Our Instructors

Dara Saville is the founder of Albuquerque Herbalism and the executive director of the Yerba Mansa Project, a nonprofit organization. Her work involves teaching herbalists, organizing the community to undertake native medicinal plant restoration on public lands, writing on medicinal plants and landscapes of the Southwest, and fostering a renewed land connection through public events and field trips.

Dara is the author of the University of New Mexico Press book, The Ecology of Herbal Medicine: A Guide to Plants and Living Landscapes of the American Southwest and a contributing author to several herbal compendium books. She is currently a Geography and Environmental Studies PhD student in a joint program at the University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University. Dara’s subfield is GeoHumanities with a focus on the ecological-social lives of medicinal plants and people. She is also a graduate of Tieraona Low Dog’s Foundations of Herbal Medicine program, an instructor in UNM’s Sustainability Studies and Holistic Health Programs, and a board member of the Native Plant Society.

Find out more about Dara: https://darasaville.com/

Dr. Anna Marija Helt is an herbalist and microbiologist in Durango, Colorado.  Before falling in love with all things plant, she researched cancer development and pathogenic viruses for a dozen years as a research scientist. After career burnout hit, she switched to running a motorcycle cafe in San Francisco while studying western herbalism, aromatherapy, and a smidgen of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Upon moving to Colorado, Marija became a full time botanical geek, clinical practitioner, and writer. She incorporates weeds, only the most abundant native plants, mushrooms, and aromatics as her allies. Her continuing goal is to help clients to reach their greatest health and to introduce botanical medicine to folks who are not already on the bandwagon. Her approach involves a deep study of herbal traditions combined with a critical evaluation of botanical research science.

Through Osadha Natural Health, Marija works one on one with clients to help them achieve their health goals. She also teaches classes and workshops on a wide range of topics in natural health and biological science, as well as working one on one with students wanting a more personalized education plan.

Atava Garcia Swiecicki, MA, RH (AHG) is guided by her dreams and her Mexican, Polish, Hungarian and Diné ancestors.  She studied Feminist Studies at Stanford University and received her master’s degree in the Indigenous Mind Program at Naropa University Oakland. Atava has studied healing arts extensively for over thirty years and has been mentored by herbalists, curanderas and traditional knowledge keepers. She works as a clinical herbalist and teacher and is dedicated to remembering the healing traditions of her ancestors and supporting others to reconnect with their ancestral medicine. She also loves helping people build relationships with plants, whom she considers some of our greatest teachers and healers. Atava is the founder of the Ancestral Apothecary School of Herbal, Folk and Indigenous Medicine on Ohlone territory in Oakland, CA.  She’s currently living in Tewa Pueblo territory in Albuquerque, New Mexico where she finished writing her first book called The Curanderx Toolkit:  Reclaiming Ancestral Latinx Plant Medicine and Rituals for Healing. 

Her websites are:  www.ancestralapothecary.com and www.ancestralapothecaryschool.com.