Our Bio

Joseph and Kristy Pitawanakwat

How on earth did we get here? If we were to look back on our lives seven years ago this is not what we would have envisioned. I (Kristy) was just getting out of actors college at the Toronto Film School and Joe was just entering into a classical guitar program at Cambrian College. With our ambitions in the performing arts we were certain our futures would be as performers. Little did we know the turning of events that would unfold in our lives. Joseph and I have been together for seven years and married for nearly 4 years and now have a little toddler named Ruth. When we first began dating we spent many hours talking about our plans as performers but as the months went on a very interesting shift took place. While in college Joe found himself less and less in class and more and more outside in nature. As a child Joe spent the majority of his time alone outside in the trails behind his house and in the bush surrounding his camp in a place called Tamarack. He grew up with plants not realizing the huge role they would later play in his life. Throughout his year in college his interest in using plants as medicine was sparked and from there the flame of his passion was kindled. His memory for learning and remembering plants and their medicinal qualities was like nothing he had ever experienced before; it just stuck. By the end of his first year of college he had decided not to go back and to focus his energy fully on the pursuit of natural plant based medicines. He would begin the bulk of his studying with his own grandmother Thecla Phesant. Thecla's mother Bridget was a midwife and medicine women of her day and in many ways Joe is following in his great-grandmothers foot prints.

Over the next few years of our life we spent countless hours learning about plants traditionally, historically and scientifically. It wasn't long before we spent all our time picking plants and hanging them in our living room, our house had become a jungle. We learned how to dry the plants and use them fresh, turn them into many different forms of medicine including teas, tinctures, salves, steams, aroma therapy and much more. It wasn't long before we were teaching and doing workshops on all the knowledge we had accumulated over the few years of intense study and dedication.

Joseph is now near complete writing his own very exhaustive book proving plant-based-medicine using 3 proofs: Traditional, Scientific and The Doctrine of Signatures.

However, it doesn't stop there, as we learned about the different illnesses and ailments and the plants and mixtures needed to help with those conditions we soon realized that there was another step...Nutrition. As a woman who went through an eating disorder while in acting school I knew the importance of not only nourishment but also a healthy relationship with food. I knew that food was also medicine as prevention and sustenance. Most illnesses begin in the gut and what we eat really does become who we are. We knew that in order to heal people and truly teach people it had to be even more holistic, it had to be a life style. We have made holistic living our lifestyle by taking responsibility for our way of life. We began to eat healthier, then we began eating organically, then we began to really educate ourselves on eating fair trade, eco-friendly, non-GMO, locally and even raw. But the biggest change for us came 4 years ago when we decided to have our own garden and a huge one at that. Our life is dedicated to a pure and holistic way of living that goes back to nature at its core. We realize that everything we need to survive, thrive and heal on earth is here in nature given to us by our creator through His creation.