Atava is the founder of Ancestral Apothecary.
She is dedicated to remembering and honoring the healing traditions of her ancestors and also to creating spaces to support others to also make this connection.

Elokin Orton-Cheung is the founder of Shooting Star Botanicals, a wellness practice dedicated to healing, personal transformation, and social justice. She is an herbalist, gardener and spiritual massage practitioner.

Kara Sigler has worked as a clinical herbalist in the San Francisco Bay Area since 2006 in her private practice. She is registered nationally through the American Herbalist Guild as a professional herbalist.

Tracey’s life passion is to promote deep healing and connection for us as individuals, as communities and for the earth through her pursuits as an energetic herbalist, student and teacher of yoga, and community organizer.

Angela is a California Xicana mother and health worker whose passion is learning and teaching others about self-healing, and healing our families.

As a practitioner of Mexica Traditional Knowledge and Ceremonies Chicueyi-Coatl currently carries the Primera Palabra of the Calpulli Huey Papalotl from Berkeley, a cultural, educational, and Danza Mexica circle.

Francine Madrid is a Bodyworker/Sobadora, Herbalist/Yerbera, Full Spectrum Midwife/Partera.

Alejandra Olguin is a doula and promotora of curanderismo deeply committed to community healing work. Shaped by her family’s immigrant experience from the Mixteca region in Oaxaca, Mexico her own journey of uncovering and reclaiming the ancestral practices of her family has guided her work among different communities.

Guillermo Ortiz is an initiated curandero who completed his apprenticeship under the tutelage of Elena Avila, RN, MSW curandera and international practitioner of integrative medicine.

Estela Roman is a traditional healer from Cuernavaca, Mexico. She is recognized in her community as a teacher, a healer, social worker, and a lawyer. She is also the author of Nuestra Medicina: de Los Remedios Para El Aire y Los Remedios Para El Alma.

Brenda Salgado is first generation Nicaraguan-American, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She founded Nepantla Consulting, where she provides limpias and other healing services, meeting facilitation and workshops, and officiates ceremonies.

Rona Luo L.Ac. is a second-generation acupuncturist and herbalist dedicated to providing body-positive and trauma-sensitive care at Shift Acupuncture Collective in Oakland and Chinese Hospital SF.

Batul True Heart is a two-spirit/queer Native American/Indigenous/Mixed (Yaqui/Panamanian/Spanish) ceremonial healer, prayer person, and medicine maker.

Endowed with the gift of invocation, Hadiza-tu Mohammed was born a child of the vodun. With patralineal roots in the Ancient Bori Tradition of the Hausa Tribe and matralinial roots in the Vodun of Southern Louisiana.

Rae Diamond is an astrologer, healer, artist and teacher, whose work is rooted in a deep devotion to the creativity and intelligence of nature.

Indigo Som cross-pollinates her practices of dreamwork, tarot, artmaking, foodmaking, meditation and the Dharma, embracing metaphor as a powerful tool for self-knowledge, healing and transformation.

Angela Basbas Angel is a traditional (Bontoc and Ibaloi tribes- Igorot, Philippines) and holistic healing practitioner, medium/channeler and ceremonialist.

Tanya has been working in the field of health and healing as an herbalist and nutritionist for an aggregate of 11 years.

Rylan is a clinical herbalist and the founder of North Wind Apothecary in San Francisco. He comes from a long line of strong Southern women, pagans, social justice workers, and healers.

Marisol Castillo is of Salvadoran decent, raised in New Jersey, who has lived in California for the last 15 years. She recently received her Master’s Degree in East West Psychology primary focused on eco therapy and indigenous ways of knowing. Her passion lies in her ability to teach, to write and to artfully create a space that brings people from diverse backgrounds together for transformative and self-empowering practices. 

Erin Caitlin Sweeney is a holistic health practitioner and educator. She is a reiki and guided imagery practitioner and holds a master’s degree in Integrative Health from the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Rebekah Sze-Tung Olstad is passionate about building relationships and connections with nature in all its forms. She graduated from the first Cecemmana cohort in 2018, and is now practicing as a community herbalist.

