Mission | History | Staff

Irene Lewis, Herbalist & Proprietor
Irene was sparked into herbalism when she was taking classes on natural resources at Columbia J.R. College, located in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains in 1987. When her teacher would casually mention some of the uses of plants by the local Native Americans while the class was out in the field studying, Irene was intrigued.

She began reading books, and taking classes on herbalism and aromatherapy. Irene has become a sponge that is never fully saturated. She has spent more than 20 years soaking up all the information she can about wild weeds, natural healing and aromatherapy.

In 1990 she founded a business known as Irene’s Dream Simply Herbal. She created herbal soaps, lotions, salves and creams under her own label and also as private labels, for other companies. Her products have sold nationwide. They have also traveled the globe, and Irene has vicariously traveled along with them.

Moonrise Herbs was one of the first stores to carry Irene’s products. In 1997 Irene became a staff herbalist at Moonrise and worked two days a week sharing her knowledge and teaching classes on a variety of subjects.

In 2004 Irene became the proprietor of Moonrise Herbs. She still teaches classes and is available for private consultations. Irene also still finds the time to create and sell her well-loved comfrey balm.

Sylvester "Sly" Holladay, Staff Herbalist
Sly has been interested in plants for the last 30 years. While weeding gardens, he discovered that the lamb's quarters and pigweed that he was uprooting were in many cases more nutritious than the garden plants he was laboring to grow. Thus Sly was inspired to learn more about his plant neighbors.

This interest in identifying pants and studying their nutritional and medicinal properties has continued across several states and has now taken root in the lush environs of Humboldt County.

Sly studied herbs for a full summer at the California School of Herbal Studies with Rosemary Gladstar, David Hoffman, Christopher Hobbs and Jane Bothwell, which allowed him to both consolidate and add to his knowledge of herbs. He also received a bachelor's degree in biology from Humboldt State University and has taught biology at College of the Redwoods.

In addition to western herbs Sly has studied Chinese and Ayurvedic herbs and incoporates this combined knowledge in assessing which herbs would be beneficial for a given individual in a given situation.

Gabrielle Visco, Operations Manager
Gabrielle has had a passion for “whole- body, mind, and spirit” healing for the past seven years, after almost losing her Mother. During that time of turmoil she was pointed into the direction of alternative healing from her eldest brother. Some of her first books Back to Eden, Becoming Vegetarian, and Conscious Eating sparked this flame inside that has thus been building everyday. Gabrielle’s eyes were open and she began her journey into discovering herself and the wealth of her health.

She started working at Wild Oats, and various natural health food stores over the years learning all she could get her hands on from her passionate managers, trainings from different supplement, essential oil, and herbal companies offered and the variety of questions asked by those who frequented the stores. Her Aquarian nature blossomed with all the variety of tools that one is given for their personal health. She couldn’t get enough from the stack of books, and wanted a more hands on approach. She started researching schools for alternative health had started taking nutrition classes with College of Southern Nevada.

To her dismay what she was learning at the college was not what she was seeking and set her goals to find something that would please her view of whole healing. After she moved to Humboldt County in 2009, she stumbled upon her Fairy Godmother who has gifted her in many ways. Jane Bothwell, her fairy Godmother with whom Gabrielle has completed a year long Herbal Intensive program that included Rosemary Gladstar’s correspondent class. At Dandelion Herb School, Gabrielle has also completed Jane’s Clinical Herbalism Course. Gabrielle has attended various local workshops and festivals where she finds a different excitement with learning of a multitude of topics like; ‘ethno-herbalism’, energy healing, breath work, astrology, and body alignment, shamanic work, and plant spirit communication

On a life path of learning, Gabrielle feels she learns something new everyday. She will continue to follow the path in nature, learning the healing ways to better all. She wants to share this wealth with all who find that bubbling excitement in nature and has started take part of local events giving workshops, and herb walks. Gabrielle says she is following the Spirit of the Plants who have truly been her guardians and teachers.

Raquel Nelson, Customer Service Specialist, Assistant Bookkeeper
Raquel began her herbal journey relatively late in life. She has had a lifelong interest in the natural modalities of healing but it in 2008, she had the marvelous good fortune to attain the assistant bookkeeper position here at Moonrise Herbs and there began her herbal education in earnest.

Formally, she has taken Jane Bothwell’s Beginning with Herbs and graduated from Jane’s 10-Month Herbal Intensive in 2010 and has been blessed, as well, to be able to work with Jane at Dandelion Herbal Center since 2009.

Informally, she views every single day as an opportunity to learn more and more about herbs, formulations, nutrition and energetic healing…just to name a few. She is so thankful for every Moonrise customer for asking all those wonderful and, occasionally challenging questions that continue to further this great journey of knowledge!

Raquel has lived in Humboldt County almost her whole life and couldn’t ask for a better place to call home! She spends her tiny slice of free time with her partner, Mike, playing with her cat, Chai, and reading as much as she can.  Bellydance is her other passion and she can be found teaching and performing with her troupe the Ya Habibi Dance Company.

Pepper Hernandez, On-Site Naturapath and Sales Associate.

Pepper is a Holistic Nutritionist who uses medicinal foods, edible flowers, herbs/spices,
therapeutic teas, vitamins, minerals and essential oils all as part of her nutrition care “toolbox”.
This type of Holistic Nutritional Counseling combines the meaning of "holistic”, to heal, while emphasizing the organic and functional relationship between different parts of the body. This allows treatment of the body as a whole and giving the body what is needed to make changes to fuel it properly. Most clients discover healing from within also contributes greatly to overall health and wellness.

Other Therapies that are used include Yoga Postures, Mind Body Connection, Meditation, Breathe/Prana, Tai Chi, Strength Training, Muscle Testing, Iris Analysis and much more.

Pepper spends her spare time as Speaker, Writer and Activist on Health Living Nutrition. She leads Lectures, Conferences, Retreats and also Teaches Courses along with traveling the world for more research and learning opportunities. Her lIfe has been dedicated to Health and Wellness.

Degrees include:
B.s. in Education
M.s. in Natural Medicine
N.D. in Naturopathic Nutrition

Certifications include:
Certified Natural Health Practitioner
Live Food Nutritionist
Personal Trainer
Lifestyle Coach
Kinesiologist
Iridologist
Raw Food Chef
Herbalist
Reiki Practitioner