5th Annual Maine Women's Herbal Retreat

Greetings! I’m Kelly - the owner and creatrix of what was previously Mindful Earth Herbals, now transitioned to my new passion project with my partner, Earth Spiral Community.. I have had a very broad spectrum of human experience and professional training that has led me to this place, and my mission and purpose in this earth realm existence is to support others on their path of healing, freedom, expansion, and plant medicine.

After an open heart surgery in 2006, I spent several years roaming the streets of Boston hopelessly addicted to narcotics - and was in and out of treatment facilities nearly 30 times in 4 years.
In 2010, I experienced my first series of yoga and meditation classes in one of these treatment facilities. FINALLY, I noticed a glimpse of a very real shift within, and it provided inspiration and true motivation for my soul. That was the last time I went into treatment, and I have never looked back.

I completed a 9 week residential Bikram Yoga training in 2012 and taught at Maine Hatha Yoga in Portland, Maine for 2 years until I birthed my son in May of 2014. I completed a local 200hr training in 2015, and several Trauma Informed Yoga trainings during that period, including a Trauma Sensitive Yoga training at Bessel Vanderkolk’s Boston Institute of Trauma. In 2015, I started a local chapter of the non-profit, Pure Action- Yoga is Medicine and had the opportunity to teach in local treatment facilities working with women who have endured substance use disorder, sex trafficking, and domestic abuse.

My plant path began in 2013 - I was transitioning off of multiple pharmacological drugs and I was searching for gentle, safe, & natural support. There happened to be a huge lemon balm plant in the yard of the log cabin we were then residing in. This plant called to me so strongly every day ~ and I would sit with her and just breathe her in and experience my body softening and relaxing. I finally had to find out who she was. When I found out that her name was Melissa and she soothed the nervous system and induced feelings of joy through her high volatile oil content, I was in complete awe and admiration.

The never-ending spiraling rabbit hole that is herbal medicine will be a lifelong journey for me - for once you are on the Plant Path and are engulfed and entranced by their magick and wisdom ~ their medicine, spirits, and songs will never leave your side.

I have participated in apprenticeship circles locally with clinical herbalist Mischa Schuler, and have studied rather extensively these last four years with internationally known Sajah Popham, through his Alchemical Herbalism Course, and now clinically through the Vitalist Herbal Practitioner Clinical Skills Course at the School of Evolutionary Herbalism. I have also sat in a year long online apprenticeship circle with Marysia Meirnowska from the School of the Sacred Wild, and some of my other inspirational influences and teachers along the way these last 11 years include Matthew Wood, Stephen Harrod Buhner, Rosemary Gladstar, Gabor Mate, Anodea Judith, Hafiz, Michael and Angela Weymouth of Maine Hatha Yoga, and Susun Weed (I do in any way support or condone this woman's behaviors, please be aware of her emotional, physical, and psychological abuse towards her students and her racial tendencies. Her earlier work in the realm of the Wise Woman Ways has influenced me deeply).
My perspective on plants has shifted quite a bit these last few years. I came into herbal medicine from an allopathic symptom based mindset because that was ingrained in me from 3 semesters of nursing school and my entire upbringing coming from a family of nurses. I now work with plants based on their spirits, energies, intentions, physical and ecological effect, and other ways they can support our humanness.