About

Elena Ríos is an ANFT Certified Nature & Forest Therapy Guide, Interdisciplinary Artist, Facilitator, and Danzante. She has helped found and direct traditional circles of learning. A native Californian, she is an Indigenous Nahua, Chicana woman with mixed ancestry. Holding a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute, she is the author and illustrator of Mihtotiancalli - The House of the Dancer. A former wildland firefighter, she worked on such specialized crews as U.S. Forest Service Interagency Hotshots. She is inspired by the stories of her late grandmother, a curandera, who applied her traditional plant medicine knowledge by offering holistic healing and bone setting services in her San Fernando, California neighborhood. She has experienced and witnessed the healing power of the Native American sweat lodge, and has strived to assist in offering opportunities for healing and cultivating support for Veterans, Active Duty, and First Responders through these ways.