THE DANDELION SEED CONFERENCE 2015:
HERBAL MEDICINE FOR COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL HEALING
Class Schedule
HERBAL MEDICINE FOR COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL HEALING
Class Schedule
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9TH
9-4 PRE:CONFERENCE INTENSIVE (pre-registration required, registration is now closed)
The Neurobiology of Trauma & Oppression: Epigenetics and Botanical Intervention: Lydia Anne Bartholow
This trauma primer covers the basics of trauma and beyond. We’ll review the current theories and understandings of emotional (as well as cultural, historical, systemic and ontological) trauma. Participants will come to understand the primary contributors and the major investigations in the realm of trauma. We will follow the physiological narrative of traumatic experiences centered within neuroscience, with special attention paid to the epigenetic processes. Each of these aspects will be placed within the context of radical public health and human development. Clinical interventions will be covered, including herbal, naturopathic and allopathic. We’ll wrap up our day with a focus on trauma stewardship and meaningful self care.
4:30-5:30 REGISTRATION
5:30 OPENING CEREMONY w/ SEAN DONAHUE
6-8 KEYNOTE :
Nurturing Your Fierce Heart: Sarah Holmes Mahonia Room
In the face of so much injustice in the world, our hearts need to be on the front line. Our hearts give us invaluable information and hold our innate wisdom. Instead of being hardened or shut-down , when we come from our hearts, we can be stronger, more compassionate and have more endurance for the long fight. Let’s open our hearts wider to embrace our current reality and find the way through, together.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10TH
8:30-9:00 REGISTRATION
9:00-9:30 INTRODUCTION AND ORIENTATION please attend!
9:30-11:15 CLASS SESSION 1
Holistic Toolbox for a Better Back: Traci Picard : Back Porch
Back pain is currently a leading cause of medical intervention and suffering. How can we help to introduce a more holistic view of back health? From posterior chain exercises to trigger point work, bodywork, foot mechanics, hydration, nutrition, herbal help and more, let’s put more tools in our toolbox to help prevent back pain before it starts and manage chronic pain that already exists. It’s all connected!
Includes hands-on examples and usable resources.
Empowerment from the Roots; Stories of Indigenous Midwifery and Community-Centered Health Care: Rhonda Lee Grantham : Mahonia Room
With ancestral wisdom, knowledge of plant medicines, and unspoken cultural understanding, midwives & healers have offered their hands in service throughout the journey of pregnancy and childbirth. Generations of women share in this universal, triumphant experience. And yet, the burdens of disease, poverty, and access to emergency care result in health disparities that are both unacceptable and heartbreaking. Every day, nearly 1,000 women die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth-related complications, with almost all maternal deaths (99%) occurring in the “developing” world. In an obstetric-minded attempt to improve maternal-child health, “traditional birth attendants” continue to be systematically oppressed in a government-funded move towards institutionalized birth. In this workshop, we will ask the question, “Is it possible to bridge the gifts of Indigenous midwifery (shared culture, language, and community), with the gems of modern medicine (such as family planning resources and access to life-saving care)?” Through her lens as a Native American woman, with an interest in Anthropology and Global Health, Rhonda Grantham will share stories of her travels and experience as an International Midwife. Rhonda has worked side-by-side with Indigenous Midwives in a variety of birth settings around the world, from overcrowded public hospitals & midwifery-ran birth centers, to home births in mud huts and wooden jungle shacks. By presenting different models of care, we will explore issues such as “Who holds the position of power”, “What is the overall impact on the community” and of particular interest, “What is the role, throughout the past, present, and future, of the traditional healers and midwives?”
Flower Essences for Trauma: Jasmyn Clift: Cedar Room
Flower Essences are beautiful, weird, mostly safe, and usually effective. While any of them may be helpful for recovering from trauma, there are some I have found to be remarkable in the depth of change and healing they promote. Drawing from 17 years using a wide range of flower essences for a huge diversity of people and types of trauma in both clinical and first aid settings, I will highlight ones I think your herbal practice should not be without.
Please note, this class is for folks who already know some basics about flower essence use and philosophy.
Northwest Nervines: Howie Brounstein : Rosa Room
A general overview of nervine use for the nervous system, both emotional and physical. An overview of Northwest nervine plants will be included.
11:30-1:15 CLASS SESSION 2
The Herbal Farmer: How and Why to Keep a Medicine Garden : Bonnie Weaver & The Roseroot Collective: Back Porch
Eager to grow your own medicine but not sure where to start? Join us to discuss the particularity of medicine farming from seed-to-bottle for home or community use. Learn tricks of the trade from germination to harvest with the seasoned medicine farmers of Roseroot Herbes and 1849 Medicine Garden.
