Hi there - I’m Amy Shake Ortiz. I’m an herbalist, educator, speaker, activist, performer, and lifelong learner who’s always asking questions about how we can better care for ourselves and each other. I believe healing is something we do together through conversation, shared knowledge, and care that moves in many directions.

I came to herbal and holistic medicine through my own experiences with chronic health challenges. What began as survival has grown over more than a decade and a half into a practice shaped by lived experience, cultural knowledge, and ongoing learning. My work is deeply informed by who I am as a queer, neurodivergent, psychiatrically disabled Latine woman, and by a commitment to making health education more accessible, relational, and, well, human.

My approach to teaching, as healing, is grounded in experiential learning and mutual exchange. I don’t believe in arriving at expertise, only in continuing to listen, learn, and grow alongside others. I see health sovereignty as a collaborative process; a process that grows through questioning and collective exploration rather than hierarchy.

Dandelion Collaborative is my way of nurturing that vision: a living, evolving project focused on cooperative and sustainable community care. I’m especially interested in what emerges through the cracks when we build together: the informal, the mutual, the authentic.

I live, forage, and create with gratitude on Muheconneok and Haudenosaunee ancestral lands, and I welcome connection, collaboration, and co-creation that honors this land and respects its stewards.