Sheila Luna

Sheila Morris Luna, teacher and healer, departed from her home in Boulder, CO, on February 19, 2020, at the age of 52, traveling on to the next leg of her soul’s journey. She is survived by Charles Luna, her husband of 25 years; daughters Alexandra and Juliet Luna; grandmother, Kathleen Epp; mother, Bonita Vincent; father, Christopher Morris; stepmother, Susan Seestrom Morris; and sisters Jan Baca, Katherine Tripp, Jessica Schuh, and Virginia Sheffield, as well as treasured aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Born in Allentown, PA, Sheila was a sweetly shy, compassionate, and giving child whose early aspirations were to become a medical doctor. After graduating from William Allen High School, she attended Muhlenberg College and enrolled in their pre-med program, graduating with a B.S. in biology.

After college, she went to Houston as a biomedical researcher, where she met her future husband and love of her life, Charles Luna. Sheila and Charles were married at El Rancho de las Golondrinas near Santa Fe, NM, and went on to have two brilliant daughters, Alexandra, 24, and Juliet, 22. Motivated by a shared love of adventure, the Lunas travelled the world—honeymooning in Mexico, backpacking in southeast Asia, visiting 4 continents, 19 countries, and 28 states, and living for seven years in Switzerland, where Sheila managed a large nanotechnology lab.

It was in Switzerland that Sheila realized her true calling and began her shift from traditional western medicine to herbal healing. With the Lunas’ return to the states, Sheila studied under Paul Bergner, founder of the North American Institute for Medical Herbalism in Boulder, CO, where she graduated with honors as a certified clinical herbalist, vitalist, and nutritionist.

Sheila went on to become the Clinic Manager at the Colorado School for Clinical Herbalism and worked personally with clients to help them to find health through herbal healing, nutrition, and the tenets of vitalism. She also taught classes, managed student clinicians, and published an interactive book that became part of the instructional curriculum.

Sheila never stopped learning, researching the natural world through respectful immersion in the wild and careful observation. Healing was a part of her being, her life’s work, a gift she gave from her heart to so many. An intrepid traveler, spiritual voyager, truth-seeker, big-thinker, and fiercely loyal wife, mother, daughter, and friend, Sheila braved her final months with the same tenacity, stark honesty, and truly admirable, gentle grace with which she lived her life.

Her legacy continues to resonate through all whose lives she touched.

A memorial service for Sheila will be held this coming spring or summer—please contact Charles if you’d like to celebrate her life with us!

If you wish to express your respects monetarily, please consider donating to Front Range Herbal Medics Clinic ( https://www.gofundme.com/f/front-range-herbal-medics-clinic ), a Colorado-based chapter of the Herbal Medics project whose endeavors Sheila strongly supported.