Announcing a Free 60 Page Long Edition of

The Traditions In Western Herbalism Newsletter

To Get Yours, Just Sign Up By May 27th

This mega-long issue of the newsletter features:

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•Katja Swift reviewing last year’s TWH conference, and contributing an article packed with important tips for parents planning to bring children

•An exclusive interview with Big Daddy D, blues rock frontman for TWHC’s blues-rock band

• United Plant Savers and TWHC by UpS Director Susan Leopold

•Virginia Adi Reviews The Medicine Bear, and a Plant Healer Sneak Peak

•Complimentary excerpt from the upcoming Plant Healer interview with AHG Vice President Bevin Clare

•Complete 2012 TWHC Class Descriptions, including Kid’s Classes

and

•Announcements & details on discounts, conference books, class notes and more

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You must be a subscriber as of no later than the 27th of May,

in order to receive this issue of the Newsletter mailing out on the 28th.

For a Free Subscription, simply fill in your email address in the box provided

(RePost and Forward Please)

Conference Book and Class Notes
Extensive PDF from last year’s
2011 Traditions In Western Herbalism Conference

Last month we surprisingly ran across a single box of the 178 page-long 2011 TWH Conference Books, complete with extensive class notes with detailed information on a wide variety of subjects.  Since the moment last copy was sold and sent out, we’ve been getting so many letters asking for them that we’ve decided to format a full color PDF version that you can now download

$18

After you pay, we’ll send you a link to download your copy of the pdf book.

.
Class Notes Included:

1. 7 Song: The Art of Formulation
2. Robin Rose Bennett: My Ally, The Elder
3. Robin Rose Bennett: Women’s Self Care For Sexual and Reproductive Health
4. Paul Bergner: How To Become A Master Herbalist In 30 Years Or More
5. Paul Bergner: Herbs For The Spiritual Heart
6. Juliet Blankespoor: Growing At Risk Medicinal Plants
7. Juliet Blankespoor: Phytoestrogens Demystified
8. Howie Brounstein and Kristi Reese: Understanding and Treating Adrenalin Stress
9. Kristine Brown: How To Teach Kids To Use Herbs
10. Larken Bunce: The 5 Phases
11. Bevin Clare: Intake, Interview & Assessment
12. Rosalee de la Foret: Detecting False Heat
13. Sean Donahue: Plants For The Underworld Journey
14. Sean Donahue: Herbs For Asthma
15. Ryan Drum: Rural Pathology, Rural Herbs
16. Ryan Drum: Seaweed Solutions
17. Margi Flint: Living With Cancer
18. Lisa Ganora: Traditional Cannabis Medicines
19. Lisa Ganora: Herbal Constituents
20. Charles “Doc” Garcis: California Curanderismo
21. Charles “Doc” Garcia: Guerrilla Herbalism
22. Jesse Wolf Hardin: The Wild Herbalist
23. Kiva Rose Hardin: The Medicine Woman’s Roots
24. Phyllis Hogan: The 4th Sister Was Wild
25. Kathleen Maier: Entheogens and The Dying Process
26. Jim McDonald: Humoural Treatments
27. Jim McDonald: Teaching Herbcraft
28. CoreyPine Shane: Getting Specific With Pain
29. Christa Sinadinos: Constitutional Treatment of The Digestive System
30. Katja Swift: Plantain For Kids

(please re-post and share)

Thank you much,

Kiva Rose

Kiva Rose by Jesse Wolf Hardin

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Traditions In Western Herbalism Conference
2012 Class Descriptions!

New descriptions of our 2012 TWHC Classes posted here on the conference website.

We ask our many awesome teachers to go out of their way to provide you with unique, seldom or never-before presented classes that are “unscripted, deeper and more extensive, more personal, challenging, powerful and applicable” than ever before… and they came through with flying colors! I appreciate you reposting and forwarding.

For more information or to register, click on the:
Traditions In Western Herbalism Website

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7SONG

Plant Walk
On this walk we will look at the diversity of local plants and discuss their botanical details, clinical uses, ways to prepare and use them as medicine, current and historical uses and the occasional story. This will be a time to appreciate and learn about the local flora from an herbalist’s and naturalist’s perspective.

The Herbalist Street Medic
Street medicine generally refers to the various forms of medicine offered at protests and demonstrations, generally by people ‘on the ground’ rather than in hospitals and offices. In these ‘street’ situations, herbalists can offer a valuable service. This includes helping with conditions  ranging from being in a constant stressful situation( i.e., anxiety and insomnia), as well as injuries, gastrointestinal disturbances, and exacerbations of pre-existing conditions.

Patient Compliance and other Clinical Skills.
This is a clinical class on the herbalist’s consultation with a focus on helping patient compliance with taking the uncommon, odd, and often quite un-tasty medicinal preparations that we dispense. We will discuss affordability, accessibility, labeling, instructions, and devices that may help with compliance. We will also focus on other valuable clinical skills such as intake, body language, and non-herbal recommendations.

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PAUL BERGNER

How to Sit With a Plant
In the grasping utilitarian model of herbalism, we want to know what the plants are “good for.” In a vitalist model we want to know the plant on its own terms just for the sake of love and connectedness. Uses or powers of the plant may be revealed, and will be for most, but for the herbalist, what is learned by not using a plant may be more valuable than any medicinal use. Love and connectedness themselves may be more important to the healer than one more item for the materia medica. We will practice methods of clearing and stilling the grasping self, of perception in the “middle world,” and attunement to a plant on every level.

How to Sit With a Patient
Awareness skills for the herbalist. Awareness skills in a clinical setting go both ways; we are being present and aware of the patient, and also aware of ourselves and our own process. We will discuss and practice both sets of skills, including patient factors such as posture, clothing, complexion, vital tone, energy level, voice quality, and methods for identifying and processing our own reactions to the clinical experience.

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DARCEY BLUE

Trees of the Southwest: Tree Walk, Folklore, and Clinical Uses
In this interactive tree walk we will visit, experience with our five senses (taste, smell, touch, sight, and sound), and discuss the clinical applications, folklore and medicine of species of trees growing in southwestern North America. In addition to experiencing the tree medicines through our senses, the walk includes discussion of proper harvesting/wildcrafting technique for trees in sensitive environments, appropriate preparations for each tree and plant part, and specific clinical indications and applications for each tree. We will also discuss the folkloric knowledge of these trees and stories associated with these teachers to deepen our understanding of trees as wisdom keepers and allies beyond the medicinal applications.

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HOWIE BROUNSTEIN

Herbal Neurology: Seizure Disorders
Many herbalist shy away from working with this often frightening and debilitating problem. We will discuss both acute anti-seizure formulas and long term tonic protocols for overall reduction of seizure frequency and drug side effects. Herbal protocols, lifestyle changes, supplements, identifying triggers, and working safely with neurologists will be richly illustrated using case studies from my clinic.

Safety and Drop Dosage Botanicals (with Kristi Reese)
Drop dosage or low dosage botanicals are becoming popular with many herbalists these days. Although these medicinals can be extremely effective, the difference between poison and medicine is dosage. This class is about safely harvesting, processing, storing, and dispensing these herbs. This class is not about the specific uses of these herbs.

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A raven cruises over Mormon Lake, our new TWHC site.

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LARKEN BUNCE

Understanding Herb-Drug Interactions: Drugs in Herbal Territory, Not the Other Way Around
As practitioners, we are constantly assuaging the fears of clients and physicians regarding the potential for the herbs we recommend to interact with the drugs people are prescribed. The assumption is that if there is any impact on the activity of a drug, then the herb should be discontinued. The plants are considered the interlopers; herbalists and herbs are the problem. I’ll explain the different types of interactions that can occur; how we can and cannot predict those interactions; and how we can take advantage of these interactions to benefit clients. We’ll explore the CYP450 enzyme family responsible for metabolizing both medicinal plant constituents and drug molecules to understand why they’re often central to this conversation. Finally, we’ll look at resources for researching potential interactions between particular drugs and herbs and how to assess the actual clinical significance of the information. My goal is for people to leave feeling they can engage more confidently in conversations with clients, physicians and anyone who’ll listen about the challenges and benefits of herb-drug interactions. Ultimately, we can best support expanded use of herbal medicine in our over-medicated society when we can critically assess and address this overblown, yet still relevant, concern.

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BEVIN CLARE

Teaching the Teacher: Training the Herbal Clinician
Cultivating the herbal practitioner goes far beyond supplying students with the necessary information to practice. The role of a practitioner is vast:  as a catalyst for change within the client, as the integrator of a variety of clinical, medical, sensory and human information in order to nudge health states, as a partner in finding wellness and balance within the ecosystem and community, and as an expert in the use of medicinal plants and foods. Learn about a model for training clinical herbalists and the components of the training and their individual use and significance. The class will be designed for both the student looking to seek the an education as a clinician, and the teacher looking to better teach their students.

Making a (Financial) Living as an Herbalist (While Being True to Yourself and the Plants)
Learn about how one can make a living as an herbalist while staying true to the values which guide them. Our trade as herbalists is a valid one with tremendous personal and global rewards, yet it can be difficult to navigate the mainstream, financial system and make ends meet at times. Find out about ways herbalists are thriving in this modern world and specific suggestions for ways you can follow your path and cultivate financial stability, all in a good way.

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SEAN DONAHUE

Healing Through the Veil: Entheogens and Trauma
Psychedelic or entheogenic plants and drugs are powerful tools for opening gateways to other realities.  Used wisely, they can be powerful tools for insight and conscious transformation.Used recklessly, they can open someone to deeply traumatic experiences.    Sean shares his own experiences and perspectives on herbal first aid for people having frightening and overwhelming psychedelic experiences, finding and addressing the existing wounds these experiences reveal, and the potential of entheogenic plants to both educe and heal emotional trauma.

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DOUG ELLIOTT

Ginseng, Golden Apples, Wise Women, Old Farts,, and the Rainbow Fish
Traditional herbal practitioners and Appalachian mountaineers offer unique perspectives on healing traditions, gender issues, roots and herbs, and wild apples, as well as insights into sustainable harvesting of ginseng and other medicinal plants, mycorrhizal fungal associations, tickling trout, etc. Elliott recounts one particularly noteworthy visit with Ray Hicks, an extraordinary elderly mountain wildcrafter, who tells traditional stories from “across the waters” about Jack, the archetypical naïve, but resourceful, Euro-Appalachian trickster figure. “Then after listening all morning to his plant lore and ancient tales, I stop along the way home to collect wild apples, herbs, and mushrooms; I find myself living out the kind of mythic adventure that I had just heard in Ray’s stories.” This gives insight into how every day, especially when we set out hunting for herbs, we are indeed on a quest –like they say in the ancient tales–“seeking our fortunes. ”
Poetry by William Butler Yeats and Ovid’s tales of Diana, Aphrodite, and Atalanta bring home revelations about the mythic qualities in all our lives.

Sense of Place Trail Hike
This is an opportunity to stretch out and roam along one of the most interesting trails in the area.  We’ll be checking out the herbs, for sure, but it will be faster-paced than the average herb walk. We’ll be taking in the bigger picture as well, the mountains, the forest, birds, and mammals–their tracks and signs.

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ROSALEE DE LA FORÊT

Starting a Community Supported Herbal Clinic, From the Ground Up
In the past year Rosalee has worked within her small rural community to set up an herbal clinic open to all people in need of care. In this class she will share her own challenges and successes and explore a broader range of topics to help those on their own journey of setting up a free or sliding scale herbal clinic in their own communities. Discussion will revolve around; How do we provide care sustainably? Do herbalists deserve to be paid for giving health care? Challenges of getting funded. Setting up a herbal apothecary. Benefits of bioregional herbs. Forming a community around herbalism. Working within special populations. Organization and record keeping. Business structures pros and cons. Scope of practice and referrals. Visions of a new health care model.

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LISA GANORA

Wolf Chemistry: How to Smell and Taste Herbal Constituents
As herbalists we learn to develop our senses of smell and taste to understand and judge the identity, potency, and quality of living plants, dried herbs, and herbal preparations. This way of understanding the messages and information carried by scent and flavor molecules in plants is a skill that all animals possess, as we easily see when we observe the focus and attention of a ground-sniffing companion animal on their daily rounds or at the food bowl. Science calls it “organoleptics” … using the senses to detect and evaluate the presence, concentration, and quality of constituents in foods and herbs. In many cases, we can train our senses to be just as helpful – or even more so – than expensive analytical equipment. Our wild relatives, including Wolf and Bear, are honored as traditional experts in organoleptics – understanding the food, medicine, or poison of a plant through deep sensory perception and instinct developed by constant practice and the necessity of life in the wild. Join us in this active journey where we will re-connect with these ancient skills to reawaken and train our senses for better understanding the constituents and quality of our healing herbs. Learn how to use the Scratch, Snort, Savor, and Spit method of phytochemical analysis with sample herbs and living plants from our conference environment.

Beyond Tinctures & Oils: Extracting Herbs with Honey
In Western herbalism, we commonly use alcohol (tinctures, fluid extracts), water (infusions, decoctions), and vegetable oils (oils, salves) to extract the healing constituents from herbs. While these are all excellent ways to concentrate and preserve herbal medicines, there is another traditional fluid that we often overlook – honey. A 10,000-year-old cave painting in Spain depicts women collecting honey; in Hindu tradition, honey is considered to be one of the five elixirs of immortality; in Islamic tradition, alcohol is general forbidden and village herbalists often use honey as a substitute solvent, and for its revered healing powers. The use of honey is also described in old Chinese texts. Honey is a very unique solvent with virtually magical powers to extract and preserve constituents from many of our favorite plants. The sugars in honey, along with numerous antioxidant compounds, have remarkable preservative abilities. Liquid honey, still perfumed with the aroma of essential oils, has been found in Egyptian tombs more than 3,000 years old. Honey collects numerous constituents from herbs and will take on the rich colors of various pigments, such as with Elderberry Honey. Learn how to make a traditional honey extraction and how to use herbal honey as a topical healer for burns and wounds; as an ingredient in elixirs and syrups; or for fermenting medicinal meads. Find out how to substitute herbal honeys for alcohol or glycerin tinctures. See how the constituents from a water extract can be coaxed into honey for preservation. We’ll also talk about the special ingredients of honey and see what we can learn from the many scientific studies that are being published lately about Manuka honey. Honey, the golden gift, is far more powerful than we might expect when we think of it as ‘just another sweetener.’  Class will include demonstrations.

