About Marysia
Marysia Miernowska is a teacher, author, Earth activist, green witch, folk herbalist and healer rooted in the Wise Woman Tradition of Healing.
A multilingual and multicultural devotee of Mother Earth, Marysia has spent her life traveling, learning and sharing different regenerative ways of tending to the Earth, healing land, and healing people. She apprenticed with Sage Maurer of The Gaia School of Healing, and works with sustainable sources of healing plants that belong to Western Herbalism, Ayurvedic, Siberian, African, Tibetan and Traditional Chinese Medicine paths.
Born in Poland, she carries with her a lineage of European folk herbalism. Marysia teaches from her own lineage, her training and her personal experience with the plants and connection to the Earth. She shares only practices passed down to her with permission, honoring the source of the teachings when not her own. Marysia acknowledges that cultural appropriation also refers to a particular power dynamic in which members of a dominant culture take elements from a culture of people who have been systematically oppressed by that dominant group. Marysia is committed to holding a safe, loving and non hierarchical container for learning and growth.
Marysia honors plants as sentient beings, elders, healers and teachers. As a Plant Spirit Communicator, Marysia channels messages from the Earth spirits and guides students to connect with plant spirits through meditation and through their bodies, to receive guidance and learn about the constituents, energetics and properties of plants.
Marysia’s passion for permaculture and biodynamic gardening combined with her experience as an Earth activist, community organizer, and designer weaves into her work of cultivating spiritual connection to land, and ripples into action. While the teachings she shares come from deep time, she compels students and clients alike to bring these themes into inquiry, participation, and activation: How can we be medicine ~ for ourselves, each other & the Earth?
Her dedication to connecting the healing of people with the healing of land has driven Marysia to consult with farm and land owners. Her signature "Regenerative Land Plan" customizes edible and medicinal sacred gardens and helps bring regenerative farming practices to any sized patch of Mother Earth’s soil body.
As a medicine maker, Marysia grows organic and biodynamic herbs in Malibu, makes herbal medicine for her apothecary, is the formulator and cofounder of Sacred Rituel Skin Care and formulates products for other ethical companies such as Foria.
Marysia teaches & speaks at conferences internationally, writes, interviews for TV and radio, and appears as a guest expert on TV shows. She is faculty at Esalen Institute and offers yearly retreats.
Over the last several years, Marysia has had the immense honor and joy of training hundreds of herbalists. Many of Marysia’s students have gone on to start successful medicine lines, implement regenerative farming practices on their land, and offer herbalism in their own healing practices.
Marysia lives in Topanga, CA. with her daughter Flora.
About Rachel
Rachel Jonte, “Mentor Mama” to year 2+ apprentices. Year 2 students seeking certification enter the mentorship program, Where they are supported by Rachel in creating & offering four workshops to first year students, providing more in-person, smaller group learning and hands-on experience to our community. Becoming a mentor is part of receiving training and learning how to hold and via carrier of our tradition of healing. Rachel is the Director of the Mentorship Program and holds bi monthly small group circles with our mentors, offering them support and teacher training guidance.
Rachel is a folk-herbalist who has been studying herbalism since the plants called her in 2015, guiding her to learn from herbalists around the country. She graduated from an intensive apprenticeship with Marysia Miernowska and the Gaia School of Healing in 2019 and has been helping mentor apprentices in School of the Sacred Wild since its inception. Rachel’s intuitive gifts have grown alongside her practice and study of herbalism, and today she teaches classes, provides one-on-one intuitive herbal sessions, and makes hand crafted herbal medicine products from her extensive garden of medicinal plants. She is also a ceremonialist who officiates weddings, leads seasonal rituals, conducts home blessings, and personalized ceremonies.
Rachel has a background in science and communications and spent over 20 years in an intense career in nonprofit fundraising, mainly for organizations focused on scientific research including neuroscience, immunology, and ovarian cancer. Her offerings today are fueled by a background of scientific literacy, a lifelong devotion to the natural world and a deep spiritual practice of communion with the divine.
After moving with her husband in 2015 to live and work on an organic farm that grows avocados, coffee, passionfruit, and dozens of other exotic fruits, Rachel began growing her own medicine plants resulting in a garden of over 75 different herbs that she uses to create tinctures, salves, teas and other herbal medicines in her home apothecary. Rachel is passionate about empowering people to nourish themselves and has taught many classes about ways to work with herbs for optimum wellness. With the plants, our ancient elders, as her guide, Rachel’s highest joy is helping people find healing, wholeness, freedom, empowerment, and courage to develop & share their unique sacred gifts to be expressed in the world.