Instructors
About Leslie
Leslie Lekos is founder and director of Wildroot Botanicals herbal school and product line. She’s been teaching herbal medicine courses since 2009 and began marketing products in 2004. She is known in her region for distilling hydrosols and is sought nationally to teach at conferences and for herbal consultations. Her medicines have reached folks locally and internationally.
In addition to herbal work, she’s supported parents as a doula, childbirth educator and prenatal yoga instructor for almost 20 years. She is co-author of the book, Yoga for Pregnancy and is a certified Iyengar Yoga teacher. Most importantly she is the mother of two sons.
Leslie believes wholeheartedly that the plants themselves are the best teachers and strives to support her students to grow their own relationships with plants and cultivate space for people to align with their innate inner knowing and connection to health. She believes herbal medicine is the people’s medicine and that we all have a right to know how to care for ourselves and our communities. In addition to courses taught at Wildroot Botanicals, she works with the Tulalip Tribes Diabetes Prevention and Wellness Program as an herbalist.
Leslie has studied extensively with respected herbalists from across the country including Dr. Aviva Romm, Rosalee de la Foret, 7Song, Jim Mcdonald, Rosemary Gladstar, Matthew Wood, Dr. Tiffany Freeman, Thomas Easley, Margi Flint, Sam Coffman, Michael Tierra, Cathy Skipper, Dr. Florian Birkmayer, Sean Donahue, Yarrow and Angela Willard, Michael Pilarski and more. She has a B.A. from Fairhaven College, WWU in Holistic Health: Herbal Medicine and Somatics.
You can find her teaching yoga at the Bow Sanctuary and Repose in Bellingham.
Contact
About Sayvanna
Sayvanna is a landscape designer, herbalist, and spiritualist specializing in permaculture design, edible landscapes, and native plants. Her work is guided by sustainability, adaptability, ecological integrity and a deep love for ancestral and spiritual wisdom. If you ask Sayvanna, she didn't look for plants, the plants called for her. Her herbalism journey started with her deep reverence for animals and transformed when she moved to the Pacific Northwest to learn about the the place she now calls home. Her purpose is to help foster meaningful relationships between people and the land; helping people remember that they are also part of nature. Her garden design business, Garden of Venus, was born out of a love for the land, its wisdom and the abundance it shares so willingly.
Sayvanna has previously studied herbalism with Leslie Lekos as well as attained her Permaculture Design Certificate under the Permaculture Institute of North America from Penny Livingston. She has a BT from SUNY Cobleskill in Animal Science as well as a Masters of Education in Agricultural Education. In addition to herbal work, she supports other local businesses with herbal production, plans events for foundations and non-profits, supports indigenous ceremonies with healing modalities, competitively Olympic Weightlifting or tending to her animal kin.
Last image shot at Aro Ha