PSI CLINIC ON SUNDAYS 1-4pm
LIMPIA CLINICS ON SELECTED SUNDAYS
Virtual and In-person at the Berkeley Herbal Center
Opening June 21st, 2026
PLANT SPIRIT INITIATION
COMMUNITY CLINIC
Offering Month-Long Facilitated Individualized Plant Initiations and Limpias
Rooted in South American Vegetalismo and Curanderismo- offered by student practitioners in training under the supervision of Francisca Santibanez
The Plants Are Calling Us To Connect…Are You Ready To Answer?
The Plant Spirit Initiation (PSI) Community Clinic brings the transformative offering of Plant Spirit Talk's Plant Spirit Initiations and Limpieza Clinics to the community at an accessible exchange. Rooted in the Amazonian Vegetalista tradition of Dieta ceremony and adapted for modern life, these are individualized, facilitated ceremonial containers for deep self-exploration, healing, and communion with a plant teacher. No previous experience is necessary.
Your initiation is guided by a student practitioner trained in the MSI Clinical Practicum - real, skilled, heart-centered care held within a rigorous supervisory container.
From initial intake to PSI opening through closing ceremony, the container for this experience spans across 6 consecutive weeks. We offer support sessions on Sundays on-site at Berkeley Herbal Center and online. The process calls for your presence and commitment. If support sessions are missed we will not be able to make up a session, and will continue with the following week’s respective support session.
Please note: We do not offer or facilitate entheogenic plant medicines***
Our Offerings
We currently offer two types of community clinics. Learn more about each of these by scrolling down the page
Plant Spirit Initiations
A ceremonial container encompassing a full lunar cycle (4 weeks), which includes six 55-minute sessions- we walk with you through the process of initiating with a Plant Spirit. A commitment to attending all six sessions is required.
Limpia Clinic
A 30-minute ritual offered monthly (by appointment) for energetic cleansing and attunement. Working with plants, earth medicines, and sound, Limpia rituals support the maintenance of the health of your vital force and spirit.
Click here to learn about our sliding scale rates
What Is a Plant Spirit Initiation
A Plant Spirit Initiation is a guided journey into direct relationship with a plant ally. A specific plant spirit who meets you, works with you, and initiates you into a deeper layer of yourself and the living world.
In the tradition of South American curanderismo and plant spirit medicine, plants are not merely physical substances with chemical properties. They are intelligent beings- ancient, generous, and extraordinarily precise in what they offer each person who enters into sincere relationship with them. A plant spirit initiation is the formal beginning of that relationship. It is the moment you stop reading about a plant and start listening to one.
Across six 55-minute sessions, you and your practitioner enter this journey together- discerning which plant is calling you, opening the ceremonial container, working with rituals and lifestyle protocols to clear what stands between you and that relationship, and receiving what the plant has to teach. The practitioner guides and witnesses. The plant leads.
This initiation is for you if:
You feel called to deepen your relationship with the plant world but do not know where to begin
A particular plant keeps appearing in your life - in dreams, in the landscape, in what you are drawn to
You are seeking healing that goes beyond the physical - something that touches your spirit, your lineage, your sense of who you are
You are ready to advance in your personal and spiritual growth and can use the support and accountability of a Plant Spirit teacher and being held through facilitation
You are a student or practitioner of healing arts wanting to develop your plant spirit relationships
This initiation is not:
A medical or psychological treatment
A casual wellness experience
Something that can be rushed
For everyone, it requires genuine willingness to show up, to listen, and to change behaviors if needed
“Engaging with Plant Spirit Initiations through the Plant Spirit Talk lineage is one of the most beautiful, subtle, profound, and growthful practices I engage with in my life…
I have joked that a Plant Spirit Initiation is like 10 years of therapy - in 4 weeks! But, by that measure, I've had at least 100 years of therapy, and yet there's still so much more to reveal and move through. So I've come to understand the limitation of that analogy. While Plant Spirit Initiations have some aspects that are familiar to therapy, for example, they can involve introspection, insight, and emotional processing, they are also deeply different. Their scope is timeless, and, as true initiations go, they are ceremonial, devotional, and relational. Even if you don't give your all to it, that itself becomes the initiation because, once it has begun, everything in those four weeks of ceremony is mirror and guide.
