UPCOMING EVENTS
Now Enrolling:
Registration for 2025 Foundational Herbology is Now Open
This 9-Month In-Person Program begins March 15th. We meet monthly throughout the seasons to explore the elements, body systems, plants and medicine-making.
Early Bird Registration lasts until February 1st
Space is limited to 15
You can find more information including the syllabus, dates, cost and how to register through our website below:
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January 5th~ Infused Broths & Soups
with Bailey Ballenger
Learn how to give your soups and broths extra nourishment through the addition of immune boosting herbs and mushrooms. Featuring Nettle, Astragalus, Turkey Tail, Chaga, & Reishi. In each class we will prepare two recipes that we will make & taste together.
3 – 5 pm
Also in this series:
~ Infused Cooking Oils & Butters ~ March 9th
~ Fresh Foraged Herbs: Pestos, Dips & Vinegars ~ May 4th
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April 5 & 6~ Reading the Body Intensive
with Margi Flint
Join us for a special opportunity to learn from the renowned herbalist & author Margi Flint. This two-day intensive will focus on visual assessment of clients’ face, hair, tongue and nails. Reading the body’s colors and features can inform us of deficiencies, patterns and organs in need of support. Understanding these signs offers practitioners direction and confirmation for the herbs to be selected. You can see many of these indications change when better health is achieved. Be sure to read the full description through the link below.
Saturday & Sunday
10:00-4:00 both days
$330 for the weekend
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SUNDAY MORNING TEA CEREMONIES:
with Silvy Franco
Join Silvy for a meditative ceremony to commune with Camelia sinensis. Ceremony begins at 10:00 am and goes for an hour. Pre-registration is required. Suggested Donation: $20
Blue Vervain
/in Herb of the Month /by Ashley Davis(Verbena hastata)
Blue Vervain is a wonderfully relaxing plant with many uses. Native to the United States, Vervain is a beautiful perennial herb, growing 3-8′ tall. It prefers full sun and medium-wet soils. Often found in wet meadows and river bottoms in the Great Lakes region, Blue Vervain attracts butterflies and other pollinators and makes a great addition to your medicinal herb garden.
Family: Verbenaceae
Parts Used: aerial (above ground)
Energetics: bitter, acrid, cold, drying
Actions: bitter tonic, relaxing nervine, febrifuge, hypotensive, diaphoretic, emetic in large doses
Uses: a strongly relaxing nervine, vervain calms states of anxiety as well as hysteria and seizure. It is useful for occasions (or periods of time) when the sympathetic nervous system is stuck in overdrive, such as acute and chronic stress, or when body is shivering due to a fever. In fevers, the diaphoretic action of vervain opens the peripheral blood vessels to bring on a sweat and break a fever. It can also be useful following a debilitating illness to restore digestion and tone. As a bitter tonic, small doses of vervain are stimulating to digestive secretions, and decongestant to the liver and gallbladder. Vervain also has a reputation for helping to relieve hot flashes and night sweats.
Indications: hot flashes, night sweats, fevers, and any time the pores are tightly closed and the body needs to vent. Constitutionally speaking, vervain is suited to people who are intensely driven with perfectionist tendencies. These people often have very high and unreasonable expectations of themselves as well as others. Their strong mental and emotional focus draws energy away from the digestive and reproductive centers. And without that grounding lower body strength, they often overexert their upper bodies, resulting in tension in the upper shoulders and neck. Matthew Wood writes that vervain is for people with “strong above, weak below.” He also recommends it for women who have intense food cravings during menses (Earthwise Herbal: A Complete Guide to New World Medicinal Plants p.351).
Dosage: As a tincture, use 2-4 ml per day according to the British Pharmacopeia. Matthew Wood recommends 1-3 drops 1-3 times a day.
Contraindications: not recommended during pregnancy. It is not a nourishing or tonic herb so prolonged use and/or high doses are not recommended.
**This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease**