I’m an artist, pelvic steam hydrotherapist (intern), and folk herbalist. I work with paint to make paintings, and plants to make plant medicine. I offer pelvic steaming support and advanced steam plans via a consultation process. These creative activities complement each other as working closely with plant allies, and making art, are healing for my body and spirit.

During the day I work with ages 3-6 as a Montessori classroom assistant/garden facilitator to pay the bills, have food and shelter. Some of my pelvic steam work and everything in the Botánica is community supported! This means that only when you purchase I can make more available, and offer services to those without resources.

My lifelong engagement with plants continues as a mutual love story. I wholeheartedly nurture and protect them with the understanding I have, and they come to my aid consistently.

When working with plants for body care it is miraculous to discover that they support you in the physical realm (tissues, organs, fluids), they support you in the energetic realm (emotion, tension), and they support you in the spirit realm (connection, belonging). In this unseen realm, plants shift perception and open up a felt sense of being in communion with the earth, with them.

The first mentor and guide who taught me how to tend plants is Plantsman, Chris Cosby. He taught me how to recognize their language which opened me up to learning from the plants directly.

By necessity, I have spent most of my life working to transform and process pain, grief, and the things no longer needed, into beauty, love, and well-being. I came into this life orientation by way of family displacement, and the domestic violence of alcoholism/parental violence. I was born neurodiverse, and queer. These experiences inform my work with all mediums.

Botânica

Steph’s Herbal Education:

  • the plants themselves are my teachers, mentors, family

  • 20+ years of herbal practice as a folk herbalist

  • book learning

  • workshops and classes with herbal teachers who have been studying and practicing with the plants longer than I have in the systems of Western Traditional Herbalism, Mexican Traditional Medicine - MTM + Traditional Chinese Medicine TCM (specifically for the female reproductive system), and various other ancestral herbal traditions from my native Brazilian roots.

  • Some recent entities and people I have learned from are Plantsman Chris Cosby, The School of Evolutionary Herbalism, Blue Otter School, Wild Current Herbalism, Enchanters Green, Pānquetzani of Indigescuela, Keli Garza of Steamy Chick, and the Healing Clinic Collective.

  • I am a certified Peristeam Facilitator PFc and a Peristeam Hydrotherapist Intern working on my practicum to receive a Peristeam Hydrotherapist certification: PHc, through the Peristeam Hydrotherapy Institute. Peristeam Hydrotherapist and pelvic steam therapist are interchangeable terms.

Art

I was born into this world as Stephanie Camille dos Anjos native to a land colonized by the Portuguese who claimed it as Vitória, Espírito Santo. It was and still is the home of Guarani, but became cruelly populated by Europeans fighting for ownership. These invaders were responsible for forcefully bringing enslaved peoples from the various regions of the great continent known as Africa, to the land known as Brasil. I am a mix of these converging cultures and people…this is my father’s bloodline. My mother’s bloodline is Irish/English/French. (if ancestry interests you see my ancestral timeline here). My current work centers around the human body as land and water, and their liberation from colonizing forces. My work is also about caregiving because caregiving is an integral force in this liberation.