This series of 3 classes is focused on learning directly from the plants.
This series is only open to students in our Rooted Home Herbalism class.
May 21: Entering the Archetypes
Saturday 9 - 4
In this class we’ll explore the power of archetypes to coalesce, classify and capture some of the powerful plant learning we’re doing. In our morning session we’ll introduce you to using astrological archetypes as a way to learn and experience plants and we’ll apply this lens during our plant walk. Herbalist Sajah Popham says that he struggled to learn plants until he learned astrology, a method of understanding reality that could be called the west's "lost" esoteric language. As a very science-y person and a beginner studying astrology, I do not seek to convince you of its veracity but instead to show how beautifully this system can express patterns in plants in our life that we can all recognize and feel to our very core.
During the afternoon we are honored to have guest teachers Gina Tomaine and Jessica Dore introduce us to tarot, their ways of working with the rich imagery and symbolism of the cards and lead us on tarot journey with plants and each other.
***
Jessica Dore is a writer, licensed social worker and author of Tarot for Change: Using the Cards for Self-Care, Acceptance and Growth. She writes a weekly newsletter called Offerings, which weaves together ideas from psychology, religion, mythology and elsewhere with Pamela Colman Smith's images from the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot.
Gina Tomaine is the author of the Philly Tarot Deck Guidebook for The Philly Tarot Deck, created by illustrator James Boyle. She has written about tarot as a therapeutic and meditative tool for outlets like Cosmopolitan, Philadelphia magazine, and Yoga Journal. She believes that a regular tarot practice can be a powerful aid for communication, reflection, and personal and communal growth.
June 18 – Solstice Dreamspace: Lore and Harvesting
Saturday 9-4
“Medicine is the daughter of dream” – Iamblichus
On this day we will explore some of the rich story and myth around the plants as we welcome the solstice season. We will focus on these tales and places the plants lodge in our ancestral histories when we do our plant walk. We will see how the stories help to illuminate many aspects of the plants that might otherwise remain hidden. We’ll talk about dreaming and how to use plants to deepen or flavor our dreaming and work with dreaming herbs in our recipe demo. For our plant sit, we’ll have the chance to explore being more creative than usual. We’ll provide you with prompts to write your own story (with words or images!) with the land or a plant, drawing on the inspiration of Dr. Sharon Blackie’s work with Celtic mythology and the living world. If the weather is right, we may make a flower essence together.
July 16 -Field Trip to Hopewell Lake in French Creek State Park
Saturday, 10 - 3:30
On this class we’ll walk the beautiful trails around Hopewell Lake to meet new plants and hone our identification skills. We’ll be working to use our loupes and plant guides to key out the species that thrive in the mixed hardwood forests and wetland areas around the lake. In addition to meeting plant individuals, we’ll also read what the community of species are saying about the land and its history. This will be a great time to practice close observation skills and botany that we’ve learned during other classes. Because we are learning from the plants in a myriad of ways, we’ll also introduce the doctrine of signatures and how reading plants in this way is not antithetical to keying them out to their scientific names. Even though we’ll be on a field trip we will still bring a morning tea and find some quiet moments for a plant sit with a plant that is unknown to us, before rushing to identify it in our books. We will picnic by the lake.
This series is only open to students in our Rooted Home Herbalism class.
May 21: Entering the Archetypes
Saturday 9 - 4
In this class we’ll explore the power of archetypes to coalesce, classify and capture some of the powerful plant learning we’re doing. In our morning session we’ll introduce you to using astrological archetypes as a way to learn and experience plants and we’ll apply this lens during our plant walk. Herbalist Sajah Popham says that he struggled to learn plants until he learned astrology, a method of understanding reality that could be called the west's "lost" esoteric language. As a very science-y person and a beginner studying astrology, I do not seek to convince you of its veracity but instead to show how beautifully this system can express patterns in plants in our life that we can all recognize and feel to our very core.
During the afternoon we are honored to have guest teachers Gina Tomaine and Jessica Dore introduce us to tarot, their ways of working with the rich imagery and symbolism of the cards and lead us on tarot journey with plants and each other.
***
Jessica Dore is a writer, licensed social worker and author of Tarot for Change: Using the Cards for Self-Care, Acceptance and Growth. She writes a weekly newsletter called Offerings, which weaves together ideas from psychology, religion, mythology and elsewhere with Pamela Colman Smith's images from the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot.
Gina Tomaine is the author of the Philly Tarot Deck Guidebook for The Philly Tarot Deck, created by illustrator James Boyle. She has written about tarot as a therapeutic and meditative tool for outlets like Cosmopolitan, Philadelphia magazine, and Yoga Journal. She believes that a regular tarot practice can be a powerful aid for communication, reflection, and personal and communal growth.
June 18 – Solstice Dreamspace: Lore and Harvesting
Saturday 9-4
“Medicine is the daughter of dream” – Iamblichus
On this day we will explore some of the rich story and myth around the plants as we welcome the solstice season. We will focus on these tales and places the plants lodge in our ancestral histories when we do our plant walk. We will see how the stories help to illuminate many aspects of the plants that might otherwise remain hidden. We’ll talk about dreaming and how to use plants to deepen or flavor our dreaming and work with dreaming herbs in our recipe demo. For our plant sit, we’ll have the chance to explore being more creative than usual. We’ll provide you with prompts to write your own story (with words or images!) with the land or a plant, drawing on the inspiration of Dr. Sharon Blackie’s work with Celtic mythology and the living world. If the weather is right, we may make a flower essence together.
July 16 -Field Trip to Hopewell Lake in French Creek State Park
Saturday, 10 - 3:30
On this class we’ll walk the beautiful trails around Hopewell Lake to meet new plants and hone our identification skills. We’ll be working to use our loupes and plant guides to key out the species that thrive in the mixed hardwood forests and wetland areas around the lake. In addition to meeting plant individuals, we’ll also read what the community of species are saying about the land and its history. This will be a great time to practice close observation skills and botany that we’ve learned during other classes. Because we are learning from the plants in a myriad of ways, we’ll also introduce the doctrine of signatures and how reading plants in this way is not antithetical to keying them out to their scientific names. Even though we’ll be on a field trip we will still bring a morning tea and find some quiet moments for a plant sit with a plant that is unknown to us, before rushing to identify it in our books. We will picnic by the lake.
If you were part of our Rooted Home Herbalism Class in 2021, you can attend both this class and our Deepening Roots series: click here.