In a world rife with loopholes, it is profound to enter into practices where there is no way out but through. It may be hard, and can bring suffering, although those are not required because in the realm of plants, energy, spirit, and consciousness, everything has beauty and everything is for you, for your healing, your growth, your emergence, your purpose, your service. And at the same time, it's not about you at all. A Plant Spirit Initiation is an offering of one's Self, a commitment to come into deeper, more beautiful, more aligned practice, to come into greater integrity.
In a plant spirit initiation, you prepare your essence and presence in order to join in sacred relationship with a Plant Teacher. That relationship with The Teacher itself can begin a great unwinding and unlearning. I have experienced Plant Teachers not as external authorities but rather as wisdom carriers, mentors, guides, and role models. Plant Teachers do not demand respect, respect is simply the currency of exchange. To meet these Teachers on those terms, one is invited to overcome internalized resistance, reclaim sovereignty and accountability, and engage their teachings through activation of one's own power, perception, and discernment. Class does not occur in a box; it occurs in the wilderness of Life and the limitlessness of the cosmos. Plant Spirit Initiations reveal and open doors previously unknown; to a world of materialism, they bring mystery and magic. In a world of alienation and misuse of power, they teach belonging and respect for all Life. They are catalysts and will deliver as much as you are available to receive and integrate; you are invited to it all! I am grateful to the plants, the elements, the Ways, my family, community, and colleagues, and, deeply, with cariño, to my Maestra Francisca, and all who create Plant Spirit Talk. Thank you for opening me to this world of love, grace, dignity, reverence, delight and more.”
— Heather Kuiper
The Arc of an Initiation | Week By Week
While the plant takes the lead and every initiation unfolds in its own unique way, the general arc of our six-session container is shared below. Because this is a deeply personal process, we ask that you commit fully to the journey and see it through to its completion.
One Week before Opening- Intake Session
Before your initiation begins you meet with your practitioner for an in-depth conversation. Together you explore your intentions, current health, life circumstances, and ancestry to identify which plant teacher is the right fit for you at this time. You also receive a full walkthrough of the protocol, guidelines, and what to expect.
Week 1- Opening and Detox Week
Your initiation officially begins. You learn how to approach your plant teacher respectfully -how to invite connection, ask permission, and open the relationship. A simple opening ritual is shared to mark the beginning of the ceremony. This week you also start your detox, simplifying your diet, stepping back from media, and quieting stimulation. Your body and nervous system begin to settle and clear.
Week 2- Courtship Week
After a week of cleansing, you check in with your practitioner to review what came up- physically, emotionally, and energetically. With the detox underway, attention shifts to courtship: exploring how you and your plant teacher can communicate through dreams, body sensations, emotions, or moments of unexpected clarity. You start developing a daily practice of tuning in and listening.
Week 3 - Deepening Week
You are now at the midpoint of your initiation. You check in on what the courtship phase revealed and begin to go deeper, exploring the core themes and teachings your plant teacher is bringing forward. This is often when the most significant insights and shifts begin to emerge. Your practitioner helps you stay grounded and focused on what matters most.
Week 4- Integration Week
This session helps you consolidate what you have received over the past three weeks. You review the insights, healing, and changes you have experienced and begin identifying how to carry them forward. You and your practitioner discuss the practices that will sustain your relationship with your plant teacher after the initiation closes and prepare for the closing ceremony the following week.
Week 5- Closing
Your final session brings the initiation to a formal close. You reflect on the full arc of the journey - what shifted, what healed, what you are taking with you. The closing ceremony marks your transition from initiation into ongoing relationship with your plant teacher. You leave with clarity on how to continue tending this connection and integrating its teachings into your daily life.
