Flower School: Plant Medicine Immersion
June - September, 2024
Plant medicine for building relationships with our bodies, the land, and each other
Flower School Plant Medicine Immersion is an embodied, hands-on exploration of the theory and practice of herbal medicine. This program is designed to offer beginner and intermediate herbalists 30 hours of direct experience in the full spectrum of herbalism, including cultivating herbs, herbal therapeutics, medicine making and plant ecology.
Flower School takes place on Eramosa Herbals’ vibrant one-acre herb farm that is home to over fifty species of edible, medicinal and utilitarian plants. In five sessions over the course of the growing season, we’ll get to know cultivated and wild plants and experience their application in herbal medicine. We’ll tend diverse gardens that are home to an abundance of plants and pollinators, harvesting and processing plants for a variety of preparations. We’ll dive deep into focused study of the properties, energetics and therapeutic actions of our focal species. We’ll explore the connections between medicinal plants and local ecology by identifying wild plants in the wetlands and forests of our bioregion. Three guest instructors will join us to share practices for building relationships with land through ecological and artistic perspectives. See session details below.
Herbal medicine is the practice of using plants for self and community care, rooted in the understanding of our bodies as ecosystems that are part of natural world. In Flower School, we’ll explore plant medicine as technology for our collective wellness, weaving together theory and experiential knowledge with reverence and care for the more-than-human world.
In this program, participants will:
Gain a working knowledge of 16+ key herbs used in Western herbalism
Study clinical applications of herbs to different body systems
Gain hands-on experience in the full spectrum of herbal medicine, including cultivating, harvesting and preparing herbs
Learn to craft medicinal preparations with clinical and “folk” methods, including tinctures, teas, infused oils, salves, syrups and more
Build their home apothecary with homegrown herbal remedies
Learn foundational field naturalist skills like plant identification, basic botany, and ecological relationships
Build deeper relationship with the more-than-human world
This program is for those looking for:
Herbal studies guided by land stewardship and reciprocity
In-depth knowledge of how to use herbs to support wellness
An approach to herbalism that weaves together deep respect for science, traditional knowledge, and embodied ways of knowing
Hands-on learning in a supportive, small group setting
Program fee: The fee for the 5-session program is $495-595 sliding scale. The fee for individual sessions is $95-115 sliding scale. All materials are included. Reduced rate spots are available for economically marginalized folks. To register, please email eramosaherbals@gmail.com.
Session dates and details
Sessions are designed to tap in to the seasonal cycles of the herb gardens and the surrounding landscape. Each session will include experiential activities, hands-on projects and in-depth discussion of the properties and applications of our focal species.
Session 1 - Saturday, July 13 | 9 am - 2 pm Introduction to botany and field identification; herbal first aid; pollinator ecology with guest instructor Christina Kingsbury. Focal species: Plantain, comfrey, yarrow, St. John’s wort
Session 2 - Saturday, July 27 | 9 am - 2 pm
Embodied herbal energetics; herbal extraction principles and methods (infusions, tinctures, oils); Focal species: skullcap, bee balm
Session 3 - Saturday, August 10 | 9 am - 2 pm
Using herbs to support the nervous and digestive systems; atmospheric ecology with guest instructor Lisa Hirmer; herbal honeys and vinegars. Focal species: anise hyssop, calendula, lavender, thyme
Session 4 - Saturday, September 14 | 9 am - 2 pm
Using herbs to support the respiratory and immune systems; harvesting and processing roots; botanical colours with guest instructor Nimra Bandukwala; Focal species: goldenrod, aster, mullein, elecampane, marshmallow
Session 5 Saturday, September 28 | 9 am - 2 pm
Medicine making intensive! In our final session, we’ll meet in a local kitchen to process plants we’ve worked with over the summer into salves, syrups, tinctures and more.
Location
Classes take place at Eramosa Herbals’ one-acre site at the Ignatius Community Farm, just outside of Guelph on Highway 6. We’ll spend the majority of our time studying and working with the herb gardens, and we’ll also get the chance to explore and identify wild plants in the forests and wetlands surrounding the farm.
Accessibility
Eramosa Herbals is a short 7-10 min walk from the Loyola House parking lot. The terrain is gently sloped with a couple of steeper hills. Our site is rustic, with a nearby outhouse, and a hoophouse and market tents for shade and shelter. Classes take place rain or shine.
Towards Reparations and Repair
In acknowledgement of the ongoing theft of Indigenous lands and knowledge, and in solidarity with the preservation and resurgence of traditional knowledge and lifeways, 10% of proceeds from this program will be redistributed to Giwaabamin herb clinic in Tkaronto, Ontario.
Instructor Bios
Flower School is led by Dani Hagel. I’m excited to welcome three guest instructors whose knowledge and practices inspire me.
Christina Kingsbury’s interdisciplinary art practice is inspired by histories of care and explores themes of place, ecology and inter-species relationships. Her work takes the form of performance, installation, social practice and occasionally text based work. Christina collaborates regularly with poets, ecologists, artists, choreographers and the public - including ecological public - to create relational works that offer a quiet and radical challenge to the commodification of life. Christina’s work is rooted (often literally) in the ecology of the Grand River Watershed and the treaty lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit, and part of her practice works through relationships to land as a settler person.
Lisa Hirmer is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is focused on collective relationships—that which exists between things rather than simply within them— both within human communities and in human relationships with the more-than-human world. Much of her recent work wrestles with what it means to be living inside the climate emergency, on the edge of planetary collapse. Lisa’s practice is unapologetically sincere in its engagement with the world and deeply connected to the sites, communities and circumstances that surround its creation. Her work finds home both in traditional gallery contexts and an expanded field of other public and semi-public spaces. It is always created with a keen awareness—informed by a mixed Mexican- and European-newcomer Canadian background—that multiple realities exist alongside one another.
Nimra Bandukwala is a painter, community-engaged arts facilitator, and nature artist based in Cambridge, Ontario on the traditional territories of the Attawandaron, Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe peoples. She comes from a lineage of women who crafted with what they had, appreciated and grew plants, and valued the lives and stories of materials. She was born and raised in Karachi, and has lived in Italy, England, and Canada over the past decade. Nimra is interested in the intersections of making, storytelling and well-being through creating art with foraged and found materials. She co-leads Reth aur Reghistan, a multidisciplinary arts project exploring Sindhi folklore, poetry, and sustainable artmaking (sculpturalstorytelling.com). Nimra has facilitated community-engaged art workshops with folks of all ages and abilities in Canada and England. She believe that artmaking is a collaborative process that everyone should have access to.