Holding Fire and Water: Some plant Essences : Mimi Kamp : Rosa Room
o Stretching the gamut from client symptom relief to personal journeying.
o Attunement - Gathering medicine info and forming plant bonds
We will do 2 plant sits, one with a rainforest plant ( Devil’s Club), one with a desert plant (Agave) – opportunity for sharing and feed-back open discussion: Holding fire and water. – What does the desert heal? The rainforest? What can we say about the relationship of habitat to botanical healing qualities/constitutional balance, especially mental/emotional? We will end with a short slide show of a few desert flowers and their essence uses.
Local Herbs for Women’s Health : Corinne Boyer : Cedar Room
Join folk herbalist Corinne Boyer for a class on herbs for women’s health. With the abundant forests and fields that surround us, I feel deeply that all of the medicine that we need is only footsteps away. The diversity of the plantscape and applications of our local native and introduced flora is astounding. With consciousness and concern for this unique low land forest ecosystem, we will look at locally abundant sources of herbal medicine within the scope of women’s health. A woman’s body goes through many sacred and challenging phases in a life- Many plants are truly mutable to fit the need at hand if we only know how to apply them. We will focus on harvest times, techniques and simple medicine making ideas. Roughly twelve plants will be covered. Handouts included.
Herbalism for the Long Haul: How to be a herbalist and not hurt yourself: Maryann Abbs : Mahonia Room
We'll discuss herbal injury and illness prevention and strategies to create safe herbal workplaces. We'll practice participatory techniques including body mapping and workplace hazard mapping. Health and safety can be collective, creative and fun!
1:15-2:30 LUNCH:
The Flaming Eggplant Cafe will be open for lunch on campus in CAB building, food options for a variety of diets.
Lunchtime Youth-Specific Programming: Medicinal Plant Walk (with freaks): Krista & Katherine Haaga
Departs from Evergreen's F-lot at 1:30 PM
Join us for a guided plant walk through the Evergreen woods where we'll meet some plants, talk about what medicine means to us, and explore different ways of relating to plants.Bring what you need for a light walk in the woods.
This workshop is aimed at folks ages 10-17. Adult chaperones are welcome to attend.
2:30-4:15 CLASS SESSION 3
Cultivating Relationality: 20 Years at the Longhouse Garden: Marja Eloheimo: Back Porch
On October 17th, the Longhouse celebrates its 20th anniversary. We also celebrate twenty years since the inception of the Longhouse Ethnobotanical Garden. These years have presented resistance, required resilience, and demonstrated the powerful role a garden can play in cultivating relationality. In this presentation, we introduce the history of the Longhouse and garden, discuss ethnobiology and some of its paradigms, and examine eco-cultural-social relationality. Together, students and I describe teaching/learning associated with the garden (and a forthcoming Indigenous Arts Campus) and explore relational outcomes in several areas including identity and place, agency in community-based healthcare, concepts of medicine, and Indigenous authority. Time and weather permitting, we will go outside and experience the garden directly.
Herbal Medicine for Resilience: A Workshop for People of Color*: Elokin Orton-Cheung: Cedar Room
In this workshop we will talk about five plants we can work with to build mental and emotional health, specifically as people of color. I will share herbal remedies for building emotional resilience, from teas to rituals and flower essences, and present some ways we can deepen our relationship to plants. You will leave with resources to work with plant medicine for emotional healing and learn about examples of how herbal medicine and healing justice have been supportive to the current black liberation and racial justice movement.
*this workshop is intended for folks identified as people of color
Holistic First Aid: Meg Cur: Mahonia Room
An introduction to trauma care, emergency response, and preparedness. This class will enhance one's ability to address acute health concerns - from cuts and scrapes to shock - in low-tech, isolated, and marginalized spaces. We will discuss standard procedures and potential scenarios, and explore crucial herbs that aid in empowering community and individual responses to backwoods and street emergencies.
Putting the Gnosis back in Diagnosis: Sean Donahue : Rosa Room
In contemporary capitalist culture, medicine assumes that our bodies are machines, and names and categorizes injuries and diseases according to the way in which the machinery appears to have broken down -- one sprained ankle is the same as another just as one flat tire is the same as another. Herbalists tend to fall into the pattern of treating the medical diagnoses people have received prior to arriving in our clinics. What if we stopped doing that? What if we focused instead on working to shift what it felt like for a person to be in their body in this world right now? In this workshop we will explore a non-medical approach to diagnosis.
4:15-4:45 BREAK
4:45-6:30 KEYNOTE
The Invisible Herbalist: Plant Spirits in the Treatment Room: Joyce Netishen : Mahonia Room
We are all born of spirit, children of the earth and stars regardless of where we are, where we have been or where we go. We all belong here and each life carries a sacred vibration, some unique expression of life into the world. And somewhere along the path many of us got lost. We lost our way to the magical forest and the deep well of the waters of life. We forgot that within our sacred self is the magical purpose. We forgot that it is the most important thing we will ever know.
