Herbal Helpers for Tumultuous Times - an Herbal Retreat

Mom and I attended an herbal retreat (plant class I call it) that was called "Herbal helpers for Tumultuous Times" about a month ago in Palmer.  I mentioned it in an earlier blog about the travelling of the "People Quilt", as the quilt had gone with me for sleeping and comfort.

The class was taught in part by a lady named Janice Schofield and she lives now in Australia, but had once lived in Alaska for many years.   She is the author of a number of books on plants and harvesting plants in the wild as well as their medicinal uses.  If you Google her you can find volumes of information and reference her books (click the link on her name for a class information flyer).

The other teacher/leader of the class was Ellen VanDevisse of Good Earth Garden School.  She lives full time in Palmer at Artemesia Acres.  A wonderful little, "zero waste" permaculture farm.

Here is Janice getting us ready to harvest Devils Club at the Matanuska Park in Palmer, where the Park maintenance had been creating a new trail and were going to cut a wide swath of the stuff down, so it was providence that  we were having the class at the same time so we could make use of a product that would otherwise have been wasted!  My pictures from the actually processing of the Devils club have been lost somehow so Ill be going over that in another blog after I've had time to  recreate it.

Here she is (in the red) talking to us about Cottonwood and how to harvest the buds for salves and other medicinal uses.  It was a jam packed class, full to the brim with information and hands on education about plants.  

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This is our sitting circle at the plant class.  It was a place that we would all post up and tell about why we were there and what we hoped to learn on the first evening as well as where we took our meals.  On the second day it was the place where we talked about our personal herbal helper (as I said before mine was Detox Tea).  Others had helpful tips, or recipes, or essential oils that they used and told about.  It was an amazing group of people and ideas.

Here is one of the other group members herbal helper and I have put it on my list of things to try soon!  As I am back at the school working too now, there is a lot of flu and such going around so I will make use of this one too, along with the Fire Cider - you will learn about that later!

If you get a chance to read some of Janice Schofield's or Ellen VanDevisse materials or to take a class from either of them - do it!  Dive in past your comfort zone (which this was way outside of mine) and make some new friends, learn something new and maybe get a little bit grounded along the way!