Omisade Burney-Scott

Creator of The Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause

Omisade Burney-Scott (she / her) is a Black southern 7th generation native North Carolinian feminist, social justice advocate, and creative with decades of experience in nonprofit leadership, philanthropy, and social justice. Omisade is the creator of The Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause, a multimedia project seeking to curate and share the stories and realities of Black women and femmes over 50. She is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, the proud mother of two sons, and resides in Durham. Omisade is a sought-after, nationally recognized speaker whose energy and authenticity have captivated listeners and readers from Forbes to Prevention Magazine. Her love for people and passion for racial and gender equity has fueled her work and allows her to be at the forefront of conversations regarding Reproductive and Healing Justice; death, dying and grief; and menopause and aging for Black women, women identified and gender expansive people.

Jokotifa Alaye

End-of-Life Doula

Jokotifa Alaye is a life-long student of death and dying. With over 25 years of experience as a death care professional, she felt called to do more than participate in the traditional funeral home model and has created Mourning Space to fill the gaps in education and support that society requires for healthy grieving.   It is Jokotifa’s goal to build a community of empowered grievers that intend to save the world by living well and dying better, and she is passionate about sharing information that might encourage all of us to approach the end of a life and beyond with less fear and more wonder. She is a licensed funeral professional in the state of California and a NEDA certified end-of-life doula with a focus on grief.   She is grateful to call herself an Orisa devotee and lives in Redding, California, under the loving protection of Mt. Shasta.   She can be found online on IG @mourningspace and at  www.MourningSpace.com

Karen Rose

Owner + Herbalist Sacred Vibes Apothecary Curator of Sacred Botanica

Trained in Eastern and Western Herbal Medicine, Master Herbalist Karen M. Rose has dedicated her life’s work to empowering individuals to reconnect to their own ancestral traditions. Over the past 20 years, she has created several outlets to offer her teachings and healing modalities to women, people of color, Black, and LGBTQX communities. The opening of the Brooklyn-based, Sacred Vibes Apothecary in 2009, was merely the beginning. Karen has now expanded her enterprise, opening Sacred Botanica and Sacred Spice in 2020, two new locations in Brooklyn, to make healing more accessible to the greater community.   Karen’s inspiration for this work began as a child in her native home of Guyana, where she was exposed to how African, Caribbean, and Latin American traditions profoundly influenced plant medicine and community healing. The legacy of these lands is the foundation of Karen’s core values and spiritual practices. Regarded as a Spiritual Herbalist, Karen is revered for being the first to teach Spiritual Herbalism, plant medicine deeply rooted in ancestral healing and spiritual consciousness. Offering guidance to those on the path to finding the truth, she has trained over 700 herbalists through her Spiritual Herbalism Apprenticeship program.

Sinnamon Love

Visual storyteller, Community organizer, Black Feminist Pornographer, Executive Director of BIPOC Collective

Sinnamon Love is a visual artist, published writer, community organizer, Black Feminist Pornographer, and Executive Director of the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Collective, an organization providing financial assistance and increased access to mental health and wellness resources to Black and Brown sex workers in the legal and criminalized sex trades. For 30 years, Sinnamon has used her lived experiences to create media that shifts narratives around sex work, BDSM, disability, and motherhood. Love is a fierce advocate for Black Lives Matter, Trans Rights, Sex Workers' Rights, Disability Justice, and Decriminalization of Sex Work & Cannabis.  Sinnamon’s philanthropic work stems from lived experience as an unhoused youth in the sex trades and systemic inequities that influenced her work in both legal and criminalized forms of sexual labor. In 2018 & 2020, she served as a Fellow of the Sex Worker Giving Circle at Third Wave Fund, the first-ever philanthropic organization to put sex workers in a position of grant-making.  In 2020, Sinnamon founded the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Collective, a national human rights organization dedicated to bridging the race-based wage gap in the online sex trades by providing access to mental health resources, financial assistance, and peer-to-peer education.  In 2021, she participated in a Delphi Panel at Boston University, creating a sex education curriculum for US high school students. At the top of 2022, Sinnamon joined the restructuring team at the CAST-LA & The National Survivor Network, the largest network of anti-trafficking organizations, to help them move towards a pro-sex work stance. Sinnamon identifies as a kinky, pansexual,  solo-polyamorous grownup, full-service sex worker, professional Dominatrix, and lifestyle switch. She is a vibe curator, yogi, Hip Hop & House head, writer, cannabis enthusiast, recovering serial monogamist, #naturallygrey, and happily #singleinbrooklyn. Sinnamon is learning to live with traumatic brain injury in NYC. She is the parent of three (3) adult children and co-parents her disabled 9-year-old grandson. You can find out more about Sinnamon at SingleinBrooklyn.com.

