Who is that Island Forest Witch?

My journey into the knowledge of herbs began in a courtyard in Primošten.

The whole courtyard smelled of immortelle, lavender, and rosemary — or tomato sauce, or ripe figs, or grapes, depending on the season. Everything brought in from the land was cleaned, sorted, and prepared with meticulous care. My grandmother distilled herbs, made her own soaps, shampoos, and remedies for every ailment, physical or spiritual. My aunt Radojka — who had shown me tarot cards since I was very young, weaving bedtime stories out of the Major Arcana — carried the same knowledge: what to pick before flowering, what to dry in shade, how to read the season.

Just beside the front door was a large basil bush I touched gently every time I entered and left the house. That scent still carries me back.

Those early lessons were teachings on how to listen, how to sense the right moment to pick each plant, how to preserve its essence. I absorbed it without knowing the word for what I was learning. The knowledge stayed in the body, waiting.

For years my work lived at the intersection of culture, ritual, ecology, and community.

Performances in open landscapes, environmental programs, cultural initiatives, collectives, festivals. The precarious nature of working in culture and tourism, the stress of living from one deadline to the next — it took its toll.

Three burnouts. During the third, the most intense, I made a vow: this way of living was over.

I found my way back through what my grandmother had passed on. Spontaneously, I began connecting the symbols I already knew — astrology, tarot, the plants — into something coherent. I started documenting what helped. Blending what the body already remembered with what I was beginning to understand intellectually. The intention became clear: to share this knowledge and support others on their own paths.

Eventually I came to Silba — a car-free island in the heart of the Adriatic Sea.

No roads. No noise. No shortcuts.

The locals started calling me the forest witch. A woman who lived alone in the woods, who spoke softly to plants, who harvested by the cycles, who lit candles for the moon. At first I smiled. Then I understood: this was a calling. A sacred role I chose to accept with deep respect and awareness.

Beneath ancient oak trees, bathed in salt air, I built a sustainable sanctuary where my passion for ecological herbalism could flourish. What began as simple herbal remedies for personal use and heartfelt gifts for close friends gradually transformed into a full-bodied practice: intuitive ritual boxes, astrological blends, soundscapes captured from Silba's untouched landscape, botanical balms crafted with lunar timing.

My professional training as an Organic Medicinal Herb Cultivator, Divine Feminine Healing Practitioner, and Therapeutic Horticulturalist wove seamlessly into what I had always known by instinct. Magia Botanica crystallised from that intersection.

"Born slowly, like something ancient remembering itself."

Magia Botanica is a living ritual practice. A body of work. A space to come back to yourself.

It moves through nine elements — Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Ether, Spirit, Sea, Peak, Magia — each a feeling, a phase, a plant, a ritual. Each element maps to a nervous system state and a specific micro-protocol. The quiz identifies yours in 2 minutes.

At the centre of this practice is a rare astrological alignment in my natal chart — the Golden Yod, connecting Jupiter in Leo, Pluto in Libra, and Mercury in Capricorn. The Word. The Spell. The Structure. That's why, for me, writing is ritual. Speaking is spellwork. And every formula I develop is also a sentence, and every sentence is also a formula.