2019 Healing From the Ground Up Herbal Apprenticeship: Registration Now Open

What is community centered herbalism? 
Strong Earth Medicine?

Earth-centered, woman honoring herbalism brings health, wholeness, holiness back to our hearts, hands and homes by cultivating integrated pathways that build resilience in ourselves, our families and communities. 
This is simple, messy and fun, whilst, simultaneously, deeply challenging!

Do you desire to learn and/or share strategies for building health and connection in times such as these?

Healing from the Ground Up (HGU)

offers practical strategies for cultivating personal, community and planetary health by acting locally and connecting globally through natural health, herbal medicine and spirit healing. 

This is a demanding and rigorous course! 

Be prepared to dive deep and climb high 
as you engage optimum health.

Let me say again...

This is a demanding and rigorous course. 

Consider deeply your willingness and ability to commit to an adventurous endeavor into unexplored territory!

HGU 1 is open for women and men and is taught by women. HGU 1 runs concurrently with the Pacific Wise Woman's Center's three weekend Integrated Earth Medicine Camps and weekend workshops, therefore, travelers and apprentices share the day work throughout each weekend workshop session...Saturday nights are reserved for HGU apprentices. (Local lodging information available for weekend students upon request.)

Apprenticeship limited to 12 participants

Vinegars, kimchee, cheese...oh, my!

I'm new to herbs and natural health and feel called to nature and healing. Is there a place for me in this program? 

People of all levels are encouraged to participate. Through curiosity and willingness...lifelong learning becomes a reciprocal agreement with life.

Dancing the Spiral: Becoming Human 

HGU 1 is a 9-month offering meeting one weekend each month March through November. Using the matryoshka principle of wholes nested within wholes, apprentices realize a greater understanding layer upon layer. Learning in Healing From the Ground Up meets you where you are and grows from there.

Wholes within wholes...

You will cultivate a local/global health perspective using botanical and herbal language, herbal medicine-making skills and engaging diverse fields of awareness. As you become native to place, weaving earth~centered practices into your food, medicine and life-ways, your journey of healing into wholeness becomes a pathway through life and death.

That sounds scary...what do you mean a pathway through life and death?

In her big green book for everybody, Susun Weed identifies the Wise Woman tradition "as the way of nourishment and sustenance, rather than "fixing" and "curing". 

By nourishing life, death is inevitable. Learning to walk with death empowers us to engage life fully. Scary indeed! And still, we go...

As a HGU 1 apprentice you will learn plant identification, herbal medicine making and a pathway to optimum nourishment. You will nurture your healing abilities and leadership qualities and gain valuable skills working with a variety of people, plants and possibilities. 

Upon fulfillment apprentices become:

• A carrier/keeper of herbal wisdom
• A carrier/keeper of a healing path accessible to all
• A carrier/keeper of skills to cultivate and celebrate life and death

 Still interested?

How does nature work?

2019 March - November

Tuition: $1999. US
9:00am Saturday - 3:00 pm Sunday (see dates below)

One weekend each month

3 bonus days of Strong Earth Medicine Camp
weekends April, June and August

Register by sending a snail mail letter of intent including:

• The current date, your name, address, phone number, email, occupation, health concerns and date of birth. 
• List your educational experiences, work positions and passion relating to herbs and healing. 
• Tell me what you hope to gain from your apprenticeship with me at the Pacific Wise Woman Center. 

Include a $100. non-refundable application fee. Upon receipt, I'll schedule a call and talk with you. Afterwards, if we are in agreement, I’ll send you a letter of acceptance, directions, annotated reading list and supplies you will need to bring. 

• In the rare event we cannot fulfill your intention, your application fee and letter of intent will be returned.

Barn at RavenCroft Garden

In Dancing the Spiral you will:

• Craft a foundation for using herbs safely and wisely
• Get your kit together  
• Learn the age old art of rambling the countryside
• Learn to identify, harvest, and use local wild plants
• Learn generative practices for growing plants as food and medicine
• Create optimum nourishment with local food inspired by global traditions
• Find a place where people, plants and the earth form a pillar of culture from the ground up...
• Learn to make and use herbal remedies 
• Cultivate skills in observation and diverse fields of awareness
• Learn 3 Traditions of Health and navigational skills for the 7 Rivers of Health
• Create a personal materia medica you will use and expand for the rest of your life 
• Develop an understanding of health using elemental energy woven through seasonal cycles and patterns
• Practice deep listening and seeing through the veil
• Access the Wise Healer within
• Approach listening for the "language of the land" by putting your "ear to ear*th"
• Outside projects and extensive reading are recommended for nurturing a greater understanding

Does this sound like what you've been looking for? 

You can register by sending a letter of intent (as outlined above) and $100. non-refundable deposit via snail mail to: 
EagleSong Gardener  
PO Box 837
Monroe, WA 98272

In the dooryard garden...

