Meet The Instructors

Roger is an enrolled member of the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Roger is a water resource technician in the tribe’s environmental department, with responsibilities including Manoomin restoration for the tribe’s ceded territory and water quality monitoring. He was inspired by his mentor and uncle who had a vision of Manoomin returning to the traditional lands, and has over 38 years of experience. Roger is the current tribal delegate on the Michigan Wild Rice Initiative, and he co-chairs the Native Wild Rice Coalition. He was the recipient of the 2019 Michigan Heritage Award presented by the Michigan State University Museum’s Michigan Traditional Arts Program in statewide partnership with the Michigan Council for the Arts & Cultural Affairs and the State of Michigan. He enjoys visiting tribal communities, schools, and colleges, and conducts wild rice camps to share the cultural, spiritual, ceremonial, and traditional importance of Manoomin. His personal goals focus on conservation, protection, restoration, and management of the limited resources in Michigan for present and future generations.

Michele is a multi-instrumentalist whose passion for music has touched many lives. As a dedicated music educator, she founded and spent 15 years nurturing Joyful Sounds Music Studio, an early childhood music and movement program that became a beloved fixture in the greater Grand Rapids area. Michele's warm and relaxed approach endeared her to hundreds of families, making family music-making a joyous and integral part of their lives. After selling her business, Michele seamlessly transitioned into the field of sound and vibrational healing, where her skills, talents, and life experiences coalesce beautifully. She continues to share her love for music in her performances with the “Celtish” trio Selkie, adding a unique touch to her musical journey.

Robert Beech is an educator, reenactor, and professional artist.

Rachel Mifsud, founder (and everything else)

“I hate going to the store. I do my grocery shopping in the woods.”

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As a child I often camped, hunted, trapped, and harvested and preserved foods with my family. Through years of practice, I have learned to gather, process, produce, and preserve a large proportion of the foods, medicines, and household products that I need.  I am a lifelong student of the environment and primitive skills, with a special interest in understanding why nature creates those characteristics that give plants and animals their unique and useful qualities. I have my BS in Environmental Biology and my MS in Ecology. I have worked as field biologist and ecologist throughout the Eastern U.S., and am a Biology lecturer at the University of Michigan- Dearborn. I have been teaching for over 20 years and have spent considerable time working with students in the classroom, in the woods, and on-line.

In 1994, Jim Mcdonald's life changed when he drank tea from a wild plant he harvested from the land he lived upon.  Since those first sips of strange tea, his life in the woods and meadows of southeast michigan has been centered on the plants & ecosystems of that land, and how he might share their virtues to restore wellness with those around him.  Jim's approach to herbcraft is deeply rooted in the land he lives upon, and blends traditional european folk influences with 19th century eclectic and physiomedical vitalism, which he conveys with story, experience, humour, common sense and lore to students, clients, random passersby and readers of his websites:

www.herbcraft.org & herbcraft.podia.com 

(for online classes).  He's taught classes throughout North America, is one of the organizers of the Great Lakes Herb Faire and is currently alternately writing “Foundational Herbcraft” and the “A Great Lakes Herbal”, in addition to articles for journals and other publications.  jim is a community herbalist, a manic wildcrafter and medicine maker, and has been an ardent student of the most learned teachers of herbcraft… the plants themselves. 

Main site: www.herbcraft.org
Online class site: herbcraft.podia.com

or if you just need one covers it all link: linktr.ee/herb.craft

there are a slew of videos to choose from here: https://www.youtube.com/@herbcraft/playlists

My name is Alycia Lee and I reside in Kalamazoo, Michigan. My death doula journey began several years ago with the deaths of some family members and pets. In realizing that I had a high comfort level and an affinity for being in the space of dying, I started to look for ways that I could serve in that space. I discovered that I could train to become something called a death doula, and in many ways realized that I already was one! 