Upcoming Initiations
Summer-Fall 2026
June- July
Intake: June 21
Initiation: June 28-June 25
August- September
Intake: August 2
Initiation: August 9- September 6
September-October
Intake: September 13
Initiation: September 20-October 18
The Seven Pillars of the MSI Container
Every Medicine Spirit Initiation at the PSI Community Clinic is held within the same foundational container. These seven elements are not optional additions - they are the initiation itself.
The PSI Protocol
Self Inquiry
Self-reflection is the most important aspect of the MSI practice. It involves cultivating stillness, connecting with your body and spirit, and returning to your intentions, expanding your capacity to receive subtleties, and wisdom. This sacred time is dedicated to learning from your beloved plant teacher and embracing their teachings. It requires attuning your listening with all your senses and your emotional body.
Sanctuary
Designate a physical space that will be your place of practice. You are encouraged to create an altar where you can access spiritual and energetic support and keep your prayers and intentions alive. Bring representations of your spiritual support and your intentions for this sacred time.
Connection
Take time to connect with the wider web of life. Connect with the elements and assess their presence within your body. Find a place in Nature, honor it, and acknowledge the nature spirits - requesting their support and guidance during your MSI period. This is a place you will visit repeatedly to connect with your intentions and your plant.
Retreat
Even with a full life, it is possible to do a Medicine Spirit Initiation. Through careful assessment, your practitioner will help you identify areas in your life that offer an opportunity to pause and temporarily retreat. This is a time to give yourself permission to step back from social engagements and ask your closest loved ones to hold space for you as you journey through this self-reflective, initiatory experience.
Media Break
One of the more challenging aspects of this modern era - and one of the most transformative. Pausing the consumption of information, including TV, internet, books, magazines, radio, podcasts, and music with lyrics, allows us to delve deeply into ourselves. It grants greater access to our inner wisdom and cultivates environments of peace and quietude where the plant teacher can be heard.
Quieting Stimulation
During an MSI, it is best to avoid crowds, loud places, busy environments, artificial or strong fragrances, scented soaps, and chemicals. You will likely find yourself significantly more sensitive to other people's energy. Sexual abstinence is highly recommended during this temporary experience. Protecting your sacred field is essential.
Nutritional Detox
Simplify, lighten, and detox. By consuming gentle flavors and neutral foods that do not require much energy to digest, we give our bodies a much- needed break and the opportunity to heal - allowing the plant teacher more space and access to us. Your practitioner will guide you through a preparatory cleanse for the opening days of your initiation.
Apply For A Plant Spirit Initiation
Limpia Clinic
Our Clinic offers affordable limpia treatments — traditional spiritual cleansings from the South American curanderismo tradition. Whether you are navigating stress, grief, spiritual heaviness, or simply a sense that something needs to shift, our student practitioners are here to support you. Sessions include a healing conversation, full-body energetic cleansing and closing ceremony with follow up recommendations - all offered in a safe, supervised container.
*A note on what sessions do not include — these are spiritual and energetic healing practices, not substitutes for medical or psychological care.
What’s Included:
Platica(Sacred Heart Healing Conversation)- the opening conversation that begins every session; creates trust, gathers what the client is carrying, sets intention
Pasada de Huevo & Diagnóstico(Egg Passing & Reading)- the use of a fresh egg to absorb and reveal what the body is holding energetically
Barrido(Herbal Sweeping)- full energetic cleansing sweep of the body and field working with an array of fresh herbs, and herbal perfumes
Ceremony & Ritual Support- ceremonial elements woven into the session including prayer, incense, agua de flores, and campana attunement
Upcoming Limpia Clinics
July 5
Berkeley Herbal Center
Berkeley, California
9am-12pm
August 9
Berkeley Herbal Center- Health Day
Berkeley, California
10am-3pm
August 30
Berkeley Herbal Center
Berkeley, California
9am- 12pm
October 4
Berkeley Herbal Center
Berkeley, California
9am- 12pm
Our Practitioners
Every practitioner at the PSI Community Clinic is an enrolled student in Plant Spirit Talk's MSI Clinical Practicum - a rigorous advanced training in South American curanderismo, plant spirit medicine, and the facilitation of Medicine Spirit Initiations. They bring not only their study but their own living relationships with plant teachers, their personal healing, ancestral medicines, additional interests & modalities, and a genuine calling to guide others into this work. All sessions are supervised by Francisca Santibanez.
