4 - WEEK HEALING JOURNEY INTO EMBODIED BELONGING
Find deep connection to your body and the Earth
This course was developed to offer both a perspective shift and practical tools that support you in feeling rooted in the knowing that you belong. Through the body, we investigate what keeps us out of connection and align ourselves once again with the innate, regenerative cycle of life-giving energy that resides within all Earth beings - you included. We learn to ground, to listen, to trust our direct knowing, to turn toward the wisdom of the body, and how to heal again.
“We have to resist the urge to view what is happening to us as a problem to be solved. We have to let ourselves hurt, release the old needs, let go of the old urges to become what we are not, what we were not meant to be. This is how we pave the way for rebirth.”
Sharon Blackie
Let's re-member what it is like to be connected to our bodies, to the Earth and to the wisdom that flows through all.
Healing is cyclical, it's relational, and it's innate. Re-membering this rhythm of compost and harvest, release and receive is vital to our wellbeing. For too long we have been culturally conditioned out of our connection and communication with the living earth and her wisdom, leaving us uprooted. We like to think of our bodies like plants, when we have our roots down deep in the soil, we can be nourished by the Earth, we can fully receive its messages, we can live our purpose and be held in a felt sense of belonging. When we are under stress, blocked, and in pain, we pull those roots up, contract and coil away from this connection and cut ourselves off from source. We can see this wound show up in our lives as a feeling of separation - from parts of ourselves, from one another and from the planet itself.
Through somatic embodiment practices and herbalism we can once again feel connected to source and to our bodies, which are the very means of entering into relationship with all things.
As we gather together in our virtual group container, each 90-minute session will be an exploration on the themes of regenerative healing, herbal medicine and somatic practices.
WEEK ONE - OUR BODIES KNOW
Our species has evolved to be in intimate, sensorial relationship with our world. Our bodies, like the bodies of all nature beings, hold within them an innate capacity to heal and an intelligence derived from a felt sense of belonging to the regenerative, life-giving cycle that flows from and through the Earth. In this first class, we will honor what it is to engage in co-creative partnership with our ecology and explore how the unique medicine we hold within is as vital for our own healing as it is for the Earth’s. We will practice turning toward our bodies as wise communicators and learn to orient to our sensations and symptoms with curiosity, wonder, and unconditional welcoming.
WEEK TWO - CULTIVATING CONNECTION
This week, we will explore the science, anatomy, and lived experience of how our bodies are hardwired for connection. We will acquaint ourselves with the nervous system, through discussion and through practice, as the principal, primal gateway into healing relationships. We will learn how our bodies, adaptively wise, respond to trauma and cultural conditioning and how grounding is more than an idea - it’s a vital somatic practice for healing. Attuning our bodies to the Earth, we will experience the practice of grounding, and consider the safety and resource we are afforded by allying ourselves with the green world. Herbal therapeutics that tend to the health of the nervous system will support us along the way.
WEEK THREE - NOURISHING OUR ROOTS
Taking all that we have learned in our previous weeks, we begin to place our curiosity on the inner-landscape. We’ll explore the concept of nourishment and the many ways it informs our foundational well being - physically and spiritually. Focus will be placed on our needs and how, as we deepen the trust we are building with ourselves, we can discern our needs and work to honor them. Through the lens of the enteric nervous system and the herbal allies that support it, we will sharpen the felt sense of our intuition, honoring the gut instinct as ecological embodiment. And in the process, we will explore the importance of composting what we are ready to release as an essential part of building the fertile soil of self.
WEEK FOUR - THE ECOLOGY OF PURPOSE AND BELONGING
Arriving at the final week of our time together, we will reflect on all that has changed in our perception and all that we’ve gained in the way of intimacy - both with our bodies and the body of the Earth. Firmly grounded, roots deep in the soil, we experience how it feels to belong. Having woven ourselves back into the fabric of all life, we marvel at the essential nature of our own medicine threads. How will you embody the direct relationship you share with the broader world? What will you bring forth, as the needs of the Earth begin to express through you? What is the medicine you hold for us all? These questions will carry us forward, beyond our time together, resourced by the toolkit we’ve built of traditional herbal knowledge and somatic embodiment practices. Trusting our direct knowing and honoring the participatory nature of being a human upon the Earth offers us the medicine of purpose and belonging, imbuing our lives with enchantment.