Details:
Weekend Workings 

Tuition includes:

• 18-21 days instruction (140 hours) 
• 18-20 local food lunches, 8 bring and share dinners 
• Simple overnight accommodation 
• Dancing the Spiral: Herbal Ally Notebook ~ Your Personal Materia Medica
• Healing Wise Susun Weed's big green book for everybody
• Access to a 1,000 volume library
• Access to plants and simple tools for herbal medicine making, traditional food preparation and more...
• Direct experience with a web of life integrating greenhouse, gardens and small livestock
• Access to an established (27 yr) generative garden with hundreds of herbs, weeds, native and exotic plants, vegetables, fruits, berries, woodlot plants, hedges and edges...and a thriving community of birds, insects, mammals, reptiles, a flock of chickens, goats and various felines
• Access to a living labyrinth changing through time and space
• Field trips and rambles to local farms, parks and wild places
• Local artisans and craftspersons sharing their expertise as guest instructors
• And, perhaps, best of all, a kitchen table next to the hearth!

Dandelion blooms on their way to wine and infused oil...

Not included in tuition fee:

Required Books and Supplies: 

• Common Herbs for Natural Health by Juliette de Bairacli Levi, Gathering the Desert  by Gary Paul Nabhan
• Cost of supplies for medicine making i.e. alcohol, vinegar, honey, jars, etc.
• Dried Herbs for personal use (approximately 1 lb. per month)
• Cost of supplies for occasional handmade craft projects
• Additional fees run approximately $200.00

Are you ready to take the 13th Step? 

Are you willing to expand beyond comfortable limits as you perceive them? 

Does this sound like what you've been looking for?

Are you ready to liberate your inner herbalist? 

If the answer is yes to these questions...

Take action now by:

Sending your letter of intent (as outlined above) and a $100. non-refundable deposit via snail mail to: 

EagleSong E. Gardener  

PO Box 837

Monroe, WA 98272
Questions: 360-794-2938 
Email: eaglesong08@gmail.com
Best time to catch me...Sunday or Monday evening between 7pm and 9:30pm or Tuesday 10am-4:30pm Thank-you for your consideration...

Tuition Payment Options:

• Cash, check or credit card payment available. Total cost $1999. pay in full or in 3 payments. Inquire for details...
• February 2, 2019: Apprentice tuition must be paid in full or have a payment agreement in place and 1st payment paid

WE/B Stewardship Practicum

Participate in our hands-on crofting practicum whilst reducing your tuition. Requires a commitment of 9 ~ 6-hour days of crofting contribution between March and October. Participation is a commitment of reciprocity. Past apprentices have frequently celebrated the vitality and added depth the crofting practicum brought to their learning experience. Fridays from 10:00am - 3:30pm are W/EB stewardship days.

Interested? Email eaglesong08@gmail.com: with WE/B in subject line

Stewardship Work

• Be on time to participate in Talking Circle at 10 am.
• Be prepared to work at indoor or outdoor activities on any day.
• You will need: Lunch, work gloves, rubber boots and hand clippers every work day.

2019 HGU Apprentice Meeting Dates: TBA 

Course content is determined by garden allies in residence and guided with wise woman ways...The following is a general outline of the territory we'll be passing through...each weekend workshop with EagleSong includes a Talking Stick ceremony, an herb walk, local food lunch and all instruction. Participants bring a dish for the evening Bring and Shares in the outdoor kitchen. Guest presenters may join in. 

First weekend: March: HGU Apprenticeship begins. Grounding. Crafting the container. Igniting the central fire. Provisioning for the journey. Hands-On The Art and Craft of Simpling, Nettle, Willow, Hedges and Edges. In the garden: divide to multiply.

Second weekend: April: Garden Camp...Healing From the Ground Up...Generative Garden design, healing gardens, nutrient cycling, mulch, seeds, cuttings and so much more...dirt rocks! 3 days
Third weekend: May: Approaching summer SnoValley Plant Ramble, Hands-On: salads, hawthorn flower & leaf, roses, surprise green allies
Fourth weekend: June: Approaching Zenith, settling in, herbal leyes, hitting stride

Fifth weekend: July: Herbal Medicine Makers Camp, Hands-On Herbal Medicine Making for everyone. Water, vinegar and alcohol extraction; infused oils, salves and liniments; Honeys, electuaries, gob-stoppers...what? 3 days

Sixth weekend: August: Food Camp, Hands-On local ~ global food traditions. What is nourishment? Fermentation, microbes, bubble and spark! Plus the Gut and brain connection. Yup...Culture rises from earth. You can do it! 3 days

Seventh weekend: September: Hands-On Harvest, Hearts and How They Work Circulation, movement, Apples, Haw Berries, Happiness, etc...

Eighth weekend: October: Hands-On Roots and Seeds with Elecampane, Comfrey, Dandelion, bone broth. More rockin' dirt time here! An in-depth visit to joints, ligaments and the sinews that hold you together.

Ninth weekend: November: Seeds, story, feasting, family, approaching darkness
Apprentice Celebration: graduation, presentations, optional earth witch initiation (ask) spiraling into the center...

Remember...This is a rigorous, demanding course. 

Consider deeply your willingness and ability to commit to adventurous endeavor in unexplored territory!