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I began to research training opportunities and settled on Going With Grace for my death doula education and The Dying Year for my home funeral training. I have since attended several other conferences, trainings and workshops for advance care planning, home funerals, pet death and other doula related training. I now seek to serve my community by providing these services.

Larissa is a nature enthusiast who has been growing food and foraging most of her life. She is the founder of Solfed Farms CSA and began a farm school three years ago to teach children and adults about farming and homesteading skills.

Larissa's true connection with the wild started many years ago when she began teaching wilderness therapy in Utah. She has been embedded in many different ancestral crafts and projects since then. 

Chef Michael Murray is the chef owner of West Michigan Provisions LLC, a chef driven, artisan pasta and specialty foods company, he is an ACF Certified Executive Chef (CEC) and has worked as a culinary professional in restaurants, hotels and private country club dining. His craft has been honed at notable properties including BluePointe (Atlanta, GA), Grand Hotel (Mackinac Island, MI) and exclusive NY country clubs. His style has developed within a traditional culinary background of American and classical European training with a strong
understanding of international flavors. Chef Murray has progressively integrated local farm relationships
including, organic/biodynamic produce, fabrication, and preservation.

Studying at Kalamazoo College and a year in Rome, Italy Chef Murray then worked in the Department of
Genetics, at St. Jude Children’s Hospital, Memphis, TN. Opting to follow a passion for cooking in place of a medical career he attended The Culinary Institute of American, Hyde Park, NY.

Additional accomplishments include 2022 Grimod de la Reyniere, 2018 Chef of the Year-Kalamazoo ACF, 2017 People’s Choice-Downtown Kalamazoo Chili Cook-off and 2017 Salsa Cook-off Winner, ACF Cutting Edge Award; development of Taste Our Local Harvest Farmer and Chef Events, Board Member Chef and Cook Association Kalamazoo/Battle Creek Chapter, President of the Chef Association of Westchester and Lower Connecticut and on-going participation in numerous community and charity food events.

Chef Murray is enthusiastic about utilizing traditional and local food sources developed through farmer-chef relationships and supporting slow food activities. He regularly presents classes on food topics and works with students as an adjunct culinary instructor.
 

Recent activities through West Michigan Provisions LLC include artisan pasta production utilizing traditional old-world techniques, specialty sourced grains, and modern chef driven specialty creations that help our customers ‘Cook Like a Chef at Home’. A line of restaurant quality jarred tomato sauces based on chef’s recipes are now available and fine local restaurants highlight our pasta on their menu. Retail activities are centered around the local farmer’s market and specialty grocery sellers. Find us every Saturday in the Kalamazoo area! Wholesale and mail order are also available: www.westmichiganpastaandprovisions.com
Chef Murray can be reached at 616.730.2095 or westmichiganprovisions@gmail.com for additional information regarding his career and credentials.

Michael Marie Schofield is a plant tender, willow farmer, and weaver of baskets and caskets based in Southeast Michigan. She stumbled upon wicker basketry while touring green burial cemeteries with a family member preplanning their eventual funeral. After seeing a photo of a willow casket at a cemetery, she was strongly pulled to learn to weave one of these gorgeous baskets for her loved one. What followed was a bit of a quirky mutli-year journey involving a forever growing collection of out-of-print textbooks, long road trips for rather hard-to-find in-person learning opportunities, and finally an amazing apprenticeship with an established funerary artisan. She finally gathered with her family in this past autumn to collectively weave the casket that began her basketry journey. It is being utilized as a rather gorgeous but eccentric bookshelf until its time to return to the soil.

Michael also weaves a wide variety of other baskets and items. More recently, she’s begun weaving her love of ethnobotany into invasive species management and land stewardship and is beginning to weave many of these plants into her baskets.  She believes reestablishing relationships with these overabundant and controversial plant species can improve ecosystem health, deepen our relationship with the living world, and make a lot of crafts more easily accessible. 

