This is an in-person medicinal plant tour held at our 0.7 acre herbal sanctuary located in Northeast Baltimore (the full address is sent to all who register). As we stroll we will meet various herbal allies to discuss parts of their botany & their amazing therapeutic gifts.
The Eclipta sanctuary is now home to more than 100 different medicinal plants who are a mix of native, naturalized & non-native species. We pride ourselves on being one of the most biodiverse ecosystems within the city & specialize in habit restoration which considers, soil health, climate change instability & the cultivation of both flood & drought tolerant plants.
What does it mean to know the land? Why learn about the land around you? Learning the land where you live is about cultivating a relationship with the external & internal environment which then allows you to rise to the challenges of life by emotionally, physically & spiritually rooting to the earth under your feet. It is also about the importance of place based education as a radical act of climate change reversal.“Our severance from nature leaves us feeling as if we do not belong in the world, & that can be a source of anxiety & deep despair.” The simple act of working with local herbs on a daily bases can be a means of harnessing this connection again. “If we no longer feel nurtured by the Earth, we no longer belong to it, & because we do not belong to it, we do not feel responsible for it.”
What is plant medicine or herbalism? Herbalism is as ancient as life itself. It predates recorded history & even human beings. It is the foundation of all forms of medicine and is so integral to life that it often goes without a name in some cultures. The foundations of plant medicine are inseparable from holistic methodologies which include diet, lifestyle and environment in combination with the respectful use of whole plant materials such as leaves, flowers, fruit, seaweed, seeds, stems, barks & roots but even minerals, moss, lichen, fungi & even animal parts to support & maintain health but also to prevent, alleviate, or resolve root causes of some of the most chronic dis-ease. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 75-80% of the world’s population still relies on therapeutic plant preparations for their primary healthcare needs.
In this introductory class we will unpack the foundations of herbal medicine & snippets of its history. We will delve into the benefits of herbs for holistic health & discuss basic herbal preparations as well as herbal energetic actions on the body & identify what makes them work.
Instead of a conventional CSA where you simply pick up your farm share of raw goodies to prepare on your own at home our Herbal Compass CSA doubles as a medicine making instructional class which focuses on building deep awareness of seasonal shifts & cycles of the earth body in relationship with the inner rhythms of your own human body. Each turn of the calendar wheel we will call on our allies, the plants, as our healing compass. Traditionally, herbal medicine was always made collectively as a community; from seed saving, cultivation, harvesting & preparation. This series is not only an opportunity to build community & integrate herbs into you daily life it is a unique opportunity to "drop in" to our ever growing herbal sanctuary & learn the incredible benefits of these wild botanical which we can cultivate in abundance right here in Baltimore City. Most herbalists will tell you that the plant most appropriate for what ails you is a plant that grows right outside your door (or within your bio-region).
Join us as we tap into this earth wisdom for optimal health & vitality!
"We can support the earth by staying solid in our cycles, as much as we can, with those of the earth, moon & sun." - Judith Berger, Herbal Ritual
Herbal energetics is the foundation of understanding how plant medicine works with the body.
We already speak & understand life in an energetic way. We just don’t call it that. The term energetics may have an ethereal or woo-woo sound to it but it is a very practical concept that we discuss daily. It’s as common as considering the weather & how it makes us feel. How sluggish you feel in hot humid weather or how flush you get when eating hot peppers. We all understand to eat cucumber & watermelon (cooling foods) on hot summer days & eat hearty warming soups & stews in winter. Maintaining a proper balance of energies such as hot, cold, warm, damp and dry is how we maintain health. Herbs can work to bring the energies that are out of balance back into balance. For example, excess heat in the body can be seen with chronic heat like rosacea & allergies or acute heat like a viral infection or bronchitis.
Fire, water, air, earth, wood, ether, and metal are representations of energy. Fire or heat is transformative, earth builds & is grounding. Air is movement which cools & dries while water nourishes & moistens. The ways in which these elements interrelate is how we experience but also understand the nature of our bodies within the environment we inhabit. It is not only the foundation of how we cultivate balance & health it is the foundation of how we understand where we are and who we are. Nothing lives in isolation & the goal of energetic modals is to reveal the depth of all our relations.
Whether the topic is climate change, Anthropocentric extinction or pandemics nature is guiding us more than most people can fathom we just have to re-tune our senses to recognize and name these energetic patterns.
This virtual class is offered as part of the Herbal Compass 12 month series yet is also offered separately in order to give you an idea of what the series is like & to get a better understanding of the symbols & various guide posts which we will follow throughout the year. Nearly every culture around the world which had or still has a connection to their land based wisdom practices will utilize an medicine wheel of some kind.
Are you searching for a way to reconnect with the rhythmic changes of the seasons & reawaken your wild roots? Orienting yourself within the compass is a way of honoring yourself as a part of nature within the web of life & our relationship with the dynamic 5 phases of Mama Earth.
This 5 phase/element (earth, fire, metal, water & wood) medicine wheel was created from aspects of both Celtic & Chinese land based traditions.
Compass = compassion, guidance, orientation. Where am I? What am I? You can’t enact genuine compassion & healing without proper grounding & orientation.
