Myrna (she/they) is a queer Boricua (Puerto Rican) community herbalist, educator, and cultural organizer. Since 2014, Myrna has been facilitating herbalism classes, leading healing circles and sharing response medicine. Music and plants are her sanctuary. Healing home and reclaiming ancestral medicinas are her passions. Remixing classic Boricua foods, desserts and medicinal potions are their favorite ways to honor her ancestors and share her people's ways. She is committed to creating healing/learning spaces that are accessible and liberatory for all, especially QTIBIPOC fam and Boricuas everywhere. Myrna knows intimately the experiences of being a working class, survivor, caregiver, living with chronic pain. These initiations have supported her in showing up authentically for her peoples.

​

 

Myrna grew up eating mangos, listening to records, being doused in Agua Florida and seeing her mother grow plants in the smallest of urban spaces.  She was born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, grew up in central Florida, and lived for 10 years in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Her abuelxs inspired her to connect to Spirit and healing by growing gandules (pigeon peas), raising chickens, making dream-based predictions, and singing spontaneous songs. She loves to sing, dance and remember her DJ days! Her family and ancestors, for at least 5 generations, have been born and raised Borikén (Puerto Rico): Arecibo, Manati, Morovis, Camuy, Lares, Mayagüez, and Ponce.  They were espiritistas/plant-led spiritual mediums, Santería/Ifá practitioners and community nurses. Myrna is currently on ancestral healing journey to dig deeper into her immediate mixed race, Boricua lineages. Since 2012, Myrna has been returning to Borikén to heal, learn from the land, connect with her people and provide medicine.

​

Myrna studied spiritual herbalism with Karen Rose and she completed a year-long yoga & healer training  (in Brooklyn and Puerto Rico) with Catherine Calderon. She was also a part of Brooklyn Botanic Garden's urban gardener program. In 2014, as she was moving through her own healing journey, she couldn't find public and accessible healing spaces led by Boricuas/QTBIPOC folks. As a result, she opened up her home in Flatbush, Brooklyn and began hosting free/low cost healing + learning circles. This work transformed into the founding of Casitas Wisdom, (2014-2019) a poc/qtpoc healing arts collective that honored the healing wisdom of our peoples and the legacies of NYC garden casitas, by offering free to low-cost workshops in a variety of healing modalities.  These gatherings took place place in homes and community gardens throughout NYC.  Myrna is also an alumn of the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI)'s Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellowship and she had the honor of working with CCCADI and other healing collectives to produce Home: Return, Reframe, Reclaim, an all-day healing event for the opening of their permanent home in El Barrio. For two years, Myrna coordinated and taught a 9-month ancestral medicine journey at Ancestral Apothecary School. 

​

Learn more about Myrna's community healing work

​

Community & Cultural Organizing

Myrna has done community organizing work with The League of Pissed Off Voters and Make the Road - NY (when it was a small org in Bushwick, NY).  She was the co-founder of Batey Urbano Orlando, inspired by Chicago's Batey Urbano, whose mission was to politicize and activate youth through art, music & culture.  Myrna also co-founded Elevate Youth, a free after school program held at Engelwood Neighborhood Community Center, that featured artists/organizers of colors and taught Taino practices, capoeira, the elements of hip hop, bomba, and art-making to middle and high school students. Her work is mentioned in In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam.  For over 10 years, Myrna ran radio shows at WPRK 91.5 fm, an independent radio show and she was part of the Fast FWD DJ collective. 

​

For 4 years, Myrna worked at a public park in NYC  where she produced large scale teen nights (over 600 youth per event), created food justice and cultural organizing jobs for teens of color, ensured that the needs of longterm residents were met by creating and facilitating a Neighbors Council, launched/ran a teen-led Participatory Budgeting process and a Wellness Committee for 100+ staff.

​

Some of the places and organizations where Myrna has taught and facilitated circles:

- Root to Bloom 

- Youth Rise TX

- United Federation of Worker Coops/Freelancer's Union

- Soultree Alchemy 

- Ancestral Apothecary School

- CTRL+SHFT Collective

- The Laundromat Project - Kelly Street Garden

- KCC Urban Farm at Kingsborough Community College

- Black Women's Blueprint (in collaboration with Adaku Utah of Harriet's Apothecary)

- The New Museum (as part of Simone Leigh's The Waiting Room, in collaboration with Sacred Vibes Apothecary)

- The High Line 

- Diamante Community Garden, El Barrio, NYC

- 9th St Community Garden, Loisaida, NYC

- La Finca del Sur, Bronx, NY

- Brooklyn Botanic Garden 

- White Plains Presbyterian Church, White Plains, NY

- CEPA (Center for Embodied Pedagogy in Action), Hyde Park, Puerto Rico

- Hope Garden on the Hill, Harlem, NY (in collaboration with Sister Circle Collective)

- Home spaces in Flatbush, Brooklyn