Mary Whalen is a photographer and arts educator living in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She is the chairperson of the Photography and Digital Media program at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts and teaching artist with the Education for the Arts, Aesthetic Education program in the Kalamazoo and regional school systems. 

Her work has appeared in publications and in a variety of exhibitions. She is equally adept at digital image making as well as traditional darkroom and historical photo processes. 

Currently her tintype from the Kalamazoo River Survey is included in the Framing Moments exhibition at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, curated by Dr. Deborah Willis.

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Tell is a Hunter, fisherman, trapper, and wilderness living skills instructor from Ontario, Canada. He has extensive survival and craft working skills from advanced  leather working to soapstone carving. He hosts many "challenges" in Canada. 

Boozhoo nindinawemaaganidog.

Cyndi nindizhinikaaz. Nenookaasi gaye Anang nindigoo Anishinaabemong. Zhigaagoodena onjibaayaan gaye, St Paul daayaan.  Nindaaw Ah-nab-awen Odawa gaye Gichi-wiikwedong Odaawaag miina Ojibweg. Niin nindoodem nimikii. American Indian Magnet School-ing nindanokii aandi anishinaabemogikinoo’amaageyaan.  Gikinoo'amaageyaan omaa niiyo-biboonagad. 

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Hello my relatives,

I am called Cyndi in English, and my Anishinaabe names are Nenookaasi (hummingbird) and Anang (star). I grew up in Chicago, and currently live in St Paul. I am from the Grand River Band of Ottawa Indians and Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. I belong to the Thunderbird clan. I work at American Indian Magnet School where I teach Anishinaabemowin (MN Ojibwe Dialect). I have taught here 4 years.

Christy and Dan share a passion for distillation, and enjoy teaching classes on it together.  Both Dan and Christy know the distillation process well, and bring unique skills to the table to share with attendees. 

Christy is an Herbalist with 15 years of experience, and forever a student of the plants. Christy studied herbalism with local herbalists, and at the California School of Herbal Studies.  Christy has a graduate certificate from Western Michigan University in Holistic Health Coaching, and enjoys working with clients and students to empower them in improving their health and wellbeing.  

Dan works in the trades as a woodworker and handyman.  Dan enjoys work that lets him figure out solutions and work independently, while creating something new from raw materials.  Dan brings his technical skills and experience with distillation equipment to share, and can offer practical information on working with a variety of stills and related equipment.

George has studied and taught traditional and wilderness skills all over North America since 1990. He leads classes on plant skills, toolmaking, fire-making and more. George has also founded primitive skills gathering in Michigan. George is an advisor for Earthcraft

Since 2006, Angie has been presenting energetic, vibrant, and upbeat programs, seminars, workshops, and classes surrounding Michigan's growing culture of farm-to-table culinary experiences, local agriculture, grain distillation, wildcrafted elixirs, as well as herbalism, and foraging.

Angie is a passionate professional speaker with 25+ years of experience in the food and beverage industry. She is a freelance culinary mixologist, brand consultant, and educator. She has designed and executed award-winning beverage programs throughout the Midwest's top bars and restaurants, numerous craft distilleries, national distributors, as well as global brands and celebrities.

Angie is a graduate of the Academy of Spirits and Fine Service, BarSmarts Advanced Bar Education Program, and the Advanced Culinary Mixology Academy. Angie taught mixology (HOS 123) in the Culinary Arts, Food Beverage, and Hospitality Department at Kendall College in Chicago before moving back to Michigan to nurture her home state's growing culture of farm-to-table culinary experiences, local agriculture and distillation, wild-crafted elixirs, as well as herbalism and foraging. 

Founder of Rooted Luv. He is Kalamazoo local, and has a deep connection to the land. He cultivates fresh, sustainably grown produce and exquisite tea blends. Catch him selling his delicious produce at the farmers market this coming season.

He has worked at the Nature Center farm, and now has his own urban farm.

