As a young girl, I loved to collect, shells, plant and seed catalogues, and was interested in the plants growing around me. I remember accompanying my mother and grandmother, while they collected plants in the meadows of the prairies of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, where I grew up.

My family immigrated to Canada from Fiji in the late 1970s. They were part of the Nepalese-Indian diaspora of indentured laborers brought to Fiji in the 1800s to farm the sugar cane plantations of the former British Empire. They never returned. My maternal lineage carried the knowledge of plant medicines to their new lands. This ancestral story is important to me because it is deeply intertwined with plants and plant medicine. Plants such as poppies, datura, tulsi, ginger, curcuma, kava kava, hibiscus, rose, and dandelion, tea, and sugar cane, for example, have been etched in my family and communities collective history. These plants and their medicine have played a role in the uprooting, trauma, and healing journeys of colonized and uprooted people from around the world. Many experienced the loss of land, intergenerational trauma, and ancestral wounding from migration(s) and displacement, which comes with a loss of a sense of self and belonging. These plants continue to support my own healing process, and are part of my deep-rooted identity, and sense of place.

In my 20s, after graduating from university, I rediscovered my childhood love for plants and herbal medicine while working in a natural health and herbal medicine shop. However, I followed a different path to pursue an academic career in ecology first (which I’m still part of today). It wasn’t until I was living and working abroad as a marine ecologist researcher in Bremen, Germany, that I faced health struggles like depression, inflammation, and chronic fatigue, which led me to focus more on my health issues and find natural solutions. I recall taking evening walks along the Weser River in Bremen, and rediscovering familiar medicinal plants, which helped me access lost memories of their uses. I turned to herbal medicine, which is more commonly used in Germany (versus Canada) to start my healing journey. When I returned to Canada (in 2018), I decided to pursue studies in herbal medicine, as I felt the call to bring this support to others. Serendipitously, a part-time, in-person, herbal school called the Bloom Institute of herbalist Savayda Jarone had just opened in Halifax. I studied there for one year before returning to the west coast, where I continued studies (2020-23) at the Pacific Rim College in Victoria, BC. My work as a death doula is a natural progression and expansion of my interests in plant medicines for anxiety, grief, death and dying.

I feel very fortunate today to have had the opportunity to live and work in a handful of different countries, and for the cultural experiences, and people and plants that I’ve met along the way. I am interested in the conservation of the ocean and nature and healing of our ecosystems. Currently, I enjoy teaching, and in my free time I like to explore the beautiful, natural surroundings and seascapes of Vancouver Island, Canada, where I’m grateful to live and work.