Adam Elmaghraby, he/him
*
Adam Elmaghraby, he/him *
Medicines Teachers Initiated:
Tulsi, Rose, Mugwort, Tobacco, Mullein, Mushrooms, Maca, Una De Gato, Chiric Sanango
Specialties and Interests :
sleep
dreamwork
ancestral connection
career transitions
male identifying folxs
artists
folks with ancestral trauma around mental illness
decolonization of our pleasure
folks navigating to adjusting to parenting
Other Modalities:
Dreamwork
Adam Elmaghraby works with dreams because they don't lie. As an Egyptian American herbalist and depth psychologist, he has spent a decade recovering the inner authority that plants, ancestors, and the dreaming world never stopped offering. Adam approaches dreamwork as a practice of collective imagination and resistance through attunement to our intuitive & spiritual capacity.
He holds degrees in Philosophy, Pan-African Studies, and an MBA in Design Strategy, and is completing his clinical practicum in herbal medicine through Plant Spirit Talks. He has hosted workshops at the World Ayahuasca Conference, Meta Reality Labs, and Plant Spirit Talks.
He lives in Berkeley with his daughter, Soraya.
@adam.elmaghraby and bluelotusdreamwork.com
Asha Kohli, she/her
*
Asha Kohli, she/her *
Asha Kohli is a photographer, designer, dancer, ritualist, writer, and healing arts practitioner. She is the founder of Way of Nitara, a creative healing arts space devoted to walking people across thresholds: from contraction into expansion, from disconnection into embodied belonging, from the life they've outgrown into the one their soul is calling them toward. At the heart of her work is a profound joy in mentoring and empowering other sensitive souls, illuminating the light and magic that already lives within them, while uplifting their highest essence into fuller expression.
For eight years, Asha has walked the path of re-membering and reclaiming her ancestral memory through South American Folk Medicine traditions, and the practice of Plant Spirit Initiations under the guidance of her maestra, Francisca Santibanez. She is currently completing her Ayurvedic Wellness Counselor training, and devotes herself to holding ceremonial spaces, women's circles, and teaching movement as medicine. She brings a mixed-heritage lens, rooted in both South Asian and South American ancestry, with a deep reverence for ancestral medicine as a living, ongoing relationship grounded in reciprocity.
Asha’s own journey of metamorphosis and coming home to herself has expanded her capacity to hold the tender, liminal places in people, dancing with the in-between moments where transformation lives.
@asha.kohlibri | www.wayofnitara.com
Medicine Teachers Initiated:
Rose, Ashwagandha, Tulsi, Tobacco, Medicine Spirit, La Tierra, Ginger, Nettles.
Specialties and Interests :
Mixed-heritage and bicultural individuals
BIPOC
Immigrants and diasporic communities
Artists and creatives
Activists and social change workers
Women and people with wombs navigating life transitions
Somatic and embodiment work.
Other Modalities:
Movement Medicine, Embodiment Coaching, Somatics, Women's Circles, Earth-based Ritual, Threshold Guidance
Cené Salsedo Bryant, she/her
*
Cené Salsedo Bryant, she/her *
Medicine Teachers Initiated:
Rosemary, Rose, Ginger, Lemon Balm, Ayahuasca, Sacred Mushrooms
Specialties and Interests :
people of the global majority
allies and all those in search of decolonial practices
Life transitions- birth, death, or beyond.
working between the veils of life and death, joy and grief.
Other Modalities:
Preparation and integration of entheogenic medicines, spiritual, physical, energetic cleansing of the people and spaces. Mobile, wood-fired sauna & cold plunge experience
Cené Salsedo Bryant (she/her) is a mixed-race Master of Social Work with roots in Tainó heritage and a multidisciplinary background spanning biology, mycology, phycology, social work, and plant medicine.
