Meet The 2023 Gullah Geechee Herbal Gathering Teachers

Yuma "Docta Yew" Bellomee is a Certified Holistic Health Consultant, herbalist, wellness advocate/educator, and musical artist, who has been featured at herbal conferences, numerous radio programs, natural hair, health & beauty expos, magazine articles, and community and school programs as a speaker and workshop facilitator on wholistic wellness & herbal medicine. He is also the founder of Yew-360 Wholistic Health & Wellness, LLC, and a member of the African Wholistic Health Association (AWHA), and the Collective Health Initiative (CHI) in Washington, DC.

Nubia Earth Martin is a Community Birth Worker and Founder/President of Birth from The Earth Inc., a non-profit organization steeped in education and empowerment, providing a variety of health and wellness services. Nubia holds a Masters Degree in Midwifery, and a Bachelor's Degree in Sociology. Currently she is finalizing a Post-Graduate Degree in International Midwifery and Maternal & Infant Health with Mercy in Action. The legacy and lineage of the Grand Midwives runs deep through Nubia Martin. She sees Midwifery, not as a profession, but as a way of life and a rite of passage.

Angèle is a rootdoctor, artist-scholar, food and nutrition enthusiast, urban gardener and the founder and owner of Hoodoo Hussy Conjure Enterprises. She has her Master of Clinical Nutrition from New York University and uses her knowledge to provide culturally inclusive and affirming nutrition care. She came back to this mortal coil to help co-create healing with people, minister and to be in service to her community using plant and spirit medicine and her healing hands. Angèle uses her knowledge of the earth + African-American traditional religion to support healing, wholeness and restoration of the mind, body and soul.

Brandon Ruiz is a Community Herbalist and Urban Farmer based in Charlotte, NC. He specializes and focuses on Caribbean plants, cultivating them for members of the diaspora and teaching about their medicinal uses. He runs Yucayeke Farms and hosts affordable educational opportunities to learn about farming and herbal medicine, digitally and in person.

Basu Blaksis Nefertem is a graduate of Neter Aunkh’s Egyptian Yoga class. Also known as Eboni Holmes and originally from Boston, Ma. she made Atlanta her home in 1998. She has been practicing yoga for over 15 years. She is a community activist, performs poetry and organizes positive and progressive events throughout the city. She is a mother of 3 amazing daughters and is 100% family and community oriented. Basu Eboni was born to heal and teach and is interested in continuing her education as a Reiki Healer/Master as well as sound healing practitioner.

Kennae Miller (she/her) is born of the Earth (Virgo mother Dravidian South Indian ancestry) and of the water (Pisces father Gullah Geechee descendants of Gabon). She is a decolonized healer of ancestral practices that manifest as an Ayurvedic practitioner, Herbalist, Yoga teacher, energy healer and Yoga Therapist. Kennae currently lived off-grid with her family on ancestral land that was granted to her paternal side after Emancipation as a way to practically live liberated and in connection with the Earth.

I am a Master Teach, Life Hacker and master of simplicity. I have taught/lectured and conducted workshops on health and wellness in the DMV and beyond for the last 11 years. I an an herbalist, reflexologist, H.E.A.R.T. Touch Therapy practitioner and Breath Master. I conduct certifications for both Breath Master and H.E.A.R.T. Touch Therapy. I am also author of the transformation manual, The Obesity Myth You're Not OverWeight You're OverWaste. My wife/partner and I create all natural hygeine products as well. The main thing we're good at is improving life quality.

Muva Mystick, owner of MystickallyMe Apothecary & Author of Mystickal Nyammins Authentic Jamaican Cookbook, based in Atl, GA. Herbs & Spices, Numbers, Elements, Folklore and Spirituality is her way of life, believing and becoming. There are components that makes it whole, Intimate Herbal & Elemental Sex knowledge & STD awareness, which aligns Mysticks to trust their divine higher self, promoting healthier relationships from within. Mental Health Mindfulness is where she also dives in through Spiritual & Accountability coaching, sharing her healing through breath work, intentional eating, yoga, sensual dance and sound bathing. MystickallyMe Apothecary provides you with all the herbal blends and skintimate products needed to build, maintain and enhance not only your health but sexual needs and desires.

Sequoria "Coco" Dickerson has been to nearly 50 countries studying, working, and praying with her feet. She is the founder of Route 2 Roots Wellness, a radical self-care movement helping people heal from lifestyles of high functioning stress and emotional insobriety through ancestral reclamation and play. She is a certified herbalist, community organizer, radical self-care coach, and former Director of Prophetic Resistance Boston, a faith-based nonprofit that uses the development of leadership skills to empower citizens to organize their communities and find solutions to the problems they face. After 20 years of struggling with depression, Coco was led to southern Gabon to study the plant medicine iboga for it’s profound effects in supporting people with their mental health. A few after putting in her deposit, she learned she descends from a bwiti practitioners in Gabon who have been working with iboga for thousands of years. She was initiated into the Missoko Bwiti tribe and is now a holder of her ancestral indigenous plant medicine. Her intention is to share the gift of this medicine with all souls who are being called to work with it with an unapologetic focus on creating more access to black and brown folks who are underrepresented in plant medicine spaces.

