Meet Our Botanical Experts
Welcome to our institute! Here you will find a team of dedicated experts who are passionate about botanical studies. They are committed to sharing their knowledge and expertise with you.
Dr. Anne Marija Helt PhD
Microbiologist, Certified Clinical Herbalist
Marija is an herbalist, writer, and former research scientist based in Durango, Colorado. She practices and teaches through her business, Osadha Natural Health, LLC. Before falling in love with all things plant and mushroom, she studied cancer and pathogenic viruses for a dozen years. She left the lab bench after completing her postdoctoral work and trained with multiple herbalists over several years while running a cafe in San Francisco. She’s been in clinical practice since 2009, combining herbal traditions with science and a never-ending sense of wonder.
Debra Swanson
Certified Clinical Herbalist
Debra Swanson is the founder and creatrix of Dancing Willow Herbs which she began in 1991, pioneering herbalism in the 4 corners. Her breadth of knowledge spans over 30 years working as a clinician, medicine maker and educator. A village herbalist Debra has assisted many generations of community members on their healing journey. As a teacher and educator, the success of Dancing Willow Herbs has been a gateway for many an aspiring herbalist. In 2021 she sold Dancing Willow Herbs to focus on her private practice as a Clinical Herbalist and Professional Astrologer.
Dr. Aaylah Wellspring ND
Naturopathic Doctor, Herbalist
Dr. Aaylah Wellspring has known from a young age that she has spent lifetimes in service of mother earth and the fairy realms. Her mission and purpose on this planet is to connect people to their plant relatives and preserve the connection and knowledge of plant medicines.
A Naturopathic doctor since 2017 she specializes in gastrointestinal disorders, chronic fatigue and hormonal balancing. At her practice Wellspring Naturopathic Medicine, she focuses on coaching, lifestyle modifications, diet and herbal medicine to facilitate whole body healing. She also offers holistic pelvic floor rehabilitation trained by Tami Kent and Tibetan sound bowl healing sessions certified by the Atma Buti Sound and Vibration school in Boulder, CO.
Equally important to her service to humans Aaylah is also CEO of Wild Fed a company she started in Naturopathic school 10yrs ago that makes high quality organic herbal supplements for horses. Her passion for herbal education for humans and animals lead her to found the Botanical Studies Institute in the fall of 2024.
In addition to her more formal training, Aaylah has been on a spiritual path for most of her life but has become more focused and has deepened in her training in the last few years. Studying the directions of the medicine wheel with the Green Elder Project for the last 2yrs and participating in the ceremonial Danza de Luna in Teotihuacan Mexico for the last 3 yrs under the heartfelt guidance of Abuela Lupita. Last year she was initiated as a sacred pipe carrier.
Katrina Blair
Deb Buck
Herbalist, Owner Yoga Durango
Deb enjoys fusing devotion, strength, integrity, and grace in order to inspire contagious enthusiasm in service to Mother Earth, Community and Self. She practices deep interest in Yoga as a rich path of transformation, awakening innate intelligence and healing through which yoga combines the practical with mysticism. Deb embraces the boundless yoga practice as something that can open paths of transformation and nourish one’s unique spiritual way of life. Her specialty is to encourage students toward self-inquiry through their connection to nature as well as exploring how yoga practice can be a metaphor for how we choose to be in life and in relationship. She loves to discover and continuously question how to embody the practice; how to really walk the talk and perceives Yoga as path towards wholeness. Deb began yoga at the age of 19 eventually participating in her first yoga teacher training through Yogadurango in 2010. She has since invested her time and heart in study with Bhavani Maki, diving deep into the heart of Yoga Philosophy and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and studied with Eddie Modestini and Kristin Bosteels in the method of Yoga on the Inside. Deb is currently a Yoga Therapist in training with Inner Peace Yoga Therapy. She has also trained many hours with Ruby Jo Walker of Southwest Trauma Trainings in Polyvagal Theory, Resilience and Post Traumatic Growth.
Herbalist, Chef, Author
Katrina Blair began studying wild plants in her teens when she camped out alone for a summer to focus on eating wild foods. She later wrote “The Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants of the San Juan Mountains” for her senior project at Colorado College where she graduated with a biology degree. In 1997 she completed a MA at John F Kennedy University in Orinda, CA in Holistic Health Education. She founded Turtle Lake Refuge in 1998, a non-profit, whose mission is to celebrate the connection between personal health and wild lands. Turtle Lake Refuge is a wild harvested, locally grown and living foods café, microgreen growing operation and sustainable education center for the community. She founded Bee Happy Lands in 2008 as a service project to provide organic land stewardship and regeneration for public and private lands across the state of Colorado. Katrina teaches sustainable living practices and wild edible and medicinal classes locally and globally. She is author of a book titled “Local Wild Life- Turtle Lake Refuge’s Recipes for Living Deep” published in 2009 and “The Wild Wisdom of Weeds: 13 Essential Plants for Human Survival” published by Chelsea Green 2014.
Brady Wilson
Herbalist, Mycology Expert
Brady Wilson, born and raised in the heart of the Rockies, is honored to serve as Lab Manager and Medicine Maker at Dancing Willow Herbs. Often found barefoot in the forest, singing with the birds and babbling brooks, he has a lifelong love affair with the earth and her abundance. Limelighting as a Yoga Teacher, and special events DJ, he lives the life he loves, and loves sharing it with others. Whether with movement, music, spoken word mantra, or plant medicines, his works exemplify his devotion to the healing arts. Brady believes in the innate regenerative and creative capabilities of human beings and our relationship with the Earth, and that the gifts nature provides hold the keys to help us unlock that potential. It is with this spirit that he humbly offers his embodied knowledge to share with you through The Botanical Studies Institute.