Hi, I'm Nicolina: herbalist, medicine maker, wild-crafter, tarot diviner, and energy healer. I'm the founder and heart behind Casa Alchemista Botanica, a space rooted in ancestral wisdom, plant magic, and the belief that healing has always lived within us.

I'm Panamanian-American, with ancestral ties to Indigenous, Caribbean, and African lineages. I was born in South Florida and grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, surrounded by salty air and Spanish moss.

From a very young age, I knew the world held more than what most people could see. As a quiet, dreamy child, I sensed energy in ways I couldn't quite name yet: in people, in places, in the rustling of leaves. That sensitivity became my compass. It led me through years of studying herbalism, mysticism, and the sacred arts.

After studying and teaching yoga at an Ashram, I followed a pull I couldn't explain into the Appalachian Mountains, the ancestral lands of the Tsalaguwetiyi (Eastern Band of the Cherokee). I arrived in one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, and the forest wasted no time introducing itself. I started spending long, slow hours among the plants. Listening. Learning. Harvesting. Making medicines and growing things from seed and watching them unfurl toward the light. I felt, for the first time, that I had found my path.

I began my studies in herbalism in 2015 and graduated from the Blue Ridge School of Herbal Medicine in Asheville, North Carolina in 2020. But long before any studies, the plants were already teaching me, in the language of scent, texture, seasons, and story. Spending time with them in the forest woke something old in me: a memory of my ancestors, their hands in the soil, their knowing of the land. That remembering became my life's work.

The idea for Casa Alchemista came to me in my kitchen one quiet afternoon. This space exists to help you reconnect: to Madre Tierra, to the plants, to your ancestors, to the healing traditions that were always yours. I am committed to decolonizing wellness, making herbalism accessible, and honoring the ancestral lineages that carried this knowledge through time so that we might find it again.

I share my home and my craft with Merlin, my black cat and beloved familiar. He has a deep love of herbs and a way of making himself part of every project, as if the plants called him over too.

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