Meet the Ancient Origins Team
About Megan
Megan is a third-generation settler living, working and playing on the Traditional and Unceded territory of the Quw’utsun’ people. Her blood and bones hold Norse and Celtic ancestry, and her spirit is from the Stars. Megan is a Registered Medical Herbalist, intuitive healer and educator with a passion for plant medicine, ceremony, dream work and the stars. She has a strong connection with the astrophysical realm, channeling both Earth and Celestial energy into her practice. She combines her medical, botanical and spiritual knowledge with heart and womb centered intuition and Earth-based healing practices.
Megan obtained a bachelor of science in biopsychology from the University of Victoria, a Medical Herbalist Diploma (3 years schooling) from Pacific Rim College, has taken masters level counselling courses, studied somatic experiencing with Peter Levine, PhD, studied Ancestral Lineage Healing with Daniel Foor and completed an Alchemical Herbalism program that integrates the practices of alchemy, spagyrics, medical astrology, traditional western herbalism, Ayurveda and indigenous traditions.
Megan worked in the field of Mental Health and Addictions for 11 years. Much of her strength as a confident trauma informed practitioner has come from her professional experience working as Psychiatric Case Manager where trauma informed practice, crisis intervention, and risk assessments are foundational. Although her formal education and career has provided a solid foundation for her practice, her most valuable education stems from studying with Earth based healers from around the globe, where she witnessed the deep relationship between plants and people, experienced the healing power of nature and learnt directly from the plants and spirits.
Since Megan was a child she has been in connection with spirit, the star beings and nature. At the age of 21 she began a three-year Core Shamanism program of advanced initiations in shamanic healing through the Michael Harner Institute. Shortly thereafter, she had the great honor to study with Haida Medicine Man Nungkaathgaa (Douglas Wilson) and continued working with him until his recent passing in 2020. This training involved intensive initiation work through Rites of Passage, ceremony, energy healing, journey work and depossession training. Megan is deeply grateful and humbled for the opportunity to study under such a brilliant mentor. In 2011-2012 Megan studied Metaphysics and Dream work with Chaty Secaira. Soon thereafter, she mentored under Celtic Witch and Herbalist Sean Padraig O’Donoghue where she learned the magical uses of herbal / fungal medicines, somatic herbalism, intuitive diagnostics, ceremony and ritual. In between studies and apprenticeships Megan has travelled to South America, Africa, Mexico, Central America and Europe to study plant medicine ceremony and work in traditional ways. Since 2019 Megan has been and is currently mentoring under Norse / Coast Salish Shamanic practitioner Betsy Bergstrom where she is deepening her skill set in Compassionate depossession, curse unwinding, Seidr, Norse energy healing and other shamanic healing modalities. She recently completed a1.5 year apprenticeship program with Norse Shaman Johannes B. Gårdbäck, with the intention of deepening her connection with her Norse Ancestry and healing practices. For the past 2 years Megan has been pouring her heart and womb into studying the ancient European practices of Bee Shamanism with Ariella Daly.
Megan’s passion is supporting individuals to connect with their soul purpose, true self essence and help others remember how to live in connection and harmony with the Earth. Megan's intention is to integrate modern medicine and traditional herbal psychospiritual practices to assist individuals on their healing journey towards health and wholeness of being.
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About Jenna
Jenna is a naturopathic doctor with a passion for herbal medicine and connecting with nature to stimulate the body’s unique healing capabilities. She has a keen interest in the areas of mental health and endocrinology, with a life calling in empowering individuals to become their best self. One of Jenna’s goals as a naturopathic physician is in helping individuals tap into their intuitive perception, so informed decisions and healthy questioning can be made. Medicine is both a science and art; an individualized approach to healing is necessary in order to create positive change within. Jenna’s love for plant medicine is rooted in the concept that nature holds an inherent healing capability, and when we are immersed in a symbiotic relationship, a balanced mind-body-spirit can be nourished.
Jenna’s quest for knowledge and insatiable thirst to understand why things were the way they were, led her to naturopathic medicine. Her educational background includes an undergraduate degree (with distinction) in biopsychology from the University of Victoria and post-graduate naturopathic medical training from the Boucher Institute of Naturopathic Medicine (BINM) in New Westminster. At the end of her journey at Boucher she was blessed to receive the prestigious awards of Academic Excellence and Clinical Excellence, as well as representing her class as valedictorian.
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For more information about Jenna, naturopathic medicine, services and booking, please visit her website
About Marnie
I raise my hands to the Quw’utsun First Nation and their ancestors, on whose traditional and unceded land I live and work.
