The Annual Spiritual Herbalism Conference is a transformative weekend of connection, learning, and remembrance as herbalists, healers, and wellness practitioners come together to explore the intersection of herbal medicine, ancestral wisdom, and spiritual healing.

Our attendees, guest speakers, and workshop teachers bring first hand experience, knowledge, partnership, and reverence to the abundance of approaches available to us all when we centralize the brilliant and inherent wisdom of indigenous, LGBTQIA, BIPOC, and immigrant communities from which we are Intertwined.

This immersive experience offers herbal knowledge, practical tools, and deep community support. Together, we’ll remember and reclaim the technologies of our ancestors—traditions rooted in care, resistance, and collective survival.

We believe our ability to thrive is rooted in ancestral intelligence. By invoking the wisdom, skills, and spiritual practices of those who came before us, we lay the foundation for a liberated and whole future.

This year’s theme, Ancestral Intelligence (A.I.): A Future of Remembering, is an invitation to resurrect memory as a guide. Through workshops, storytelling, and hands-on offerings, we’ll explore the ways ancestral practices can shape how we live, heal, and build together.

🌀 Deep-Dive Workshops & Panels

Healing Apothecary

Karen M. Rose

  • Trained in Eastern and Western Herbal Medicine, Herbalist Karen M. Rose has dedicated her life’s work to empowering individuals to reconnect to their ancestral traditions. Over the past 20 years, she has created several outlets to offer her teachings and healing modalities to women, people of color, and Black and LGBTQIA communities. The opening of the Brooklyn-based Sacred Vibes Apothecary in 2009 was merely the beginning. 

    Karen’s inspiration for this work began as a child in her native home of Guyana, where she was exposed to how African, Caribbean, and South American traditions profoundly influenced plant medicine and community healing. The legacy of these lands is the foundation of Karen’s core values and spiritual practices. Regarded as a Spiritual Herbalist, Karen is revered for being the first to teach Spiritual Herbalism, plant medicine deeply rooted in ancestral healing and spiritual consciousness. Offering guidance to those on the path to finding the truth, she has trained over 1000 herbalists through her Spiritual Herbalism Apprenticeship program as an act to reclaim their health and offer healing to their communities.

Kyrin Hobson

  • Kyrin Hobson (b. Los Angeles, CA) is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist, educator and museum professional. Her work focuses on the intimacies of embodied cultural experience by combining Afro-diasporic history, social practice and women’s health advocacy.

    In 2024 Hobson was Feminist in Residence at Northwestern University and a Visual Art Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago. She is a recent awardee of the Golden Foundation for the Arts Residency.

    Hobson’s work has been supported by the University of Chicago Arts, Science and Cultures Initiative; the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry; Minnesota State Arts Board; Sustainable Arts Foundation; AS220; the Millay Artists Residency and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design Women’s Art Institute.

    Kyrin’s vision and leadership have contributed to exhibition programs of the South Side Community Art Center (Chicago), Museum for African Art (NY), The UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History and the Leadership Advisory Committee of the Art Institute of Chicago.

    Hobson holds a MFA in Visual Art (University of Chicago), MA in Arts Administration and Museum Studies (New York University) and a BA in Studio Art (UCLA).

  • Mama G is a spiritual leader, healer, cultural ambassador, spiritual artist/designer, and curator.

    She received the title of Gaa mang - Paramount Queen/Chieftainess from Saamaka and Okanisi Maroons of Suriname, and is presently the only female Gaa mang. The title of Tekina (teacher) was bestowed upon her by the Yukayeke Yamaye Guani (Jamaica Hummingbird Taino People), of which she is a Council member. She is also the founder of the Maroon Indigenous Women's Circle.

    A well sought-after inspirational and motivational speaker who has graced many platforms of higher learning institutions locally and worldwide, Gaa mang Gloria Simms seeks to place Africa's Indigenous knowledge as the base/root of all other knowledge systems. Gaa mang continues to pursue her ultimate mission and vision; the vital restoration of the African family as a must in the 21st century.

    Presently, she is taking steps towards the establishment of a women's museum, as well as a traditional university that will align with Indigenous ways of learning and living. She is guided and enriched by the motto, "What life experiences have taught unto me, I will teach to those who want to learn.”

Gaa mang Gloria Simms (MaMa G)

Stephen Lewis

  • Stephen Lewis is an organizational and leadership development strategist, the creator of DO GOOD X; a startup accelerator for underestimated social entrepreneurs, and Ancestors’ Farmacy; a resource for BIPOC people to heal their body, spirit and soul. As a spiritual herbalist, initiated priest and student of Master Herbalist Karen Rose, Baba Falokun Fasegun, and the late Elder Malidoma Somé, Stephen’s journey and experiences have led him to pursue an ancestral calling to retrieve and share the ancestral medicine of his community in order to support a new generation of healers who yearn “for ancient wisdom that can withstand their big questions, worthy dreams, and tests of resilience and perseverance that greet them daily.”

    During the past 20 years, he has worked to inspire the next generation of healers, artists, freedom fighters, faith-inspired leaders, and entrepreneurs to live and work on purpose. Today, Stephen also creates ritual experiences around plant and ancestral intelligence, sacred memory, and spiritual consciousness to advance what he calls soulcrafting–guiding others to cultivate their intuition, dream on purpose, and connect with fields of knowing within and beyond themselves for the healing and growth of their soul.

COMING SOON

  • VIP Cocktail Hour

    Thursday, October 2, 2025


    Lakay Lounge, Flatbush Central
    2123 Caton Ave
    Brooklyn, NY 11226

    6:00-9:00PM

    View on Map

  • Black Herbalist Convergence

    Friday, October 3, 2025


    Virtual - Via Zoom

    5:00-9:00PM

  • Conference Day 1 - In Person

    Saturday, October 4, 2025


    The Landing at Industry City
    237 36th St
    Brooklyn, NY 11232

    9:00AM-5:00PM

    View on Map

  • Virtual Conference Day

    Sunday, October 5, 2025


    Online
    Access details sent via email

    10:00AM-6:00PM

Register Now

⁎

Register Now ⁎