registration opens September 21st - we begin on October 27th
ONLINE COURSE:
-Weekly 90-minute Sessions encompassing time allocated for lesson, practices, shares and discussion, all focused around developing practical tools in the modalities of somatic healing and plant medicine
- Herbal Medicine Guide for Regenerative Healing featuring written herbal monographs (deep dives into individual herbs and how to work with them), medicine making tutorials, ritual herbal practices, herbal formulation guidance for making your own blends and recipes as inspiration, as well as guidance on sustainable sourcing
- Rooted Herbal Medicine Kit (Optional) specifically designed to accompany this course curriculum and provide you with a hands-on experience of the herbs for sensorial exploration, relationship-building, formulation practice and therapeutics. If you would prefer to source your own herbs, a supplies list will be provided
DATES TO NOTE:
- Thur, September 21: Registration opens
- Sat, October 21: Registration closes
- Fri, October 27 from 10-11:30 am PST: Program begins
- Fri, November 3 from 10-11:30 am PST: Week 2
- Fri, November 10 from 10-11:30 am PST: Week 3
- Fri, November 17 from 10-11:30 am PST: Program concludes
If you’ve ever felt a yearning to belong, a suspicion that the way most of us live in modern culture is missing something essential to wellbeing, felt your body was a mystery to you or even something to be feared, have felt that you just know things sometimes, really know things in your bones, but haven’t felt validated in that feeling, or have heard the plants talking to you… literally or metaphorically… this course is for you. If you want to feel more at home in your body and want to heal into healthier relationship with yourself, this course is for you. If you’re curious about somatic healing and want to have a repertoire of practices in your toolkit that you can turn to, to support the spiral path of healing, this course is for you. And if the idea of working with the plants as medicine speaks to an ancestral yearning to be tapped into the healing capacity of the Earth, this course is also for you. If you’re still wondering, or have questions, reach out to us via email. [email protected]
We’ll gather virtually, on Zoom, for weekly live group work sessions, lasting 90 minutes. 1 hour of lecture/discussion and ½ hour of eco-somatic practices. We will also hang our after for those who may have questions.
Herbalism offers us direct connection to the Earth. We are living in a world that is both covertly and actively keeping us disconnected from our own bodies and the body of the Earth. We’ve lost our instinctive nature to know the language of our bodies and to hear the plants telling us their medicine. Working with plants as medicine can mend the wounds of separation that keep us locked out and remind us of our innate healing capacity. We’ve evolved together, humans and plants. There is a reason that they can heal us. Our bodies know them. And they know us, holding within them the ability to heal us on more than just the physiological level. They can mend our hearts, and nourish our spirits, reminding us that we truly belong here. We are always supported. And that the Earth wants us, now more than ever, to heal so that we may offer our own medicine to the plants in return.
Embodiment is such a big part of the healing journey. Somatic healing allows us to learn the language of our bodies. As we learn turn towards the sensations and "charges" held in the body, and bring the unconscious to light, a world opens to us, our inner landscape becomes the fertile soil where change can be made.
Classes will be held for 4 consecutive Fridays (October 27 through November 17) from 10 am to 11:30 am Pacific Time.
A box of herbs and herbal medicines can be purchased supplementally for deepening your embodied learning experience of the herbalism components of this course - the Rooted Herbal Medicine Kit. If you would like to source your own herbs and medicines, a recommended supply list will be provided to all students upon sign up. You can learn more and purchase the Kit in our shop.
That’s ok! We will be recording our sessions, and sharing the recordings within 48 hours of the initial class time. All lessons and practices will be included in the recording. There is a potential that individual shares may be offered by students in the cohort, and we may choose to omit those from the recording, depending on content. We aim to create a container that is safe and trauma-informed, and that may cause the recordings to differ slightly from the live class. Know that you will miss nothing in the way of educational content if you cannot join us live.
You will have access to the recordings for 6 months after the course has concluded.
Absolutely not! We are going to begin with the basics, and no prior experience is necessary. If you already have quite a bit of experience working with herbs, that is ok too. We find, even with years of clinical practice under our belts, no two herbalists work the same. So lessons, even the most basic, always move through each herbalist differently and allow us a fresh perspective. Being an herbalist is being a perpetual student of nature - including the nature of other herbalists' wisdom.
That is perfectly fine. You need no experience for the work we intend to do together. And even if you have taken part in individual or group somatic practices, this will be an opportunity to greet that work through our own, Earth-centered approach.
No matter where you live, you are a nature being. You still reside in an animal body that is inextricably linked to the ebbs and flows of the ever-cycling Earth. All practices and lessons can be done from the safety of your home, wherever that home may be. Some students may choose to spend time outdoors during our lessons, and that is great too! Wherever you feel comfortable is the perfect place to join us from.
Definitely. We understand that Fall can be a really busy time for folks. Though the days are growing shorter and the temperatures are cooling, the pressures of modern life tend not to take notice. That said, we hope this course will invite you to relate to that busyness with a little more awareness. So even if it is a busy time, if you’ve found yourself here and this work is feeling resonant, we hope you’ll join us. Also, the recordings will be available to you for 6 months after they have taken place. So you can catch up when life is a bit more spacious.
Not explicitly. But we will invite you to explore intentional perspective shifts, certain practices, and herbal medicine preparations during our time apart, in between sessions, to deepen your learning. Our aim is that this allows you to strengthen the embodiment of the teachings and put the tools we are learning into daily practice, so that they may support you more habitually after the program has concluded.
No. This is a self-healing program. If you are a practitioner, this program will undoubtedly support you in expanding your toolkit for supporting your clients in whatever type of healing work you offer. But you will not receive a certificate.
You can! And we’d love you to. We will not be able to provide the Rooted Herbal Medicine Kit for you, for sustainability reasons, but hope that you may be able to source the herbs you desire, detailed in the supplies list we will provide upon signup, from your own local area.
Absolutely. This is not a healer-training program, though it may be helpful for those currently living in that role. It is a program aimed at supporting your individual healing journey. So regardless of how you spend your days, if you are interested in embodying a deeper felt sense of belonging and want to feel supported by the Earth as you heal into your purpose, join us.
Handcrafted herbal medicines to accompany you upon this healing journey
Weaving ourselves back into & world of purpose and belonging