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CHARLES GARCIA

Chronic Pain: A Hispanic Perspective
The use of native and Hispanic herbs are a given in this topic. But not so widely known are the use of colors, fragrance, hygiene, food and light in Hispanic pain control. These are not New Age theories. Rather they are the observations of a healer and a chronic pain sufferer whose family has used these techniques for over a century. This is not a topic for those who romanticize suffering to any degree. Chronic and severe pain is debilitating and must be eliminated or controlled for anyone wishing to live a productive life.

Death & Dying: Coping for the Herbalist/Caregiver
Not every herbalist sees or treats terminally ill clients. Some do. A few of us get more than our fair share of dying clients, friends, and family. A sense of professional may help for a time. But what happens when you’ve experience too much loss, professionally or personally? Do you turn to religion, philosophy, herbs, friendships, drink, drugs, sex? Perhaps in your life as a healer you must become a caregiver to a family member or a close friend? Do you treat them differently? Do you offer different options? Expect to hear ideas for coping, failures at coping, questions on ethics, questions of spirituality, rituals, and how we perceive death. Audience interaction is expected.

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LINDA GARCIA

Disaster Preparedness

Ice storms to hurricanes, earthquakes to flu pandemics. Every region of the country has it’s unique natural environment that sometimes becomes very inhospitable to the humans who choose to live there.  In this workshop, learn and discuss the various ways you can prepare for you and your family to survive whatever Mama Nature decides to throw at you.  Learn the order of survival necessities (food is at the very bottom of the list) and discuss ways to improvise what you don’t have–from shelter to water filtration to herbal first aid kits.

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CASCADE ANDERSON GELLER

Musculoskeletal Health with Wild Plants and Other Natural Remedies – (Advanced class)
In my practice, problematic conditions affecting the musculoskeletal system are all too common.  Inflammation due to injury, overuse, improper use, malnourishment, heredity, and other issues causes great suffering and impairment.  This class will focus on evaluating through the lens of the practicing herbalist, including the broad and highly specific views, that may aid healing or management of conditions as well as complementing other treatments such as physical therapy, manipulation, massage, energy, or allopathic.   The natural remedies and techniques to be discussed have been effective for conditions such as: fractures, sprains, strains, bruising, arthritic and other degenerative disorders, chronic pain, etc.  Emphasis will also be placed on prevention.  Herbal information will focus on a mix of native and non-native plants growing in many types of terrain:  Alnus, Althea, Arnica, Asarum, Encelia, Gaultheria, Hypericum, Larrea, Populus, Rumex, Salix, Sassafras, Symphytum, Taraxacum, Urtica, Valeriana and others.  Class discussion and demonstrations will include topics such as cold versus hot applications, useful first aid techniques, topical and oral formulations, case management strategies, etc.

Giving Voice:  Creating Social and Political Change with Special Emphasis on Topics of Interest to Herbalists
Cascade will share her experiences as an organizer around political issues relating to food, water , land, and especially herbs and herbalism.  The touchstone piece relating to herbs and herbalists pivots on regulation and standardization of aspects such as education, practice, and products.  This class will shed light on different camps of current thinking and action that affects herbalists, especially in regards to those involved with existing trade groups and associations.  Notable issues will include:  how herbalism in the U.S. is moving closer to harmonizing with global trade law and policy, animal research and it’s relationship to herbalism, and other topics.  The discussion may help participants understand why issues become divisive but how that energy can be redirected toward healing.  The class will help lay a foundation of understanding about how to get the voices of people and organizations heard even when not empowered by wealth or position.  Running a successful campaign takes thoughtful organizing and information but there are things that anyone can do.  This session will feature some tried and true methods to effect change using existing laws and institutions.  Participants can learn concrete ways to:  shed light when there is little, know what questions to ask and how to ask them, decide what to ask for, know how to initiate a public process and how to make good use of it, decide how to evaluate an organization, be engaged in decision-making of organizations, effectively serve on boards or committees, make a public records request, read between the lines, engage the press and other media.  Most of the amenities and rights we enjoy in the United States, and other countries, including public parks, schools, libraries, roads, bridges, voting rights, labor laws, municipally controlled drinking water, waste water treatment, land use and pollution regulations, etc., etc., exists only due to effective organizers in the present and past.  This class is dedicated to them.

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KIVA ROSE & JESSE WOLF HARDIN

Coming Home: Bioregional Herbalism & Sense of Place
Healing begins at home, growing from the same rich soils we spring from. The lives of these plant medicines are inextricably intertwined with ours: blooming uninvited outside the front door and at the wild edges of asphalt parking lots, growing from the terra cotta pots on our kitchen windowsills and rooting in well-tended community gardens. The allure of exotic herbs from far away countries has blinded some of us to the sources of healing closest to home, often hardy and plentiful plants in energetic relationship with the land that houses, feeds, affects and influences us.  Traditional healers of many cultures have long told stories of being intuitively drawn to the very species that can help us most, often growing in close proximity without our having realized its potential.  And once we have identified and built a relationship with our fellow locals/natives, we will come to understand the plants’ needs as well as our own, recognize when their kind is doing well and when they are being overharvested or otherwise suffering decline.  Bioregionalism is deep familiarity – and reciprocal relationship – with the watersheds and ecosystems where we choose to live, the wondrous “weeds” that coinhabit our cities and the rural and wildlands that surround them. In this class, we will describe the benefits of a biorgegional herbal focus on our lives and the ways that it increases the effectiveness of our herbal practices.  We’ll provide tools for exploring and deepening sense of place, the essential sense of belonging that literally grounds us and our work in the real, living, present world.  Be prepared to further awaken not only your senses, but a mythopoetic quest as well… to be as extensions of the land and conscious agents of its mission of healing and wholeness.

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PHYLLIS HOGAN

The San Francisco Peaks: Sacred Mountain of the West
For countless centuries the Navajo and Hopi people have respectfully gathered healing plants on the San Francisco Peaks (S.F.P.) in northern Arizona. This tradition is an indispensable part of their elaborate and intriguing healing systems. Navajo and Hopi regard the importance of where you gather plants as significant as what you gather, and the ritual of collecting includes making offerings and recognizing value in all living things. Of the over 800 vascular plant species documented for S.F.P. area, 237 species have medicinal or ceremonial significance. In my presentation I will share with you the five most utilized medicinal species found in the Ponderosa Pine vegetation zone. I will also take a look at the rare and endemic species growing at the Alpine Tundra vegetation zone and ceremonial species living in the Spruce –Fir and Mixed Conifer vegetation zones. We will also consider the differences between how and in what ways different cultures view and use nature.

A Peek Inside My Medicine Bag.
Betony (Pediclaurs parryi) Yerba Manzo (Anemopsis californica) Hamula (Brickelia spp.) Elephant-tree (Bursera microphylla) Desert Lavender (Hyptis emoryi)
Having lived my whole life in Arizona, I have had the opportunity to become close and personal with many herbs from the Sonoran desert to the riparian wetlands and up into the high lands of the mountains. Each environment has many offerings and blessings in a variety of medicine plants that speak to us nestled in and among the ancestral landscape. Some of my favorite medicine plants range from the delicate fernlike betony (Pediclaurs parryi) that hides in among the pine needle duff up in the Ponderosa pine forests of the mountains to the sculpted trunk of the aromatic elephant tree (Bursera microphylla) in the Sonoran desert. Or, the scrubby bushes of the bitter hamula (Brickellia spp.) that grows on the mesas and in the dry canyons to the thick green leaved riparian yerba mansa (Anemopsis californica). Another shrub that sings to my heart is the drought resistant desert lavender (Hyptis emoryi) whose sweet scent calls us in the spring enticing us to come and partake of the beauty as it offers up it’s medicine to us. These plants speak a language to humans by sharing their gifts to heal our imbalances and bring us once again back to harmony with ourselves and with the earth. Join me in as I open my medicine bag and share with you some of the important plants that have assisted me on my life path.

Sacred Plant Walk
Phyllis Hogan has spent her life plant-walking Arizona from the Sonoran Desert to the San Francisco Peaks.  She has worked with all of the native tribes of this area and has a vast knowledge of the ethnobotany and traditions tied to this sacred land.  Her walk focusing on the plants growing around Mormon Lake is sure to be not only an educational experience but also a sacred journey back to ancestral time.

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Phyllis Light, Jim McDonald & Rosemary Gladstar

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PHYLLIS LIGHT

Folk Herbalism and Science
Folk herbal traditions rely on observation and experience based on tradition. In addition, traditional knowledge may have secret methods of communicating information such as truths that are revealed by God, land-spirits, or intuition. Tradition links present practices with past ones. Science is concerned solely with truths that are revealed by man through measurement. It is based on observation, theory, predictions and experimentation. We’ll also discuss such questions as: How old does a tradition have to be to be a tradition? What is the nature of statistical evidence? Who funds herbal scientific studies? What about that isolated phytochemical constituent anyway?  Join Phyllis for an exploration of where folk herbal traditions and medical science intersect and how you can use both in your practice.

The Four Elements: Constitutions
In Southern Folk Medicine, constitutions are based on four elements and four tastes. This class will explore the four elements, fire, earth, air, and water, and the characteristics and personalities associated with each. Are you an airhead? How much fire is fueling your drives? Can you hold your water? Is earth holding you down? Understanding constitutions offers a very practical and traditional avenue of  assessment for the practitioner. And besides, it’s also really fun to find out more about yourself.

The Taste of Herbs
Come taste, savor and guess the name of the herbs. This class will explore a proving of three different simple decoctions based on their taste. Together we’ll discover what that taste has to say about the medicinal properties of the plant and how the plant can be used. This is a hands-on, or rather, tongue-on, experiential class. You’ll be surprised how much information a simple taste can reveal.

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KATHLEEN MAIER

Descriptions will be posted soon….

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JIM MCDONALD

Energetics and Aphrodisiacs
“Aphrodisiac” is a highly problematic term, predominantly because of the popular but mistaken belief that they can stoke interest in those who aren’t.  In addition to considering what “aphrodisiacs” ~don’t~ do, we’ll explore the things they can.  Looking at lists of plants deemed “aphrodisiacs”, we see everything from strong, druglike herbs (yohimbe) to culinary spices (ginger) to adaptogens (ashwangandha) and antispasmodics (kava).  What gives?  Well, just like all other aspects of herbcraft, one person’s turn on can put another person out… in other words, energetics apply here as well.  We’ll look at what indications make certain herbs appropriate to certain people, and give you some ideas to ponder with your partner(s).

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TANIA NEUBAUER

Tales from the Frontlines: Herbal Case Studies in Primary Care in a Nicaraguan Public Hospital
The innovative nonprofit Natural Doctors International operates a naturopathic medical clinic in collaboration with the public health system of Nicaragua. For 15 months, I attended every conceivable malady in collaboration with Nicaraguan doctors and nurses in an extremely successful and popular program that continues to this day. Because the clinic is on an island, with very limited access to high-tech interventions, I was able to use herbs, nutrition and bodywork to treat cases that might be considered emergency room referrals in the US. We will review cases that illustrate important warning signs in primary care that the herbalists may confront. We will discuss the keys to the clinic’s success. We will also learn about Central American herbalism and conceptions of health and disease.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Successful Models for Community Health Clinics in Natural Medicine
Many have dreamed of starting community clinics using natural medicine. What are the elements that allow such a clinic to be sustainable over the long term? We will review a number of successful models both in North America and internationally. Conferences are often a lost opportunity, where like-minded people of diverse bioregions are all in the same room, perhaps for the only time they ever will be. There will be space for participants to discuss clinics, organizations, and models they have been a part of, and why they have or have not worked, so that all will be able to exchange with each other.

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KRISTI REESE

Herbs for the Massage Practice
This class will introduce the massage therapist or body worker to the art of incorporating of herbs in their practice. We will thoroughly discuss a variety of herbs used externally as herbal oils, and internally as teas and extracts. The class will include such herbal therapies as muscle relaxants, analgesics, anti-inflammatories, tranquilizers, demulcents, and emollients. We will cover the herbal treatments for common complaints occurring in your practice such as muscles strains, sprains, tendinitis, whiplash, nerve traumas, pain, muscular and nervous headaches, general musculo-skeletal injuries, and more.

Safety and Drop Dosage Botanicals (with Howie Brounstein)
Drop dosage or low dosage botanicals are becoming popular with many herbalists these days. Although these medicinals can be extremely effective, the difference between poison and medicine is dosage. This class is about safely harvesting, processing, storing, and dispensing these herbs. This class is not about the specific uses of these herbs.

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The pond at Mormon Lake lodge

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AVIVA ROMM

Ecology and Activism in Women’s Health and the Role of Botanicals
“By comparing the earth to a woman: opulent and attractive but, in equal measures, temperamental and violent, the male scientific community justified its will for domination over them.”
“Nature to be raped, nature to be discovered, nature to be organized, nature to be controlled and nature to be exploited: these were the great ambitions of Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes, the    fathers of modern science.”   Carolyn Merchant. The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution.
There is no coincidence that the top money making surgical procedures in the US are obstetric and gynecologic. Women (and our uteruses and ovaries!) have, for centuries, been subject to     propaganda and campaigns. Anti-nature and anti-woman attitudes are intimately connected. The healing of the environment and the healing of women’s health can be connected by a    reclamation of women’s healing arts and a rejection of unnecessary medical treatments aimed at women. this class will approach women’s herbal medicine as a radical, activist, and eco-feminist act. We will focus on botanical methods of treatment for key women’s health concerns including uterine fibroids, endometriosis, PMS, depression, and menopause, for which women are medically mistreated.