Little by little we lost our connection to spirit, that mystical, invisible, unknowable force of life, and because of this we suffer tremendous loss of vitality and resource, light and joy. Spiritual illness has many faces and shows up in unlimited ways. Nature has no judgement. Though we may lose our connection to spirit, spirit doesn’t lose the connection to us. Whether we acknowledge it, are aware of it or believe in it, somewhere deep within each of us is a sacred flame, some honorable vibration of light that will burn unto the hour of our death. The plants have never lost their connection to spirit, and have the potential to reach this level of suffering and illness in deep and profound ways. The spirit of plants help us remember our own way back home, and who we were made to be. Long live the magical purpose.
6:30-7:30 Dinner Break
7:30-10 Gala Celebration : Located at the Eastside Urban Farm and Garden Center (2326 4th Ave E)
Come help us celebrate our successes and failures as community herbalists, plant people, and whatever else as we meet, greet, network and indulge ourselves with deserts, herbal cordials & local music. Hope to see you there!
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11TH
8:45 LONGHOUSE OPENS
9:3o-11:15 CLASS SESSION 4
Recognizing & Working with Anemia Naturally: Tania Neubauer: Rosa Room
Anemia is one of the most common, yet under-recognized, health concerns in clinical practice, and its effects can be far-reaching. Will you recognize it in your practice? When you find it, will you work with it effectively? This course will cover recognizing and assessing anemia in your practice, and approaches to working with herbs and nutrition. With simple herbal teas and tinctures, you can work simultaneously with many systems of the body, healing the anemia from many contributing angles. Surprising findings by modern clinical herbalists working with traditional herbs for anemia will also be discussed. There will be a brief review of prescription treatments for anemia as well.
Topics to be covered: signs and symptoms of anemia, epidemiology of anemia: incidence and risk factors, most common types of anemia encountered in practice, appropriate history taking, testing and assessment of anemia, herbs for anemia - historical/traditional, surprising findings from modern herbal practice, and holistic strategies in working with herbs for many common concerns leading to anemia, treatment, including Rx forms of iron, dosing, alternative iron products, research findings, nutritional approach vs Rx.
Creating Healthy Landscapes: Chelsea Smith: Mahonia Room
In this workshop we will cover the basics of keeping any size gardens healthy. We will explore how to identify: pests, diseases, nutritional deficiencies and routine maintenance for keeping a healthy ecosystem in the gardens we tend. We will also discuss the future of gardening and overcoming barriers to water restrictions, soil toxicity and more.
Accessibility in Herbal Care at the Olympia Free Herbal Clinic: Jean Madrone : Back Porch
Botanical medicine can be incredibly empowering and accessible. How do we as herbalists deconstruct institutionalized barriers to healthcare and legacies of systemic oppression through our practice? What does that look like between practitioner and client? What does that look like in our model of care? This workshop will explore accessibility in clinical practice, including the principles of harm reduction. We will look at herbal approaches used commonly in the Olympia Free Herbal Clinic (including some materia medica), as well as specific strategies and lessons learned around client accessibility.
Gender-Affirming Sexual Health: Sam Roberts : Cedar Room
This will be a class about sexual/reproductive health that does not equate body parts or functions with specific genders.
11:15-11:30 BREAK
11:30-1:15 CLASS SESSION 5
Plant Walk/Plant Sit: Sean Croke: Meet on Back Porch
We will be walking into the woods in order to spend some quality time with Oplopanax horridus and maybe one or two of their friends. This will primarily be a plant sit/communion with some talking and singing also. It is wet & muddy out there probably so come ready for that. This is a great way to get grounded from all the Conference madness.
Beneficial Herb-Drug Interactions: Renee Davis: Mahonia Room
Herb drug interactions have a bad reputation. They have been overstated and exaggerated to spread misinformation about herbal medicine. But the truth is that these are largely positive--some herbs can synergize with drugs or alleviate their side effects. In this class we'll explore the interactions that are worth paying attention to, and strategies for dealing with them.
Waking From a Long Unrest: An herbalist's path to healing from Civilization: Heron Brae: Rosa Room
What is the way to leave behind the legacy of oppression we have inherited? What does herbalism have to do with genocide, domination, colonization, patriarchy? This lecture will investigate the worldview that causes our current cultural and ecological crisis and how to step forward into the unknowns of healing the past and being with what's next. We will look at the patterns from the oppressive society which exist within all of us, how they manifest in herbalism, and how we can transform them.
Hands-On Medicine Making: Erin Vicha : Cedar Room
Come get all oily with us! We will be making both fresh and dry herb infused oils. Then we will turn some herbal oils into salve and discuss a couple different methods. Once we get the basics of salves we will delve into the complex realm of making creams. We will be getting messy and learning a lot about topicals!
1:15-2:30 LUNCH + HERB SWAP
The Flaming Eggplant Cafe will be open for lunch on campus in CAB building, food options for a variety of diets.