Chaz will be offering Unique tea blends! Tasting is half the fun!

@rootedluvfarm13

“The mission of AACORN is to provide life enrichment opportunities and residential options for adults with developmental differences in a supportive inclusive community.”

My name is Clay Bowers.  I am a plant nerd living in Northern Michigan.  Learning my plant and fungal neighbors has been a passion of mine since childhood, but it has only been a true obsession for about a decade now.  It always just looked like a wall of undistinguishable green to me....until I started to learn who I was looking at.  Now after many years I can walk through the forests and truly see, but I still have much to learn.  This is a lifelong path.

Learning to forage is essentially like learning your way around a city. Eventually you learn every which way you can get to a certain place, where everything is and why there are certain associations in certain regions.  The same is true for Wildcrafting.  When you first go into the woods, its all the same, but after many years you start to see the associations and the "why" of things.  You become a member of the forest and no longer a tourist in a place that you are foreign to.  Foraging gives you a sense of belonging to your surroundings beyond the normal hikers forest connection. 

   When I first chose to learn edible plants it was pure and simple "survivalism". I saw impending doom in the world all around me and I wanted to make sure that I would be fed in the aftermath of an apocalypse.   I made hilarious mistakes along the way and have eaten more disgusting things than most people would ever like to try. But I would not change a thing.  Because, apocalypse or not, I get to spend time in the woods picking food for free.

One thing I like to say is that I never go on hikes, and that is truly because every single time I walk through the woods I do more than walk.  Hiking, while definitely good for well being, creates in us this sense of the forest being an art exhibit.  When I go into the woods I participate in the woods.  I grok the woods.  I am nature.  Nature is me.  I don't know that it would be possible for me to just walk through the woods. 

The way of Wildcrafting will change the way you look at the world.

https://www.nomiforager.com

I am passionate about helping all humans connect back to the earth, community, and our ancestral ways. I am a lover of all things wild and strive to live a life as close to the earth as possible.

I have practiced earth skills most of my life. Starting early on in my childhood, going to survival gatherings and herbalism classes, and deepening in my adult years. Most recently, completing a ten-month earthskills course in AVL, NC. Friction fire, hunting, and animal processing are the skills closest to my heart. They are the things that connect me to the earth over and over again because I love them, but also because of necessity. They are skills that keep me alive, even in our modern age. 

When we practice these physical skills of survival we also create a deep bond with the landscape. We learn what trees are good for friction fire, what terrain feels safe to the deer, what rocks we can break into tools, and what plants will feed us. All of a sudden, what once was a sea of green and brown becomes an alive, interconnected ecosystem that sustains us and we are an integral part of. My mission is to help as many as I can to feel this connection again.

I've been crocheting and knitting since I was 12 years old. I've been spinning and weaving for about 25 years. I learned naalbinding to participate in Viking age reenactments.I've been part of the Weaver's Guild of Kalamazoo for 24 years and am a past president and the current Education Chair. Nothing makes me happier than teaching and showing others the skills I enjoy.

KAL
He has been a weaver for 8 years and creates and makes potholders, weaves rugs, and inkle bands. He also enjoys lucet cording and needle felting. A member of the Weavers Guild of Kalamazoo for 8 years, he is the Chair of the Service Buearu and enjoys demonstrating historical fiber crafts and learning about the different things you can do with fiber.

Stevie Calista is a dedicated Soul Blueprint Alchemist on a mission to empower conscious women through the transformative power of astrological wisdom. As a guide and mentor, Stevie specializes in helping women align with their unique Soul Blueprint, freeing them from the shackles of self-judgment, inauthenticity, and societal conformity.

Stevie's passion lies in assisting others in unraveling the profound question of why they are here in this lifetime. Drawing on a wealth of knowledge acquired over the past decade, she has immersed herself in the intricate world of Astrology. Through this profound understanding, Stevie has developed a unique and intuitive approach that combines Evolutionary and Shamanistic Astrology. This approach allows her to break down the complexities of Astrology into practical tools, designed to illuminate and guide you on your spiritual journey.

