the American Herbalists Guild and a Registered Aromatherapist with advanced training in essential oils from Purdue University. Google her (Mindy Green, aromatherapy), where you can find lots of free interviews/articles.

Amber Graziano

Amber Graziano is a clinical herbalist and the owner of Rebecca’s Herbal Apothecary & Supply in Boulder, Colorado, where she stewards a long-standing community apothecary dedicated to handcrafted herbal medicine and ethical sourcing. With over a decade of experience in community herbalism, Amber’s work bridges traditional plant wisdom with practical, everyday care for individuals and families. She is especially interested in botanical medicine as a means of nervous system support, digestive health, and relational healing—supporting wellness across the body, mind, and spirit. Rooted in sustainability, reciprocity, and connection to place, Amber’s work centers on cultivating resilient communities and honoring the land and people that make herbal medicine possible.

Julia Lyons

Julia Lyons is an Earth-Based Shamanic Healing Practitioner, Folk Herbalist and Spiritual Guide. Her connection to the Earth and spirit realms inspire everything she facilitates and offers. Through earth-centered classes, healing work and mentorships, she supports people on their spiritual paths & healing journeys so they can feel empowered to live authentically and feel confident in moving through their own unique process of becoming their best versions of themselves. If you interested in learning more, please visit her website and reach out! julialyonshealingarts.com 

Laura Clemmons

Laura is a functional clinical herbalist who has been a long-time student of integrative therapies, herbal medicine, and earth centered shamanistic healing arts. For 23 years Laura has been practicing the art of earth centered herbalism. She comes from a strong lineage of Italian healers, known as the Strega. She has held a professional herbal practice since 2003. . Her work attends to physical, emotional, and spiritual issues, recognizing that these systems are intertwined and inseparable.Laura teaches herbal classes throughout the Pacific Northwest, Colorado, and is a presenter at the Spokane Herbal Guild.
Founder and owner of Tendril Herbal Apothecary and Healing Center in Sandpoint, ID, an integrative health care clinic, Laura is blending the best of ancient wisdom and modern technology along with creating a culture for practitioners of support and community. Laura is also active within her local and broader communities. She runs the Sandpoint Women’s Red Tent and acts as a mentor for both mothers and menarche girls in coming-of-age ceremony.

Mitten Lowe

Mitten Lowe is a medicine woman, biologist, clinical herbalist, devoted community member, mother, and partner. She works at the intersection of science and spirit, teaching food as medicine and the practical use of healing herbs. Her path began in childhood, cooking ancestral recipes and traditional foods for family gatherings and holidays, and it has remained her lifelong vocation.Before any formal training, she learned in the kitchen with her Yaya, her father, and her aunts. She grew up tending a high altitude garden and eating from the land while composting and caring for place. Her father’s reminder that “every day is Earth Day” still guides how she grows and harvests plants, makes medicine, and serves clients. He also sparked her love of broths, tonics, and what she fondly calls potions.Mitten’s work addresses the patterns and disconnections in families, culture, and consumerism that can pull people away from wellness and joy. She integrates decades of study, training, and lived experience into a grounded practice that helps clients return to what they truly need.With her team, she leads Journey to Wellness in Boulder, Colorado. The company offers an herbal product line, courses and programs, and a one on one healing practice available in person and online. Journey to Wellness collaborates with the land and the plants and honors ancestral wisdom alongside the best of earth based practice, spirit, and science.

Melissa Beckwith

Melissa Beckwith is a graphic designer and artist based in Louisville, Colorado. She has over twenty years of experience working across many artistic mediums including graphic design, pottery, printmaking, watercolors and acrylics.
Her work is often inspired by nature and influenced in the way humans interact with the environments they inhabit. By combining principles of graphic design with fine art practices, Melissa creates work that bridges digital design to abstract with hands-on, tactile processes. Texture, color, and layering play a central role in her practice, resulting in thoughtful, balanced compositions.

Faith Rodgers

Faith is a Certified Clinical Herbalist and owner of the Little Herbal Apothecary in Lafayette, CO. Faith has a Bachelor of Science from the University of Illinois. She received certifications in Herbalism and Nutrition at the North American Institute of Medical Herbalism and completed a Botany certification through the Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism. Faith founded the Little Herbal Apothecary in 2015, a community herb shop offering a wide range of herbs, oils, teas and handcrafted skincare products.

As an herbalist, Faith’s biggest passion is botanical skincare. She has spent years formulating and developing her own techniques to create clean, botanically-infused skincare products. She works as a consultant helping companies with product development and formulation. Faith has been teaching medicine making workshops in the boulder area for the past 15 years and loves empowering people to create their own herbal products at home. You can browse the apothecary, find great recipes, or check out Faith’s upcoming workshop schedule at thelittleherbal.com.

