Alora Dawn

My holistic journey began with a lot of struggle, as it so often does. I couldn’t find balance between mind and body, and it was that imbalance that pushed me to start seeking answers. But before I could find any, I had to get curious. About myself. My self-perception. My cognitive trappings. Curiosity, and admittedly a deep frustration, is what got me looking. Conventional aid has its place, but it didn’t feel like mine. What I was carrying seemed deeper than anything pharmaceuticals could touch. My spiritual bedrock was amiss, and somewhere deep within, I knew it.

That intuitive knowing led me down a long road of books, podcasts, documentaries, and finally, Ashtanga yoga. All I knew was that whatever I had going on, I wasn’t going to be able to read or wish my way out of it. Trauma was stuck in my body, and self-perpetuating subconscious triggers fed a vicious cycle. This yogic practice became my ultimate saviour. And I don’t say that lightly. I say it quite truthfully. It broke the cycle. Or really, I did. It was less about the Westernized workout version of yoga (which I also enjoy), and more about the meditation, intentional movement, and pranayama, which were inexplicably powerful for moving trapped emotion through me. From the start, every class was an emotional release; it deepened my self-awareness, and pretty quickly, the practice became an obsession. It was the first time in years that I felt my mind and body actually harmonize. The first time that emotion which had been trapped and stuck for so long could finally find its release. Through that practice, I discovered a deep sense of freedom and love within my own body. And each time that love surfaced, it moved me. Deeply. Profoundly. EDs and a lack of internal love go hand in hand. Or at least, that was my experience. So through the daily showing up for my body, learning to see it as the wondrous living organism it is, dedicating myself to changing my thoughts and ultimately my behaviors, giving myself grace when I slipped, and returning again and again to mindfulness and self-love, day by day, month by month, a new pattern began to take shape.

After more than a year of showing up daily, something deep inside me recalibrated. The balance between mind and body was restored. Some might call it neuroplasticity. Mindfulness-based healing. Whatever the name, it was the one thing that got to the root of my ED after ten years of struggle. Mind you, it was no quick fix. Not easy. Not a magic pill. It took month after month of rewiring old patterning. But it was transformative. The practice stopped being something I had to do and became something I couldn’t wait to return to. Meditative movement and mindfulness became a way of life, so much so that I eventually pursued my YTT and began offering this moving meditation to others, the way it had been so generously offered to me. Finding equilibrium in mind and body opened the doors for the next teachers to step onto my path. By then, I was an eager student.

In much the same way, I found herbalism. Or perhaps herbalism found me. I was seeking physical relief for my gut issues, and once again, I found it: through the guidance of skilled herbal practitioners, the healing power of plants, and my own commitment to the work. Discovering herbs felt like a deep remembrance. It was my “ah-ha” moment. Learning the language of plants through their energetic patterns, their personalities, and their medicinal qualities was like stepping into a real, effective, and whimsical world. I couldn’t believe how much we have forgotten as a society in only the last couple hundred years. When I truly began to understand how necessary and important herbs and plants are to our human evolution, and how in only the last few generations we have fallen away from them, I realized how much we have forgotten. Yet the plants still call out to us. Beckoning us to remember. Calling us home, back to the family. They have stewarded our human evolution since the dawn of time, and should we remember and rekindle our bond with the natural world, they may steward us back into balance for generations to come. Learning the history of herbalism, experiencing the true effectiveness of these plants, and witnessing the dedication of the herbal teachers, educators, and elders to ensure this knowledge is protected was nothing short of life-changing. It felt like a veil was lifted. A deep truth was remembered in this great “ah-ha” moment of mine.

So, naturally, I enrolled in the two-year program at Traditions School of Herbal Studies. After graduating from the two-year Western Herbalism program, you then move on to the Practicum student hands-on student clinic and then continue on from there. Seeing how herbs, flower essences, and even homeopathic remedies impacted people solidified my deep belief in the healing power of plants. Through my clinical experience, though, I couldn’t help but feel I was missing something. My teachers would talk about the spiritual side of herbalism. Connecting with the being of the plant. Its personality, its essence. Finding that relationship. As much as I loved the rich and knowledgeable experience of working in the clinic, I had a hard time connecting with the spiritual side of things. I didn’t truly know what that meant. Then, lo and behold, COVID hit, and everything changed. During this time, there were many losses, and life took me elsewhere. Very long story short, a year later, I found myself in the Ecuadorian Amazonian jungle.