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www.StevieCalista.com

Ok soooo, My name is Mia and I’m a ceremonial magician and an evolutionary astrologer, practicing for the past 7 years. My astrological focus is to help people understand who they are and why they are here from a soul focused paradigm.  We look at where your soul has been developing in past lives, the current life and the trajectory for the next life, As well as finding way to achieve balance and purpose in current incarnation.

Born and raised in southeast Michigan, Jen Davis loves to spend time in the natural world. With the help of her husband, Jason, she has raised an amazing daughter to adulthood. Jen now spends most of her free time outside, hunting, hiking, boating, trapping, foraging, wrangling dogs, pulling invasive species, planting trees, shooting bows, shooting guns, mentoring others, and generally having a great time.

Rob Collins is a high school teacher and Oxen Instructor at Tillers International. He farms with 5 oxen of his own and writes extensively about oxen training, driving, and equipment building. In 2023, he published a book of interviews with oxen teamsters in many different settings, from movie sets to international development projects. 

Instructors will take you through the history and theory of stone construction, making of mortar, and shaping of fieldstone into building stone. Presentations will provide insight into geology and the characteristics of different stone types, the mechanics of splitting and dressing stone, and the evolution of mortar systems from ancient to modern. You will then have opportunities to practice selecting, splitting, shaping, and building with raw materials quarried locally.

John Sarge is on staff at Tillers International and knows just about everything there is to
know on the farm, from maintaining equipment to farming and driving draft animals,
making yokes and wooden wheels, and much more. He has been the lead blacksmithing
instructor at Tillers for many years and is adept at working in a simpler, hand-tool
environment. sarge@tillersinternational.org

Tom Nehil is a structural engineer in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he specializes in
evaluation, preservation and adaptive reuse of historic buildings. He is a member of the
Association for Preservation Technology, the Timber Framers Guild, Timber Frame
Engineering Council, Michigan Historic Preservation Network, Michigan Barn
Preservation Network, and others. He is a regular instructor at Tillers where he teaches
wood identification, timber frame design, traditional stone masonry, ox driving and
farming with draft animals. tnehil@nehilsivak.com

Rick Eshuis cannot remember a time in his life when he was not working with horses.
Starting with raising horses for 4-H, Rick and his father Ron raised Halflinger’s for more
than 25 years. Rick now drives his own team of Percherons. Over the past several years
at Tillers, Rick has developed an understanding and ability to also work with donkeys
and even oxen. Volunteering at Tillers for the past 15 years, Rick joined the team about
three years ago managing the farming operations and overseeing animal care.
farm@tillersinternational.org

BIO Coming soon.....

Alicia Dawn Siegel is an Interfaith minister in Kalamazoo michigan. Her work in the world involves bringing spiritual Harmony to the home by offering spiritual lifestyle Retreats at Mother's trust mother's place. She believes in Dynamic World change first starts in the home she is excited to share men the line at the ancestral skills Festival because many of the patterns that give us the most issues stem from modeled behaviors from our family lines. While we make other choices, the impulses may follow us through life. By mending the line, we open to ancestral healing- clearing the slate for the next generation, and restoring a deep generational respect, and appreciation.

Joe is an avid member of the re-enactor community. A self taught craftsman. He is practiced in pipe-making, trade silver, and active gamesman. He also is a blacksmith, toolmaker, and flint-knapper. 

I started out finding arrowheads on the farm in Illinois and wondered how in the world do you make arrowheads out of stone it was just a Wonder and then 29 years ago I came across a modern-made blade at Jay's sporting goods in Clare, Michigan.... I just had to know ..... got hooked up with the Michigan Flintnappers and have been chipping rock ever since, other primitive skills passions are birch bark basketry... cordage... stone axe and pipe making