Nia Galloway

Sacred Vibes Alumni | Workshop Teacher

Nia Galloway (she/her) is an herbalist, event producer, and pleasure-seeker. She is a Sacred Vibes Level 3 graduate and the Executive Director of Ours Truly PDX, a non-profit organization that nurtures kinship among BIPOC folks through celebration, dreamwork, and creative expression in Portland, OR. Nia created Earthly Delights to help marginalized communities build and maintain daily pleasure practices. She has a passion for cultivating spaces for folks to experience ease without shame. She approaches healing as an opportunity to reconnect with our body and expand our capacity for happiness. She has experience working with activists and change-makers to manage stress, burnout, depression, anxiety, and more.

Krystal Miller

Workshop Teacher

Krystal is a clinical social worker and a spiritual herbalist, who embodies the balance of science and spirit while curating experiences for exploration within community and our inner world. Walking in the spirit of "I am because We are," Krystal provides 1:1 services as well as intimate community conversations around holistic mental wellness and herbalism. Join her through her practice, Melanated Masks, at the intersection of science and spirit, where the true magic lives..

Britni Austin

Workshop Teacher

Britni Austin(she/her) is a recently graduated Level 3 spiritual herbalist, community organizer, and lover of all things science and herbs. With a background in Biological & Chemical Sciences, Britni’s passions include using a holistic approach to bridge the gap between health disparities experienced in Black and Brown communities as well as educating people on the plethora of ways herbs can be worked into your daily routine. Britni’s multifaceted practices centralizes bioregional herbalism; where she encourages a lens that centers land and allies that grow near you to support a sustainable impact and reverence for the plants through radical healing.

Monique Fields

Workshop Teacher

Monique is a reiki practitioner, with training in womb reiki and healing, and a current Level III apprentice. She is also the CEO and Principal Consultant of a boutique consulting firm that specializes in helping healthcare organizations, including health insurance payers and health systems, achieve accreditation. A New Jersey native, she holds many titles including daughter, sister, aunt, lover and friend.

Ona McGovern

Workshop Teacher

Ona McGovern is a Black trans earth-worker who is invested in developing a network of care and community education that sees the health of the individual connected to the health of the community and the earth. They are currently an organizer in Philadelphia and a Level 3 Sacred Vibes apprentice. He weaves music, writing, and sewing into their herbalism practice.

Jennifer Molina

Workshop Teacher

Jennifer Molina (she/they) is a first-generation Queer, Dominican, born and raised in NYC. She is the founder of United in Birth LLC, a doula collective dedicated to changing the perinatal landscape for LGBTQIA+, Black, Indigenous, and Latine families in New York City. As a doula and a herbalist, they use ancient healing technologies, such as plant medicine, breathwork and visualizations to support her clients through their transitions into joyful and healthy parenthood. When not doula-ing you can find them blasting old school bachata in their living room or volunteering in a local garden.

Avory Raviwong

Workshop Teacher

Avory Raviwong (they/he) is a queer, first generation native New Yorker who has been residing in Brooklyn for the past 19 years. A second generation astrologer, Avory imbibes his love of poetics, astrology and divinatory magic into everything he does. With over a decade experience curating and producing raucous parties, festivals, nightlife and cultural events in NYC and beyond, they have been featured in documentaries, music videos and magazine articles for their experience in and expansive knowledge of queer history. Also an avid gardener and lover of flowers, during the warmer months you can find Avory tending to their rooftop garden in Bed-Stuy where they grow their own food, herbs and flowers which they use for homegrown floral arrangements.

Jovan Clay

Workshop Teacher

Jovan Clay is the founder of Thorns Touch Wellness. She is a believer in the magic of us human beings and our deep connection to the plant beings that are here with us on this earth. As a plant worker she wishes to reconnect our love, trust and relationships with true traditional medicine. She is a mover, a lover, a mother, a friend, a listener, a learner and so much more. She believes that her wealth comes from the health and sustainability of her community and those in extended communities. In addition to being a Reiki practitioner and yoga instructor for all ages, she loves creating plant based medicine infused with Reiki that supports our physical, emotional, and spiritual bodies in healing, growth, courage and self love. Her intention is to remind us that we are surrounded in the support that we need to thrive.