Through chance, serendipity, fate, destiny, however you choose to name it, I was initiated onto the medicine path by indigenous Shuar curandero Uwishin (or Taita) Amaru Nanki. The initiation took place over four and a half years, apprenticing in ancestral healing arts alongside the last unconquered Amazonian tribe, the Shuar.

This apprenticeship involved partaking in countless ayahuasca ceremonies, where medicine was served by a legitimate curandero, Taita Galo Amaru Nanki, to those gravely ill or plagued by the “unknown diseases” conventional doctors could not cure. What I witnessed in those ancestral ceremonies completely reshaped my understanding of what healing is, and how limited our Western framing of it has been. And funny enough, throughout those four years, I finally got to understand and truly experience the essence of plants, the sacred relationship between plant and healer, through one of the most powerful Amazonian medicines. During this intense yet life-changing apprenticeship, I often thought back on my herbal teachers who spoke of these green beings and their spiritual essence, and of how important it is for a practitioner to have a relationship with them in order to offer genuine healing support. Another powerful “ah-ha” moment. Or rather, moments. Witnessing these ancestral therapies made clear what allopathic medicine is missing, and taught me how essential our spiritual wellbeing is for the physical and emotional bodies to return to balance. These ancestral teachings feel more important now than ever, as the Western world grows sicker and so many are desperately seeking Nature’s healing ways.

This commitment also included four years of vision quest and four years of sundance, and has blessed me with being a carrier of the Sacred Pipe, the Chanupa. These practices derive from the Red Road, more specifically the Lakota lineage, and were held in the Andes of Ecuador with the family of Ayapuma, led by Taita Santiago, who carries the ways of San Pedro and the Andean teachings. All of my ancestral services are shared only with the permission of my elders, maestros, and teachers of these lineages.

Because the beginning of my journey was about healing my relationship with food, and because I believe food is foundational to our health, that it is our original medicine, my desire to understand nutrition deepened significantly. Long before pharmacies and modern supplementation, whole foods were how our ancestors nourished, healed, and restored themselves. That fundamental truth, that food is medicine, is one no health care system should forget.

I am currently enrolled in a two-year holistic nutrition program with Nutraphoria School of Holistic Nutrition, a NANP-approved curriculum that blends functional, bio-individual, and whole-foods approaches to wellness. After graduation, I aspire to pursue BCHN board certification.

Addressing all three bodies (spiritual, physical, and emotional) is my integrative focus. My approach is vitalist in orientation, rooted in the understanding that the body is intelligent, self-regulating, and always tending toward wholeness when properly supported.

I hold deep respect for modern medicine and the true scientific method. Understanding the constituents, the parts, the mechanisms, matters. And yet, the whole is never merely the sum of its parts. A human being cannot be reduced to data points, symptoms, or biochemistry alone. What makes us alive, and what allows us to heal, lives in the space between what science can measure and what ancestral wisdom has known for centuries.

Bridging this gap is the key to integrative health for the people. Modern medicine has its place. So do herbal, nutritional, and spiritual therapies. Each is legitimate. Each has something to offer that the others cannot. It is through ritual, prayer, and reconnection to the great mystery of the healing arts that we rediscover spiritual wellness, an ancestral practice that lives beyond what modern medicine typically addresses.

This integrative practice is a prayer I hold close to my heart. This offering will continue to grow, adapt, and evolve, as Nature herself does. It is my belief that by returning to Nature’s healing way, we rediscover our own innate capacity to heal. And it is from this belief that I dedicate my studies, my heart, and this offering to the community.

May we all remember that our life is worth healing, that our life is worth living, and living well.

This is Sancta Viva.