Medicinal Herb Seminars and Classroom Under the Clouds (CLUC) workshops.

Please contact us to let us know what you’d like to see next/repeated

 

• Mugwort – Brooke Porter  4/23/17 Earth Day

• Plants as Ancestors – Yogi Prateado 4/2/17

• Assafoetida – Community Led, with Brian Kie Wiessbuch  and Christopher Hobbs  1/29/17

• Ruta graveolens – community Led 1/8/17

• Solstice Greens Party – Travis  12/11/16

• White Sage planting – community led 11/27/16

• Wine Barrel planting – Richard 11/6/16

• Mugworts – Richard 10/23/16

• Castor Bean Oil – Richard, 09/25/16

• Home Grown First Aid – Elokin, 09/18/16

• Helpful Tips For Working With Herbal Medicines – Richard, 09/4/16

• Yellow Dock – Krista Raven Herbe, 08/28/16

• Uses of Fennel – Nathan G. Thompson, 08/21/16

• Ruta Graveolens – Richard, 07/24/16

• Heal-All – Richard, 07/17/16

• Clary Sage – Richard, 07/03/16

• Yerba Mansa – Krista Raven Herbe, 06/26/16

• Hugelkultur – Bryan Bramlett, 06/19/16

• Honey Spinning – Alice Rosenthal, 06/12/16

• Chamomile – Richard, 05/22/16

• Motherwort – Richard, 05/15/16

• Tonic Herbs for Vibrant Spring Health – Nathan G. Thomspon, 05/01/16

• Nightshades (Solonaceae) – Richard 4/24/16

• Herbs, Peace, and Herbal Peacescaping – Elaine Hsaio, 04/17/16

• Kombucha 101 – Community Led, 04/10/16

• Compost Tea – Richard?, 04/03/16

• Spawn Block-Party! – Travis, 03/27/16

• Working With Medicinal Herbs – Richard, 03/13/16

• Trust Your Gut pt.2 – Community Led, 03/06/16

• Bees, Honey, and How to Protect Them – Alice Rosenthal, 02/28/16

• Trust Your Gut – Community Led, 02/21/16

• Permaculture From the Inside Out – 13 Moons Collaborative, 02/07/16

• Gill Tract Fungus Exploration! – Community Led, 01/31/16

• Holiday Wreath/Gift Making – Community Led, 12/13/15

• DIY Herbal Tinctures – Community Led, 12/06/15

• Tulsi Seminar – Richard, 11/29/15

• Gaian Consciousness – Nathan Kayhan, 11/22/15

• Home Remedies for Colds and Flus – Lourdes Gonzaga, 11/15/15

• Mushrooms Are Everywhere! – James Edmonds, 11/08/15

• Plant Communication – Hanna Hoffman, 11/01/15

• Milk and Water Kefir – Lourdes Gonzaga, 10/25/15

• Medicinal Properties of Stinging Nettles! – Nathan G. Thompson, 10/18/15

• Medicinal and Edible Mushrooms – Matt G., 10/11/15

• An Introduction to Medicinal Herbs – Richard, 10/04/15

• Culinary Herbs Seminar – Community Led, 09/27/15

• Sage Flower Essence – Thunder Currier, 09/13/15

• Comfrey and its Medicinal Uses – Lourdes Gonzaga, 09/06/15

• Mint Workshop – Richard, 08/30/15

• Lucid Dreaming and Dream Herbs – Travis, 08/23/15

• An Introduction to Medicinal Herb Use – Richard, 08/16/15

• Yarrow Medicinal Workshop – Community Led, 08/02/15

 

3” pot community medicinal sovereignty:

Starter Herb plants for your garden available at our farm stand.  See Calendar.

