About Dr. Michelle
Medicine Woman| Leadership Activator| Sister of the Soil
Behind Soeur du Sol is Dr. Michelle Cromwell, PhD.
I’m a former Vice President in higher education, now a professional herbalist, Wellbeing Strategist, and founder of Soeur Du Sol. I left a 20+ year academic career to answer a calling: support women in midlife with natural, culturally rooted care that honors both science and spirit.
Soeur Du Sol began as a personal reckoning.
My pivot was personal. I was misdiagnosed while navigating perimenopause, told it was “stress” and ADHD when my body was asking for a different kind of listening. I left my role and chose a different apprenticeship: with my body, with plants, and with women’s wisdom. I enrolled in formal herbal studies, with foundations in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western herbs. I felt I needed more. So I also connected with a university in Benin, West Africa and spent a month in Benin, learning respectfully from traditional healers and deepening my understanding of plant medicine, ritual, and lineage. That experience affirmed what I’ve always known: culture is medicine.
When I returned home, the “menopause conversation” was exploding, often loud, commercial, and one-size-fits-all. I saw an opening for something different: evidence-aware, culturally rooted support that restores agency and joy to women in midlife.
What began as one woman’s search for answers will become a home for many: teas, rituals, and teachings that honor culture, respect research, and help women in midlife feel like themselves again. This is Soeur Du Sol-where your mojo returns, naturally.
This is a both/and path. It’s data and devotion, ambition and ease, ceremony and results, science and spirt, so you can reclaim your midlife mojo and feel like yourself again.
Why I developed Soeur du Sol ™
What I value?
My father Herbert, who we called Herbs, was an engineer and herbalist. As a Daddy’s girl I got my interest in innovation and herbs from him. He had me reading and studying the book Back to Eden at the age of 16 years. Even though he has transitioned, I know he supports me to harness the power of nature and innovation to support you.
My heart was always to create a true activation experience for women through the alchemy of herbs, African ancestral wisdom, and innovation to empower women through all stages of life, especially during menopause.
Coming home to source
In a rapidly changing world, getting solutions for the root causes from a root source are not always possible. Solutions rooted in ancestral wisdom provide stability, creativity, and strength.
We partner with local experts and communities in Benin to ethically source and optimize the use of their powerful, traditional herbs. This approach builds resilience and fosters deeper possibilities for the women farmers, traditional therapists, and scientists in Benin to have an active part in supporting how, when, and how much we pay for their natural resource. I keep this as a guide for why we do what we do.
At Soeur Du Sol We Take You to Where Science Meets Ceremony.