Workshop
Topics
Please note, the descriptions for each workshop are in the language they will be taught in.
FRIDAY AUGUST 9
Keynote Speaker - Gilbert Whiteduck
Gilbert W. Whiteduck has been a trailblazer for Indigenous social justice and education during a long and distinguished career in public service. A committed educator, he has served as a teacher, guidance counsellor, school principal and director of education during 33 years in the education system. He is presently serving as the Treatment Co-ordinator at the Wanaki Treatment Centre, providing help to First Nations and Inuit people with addiction issues.
Read Gilbert's full bio here.
SATURDAY AUGUST 10
Saturday Workshop Slot 1
Discover the fantastic world of La Fée des Bois apothecary as you walk through the farm's gardens - Marianne Desjardins Roy
The workshop will begin with a tasting of iced herbal teas, sitting comfortably in the shade, discovering the four main techniques of transformation in herbalism. We will then set off to explore the gardens, where we will explain the bio-intensive cultivation and medicinal and culinary use of about 25 plants that we grow. All your senses will be stimulated during the interactive tour. A question and answer period will follow the visit.
Indigenous Herbal Traditions - Luce Bélanger
An engaging workshop about the plants traditionally used for indigenous ceremonies, the spirit of those plants, and the work they do to help us.
Herbal Teas and other water-based extractions - Kayoki Whiteduck
This workshop will focus on a few topics around herbal teas and water extracts including; wild herbal teas, Invasive/at risk herbal teas, herbal teas for pollinators, blending herbs for tea, harvesting techniques/practices and how to make herbal teas, decoctions and infusions.
Saturday Workshop Slot 2
Herbal Traditions of Ghana - Mama Adzorhlor III
An exciting workshop about the plants used in the herbal traditions of Ghana. African traditional herbalism is a collaboration between the healer, the patient, the herbs and the spirit world. The herbs used are very powerful pharmacologically, backed by modern science. But many also work on the psychic level. This wholistic approach toward physical, psychological and spiritual care of families and whole communities is often very effective.
Les champignons médicinaux; une médecine ancestrale de nos forêts - Dominque Charpentier
Je vous invite à discuter et partager avec moi sur ces champignons médicinaux utilisés depuis des millénaires. Je vous présente 3 des ces trésors: le Chaga, le Ganoderma tsugae, etl e trametes versicolor. Nous discuterons de leur mode de fonctionnement, de leurs propriétés médicinales et de l’étonnante similitude qu’il y a entre eux et nous! Nous allons ensemble apprendre la transformation d’un de ces champignons. Une double extraction de chaga qui est l’une des transformations les plus efficaces pour aller extraire un maximum des molécules intéressantes de ces fungi. Au plaisir d’échanger et partager avec vous sur cette magnifique richesse de la nature, les champignons médicinaux. Médecine du peuple.
Medicine Making: The Basics of Herbal Tinctures - Tori Lubbers
In this immersive experience, you will learn how to prepare, macerate and press fresh & dried herbal tinctures. This workshop will include a basic overview of herb properties (such as bitters, mucilages and volatile oils) that will help you understand which substances are best suited for extracting some plant constituents over others. This workshop is for the herb curious - no prior knowledge of herbalism is required. Delve into the art and science of botanical tincturing, leave with an herbal tincture of your making and the confidence to make your own potent herbal tinctures at home.
Herb Walk - Erin Whittingham
Join Erin for a herb walk dedicated to exploring plants that support gut health. Together we will identify local plants, methods of harvest, their medicinal uses, and how to work with them. After completing her Level 2 research on Leaky Gut Syndrome, Erin is excited to share with you the plant allies that can soothe and repair the organ that nourishes our lives.
Saturday Workshop Slot 3
Atelier Immersif: découverte des plantes de nos jardins - Marianne Desjardins Roy
Découvrez le fantastique univers de l’herboristerie La Fée des Bois en parcourant les jardins de la ferme. L'atelier débutera avec une dégustation de tisanes glacées, bien assis à l'ombre, en découvrant les quatre grandes techniques de transformation en herboristerie. Nous partirons ensuite à l'exploration des jardins, où nous vous expliquerons la culture bio-intensive et l’utilisation médicinale et culinaire d'environ 25 plantes que nous cultivons. Tous vos sens seront stimulés durant la visite interactive. Une période de questions suivra la visite.