As Healing Spirit Plants, a farmers market booth provided to the wider community over 200 varieties of medicinal herb plants, (in 1 gallon pots), from traditions around the world.   Healing Spirit Plants nursery has reincarnated in the form of Our Medicinal Herb Garden here on Our UC Gill Tract Community Farm.  To continue the accessibility to the community in an egalitarian manner, a temporarily limited (but expanding) selection is being propagated to further facilitate medicinal sovereignty.   To date, these include Yarrow, Heal all, Angelica, Motherwort, Horehound, Sweet grass, California Arnica, Moxa, Gotu Kola, Brahmi, Blue Vervain, Castor bean, Bronze Fennel, Horse tail, Chamomile, Burdock, St John’s wort, Red Shiso, Yerba mansa, Zaatar, Ruta, Aloe vera, Rose Geranium, Citronella, and Chameleon plant.  With an on-site greenhouse facility, we could begin seeding and cutting propagation to regain the former inventory.  These medicinal herb plants are madeavailable and free to the public, with encouraged donation to support this program, and ensure that anyone can now receive this opportunity.

 

Meditation in the Medicinal Herb Garden:

Inner Peace and Tranquility among the plants.

A significant quality of the Medicinal herb Garden is the compassionate energy felt among the plants.   They invite us to spend more time with them, regaining our heart-felt connection, and restoring our relationship with Our Mother Earth.  On Thursday evenings at 6:00 PM (5:00 PM in winter), we hold a one hour silent sitting meditation (no religion, no doctrine, no requirements) around the sacred center in Our Medicinal Herb Garden.   Everyone is welcome to join us.

 

Programs and Offerings

• A Multi-traditional Medicinal Herb Garden:

  Over 200 varieties from more than 15 traditions around the world.

• Free Community Garden Access:

  Rejuvenative space welcoming to all.

• A Community Teaching Facility:

  Herbal Practitioners can give seminars; Community members can become connected.

• Community Herbal Seminars:

  Over 50 Medicinal Herb seminars.

• Ethnic Herbal Medicine Teaching:

  Ethnic Herbal Practitioners can teach their own traditional herbal medicines.

• Herbal Acquaintance:

  Become acquainted with valued Medicinal Herb Plants of diverse traditions, including one’s own.

• Plant Energy Experience:

  Compassionate energies invite us into a deeper sensitivity and awareness.

• Herbal Medicine Paradigm:

  Awareness of plant medicine use requires one to question assumptions, pay attention, and expand understandings.

• Medicinal Plant Cultivation:

  Experience cultivation requirements, and learn to grow these plants.

• Community Herb Starts:

  Access to plants needed to start new Medicinal Herb Gardens; and facilitate one’s own healing.

• Herbal Apprenticeship:

  Cultivate and tend Medicinal Herbs;  Help care for this Medicinal Herb Garden.

• Meditation in the Garden:

  Silent Meditation is scheduled every Thursday evening.

• Holistic multi-ethnic Permaculture in action:

  Plants of many traditions growing together.

• Transformation of “Higher” education, and eventually “Western” culture:

  Experience Complementary Earth-based and Heart-centered relationships.

• A grounded and compassionate approach to World Peace:

  Being Present among that which we have in common

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Accomplishments

• Over  these past years, Our Medicinal Herb Seminar series (Classroom Under the Clouds) has hosted more than 40 seminars on specific Herb Plants, Herb preparation, General Herbal use info, Mushrooms, and additional Herb related topics.  In Our Medicinal Herb Garden (MHG), one can become acquainted, educated, inspired, cleansed and transformed through simply being with the plants.

• Invitational offering for all to enter among the healing plant energies.   Many of our visitors from the diverse ethnicities within Our wider community simply walk in and wander among the Medicinal Herb plants.  They are inspired to encounter their own traditional Herbs growing here!  Many folks have heard of their own healing plants, and even those from the traditions of others, but have never seen those plants before.  This cultural acquaintance helps to heal our relationships with one another.  People feel at home among the herbs of their traditions. One doesn’t even have to ingest anything to receive significant healing.

• Plants invite us and inspire us to commune with them.  This is partly because they have a compassionate “Life Force” energy (Qi) that resonates within our hearts; it’s the feeling of comfort that we know.  They invite us to relax, take a deep breath and release stress.  It is traditionally understood that when the stream of energy Qi flows, clearing the stresses within us, our cells and tissues inherently already know how to heal themselves, through doing what they naturally do.