2:30-4:15 CLASS SESSION 6
Medicinal Forest Gardens: Alex Slakie : Back Porch
This class will focus on the propagation of wild medicinal plants from our bioregion and slightly beyond. We will embark on a discussion of the term "native plant" and explore what that means for a rapidly changing planet. Is the climate here shifting to be more like that of southern Oregon and Northern California? How can we help our ecosystems remain resilient and diverse while plugging in, blurring the lines between what is cultivated and what is wild, all the while creating farms, gardens, and tended forests that support the medicinal plants that are keys for our vitality in the future. I will offer up the practical information that I have on growing the wild medicinal ones from seeds and cuttings and lead a discussion on emerging ecological terms like "assisted migration" and "novel ecosystems" and how they relate to working with medicinal plants where we live.
Adverse Effects of Cannabis: Paul Bergner: Mahonia Room
In the euphoria of the wave of decriminalization of cannabis for medical or recreational uses that is sweeping the country, the issue of adverse effects is not frequently discussed. As for any herb, Cannabis has potential benefits but also potential harms or discomforts. Acute effects, side effects, potential risks for driving while intoxicated, respiratory effects and overdose symptoms will be described, as well as long term side effects, long term effects on cognition, addictive potential, withdrawal symptoms and duration, as well as nutritional and herbal support for the withdrawal process. The talk will prepare the practitioner for clinical evaluation of current cannabis use, education for the patient with a new prescription for medical cannabis, recognizing side effects and withdrawal symptoms in the daily user, and nutritional and herbal support for the patient in withdrawal. The lecture is based on current science review and also a review of 25 case studies of daily cannabis users in Colorado or Oregon. Information and materials are presented in the Harm Reduction paradigm, patient centered without judgment.
The Truth about Detox and Cleansing: Orna Izakson : Rosa Room
They’ll tell you you’re dirty. (You’re not.) They’ll tell you it’s a toxic world out there. (It is.) They’ll tell you you’ll get sick (maybe) and die (we all will) if you don’t do their complicated, trademarked/patented expensive program. Over and over again.
The truth is that our bodies live to keep us healthy and return us to health in the face in this world of imbalances. And the keys to supporting the body (and mind and spirit) are mostly simple, inexpensive and close to hand. We’ll discuss the role of external and internal toxic stressors to human health, how the body deals with these, and strategies you can use at home or in the clinic to support the physiological tools Nature gave us.
Hope for the Future: Sarah Holmes : Cedar Room
Worried, angry, depressed about the future? In this class we will explore ways, through meditation, visualization and the support of the plants, to stay hopeful and keep our personal and political work sustainable toward a better world.
4:20 CLOSING CEREMONY w/ Sean Donahue
9-4 PRE:CONFERENCE INTENSIVE (pre-registration required, registration is now closed)
The Neurobiology of Trauma & Oppression: Epigenetics and Botanical Intervention: Lydia Anne Bartholow
This trauma primer covers the basics of trauma and beyond. We’ll review the current theories and understandings of emotional (as well as cultural, historical, systemic and ontological) trauma. Participants will come to understand the primary contributors and the major investigations in the realm of trauma. We will follow the physiological narrative of traumatic experiences centered within neuroscience, with special attention paid to the epigenetic processes. Each of these aspects will be placed within the context of radical public health and human development. Clinical interventions will be covered, including herbal, naturopathic and allopathic. We’ll wrap up our day with a focus on trauma stewardship and meaningful self care.
4:30-5:30 REGISTRATION
5:30 OPENING CEREMONY w/ SEAN DONAHUE
6-8 KEYNOTE :
Nurturing Your Fierce Heart: Sarah Holmes Mahonia Room
In the face of so much injustice in the world, our hearts need to be on the front line. Our hearts give us invaluable information and hold our innate wisdom. Instead of being hardened or shut-down , when we come from our hearts, we can be stronger, more compassionate and have more endurance for the long fight. Let’s open our hearts wider to embrace our current reality and find the way through, together.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10TH
8:30-9:00 REGISTRATION
9:00-9:30 INTRODUCTION AND ORIENTATION please attend!
9:30-11:15 CLASS SESSION 1
Holistic Toolbox for a Better Back: Traci Picard : Back Porch
Back pain is currently a leading cause of medical intervention and suffering. How can we help to introduce a more holistic view of back health? From posterior chain exercises to trigger point work, bodywork, foot mechanics, hydration, nutrition, herbal help and more, let’s put more tools in our toolbox to help prevent back pain before it starts and manage chronic pain that already exists. It’s all connected!
Includes hands-on examples and usable resources.
