Clinical practice
Practical decision-making, careful observation, plant knowledge, and clear boundaries around when home care is appropriate.
Selima Iwilla Harleston Lust · Iwilla Remedy
There is a way to care for your health that makes room for your whole story.
Your body. Your emotions. Your culture. Your spirit. Iwilla Remedy brings them into one grounded practice of plant medicine so you can make clearer, more confident choices.
I'm Selima, a clinical herbalist, author, Professor of African American Herbalism at Spelman College, and co-founder of Iwilla Remedy. I am here to walk with you.
Iwilla eye-WILL-uh · “I will rise”
Selima Iwilla Harleston LustClinical Herbalist · Author · Professor
15+years of clinical herbal practice
6,000+students taught, from beginners to professionals
Spelman CollegeProfessor of African American Herbalism
Herbal AcademyLead Herbalist Educator
Selima outdoorsPlant wisdom, made practical.
Why this work became mine
I did not come to herbs because everything was working.
In my twenties, I was exhausted, inflamed, and numbing what I did not yet know how to feel. A three-week sinus infection on my honeymoon made the truth hard to ignore. My body was asking for a different kind of attention.
Herbal medicine did more than introduce me to plants. It changed the questions I was asking. Instead of treating every symptom like an interruption, I began learning to listen for the pattern, the terrain, the emotional weight, and the story underneath it.
That personal search led me through clinical herbal training, hard sciences, and years of practice. It also brought me back to African American herbal tradition and the plant knowledge that has always lived in our families and communities.
I built the kind of teaching I once needed: clear enough to use, deep enough to trust, and spacious enough to hold the whole person.
The name we carry
Iwilla means
“I Will Rise.”
Iwilla is my middle name. My mother drew it from the words “I will arise” in Luke 15:18 and carried that declaration into my name. It is family history. A story of turning, rising, and coming home to yourself.
That is why the company could never be separate from the person and the work behind it. Iwilla Remedy is the home for my teaching, books, methods, and the tools that help people build a more thoughtful relationship with plant medicine.
This origin is maternal naming history. Iwilla Remedy is not religious, faith-based, or affiliated with any religion.
Two co-founders. One shared life.
Meet Selima and Tami.
Wives, mothers, best friends, and partners in all things. We have been together since 2008. For Tami, it was love at first sight. For Selima, probably around day 23.
Selima is the principal herbalist, author, teacher, and creator of the CALYPSO Healing Method®. Tami is the operational and strategic force behind Iwilla Remedy, bringing systems, technology, clear thinking, and a talent for solving the problem everyone else has been walking around.
The company is what it is because both of us built it. The teaching has a home because Tami keeps the home standing.
SelimaClinical practice, teaching, writing, and public voice
TamiOperations, systems, strategy, and partnerships
The person behind the credentials
A path shaped by science, art, service, and spirit.
The route was not straight. That is part of what makes the work whole.
Clinical Herbalist · Author · Professor of African American Herbalism, Spelman College · Lead Herbalist Educator, Herbal Academy
- Music, Spelman College
- Peace Corps Volunteer in Samoa
- Arts Administration, Teachers College, Columbia University
- Postgraduate hard sciences, University of New England
- Clinical herbal training and certification
- Singer and storyteller
- Pisces sun, Sagittarius rising, Capricorn moon
- Vata constitution
- Silly, chill, and known to tell people what to do
- Wife, mother, teacher, and perpetual student
The CALYPSO Healing Method®
Clinical practice, emotional wellness, and ancestral healing tradition belong in the same conversation.
I created the CALYPSO Healing Method® to bring those three ways of knowing together. Each one sees something the others cannot see alone.
Emotional wellness
An understanding that what we carry, remember, and live through can shape how we experience health in the body.
Ancestral healing tradition
A relationship with plant medicine grounded in African American herbal tradition, culture, spirit, and lineage.
My teaching is rooted in African American herbal tradition and welcomes anyone who wants to build a more responsible, relationship-based practice of plant medicine.
As natural as possible, as often as possible.
Our approach to everyday wellness
We have lived at both extremes.
There was a time when convenience and price made most of our decisions. Processed food. Commercial cleaners. Very little attention to what our bodies were asking for.
Then we swung the other way. We practically demanded to know the name of the hen who laid the fried egg on our plate. We spent a year doing laundry with soap nuts and pretending those clothes were clean. We can laugh now. Neither extreme worked for long.
So we came back to the center. We make what we can, cook most meals at home, choose good quality ingredients when they are accessible, use herbs thoughtfully, get outside, play, and seek medical help when we need it. No purity test. No shame. Just a practice we can actually live.
Whole-person means whole-person
The body is never the only thing in the room.
Physical experience, emotional history, culture, relationships, and spirit can all shape the way we understand care.
Spirituality is part of my personal lens and of the ancestral traditions that inform my work. It is not a belief requirement. You do not have to share my spiritual practice to learn here or belong here.
What matters is a willingness to listen closely, honor the knowledge carried through lineage and lived experience, use plants responsibly, and make room for the full person in front of you.
Ritual. Lineage. Practice.
How Iwilla Remedy grew
From a handmade body care line to a home for herbal education.
A handmade beginning
Iwilla Remedy begins in Brooklyn with handmade body care, a deepening herbal practice, and a desire to help people reconnect with the natural world.
Teaching becomes the center
Classes, consultations, and formulations grow into a complete herbal education platform serving curious beginners, caregivers, and future practitioners.
A home for the work
From Atlanta, Iwilla Remedy carries Selima's clinical teaching into books, courses, media, and practical tools for everyday care.
There is a place for you here
Choose the next step that fits what you are ready for now.
You do not have to learn everything at once. Start with the door that feels clear.
Looking for one-to-one support? Explore a private herbal consultation.
A final word from Selima
Whether you are here to learn, to care for the people you love, or to deepen your relationship with ancestral wisdom, you belong here.
I am here to walk with you.
Explore Iwilla Remedy