• Our UC student intern “Fellows” organized a student run (“De-Cal”) class, which included a seminar on “Bodily Literacy” and “Medicinal Sovereignty.”  Our bodies harmonize with the energies around us.  In the garden, we absorb the compassionate “Life Force” energies from the plants. This grounds us, and invites us deeper into our feeling sensitivity.  We experienced how we can become more sensitively aware of our own bodily feelings, the feelings of those around us, and also of the energies of the plants and our environment.  With this deepened awareness, we naturally and compassionately seek to live in a healthier manner by doing less harm.  With our own herbal medicines, and increased awareness, we can become  freer from dependencies on pharmaceuticals and the economic injustices they perpetuate.

• For more than a year now, we have held a Silent Meditation among the Herb plants in Our Medicinal Herb Garden for 1 hour, every Thursday at 5 PM (Winter), and 6PM (Summer).  This silent foray into the Great inner Stillness is most often hosted by Pancho, Our “rebel of kindness.”  We sit together surrounding the Garden’s Center Peace of Sacred and Ceremonial plants (Myrtle, Hyssop, Tulsi, Bodhi Tree, Sweet Grass, Tobaccos and a trio of Huachuma hold the space); their quality of presence inspires our depth of tranquility.  This past November, a group of Urban Agro-ecology enthusiasts from Japan found themselves inspired to sit with us in the dark, in the rain!   Magical evening peacefulness and extraordinary sunsets are fringe benefits.  Meditative stillness calms the mind and restores the soul; returning us to an inner groundedness and feeling of gratitude.

• Edible East Bay write up publicity.  In 2017, we were approached by a passer-by who found himself inspired by the beauty of our community efforts under the tall palms.  He became so impressed that he offered a write-up, published in Edible East Bay (P. 17-18) which facilitates our healing relationship with our community.

• Formative experience for Children from Our wider Community.   Numerous groups of children of varying age groups have become enchanted among the array of fantastic plants they have never seen before.  There are magical paths and large plants to hide behind, each having a unique energy of its own.  We have an entire ring of beds dedicated to culinary herbs from traditions around the world.  These can be smelled and tasted, restoring our experiential connection with the flavors we know in our foods.

• Medicinal herb starts offered to Our wider community to facilitate medicinal sovereignty.   Although we are still in need of an on-site greenhouse for propagation from seed and by cuttings, we have been able to glean vegetative starts off our most successful specimens.  We are now offering over 20 varieties in 3” pots at our Farm Stand, see calendar, to facilitate home grown organic medicinal herb patches for people to spend more healing time with, and also become more self-reliant, and less enslaved to, and at the mercy of,  Big Pharma!   These plants serve to renew and re-invigorate traditional herbal medicine practices and wisdom.  They empower the elders, who still know how to use their plants, to share their wisdom and empower their future generations.

• Provision/Donation of White Sage and other medicinal herb material to Standing Rock ND.    In November 2016, numerous community members found themselves called to support the efforts at Standing Rock ND.  Bundles of white sage were gleaned from the few plants in Our Medicinal Herb Garden, to be taken as an offering of healing and solidarity in the Spirit.  Another woman on her way to ND was requested to bring a variety of other healing herbs that we could supply.  We are very honored to have been able to serve in this way.

• Establishment of Traditional Native Medicinal Herb Plant species on Our UCGTCF Farm.  One of our “Classroom Under the Clouds” seminars was devoted to the planting of a line of 30 White Sage (Salvia apiana: Bee sage) plants along the western edge of our current farm fields.  It is our hope to attract pollinator insects (bees) and increase our farm productivity. These Sage plants also function to “smudge” cleanse the energies to consecrate the space, thus increasing the quality and healthiness of our produce.  We hope to establish a significant source of sage for future donations of healing materials.

 

FUTURE PROGRAMS

Plant Propagation and care classes (still needs a greenhouse): experiential participatory learning of seeding, cuttings, scions, crown division, layering and root divisions; soil components, properties, types, mixing; watering techniques, dynamics, frequencies.

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Alternative fertilizing and soil microbe cultivation: use of herbs and bacteria from the wild.

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Biodynamic composting: methods and understandings from Rudolf Steiner.

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Dying naturally through Natural dying: clothing sovereignty!  Natural dye plants, harvesting, preparation, techniques, mordents, Natural fibers.