Empowerment from the Roots; Stories of Indigenous Midwifery and Community-Centered Health Care: Rhonda Lee Grantham : Mahonia Room
With ancestral wisdom, knowledge of plant medicines, and unspoken cultural understanding, midwives & healers have offered their hands in service throughout the journey of pregnancy and childbirth. Generations of women share in this universal, triumphant experience. And yet, the burdens of disease, poverty, and access to emergency care result in health disparities that are both unacceptable and heartbreaking. Every day, nearly 1,000 women die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth-related complications, with almost all maternal deaths (99%) occurring in the “developing” world. In an obstetric-minded attempt to improve maternal-child health, “traditional birth attendants” continue to be systematically oppressed in a government-funded move towards institutionalized birth. In this workshop, we will ask the question, “Is it possible to bridge the gifts of Indigenous midwifery (shared culture, language, and community), with the gems of modern medicine (such as family planning resources and access to life-saving care)?” Through her lens as a Native American woman, with an interest in Anthropology and Global Health, Rhonda Grantham will share stories of her travels and experience as an International Midwife. Rhonda has worked side-by-side with Indigenous Midwives in a variety of birth settings around the world, from overcrowded public hospitals & midwifery-ran birth centers, to home births in mud huts and wooden jungle shacks. By presenting different models of care, we will explore issues such as “Who holds the position of power”, “What is the overall impact on the community” and of particular interest, “What is the role, throughout the past, present, and future, of the traditional healers and midwives?”
Flower Essences for Trauma: Jasmyn Clift: Cedar Room
Flower Essences are beautiful, weird, mostly safe, and usually effective. While any of them may be helpful for recovering from trauma, there are some I have found to be remarkable in the depth of change and healing they promote. Drawing from 17 years using a wide range of flower essences for a huge diversity of people and types of trauma in both clinical and first aid settings, I will highlight ones I think your herbal practice should not be without.
Please note, this class is for folks who already know some basics about flower essence use and philosophy.
Northwest Nervines: Howie Brounstein : Rosa Room
A general overview of nervine use for the nervous system, both emotional and physical. An overview of Northwest nervine plants will be included.
11:30-1:15 CLASS SESSION 2
The Herbal Farmer: How and Why to Keep a Medicine Garden : Bonnie Weaver & The Roseroot Collective: Back Porch
Eager to grow your own medicine but not sure where to start? Join us to discuss the particularity of medicine farming from seed-to-bottle for home or community use. Learn tricks of the trade from germination to harvest with the seasoned medicine farmers of Roseroot Herbes and 1849 Medicine Garden.
Holding Fire and Water: Some plant Essences : Mimi Kamp : Rosa Room
o Stretching the gamut from client symptom relief to personal journeying.
o Attunement - Gathering medicine info and forming plant bonds
We will do 2 plant sits, one with a rainforest plant ( Devil’s Club), one with a desert plant (Agave) – opportunity for sharing and feed-back open discussion: Holding fire and water. – What does the desert heal? The rainforest? What can we say about the relationship of habitat to botanical healing qualities/constitutional balance, especially mental/emotional? We will end with a short slide show of a few desert flowers and their essence uses.
Local Herbs for Women’s Health : Corinne Boyer : Cedar Room
Join folk herbalist Corinne Boyer for a class on herbs for women’s health. With the abundant forests and fields that surround us, I feel deeply that all of the medicine that we need is only footsteps away. The diversity of the plantscape and applications of our local native and introduced flora is astounding. With consciousness and concern for this unique low land forest ecosystem, we will look at locally abundant sources of herbal medicine within the scope of women’s health. A woman’s body goes through many sacred and challenging phases in a life- Many plants are truly mutable to fit the need at hand if we only know how to apply them. We will focus on harvest times, techniques and simple medicine making ideas. Roughly twelve plants will be covered. Handouts included.
Herbalism for the Long Haul: How to be a herbalist and not hurt yourself: Maryann Abbs : Mahonia Room
We'll discuss herbal injury and illness prevention and strategies to create safe herbal workplaces. We'll practice participatory techniques including body mapping and workplace hazard mapping. Health and safety can be collective, creative and fun!
1:15-2:30 LUNCH:
The Flaming Eggplant Cafe will be open for lunch on campus in CAB building, food options for a variety of diets.
Lunchtime Youth-Specific Programming: Medicinal Plant Walk (with freaks): Krista & Katherine Haaga
Departs from Evergreen's F-lot at 1:30 PM
Join us for a guided plant walk through the Evergreen woods where we'll meet some plants, talk about what medicine means to us, and explore different ways of relating to plants.Bring what you need for a light walk in the woods.
This workshop is aimed at folks ages 10-17. Adult chaperones are welcome to attend.
