María Benedetti is an ethnobotanical researcher and educator raised in New York City.A student of anthropology, linguistics, literature and the art of writing, she has worked as an educational journalist (culture, ecology, environment, botanical medicine) since the 1980s.Her maternal family left their native city of Mayagüez during the 1920s in order to start anew in Manhattan.

 

Deeply identified with Puerto Rican music, food and family celebrations, María studied Spanish in New York and Seville. She also studied Puerto Rican literature, history, culture and folklore at Hunter College. She combined these interests with her love for nature, cultivated by her father's Hungarian/Irish family. After ten years of ethnobotanical studies in New York with Susun S. Weed, "Wildman" Steve Brill and with Hudsonia – an environmental education NGO associated with Bard College – she traveled to Puerto Rico for the first time in 1987, eager to learn about and write about the Puerto Rican tradition of botanical medicine. This experience is documented in her first book, Earth and Spirit: Medicinal plants, remedies and spiritual healing from Puerto Rico (Even the baths heal you!)

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Upon moving to Borikén in 1989, she began work at the Sea Grant Program at UPR, Mayagüez campus, where she acted as the writer/editor of Sea Grant in the Caribbean and principal journalist for El Boletín Marino.She also produced the book Palabras de Pescadores: Interviews with Artisanal Fishermen of Puerto Rico 1991-1995.

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Thanks to support from the Research and Development Center of UPR Mayagüez, she also produced Sembrando y Sanando en Puerto Rico: Tradiciones y Visionando para un futuro verde (1996). That same year, Benedetti moved to Matrullas, Orocovis, where she practiced beekeeping, woodland coffee production, and ecological agriculture (greens, root vegetables, medicinal plants) with sustainable farmer Pablo Díaz Cuadrado. She also began offering workshops and courses as part of the agro-tourism project known as Verde Luz. She soon produced Bendiciones Botánicas para Boriquén en el 2000: un almanac de ciencia y folklor (Botanical Blessings for Boriquén in 2000: An Almanac of Science and Folklore), sponsored by the School of Pharmacy of UPRS’ Medical Sciences Campus. In 2001, she moved to Cayey and began to study Plant Spirit Medicine with Eliot Cowan, master of classical Chinese medicine and shaman of the Huichol tradition. She translated his book Plant Spirit Medicine into Spanish (Alma Verde: Botanical shamanism for spiritual healing).

 

In 2004, Benedetti began to work as part of the research and planning group for the Botanical Garden at Caguas. There, she did five, in-depth ethnobotanical studies about the trees planted at the Garden. Abbreviated versions of her work were published in Spanish as guidebooks for the Taíno, African and Hacienda arboreta. There, she also planned and co-directed (with the farmer and master craftsman José Rivera Rojas) the “Jíbaro House” or Casa Jíbara, its ecological family farm and the guariquitén of SembrArte, PT on an acre within the Garden. She was president of SembrArte, PT, a worker-owned corporation (2008-2010) and edited José Rivera Rojas’s book Desde Borinquen Atravesada: Notes for a jíbara sustainability.

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In 2009, Benedetti began to collaborate with artist and Montessori educator Jacqueline Negrón Flores. Together they created an interactive book about the value of 12 common tree species in Puerto Rico. This book, 12 Friendly Trees: Ethnobotanical Games and Challenges for Borikén, is dedicated to Puerto Ricans aged 7 to 107, and integrates botanical and anthropological knowledge with island history, art, geography, math, community studies, home remedies, crafts, reading, writing, games and much more. Her latest book, a novel: Dolores y Milagros, about cultural history, integrity and healing, is being translated into English during 2017.

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Today, María Benedetti directs BotaniCultura. Her educational offerings include lively conferences, plant identification excursions, meditations with trees, hands-on workshops, empirical folklore exchanges, and a 25-hour “fundamentals and certification course” (Bendiciones Botánicas) focused on the recognition, understanding and uses of Puerto Rico’s medicinal herbs, bushes and trees.She also offers an on-line/ersidential course for Puerto Ricans living off island. (See workshops).

 

María Benedetti enjoys collaborating with diverse groups committed to ecological, cultural and spiritual evolution (Casa Pueblo, the Fair of Healthy Agriculture and Happy Food, Casa Pueblo, the Madre Tierra Organic Cooperative, Chiwinha, the Call of the Snail, Arboladas, the Food Department, La Cosecha and the Natural Market of Old San Juan, among others). She is a founding member of Cayey para el Mundo, created to promote green, sustainable development in Cayey.