This gathering includes:
• Workshops & Plant Walks
• Roundtable Discussion Groups
WCR - Presenters
Roundtable Discussion Groups
We have 4 sessions of Roundtable discussion groups in the schedule. There will be multiple small group discussions during each of those sessions. People will self-select into the discussion they are most interested in.
Sharing information among the wider group is important and allows everyone to have a voice. How can we put our minds and hearts together so that everyone comes away enriched and more informed. We are building up a group body of knowledge.
Which topics we choose depends on the level of interest in each. We will send out a doodle poll to all registrants prior to the event. We will also have a show of hands at the event and come up with a plan.
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If you are interested in Presenting fill out the Presenter Application Form
This is a grassroots, volunteer-based gathering. Any donated time is greatly appreciated and helps make this event assessable for everyone!
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Confirmed Presenters, more to come!
(Keep scrolling to read Bios)
- Robin Baire, Horse of a Different Color
- Reisha Beck, Wayside Botanicals and Raven’s Roots Naturalist School.
- Paul Cereghino, Ecosystem Guild/NOAA Restoration Center
- Natasha Clarke, Tea with your Dragon, Twin Peaks Wellness
- Gabe Garms, Raven’s Roots Naturalist School,
- Natalie Hammerquist, Adiantum School of Plant Medicine
- Kelly Hill, Sapphire Herbs / Alaskan Essences
- Sam Israel, Indigenous fire ecology,
- Ashley Kehl, Friends of the Trees Botanicals
- Diana Law, Dianaverse Plant Mystery School
- Leslie Lekos, Wildroot Botanicals
- Michael Pilarski, Friends of the Trees Botanicals
- Katie Russell Sorensen, Saskatoon Circle
- Grace Spencer, MotherSong Medicine
- Terri Wilde, Dandelion Hearth Farm, Wilde Foods
Presenter Bios
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Robin Baire
HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOR
Robin has been practicing herbalism in the Methow Valley for 35years and sees clients at the North Glover Healing Center. She is a graduate of the National College of Phytotherapy in New Mexico, and the creator of "the Herbalist Minute" on KTRT.
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Reisha Beck
WAYSIDE BOTANICALS
Reisha Beck is a mother, herbalist and Ethnobotanist. She is deeply committed to creating positive change through permaculture and connection with the Earth. She owns and operates Wayside Botanicals, a permaculture based medicinal herb farm, which supplies fresh and dried botanicals to tincture making companies and apothecaries across the USA. Reisha is also the lead herbal instructor at Ravens Roots Naturalist School. Her love of nature has taken her down a path of healing by connecting with the natural world and cultivating deep relationships with the plants she harvests and grows. -
Terri Wilde
DANDY FARM
Terri Wilde has been exploring right relationship for humans with the rest of our kin for decades. She loves foraging and growing food and medicine. She is part of a permaculture community in the upper Skagit Valley.
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Natalie Hammerquist
THE ADIANTUM SCHOOL OF PLANT MEDICINE
Natalie Hammerquist offers field classes and programs on our local edible and medicinal plants. She is a practical teacher, taking great joy in connecting others to the land and the plants with an emphasis on stewardship. She owns and operates The Adiantum School of Plant Medicine in Seattle, WA, and recently complete a book entitled "A Visual Guide to Medicinal Plants of the Pacific Northwest."
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Natasha Clarke
MAVENWORKS
Natasha is a clinical herbalist, educator and co-founder of the Green Gathering herbal festival. She loves teaching locally and at gatherings including the Good Medicine Confluence, Northwest Herb fair, Northwest Herb Symposium amongst others. Home for now is in transition as she and her husband get ready to move to wilderness in Swale Canyon, Klickitat WA.
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Diana Law
DIANAVERSE PLANT MYSTERY SCHOOL
Diana has both a strong gardening and wildcrafting background. She teaches classes about plants: gardening, herbalism, plant spirit medicine and plant crafts. She has been learning and teaching plant spirit medicine in the PNW for the last 10 years.
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Grace Spencer
MOTHERSONG HERBS
Grace has been farming organically in Wenatchee Washington for the last 15 years. About 5 years ago, she began to feel a deeper pull towards building relationships with the plants, rather than just going through the motions of growing and harvesting. In 2019, she began an apprenticeship with teacher Joyce Netishen in Olympia and has been learning to communicate and understand the deeper medicine that the plant world has to offer us. She now continues to grow beautiful food.but also has begun her practice as an Elemental Plant Practitioner bringing the magic and spiritual medicine of plants to people.
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Leslie Lekos
Wildroot Botanicals
Leslie Lekos is the founder and director of Wildroot Botanicals herbal school and product line. She’s been teaching herbal medicine courses since 2009 and began marketing products in 2004. She is known in her region for distilling hydrosols and is sought nationally to teach at conferences and for herbal consultations. Her medicines have reached folks locally and internationally.
In addition to herbal work, she’s supported parents as a doula, childbirth educator and prenatal yoga instructor for almost 20 years. She is co-author of the book, Yoga for Pregnancy and is a certified Iyengar Yoga teacher. Most importantly she is the mother of two sons.