With a journey that began as a little girl mixing herbs, clays, & muds on her grandparents’ farm, Lucretia VanDyke (she/her) has been in the industry for over 20 years. A Holistic Educator, Speaker, Herbalist, Sacred Sexologist, Ceremonialist, Spiritual Light Coach, Intuitive Energetic & Reiki Practitioner, Diviner, & world traveler with over 3000 hours of training. She has been a holistic esthetician & practitioner for over a decade focusing on integrating indigenous healing rituals, plant spirit medicine, and meditation into your modern day practices.

She is also the author of the book African American Herbalism: A practical Guide to Healing Plants and Folk Traditions.

Joy tabernacle-KMT of the North Star Hoodoos is a ceremonialist, ritualist and the family herbalist of almost 2 decades. She is a forager and a wildcrafter, most familiar with the plants of Northern Appalachia. She is a traveling healer & lover of Black people.

Calvis is a doula, master herbalist, and natural health practitioner. Prior to entering the natural health world she spent 16 years as an educator in incarcerated facilities. Her love for her family and community serves as the foundation of her passion to bring Black folks back to their healing roots.

Over the past ten years our vision has shifted and expanded from Culinary Art based work to Farm-to-Table Style experiences and Added Value Product Development for local farms and restaurants. During this process Kings Apron became certified in herbalism, while growing and foraging medicinal herbs. We have come to realize the connection between healthy soil, healthy food and healthy communities. The next road traveled focuses on shifting into even further studies of botany, plant identification, permaculture, and soil microbiology.

Racquel shares her gifts with the world as a Birthworker, Yoga Teacher, and Holistic Healer. Racquel is the founder and owner of The Queen’s Collective Birthing- offering a variety of products and services to support women & their families through pregnancy, birth and loss. Combining passions for advocacy, support and information, she arms her clients with the tools they need to feel empowered in their decisions on their birthing and as they begin their parenting journey. She focuses on supporting families to achieve healing holistically, offering support in diet & nutrition, movement, mental and spiritual wellness, herbal remedies & more.

Racquel, comes to this work as the Sum Total of all of her life experiences, allowing her to help ease the fear and focus on the sacredness of these transitions.

Tatiana Eaves (@A.Virosa) is many things; she’s an ecologist, wildcrafter, medicine woman, healer, activist, high priestess, and spiritual friend. She believes in sharing her knowledge and the wisdom of the forest to bring us all back into the remembrance of our personal power to enact change in our lives, our communities, and beyond. Her goals are in bringing forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on this planet by working collaboratively with others to strengthen our connection with ourselves, Mother Earth, and each other.

Jalen is a native of Orangeburg and Bamberg SC who has been building roots out of the ground since the age 7. He abandoned the craft as he got older, but returned to the calling once he was deathly ill in 2017. With the journey of healing himself, he has assisted others on their healing journey as well. He is all about self sustainability, as he is a sweetgrass basket artist, visual artist, writer, and potential teacher. 75 percent of his food comes from the wild. He enjoys the harvest and it’s seasons

Olatokunboh Obasi MSc, RH (AHG), CNS is a wellness professional in herbal medicine, nutrition and indigenous ways of practice. She is an educator/founder of Well of Indigenous Wisdom school for herbal medicine and African cosmology. Boriké (Puerto Rico) Coordinator for Herbalists without Borders International & Owner of Omaroti a wellness shop for wellbeing. Birth doula, yoga and dance instructor, author, presenter and healer, her devotion is to serve humanity and care-take the earth.

Renee K. Smith (Ifagbaye Esubola Ayelaagbe Egbesina) is a certified flower essence and reiki practitioner, alchemist and founder of Akika Flower Essences & Apothecary. Akika Flower Essences was created to explore the ancestral practice of tuning into plant intelligence as a tool for transformation, healing and empowerment on one’s soul journey. Renee received her flower essence certification from Oceans & Rivers Acupuncture and Wellness and The Flower Essence Society (FES). As a strategist, Renee believes that everyone can manifest their dreams by creating a strategy that encompasses the right people at the right time. Her goal is to assist others to find joy through the use of plant intelligence in as many forms possible beginning with flower essences. As an Iyanifa and Olorisa, initiated to Ifa and Egbe in Nigeria, Renee also uses the knowledge she gains from her spiritual practice to assist her clients in finding and maintaining balance in their lives. She continues to expand her repertoire of community tools for healing through consistent study of our plant allies, learning and practicing the art of alchemy as taught by Master Teacher Diana Pharr and becoming a Level II Reiki Practitioner certified by Taino Reiki Healing. Renee is a Brooklyn native, mother, artist, alchemist, strategist, cultural arts curator and producer SRJ advocate and community member.

Demetria is a Black Queer healer, herbalist, diviner and birthworker from the U.S South and the owner of Carolina Sun Sugah, located in Columbia, SC. She works with plants and spirit to support people with believing, loving, and trusting themself.

Bio will updated .