Her practice centers on holding space for difficult and challenging experiences with a specialization in grief processing, life transitions, and the preparation and integration of entheogenic plant experiences.
She brings to her work not just clinical training, but a deep, embodied relationship with the living world: a student of plants, a tender of gardens, a listener to what water and birds and soil have to teach.
As an eldest daughter, middle child, aunt, and spouse, she carries an intimate understanding of the many ways we are shaped by the roles we hold and the losses we carry.
Her philosophy is grounded and clear: to walk alongside those she serves, offering tools that ignite each person's own inner healing intelligence, expand awareness, and support the body's innate wisdom.
Heather Kuiper, DrPH, MPH, she/her
*
Heather Kuiper, DrPH, MPH, she/her *
Medicine Teachers Initiated:
Tobacco, Salvia Blanca/White Sage, Cacao, Rose, Rosemary, Nettles, Mugwort, Mimosa, Water, South American Maestra/os
Specialties and Interests :
The journey to liberation and all that it entails
Curiosity, accountability, and freedom from fear
Bringing light into the crevices
Justice, evolution, and the claiming of purpose
Unwinding from internal and external oppression
Integrity, beauty, love, compassion, and peace
Coming into repaired relations with Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous communities
Cultivating deep belonging
Learning from the love and wisdom of the plants
Embracing life as a spiritual and mythical process
Walking gently for all life, with deep care and compassion for suffering
Supporting the path from ingrained mainstream to acceptance and ease with one's most authentic, truest, and highest Self
Heather Kuiper is a passionate public health professional and mom in a family with two amazing young adults. She has worked in the US and globally for health, equity, community development, and racial and environmental justice. She is co-founder and Director of the Center for Psychedelic Public Health, dedicated to working through the collective tools of public health and the transformational possibilities of psychedelics to address the existentially urgent health, justice, and ecological crises that we face.
Heather came to the practices of Plant Spirit Initiation through a personal healing process that surfaced the importance of connecting to healthy culture and lineage. This work is teaching her to invoke Beauty, garner courage, laugh lightly, and work respectfully and with humility while claiming the personal potency needed to fulfill purpose.
She approaches this work as a lifelong learner in deep service, with infinite delight in the mysteries the plants reveal. Her presence is characterized by attentiveness, insight, depth, cariño, and enthusiasm.
Mama Afua Redwood, she/her
*
Mama Afua Redwood, she/her *
Medicine Teachers Initiated:
Tobacco, Blackberry, Sassafras, Blue Vervain, White Sage, Ayahuasca, Bobinsana, Mimosa, Redwood, Rose, Mugwort, Damiana, Cannabis, Cacao, Magnolia, Salvia Divinorum, Purslane. The East (direction), Water
Specialties and Interests :
Black women
femmes
NBs
perimenopause
Other Modalities:
Psychotherapy- sex therapy, ketamine assisted psychotherapy
Mama Afua Redwood is a therapist, educator, researcher, and devoted practitioner of African Traditional Religions whose path to healing began long before it became her profession - called through dreams, ancestors, and a persistent knowing that something greater was waiting.
Her public work centers on psychedelic-assisted therapies and the urgent question of who gets to heal - advocating for accessibility, liberation, and the dismantling of colonial assumptions still shaping the field.
Her sacred work runs deeper. Since 2021, Mama Afua has apprenticed with Francisca in plant spirit traditions, dieting more than sixteen plant teachers, an element, and a direction. Each has shaped not only how she understands healing - but how she understands herself.
A re-membering rootworker at heart, Mama Afua holds the belief that most people are not broken - they are disconnected. From pieces of themselves, their lineages, their ways of knowing. Through Plant Spirit Initiations, she accompanies people in gathering those pieces back.
She works quietly, largely by word of mouth, offering a limited number of sessions. Her practice is spirit-led, relational, and deeply intuitive - trusting that those meant to find her will be brought to her doorway by the ancestors and guides who are already watching over them.