Roots Midwifery: Radical Pregnancy, Birthing, and Postpartum Botanical Care
Amnesty International has declared birth in the United States an infringement of human rights! The cesarean section is now between 30 and 40% and still escalating. natural birthing women are an endangered species. supporting natural birth is therefore a radical act. herbal medicines and an approach that respects nature and innate physiology are essential tools for the birth activist, helping women to move through pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum in health and without unnecessary and often dangerous medical intervention. this class will introduce you to innate pregnancy and birth,  and will provide you with a midwife’s basket of practical and herbal tools to preserve and protect natural human birth.

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CHRISTA SINADINOS

Detailed description to be posted soon….

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KATJA SWIFT

Treating Chronic Illness
For a cold or the flu, you can send your client off with your favorite remedies and your job is done. But when you have a client with a chronic illness, your work is more complicated. The constitution of the client becomes a more important part of your herb choice, and the herbs are only part of the story. Chronic illness demands changes in diet and lifestyle, even in the way the client moves through their day. This class will focus on creating a whole protocol for clients with chronic illness, with specific information about how to choose the herbs, how to succeed with dietary recommendations, and how to get your client moving/exercising in appropriate ways for their level of health.

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NICOLE TELKES

Weedcrafting: Redefining Wildcrafting for The Next Generation of Wild Foragers
Many people studying herbalism are drawn to the “roamance” and allure of wandering into wildlands and gathering medicinal plants to make their very special and unique medicinal preparations.  The reality is that the wild cannot sustain all of us, even herbalists without some serious altering of our habits as wildcrafters.  Many of us have the dream of having a bit of land to roam, and a small herb farm, or the like.  The reality again is that most of us are financially tied to surviving in cities and that there is not enough land for everyone to have their 30 acres.  How do we make peace as herbalists with the draw to be in the wild and connect with our wild plants, and be sustainable and conscious in our practices of collecting.  How do we really know if our impact is helpful or harmful?  As many of us relearn our wild plant medicines, and teach others how to find them and connect with nature, we become stewards and must also protect wild plants.  Weedcrafting is a redefinition of WIldcrafting.  Weedcrafting is the harvesting of plant material from wild and waste spaces that helps support the native ecosystem and promotes diversity.  Weedcrafting a type of wild gardening that looks at the ecology of a place as well as the species of interest and takes into account that the earth cannot sustain unconscious foraging in our wildlands. Weedcrafting is about not only tuning into the wild in yourself, but also looking past our cities at the wildness and weediness making medicinal offerings to us in the most unlikely of places

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MATTHEW WOOD

Greek Medicine for the Modern Herbalist

The Greek system of medicine and herbalism is locked up ancient concepts but it is actually a very insightful system that can help us to understand the properties of herbs today.  Many of our ‘herbal actions’ are the tail end of Greek concepts.  The basic energetics are hot and cold, damp and dry but these are not measurements of temperature and humidity.  They are categories of action: hot remedies are opening, thinning, warming (from the center outward), and burning, while damp remedies are lubricating, nourishing or thickening, softening or emollient, and laxative.  The sixteen categories of action tell us how hot, cold, damp, and dry work to regulate the organism and how herbs and food heal the imbalances.  They deepen our us of the tissue state model of energetics.  The Greek system also includes foods so that cooking was a part of medicine.

Specificity in Herbal Medicine

Folk medicine is based largely on direct experience (instead of theory), specific indications (symptoms and conditions obvious to the senses instead of complex diagnostic categories made by machines), and (usually) the doctrine of signatures.  Dr. John M. Scudder (1829-93) took the first two of these elements and fashioned them into a system of medicine which offers the most exact possible usage and knowledge of herbal properties.  Many of his specific indications came directly from the Indian people or the pioneers who learned from them.  Thus, Specific Medicine (as he called the system) preserved many basic remedies and the indications upon which they were used by the common and indigenous people.  This system supplements and makes more exact the tissue state model of energetics and other methods used by the physiomedicalists.

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BENJAMIN ZAPPIN

Oh, to Touch, Taste, and Feel

….and think really hard about comparative approaches to application of botanically related plants.

The aim of this class is to provide participants with a methodology for uniting their senses with information about plants from Chinese Medicine regarding flavor and nature, contemporary understandings of native plants, and botanical systematics in order to deepen our understanding of our local Materia medica. Case examples will probe the Apiaceae and Gentianaceae, genus’ Paeonia and Pedicularis and more. The class will include plant samples to touch, taste, observe, and smell!

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The TWHC site is a short drive south of the Grand Canyon

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CHILDREN’S AND YOUTH’S CLASSES:

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7SONG

A Children’s Plant Walk
This will be a time for kids to meet and have fun with the local plants.

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KRISTINE BROWN

Herbal Sprouts: An Herbalism Class For Kids! (1.5 hrs)
This class offers a special edition of Herbal Roots zine created just for the kids attending the Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference 2012. This class will start with an herb walk to find the plant we are studying, explore the varieties located in the area, examine the growth habit of the varieties that we find. We will then go back to our area and learn all about the herb’s uses in a magical session woven with stories, songs, games, activities, crafts and recipes. By the end of the class, kids will be able to identify the herb, name some uses, have some medicine made that they can take home and use and have a craft plus be familiar with the song to sing to their parents. Ages 5 and up welcome.

Journaling and the Art of Herbalism for Teens (2-3 hours)
This class will show you how to create your own herbal journal to record your journey with herbs. We’ll talk about why it’s important to keep notes of your herbal experiences, how to sketch plants and more basics of journaling. Bring a blank journal with you (the Canson Multi-Media Paper Pad 7 x 10″/60 sheets is a great size) to decorate and begin your journaling journey. By the end of class your cover should be decorated to reflect your personal style and and an entry or two will be begin to fill your pages. A limited number of journals will be available for purchase but to assure you have a journal, please try to bring your own. Ages 13 and up welcome.

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LINDA GARCIA

First Aid for Kids

A basic first aid workshop for 6-10 year olds.  Everyone gets hurt: fingers get cut or burned, ankles get twisted, knees get scraped and toes get stubbed.  This workshop is intended to empower the children to take care of their own minor injuries.  They’ll learn how to stop the bleeding, clean, and bandage a wound so it doesn’t get infected; how to splint an arm that might be broken and wrap an ankle that might be sprained ; what to do with a burn; and, importantly, when it’s time to take the ouches to more definite care.

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KATJA SWIFT

Bones and Muscles for Kids

What are growing pains? What happens to your body when you wear high-heeled shoes? How can you best develop your muscles for sports? Why should you sit up straight, and what’s straight anyway? How can you speed recovery from a broken bone or a twisted ankle? This class will cover everything you need to know to have strong muscles and bones – from herbs that will help you grow strong and tall to simple exercises that will protect you from back pain when you get old like your parents. Be ready to learn, move, and play games!

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JANE VALENCIA

Wild Child Learning: An Herbal Class for Kids

(Inspired by the children’s herbal fantasy book by Monica Furlong)

How many of us have wished we could be like Wise Child, mentored by the herbalist and wisewoman healer, Juniper, in the arts that lead one to become a “doran” — one who senses the pattern at the heart of all things, and who is dedicated to loving and protecting it?  In this class we’ll adventure in a Wise Child “curriculum”, in which our immersive experience of the herbs includes poem-making, music, storytelling, secret languages (the language of plants as well as secrets hidden in scientific names), musing on  the nature of healing, nature awareness games, and even math (by way of nature’s patterns) and astronomy!
Come prepared for surprises and fun!

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GINGER WEBB

Plant Families for Young People
Using commonly known fruits, vegetables, herbs, grains, nuts and seeds, we will explore the world of plant families. For any new student of herbalism, these botanical categories create an entryway into the patterns inherent in the plant kingdom, helping awaken the intuition and experiential understanding of plant energetics. We will touch on lots of different plant families, and spend extra time exploring the Rose Family, the Mint Family, and the Mallow Family.

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Thanks again for reposting!  -Kiva

Kiva with a few of our teachers and friends at 2011 TWHC

Now Seeking
Outreach, Advertising & Media Helpers

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for Plant Healer Magazine
& Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference

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http://TraditionsInWesternHerbalism.org

http://www.PlantHealerMagazine.com.org

We’ve been very blessed to have the assistance of our existing volunteers, but there is so much to even this one aspect of our work, that they’ve requested we seek additional helpers.  Benefits include a commission on all moneys that you generate, being considered first for any future paid or other Staff positions as we develop them, and whatever satisfaction you’d get from being an important and integral part of the efforts that keep TWHC, Plant Healer, and our message of empowered folk herbalism alive and spreading!

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Qualifications

Marketing, Promotion and Media expertise would be great, but certainly not essential.  Far more important is:

• a) an ability to efficiently search out the kinds of enterprises best to approach
• b) being adept at shooting out template emails quickly
• c) a willingness and ability to cheerily make follow up phone calls, until reaching someone who can make decisions and give a definitive answer
• d) familiarity with and enthusiasm for herbalism and the projects you’ll be representing
• e) an ability to follow through on any commitment, so that it doesn’t fall on others late in the game
• f) having regular access to a phone (ideally with unlimited calling privileges) and internet

Conference and Magazine Outreach involves researching, emailing and follow-up calls to herbal related ventures of all kinds.  In every case you would be inviting them to participate and benefit in any of 3 ways:

Sponsoring,Vending or Practicing at the conference, and Advertising in Plant Healer Magazine

Media Outreach & Liaison involves researching, emailing and sometimes calling Magazine and Newspaper editors, Radio interview programs and so forth, offering our articles, asking them to write articles about us or interview us… to help spread word of this event and community.

Materials Provided include action plans and outlines, templates and applications to make things easiest.

If you’d be excited to do a share of this work, and believe you have the ability, some time and focus, please write us for an application at:

<JWH@TraditionsInWesternHerbalism.org>

Thank you, and thank you for posting, forwarding and facebooking this message.

-Kiva Rose and Jesse Wolf Hardin

2012 Traditions In Western Herbalism Conference
New Dates & Location

Search & Criteria

It seemed we would never find the “right” place, and yet we just couldn’t give up!  Weeks we spent on our site search in 2010, to no avail.  And weeks again since we got home from the 2011 conference, filled with long days that stretched late into our river canyon nights.  Like plant minded and rewilded Goldilockses, we kept coming upon places that were too small or too large, too hippie-dippy New Age or else fancy-pants conservative, too urban or too remote, too short on facilities or way too damn many buildings.  Sedona was too prissy, the Chiracahua Mountains too hot and sparse.  Some too high of elevation, others too dry.  Some possible venues would clearly be too noisy and distracting, others like Oak Creek wouldn’t let us have live music over a certain decibel.  The way cool town of Telluride kept bringing their prices down until we actually could have afforded it there, but the your flights to Montrose would have made it cost prohibitive for many of you. The attractive Shambhala Center, too, proved to be almost affordable for us, but they wanted a guarantee that 80% of our attendees would rent pricey lodging from them… when, in fact, close to 50% of those attracted to this decidedly folk herbalism conference need free or inexpensive camping, often being either impoverished students, poorly paid community practitioners or free clinic volunteers who struggle to get enough money together to come.

And folk herbalists are nature lovers, even if you happen to live and work in a city, so any celebration of plants and practice would surely have to be in a natural location, not in a hotel with potted ferns being the only green.  Indeed, it would have to be within walking distance of nature trails or national forest swelling with plant life, and also have 5 or more classrooms clustered close to one another.  Sufficient tables and chairs would be needed, and this time there would have to be food tons better than the pitiful Ghost Ranch fare.  As kind as the responses were that we were getting from various entities, nothing seemed to meet all our needs.  And as much as anything, we were distressed to think about hosting TWHC anywhere besides the wild and magical Southwest.  Unfortunately, there just wasn’t anything.  Our teachers have long needed to know where and when, so they can schedule their year of classes and appearances.  Others are pleading to know, because their jobs require they put in for vacation time a year in advance.  The stress of indecision and numerous dead ends begins to effect our sleep and health, and for Kiva’s sake, if not my own, I reluctantly ask that she stop the incessant googling and help me pick from among the best of the known alternatives.

But that Kiva, she just wouldn’t give up.  And at last, an ideal place came into sight!  A 2 day trip with the rest of the family to see it, and it’s settled.  only a couple hundred miles over the hill from our Anima School and Sanctuary, the incredibly beautiful…

Our New Site: Coconino, Arizona

Our new site nests amidst the vast Coconino conifer forest, with absolutely incredible local plant diversity and forested mountains reflected in the surface of what’s called Mormon Lake, an alternately spreading and retracting marsh we found fairly ablaze with wildflower color.

A short walk away, the leaves of white barked Aspen clap like tiny castanets in what tastes like the freshest of breezes, and not too many miles distant are protected wilderness areas, Oak Creek’s natural rock-slide, dramatic volcanic formations, lush meadows inhabited by countless grazing elk, and hiking trails leading both higher or lower to the adjacent desert and alpine ecosystems.

And yet for all that, our site in the Coconino is still only a 3 hour drive from the Phoenix airport, the very cheapest of our regional airports to fly into, and serviced by shuttles!  Only 12 hours from Denver, for those choosing to drive from there.  And just 30 minutes south of the old fashioned town of Flagstaff.

