Ancestral, Folk, & Herbalism School

Bio:

Morgaine Witriol is founder of the Native Roots School of Ancestral, Folk & Herbal Medicine in Taos, NM, a collective of 10 different teachers that teach each about their own ancestral healing modalities.  Morgaine is a clinical herbalist, wild crafter, gardener, medicine maker and intuitive being in service to the plant and fungal folk.  At her private practice in Taos, NM people can recieve a combination of clinical, spiritual and medical intuitive treatments including bodywork, herbal consults, somatic trauma release, repatterning and reconditioning intergenerational and ancestral wounds, lymphatic drainage, abdominal massage, and sound healing.  Morgaine’s focus in her practice aside from trauma work is focused working with people that were diagnosed with cancer, diabetes, arthritis, depression or hard to treat chronic disease that western medicine is stumped by.  At Native Roots, Morgaine teaches about reclaiming one’s own ancestral traditions as a displaced person, Jewish Folk Medicine, SW Materia Medica, Herbal Allies for Trauma & Grief, Ethics, Cultural Appropriation, Plant Energetics, Energywork, Clinical Herbalism, Flower Essences, Medicine Making and leads several multi-day field trips doing medicinal plant walks.   Really she feels she teaches how to come into relationship with elemental, plant and fungal medicine, and then the indigenous science from all cultures of listening to the body and its layers of epigenetic, ancestral, childhood, organ, and energy center imbalances.  Morgaine developed and ran educational programs accredited through the University of NM, has taught at the American Herbalist guild conference twice, UNM Albuquerque and is now teaching at Northern University on herbalism for the nursing department.  Her favorite people to teach are doctors, nurses, children and teachers.  She has led plant and mushroom walks for the New Mexico Association of Osteopathic Medicine, Flower Hill Institute, presented for Native Plant Society, and taught wellness through plant and mushroom medicine for Taos Municipal Schools Employees. 

In 2010 Morgaine lived in Belize and had the opportunity to apprentice tropical medicine with one of the most revered medicine men in the country the late Don Heriberto Cocom for 1.5 years and with his good friend Don Reginaldo Chayeux in Guatemala.  She brought groups down to study Mayan medicine, herbalism and abdominal massage with him for 7 years until creator called him home.  She collaborated for 10 years with his Nonprofit Association to support the protection of the fully Mayan run rainforest Reserve Bio Itza and brings groups of students to study with him. Morgaine has recognized the importance of honoring healing modalities of all cultures and especially the ones of our own tradition even if they have been forgotten by a few generations.  

Morgaine studied at the Northwest School for Botanical Studies, The Dandelion Center, California School for Herbal Studies, The Dhyanna Center, Blue Otter School, Acutonics Institute for Integrative Medicine, Ethnic Studies and Anthropology at the University of Colorado. She often attends herbal and mushroom conferences.

 She grew up with an immigrant community and found herself easily honoring the elders that still remembered their own language, their own healing modalities and traditions from that community. It was a journey of many years before she started to look deeper into reclaiming the healing practices of the ancestral traditions that she came from and hopes to share with all people of European descent to remember to honor their own ancestors, to connect to the land and the people that are currently practicing and keeping the context of European tribal healing traditions alive today. She hopes to create a safe space to bridge the intergenerational gap of knowledge, cultural similarities and healing tools to encourage self healing and community healing. 

Morgaine worked for Teambuilders counseling Services in 2008 in Taos, New Mexico as a Comprehensive Community Support Specialist teaching “life skills” including communication, stress and anger management, and parenting skills and offering social work opportunities for children and their parents. Later she worked at nonprofit Rocky Mountain Youth Corps with “at risk youth” doing hands-on experiential learning in nature focusing on useful life skills and training once a week for teens. Afterwards she ventured to Guatemala to volunteer at an orphanage and was responsible for 30 girls ages 10-17 as their live in caretaker and teacher for 5 months. in 2011 Morgaine found herself homebound and endured hurricane Sandy’s destruction leaving 13 million people on the East coast without electricity. She coordinated one thousand volunteers a day in Staten Island, New York and spent months doing grass roots disaster recovery with Feeding Family including immediate needs donations and distribution of water, food, respiratory masks, clothing, tho food, medications and animal rehoming, demolition, and later therapeutic urban gardening in elevated community garden beds, fundraising, and more demolition, raw sewage clean up and mold control.