Marina Gkiasta is a landscape archaeologist (MA, PhD), yoga certified teacher & therapist, and an herbalist. She has spent most of her life in research and education (studies and work) in Greece, the UK, the Netherlands and France, and has travelled in Europe, America, Asia and Africa. 7 years ago she moved to the countryside of the island of Crete, where together with Michali they developed a permaculture garden of wild & cultivated edible & medicinal plants in a marginal landscape of high biodiversity. Having specialised in landscape evolution, Marina’s studies and research/work involved many environmental and most human sciences as man and the physical environment have co-evolved and are actually interdependent. Understanding the human as existence from a wide variety of angles, as a whole and part of a whole is very important to understanding the causes of imbalance and find ways towards therapy and well-being.
Marina was introduced to phytotherapy and healthy nutrition as a child by her father and to aromatherapy when still an undergraduate in 1991. She is certified in both. As she’d had to cope with various health problems to which traditional medicine didn’t help, she turned to yoga (different aspects of which she had been practicing since childhood) lifestyle changes and the plant world, where she found relief and solution. She practises Jnana and Raja yoga, and she’s a certified teacher by the Yoga Vedanta Forest Academy. She focuses on the healing power of yogic practises in combination with the healing power of the plants. Through private sessions and small group seminars, she educates clients and students on how to use yoga, healthful food, lifestyle practices, herbs and herbal formulations to support wellness and correct imbalance so the body can heal itself.