It includes  every building we need for classes, without feeling either too Hyatt Regency or too bingo hall.  Clean and comfortable log cabins, with lower prices that nearly everyone can afford!  Both inexpensive camping with electrical outlets, and totally free camping sites!  A giant outdoor festival tent that we’ll use as a group dining area in the day, and as a dance hall when its time for our 2 exciting evening concerts.  And voluminous Town Hall built in the 1920’s, that will hold our Registration area and Healer’s Market tables, with a section of benches or couches for folks to use as a meeting and greeting area.

Believe it or not, unlike our last conference location, this new base for TWHC has a fully stocked country store right there, selling supplies and even fair-trade coffee.  It’s handicapped accessible.  Pets are allowed in its campgrounds and RV sites.  In addition, there are canoe rentals there, active land restoration projects, roaming buffalo, pony rides and even a petting zoo for the kids!

Kiva and Loba took Rhiannon with them on this search trip and she got to have her very first ever horse ride.

As if that’s not enough, on your way there you’ll go right past the world class Arboretum that we’re considering arranging a field trip to, abundant with examples of native and medicinal plant species.

All this, mind you, at prices that help keep TWHC – the signature folk herbalism event – potentially affordable to the majority of our diverse folk community.

The gentle lapping of the lake whispers, but in an enchanting voice we can’t help but hear.

A Natural Wonder

The Coconino is a 1.856-million acre (7,511 km2) national forest located in northern Arizona in the vicinity of Flagstaff. Originally established in 1898 as the “San Francisco Mountains National Forest Reserve”, the Coconino features diverse landscapes including deserts, pine forests, flatlands, mesas, alpine tundra and ancient volcanic fields and peaks. The forest contains all or parts of 10 designated Wilderness Areas. Its elevation ranges from 2,600’ (800 m) in the southern part of the forest near the Verde River, to 12,633’ (3,851 m) at the summit of Humphreys Peak, the highest point in the state of Arizona. Much of the forest is a high altitude plateau located in the midst of the largest contiguous ponderosa pine forest in North America. The southern border of this plateau is the volcanically created Mogollon Rim, a nearly 400 mile (640 km) long escarpment running across central Arizona to the Anima Sanctuary in New Mexico, and also marks the southern boundary of what’s known as the Colorado Plateau.

The Coconino encompasses the largest portion of a great volcanic field, and in places is dotted with tree-covered cinder cones, lava flows, and underground lava tubes such as Lava River Cave. The Flagstaff District surrounds two national monuments, Walnut Canyon National Monument and Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument the latter of which preserves the youngest cinder cone in the San Francisco Volcanic Field, Sunset Crater. Located in the southern portion of the Flagstaff District is Mormon Lake at 7,000’ elevation, the new site for the Traditions In Western Herbalism Conference.

Mormon Lake itself is a shallow, intermittent lake with an average depth of only 10 ft (3.0 m), the surface area of the lake is extremely volatile and fluctuates seasonally. When full, the lake has a surface area of about 12 square miles (31 million square meters), making it the largest natural lake in Arizona.  The name of the lake commemorates Mormon settlers who arrived here in the 1870s and founded several dairy farms in the area, before eventually picking up stakes and moving on. (With thanks to Wikipedia)

Old West Heritage

You can almost hear the soundtrack as you step closer to the Mormon Lake Lodge and its scattering of old log and clapboard buildings tucked against the trees, perhaps a minor chord instrumental with sparse but powerful guitar lines, a whistling of wind punctuated by a horse’s whinny or the distant crack of a wagon master’s whip a’la Rawhide, in what could be a psychedelic spaghetti western composition by the tweaked Spindrift or Ry Cooder.

Here you find authentic Wild West flavor, oddly tinged with evident ecological emphasis and an earthy tone befitting the working class more than the world traveler.  Antique fishing rods and frontiersman’s accouterments decorate walls branded by the very cowboys who built it, and once fiercely alive creatures stand mounted and stuffed with reflections of a transformed land in their glass eyes.  These animals, like so much of the main Lodge decor, are a legacy of man who loved these mountains, the writer who most helped establish the Western novel as what was then a new literary genre: Zane Grey, 1875-1935.

In his 60+ books, he presented the West as a moral battle ground featuring game changing choices, with characters facing great personal and regional changes.  A bundle of contradictions like the West itself, Grey was not only the killer of the inglorious mounts but also a proponent of animal and habitat conservation.  His outlawish heroes not only bucked convention, but the notion of civilization itself.  From his 1918 novel  The Roaring U.P. Trail, 1918:

“Slingerland hated the railroad, and he could not see as any of the engineers or builders did.  This old trapper had the vision of the Indian – that far-seeing eye cleared by distance and silence, and the force of the great, lonely hills. Progress was great, but nature unspoiled was greater.  If a race could not breed all stronger men, through its great movements, it might better not breed any, for the bad over-multiplied the good, and so their needs magnified into greed.  Slingerland saw many shining bands of steel across the plains and mountains, many stations and hamlets and cities, a growing and marvelous prosperity from timber, mines, farms, and in the distant end – a gutted West.”

To champion and perpetuate that West and its wild nature, was Grey’s personal as well as literary aim.  And the owners of the Lodge at Mormon Lake – Grey’s all time favorite hangout – make an effort to honor that legacy with ongoing conservation efforts.

An Ecological Ethos

Ecological work at the Lodge property include environmental education programs and hikes, and a regular community effort to clean up around the lake and improve Osprey habitat.  The parent company of Mormon Lake Lodge, Forever Resorts, runs Forever Earth which sends donations to environmental groups, engages in community partnership, land restoration projects, environmental education, and proactive initiatives to make their various operations more compatible with the local ecologies.  They’ve won literally hundreds of environmental stewardship awards across the country, as well as being a member of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) National Environmental Performance Track Program, the Green Hotel and Green Restaurant Associations and on and on.

It’s interesting to note that the Coconino, back when it was called the San Francisco Forest Preserve, was the first posting for the forester who would later become known as the father of the modern land ethic, Aldo Leopold.

Coconino Plant Diversity

Examples you might encounter include Wild Rose, Redroot, Ponderosa Pine, Aspen, Dandelion, Mallow, Goldenrod, Evening Primrose, Geranium, Plantain, Usnea, Yarrow, Wild Buckwheat, Iris, Blackberry, Douglas Fir, Arnica, Yellow Dock, False Solomon’s Seal, Wild Oats, Butterflyweed/Pleurisy Root, Gumweed, Wild Tarragon, Sagebrush, Seepwillow, and Yerba del Lobo/Owl’s Claws to name a few!

TWHC guests are encouraged to hike one of the many picturesque trails such as the Lyle/Mormon Lakes Trail, a 3.3 mile rise from 10,700’ to a full 12,000’winding through multiple kinds of habitat, esteemed by botanists and plant lovers far and wide.

300 of even the most sensitive herbalists could have a major impact on local populations of sensitive plants, so we ask that you do little or no harvesting in the region of the event.

Before coming, check out the annotated list of Northern Arizona Vascular Plants.

2012 TWHC Dates!: September 13th-16th

…are the dates for the next Traditions In Western Herbalism Conference, late enough to beat the heat and avoid overlapping other events, early enough to still boast a plethora or blossoming plants, after when the monsoons have usually stopped and prior to the usual first frost.

Spread The Word

Early-Sprout Discount Registration will open December 1st.  Posters will shortly be available free for distribution and hanging in your schools and stores, and it is hugely helpful when you forward the announcements, blog about the conference and tell encourage your friends.

The Tribe’s Alive!

(Please do re-post, forward and share this announcement)

Traditions In Western Herbalism Conference Redux
The Story of the 2011 Festival for Folk Herbalists

“What an exciting conference. The TWHC is the new wave of herbalism in North America, featuring speakers and a community rich with a combination of long hands-on experience and fresh creativity.”
-Paul Bergner

“The most amazing conference ever!” -Juliet Blankespoor

Ghost Ranch Cliffs - TWHC 2011 - by Dan'l

“The best weekend ever!” -Rebecca Altman

Wow! is the word that most comes to mind… wow!, to feel so much truly incredible energy, purpose and joy among the folks teaching at and attending the second annual Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference. And that we were even able to pull it off in our situation, with our devoted little crew. Wow!, the diversity and knowledge of the people who came, from ever further afield, and the amazing classes and greatly stretching presenters we’re so very fortunate to have. The spirit of these ancient, living, Western lands with its crimson striped rock formations and hardy blooms of desert medicine. The infusion of art, and the incredible ratcheting up of music. Wow!, to witness old connections rekindled, new alliances made, and those wonder-full kids joining in the learning as much as in the culture, the movement, the dance…

Wolf Jamming with Rising Appalachia & Lunar Fire

“I am filled with gratitude and awe in the wake of TWHC. You have created an alchemical vessel that concentrates and brings forth all that is most magical and powerful in our community, our movement, our medicine, our selves. I’m proud to have been a part of it all…. The only large gathering I can ever remember leaving feeling more energized and alive than when I arrived.”
- Sean Donahue, TWHC Teacher

We’ve come home filled with the potent images and expressed gratitude of so many, lending weight to what has often felt like a series of acts of magic, or of deeply earthen miracles. It seemed improbable and thus miraculous, that folks were willing to travel hours from the nearest airport, in times of financial difficulty, some taking off of work or school, saving their money all year long, and otherwise doing whatever it takes to get here. Miraculous, that we were even able to hold the conference at Ghost Ranch again, when we had exceeded their attendance limits the very first year, and then swelled that number by an additional 50 people this September. Our second time of hosting at this stunning site, the Ranch directors required that we contract all their lodging rooms and put up a 50% deposit, something that was only possible because we hadn’t been taking cash draws for our previous year of working on the 2010 event! Almost unbelievable, the quality and commitment of our teachers, and the movement they join us in helping create. Miraculous, this dance may seem, but not without daily effort and attention for over 13 months prior. Folks are right that things flowed incredibly smoothly this time, but not without a behind the scenes bustling of adaptation, remedy and repair… efforts that would be too extreme and stressful if not for the fact that we do this to help heal and better the world rather than simply to earn dollar and cents.

“Even better than last year, and I didn’t think it was possible!”, exclaimed more than one registrant, leaving us feeling not relieved and affirmed but warmed and emboldened. And from those attending TWHC for the first time: “It’s everything I heard it was, and more!”

“TWHC was phenomenal! Thanks for the tremendous amount of work that went into this. I had a blast! Many thanks for a fabulous conference. Now I understand why people were raving about it.” - Lisa Ganora

Trail Boss, Phyllis Hogan, Denise Tracy, Lisa Ganora - Photo by JWH

There was already a sense of TWHC alumni, alliance and rapport that naturally builds each year that folks come back. For whatever reason, this event has proven to result in a high number of deep reconnections, as esteemed teacher and artist Mimi Kamp pointed out. Herbalists that don’t normally run into each other in their normal course of studying, practicing and teaching, have felt blessed to have time with old friends and to plan new, shared projects. And alongside and within these confluences, flowed a wild stream of new faces, marked by a certain eagerness, reflecting the fact of their commitment to the learning, the healing, the life.

TWHC Teachers Doug Elliott & Ryan Drum

As to be expected, a 3 hour drive from the airport meant being lifted into the world of old New Mexico, past the art and spirit mecca of well appointed Santa Fe, through the mundanity of low-rent Española, up the twisty turns next to the plunging Rio Chama river and into a surreal looking landscape of buttes and spires, marking the premises of Abiquiu and then the Ghost Ranch proper. For most of us arriving, it was also transport through time, not forwards to the event’s substance and climax, but backwards into the folds of historic precedence, into prehistory and myth, and sideways perhaps into a mode that is beyond and oblivious of the cadence of linear time. Perhaps it is a miracle, as well, that any of us were able to make it to the start of classes before they had started. Or if not a miracle, than a simple four day return to the kind of alternate and sensate way of being where conjunctions are natural, meetings organic, and the steps of our destinies synched in uncounted rhythms.

Chama River by TWHC Site - photo by Andrea Denault

The silver waves of much needed precipitation added to the mystical effect, seen blowing in from a great distant, stroking the cliffs closer and closer until wildly blowing through to a clarion of thunder. The shifting light caught everyone’s attention, as first one prominent formation and then another had its moments in the sun’s warm spotlight. Festivities kicked off a day earlier than in 2010, with Quetzal and Tina of Tina and Her Pony playing tighter sets than ever. Tina took a turn on the cello during Quetzal’s great new songs including “I’m So Lonely” which we can’t wait to get a recording of. And classes got right off to a great start on Friday morn, even dear Phyllis Hogan’s plant walk that tempted a large group to follow her on a mission through mud and rain. One class after another through Sunday, each with a teacher seeming to exceed their own usual best, being more personal, detailed and adventurous. Time and again we heard folks praising the classes they’d just left, even when it was a teacher they had seen present before.

Chloe of Rising Appalachia - photo by Dan'l

Leah and Chloe of the group Rising Appalachia flew direct from a collaborative art and music event on the side of a volcano overseas, in order to arrive an hour before their return set. Their afro-appalachian performance captured and propelled the Friday night audience as we knew it would. We love them, and their devotion to new culture and plant medicine as well as to music.

Chloe, Jaden & Leah - TWHC 2011 - Photo by Terilyn

The one request we got over and over last year, was for dance music to get everyone moving after the long days of sitting down in classes. True to our promise, we upped the tempo on Saturday night with a band that hardly no one at the conference knew, but one that folk will probably never forget. Lunar Fire Tribal is a revolving cooperative of musicians, ritualists and fire dancers, weaving not only a sonic wave but a tapestry of connection, of earth, healing and love. Part shamanic, part hip hop, and all nuevo-tribal… Lunar Fire blew us all away.