2:30-4:15 CLASS SESSION 3
Cultivating Relationality: 20 Years at the Longhouse Garden: Marja Eloheimo: Back Porch
On October 17th, the Longhouse celebrates its 20th anniversary. We also celebrate twenty years since the inception of the Longhouse Ethnobotanical Garden. These years have presented resistance, required resilience, and demonstrated the powerful role a garden can play in cultivating relationality. In this presentation, we introduce the history of the Longhouse and garden, discuss ethnobiology and some of its paradigms, and examine eco-cultural-social relationality. Together, students and I describe teaching/learning associated with the garden (and a forthcoming Indigenous Arts Campus) and explore relational outcomes in several areas including identity and place, agency in community-based healthcare, concepts of medicine, and Indigenous authority. Time and weather permitting, we will go outside and experience the garden directly.
Herbal Medicine for Resilience: A Workshop for People of Color*: Elokin Orton-Cheung: Cedar Room
In this workshop we will talk about five plants we can work with to build mental and emotional health, specifically as people of color. I will share herbal remedies for building emotional resilience, from teas to rituals and flower essences, and present some ways we can deepen our relationship to plants. You will leave with resources to work with plant medicine for emotional healing and learn about examples of how herbal medicine and healing justice have been supportive to the current black liberation and racial justice movement.
*this workshop is intended for folks identified as people of color
Holistic First Aid: Meg Cur: Mahonia Room
An introduction to trauma care, emergency response, and preparedness. This class will enhance one's ability to address acute health concerns - from cuts and scrapes to shock - in low-tech, isolated, and marginalized spaces. We will discuss standard procedures and potential scenarios, and explore crucial herbs that aid in empowering community and individual responses to backwoods and street emergencies.
Putting the Gnosis back in Diagnosis: Sean Donahue : Rosa Room
In contemporary capitalist culture, medicine assumes that our bodies are machines, and names and categorizes injuries and diseases according to the way in which the machinery appears to have broken down -- one sprained ankle is the same as another just as one flat tire is the same as another. Herbalists tend to fall into the pattern of treating the medical diagnoses people have received prior to arriving in our clinics. What if we stopped doing that? What if we focused instead on working to shift what it felt like for a person to be in their body in this world right now? In this workshop we will explore a non-medical approach to diagnosis.
4:15-4:45 BREAK
4:45-6:30 KEYNOTE
The Invisible Herbalist: Plant Spirits in the Treatment Room: Joyce Netishen : Mahonia Room
We are all born of spirit, children of the earth and stars regardless of where we are, where we have been or where we go. We all belong here and each life carries a sacred vibration, some unique expression of life into the world. And somewhere along the path many of us got lost. We lost our way to the magical forest and the deep well of the waters of life. We forgot that within our sacred self is the magical purpose. We forgot that it is the most important thing we will ever know.
Little by little we lost our connection to spirit, that mystical, invisible, unknowable force of life, and because of this we suffer tremendous loss of vitality and resource, light and joy. Spiritual illness has many faces and shows up in unlimited ways. Nature has no judgement. Though we may lose our connection to spirit, spirit doesn’t lose the connection to us. Whether we acknowledge it, are aware of it or believe in it, somewhere deep within each of us is a sacred flame, some honorable vibration of light that will burn unto the hour of our death. The plants have never lost their connection to spirit, and have the potential to reach this level of suffering and illness in deep and profound ways. The spirit of plants help us remember our own way back home, and who we were made to be. Long live the magical purpose.
6:30-7:30 Dinner Break
7:30-10 Gala Celebration : Located at the Eastside Urban Farm and Garden Center (2326 4th Ave E)
Come help us celebrate our successes and failures as community herbalists, plant people, and whatever else as we meet, greet, network and indulge ourselves with deserts, herbal cordials & local music. Hope to see you there!
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11TH
8:45 LONGHOUSE OPENS
9:3o-11:15 CLASS SESSION 4
Recognizing & Working with Anemia Naturally: Tania Neubauer: Rosa Room
Anemia is one of the most common, yet under-recognized, health concerns in clinical practice, and its effects can be far-reaching. Will you recognize it in your practice? When you find it, will you work with it effectively? This course will cover recognizing and assessing anemia in your practice, and approaches to working with herbs and nutrition. With simple herbal teas and tinctures, you can work simultaneously with many systems of the body, healing the anemia from many contributing angles. Surprising findings by modern clinical herbalists working with traditional herbs for anemia will also be discussed. There will be a brief review of prescription treatments for anemia as well.
Topics to be covered: signs and symptoms of anemia, epidemiology of anemia: incidence and risk factors, most common types of anemia encountered in practice, appropriate history taking, testing and assessment of anemia, herbs for anemia - historical/traditional, surprising findings from modern herbal practice, and holistic strategies in working with herbs for many common concerns leading to anemia, treatment, including Rx forms of iron, dosing, alternative iron products, research findings, nutritional approach vs Rx.
Creating Healthy Landscapes: Chelsea Smith: Mahonia Room
In this workshop we will cover the basics of keeping any size gardens healthy. We will explore how to identify: pests, diseases, nutritional deficiencies and routine maintenance for keeping a healthy ecosystem in the gardens we tend. We will also discuss the future of gardening and overcoming barriers to water restrictions, soil toxicity and more.
