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Herbal Classes Teacher Bios
Community educators devoted to community learning
Gill Tract Farm is pleased to host classes led by community herbal educators. Please check our offerings of herbal classes.
Learn more about our teachers here:
Sophia Lopez
Sophia is a clinical and community herbalist, medicine maker, and educator. She was born and raised in the East Bay, growing up with her herbalist mother and plant wise abuela in the ways of community herbalism. The magic and medicine of plants has been something she has cherished her whole life. In her teens, she got the opportunity to apprentice with a local herbalist and medicine maker, Tony Seifert. Right after college, she dove straight into Herbal School at the California School of Herbal Studies to further expand her knowledge and craft. She is passionate about sharing the wisdom of plants with others and offers a variety of workshops, longer term courses, and apprenticeships. She is also a bodyworker and full spectrum doula weaving these three threads into her basket of healing offerings she shares with her community.
Jen Journey
Jen has been practicing, learning and educating children, youth and adults for many, many moon cycles. Her curiosities started as an adolescent in NYC, where she was born and raised. Jen’s personal wellness journey led her on a path to study many healing modalities, including herbal medicine, Hatha Yoga, and wholistic nutrition.
Jen currently resides on Huchiun Ohlone Land in the East Bay of San Francisco, where she created Intrinsic Formulas, a mama-biz that offers herbal soul-care formulas for heart, mind and body; herbal medicine-making workshops; Hatha yoga classes and wholistic wellness coaching. She also currently facilitates an outdoor, self-directed children’s program in the East Bay. Jen’s practice is rooted in community soul-care, nourishing the nervous system and co-creating spaces where people feel empowered, supported and cared for.
Email: mmnivette@gmail.com
Lady Ey
Blessings I'm Lady Ey. I'm a mother of three and I consider myself as an urban herbalist. A while back my family experienced a life changing event that changed our whole way of living. In that change I found myself changing everything me and my family consumed, from food to toothpaste even lotion and soap, and I have never looked back. Our habits changed and we all saw the difference. It literally brought us back from near death. I feel our community lacks the ability to afford healthcare often because of the unhealthy options around our community. I realized that when our ancestors were living there were no hospitals and doctors, because there was no need for doctors and hospitals. There were only herbs, roots, oils, and FOOD, that prevent a lot of those same illnesses we deal with today. We need to get back to those times where any ails you may have, the cure is in your garden. I believe in "Each one Teach one" I feel empowered in my garden, and I want to empower my community on my journey of healing and learning through herbs and food. Ashay
Hanan Masri
Hanan Masri is a teacher, poet, herbalist, and dancer with over 25 years of experience in the classroom. She is grateful to be teaching at Berkwood Hedge School where students can learn the academic and soulful rigor of herbalism, local botany, responsible foraging, and create “lotions and potions” to support the physical, emotional, and mental health of their lives.
Born in Halab [Aleppo], Syria, Hanan is of Lebanese and Palestinian descent, crediting her grandparents with quietly instilling a love of the land and the indigenous hands that cultivated it. Hanan also wants to give a shout out to her friend-sister Layla Feghali who just published a formidable book called The Land in Our Bones which archives the plants endemic to South West Asia [aka the Middle East].
Hanan is co-founder of High Road Scholars, LLC, a dream enterprise which takes young people on local, domestic, and international journeys which center the arts, nature, and culture with trips to the Amazon region of Peru to study plant medicine with indigenous communities, a beautiful, sprawling organic farm on Big Island, Hawaii to learn about novel permaculture practices, and Andros Island, Bahamas to center Caribbean biodiversity and learn the artisanal trades and practices of the Black Seminoles.
One of her favorite plants at Gill Tract Farm has been grindelia which has opened her lungs up to deeper breaths during these heartbreaking times. She is ever grateful for her community of chosen family, steadfast and vocal allies and friends working towards liberation for all.
Janine Peñafort
Janine Peñafort (she/they) is a Filipina community educator, gardener, naturalist, and herbalist based in the East Bay. As a program director with Growing Together, she facilitates outdoor workshops and tends to the school garden at El Cerrito High. She also works as bilingual administrator for a local landscaping company. In her free time, she stewards land with a WOC-led herbal medicine-making collective, GoldSoul Land Collective (@goldsoulland) in El Sobrante. Janine is currently studying Urban Agroecology at Merritt College.
Joy Moore
Joy is a retired Instructional Specialist and ran a Garden Based Nutrition Program with K-12 Berkeley Technology Academy and Independent Study in Berkeley CA. She developed an integrated garden based nutrition cooking curriculum and established and maintained a school garden for 15 years!
Christina Hsin-yi Chen-Cotham
Christina Hsin-yi Chen-Cotham (she/her) is a community herbalist of Taiwanese diaspora. She apprenticed with a clinical practitioner of energetic herbalism, and continues to study and craft alongside fellow herbalists here on Ohlone lands.
ancestral.time, Christina’s herbal practice, embraces being in non-linear, spiral time and in close, tender relationship with the plants.
Nathan Thompson
Nathan Thompson is a community herbalist, energy healer and Gill Tract Veteran Farm Educator (VFE). Originally from Minnesota, he has lived in the East Bay for nearly a decade and has studied with herbalists from across the United States. In 2018, he completed a clinical herbalist certificate at Berkeley Herbal Center. He loves tending herbs, tending community, and inspiring others to fall in love with our beautiful plant allies.
For herbal medicines and/or herbal consultations, contact Nathan at ngthompson04@yahoo.com
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