SEED, SOIL + SPIRIT SCHOOL
COVID 19 UPDATE:
If there was ever a time to learn about plant medicine and health justice, it’s NOW.
After much discussion we have decided to move Seed Soil + Spirit School online.
While we value in person, hands-on learning, keeping each other safe is our top priority. That being said, this opens new opportunities for the program that we are really excited about!
Firstly, we will be welcoming guest facilitators who we deeply admire and respect to teach some classes during the program. And secondly we are now able to open the program to people who weren't able to attend in person (a lot of you asked).
ONLINE 6-MONTH Hands-On HERBAL COURSE FOR QTBIPOC & ALLIED People Who Love Plants and Healing Justice
Do you love plants? How about people? Interested in deepening your connection to both with other like-hearted, badass folks in an intimate, decolonial space? Yes, yes, and double yes? Well, you’re in the right place. Welcome to Seed, Soil, & Spirit School.
Who is this course for?
This course is intended for Queer, Trans, and racialized folks and their Allies who want to learn along with other values-aligned folks through live online classes, recorded video modules, hands-on medicine making, and some self-directed learning. We welcome all students into our intergenerational learning circle. Come as you are, with any level of knowledge. This is a space for herbalists who are just beginning to explore plant medicine to skilled herbalists who want to learn (and unlearn) from a decolonial perspective. Limited scholarships are available for BIPOC learners.
What you can expect: Plant Medicine for the People, by the People
Led by 2 femmes of color, we uplift and centre the history and living stories and relationships of plant medicine from Indigenous, Diasporic, and decolonial perspectives. The course offers introductory levels of plant medicine knowledge based on ethnography and oral history, peer-reviewed research, folk medicine, traditional healing systems, and personal relationships developed with plants that take years of practice to come to understand.
Topics covered:
Ancestors & Plantcestors: The True History of Herbalism
Seeds & Soil: Regenerative Agriculture
Culturally-Appropriate use of Healing Systems: Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Traditional Indigenous Healing Systems
Bioregional Plant Medicine
“Weeds” and “Invasive Species”: Ethical medicine picking and land stewardship
Actions & Energetics
Anatomy & Physiology for Herbalists
Basic Botany & Plant Identification
Materia Medica
Growing, Harvesting, and Preparing medicines
Decolonial Herbalism: Spirit, Stars, and Social Justice
When: July - December, 2020
The video modules and assignments are to be completed on your own time. We will meet on Zoom once a month from July to December 2020 to discuss what we’ve learned, ask questions and nerd out together. Video modules will be released biweekly and are to be viewed prior to the virtual discussion sessions.
Participants can either chose to attend the Wednesday OR Saturday virtual meet-ups. However, we ask that participants confirm which day they prefer and stick to that day throughout the duration of the program.
Live Zoom Sessions (choose either a Saturday OR Wednesday)
Saturdays 11am-1pm EST: July 4, August 8, September 12, October 10, November 14, December 12
Wednesdays 6:30pm-8:30pm EST: July 8, August 12, September 16, October 14, November 18, December 16
Where: ONLINE!
You can access our course from where ever you are as long as you have access to an internet connection.
Why: Because we love you!
We are offering this course to bring the knowledge and skill we’ve earned throughout our time as students to our local communities. It is an offering of solidarity and ensures that culturally-safe and ethical herbalism and plant medicine knowledge are available to our communities.
How: Costs, Application, and What to Know
We are limiting this cohort to a maximum of 20 participants to allow for an intimate and in-depth learning experience. We invite you to complete an application that will give you the chance to tell us about yourself, your interests, and what you plan to do with the knowledge we will share.
There will be limited BIPOC scholarships available.
Cost: CAD$1295
Includes one 2 hour live classroom session monthly, biweekly video modules, PDF learning materials including monographs of over 25 plants, recipes, medicine making guide, classroom slides and more, and an Herbal Medicine Sampler!
Apply by May 31, 2020
Invitations go out June 7th
50% Deposit due: June15th
Payment in full due: August 15th
Your Humble Guides on This Journey
Shabina Lafleur-Gangji
Shabina with Elder <3
Shabina is a mixed Indian, Persian, and French herbalist who has been involved in healing justice work and movements for liberation for the last decade. She works to support people in reclaiming their traditional knowledge through their connection with ancestral plants and has used herbal medicine as a way to fundraise for BIPOC-led movements for freedom. She is a graduate of the Living Earth School of Herbalism and the School of Ayurveda and Panchakarma in Kerala. She has studied alongside herbalists such as Dr. Nadine Ijaz, Janette Cormier and Scott Reid. She is currently in her final year at Humber College’s Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner Program.
Stephanie Morningstar
I live my life in service to liberation in my own simple way- I am a part of a community activated by the desire to live into something different, a world where Indigenous and diasporic voices are centered and our original instructions are the locus from which we engage relationship. I envision a world where our homelands are rematriated and our collective nations are resituated as the original stewards of Turtle Island for the benefit of all our relations, both human and non-human.
I am a student of life, of books, of people as well as non-human beings- my knowledge has emerged as the interconnected relationship of my Haudenosaunee and European ancestry, and resides on a bridge between both of these worlds. My early training, over 17 years ago, found me walking in the woods with fellow herbalists who acted as mentors and guides to a fascinating world of green wisdom. My first didactic teachers were Eurocentric and although the knowledge I gained was useful, I found it lacking in ways I couldn’t name. As I began to learn from Indigenous Knowledgekeepers in my home community of Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, I realized why- the knowledge of settlers decontextualizes our medicine ways, removes the spirit from our connection to healing and plants, and relegates Indigenous knowledge to the past. My desire is to draw upon the deep, deep well of Indigenous and Diasporic wisdom, the originators of these long lineages of healing knowledge and ways of Being, Doing, and Knowing, by centering BIPOC herbalists and knowledgekeepers. Paired with peer-reviewed research and trusted and safe Western Herbal knowledge, together we can create a healing space built from equity and truth telling meant for all.