Our Guides

Jean Bergstrom

When I was a baby my parents took me on my first camping trip. So began my life long love affair with nature. I grew up chewing on wintergreen leaves and sleeping on cattail pillows. I felt embraced by the wild world around me and knew I belonged there.

My grand mission in life has been to find a way to spend as much time in nature as possible. In college I was an Environmental Studies major but my dad liked to joke that I majored in the Outing Club. I have worked as a ranger in the National Park Service, as an instructor in the Outdoor Leadership Program at Greenfield Community College and have taught nature programs for kids at Northfield Mountain Recreation Area. I’ve also traveled and led trips in the U.S.,( including Alaska), Canada, Nepal and Europe. All the while immersing myself in the wild world and what it could teach me.

Plants have always felt like friends to me, I have been an herbalist for 30 years and a Plant Spirit Medicine Healer for 25 years. Learning from my plant teachers, human teachers, colleagues and my clients has helped me to deepen my practice. I have so much gratitude for the plants and what they have to offer to us, especially in the way of healing.

When my children were born, I dedicated myself to raising my boys in the woods of Leverett and learning as much as I could about the natural world around me. This learning never stops. Being a student of nature, I have focused on animal tracking , primitive skills, bird identification, bird language, foraging, nature journaling, hide tanning, basket making, and landscape shamanism. In 2013 I formed Her Wild Roots with my dear friend, Kathy Dean, and the two of us delivered quality programs for women for four years. Kathy and I are still the best of friends, but in 2018 I took on Her Wild Roots as my own and my passions have made it what it is today.

Nurturing my creative side, I love making nature inspired pottery, and painting with watercolors and pastels. I love getting my hands in the soil, gardening is something I just can't live without and I grow almost all of my own vegetables, flowers and herbs. As an adventurous cook, I love creating new recipes, especially incorporating wild foods.

This beautiful Earth holds so many life lessons just waiting for us to notice them. Sharing the joys of nature, the healing that it offers and the creativity that it inspires in me continues to nourish my spirit. I hope that you will join me on a journey of discovery, into the mysteries of nature, into your deep being and the healing that awaits you there.

Susan Connell Biggs

Perhaps you, too, entered this world with a strong sense of curiosity and wonder. As a child, I wandered the forests making magic potions with birch polypores, discovering the secret places lady slippers grew and sitting beside the brook listening to its wisdom and guidance.

As a high school English teacher, I shared this love with my students using writing and literature to deepen their observation skills, to reflect on their place in the world and to ask and explore thoughtful questions. Whether discussing Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass or Mary Oliver’s poetry or tromping through the woods together, the community we created and the learning we shared deepened our relationship to ourselves, each other and the natural world. I continue to feel this connection to all of my students each time I place my feet on the earth.

Participating in the very first Her Wild Roots deepened and expanded this relationship with the natural world and my own inner guidance which continued to grow through my study of yoga, meditation, energy medicine, intuition and journeying. You can find me most days offering gifts to the earth as I harvest plants to weave this wisdom and love into tiny baskets.

This journey has taught me one thing: all of this was present and accessible from the very beginning, sitting beneath those birches beside the brook. All I needed was to listen deep and open.