Maria Alexandra Panagoulias

Workshop Teacher

Maria Alexandra Panagoulias is a student of the trees, mountains, stars and the ocean. Her biggest inspiration and greatest healing modality is the gift that nature has blessed us with all- the beautiful and energetic vibrancy of plant medicines that guide us through our earth journey and reconnects to the land, and the ancestors. Guided and protected by spirit and her ancestors, her call to be in services has always been a part of who she is. As an intuitive empath, she holds space with intention, patience, and love, allowing what is supposed to come through to be a space of reflection, healing, and releasing. As a New York City High School School Counselor for the last 15 years, she has advocated and supported the socio- emotional well being of the youth. She is the founder of Amethyst Gypsy Healing, incorporating the healing energy of reiki with plant energy and medicine for self love and healing of the mind, body and healing.

Lauren Burke

CEO of Sacred Vibes Apothecary

Lauren Burke (she/her) CEO of Sacred Vibes, mother of two toddlers. Raised by Empress Karen M. Rose, she has spent her life deeply connected to Spirit and Plant Medicine. Since taking over the operations of Sacred Vibes Apothecary in 2019, she has found her passion in supporting fellow entrepreneurs, parents, and highly sensitive people in business, finance, and personal development.

Kelly Pacumio

Workshop Teacher| Herbalist & Registered Nurse

Kelly Pacumio is a Filipinx Spiritual Herbalist and a Registered Nurse. She is also the founder of Maharlika Healing, which creates herbal medicine with the intention to help others connect with their roots and provide health and wellness. She is also a natural activist, and creates plant medicine as a means of nourishment, decolonization, social justice, and liberation work. It is inspired from Kelly’s Philippine ancestral lineage, her healing journey, dreams, and astrology. She continues to expand her knowledge through continuous study of herbalism, yoga, movement, reiki, meditation, dreamwork, astrology, and learning from nature. She is a graduate of Sacred Vibes Spiritual Herbalism’s Apprenticeship and will forever be a student of learning the ancestral ways of healing. Kelly intends to bridge the gap between the scientific knowledge of western medicine and the wisdom of traditional herbalism and ancestral ways of healing, who is deeply committed to decolonizing medicine to help serve communities.

Vivian Mac

Workshop Teacher | Owner of Willow's Touch Apothecary

Vivian Mac is a Spiritual Herbalist and the Founder of Willow’s Touch, which creates dream-inspired herbal remedies and astrology readings for being in touch with who you are, so that you can heal yourself and take inspired action. A graduate of the Sacred Vibes apprenticeship, Vivian continues to expand her understanding of herbalism through Chinese medicine, dreamwork, meditation, reiki, and astrology. Vivian is also completing her Doctorate in Acupuncture and Master in Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine at the New England School of Acupuncture. At the heart of it all, her learning continues to be inspired by spirit, and by her family and ancestral connection to plants.Vivian’s purpose is to support you in following your dreams and diving deep into your healing, so that you can take inspired action. She believes that herbalism and astrology are empowering modalities to support inner and outer transformation, for the benefit for self, community, and the Earth.

Christine Miller

Workshop Teacher

Christine is a spiritual herbalist, community doula and mother born in the South. Her primary focus is to assist those with finding their individual voices, returning to self and utilizing their God given magic through herbal support and ancestral reverence. When she’s not playing around with her 5 year old daughter, you can find her deep in the woods foraging herbs or making herbal medicines to share outwardly with her communities. She dreams of the day when holistic wellness is accessible to the BIPOC community at large all over the world and has begun this mission through her business Beloved Birth Village.

sabriya simon

Workshop Teacher

sabriya simon is a writer, photographer, poet, and consultant... a creator, curator & facilitator of healing spaces and experiences, and a spiritual herbalist. she considers herself to be a potent elixir of sorts. a reminder, a messenger, a connector, a water spirit and a daughter of yemaya... with a background in psychology (BSc. psychology & MSc. applied organizational psychology).

Damita Polanco

Workshop Teacher

Damita is a Spiritual Herbalist, Santería Priestess and Master Gardener. She is passionate about the preservation of ancestral lands, traditions, and the respect for mother earth.