Sara Stewart Martinelli

Sara Martinelli is an herbalist, ethnobotanist, green witch, and the CEO of The Boulder Tea Company, as well as the owner of Three Leaf Farm, a small urban organic farm, botanical sanctuary, and education center. She holds a degree in Anthropology from the University of Colorado, with an emphasis on nutrition and culture, where she developed a deep interest in how food, herbs, and plants shape society, religion, and tradition. Her passion for ethnobotany led her to explore the historic and folkloric uses of herbs, eventually earning her certification from the Rocky Mountain Center for Botanical Studies in Boulder, Colorado.

Together with her husband, Sara owns several beloved Boulder-area restaurants, including the iconic Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse, Leaf Vegetarian Restaurant, The Chautauqua Dining Hall, The Huckleberry, and Zucca. She is also the creator of the Botanica Festival, a celebration of plants and herbal wisdom, and teaches numerous workshops throughout the year on the medicinal, spiritual, and folkloric uses of herbs. A prolific writer and educator, Sara has published extensively on herbal health, wellness, and plant magic, sharing her knowledge and passion with the community.

Tori Rerick

Tori Rerick, PharmD dispenses mindfulness, encourages intentional living and advocates for cannabis as medicine. Her career in health and wellness spans geriatric care, clinical community pharmacy, CBD press relations and spiritual guidance. She’s founder of the magical, self-healing platform Heart Web Underground and creator of the highly inspired + 420-friendly deck, Follow Your Heart Oracle. Tori believes that devotion to intimate wellbeing practices on the individual level is essential for the union of the collective. Her products and services are designed to guide growth-oriented beings toward routine rituals for deeper self-connection.

Laurel Madeline Silberman

Laurel Madeline Silberman is an intuitive herbalist, flower essence practitioner, song weaver, and devotional poet dedicated to reweaving the body of Self with the body of Earth. She was certified as a Clinical Herbalist in 2018 through Self-Heal School of Herbal Studies and Healing in San Diego, California. She received her BA in Contemplative Psychology from Naropa University in 2022 in Boulder, Colorado. She returned to Naropa University in 2025 and is currently completing her MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics. Laurel sees clients for 1:1 sessions, focusing primarily on the vibrational medicine of flower essences and re-establishing kinship with the living world. When she is not working with clients, Laurel can be found cultivating rest among tree kin in the forest where she lives, singing and playing her guitar, writing poetry, making art, hosting the Boulder Community Grief Circle, and collaborating with the plants for her herbal shop Artemisia Atara Apothecary.

Liz Faermark

Liz Faermark is a Midwest born and Mountain West based certified clinical herbalist and herbal educator with over a decade of experience in the herb world. From farming and wildcrafting, to medicine-making and working at an apothecary, teaching, and running clinical practice. Liz is the owner and sole operator of Talk Wild Herbs, where she sees clients through her private practice, and serves as an herbal educator teaching community classes and running a six month long in-person mentorship program. Liz is also a faculty member at the Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism, where she teaches beginner, advanced and clinical herbal studies. Teaching is Liz's favorite way to share herbalism. She's a part-time comedian who brings her signature warmth, wit and wildness to every class she teaches.

Jessica Flowers

Jessica Flowers is a mother, an earth tender, a certified clinical herbalist, and a medicine maker with over 20 years of experience working with medicinal herbs. She has dedicated her practice to the health of women and new families through traditional postpartum care and womb wisdom. She is the Cosmic Creatress for the organic seed-to-sale CBD wellness brand Moon Mother Hemp Company. Her special interest in women’s wellness and years of hands-on experience inform her formulation process in creating some of the most effective CBD products on the market. As a mother of two young daughters, Jessica is motivated to ensure that Moon Mother Hemp Company provides not only the cleanest possible supplements but does so in a way that helps preserve the environment for generations to come. Jessica’s life and practice are rooted in the rhythms of nature, and she is committed to restoring the connection between women and the land and their innate wisdom. She has been bringing education and ceremony to festivals, women’s gatherings, and circles through the Womb Wisdom series and through the Yoni steam ceremony

Lauren Nichols-Sheffler

Immersed in the verdant world of herbalism, Lauren Ann Nichols Sheffler blossomed at the Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism, where she earned her certificate in medical herbalism. Rooted in deep reverence for crafting herbal remedies with land and place, she champions bio-regional herbalism and reciprocal bonds between plants, people, and place. For seven years, Lauren has specialized in herbal distillation - hand crafting hydrosols from fresh plants and tending this ancestral art with precision and heart.
Her dedication to education and sustainability shines through guest teaching in community herbalism courses, teaching at CSCH, supporting the Sustainable Herbs Initiative, stewarding wild lands, and hosting community classes at her United Plant Savers Botanical Sanctuary in Denver, CO.
As Senior Sourcing & Purchasing Manager at WishGarden Herbs, she weaves her passion for ethical sourcing and botanical stewardship into every aspect of the supply network, cultivating a future where plants and people thrive together.

