Redefine your embodied experience with simple care practices designed by yours truly.
About Aleksa
(she/they/he)
I came from a holistic household, taking lots of vitamins, doing cleanses and visiting wellness practitioners regularly. Thanks, mum! You could find me outside much of my childhood, scraped everywhere, muddied and maybe eating a flower. I would get sick often and end up at my Serbian Baba's house, to be spoonfed soup and given herbal medicine. I found out later that herbs were the reason my parents were able to bring me into the world, so it makes sense that my work centers them now!
As an athletic yet clumsy teen, I ended up with two concussions and developed post-concussion syndromes. Although I experienced physical and cognitive symptoms for years, I did not rehabilitate my bodymind properly because of internalized ableism. Fortunately, classical Hatha yoga and meditation later helped me to restore cognitive functioning, along with supplements and dietary changes. I thought I was hale and hearty again—until I became chronically sick.
It took three tick bites to destroy my health in 2016 and render me disabled. After spiralling from specialist to specialist, I reclaimed my sick body by learning to advocate for myself and studying herbal medicine. Thanks to my mentors, Tamara Segal, Rosemary Gladstar and Dr. Edward Bach, I nurtured this kernel and my passion grew from a hobby into a vocation. While herbalism is a lifelong learning process, at this stage, I'm taking Wild Rose College's Master Herbalist Program alongside a master's degree in public health at Brown University.
As for my heritage, I'm a second-generation Canadian of Serbian-Dutch descent. Some of my ancestors were healers, educators, refugees, farmers, scientists, midwives, activists and lawyers. I see my roles as a community herbalist and gardener as a homecoming; it's as though I've slipped my hand into the perfectly sized (gardening) glove to carry on time-old traditions.
Studies & Training
2022
2021
2020
2018
2017
2016
2014
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