Jungle Medicine - Alberto Carbo
Most people understand that human beings have long been in relationship with plants. We have depended on them for oxygen, food, shelter, warmth and medicine since time immemorial through to the present day. Equally important, yet less frequently acknowledged, is the involvement of plants in our spiritual and religious endeavors. Throughout the ages, over vast distances and varying topographical regions, different groups of humans have at one point or another employed the use of psychedelic plants into their spiritual practices and/or developed spiritual practices through psychedelic plant usage. In contemporary western and developed nations, plants are no longer popularly utilized as medicine, and less so for spiritual endeavours. By contrast, the Amazon jungle is home to hundreds of tribes who utilize plants as their primary medicine, and who’s spiritual practices involve communing with psychedelic species.
I invite you to join me on a voyage, and familiarize yourself with a culture who reveres plants and their respective spirits, where healing is considered to be a physical and spiritual endeavor, and where medicinal legacies live in the world of dreams. On this journey we will explore the use of several medicinal plants, featuring Ayahuasca, its preparation, dosing, lore and benefits. In addition, we will explore the practice of Dieta, and the interesting parallels with some of the historical influences on Western Herbalism.
Working creatively with plant beings - Diane Perazzo
Cherish the circle song of the green and growing ones and let their rhythm re-entrance your dreaming. Remember, it was they who taught you to smell and taste and see the beauty in colour and form. By honouring and sharing our lives with herbal and plant allies, we bring ourselves closer to understanding the elemental wisdom they offer us. This writing workshop will provide space for you to deepen your connection with the photosynthetic ones in a way that can help you become their creative ally. We will explore some of the ways that plants express themselves through the work of writers, musicians and artists and practice some techniques to bring ourselves closer to plant beings in a way that can inform our writing and other creative pursuits.
Then and Now ~ My herbal journey - Penelope Beaudrow
Join this heartfelt talk as Penelope shares first hand the changes to the herbal industry over the past thirty years and what all herb enthusiasts don't know about the industry.
Saturday Workshop Slot 4
Ayurveda: Personalized approach to Total Wellness - Dr. Gupta
Ayurveda encompasses a comprehensive understanding of the Science of life. It determines all moments of life, including quality, characteristic features, and span. Ayurveda defines an individual through physical, mental, emotional and spiritual factors. These features are variable through our daily routine (Din Charya), seasonal routine (Chariya), and through the different stages of our lives (from childhood to old age). If you have individualized health and live-in accordance with laws of nature, then you will have total balance and Sukhayu (happy life) and Hitayu (life which is supportive and nourishing to self and others). Imbalance in your Din Charya (Circadian Rhythm) and Seasonal Routine (Seasonal) will result in Dukhayu (unhappy life) and Ahitayu (life that is unsupportive and not nourishing to life).
Mourning Earth Altars: a workshop and a practice for our individual and collective worries, heartbreak & love - Jennifer Gillean
What we see on the news about what’s happening in our own backyards and in different ecosystems around the world is heart wrenching and deeply troublesome for many of us. “It’s easy to feel totally overwhelmed. Maybe a bit helpless, powerless, angry, on fire, numb, disconnected. Perhaps all the above,” said internationally noted climate psychologist, Dr. Renée Lertzman, PhD, in her 2019 TED Talk, How to Turn Climate Anxiety into Action.
In this transformative and restorative workshop, we will lean on Day Schildkret’s 7 steps in his Morning Altars Practice to contemplate, imagine and create a container: an altar with the intention to acknowledge and honour our grief and love for this earth. We will immerse ourselves among the elements and engage some of the surroundings to help us play, explore and create our nature altar in honour of our relationship to the earth and the plants, animals and people living here. Our Earth Altar will be a seed and a prayer for our longings and commitments in offering our love and care in tending to the earth’s beings.
Herb Walk - Christina Benoit
Join Christina for a herb walk discovering local plants, their identification, methods of harvest, and their medicinal uses.
Humoral Medicine - Abrah Arneson
For four hundred years plagues swept through Europe killing millions. The saying was, “Bright and cheery in the morning, dead by nightfall”. The traditional medicine theory at the time, humoral medicine, was ineffective. Then in the 1800s, bacteria was discovered under the lens of the newly invented telescope and a new theory of disease was proposed: Germ Theory. Humoral medicine that had been crafted by the observations of thousands of healers throughout European history was tossed aside. But was it? Today many herbalists turn to the basic premises contained with humoral medicine to resolve the answer to this question: Why does one person die from an infection while another person, with the same infection, throws it off and goes on with their life? The answer: it’s the terrain, not the bug.