Renata Metta Moreira
*
Renata Metta Moreira *
Medicine Teachers Initiated:
Tobacco, Salvia Blanca/White Sage, Cacao, Rose, Rosemary, Nettles, Mugwort, Mimosa, Water, South American Maestra/os
Specialties and Interests :
intergenerational trauma
nervous system science
interspecies communication
ancestral intelligence
womb
queer centric
Other Modalities:
Western Psychology- clinical hypnotherapy and past life regression therapist
Renata Metta Moreira is a healing-centered community weaver, clinical hypnotherapist, past life regression therapist and devoted mama of a neuromagical child. Renata has co-founded a number of transformative, womb and queer centric healing projects throughout California since 2012, including Refuge Healing Circles and WooWoo in the Redwoods — a multicultural biannual retreat where hundreds came together among the redwoods to share animist, shamanic, somatic, and indigenous wisdom from across the world.
A recovering academic and social justice warrior with 25 years of experience in community development, group facilitation, and teaching — Renata is now blooming as a multifaith ceremonialist and teacher in the living traditions that guide her path, including Andean Cosmovision, Amazonian Plant Intelligence, Mystical Christianism, and Umbanda.
She holds a Masters of Divinity focused on spirituality and social change, serves as a practitioner with the Healing Clinic Collective, and has been practicing and apprenticing with Maestra Francisca Santibanez for the past 8 years. Renata works as a wellness and social impact consultant, offering seasonal, multimodal retreats for all who seek to dance with the quiet work of remembering.
Sami Knowles, MA, she/her
*
Sami Knowles, MA, she/her *
Medicine Teachers Initiated:
Tobacco, White Sage, Bay, Rose, Brugmansia, Ginger, Mugwort, Oak, Land, Fire, Celtic & Scottish Ancestry, My Medicine
Specialties and Interests :
supporting women through major midlife transitions
perimenopause
career changes
divorce/separation
caring for aging parents
Other Modalities:
Garden Magick'ing, Ritual Crafting, Tarot & Divination, Rhythm & Movement
Sami Knowles is a gardening, dancing, drumming witchy woman with a deep love for Mama Earth. For more than two decades, she has owned and operated a gardening business in San Francisco. Through years of witnessing the cycles of growth, flowering, decay, death, and abundant regeneration, she has come to know plants as beloved friends and wise teachers with profound medicine to share.
Her path into herbalism began with many wonderful teachers, but it was when she encountered the Plant Spirit practices offered by Francisca that something in her truly awakened. Her animist heart recognized its home.
The work of untangling ourselves from generations of patriarchal conditioning, and reclaiming the ancestral folk wisdom and magic that have been suppressed for centuries, is lifelong. Yet in seven years of practicing with Plant Spirit Talk, Sami has experienced deep healing and transformation. Again and again, she finds herself remembering who she is, reconnecting with her roots, and reviving the ancient animist ways that live in her bones.
It is one of her greatest joys to walk alongside other women as they reconnect with the living world, unearth their inner knowing, and reclaim the magic that has always belonged to them.
www.RitualHerb.net ~ @ritual.herb (IG)
Terry Lily Hwang, she/her
*
Terry Lily Hwang, she/her *
Medicine Teachers Initiated:
Rose, Tobacco, Rosemary, Loquat, Mugwort, Ginger, Mushrooms, White Champaca, Lemongrass
Specialties and Interests :
supporting a diversity of humans committed to personal and collective healing
working with people of the global majority
multicultural folks
children of immigrants
Asian American women
creatives
cultural reclamation
generational healing
Other Modalities:
In my offering as a sacred space holder, I bring elements of hands-on energy work, embodiment and somatics, dance and movement arts, ritual, ceremony, breath, song, and sound into my practice.
Terry Lily Hwang is honored to step into her role as a sacred space holder, supporting others to connect more deeply with nature, to the spirit of Life, and their own innate wholeness. At the heart of all she does is a deep reverence for life and a belief in our capacity to step into the fullness of our beauty and wholeness — our truest essence.