Teresita, Rodo, Lisa, & Gilly of Lunar Fire Tribal, with Wolf & Kiva

Robin Rose Bennett called for presence at the start of our Sunday closing, creating the feel of sacred space without the usual gathering circle. What followed was pure inspiration from one of the very first allies and instigators of TWHC, our like hearted teacher and Plant Healer columnist Paul Bergner, invoking an ancient sense of calling for the days and lifetimes ahead.

Definitely “not your mother’s herbal conference.”

TWHC 2011 Closing - photo by Andrea Denault

The unconventional folk feel of TWHC results in what our excellent teacher Bevin Clare declared “a different cross-section” of attendees. Over and over again, we heard from folks who said they weren’t “conference types” or “never go to conferences”, and we’d wager that as many as 20% of those who came this year would fall into that category. These are people serious about herbal medicine, but bored or uncomfortable with what they perceive as “normal” events. They’re grateful to be accepted and not talked down to, regardless of their lack of certification or personal eccentricities, their inexperience or “kitchen herbal” approach, their youth or street cred. And they say they are excited to be in mixed company with all manner of herbal enthusiast, from heart centered clinical herbalists and nurses to free clinic activists and far thinking herbal remedy alchemists.

Chelsea, 7Song & Scott - Photo by Juliet Blankespoor

This cultural diversity included Hispanics, African Americans, and Native Americans, and also Tewa herbalists and midwives brought to the conference on scholarships paid for by cultural activist Michelle and her mother. And even more than the year before, we welcomed practitioners and students from outside the U.S., from French Quebec to New Zealand. A guest, Chris, came from the Caribbean to learn, and was asked to consider writing about traditional Carib herbalism for our magazine.

Jesse Wolf & Christa Sinadinos - Photo by Dan'l

Diversity includes gender, and while most herbal events either mostly involve women or are for women only, TWHC 2012 achieved a closer to even mix of both sexes… something that several people including our friend Jim McDonald noted and appreciated and noted. And we’ve achieved greater age diversity as well. Often you will see mostly middle aged folks attending, with only a few elders and almost no young. This year we made a special effort to bring the young to this gathering, not just for them but because of what they each bring. Walking about the land you could see numerous “twenty-somethings”, some in black, some powerfully tattooed, with a passion for this field and resistance to stasis that’s not otherwise often seen. And the little ones were all about, form the preteens down to toddlers that we encouraged with special ticket discounts and 3 different classes designed just for kids. Everyone was impressed with how focused and eager to learn these plant-minded, nature loving young’ns were, and with the energy that they injected into the evenings’ celebrations.

Howie Brounstein, Christa Sinadinos, Kristi Reese

We now know one other event that strives for similar inclusion of culture and skills, activism and ecology, classes and party, so we are not entirely unique in this way. What most distinguishes TWHC, perhaps, is all these elements in combination with a high rate of experienced and practicing herbalists and herbal clinicians. Friend and awesome teacher 7Song asked those in his audience to raise their hand if they were currently practicing 7Song was surprised and pleased to find that…

…over 50% of those attending class were in one way or another active practitioners.

This means that over half of the folks identifying themselves in some way with the folk herbalism resurgence are doers, actively making use of what they know for the betterment of others whether as clinical herbalists or village practitioners. For all the fun and music, the Traditions In Western Herbalism Conference remains defined in part by the seriousness and intense commitment of a tribe intensely focused medical herbalism and new herbalist culture.

Mimi Kamp teaches at TWHC 2011 - photo by Dan'l

For all the beauty, education, camaraderie and celebration, it the sense of what the 2011 event has inspired that has us most excited and fulfilled, the work that will be done because of what was learned here, the steps that will be taken by students of medicinal plants towards their own make-it-real practice

Kiva Rose - photo by Juliet Blankespoor

“I came to this year’s conference thinking it would be my last year, as I am moving to Ohio soon. I left realizing that I must always find a way to come back. I intentionally did not pour over the schedule in advance of registration. I didn’t plan my experience, and yet everything I needed to coalesce the filaments of my longings, dreams, and desires into a cohesive goal was offered, and received. Grassroots, edgy, and exactly what I needed to satiate my thirsty soul. This Conference, this movement, they are like gravity. The law of attraction is vividly at work here, answering the spoken and unspoken pleas of grassroots healers. The conference end was a bittersweet event. I am one of many who found themselves moved to tears multiple times during this conference. I am so very grateful to have time to spend in community, with others who hear a similar call, and speak similar languages. Plant people, with dirt under their nails, stars in their hair, and roots growing out of their sacrums.”
-Heather

Chama River near TWHC site - photo by Andrea Denault

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Gratitude:
Thank You Teachers, Sponsors, Volunteers & All Who Came

It’s getting harder to acknowledge everyone fully who has a part in this entity called TWHC, especially at the conference where the growing list of loving helpers is so long it starts sounding like chant or litany. And it simply takes too much time to not only name but adequately acknowledge our 29 awesome teachers. Next year we are likely to make the closing just as powerful, but tighter and shorter, asking volunteers, sponsors and teacher to stand for appreciation but not naming any but our very largest sponsors. What we will do, is name them all repeatedly as we have done and more, in the conference book, blog, and this TWHC Newsletter. We’ve heard great things about this year’s classes, and we will always be grateful by the unique and powerful contributions of 7Song, Robin Rose Bennett, Paul Bergner, Juliet Blankespoor, Howie Brounstein, Kristine Brown, Larken Bunce, Todd Caldecott, Bevin Clare, Sean Donahue, Ryan Drum, Margi Flint, Rosalee de la Foret, Lisa Ganora, Charles Garcia, Linda Garcia, Phyllis Hogan, Mimi Kamp, Susan Leopold, Kathleen Maier, Jim McDonald, Kristi Reese, Corey Pine Shane, Christa Sinadinos, Katja Swift and Denise Tracy. You were awesome, stretched boundaries, touched the people.

Resolute, Amazing TWHC Site Manager

Some may have thought it odd that volunteers got so much mention at the closing, but we were so blown away by the amount of essential work done by folks asking little or nothing in return. Resolute, Trail Boss and Dan’l were key to keeping it all together. Without Avonda and everyone that assisted Resolute, we couldn’t possibly have handled the set up and registration. Asa and Dan’l jumping on filming at the last moment, is the only reason we have video to hopefully get to share with you. And how can we not thank sweet Bruce and incredible Claudia, for bringing Blue Skies Espresso & Smoothies, and their dear spirits, to a parched and quality hungry herbalist crowd.

And our Sponsors are so very, very appreciated! Without them, their alliance and support, we would either have to run a much pared down event, or else charge much more for the tickets. The affordability of the tickets and the survival and success of TWHC are this year thanks to Mountain Rose Herbs, LearningHerbs.com, Herbal Roots Zine, Herbs Etc., HerbPharm, Humboldt Herbals, Organic Unity, Tai Sophia, The School of Traditional Western Herbalism, Sylvan Institute of Botanical Medicine, Super Salve Co., Traditional Medicinals, Vermont Center For Integrative Herbalism, Winter Sun Trading Co., Alchemical Solutions, Essential Herbal Magazine, Frontier Herbs and the North American Institute of Medical Herbalism. And our dear Nick M., lovingly providing TWH with essential solar powered satellite internet service all year long.

Thank you Tina & Quetzal, Rising Appalachia and Lunar Fire Tribal, you stirred our souls, touched our hearts, and rocked our socks off.

And thank you everyone who came. As I said in the closing, we are all students. You are all teachers. There is power in our doing this together.

-Jesse Wolf Hardin

Wonder Kristin, with Veggies traded for her TWHC ticket

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TWHC 2012 Dates To Be Announced Soon

As quickly as we choose the next conference site, we will be contracting for certain dates. It is looking more likely that TWHC will be held mid to late August, but we will give you dates really soon so that you can begin to plan for next year.

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(please post and forward)

THE WILD HERBALIST
Steps Towards a More Empowered, Intensely Effective & Satisfying Life & Practice

Class Notes by Jesse Wolf Hardin
All Photos ©2011 Kiva Rose

From the notes for The Wild Herbalist class being taught by Jesse Wolf at the upcoming TWH Conference
Saturday, Sept 17th – 2:50-4:50
To Register: www.TraditionsInWesternHerbalism.org

Envision a nature-informed, liberatory herbalism as wild and powerful, intimate and diverse, intuitive and sensorial, fresh and effective as the wild plants themselves… and as life changing as those particular plant allies that personally inspired most of us of to get into this study and practice in the first place.

“She always knew herself as wild.  As a little girl she smiled at things not one else seemed to see, and hid beneath the dining room table watching the adult’s feet move about like rabbits on an acrylic-pile meadow.  “Sometimes I wonder where you come from,” her Mother would say, holding her up with a combination of awe, fear and envy— but of course she came from here:  the Earth she could feel spinning about, with her its ever-delighted passenger!  She sensed that home was somehow the giving ground beneath the movements of her little girl dance, in lawns and parks and the strips between the sidewalk and  the street, and somewhere beyond all that she could see with her eyes alone,  in a place more “out” than anywhere else:  the dreamscape of her fairy tales, where wild things like her ran free” -JWH

The world is truly a wild  place.  Even now, enshrouded in a crust of asphalt and concrete, more and more of the largest predators driven from its face, its forests leveled for development.  The world is a wild place still, true to the process and essence of its own intrinsic, inherent nature— rhythmic patterns of impermanence and change mounting waves of their own fertile heat.  The birth and death of her varied parts are the flex and pause of Earthen heart muscle pumping new life through the arterial causeway of time.  The Earth is a wild, out of control, whole!  The ancient Greek named this wholeness “Gaia,” the daughter that emerges from chaos.  To the indigenous pagans of northern Europe, the living Earth was known as Nerthus, and when the image of the Goddess Earth was drawn being a sacred chariot joy and peace would follow.  By any name, this world is wild: willed, directed and empowered by its own inner nature rather than some outside force or idea.  And we too are wild originally.  We are, truly, deeply willed.  And willful.  For safety, certainty and comfort we may try to deny our wildness, sacrificing our will as we seek shelter in the tame.  Yet in spite of all the artifice and constraint we remain instinctual, dreaming beings who suffer in direct proportion to the suppression of our instincts and dreams.  We’re mirrors made of dancing flesh, interterrestrial sensors, activated nerve endings extending from the Gaian ganglion into the ever shifting universe of experience.  At our best we’re wild reflections of this greater whole, acting out our being, our gesture, our souls fee of the regulation and desensitization of the modernist paradigm.  At best we are true, willful and driven agents of healing – helping with the aid of our plant allies to heal our selves, each other, our community and our earth.  It is the real work, the great work, the work of being and doing, striving and celebrating.  It is at once the mission, and the reward.  Herbalists awakened!  Herbalists empowered!  Herbalists unplugged.  Unbowed.  Untamed.  Unleashed, and unchained!

Redefining “Wild”:
• How does society predominantly define the term “wild,” and why?
• How do YOU define the quality or condition of “wild”?
• Wild is being true to our own natures and needs, bodies and passions, callings and dreams
• Wild means willed

Wild (adj.) 1.  Occurring, growing, or living in a natural state; not domesticated, cultivated or tamed.  2. A natural, unrestrained life or state; Nature.

Wildness can be well described as a condition of oneness with our bodies, desires, needs, sensations, instincts, and dreams.  Wildness is oneness with the wild Earth, free of abstraction — where even turbulence manifests itself in purposeful patterns more akin to art than artifice.  The fear of sexuality, of mortality, of our natures and the natural world —  even the fear of illness and death is a fear of life.  The cure is in the reclamation of our wildness, a high-dive into the potent flux of natural forces, and the response-ability to act.

Think about the following, and the ways that these qualities, ways of perceiving and acting can be applied to your life and to your herbal practice

Qualities of wild:
• Alert and aware, deeply discerning
• Intense
• Embodying, growing and drawing from the essence, characteristics and capacities our true wild natures
• Drawing insight and nourishment from nature
• Adaptive but unmoldable
• Disciplined, but uncontrolled
• Sensitive to the state of health of others, sensitive to their emotions
• Acting out of instinct, rather to suit convention
• Making choices based on intuition as much as information
• Naturally assuming responsibility, but rejecting obligation
• Self empowered, and proactive
• Acting on behalf of some larger “self”, whether family, community or the natural world
• Doing what feels right, in the face of possible, known or predictable consequences
• Neither without doubt nor fearless, but resolute and determined in the face of threat and uncertainty
• Able to hear when called by some purpose, dream or mission, and apt to give it one’s all

Wild Perception:
• Wholly or largely inhabiting the present moment
• Wholly inhabiting one’s body
• Exceptional and ever deepening self awareness
• Deepened awareness of other people and lifeforms, and of what they’re experiencing
• Perceiving all things as relational and interconnected
• Able to see thing in patterns, and sense sequence, leading to often accurate prediction
• Heightened physical senses, attending to smells, tastes, sensations… reveling in the senses
• Well exercised intuitive or “6th” senses
• Sensing who and what people really are, beneath their practiced guises and projections
• Sensing what and how people are feeling, even when it’s counter to what they tell you or how they act
• Recognizing imbalances, perceiving possible adjustments, supplements or treatments
• Sensing how every act is consequential, every moment decisive

Reclaiming Our Wildness

Defining Feral:
Feral and Fabulous – The process of coming back to our true natures