During this workshop, Abrah will guide you through the terrain of humoral medicine with an exploration of the elements, earth, water, fire, air and space. While you will learn some of the theory behind humoral medicine, this workshop is also hands-on with tongue reading and tincture tasting.
SUNDAY AUGUST 11
Intuitive Plant Use - Steven Martin
In our time together I’d like to talk about and practice intuitive plant use. Our intuition has historically been associated with the ‘feminine’ so it’s not surprising that it has been greatly underestimated and diminished in our patriarchal culture. Even now, an art like herbalism which at its very core is intuitive in many ways, is now regimented and understood exclusively in scientific terms. Yet our intuition is how we have always survived, and not just our ‘superior reasoning’ as we might imagine. Like any highly developed sense our intuition's evolution was essential, and is a good part of what makes us the wily human creatures we are. And of all things to have intuition about, one would think it’d be the plants that surround us, who are our oldest friends and speak to us all the time. And they're willing to show us their magic in their form. The question about intuitive plant use isn’t whether or not it’s possible, it is are we capable of seeing or hearing the plants, over the fog and din of our colonial minds grasping for ‘power through knowledge’. Like a wild animal our intuition is easily scared away by our churning avarice for more knowledge.
The channels of our intuition are manifold but we have to get out of the way first. Sometimes they come as a visual thing, to do with the plant and the way it’s formed, grows, smells or functions. And sometimes it’s more direct. I experience the plant within my mind and body, and then I get a ‘bundle’ full of knowledge from the plant, that I have to unwrap in stillness. And sometimes I just know stuff because I can feel what the plant is doing in my body. These are just a few ways our intuition works, that I can help you with. Join me for a life changing event. Limited group.
Our Micro-Ancestors – An Intensive Study of Herbs, Infection and Your Microbiome Health - Abrah Arneson
Let’s take a deep dive into the micro world of bacteria, viruses, archaeans and phages to discover how these tiny, invisible to your eyes, ancestors support your health and well-being. Let’s talk about herbal medicine that supports the health of the microbes that interact with every part of your body and mind. While offering herbal medicine to support a number of individuals with chronic infections including Lyme disease and auto-immune conditions, I realized that there is a profound need for a new paradigm to understand the relationship between plants, microbes and the human being. As opposed to thinking of herbal medicine as anti-microbial or anti-inflammatory, perhaps we need to consider how herbal medicine supports the health not only of the body and mind, but also the microbiome which leads to the resolution of chronic inflammatory illnesses and resolves chronic infections.
During this intensive: Learn about specific commensal microbes and how they support your health. Discover the harmonious relationship between your immune system and your microbiome. Go for an herb walk to discover how specific herbs and classes of herbs support the health of your microbiome. Taste a few tinctures that will help you understand the relationship between your microbiome, plants and your body. Come away with a great sense of the miraculous web of life. You are guaranteed to never think of germs in quite the same way.
Introduction to Elemental Herb Medicine: Fire, Water, Earth, Air - Alberto Carbo & Tori Lubbers
Come on an exploration of The Elements and see how this system is used as the foundation of many herbal and medical traditional healing modalities across the world. You’ll learn the dynamic interplay between Fire, Water, Earth & Air, and how the dance between them forms the base of the natural world around us and within us. The goal of this workshop is to move beyond knowing what plants are good for certain conditions, and to provide a foundation of herbal medicine and a new holistic paradigm. Through the Elements, you’ll walk away with a cohesive framework to understand the herbs (their classification & medicinal actions), as well as the body (the organ systems & disease).
During this workshop we’ll: experiment with tasting herbs and matching them to each of the Elements; learn how to work with these herbal energetics to support the Vital Force (the inherent intelligence of the body, always moving towards health); then apply these concepts practically as we journey through imbalances that can occur in the GI Tract, the Liver, Blood, and the Pathways of Elimination. We’ll conclude our time together with a question period. No previous herbal knowledge necessary - beginners and long-practicing herbalists alike will find something to take away from this workshop.