Heather Reilly Hiemstra is a metalsmith, alchemist, cancer survivor and Certified Menopause Coach. As the founder of Rockstar Blends and host of the podcast GenX Hits Menopause, she has become one of the more unconventional educators working at the intersection of plant medicine and women's health. After surgeons removed her tumor, Heather's quest to live and thrive without chemotherapy led her to discover the endocannabinoid system — our body's master regulatory network, influencing mood, sleep, hormones, pain, inflammation and immune response. The ECS was only identified by scientists at the end of the last century through research into medical cannabis. She found that many plants have compounds that influence the ECS beyond cannabis. She found that the body creates its own. She found that we can work with this system every day to genuinely feel good, look good and do good — a system most doctors still have yet to discover. Heather was raised by doctors, and doctors saved her life. That's why she feels compelled to "shout from the rooftops" what she thinks every doctor should know. A science geek and care-giver at heart, following her dad and uncle into medicine was the obvious career path in high school, but her first love took her somewhere else altogether. Heather Reilly Hiemstra · Founder, Rockstar BlendsUnconventional
Take to the stage
Heather's first love was the theater. Growing up in Connecticut, Heather performed in regional theater productions like Oliver and spent a summer at the Eugene O'Neill on her way to the National Shakespeare Conservatory and Stella Adler at NYU.
In New York, she performed in shows like Danny and the Deep Blue Sea and Beirut, was an extra in Spike Lee's Malcolm X, and worked regualrly as the 'Gorham Bride' and. She did commercials and modeling. But the message from the industry was consistent— too tall, too short, too blonde, not blonde enough.
Her response: the music is the part I like best anyway. She walked across campus to the sound engineering program at NYU, learned to run the board, and never looked back. She didn't know yet that understanding a complex system — every element, every level, everything affecting everything else — was the most important education she would ever get.
Headshot circa 1993
Listen to the Music
In the early 1990s Heather worked as an A&R representative at Island Records — reading zines, listening to cassettes, watching unknown bands in small clubs at 1am on a Wednesday. She tried to get her boss to sign Joan Osborne - he passed.
She went on to work for Denny Cordell — the producer behind A Whiter Shade of Pale, Joe Cocker, Tom Petty and the Cranberries — in a SoHo loft she helped find and set up. Lots of stars came and went, but most afternoons were a joint and a breakdown of last night's band, and who to see next.
In a bar, she met Pete Townshend, and leaned into support his Psychoderelict project working backstage, and has stayed friends ever since. About this same time Heather has discovered silversmithing and was falling in love with the alchemical processes of hammer and fire.
Denny encouraged her to fully embrace her new passion for jewelry making, and Heather moved to London to be with her friends from The Who, and set up her first real jewelry studio in a backyard shed in Sheen.
"Tommy" on Broadway with Lisa M. in Pete's book.
Fire, Hammer, Anvil
Heather moved back to the States and landed in a San Francisco warehouse South of Market in a neighborhood of other artists and makers. There, she apprenticed with renowned artist-blacksmith Angelo Garro, studied platinum fabrication at the Revere Academy of Jewelry Arts, and met her now-husband John. They bought and renovated their first home together into a live/work oasis in San Diego's Sherman Heights neighborhood.
After studying at the Alchimia Contemporary Jewelery School for a year, in the master artisans district of Firenze, Heather came home to John and California and their first child, Hunter and everything to follow.
Before leaving California for the east coast, Heather was invited to contribute to an Alexander Calder tribute exhibition titled Little and Large, where she discovered Calder's jewelry work for the first time. This was the catalyst for The Life Chain, a hundred inspirations brought into one clear focus.
Every link is a love, a life, a city — forged by hand from precious metals, stones and stories from all over the world.
San Diego metalsmith
"I wear the chain I forged in life, I made it link by link, and yard by yard." — Charles Dickens
Priorities
But before that, after her son Hunter was born, Heather knew something was wrong. Every morning nursing, she felt a lump protruding from her right side. Terrible weakness. Stomach trouble like never before.
After being referred to an oncologist in San Diego, her doctor family brought her back to New England and Connecticut local legend, surgeon Dr. Joseph Bardenheier, who removed a fist sized-tumour from here colon. Everybody expected Heather to follow with chemotherapy, despite 60 negative biopsies. Nobody had any data proving it would help, and she would have to stop nursing.
Rockstar Blends was born when she decided to prioritize her son's gut health and future of his immune system over all else.
Not a popular decision with any doctor, family or otherwise. It took Heather 3 tries to find a doctor who would see her at all without commitment to a chemo regimen. Finally, Dr. David Novak in San Diego agreed to teach her alternate modalities to engage her body in daily cleansing to help prevent recurrence.
Among others, he guided Heather into the science behind plant medicinals, where her own research led her to the endocannabinoid system and the development of the Rockstar Blends formulae.
Heather's daughter was born a year after the surgery, and Heather has been free of cancer ever since.
With my babies
"I consider myself a modern miracle of science. I have a deep reverence for modern medicine." — Heather Reilly Hiemstra
Rockstar Woman
In the ECS, Heather found the system of balance in our bodies that responds directly to plant medicines. Science itself only discovered this system of receptors, enzymes and cannabinoids at the end of the last century through research into possible therapeutic benefits of the cannabis plant itself.
Heather felt she recognized it immediately, thinking in these terms about her own health since first learning the soundboard. Every element has a 'right' level for the whole to feel good. Our work is to listen close for what's driting out of balance and adjust in real time.
Rockstar Blends started as a first topical line of defense against everyday cuts, bites, burns and bruises safe enough for kids and powerful enough to reduce overall reliance on synthetic solutions. When Heather suggested to Dr. Novak the power of certain botanicals might be absorbed most directly to her colon through her most intimate tissues, their discussion launched the creation of Rockstar Woman, an intimate oil that has helped hundreds of women feel good from menstruation through menopause since 2018.
They're so named because they do what rockstars do: show up every night and give it everything they've got.
Today Heather speaks to women to educate about the ECS, sexual wellness for longevity and menopause to and amplify the reach of new discoveries and leading doctors in the field.
The epiphany is 2-arachidonoylglycerol — Heather calls it The Rockstar Molecule — perhaps the single most powerful cannabinoid especially in the context of women's health, longevity, vibrant aging and living beautifully through all stages of life.
Heather is available as a private speaker and publishes her podcast GenX Hits Menopause to Apple, Spotify and Audible on the Mission Matters network.
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