ReWilding Our Daily Lives
• ReWilding Our Beings
• Paying attention to our needs and feelings, and faithfully and consciously acting on them
• Increasingly eating locally grown, native, acclimatized, natural and wild foods
• Exercising our bodies in varied and impromptu ways
• Exercising our minds in ever new ways
• Exerting and exercising our 5 senses, in unpleasant as well as pleasant environs
• Healing, exploring and deepening or natural sexuality
• Listening to our bodies (intuition and discernible biofeedback) to understand our primary needs
• Paying attention to our bodily responses when assessing the people and things around us
• Savoring and celebrating!
• ReWilding Our Days
• Wild education
• Studying everything of interest, regardless of chances of contributing to income
• Study how all interests and information connect to and can feed each other
• Pay for intense education when you can, trade for it or beg for it when necessary
• Relentless question everything and everybody, while never assuming you know it all
• Treating all of life as a lesson to learn from
• Treating all lessons as something to apply and benefit from
• Meeting our responsibilities and demonstrating good timing, without being slaves to schedules
• Putting adventure ahead of comfort
• Consciously apprenticing to the natural world
• Close, physical, intimate contact with the natural world
• Bouts of extreme physical and mental exertion, with intent
• Periods of utter rest, observation and the receiving of gifts
• Acting from two essential places: passion, and compassion
• Seeking or heeding a calling, one’s personal most meaningful purpose
• Breaking even our most favored habits, doing the unexpected and unplanned
• Dressing and decorating to express our true character and sensibilities, singing our song
• Taking conscious risks such as moving to a new place, quitting a job to hang an herbalist’s shingle
• ReWilding Our Relationships
• ReWilding Relationship With The Land
• Noticing details and changes of the natural world at all times, even/especially in the city
• Accepting nature’s gifts of food, medicine, beauty, and feeling of being restored
• Understanding that all things in nature have intrinsic value apart from any use to humans
• Being open to new revelations from nature and plants, rather than only their traditional uses
• Giving back, through acknowledgment and celebration, protection and propagation
• Urban greening and guerilla gardening
• Identifying endangered or threatened species, protecting or spreading them
• Identify ecosystem imbalances (sometimes called “invasive” species) and remediate
• Land trusts and backyard preserves
• Defending habitat
• Organizing campaigns, obstructing construction, civil disobedience
• Regaining Sense of Place:
• Feeling at home – in a sense – wherever we are
• Searching for and finding that one place feeling more like home than anywhere else
• ReWilding and restoring the places where we live
• Adopting a grove, a park, a wilderness, or just a strip of rewilded road median
• Seeking the voice and message of inspirited places, without projecting on them
• Benefitting from and celebrating special places of power and healing
• Hot springs, artesian springs, mountain peaks, hallowed groves, sacred sites
• ReWilding Communication & Language
• Speaking when there is something relevant or meaningful to impart
• Speaking when there is inquiry to be made
• Bravely speaking our thoughts and convictions, feelings and needs
• Practicing silence, listening and contemplation between!
• Putting truth ahead of comfort, concurrence and acceptance
• Reclaiming the language, redefining the terms of the trade
• Authoring one’s own personal code of honor and practice
• Recognizing that people are stories with meaning and feeling, and honoring that
• Acknowledging the power of our own lived and felt story, and sharing it
• Fitting In and Shaking It Loose
• The natural desire to belong to something, can be lead to dangerous conformity
• Importance of natural diversity, and of diversity in our field of practice
• Daring to be different
• Facing familial and societal disapproval
• Stratifying and marginalizing: Bush hippies and kitchen herbalists
• A tight fit leaves little room for movement
• Being accepted by those doing harm is in part acceptance of the harm they do
• The price of “mainstream” acceptance can be mighty high
• Loss or sublimation of personal character, style, method and approach
• Imposed personal or product “standards”
• Our hiding or downplaying of effective but unapproved actions
• “The trouble with normal, is it only gets worse”
• Wild is naturally showing your true colors
• Shake loose from the restraints of convention
• Experiment, adapt, meld, and otherwise created the personalized forms for the gifts you share
• Break away from our own inner “controlling mothers”, controlling fears and restrictive conventions
• ReWilding Relationship With Power
• Power over people is unhealthy and ignoble
• Power itself is also a measurement of life force and effectiveness
• There’s no shame in being a powerful person, any more than in being weakened
• The body has the power to heal, but there are powerful ways to assist that
• Power is most effective when incisive rather than excessive
• If you are wholly in your power, people can overwhelm you but not overpower you
• We’re born with the power to help sculpt evolving reality
• If we do not focus, maximize and employ that given power, we cop-out and abdicate
• Self Authority & The Herbal Outlaw
• Self authorization, self certification, self approval, giving ourselves permission
• What we do is not because of external authorization, even if it happens to be legal
• If we subject ourselves to licensing, it is strategic and not submissive
• Redefining Responsibility
• Resonse-Ability, the ability and call to respond
• Our responsibility is the same whether we are certified/licensed or not
• To ourselves and our mission
• To our dependents, students and clients
• To the community we serve and community of providers we’re members of
• To the biosystem, the plants, the soil, the land, the earth in whole
• Our knowledge and abilities are the same, whether we’re certified/licensed or not
• There’s greater harm done by legitimate armies, legislators and developers than by  outlaws, more damage caused in the licensed medical system than all folk healing  combined
• We never know everything we can about any situation or illness, we can never be too careful, and yet we have a responsibility to try our best to help
• In a time of unjust laws and free-ranging predatory corporations,
• The Wild Herbalist Is…
• Awakened and aware, and increasingly so
• Sensitized
• Making effective use of the senses
• Always Compassionate
• Sometimes Empathic
• Sensory impressions from plants, tasting one’s own medicines
• Experience-Driven
• Driven by the evidence of experience, regardless of how many years of practice
• Tests all methods, uses and “facts” against personal experience
• Get plants when gathering,
• The earned wisdom of the wounded healer
• Open to Intuition
• Trusting experience and intuition above corporate funded scientific research
• Open to weighing in new information and scientific research
• Trusting research over assumption, convention and dogma
• Eclectic
• Tuned in to the energetics of the clients, plants and their actions
• Knows that’s one size doesn’t fit all… that plants can act differently on different people
• Likely asks for no help from authorities and agencies, and rejects all interference
• Often prefers wild herbs to cultivated, gathered to bought, personally collected over that which someone else picked, organically grown to chemically treated, and natural to genetically modified
• Practices Bioregional Herbalism
• Sees themselves as agent of the earth’s needs, expressions and changes, not as managers
• Sees illness as an ecosystem imbalance, not as invaders to be warred against
• Uses local, wild and prolific medicinal species whenever possible, over imported
• Acts assertively to protect species and habitat
• Underharvests impacted or threatened species of herbs, enthusiastically harvests domineering introduced species as an agent of balance
• Honors and taps traditions, without acting bound and limited by them
• Responds extemporaneously, according to who and what’s involved, when, and in what context
• Gives themselves permission to act to tend, heal and improve their own bodies, to assist the healing of others… regardless of legislation
• Following their calling no matter how much or little income is ever involved, regardless of general societal acceptance

We Are The Weeds
• The Cultivated and The Uncultivated

In every yard there are usually some denatured, pampered, not-nativized, often delicate plant species picked for the way the color of their flowers match the rest of the neighborhood, and then there are the uninvited, uncontrolled, undiscouraged and unrepentant weeds — in their true natures, their genetics unmanipulated except by evolution and chance, native and adapted to the environs, unpampered and most often hardy species that no amount of eradication or suppression can phase.
• The Tamed and Same
• The words tame and same do more than rhyme
• Uniformity and uniforms, planted in straight neat rows, contributing to controllability
• To tame is to denature, hybridize, sterilize, civilize, to render similar and predictable, to give somethings power away
• Plants and Plant People With Attitude
• Not necessarily what you’d call “bad attitude” but strength of opinion, style, gusto and verve
• The strongest plant medicines often come from plants that have had a difficult life
• People with the strongest values, feelings and fortitude often had hard experiences
• The power of weeds lies not in being immune to the poisons, but in avoiding, adapting and circumventing, never giving up!
• Exceeding assumed limitations, doing the seemingly impossible
• The Flying Penguin
• Satisfaction, Celebration and Exuberance
• Learning to encourage, attain or regain the sense of excitement, self-direction and satisfaction that is  the heart and core of the wild herbalist
• What we find most interesting, compelling and exciting is what we will learn most from, and use most effectively
• Satisfaction is quiet celebration, a feeling of fullness that comes with acting out of purpose
• Results matter… but crucial satisfaction requires not success so much as the certainty of giving our full out effort
• The lesson of Kokopelli: dance our dance, live our song
• The dandelion, the weed, the self-heal herb growing in our hearts, the urge to find the cracks, break through the concrete and whatever holds us down
• The author is invited to speak to kids about wolves, but is unlikely to ever be asked again

A complete Anima ReWilding Home Study Course for practitioners is under construction and should be ready this Winter sometime, watch the Home Study page of the Anima School Site: www.AnimaCenter.org.  For further reading on the topic of ReWilding, go to www.AnimaCenter.org/blog and search for ReWilding in the blog archives.  The Wild Herbalist class will be taught the afternoon of the 17th, and there is still time to register for the conference if you haven’t done so already: www.TraditionsInWesternHerbalism.org

(Post and forward please)

2010 Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference

a Resounding Success!

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

“The TWHC is the new nexus of a folk herbalism resurgence.”
-Paul Bergner, North American School of Herbalism

After 14 months of non-stop preparation, and 4 days of classes and celebration, the first annual TWH Conference can be considered a resounding success!  At a time when many conferences are contracting, an event staged 3.5 hours from the nearest airport managed to completely sell out.  Presenters and registrants joined in bringing not only energy and enthusiasm but also experience and knowledge as we learned, connected, networked and brainstormed together… establishing a root system for a growing TWH community, planting the necessary seeds for the re-propagation and reinvigoration of Western folk herbalism today.  We are currently enjoying the many written responses from those fortunate to attend, often describing the TWHC as a movement, revival, revolution or resurgence instead of simply a conference… and we are considering what if might mean to serve this larger process.

I am so glad to have been a part of this gathering. I appreciate being there for this new endeavor and watching old and new hands join forces… I hope that we can bring what we learn and share and teach to a wide range of people in need. Thank you Kiva, you are creating a legacy.
- 7Song, Northeast School of Botanical Medicine & Ithaca Free Clinic

We departed our beloved canyon on the 15th, and didn’t get home until the 19th, not easy when one is accustomed to a home with no vehicle noise, electrical appliance buzz, asphalt or freeway speeds.  It was all more challenging given the 16 hour work days leading up to the trip, our continuing responsibilities to the students and associates who need us, the course materials and new books in progress… and especially my broad range of intense and relentless liver-prodding emotions since what was a painful death in the family, how much I would miss Loba and Rhiannon, how terribly homesick I already felt in leaving the canyon’s forests and beings behind, and also the excitement and inspiration and calling that is surely the gift of such connection to people and place.  If I was to be able to communicate the depth of my hurt, caring, love and hope for the natural world, medicinal plants and herbalists at the impending conference, I knew even then that it would be due in part to the ways that the hurt and healing, needs and gifts of both our selves and the land are so wholly related and inseparably intertwined, their roots in common ground.

From the start there had been magic in the air, a crazy dream of stirring together the diverse traditions of Western folk herbalism and the most place-based, experience-based, insightful, stirring, innovative, groundbreaking, convention shaking teachers in the field… in the Western U.S. where most needed, in outlaw New Mexico the “Land of Enchantment”, and in striking natural environs where the power and beauty of the land would itself be a vital accomplice to the essential opening of both perception and heart.  We’d begun with no money and not even a credit card or rating, just Kiva with her herbal vision and wisdom, connections and charisma, along with myself and the amazingly tireless and organizational Resolute.  It was almost eerie, the way we had more requests from teachers than we had slots for, within 2 weeks from the time we first announced the 2010 event.  And it seemed nothing less than storybook perfect, to be joined early on by Rosalee de la Foret and enjoy the support of John Gallagher, resulting in our first financial contributions from Mountain Rose and LearningHerbs.com just at the point that it was needed to progress.

The “mojo” that our herbalist friend Jim McDonald speaks of, could be felt every step of the way, not the kind of magic that hands us great miracles without work but an energy that makes it possible for great efforts to prove maximumly effective.  The TWHC poster didn’t appear with the mumbling of a mantra, it required my many late night hours designing and creating an overall visage evoking the power of an event we felt called to create… but a different kind of poster mojo was evident from the moment it was released.  Folks wrote to say that they were caught by a glance of it, and that even if they weren’t herbalists or never wanted to go to conferences they suddenly felt drawn to this one.  Same with the thousands of emails, the plethora of illustrations I did, Kiva’s tons of hours on the website.  It was more physical than metaphysical, for Resolute to juggle accounting, proofing, presenter transportation and then event management, but to have such a person come into our life borders on the paranormal.

It was inexplicable, that we were able to make it all work without any previous experience in running large events, the only tips coming from having witnessed some of the problems organizers dealt with at the hundreds of conferences and festivals that I was brought to speak at over the decades.  And the word “magical” comes up when I think about Kiva as well, a wounded and private, particular and focused, distrustful of machines and uncomfortable in crowds, bashful and barefoot bear-medicine woman… suddenly opening up to a great weaving of webs, engendering online community, fostering reciprocity, promoting the works of others, tending not only FaceBook flashes but complex and time consuming human relationships, committing hours to emails that she might have liked to spend drawing faeries with bad attitudes instead.  How to explain the steady sales of tickets in the midst of a continuing economic recession, or even the fact that Kiva and I would opt to do such a crazy, improbable, and nearly impossible thing?  FlamencoWorldCompany donating their show, to make the conference a go?  Finding performers as soulful as Tina Collins and Quetzal Jordan as close as Taos, and at the last minute?  Or Rising Appalachia spending more on transpo than we paid them, blowing people away in a night of sparkle and heart, then committing to being the official TWHC house band for the coming years?  Featured Presenters like Paul Bergner, Phyllis Hogan and Phyllis Light donating part of their fees or costs to the conference, and every one of the regular Presenters in the first year donating their time and knowledge, happy just to be a contributing part of this seeded event and reemerging folk herbalism movement?  And how to explain, the building sense of the event before it happened, the giddiness of participants, or even the drive up the valley from Española and Abiquiu and into the orange, buff and crimson landscape surrounding the fabled Ghost Ranch conference center?

