Kathleen Harrison

Kathleen Harrison, MA, is an independent scholar and teacher of ethnobotany. She focuses particularly on the way that various native cultures perceive nature, and how they exhibit that in story, ritual and healing. Psychedelic plant and mushroom rituals are part of that relationship to nature. Since the 1970s, she has conducted recurring fieldwork in Mesoamerica, the Amazon Basin, West Coast subcultures, and Pacific islands, and is a published author and photographer. She is the president of Botanical Dimensions, a nonprofit organization that she founded with her former husband, Terence McKenna.

Through BD, she has worked for 30 years to collect medicinal and shamanic species, as well as the lore that helps us understand how to regard them. Kathleen currently teaches ethnobotany workshops in Sonoma County, CA, and intensive field courses on the Big Island of Hawaii, as well as international presentations.

Kathleen Harrison and her former husband Terence McKenna

She helps her students understand the nature-based worldviews of traditional cultures, how to see and identify plants, how to use plants and fungi in healing and ritual, their role in the human story, and our human role as stewards of nature. She is based in rural Northern California and Hawaii.

Connect: botanicaldimensions.org