Taste works beyond simply making our food "taste better". Taste is & has been a crucial evolutionary information highway. Did you know that no matter what medicinal plant (or morsel of food) you have at your finger tips that you can detect & begin to understand beneficial qualities just by taste, touch & sensation? Flavor can inform you of an herbs organ affinity, energetics & medicinal actions. Besides being important in terms of matching the right herb to the right person learning the therapeutic profiles of flavor gives agency & autonomy within how we work with & understand herbal medicine. It is also integral to divesting in a one-size-fits-all modern healthcare paradigm. We will also take a look at the ancient Chinese technique of reading our tongue by noticing how we experience the sensation of the plant in our mouth & what that can tell us. Each participant will be able to (of course) taste, touch & smell at least one plant corresponding to each of the 5 flavors: bitter, pungent/acrid, sour, sweet, salty.
"If we surrendered to the earth's intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees" - Rainer Maria Rilke
The 17th century French philosopher René Descartes declared that only humans are endowed with "mind," that matter is inert, lifeless & passive, & that animals have neither mind nor reason. This thinking is still pervasive--a pillar in fact of the materialist scientific perspective that has led us down a dark path of Earthly destruction. The scientific world is just starting to test & accept what indigenous peoples around the globe have known since time immemorial: that plant intelligence can be measured in its problem-solving ability, which can be explained by “swarm intelligence” which functions like an ant colony, shoal of fish or flock of birds. As a result of their cooperative & adaptive nature, plants have flourished for many millions of years longer than Homo sapien primates & make up more than 80% of Earth's biomass.
Herbalist Julia Graves writes: “Freed from all cultural superimpositions & what-we-prefer-to-believe, plants are patterns of unfolding energy that we can detect with our senses, with colors, shapes & tastes taking a predictable & distinct course of coming into being, exciting, & fading away. As witnessing bystanders to their mysterious dance, we are invited to listen to their song-beyond concept, & will not receive their secrets for as long as we try to make them march to our tune.”
In this class we will discuss, from an herbalist perspective, the meaning of plant language which is, in short, the ability to understand how & why a plant manifests the way they do in the world. We can detect this language through taste, touch & smell as well as looking at how the plants shape themselves in response to their environment. Also encoded within these sensory features are clues to their therapeutic uses which can be define as "the doctrine of signatures," “the art of signs”, "the green tongue”, etc. For example, Plantago major (plantain) is a low growing herb with a broad leaf, a skin-like texture & parallel veins resembling a human foot. Many colonial travelers to the Americas put plantain leaves in their shoes for blistered, sore feet. This plant is a widely accepted wound healing herb that grows in nutrient poor disturbed soils which can also be seen as "wounds" to the earth's surface. Join this class to delve deeper into the multi- sensory wisdom of reading signs & symbols of medicinal plant language.
We will explore how culinary therapeutics works beyond simply making our food taste good. This class will cover the medicinal qualities of some of the most common cooking herbs & spices. Perhaps you uses herbs regularly but didn't know they had medicinal benefit or you don’t use many herbs in cooking but would like to start.
Beyond flavor or cultural preference have you ever wondered why salt & pepper is added to nearly every meal we eat? Have you ever wondered why pungent herbs like rosemary & thyme or cardamom & cumin are some of the most commonly used culinary herbs? Beyond flavor why does sushi always come with ginger & wasabi? …why is cinnamon & nutmeg used in apple pie?
In this interactive class we will explore the medicinal qualities of culinary herbs & what they offer in terms of beneficial bioactive compounds for aiding digestion, circulation, assimilation of nutrients & protection against unfavorable microbes. Herbal medicine is everywhere you look. It’s with us even when we think it’s not. As we discuss specific herbs we will also take some time to taste & interact with each of them. All participants will go home with herbs samples & a few recipes to try at home.
The Invasive Apothecary is both art project and clinical herbal farmacy that takes an intimate look at the “worst of the worst” in terms of invasive plant species to propose very viable and effective creative solutions to the current capital-centric, xenophobic, war-like paradigm that is setting up policies for the management of these green beings.
This project challenges the current “alien”, “thug”, “nuisance”, “noxious”, “nasty” rhetoric of invasive plants by reexamining:
1. their larger ecological role
2. the contemporary & historical human relationships to the land
3. and the use of invasive species as food, medicine & material resource..
I am a trained clinical herbalist, educator & interdisciplinary artist. The educational & artistic side of my practice is focused on herbal literacy which really means bringing clarity to our current state of ecological apprenticeship with the land & a synergistic balance or imbalance of our internal/external elemental nature. I’m interes
I am a trained clinical herbalist, educator & interdisciplinary artist. The educational & artistic side of my practice is focused on herbal literacy which really means bringing clarity to our current state of ecological apprenticeship with the land & a synergistic balance or imbalance of our internal/external elemental nature. I’m interested in the dualistic cultural perspectives & ideas of antidote vs poison, the concept of “quackery" vs indigenous wisdom & the dangers of corporate greed upon our health & the health of this planet.
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Welcome! We add new class offerings all the time. This is the best way to stay up to date. Hope to see you in the garden.