Rockie Gilford

Elixir Facilitator

Rockie is an herbalist, urban land steward and mushroom farmer producing a variety of edible and medicinal mushrooms. She loves storytelling as a source of power and art, dancing, community building and of course plants. She is active in the community around education, local agriculture, cultural arts and has sat on the board for organizations focused on sustainability, farming and building stronger resilient local food systems through food sovereignty. She is a Soul Fire Farm alumni and currently a Land Fellow working to bridge the gap on land access for BIPOC farmers with recommendations to the 2023 Farm Bill. She started Mawe Apothecary "Our Mother's Way" as a microbatch community based herbal apothecary and clinic. Mawe Apothecary celebrates the land by honoring traditions, cultural stories and spiritual ways of plant medicine through high quality, hand crafted botanicals. Rockie is also a mixed media artist & visual storyteller whose work has been featured in Quilt Folk Magazine, The Texan Culture of Arts Museum and in the short film "The Quilt: A Living History of African American Music" by Musical Bridges Around The World.

Azanya Brown

Spiritual Herbalist, Reiki, Doula + Virtual Volunteer

@Ms.Nebraska on all social media

Andrea Starks

Virtual Volunteer

Supporting with tech and other things.

Julie Freeman

Virtual Volunteer

Supporting with tech

Jamel West

Elixir Facilitator

Level III Apprentice

Caro they/them

Level II Apprentice

@terrestres.silvestres

Aurélie Lesueur

Virtual Volunteer

Helping to support

Shirley Johnson

Elixir Facilitator

Shirley Johnson is a licensed psychotherapist, energy & sound healer, budding herbalist, yoga teacher, aspiring writer and retreat leader based in Oakland, CA. She brings over 15 years of studying various indigenous healing technologies to her work and way of living. Passionate about self care and self intimacy as a way of healing and creating a vibrant and healthy life, Shirley leads a number of workshops supporting people to live their most authentic life and embrace their whole selves through meditation, self inquiry, and yoga. Shirley leads a number of workshops supporting people to trust their inner wisdom align with their inner healer. Inspired by Mother Earth, Kundalini Yoga, her ancestors, years of studying metaphysics. In her clinical private's practice, Shirley specializes in working with women, co-dependency recovery, money, self-confidence and sexuality in her clinical practice. She is currently in Level 2 of the Sacred Vibes Apprenticeship and bows to all her teachers on this path including Empress Karen Rose and her SVA cohort. To learn more about Shirley's work you can follow her on IG at @soulisticwellness or visit her website at www.soulisticwellness.com

Jasmine Dickerson

Level 3 Apprentice

Elixir facilitator

Kiara Lee

Elixir Facilitator

Kiara Lee-Benton (any pronouns with respect) is a holistic trauma healing coach. Kiara is known for holding powerful individual and community healing spaces; blending heart-centered support with pragmatic efforts to effect meaningful change. Kiara has worked with survivors of trauma for over thirteen years. Heeding a call to heal themself and help others find their own healing, Kiara (re)connected to the world of traditional healing modalities, reaching the deep wisdom of her ancestors, elders, and our oldest, living teacher, Mama Earth. Kiara works with clients to transcend their understanding of who they are after trauma by finding ways to reconnect to their bodies and to stand in their power. Kiara uses mindfulness, movement, plant medicine, and more to help balance and heal the mind, body, spirit, and emotions.

Binta Dixon

Elixir Facilitator

Binta is a student of nature, a creative being, and a well-being facilitator deeply rooted in the Southern U.S. and currently growing in Tucson, AZ.

Breanne Delgado

Breanne is a resonance alchemist healing and creating with the Five Elements.

Creator of Resonance Alchemist, 2023 Conference Host and SVA Level III Apprentice

Dara Pressley

Owner + Herbalist

As a passionate herbalist, my mission is to help you harness the power of nature's remedies for your well-being.

Donnay Edmund

Elixir Facilitator

Donnay Edmund, earth adoring and liberation believing, was by the love of single working-class mothers who provided the care that guides her dreams of freedom. She is a multidisciplinary artist, fluidly moving from dance, theater, and storytelling to somatics, yoga, and herbalism - interweaving these elements into the cultural through line of her work. Her practice explores the connection of mind, body, spirit, land, and ancestral healing. Donnay’s work centers on healing justice, popular education, just transition frameworks, cooperatives, and cultural organizing to create a more just world.

Selina Stanford

Elixir Facilitator & Volunteer

facilitator

Andrija Nicholas

Founder and Herbalist, Holistic Healing Goddess

The Holistic Healing Goddess’ mission is to empower everyone with the spiritual tools to navigate through their own healing journey. Each product is rooted in plant medicine, set with intentions, a connection to spirit and infused with Reiki energy. Handmade candles with herbal oils, intentions set with crystals and herbal blends designed for you to experience restorative healing.