Terry grew up in the heart of San Francisco as a daughter of resourceful and resilient working immigrants. As a city kid, she was enlivened by every pocket of nature and urban green space she could find, and all the ways plant life emerged from the concrete. In the middle of a fast-moving world, she was attuned to the aliveness of the plants and felt a sense of sanctuary with nature.
Working with Plant Spirit Initiations gave her a language for affirming what had always been felt, and a pathway for embodying an even deeper sense of belonging. PSIs are an advanced modality for healing and personal growth — a profound collaboration where we allow earth, spirit, and the plants to work with us on a cellular and energetic level, re-organizing what has been stuck, stagnant, or disrupted, and opening pathways where grace, strength, radiance, wisdom, and beauty can rise from within.
Terry carries this medicine with respect and care — guiding and holding space for beloved community toward greater wholeness, beauty, and truth.
@terrylily / www.terrylilyhwang.com
Supervising Facilitator
Francisca Santibanez
Founder, Plant Spirit Talk & Lead Facilitator, Medicine Spirit Initiation Practicum
Francisca Santibanez is the founder of Plant Spirit Talk and lead facilitator of the Medicine Spirit Initiation Practicum. A mama, plant devotee, vegetalista, yerbera, consejera, clinical herbalist, ritualist, medicine maker, and educator, she offers her work from private practice and garden sanctuary in Sebastopol, California - on Pomo and Miwok territory.
Born in Brazil and raised between São Paulo, Santiago, and California, Francisca carried a quiet love for plants through her young adulthood until her body brought her to a halt. In 2011, a severe lumbar disc injury and diagnoses of glaucoma and thyroid disease left her in eighteen months of disability - chronic pain, migraines, deep fatigue - cycling through allopathic care that could manage symptoms but could not reach the root. It was through naturopathic medicine, clinical herbalism, and finally Amazonian plant medicines that her healing truly began. Each step was a teaching. Each teaching an initiation. That turning point became a calling.
She formalized her herbal studies at the Berkeley Herbal Center in 2013–2014. That same year, a vision received in meditation with Tobacco called her back to South America for the first time in twenty-three years. What she found was largely absent - her family's traditional plant knowledge had not survived. Sitting at the shore of a lake across from Volcán Osorno, she wept and prayed. In the wind she heard: "Go deeper with your prayers. Listen to the Plants. They have not forgotten."
That moment opened a path she has walked ever since. Since 2016 she has apprenticed with Shipibo Onanya Maestra Amelia Panduro de Sinuiri of Pucallpa, Peru, deepening her practice through plant dietas and ceremony. In 2018 she launched Plant Spirit Talk weaving together initiatory knowledge, clinical herbalism, and Andean-Amazonian cosmology into programs that continue to form the heart of her work today.
At the MSI Community Clinic, Francisca holds the supervisory container for all sessions - ensuring every client receives care that is skillful, ethical, and spiritually grounded.
Exchange
Please note: full payment is required up front. Missed sessions are non-refundable***
Plant Spirit Initiations
Lasts a full lunar cycle (4 weeks)
Includes six 55-minute sessions
Starter kit with dried medicine and tincture
$300-$500 sliding scale
Limpia Clinic
A 30-minute ritual
Includes platica
Egg cleansing and assessment
Herbal barrida
Energetic sealing
$20-$40 sliding scale
How the sliding scale works:
Choose the amount within the range that honestly reflects your current financial capacity. There is no application process, no proof required, and no judgment. We trust you to choose with integrity - toward yourself and toward the community this clinic exists to serve.
The lower end is held open for those navigating genuine financial hardship - those for whom this kind of support has long felt out of reach.
The higher end makes it possible for the clinic to continue offering accessible care to others. When you give what you are truly able, you hold space for someone else to come.
If even the lower end is beyond your reach right now: Please reach out to us directly.
Where your contribution goes: it supports the ceremonial materials and plant medicines that make this clinic possible; the remainder goes toward our BIPOC Love Fund.