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Michael Pilarski "Skeeter"
Is a life-long student of plants and earth repair. His farming career started in 2nd grade and his organic farming career began in 1972 at age 25. Michael founded Friends of the Trees Society in 1978 and took his first permaculture design course in 1982. Since 1988 he has taught 36 permaculture design courses in the US and abroad. His specialties include earth repair, agriculture, seed collecting, nursery sales, tree planting, fruit picking, permaculture, agroforestry, forestry, ethnobotany, medicinal herb growing, hoeing and wildcrafting. He has hands-on experience with over 1000 species of plants. He is a prolific gathering organizer and likes group singing.
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Kelly Hill
SAPPHIRE HERBS & ALASKAN ESSENCES
Oh man the journey that’s led me here... It started with organic/biodynamic agriculture in Eugene OR. Followed by farming in Homer Alaska for 7 years. Then the world of growing medicinal plants opened up a whole new aspect of growing and I started Sapphire Herbs. I specialize in collecting native seed from the wilderness. But my full time job is making essences at Alaskan Essences, for over 4 years now. Basically I’m a plant person.
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Gabe Garms
RAVEN'S ROOTS NATURALIST SCHOOL
Co-Founder and instructor at Raven's Roots Naturalist School and Co-owner of a permaculture plant nursery called 7 Layers Nursery. Gabe has been teaching permaculture, wilderness survival, fermentation and ethnobotany in Western Washington for over a decade.
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Paul Cereghino
ECOSYSTEM GUILD & NOAA RESTORATION CENTER
Paul Cereghino is a federal restoration ecologist and professional troublemaker with 35 years of work in ecosystem stewardship and restoration in the Salish Sea. He is currently operates from within the Restoration Industry supporting state and federal funding systems, quantifying ecosystem services, and providing technical assistance to local teams advancing restoration of fisheries, amid global ecological collapse. He lives in cohousing in Olympia, Washington, tending and foraging in the Schneider Creek ravine.
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George Wooten
LOCAL METHOW BOTANIST
Hoping to become a geologist, I switched to medicinal chemistry and botany then pharmacognosy, and now I am engaged in music.
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Benjamin Pixie
SPIRIT OF THE HIVE / PIXIE MEAD/ SKALITUDE
Benjamin Pixie has been crafting with the wild since he was 15. He became a mead maker at 20, a beekeeper at 25, and a distiller at 30. He co founded the skalitude pollinator sanctuary and began okanogan county's first licensed distillery- spirit of the hive. He believes honey bees have great lessons to teach us of how to live in reciprocity, giving back to all we wildcraft from.
Cancellations - Unfortunately these presenters are no longer able to join us at this gathering. We wish them well!
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James Keskimaki
GROUNDED MEDICINE & OJAS NATURALS
James began his formal herbal studies in 1999 at the California School of Herbal Studies and at the California Ayurvedic School in Nevada City in 2005. In 2016 he studied extensively with Scott Kloos focusing on plant spirit medicine and holding a safe container. He continually renews his dedication to plant spirit medicine and is working closely with the Secoya, a small indigenous group in the northwestern region of the Ecuadorian Amazon. James loves to help people connect with the plants through their own intuition, focusing oncreating a safe container to let go, express and learn from each other.
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James Keskimaki has canceled due to illness. He writes: "I was really looking forward to meeting you, connecting with other fellow herb people and participating in the gathering. Hopefully next time."
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James Jungwirth
NATURE SPIRIT HERBS
James Jungwirth has been harvesting edible and medicinal wild seaweeds, herbs and fungi for more than 30 years. James is also a health care practitioner specializing in herbs and nutrition.
As a professional educator, James has been teaching classes about seaweeds, medicinal wild plants, herbalism, constitutional physiology, thyroid and adrenal function, nutrition, and digestive health for more than 30 years.
In 1990 James and his wife Kari started their family business, Naturespirit Herbs. They harvest almost everything they sell, and offer a complete line of wildcrafted seaweeds, seaweed products, wildcrafted herbs and fungi, and herbal extracts and formulas.-
James Jungwirth has canceled due to him and his wife (partner in the business) both got covid. As a result they couldn’t get their regular work done and couldn’t work with any employees, so they are way behind on their work schedule. James might still be able to attend, but it is too much in doubt to promise that he will be there.
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Emily Apple Wilkins
EARTHBOUND COMPOST
Happiest when I have my hands in the soil, a dirty garden girl am I. A life-long lover of trees, plants, and all types of gardens, especially those that work in balance with nature. It is a pleasure to share my passion for worms and how working in concert with nature creates the best garden results for all living things.
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Lindsay Huettman
LADY BOTANICA • WILDERNESS AWARENESS SCHOOL
I have been learning about and from plants of the PNW since 1999. My first degree is in Ethnobotany Stewardship Education (2006) and I have been teaching wild plant classes since 2008 for Wilderness Awareness School and for many educational institutions through my business Lady Botanica. My passion for plants has led me in many directions as an arborists/horticulturalist, landscaper, permaculturalist, organic farmer and gardener, wild plant forager, medicine maker and plant technologist, survival skills instructor, plant biology/chemistry dork, forest intuitive, paleobotany enthusiast and aspiring plant elder.
Plant Dorks • Wilderness Awareness School
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CANCELED due to moving