Rachel Weitz

As a land dreamer, plant companion, and spirit ally, Rachel is a bridge to accompany others in their own direct relationship to earth and spirit. Her path has been cracked open, carved, and polished by many transformative life initiations, human and more than human teachers, and 20 years of study and practice in her Rocky Mountain foothills community. Her medicine continues to refine itself as a deep listener and friend to the land and the loving more than human world. She is known to weave magical and transformative group containers for earth-centered ritual and to amplify other’s direct connection to earth and spirit. Through direct relationship with Earth, she’s in service to love, the plants, playfulness, and the deep remembering of our true nature. She gives thanks for her many wise teachers, including her husband and daughter.

Jenni Hlawatsch

Jenni Hlawatsch is the president of the Louisville Downtown Business Association and the owner of The Singing Cook, a beloved kitchen shop in historic downtown Louisville. With a background in musical theatre and a lifelong love of cooking, Jenni brings creativity, warmth, and a sense of joy to everything she does. At The Singing Cook, she curates an eclectic mix of cookware, specialty foods, and playful kitchen goods inspired by her own culinary adventures. As DBA president, she is a passionate advocate for small businesses and a vibrant downtown, fostering connection, collaboration, and community through events, partnerships, and shared experiences.

Yoshua Greenfield

Yoshua began his journey in Brooklyn's bustling music and food scene but found his true calling in the quiet mountains of Colorado, where he embraced a simpler, more nature-aligned lifestyle. This transformation led him to explore the ancient art of fermentation, a passion that quickly turned into a cornerstone of his daily life and teachings.
Yoshua's approach to fermentation is rooted in a deep appreciation for the natural world and the desire to live a more connected and sustainable life. Through fermenting various foods, he discovered not only a way to enhance the nutritional value and flavor of everyday meals but also a profound form of meditation and mindfulness.
Yoshua's teachings are an invitation to anyone interested in delving into the world of fermentation, seeking a deeper connection with the food they consume, and embracing a lifestyle that celebrates the wonders of the natural world

Erik Montoya

Erik is a nurse, community herbalist, and death worker whose practice is rooted in education, reverence for nature, and compassionate presence at the end of life. He earned his first Bachelor of Science from Metropolitan State University of Denver in Integrative Therapies, completed his 500-hour herbal certification through the Herbal Academy of New England, and received his BSN in Nursing from Regis University.

Erik previously served as President of the Denver Medicinal Plant Society at the Denver Botanic Gardens, where he helped foster community education around medicinal plants and ethical herbal practice. He wildcrafts, teaches, and continually learns from the lessons offered by herbs, death, and the natural world.

As a hospice nurse, Erik has been honored to walk alongside more than 100 patients at the time of their death and has been present for several Medical Aid in Dying ingestions, experiences that deeply inform his work and worldview. He is a devoted follower of Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl, often post-colonially translated as Santa Muerte, and approaches death as a sacred and instructive companion rather than an ending.

Summer Downs

Summer (they/she) is an ancestral ritualist, death doula, witch, writer, funeral director, and grief tender based on the lands of the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and Ute peoples in Colorado. They spend their days crafting meaningful ceremonies, planting memorial trees, and walking alongside individuals and families through grief, dying, and remembrance. In her five years as a full-time deathworker, she has served hundreds of beloveds and their families. She is also a co-owner of the herbalist & artisan collective Chthonic Apothecary and a co-author (with Erik Montoya) of the Herbal Deathcare zine series. 

Summer’s work is rooted in reclaiming and reimagining ways of living that honor the land, our ancestors and Beloved Dead, and the kinship ecosystems that sustain community. A sibling loss survivor, Summer brings lived experience, deep listening, and creative devotion to all they do. Her lineage of teachers includes Francis Weller (Grief Rituals), Adrian Mintzmyer (Mountain Herbalism), Alua Arthur (Going with Grace), Sam Coffman (Herbal Medic), and Shauna Janz (Sacred Grief). She is a certified Life-Cycle Celebrant and has a MA in International Development.

They are also a performance artist, folk herbalist, and avid reader, with a lifelong love of thunderstorms and juniper trees.

J. Rivkah Asoulin

J. Rivkah Asoulin is the founder and executive director of the first Jewish international herbal conference and community, Ancient Roots Israel (ancientrootsisrael.com). In clinical practice for 20 years, she specializes in women’s health and fertility as Wise Woman Fertility (wisewomanfertility.com). She is the creator JFAM; the first and only Jewish sympto-thermo method of fertility awareness and is currently writing her first book on the method. She offers courses in this, Jewish ancestral wisdom, herbal medicine and the intersection of these fascinating topics throughout the year.