Accessibility in Herbal Care at the Olympia Free Herbal Clinic: Jean Madrone : Back Porch
Botanical medicine can be incredibly empowering and accessible. How do we as herbalists deconstruct institutionalized barriers to healthcare and legacies of systemic oppression through our practice? What does that look like between practitioner and client? What does that look like in our model of care? This workshop will explore accessibility in clinical practice, including the principles of harm reduction. We will look at herbal approaches used commonly in the Olympia Free Herbal Clinic (including some materia medica), as well as specific strategies and lessons learned around client accessibility.
Gender-Affirming Sexual Health: Sam Roberts : Cedar Room
This will be a class about sexual/reproductive health that does not equate body parts or functions with specific genders.
11:15-11:30 BREAK
11:30-1:15 CLASS SESSION 5
Plant Walk/Plant Sit: Sean Croke: Meet on Back Porch
We will be walking into the woods in order to spend some quality time with Oplopanax horridus and maybe one or two of their friends. This will primarily be a plant sit/communion with some talking and singing also. It is wet & muddy out there probably so come ready for that. This is a great way to get grounded from all the Conference madness.
Beneficial Herb-Drug Interactions: Renee Davis: Mahonia Room
Herb drug interactions have a bad reputation. They have been overstated and exaggerated to spread misinformation about herbal medicine. But the truth is that these are largely positive--some herbs can synergize with drugs or alleviate their side effects. In this class we'll explore the interactions that are worth paying attention to, and strategies for dealing with them.
Waking From a Long Unrest: An herbalist's path to healing from Civilization: Heron Brae: Rosa Room
What is the way to leave behind the legacy of oppression we have inherited? What does herbalism have to do with genocide, domination, colonization, patriarchy? This lecture will investigate the worldview that causes our current cultural and ecological crisis and how to step forward into the unknowns of healing the past and being with what's next. We will look at the patterns from the oppressive society which exist within all of us, how they manifest in herbalism, and how we can transform them.
Hands-On Medicine Making: Erin Vicha : Cedar Room
Come get all oily with us! We will be making both fresh and dry herb infused oils. Then we will turn some herbal oils into salve and discuss a couple different methods. Once we get the basics of salves we will delve into the complex realm of making creams. We will be getting messy and learning a lot about topicals!
1:15-2:30 LUNCH + HERB SWAP
The Flaming Eggplant Cafe will be open for lunch on campus in CAB building, food options for a variety of diets.
2:30-4:15 CLASS SESSION 6
Medicinal Forest Gardens: Alex Slakie : Back Porch
This class will focus on the propagation of wild medicinal plants from our bioregion and slightly beyond. We will embark on a discussion of the term "native plant" and explore what that means for a rapidly changing planet. Is the climate here shifting to be more like that of southern Oregon and Northern California? How can we help our ecosystems remain resilient and diverse while plugging in, blurring the lines between what is cultivated and what is wild, all the while creating farms, gardens, and tended forests that support the medicinal plants that are keys for our vitality in the future. I will offer up the practical information that I have on growing the wild medicinal ones from seeds and cuttings and lead a discussion on emerging ecological terms like "assisted migration" and "novel ecosystems" and how they relate to working with medicinal plants where we live.
Adverse Effects of Cannabis: Paul Bergner: Mahonia Room
In the euphoria of the wave of decriminalization of cannabis for medical or recreational uses that is sweeping the country, the issue of adverse effects is not frequently discussed. As for any herb, Cannabis has potential benefits but also potential harms or discomforts. Acute effects, side effects, potential risks for driving while intoxicated, respiratory effects and overdose symptoms will be described, as well as long term side effects, long term effects on cognition, addictive potential, withdrawal symptoms and duration, as well as nutritional and herbal support for the withdrawal process. The talk will prepare the practitioner for clinical evaluation of current cannabis use, education for the patient with a new prescription for medical cannabis, recognizing side effects and withdrawal symptoms in the daily user, and nutritional and herbal support for the patient in withdrawal. The lecture is based on current science review and also a review of 25 case studies of daily cannabis users in Colorado or Oregon. Information and materials are presented in the Harm Reduction paradigm, patient centered without judgment.
The Truth about Detox and Cleansing: Orna Izakson : Rosa Room
They’ll tell you you’re dirty. (You’re not.) They’ll tell you it’s a toxic world out there. (It is.) They’ll tell you you’ll get sick (maybe) and die (we all will) if you don’t do their complicated, trademarked/patented expensive program. Over and over again.
The truth is that our bodies live to keep us healthy and return us to health in the face in this world of imbalances. And the keys to supporting the body (and mind and spirit) are mostly simple, inexpensive and close to hand. We’ll discuss the role of external and internal toxic stressors to human health, how the body deals with these, and strategies you can use at home or in the clinic to support the physiological tools Nature gave us.