Payment methods: Cash, Venmo, Zelle
Cancellation policy: We ask for 48 hours notice to cancel or reschedule. Please communicate as early as possible - we will always work with you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Plant Spirit Initiation Clinic
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Your plant or earth medicine teacher is chosen together with your practitioner at your intake session. This is a process of discernment- drawing on your intentions, your history, what has been calling you, and your practitioner's training and attunement. The plant that emerges from this conversation is the right teacher for this moment in your life.
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No. Willingness and genuine intention are the only prerequisites. Your practitioner will guide you through every aspect of the initiatory process.
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Traditional dietas are held in full retreat and isolation within a jungle setting working with Amazonian plants. The MSI framework honors that lineage while carefully and intentionally integrating its principles into modern urban and social environments- making this profound work accessible while living within the context of not being in the jungle. MSIs typically involve local medicinal plants that are accessible and familiar.
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This varies by person and by the personalized plan developed in your intake session. Your practitioner will help you identify what is realistic and meaningful given your lifestyle. The container asks for genuine commitment- but it is designed to be held within a full life.
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No. Medicine Spirit Initiations are spiritual and ceremonial experiences. They are not a substitute for medical care, psychological therapy, or crisis intervention. We encourage all participants to maintain their relationships with their healthcare providers.
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Both. Your practitioner will offer sessions in person or via Zoom depending on their availability and your location. Virtual initiations are fully held- the plant teachers and the ceremonial field do not require a shared physical room.
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The MSI Clinical Practicum is the advanced training program at Plant Spirit Talk through which all community clinic practitioners are trained. It is a rigorous multi-month program in South American curanderismo, plant spirit medicine, and the facilitation of Medicine Spirit Initiations. The MSI Community Clinic is its live practice heart.
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Yes. Everything shared in your sessions and on your intake form is held in strict confidence within the MSI Community Clinic supervisory container.
Limpia Clinic
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Every session begins with platica- a warm conversation where your practitioner listens deeply, holds space for what you are carrying, and opens the energetic field before any physical work begins. From there the limpia unfolds naturally: the egg is passed over your body with prayer and intention, sacred herbs sweep your field from head to toe, the campana clears what remains, and rose water seals and blesses you at the close. Each session is its own ceremony- guided by what you bring and what the plants and spirits show.
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No. Curiosity and openness are enough. You do not need to hold any particular spiritual belief or prior knowledge of curanderismo. The plants and the tradition do not require your belief- only your willingness to receive and to release what ails your body, mind and sppirit. Many people who come to their first limpia arrive skeptical and leave changed.
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No. Limpia is a spiritual and energetic healing practice- it is not medical treatment, psychological therapy, or crisis intervention, and it does not replace professional healthcare. We encourage all clients to maintain their relationship with their doctors and mental health providers. What we offer works beautifully alongside conventional care- tending the parts of us that medicine does not always reach.
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We recommend you wear white or light colored comfortable, loose clothing you can move freely in, as this will help with the cleanse. Bring any intention, prayer, or question you are holding- or come with nothing at all. Everything else is provided.
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Please let your practitioner know before your session if you are pregnant. Some plants and techniques used in limpia work are contraindicated during pregnancy. Your practitioner will adapt the session to ensure it is safe and appropriate for you.
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Yes- curanderismo has a rich and beautiful tradition of working with children. Please reach out before booking to discuss your child's specific needs so we can match you with the right practitioner and approach.
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At this time we’re only offering In-person sessions out of the Berkeley Herbal Center in Berkeley, California on specific dates by appointment.
Disclaimer:
The PSI Community Clinic at Plant Spirit Talk offers Plant Spirit Initiations and energetic limpia sessions rooted in South American curanderismo. These services are not medical treatment, psychological therapy, or crisis intervention, and are not a substitute for professional healthcare. If you are experiencing a medical or mental health emergency, please contact emergency services or a crisis helpline. All client information is held in strict confidence. Sessions are offered by student practitioners under the supervision of Francisca Santibanez.