Much could be attributed to the astounding colors of the cliffs and spires where the road winds up and through the cuts, but even those who arrived after dark spoke of a tingly sensation that got stronger the closer they got to the event site.  Teachers felt pulled to move their classes outside under trees and in range of the glowing mountains and skyclad spires, and participants ended their late night concert revelry to hike the hills in the moonlight.  And likewise, the earth’s stories came out extra clear through the voices of most teachers, regardless of the title of their class, the important evocations of the bioregions they herald from and champion, and also the nourishing and imploring, provocative and compelling message of the land around the Ghost Ranch, of New Mexico and the mythic Southwest.  Much, also, must be attributed to what each of these presenters brought, diverse healing traditions, healthy differences of approach and opinion as well as new amalgamations and advancements of ideas, and what can prove to be lasting alliances of educators and inspiriteurs, activism and art, purpose and action.

The combination of Presenters made for a magic potion, but we might just as accurately think of it as a pot of formidable and almost  New Mexico chili or somehow transportive wildcrafted stew, in which every ingredient is somehow essential to the overall balance of elements and overall taste experience.  So too, did every registrant make for a unique addition, not just peace loving hippie-hearted types but a decidedly politically incorrect urban guerilla and critical eyed free-clinic practitioner, law-stretching wildcrafters as well as regulation promoters and at least one ex-lawman, not just middle aged care givers but also herbalism obsessed young ravers and skateboard healers, politically active business-folk and a self proclaimed green anarchist, an inspired electrician and dozens of family practitioners with their wild children, conservationists and gardeners, suppliers of the best in cultivated organic herbs along with illustrators of a new way of being and various nature-drunk poets of plants.

(Sat. Band: Chloe, Leah and the Wolfette)

In the end, the gathering overall had taken on a clearly Western, folk identity, consciously rough edged and unapologetic, reeking with sincerity, insisting on hope, bucking the norm, combining self reliance with neighborly cooperation, rooted in experience as well as tradition.  In the end,  the conference was not so fae as feral, with a touch of norm-busting new science, the flair and attitude of cowpunk, true to and in keeping with the down home, dirt grounded, earth honoring, grassroots, self authorized, community building, alternative offering, chance taking, magic making and oft celebrating Folk Herbalism Revival.

“Sending tons of love, oodles of hugs and endless praise for hosting such an outstanding herbal conference. I feel we are creating a network across the country that unites us all in this grassroots movement… helping to heal the world in our small and great ways.”
–Rosemary Gladstar

We have only been home a few days as I write this, getting the first sleep in a week, and most importantly grounding and centering in our wild Gila, giving needed attention to family and home, to our own personal healing and recharging as well well as the bigger mission.  Every quiet wordless moment here that we are able to attend to, feeds our reservoir of energy and inspiration for what always – gladly – lies ahead.

-JWH

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Below you’ll find important news about the 2010 Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference that just happened, and also valuable updates regarding the upcoming TWHC 2011!

2010 TWHC Music and Class Recordings

Thanks to the recording efforts of Don, Henry, Patrick and Marissa, Dr. Blue and others, audio CDs of many of the classes will be available beginning this Fall, including 7Song’s well attended “Adventures in Wildcrafting”, Mimi Hernandez’ “Mountain Roots: Appalachian Root Remedies”, Matt Wood’s “Clinical Skills For The Herbalist”, and “The Ecology of Healing” by Kiva Rose and Jesse Wolf Hardin.  This will be your opportunity to hear any presentations you may have missed.

It will be awhile before we get to see and edit the volumes of video shot by Marissa and Patrick, John Gallagher and others, but we expect to have plenty of material for YouTube release as well as a future folk-roots herbalism documentary.

Audio recordings of the Friday and Saturday night concerts with FlamencoWorldCompany, Tina Collins and Her Pony, and Rising Appalachia are gratefully in the hands of composer and master engineer Issa, with the hopes of getting some quality mixes for release this year.

Subscribe to the blog or newsletter for announcements.

“I so loved getting to see Gioia of FlamencoWorld.  It’s great to see a woman so full of power, comfortable with her age, and at home in her body!”
-Chance

(Jesse "James" Wolf and Chuck "Pancho Villa" Garcia plan their next raid)

Camera Missing – TWHC Photos Invited

We misplaced our Fuji digital camera, possibly at the conference site, if anyone has seen it.  We may need a replacement if anyone has an extra, quality camera, though the photos of the event cannot be replaced.

If you have photos of the conference that you would be willing to share, please send them on CD to us at: PO Box 688, Reserve, NM 87830

2010 TWHC Book

Somehow, all 300 of the 96 page long 2010 TWHC books with class notes found homes at the conference, so we are having to do a 2nd printing!  Copies are available for $9 plus $5 priority shipping, and free to any registrants who may not have gotten theirs.

“Wow! Ghost Ranch was magical, and the conference itself was packed full of great people, information and energy. I learned a lot, and left inspired to work harder and do more. This is a great conference for anyone interested in grassroots herbalism. Very empowering, with something for everyone.”
-Heather

THWC 2011

We already look forward to the 2011 TWHC, Sept. 15th-18th, and also welcome your involvement and assistance with this enlivened movement between now and the conference.  To stay hooked up, subscribe to the free TWHC newsletter as described on the website.  And you are also invited to subscribe and submit articles to the TWH’s exciting upcoming quarterly, Plant Healer Magazine:
www.PlantHealerMagazine.com

“Amazing and wonderful! I’ll be there supporting you, for as long as there is a TWH Conference…”
-Phyllis Hogan, Winter Sun Trading Co.

(Margi Flint and Jim McDonald)

(Margi Flint and Jim McDonald)

2011 TWHC Teachers, Classes and Proposals

We’re adding up to 5 more teachers/presenters in 2011, offering an even wider variety of topics and skills, and giving you even more for your money.  Just as in 2010, the 4.5 hour long intensives will be included in the registration, and you will not have to pay extra to attend them as you do at most other herbal conferences.

Even with the added class slots, teacher enthusiasm has been so tremendous that we’ve already received 4 times as many class proposals as there will be room for!  This makes for a large field of topics and personalities for us to choose from, though it’s also painful for us to have to turn anyone down.  As always, our criteria for choosing will be not only teacher ability and registrant preferences, but also the kinds of class topics being proposed, gender balance and ethnic involvement when possible – and most importantly – the crucial overall balance of conference topics and approaches, information and practical skills… with the advantage going to those grounded in Western folk traditions, the most inspiring and empowering, land based and bioregionally focused, practicable and immediately applicable.  We’re most moved by proposals that are unique, non-scripted, personal and edgy, feral and multidimensional, that present primal or traditional indigenous approaches to healing, stir new ways of thinking, challenge accepted assumptions, inspire action, rattle cages or otherwise stretch the proverbial envelope!  Those that aren’t selected this time around, will be happily considered again for 2012 and beyond.

Already promised to, are first time TWHC Featured Presenters Ryan Drum, Bevin Clare, David Hoffmann, Juliette Blankespoor and Robin Rose Bennett.  Enticing new classes will also be offered by 2011’s returning Featured Speakers 7Song, Paul Bergner, Phyllis Hogan, Charles Garcia and Jim McDonald, and we have a couple of other big surprise in the works!  Proposals for the other 15 or so regular Presenter slots have been especially tantalizing, and a list will be released by December at the latest, after most of the selections have been finalized.

“Make plans for next year! This conference felt like the beginning of a new herbal era. I honestly believe it will be looked upon as an historical moment.” -Rosalee de la Foret

(Henry made sure Rosalee's class was recorded, showing some of the many uses of plants)

2011 TWHC For Kids

We were surprise by how many facilities the Ghost Ranch has for use, including an (unsupervised) playground for children, a family center, even a telescope for star watching!  And in 2011, we are excited to announce 2 special classes: one will be for Mothers about treating children with herbs, and turning kids onto the basics of herbalism; the other will be FOR kids, with herbal activities for them to learn from and enjoy.

2011 TWHC Music

“The conference was totally awesome!  We’ll be back every year… you can count on it, partners!”
-Chloe, Rising Appalachia

As you may have already heard, audience response to Leah and Chloe of Rising Appalachia was so great that they have been made the  TWHC “House Band”, and will be the musical core around which we build each year’s diverse entertainment.  And Tina Collins and Quetzal Jordan were so into it, that we simply have to bring them back to play for us again in 2011, and they may be enticed to do a longer set that involves them playing together with the gals from Rising again.  It will be hard to find an ethnic band to equal Gioia and Carlos of FlamencoWorldCompany for that slot, though we have 5 other groups wanting to play including Arborea who couldn’t make it this year.

“Thank you for putting together such a wonderful event. Good vibe, great people, intense classes, the flow was perfect and the setting is also perfect. I am so amazed at the vision you and Wolf had, and how for a first year, it was damn near flawless.”
- Kristena

2011 TWHC Lodging

The Ghost Ranch Conference Center is in charge of lodging as well as the prepared meals at the TWHC, but we have decided to take the risk of renting all the available rooms and camping sites for next year.  It should prove much less confusing if you can pay for your Ghost Ranch room or camping site at the same time as you pay for your event registration.  It is still likely that all the available lodging at Ghost Ranch will fill up, and later registrants may have to stay at nearby motels and campgrounds instead.

(7Song had the best seat for Paul Bergner's rabble-rousing song "I Am An Herbal Rebel!")

2011 Meet & Greet

In order to get everyone acquainted quicker next year, the conference will officially begin with a Confluence (Meet and Greet) on Thursday evening, Sept. 15th, complete with live acoustic music.

“All my blessings to this conference, may it last for many, many, many years!”
-Rosemary Gladstar

2011 Registration

Registration for 2011 opens October 15th, 2010.  Prices for 2011 are 3-tiered depending on when they are purchased, with Early Sprout discount rates:
Tickets purchased before January 1, 2011: $255
Tickets purchased between January 1, 2011 and June 1, 2011: $275
Tickets purchased after June 1, 2011: $295

Day Passes

This year there were a lot of folks who badly wanted to attend 1 or 2 days of classes, but whose jobs or whatever made coming for the whole 3 days impossible.  Day passes will be sold for 2011, though for the higher price of $150 per day.

“There were more of us young people here than any other conference, feels good!”

Work Trade

There is only 1 work trade role available at this time, which is Sponsor, Vendor and Media outreach, involving lots of research and phone calls, and a financial incentive is included.  Write for an application if interested.

Our most enthused assistants this year were those who hadn’t even asked for their registration in trade, but were instead acting solely out of a desire to help make the event work – extra thanks going out to Resolute, Don, Henry, Marissa, Patrick, Mary, Kristen and Avonda.  With that in mind, shortly before the 2011 conference, volunteers will be selected from among the paid registrants to assist with various tasks at the site.  Each on-site volunteer will then be given a special discount code good towards the following year’s 2012 registration costs.

Scholarships

If possible, we will include a place right on the registration form, for you to be able to contribute an additional amount towards scholarships for select applicants who could not afford to attend the classes otherwise.   We would make those selections based on their degree of passion and commitment as well as their need.  Another option will be for your organization or business to sponsor a number of scholarships for applicants from specific ethnic, economic or other target groups according to your agenda.

“You and Wolf created one of the most amazing and transformative events I’ve been part of.”

-Sean

(A barefoot Kiva and Cowboy-hatted Wolf introduce "The Ecology of Healing")

Staying Involved

If this conference and movement is to continue to grow, flourish, and serve us all, it will need your personal, active and committed support – including:
• Telling everyone about next year’s event, posting the new 2011 posters, and forwarding any emailed announcements sent out between now and next September
• Linking your website or blog, if you have one, to the TWHC site:             www.TraditionsInWesternHerbalism.org
• Posting your conference experience and stories on your blogs, forums and FaceBook pages
• Posting your photos of the conference and Ghost Ranch landscape
• Submitting your 2010 conference stories to us for publishing in the TWHC Newsletter, Plant Healer Magazine, Anima and The Medicine Woman’s Roots blogs:
Kiva@TraditionsInWesternHerbalism.org

