Fireweed School
Herbal Apprenticeship Program
March - November 2016
Classes will meet from 8:45am-5pm every second Monday over an 9 month period.
visit fireweedschool.com for registration info
Join herbalist, herb-grower, wild-crafter, and medicine-maker Jessy Delleman for this 8 month long journey in herbal studies. In this program focused on direct plant connection, students will work hands-on with medicinal plant allies at the farm and wild in the surrounding fields and forests. Classes will take place in nature out in the elements working directly with the plants (there will be a limited amount of time spent sitting in a classroom setting).
This unique herbal studies program will focus on producing plant medicines from start to finish: from seed to plant to finished herbal product. We will be working hands-on on the farm growing herbs, harvesting herbs, and processing plants to make fresh and dry plant medicines. Throughout the course students will have the opportunity to build their own home apothecary of tinctures, teas, oils, creams, salves, and other herbal products created in class. They will also have the opportunity to propagate herb plants from which to build their own medicinal herb gardens.
Students will take the first steps toward becoming herbal healers for themselves, their family, friends, community, and the Earth. They will learn how common pathologies can be successfully treated with local plant medicines through physical, emotional and spiritual pathways. Students will learn the basics of matching plants to people by formulating plant medicines based on the holistic evaluation of the constitutions of both plants and people.
A diverse Materia Medica will be covered for the local medicinal plants we will meet in person growing at the farm and in the wild. We will spend time in direct communion with a small handful of these plants, getting to know them deeply as we work with plant sits and plant diets. The plants will become our lifelong friends and herb allies to guide us on our healing paths.
Students will learn in the field and hands-on every class. Course material will include:
Materia Medica
Learn to identify and use medicinal plants found in our local ecosystem.
Native plants taught include: Sword Fern, Black Cottonwood, Elder, Nettle, Cleavers, Mahonia, Western Red Cedar, Lomatium, Grindelia, Beach Mugwort, Ambrosia, and more.
Local garden herbs taught include: Echinacea, Elecampange, Passiflora, Wood Betony, Vervain, Skullcap, Licorice, Wormwood, Mugwort, Calendula, Arnica, and more.
Wildcrafting
Field trips to the forest, field, and beach to learn about ethically harvesting herbs in the wild. Learn how to identify, harvest and make medicine out of local native plants.
Herb Growing
Integrated hands-on learning on the herb farm. Gain confidence in propagation, garden planning, basic botany, planting, harvesting, seed-saving for a diversity of medicinal herbs that grow in our local climate.
Basic Medicine Making
Learn how to make high-quality medicine out of plants you have grown and harvested. Infused oils, salves, tinctures, teas.
Advanced Medicine Making
Learn more advanced methods of making high-quality herbal products. Creams, percolation, fluidized extracts, honeys, fermentation. Basic Formulation will also be taught.
Plant Spirit Medicine
Gaining plant allies through direct communion with plants. Learn to listen to plants as they reveal their medicine to you through plant sits and week-long plant diets.
Constitutions of Plants
Learn how to gather constitutional information on individual medicinal herbs. Through learning the herbal actions and energetics of a plant, and looking at a plant as a whole being (not just its individual parts or individual constituents) we can begin to determine the unique way healing each plant has to offer.
Constitutions of People
Using holistic anatomy, physiology and pathology, learn how to gather information and observe the unique constitutions of people and how to best treat imbalances with plant medicine.