Hope for the Future: Sarah Holmes : Cedar Room
Worried, angry, depressed about the future? In this class we will explore ways, through meditation, visualization and the support of the plants, to stay hopeful and keep our personal and political work sustainable toward a better world.
4:20 CLOSING CEREMONY w/ Sean Donahue
In this workshop we will cover the basics of keeping any size gardens healthy. We will explore how to identify: pests, diseases, nutritional deficiencies and routine maintenance for keeping a healthy ecosystem in the gardens we tend. We will also discuss the future of gardening and overcoming barriers to water restrictions, soil toxicity and more.
On October 17th, the Longhouse celebrates its 20th anniversary. We also celebrate twenty years since the inception of the Longhouse Ethnobotanical Garden. These years have presented resistance, required resilience, and demonstrated the powerful role a garden can play in cultivating relationality. In this presentation, we introduce the history of the Longhouse and garden, discuss ethnobiology and some of its paradigms, and examine eco-cultural-social relationality. Together, students and I describe teaching/learning associated with the garden (and a forthcoming Indigenous Arts Campus) and explore relational outcomes in several areas including identity and place, agency in community-based healthcare, concepts of medicine, and Indigenous authority. Time and weather permitting, we will go outside and experience the garden directly.
Flower Essences are beautiful, weird, mostly safe, and usually effective. While any of them may be helpful for recovering from trauma, there are some I have found to be remarkable in the depth of change and healing they promote. Drawing from 17 years using a wide range of flower essences for a huge diversity of people and types of trauma in both clinical and first aid settings, I will highlight ones I think your herbal practice should not be without.
Please note, this class is for folks who already know some basics about flower essence use and philosophy.
Please note, this class is for folks who already know some basics about flower essence use and philosophy.
This will be a class about sexual/reproductive health that does not equate body parts or functions with specific genders.
Hands on Medicine Making: Exploring Oils, Salves, and Creams Come get all oily with us! We will be making both fresh and dry herb infused oils. Then we will turn some herbal oils into salve and discuss a couple different methods. Once we get the basics of salves we will delve into the complex realm of making creams. We will be getting messy and learning a lot about topicals!
In this workshop we will talk about five plants we can work with to build mental and emotional health, specifically as people of color. I will share herbal remedies for building emotional resilience, from teas to rituals and flower essences, and present some ways we can deepen our relationship to plants. You will leave with resources to work with plant medicine for emotional healing and learn about examples of how herbal medicine and healing justice have been supportive to the current black liberation and racial justice movement.
We'll discuss herbal injury and illness prevention and strategies to create safe herbal workplaces. We'll practice participatory techniques including body mapping and workplace hazard mapping. Health and safety can be collective, creative and fun!
Herb-drug interactions have a bad reputation. They have been overstated and exaggerated to spread misinformation about herbal medicine. But the truth is that these are largely positive--some herbs can synergize with drugs or alleviate their side effects. In this class we'll explore the interactions that are worth paying attention to and strategies for dealing with them.
Worried, angry, depressed about the future? In this class we will explore ways, through meditation, visualization and the support of the plants, to stay hopeful and keep our personal and political work sustainable toward a better world.
Eager to grow your own medicine but not sure where to start? Join us to discuss the particularity of medicine farming from seed-to-bottle for home or community use. Learn tricks of the trade from germination to harvest with the seasoned medicine farmers of Roseroot Herbes and 1849 Medicine Garden.
They’ll tell you you’re dirty. (You’re not.) They’ll tell you it’s a toxic world out there. (It is.) They’ll tell you you’ll get sick (maybe) and die (we all will) if you don’t do their complicated, trademarked/patented expensive program. Over and over again.
The truth is that our bodies live to keep us healthy and return us to health in the face in this world of imbalances. And the keys to supporting the body (and mind and spirit) are mostly simple, inexpensive and close to hand. We’ll discuss the role of external and internal toxic stressors to human health, how the body deals with these, and strategies you can use at home or in the clinic to support the physiological tools Nature gave us.
The truth is that our bodies live to keep us healthy and return us to health in the face in this world of imbalances. And the keys to supporting the body (and mind and spirit) are mostly simple, inexpensive and close to hand. We’ll discuss the role of external and internal toxic stressors to human health, how the body deals with these, and strategies you can use at home or in the clinic to support the physiological tools Nature gave us.
What is the way to leave behind the legacy of oppression we have inherited? What does herbalism have to do with genocide, domination, colonization, patriarchy? This lecture will investigate the worldview that causes our current cultural and ecological crisis and how to step forward into the unknowns of healing the past and being with what's next. We will look at the patterns from the oppressive society which exist within all of us, how they manifest in herbalism, and how we can transform them.