I’m a descendent of early settler colonialists from Gaelic, Nordic and Germanic lineages, whose traditional cultures, languages, and relationships to land were largely lost to my family. The learning and living of decolonization, reconciliation and anti-oppression is a heart-commitment underlying my work. Integral to this is finding and uprooting in myself stories of separation and hierarchy that give rise to fear and harm – e.g. separating bodies from minds, hearts and the environment, and dividing people into a hierarchy of races and classes.
I want to work with others to call forward our ancient, earthly and cosmic stories – and co-create new ones for healing, transformation, reciprocity, kinship. Stories that open our sense of magic and beauty, that tell of the multidimensional and sacred nature of life. Stories that inspire us to build safer, sustainable, harmonious and loving social systems, which celebrate diversity and culture. Stories which invoke our reason for being, and guide us to live and die well.
Over the past 20 years I’ve trained in hospital-based spiritual care (formerly “chaplaincy”), shiatsu, reiki, therapeutic touch, gestalt and transpersonal psychotherapy, trauma-recovery, anti-racism and cultural safety, psychedelic assisted therapy, craniosacral therapy, and since 2019, plant spirit medicine and spirit guide collaboration with Megan Waddy. I weave these ways together using my hands, intuition, and dialogue with you, tracking and supporting your inner healing intelligence to bring good stories into embodiment.
Please see Counselling and Body Work under the Services tab for more information about working together.
About Ryan
Ryan Boyer, M.Ed., PATGC, CCC
I currently live and work on the unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation. I am grateful to be a learner on these lands, and honor those who have cared for these lands since time immemorial. I am a son, brother, father, husband, and friend. I come from Celtic, Norse, Slavic, and Cherokee ancestry on my mother's side, and Celtic and Norse ancestry on my father's side. I hold a Master’s Degree in Education specializing in counselling psychology, and have spent the majority of my career working in the realm of mental health and addictions. I also recently completed a graduate certificate in the Psychedelic Assisted Therapy program through Vancouver Island University. I have been heavily influenced by transpersonal, existential, and non-dual teachings.
Aside from my work with Ancient Origins, I work in private practice at Sacred Owl Integrative Counselling. Prior to launching my private practice, I worked as a Mental Health Manager for a local First Nation.
In hindsight, I can see how I've been preparing myself for healing work even before I sought out a career in counselling. Early life trauma, along with the painful loss of both my parents at a young age was a perfect storm that contributed to my use of drugs and alcohol to self-medicate. This numbing and escapism ultimately led to active addiction for many years of my life. Once I stopped self-medicating, space opened up to embrace my own healing journey. This has included reparative relationship, nature, earth medicine ceremonies, various transpersonal ceremonial experiences, and re-connection to ancestral ways. I have learned that by sitting with our own darkness and shadow aspects, we are then able to hold supportive space for others to be with their own.
I have a passion for co-creating a different way of relating to life for those that I connect with.
Oftentimes it is the lost connections with our essential self that underlies much of our presenting troubles that needs to be re-ignited and embodied as the true nature. I believe that certain earth medicines can open us up in a way that aids this re-ignition healing process.
I support folks to embrace their true nature and authentic self. If you are curious to know more about me, please visit www.sacredowl.ca
About Kendra
Kendra Heinemann, Medical Herbalist
Kendra is a clinically trained medical herbalist originating from Edmonton, Alberta. Where she was born and raised before embarking on her journey to the west coast. In Edmonton as a child she grew up growing veggies in her childhood backyard, making potions out of mud and plants, and exploring the land with her family dog.
Growing up in the prairies, she was called to nature and connected with the poplar trees and boreal forests. Her herbal medicine journey continued when she saw her close family member struggle with mental illness. She felt like there was a better way to approach it besides a long list of pharmaceutical medications.
There was a turning point in her life where she realized she wanted to support individuals where they can feel heard and have herbal medicine to support them. She turned to nature, the plants, meditation and movement as teachers.
Her curiosity of supporting people through herbal medicine by diving deeper aligned with her love of nature, hiking and slow way of life brought her to so-called Vancouver Island where she embarked on her clinical herbal medicine journey to become a practitioner . She enrolled and was accepted at Pacific Rim College.
After completing 500+ hours of clinical training, 480 hours in biomedical/ biological sciences and over 800 hours in western plant sciences. . Between semesters she would head back to Alberta to plant trees in the boreal forests where she would be immersed in native plants, she connected with the land in such a way where it carried her and supported her.
She is offering 15 min free consultations, taking clients on a 1:1 basis, and will be hosting workshops and growing herbs to make into medicine.
Kendra’s passions are but are not limited too, mental health, women’s health, hormonal health and digestive health.