Lead instructor

Missy Rohs

Missy Rohs is a community herbalist, dandelion lover, and co-founder of The Arctos School. She grows, scavenges, and wildcrafts her own herbs with a focus on sustainable herbal remedies: those that grow easily in populated habitats, and those that can be harvested in the wild with minimal impact or beneficial impact.  

Missy’s path to herbal teaching began with grassroots labor activism and cross-border solidarity. As part of her activism, she joined the Black Cross Health Collective, which provided integrative first aid and aftercare for activists, and used that as a springboard to dive head-first into the world of herbal learning. Encouraged by her herbal mentors, Krista Olson and Colette Gardiner, she packed her bags to study with Michael Moore at the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine. Upon her return to Portland, she began selling her tinctures at a farmers’ market and leading plant medicine workshops around town.

As the Arctos School has thrived, Missy has remained active in other parts of the herbal community, teaching at conferences, volunteering with Natural Doctors International in Nicaragua, and providing aftercare for Black Lives Matter protesters. In between herbal endeavors, she can be found concocting delicious meals with her sweetie, snuggling with her cats, or hiking her favorite trails. For information on herbal health consultations or customized classes with Missy, visit our Consultations page.

recent guest instructors

Gradey Proctor

An ecologist and botanist, Gradey Proctor has spent years studying the flora and fungi of Oregon's forests. He fell hopelessly in love with the Northwest upon his arrival in the '90s. His longing to develop a sense of place has driven his passion for sustainably harvesting medicinal and edible plants -- and he loves supporting his community by teaching others to do the same.  Through classes, volunteer work, and employment, Gradey dove into the world of plants head-on.

Gradey is a co-founder of the Arctos School. In 2023, he shifted his focus to give his other herbal endeavor, the Medicine Garden, his primary attention, while continuing to teach botany and ecology with Arctos. The Medicine Garden is an independent micro nursery specializing in healing herbs and hard-to-find plants. Learn about Medicine Garden plant sales, garden design consultations, and cultivation-focused classes here.

When not hanging out with plants, Gradey spends his time with his kids.

Candace Larson

Candace Larson is a field biologist with the Audubon Society of Portland, and is obsessed with the birds, plants, and fungi of the Pacific Northwest. Trained in wilderness first aid, street medic skills, and urban disaster response, Candace built their skills and dedication to keeping people safe in the streets and in the back country through their work as a wilderness fire lookout, a street medic for political demonstrations, a hike leader with Bark, and a birding guide with Portland Audubon.

Silke Akerson

Silke Akerson, MPH, CPM, LDM is a mother, midwife, and herbalist with a passion for connecting people with plants and with their own self-knowledge for healing. She was raised here in Oregon in a back-to-the-land family where plant medicine, home birth, home health care, and home death are normal. True to her roots, she hopes to help people return to their bodies and to the land and plants around them, wherever they are. She works in maternal and infant public health and as a midwife and herbalist in Portland, Oregon.

Abigail Singer

Abigail Singer is a community herbalist and medicine maker practicing western energetic herbalism. She runs a small business called Spring Creek Herbs and works with people one on one to address the root causes of health issues. Abigail is inspired by vitalism and folk herbalism traditions in which health care is accessible, is connected to place, and honors each person's unique experience and capacity for healing. Abigail is a co-founder of the People’s Health Clinic of Portland, a multi-modality free clinic serving folks at the crossroads of economic injustice and other systemic oppressions. Having been active for many years in social and environmental justice, she believes that everyone has a right to compassionate, respectful, and empowering health care. Abigail has a deep love of the wild, and is passionate about bringing plants into spaces for healing in the city.

Abigail is a graduate of the Blue Iris Mystery School and a facilitator of The Work That Reconnects, a framework for processing collective grief. Over the years, Abigail has come to see grief work as a necessary and powerful tool for healing and transformation on personal, community and societal levels. She is excited to be working at the intersections of plant medicine, grief work, and movements for justice.

Khrys Sionainn V

Khrys Sionainn V of Silver Willow Aromatics has studied, worked with, and grown aromatic and medicinal plants for over 20 years. These explorations have yielded a love for distillation and creating beautiful blends for therapeutic purpose, aromatic benefit, and spiritual fulfillment. Experiencing aromatics goes beyond the lofty and beautiful scents of perfumes. Scent nurtures us within with our foods, topically to help heal our physical hurts, supports our physical systems of health, supports our mental and emotional selves and is even of use visually and audibly to link our whole selves. Her goal with scent formulation is to help facilitate the experience of healing through scent in all these ways, working specifically with scents of the forest, of the coast, and of the garden with the intention of honoring the plants and the land upon which they grow.

Alex Rae

Alex Rae was born in the rural western NY, amongst national forests and wild waterways. She is a trained community/clinical herbalist and full spectrum doula who is passionate about accessible herbal care. Alex was raised around her Southern great grandmother who was a birthing assistant for her mother who worked as a midwife and herbalist with the Chestnut Ridge People. This could explain her passion to marry the plant world with reproductive justice. 

Alex wears many hats. She is the founder of the Community Care Camper, a free mobile herb clinic that focuses on underserved populations in and around Ann Arbor Michigan. She is the co-owner of Black Locust Gardens (herb farm, plant nursery), a coordinator for the Great Lakes Herb Faire, an herbal educator, and a mom, animist, pagan, and writer. She works on a sliding fee scale and weaves together harm reduction with a client- and heart-centered lens. She works mostly with AFAB people through postpartum, pregnancy loss & release, gut healing, and hormonal/mental health.

Kristin Currin & Andrew Merritt

Kristin Currin and An"Drew" Merritt, authors of The Pacific Northwest Native Plant Primer, are the co-founders of Humble Roots Nursery, a native plant nursery in the Columbia River Gorge recognized for its efforts in sustainability and promoting native plants. While ethically propagating many important species, their passion for plants has involved them with innumerable native plant endeavors including pollinator and conservation plantings of all shapes and sizes, school gardens, backyard habitats, restoration projects, and rare plant conservation.