Micha Merrick

Micha Merrick is a ritualist, herbalist and sound practitioner who lives off-grid in Big Sur and works at Esalen, where she is on the experiential faculty. She grew up on a back-to-the-land farm where gardening, meditation and marking the seasons were part of family life, and after a first career in the performing arts she qualified in 2009 to teach yoga and give Esalen massage. A job teaching yoga at an herbal clinic in Chiang Mai led to years of study with Thai women healers, with a Lahu medicine woman and midwife in northern Thailand, with midwives in Bali and with folk herbalists in New England.

Her work weaves plants, touch, sound and ceremony. At Esalen she gives the Herbal Clearing Ritual, a private session of steamed herbal bundles, sweeping with fresh herbs and sound, and leads weekly flower baths, candlelit sound baths in the hot springs and forest sound journeys. She plays drone flute, frame drum, harp, dulcimer, bowls and gong. Her weekend and week-long retreats follow the solstices and seasonal festivals, drawing on Celtic and Nordic folk custom alongside garden harvests and herbcraft, and she trains practitioners in herbal bodywork in person. She also offers Jungian-style tarot readings and works as a birth doula.