masterclass panel: herbal mycology
ON DEMAND
This class took place on ZOOM and the recording will be sent to you!
Join Hyphae Headmaster Jazzy J for a Herbal Mycology Panel with beloved Fungi friends – Reishi Strauss of Earth and Spirit Botanicals, Dr. Anna Sitkoff of Lucidum Medicinals and the wonderful Dr. Anna Marija Helt of Osadha Natural Health
This panel is all about the interplay between Fungi and Plants and their vital role in enhancing our overall well-being.
Herbs and Medicinal Mushrooms offer us more than quick-fix remedies; they provide us with a holistic approach to health and vitality. Through this ancient wisdom, we can tap into a rich source of healing that has evolved alongside humanity and uncover a fundamental truth: our well-being is deeply intertwined and inseparable from the natural world.
Discover pathways to holistic wellness that honour the wisdom of Mama Earth and nurture our innate capacity for healing.
Meet Your Panelists
Jasper Degenaars is a mycologist, educator, and creator. With 12+ years of mushroom cultivation experience and over 2,500 students taught since 2019, he illuminates the intricate world of fungi with passion and expertise.
With a wealth of knowledge in mycology and community living, he nurtures a deep connection between people and the Fungal Kingdom, fostering ecological stewardship and sustainable practices. Jasper has co-created 20+ educational experiences and retreats on top of countless in-person workshops and classes he has taught all over the world.
With a penchant for interdisciplinary collaboration, he cultivates diverse communities of learners, empowering them to explore the symbiotic relationship between fungi, people, and their environments.
Reishi Strauss is an herbalist, mycologist, and medicine maker born and raised in the Appalachian Mountains of southwestern Virginia, originally descended from Jewish Ashkenazi immigrants from Lithuania and Poland.
Reishi is currently enrolled in the Columbine’s School of Botanical Studies in Eugene, Oregon, where she is studying clinical herbalism, botany, and wildcrafting as stewardship with Howie Brounstein.
In 2019 she graduated from the Naturopathic school Bastyr University with a Bachelor’s of Science in Herbal Science, having completed courses in Disease Processes, Botany, Anatomy & Physiology, Biochemistry, Ethnobotany, Mycology, First Aid, Herb/Drug Interactions, and more.
She owns and operates her medicinal mushroom medicine business – Earth & Spirit Botanicals – designed to heal the planet & her people with sustainably wildcrafted and regeneratively cultivated herbal & fungal medicines.
She seeks to be in symbiotic interspecies relationships with the plants, fungi, insects, bacteria, animals, humans, minerals, and many other lifeforms whom we co-habitate with on this beautiful planet Earth.
Dr. Anna Sitkoff, ND began studying and teaching about medicinal mushrooms in 2014 as an extension of her work with herbal medicine. Since then she has written and taught extensively about the medicinal mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest, and enjoys teaching about harvesting, processing and the nitty gritty of various extraction methods. While completing her doctorate of naturopathic medicine she performed research on Fomitopsis cajanderi, the rosy polypore, and the medicinal effects of different extraction methods on cancer cell lines that was published in The Journal of Immunology.
She authored the Medicinal Mushroom chapter for the current edition of the Textbook of Natural Medicine. Most recently, in 2023, she launched a medicinal mushroom product line, Lucidum Medicinals, to bring clinically relevant mushroom formulas to the people! Anna lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and newborn son and loves to be out in the forest appreciating the array of mushrooms whenever possible. Her writings can be found on her website drannasitkoff.com or the original blog reishiandroses.com.
Marija is an herbalist, writer, and former research scientist based in Durango, Colorado. Before falling in love with all things plant and mushroom, she studied cancer and pathogenic viruses for a dozen years. She left the lab bench after completing her postdoctoral work and trained with multiple herbalists over several years while running a cafe in San Francisco. She’s been in clinical practice since 2009, combining herbal traditions with science and a never ending sense of wonder. When not stuck at her computer, she can be found mushroom foraging, experimenting with wild food recipes, gardening, hiking with her partner and dogs, getting her butt kicked in jiu jitsu, or reading really cheesy murder mysteries.