For more suggestions, go to the Spread the Word Page

“Amazing conference, resurrecting the spirit of Western Herbalism.”
-Paul Bergner, North American Institute of Medical Herbalism

~~~~~

All photos (c) 2010 their respective photographs (see Facebook for lots more).

The below video will give you a small but vivid taste of what you can look forward to if you plan on attending this September’s upcoming Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference. It includes a look at our outstanding selection of teachers, a glimpse of the beautiful site in the high desert of New Mexico and even a chance to hear the earthy and intriguing music of our two of our featured bands, R.I.S.E. (formerly Rising Appalachia) & Arborea. So take a moment to sit back, relax and enjoy a brief but magical journey into the enchantment yet to come…

This amazing video was brainstormed and created by TWHC Sponsorship Director, Animá Medicine Woman Mentorship student and practicing herbalist, Rosalee de la Forét, and we’re so grateful for her hard work, astute insights and infectious enthusiasm.. thank you, Rosalee!

If you’re excited about the conference and the opportunities it presents, whether you’re able to attend this year or not, please take the time to forward or share this clip whenever and wherever appropriate! You can send them to this post, or directly to the youtube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXNR7_k-vNo

Let me take a moment to emphasize here that the conference is an international one and not necessarily specific to to the American West or Southwest, there’s something for everyone here. Registrants from as far away as Canada, the UK, Alaska, Hawaii and possibly even Central America will be in attendance!

Thanks so much to all of the generous individuals and organizations that have helped spread the word and increase awareness of the Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference, your assistance and generosity makes all of the difference and means so much to us personally, thank you!

~Kiva Rose

Note: if you’re an email subscriber and have a hard time seeing this from your inbox, just click on the title of this post to be taken to the actual blog site and you can watch from there. Or use this link to go directly to youtube to watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXNR7_k-vNo

Please Download, Print & Share
THE NEW COLOR POSTERS

for the

TRADITIONS IN WESTERN HERBALISM CONFERENCE

Your help is kindly requested, sharing the new trifold brochures for the conference, and making time to put up some of the matching posters. TWHC CoDirector Jesse Wolf Hardin spent nearly 20 hours designing and creating them, with his logo framed by a selection of his and my medicinal plant portraits. The background earth-tones are from his photo of volcanic cliff-rock near the Animá Sanctuary, but was picked for its ability to evoke the earthen pastel tones of the beautiful hills surrounding the Ghost Ranch conference site.

Write us to request whatever number of brochures you can put to good use, ideally handed to herbal and health related business owners who may want to participate by sponsoring, vending or practicing there, or left in small piles in herbal stores that will agree to keep them out. We can send you the files if you would like to print them off yourself, though you would need to know how to print on both sides.

The color posters come in 2 sizes, large 11×17 ones that we hope you can get store owners and health practitioners to commit to keep up in their windows or on their counter fronts from now until the event next September. We will be selling these as art posters at the event, but will also be happy to give a signed copy as a gift to you along with however many copies for you to post in your region or on your travels. The smaller version is 8.5X11, and is available either by writing us, or by downloading and then printing the linked poster file.

Ideal places for posting the large and small posters are herb stores, natural health stores, natural food stores, health practitioner waiting rooms, herbal and healing school foyers, university student union buildings, university medicine and botany building bulletin boards, and culturally conscious cafes. Please don’t feel like you have to take on a load… if a goodly amount of you could commit to posting even 5 or 10 – and to checking back to make sure they stay up and aren’t covered over – that would be a huge contribution!

That so many people want to involve themselves and help, is essential to making this conference a success and to ensure their will be others in subsequent years. It is also satisfying in itself, the connection we feel in this alliance of purpose. Thank you dearly from us both.

Kiva Rose & Jesse Wolf Hardin
TWHC
Kiva(at)TraditionsInWesternHerbalism.org
www.TraditionsInWesternHerbalism.org

DOWNLOAD SMALL TWHC POSTER HERE

Call For Help with Conference Sponsor/Vendor Outreach

Free Registration, Acknowledgment & Unending Thanks Offered to Volunteers

doing outreach to potential event Sponsors, Vendors & Practitioners

and

Any Amount of Help Welcomed from Anyone

who is willing to send a Sponsor or Vendor Invite and Application to any business or nonprofits you personally know of

The TWHC is getting huge amounts of buzz on the internet, participants are already arranging rides here from as far away as New England and Canada, and we received so many requests to speak that we filled all the spots the first week.  There will be a deep ecological and conservation element, with the help of United Plant Savers. The website has been upgraded, a special blog built just for conference announcements, a first batch of flyers and brochure went out, and more are in the works.  And finally, Mt. Rose Herbs and LearningHerbs.com made the first good sized sponsor donations.  That said, we have a number of tables/spaces to fill, and we could use more financial sponsors to ensure the event’s success.

There are 3 essential elements to this work:
-researching related businesses, nonprofits and health practitioners in NM
-Sending materials email, or snail mail when necessary
-making followup calls to be sure they got the material, encouraging them to commit

We could especially use more help contacting places BETWEEN NOW AND FEB 1ST , the deadline for Sponsors to be included on the first 1,000 20″ posters, in the first 1,000 revised color trifold brochures, and in our Sponsor Drive Director, Rosalee’s slide show video due to be made available through YouTube and through herbal and healing portals.

And those of you who understandably can’t commit to filling a Volunteer Position in this way,

we would still welcome your help sending out to any business, nonprofits and health practitioners you know:

a) TWHC Sponsor Invite

b) TWHC Sponsor Application

c) TWHC Vendor Invite

d) TWHC Vendor Application

You can click on any of the above to download them, the send them yourself and let us know you contacted.  Or alternately, simply send us  the contact name and email and phone, and we will get ahold of them ourselves.  Please try to think of what business, healers, educators and advocacy groups you know of that might value an opportunity to be involved with this conference and promoted as its essential supporter.

Thank you ever so much!  As with all of this work, it is only accomplished with the help of you, the larger Animá tribe.

Click here for more information on the TWH Conference

(Forward freely)

Announcing (please post and forward):

REGISTRATION NOW OPEN

for the Sept 17-19

TRADITIONS IN WESTERN HERBALISM CONFERENCE

Expanded to 3 Full Days of Classes!

Discount Early Sprout Registration: $250

The first 100 Registrants to request them (just email Kiva) will also receive the following bonus gifts:

Signed Limited Edition “Medicine Woman” color art print by Jesse Wolf Hardin ($35 value)
Foundational Elements in Traditional Western Herbalism Ebook by Kiva Rose ($15 value)

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW

Featuring:

Rosemary Gladstar • Kiva Rose • Paul Bergner • Phyllis Hogan • Jesse Wolf Hardin • Matthew Wood • Jim McDonald • Howie Brounstein • Phyllis Light • Charles Garcia • Donna Chesner • CoreyPine Shane • Pam Hyde-Nakai • Darcey Blue French • Monica Rude • John Gallagher …and more!

Friday & Saturday Night Concerts

Two nights of deeply inspirited music and heart-welling celebration featuring

Arborea & R.I.S.E. (formerly Rising Appalachia)

Location

The TWHC takes place N.W. of Santa Fe, New Mexico at the enchanting Ghost Ranch, onetime home of artist Georgia O’Keefe and now a relaxed conference center surrounded by beautiful open spaces and sculptured crimson hills.

Classes & Schedule

There will be 3 FULL days of 30 or more in-depth classes Saturday and Sunday, presented by the 20 or so teachers, each 1.5 to 4 hours in length, including hands-on workshops and native plant walks. Specific conditions will be addressed, as well as energetics, diagnostics, preparations and formulas, cutting edge discoveries, ethics and spirituality, the role of the community healer, and plant and habitat conservation.

For more information go to the

Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference Website

or

REGISTER HERE NOW

Thank you for sharing this with others…

Introducing the Music of

Arborea   &   R.I.S.E.
the Awesome Groups performing at the Sept, 2010
Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference

We are ever-so-excited to be featuring Arborea & R.I.S.E. at the first annual TWHC in Fall of 2010, promising two nights of deeply inspirited entertainment and heart-welling celebration.

With their commitment we’re now sure to have the ideal soundtrack for this amazing first-time event, music that evokes the wonder as well as healing capacities of nature, and stirs the wild hearts of the awakened human audience.  Their selection and invite, however, followed dozens of hours researching and considering every possible genre of music and known group.  We went through not only our own literally thousands of digital albums representing styles from around the world, but also volumes of Google searches, and nearly every page of offerings on CD Baby, iTunes and Amazon.com.  All of us here in the canyon are way into music, and thanks to my years of performing we know a vast pool of intensely competent artists from an oud player and ashiko drummers to unrepentent rockers and rapt reggae rastas, including some eco-troubadors we would love to host in the future like Alice DiMicele and that soulful baritoned advocate of wilderness Walkin’ Jim Stoltz.  I wanted to get in touch with songstress Jenny Bird whom I enjoyed playing with years ago, or to find a way to reach the semi hermetic flamenco master Carlos Lomas and his dancing partner Joya.  Rock would lift conference goers out of their seats, Fado could evoke the depth of passion that lovers of nature and practitioners of healing feel, the full on mix of the pain of loss and the nearly unbearable ecstasy of connection and purpose.  Native American flutes could summon the feel of New Mexico, true Land of Enchantment, and the ancient energies that seep through the living land then and now, Hispanic guitar would describe without words a community of land based seekers, and the Celtic pipes could raise the pitch on each listeners heeding of their personal calling.

The first need was for acoustic music, a presentation of meaning and soul that can be driving and danceable as well as sensitive or relaxed, in keeping with the vibe of the event as well as resonant with the energies of the Ghost Ranch and the high desert mountains it lies nestled in.  The second was for styles that bring to mind and heart traditions – of music and cultures just as of ways of healing – while demonstrating and inspiring in others personalized expression, melding, re-forming, adding to and breathing new life into textures of time and sound.  The third need was for music that either lyrically references and reverences or instrumentally suggests the natural world, green beings or the processes of helping and healing.  Fourth and last, was for musicians who would be as thrilled to be performing for this special audience, here in this special place, as we are thrilled to have and hear them!  And with both of 2010’s groups, all four needs have been magnificently filled.   We hereby welcome not just performers, but new extended TWHC and Animá family, sharing heart and the larger cause and vision.

For Friday Night, Sept 17th:
R.I.S.E.
(formerly Rising Appalachia)

Leah and Chloe are the heart of R.I.S.E., sisters with individual ideas and unique expressions of a shared gift, in agreement about employing music as a vehicle of awakeness, personal growth, social and environmental action, building community and celebrating tribe.  Their rhythmically propelled performance has the intent and energy of an Ani DiFranco show, though instead melding tweaked rustic Americana with global sensibility and world beat grooves.  Incredible and incredibly potent vocals stir more than soothe, while delighting and rewarding the fortunate audience.  As so often with our favorite new acoustic tracks, the lyrics are underpinned with minor-key banjo, played by Leah more like the old South actually feels than the ways we’re used to hearing that instrument used in traditional mountain music.  And the fiddle, the instrument that closest mimics the sound of the human voice in all its range of emotion, milked for all its worth by the intense Chloe.  Crowd pleasing acoustic rocker RISE songs include their “All Fence & No Doors” and the infectious Miles Davis tinged “Castle to the Barracks,” but they also turn all too often redundant covers of classics like Bill Wither’s “Ain’t No Sunshine” into distinctly RISE arrangements, with an almost North African hand-drum back beat and their trademark tingle-producing harmonies.

Unlike many bands, they have a cause, a reason beyond making incredibly enjoyable music.  You will find it in the lyrics of some of their cuts, and unabashedly in their between-songs insightful banter.  It is their cause to inspire people to waken to their gifts and destinies, to become empowered in the face of an in some ways repressive political and economic system, to reach those born to care with the motivation to act on their sentiments, to stand up for whatever it is that person believes.  And what R.I.S.E. would seem to believe in is an equality of spirit, in balance with a diversity of form and expression.  Justice for women, for the dispossessed and unheard, for tribal peoples, for wildlife as well as those green growing beings threatened by insensitive development.  They have chosen a path of working with grassroots organizations and activist groups, performing for less income than they would get elsewhere at women-centered and herbal and healing focused events, including the much loved S.E. Women’s Herbal Conference.  In their live performances it becomes impossible to sit motionless, our hopes and spirits lifted, answering the music’s call for us to rise.

Get their music.  Go to their shows.  Hear and enjoy!

For more information about R.I.S.E., please go to:
www.myspace.com/risingappalachia
To download their songs or order their CDs, we recommend CD Baby:
www.cdbaby.com/artist/risingappalachia and ALSO:
www.cdbaby.com/artist/RISErisingappalachia

—————–

For Saturday Night, Sept 16th:
Arborea

Arborea is a very much in love couple, Shanti and Buck.  They are, as we know through their original music, in love not just with each other but with an archaic sense, with dark art and light hearts that carry the stories of mountains and glens, human history and natural history intertwined, destinies inseparable, individual callings waiting to to heard and responded to.  If there were a soundtrack for the Appalachian country healer bending to gather her wild herbs, or the Ozark Granny-Woman handing out healing tinctures with hard to hear and much needed advice, this would be it, with a natural nod to the heaviness of life and purpose that somehow helps carry us forward to the healing and wholeness, to the impossible to resist lift of birds and bliss.  And if it is the classical and Americana dreamtime instrumentation that captures our attention, that paints the landscape for our every wakened feeling, it is Shanti’s siren vocals that tell the story we are called to such an enchanted place to hear.  Trading off on guitar and banjo, they each do their mated part to enchant us with modal moods, ebbing and lifting in organically structured cycles of composition dynamics, a conscious provocative intercoursing of feet-moving tempo and then relaxed pace, rhythmic heartbeat accentuated by the precious moment of silence, of depth and height, from the dream of a white victorian dress in a shadowed grove, to the truth of bared shoulders bent to touch the fertile soil in new day’s light.  If there is a haunting in the artisan efforts of this many times blessed pair, it is only the necessary application of aural fairy dust, the bewildering/bewilding of the too oft distracted human mind, the musical inspiration for each person’s reenchantment.

It can be read in their very name, Arborea, the green energy of this Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference, oak wise and sprout hopeful, reaching out with leaf dressed limbs while rooting securely to the truth of the earth and willingly taking in its nutrients.  It is a tune-built green arbor beneath which we ache and laugh, help and heal, where we stretch and grow into a self that is somehow more vital, intentional, responsive… and thus real.  We trust to follow their trail of seeds, to a vine and tendril draped portal not unlike Alice’s fabled rabbit hole opening up for the adventurous listener, enticing us into the always personal experience of a more natural and authentic, nature-informed and sensory filled, wholly attended and vitally realized life.

We highly suggest you check out Arborea’s enchanting recordings, you won’t be disappointed. For more information about Arborea, please go to:
www.myspace.com/arborea2
To download their songs or to order a CD, we recommend CD Baby:
www.cdbaby.com/artist/arborea

—————————

Note: Musicians make very little income from their work, and we encourage you to support them with direct sales as well as spreading the word about their efforts to your contacts and friends.  Thank you… and enjoy!

For More Information on the Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference go to:

www.traditionsinwesternherbalism.org

-above profiles and intro by Jesse Wolf Hardin