Claire Chuck Bohman is a Certified Herbalist with over 8 years of private herbal practice. Claire Chuck is also a practicing Chaplain and serves as the Program Director for Sojourn Chaplaincy, the Multi-Faith Spiritual Care department at San Francisco’s only public hospital and Trauma center.

Sirama Bajo is a yerbera of Mankeme Chorotega and Andalucian descent. Her people and medicine come from a part of the Great Nicoya territory, know today as Nicaragua.  She is a Western Herbalist who studied at North American Institute of Medical Herbalism and is completing her clinical year at Ancestral Apothecary under the direction of her long time mentor Atava Garcia Swiecicki.

Margarita is a certified and licensed Massage and Craniosacral Therapist. She practices Curanderismo in combination with other ancient healing practices. Margarita Camarena was born in Mexico City growing up with the traditional medicine through her grandmothers and the elders in her family.

Lizanne Deliz is a queer Puerto Rican herbalist, medicine-maker, gardener, and community organizer. Her work is rooted in radical intersectional lenses that aim towards collective liberation in collaboration with the plants.

Kara Wood is a recent graduate of the Cecemmana three year Clinical Herbalism program at Ancestral Apothecary. She joins together her passion for social justice, plant medicine, and ancestor worship as an Ancestral Healing Folk Herbalist.

Bethany (they/them) is a teacher and student of ancestral skills. Bethany has found that working the hands with elements of nature brings some of the deepest healing and feels like it is their path to help bridge the gap between humans and nature, bringing to light how that relationship can help heal trauma.

Myrna Cabán Lezcano is a queer Boricua herbalist, educator, and cultural organizer. She grew up eating mangos and being doused in Agua Florida. Her abuelxs inspired her to connect to Spirit and healing by growing gandules, raising chickens, making dream-based predictions, and singing spontaneous songs.

Laurencio López Núñez is a “Master Curandero” from Oaxaca, Mexico. He is known for his Oaxacan Limpias, his powerful Zapotec ceremonies and rituals. His wisdom is vast and he is generous in sharing the knowledge that was passed on to him by his ancestors.

Avani recently completed Cecemana, the 3 year herbal medicine program at Ancestral Apothecary. She stumbled into (Western) herbalism and loves the magic Cecemanna has brought into her life.

Tatille Jackson is a lifelong student of Earth medicine and massage therapy. She is committed to sharing the transformative remedies that have nurtured a sense of ease, balance, and empowerment in her own life.

Oubria believes the tarot should be told as a story, and its always easier to understand a story when the story-teller looks and sounds like you. Oubria is also a twin flame, and answers this call to teach tarot as a divine assignment.

Terry has lived with eczema since she was 5 years old. It is her dream that one day there will be eczema specialists in eczema for every form of health, beauty and therapy, so that this set of skin symptoms will no longer be taboo and allow people with it to live free and fulfilling lives.

Melissa (she/her) is an herbalist, writer, facilitator, and birthworker based in Ohlone Territory/Oakland, CA. Melissa’s family has roots in Puerto Rico and Poland and she has spent over 18 years working in a variety of social justice, learning, and healing spaces.

RaheNi Gonzalez I’naru is a Two-Spirit Boricua Taino Ceremonial Prayer Warrior, Healer & Activist. They have spent the past 20+ years focused on healing and learning how to transform trauma, chronic illness & suffering into beauty, love and a higher consciousness.

I set-up my very first amateur Ayurvedic kitchen over 20 years ago and have since studied Ayurvedic cooking with Dr. Vasant Lad at the Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico and at the Sivananda Yoga Farm in Grass Valley, California.

Kristen Graser (she/her) has been practicing midwifery in the East Bay for almost 2 decades. In this time, she has held many families on the journey of birth and of loss.

Rita Navarrete is known for dominating many healing modalities and being an international leader and teacher. She is known for being a Temazcalera, Huesera, Curandera, Maestra, and the director of a school in Jilotepec, Mexico.