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Practical Herbalism:
Medicine of the People (Online 3-Month Course)
Immerse yourself in a transformative journey with our online course, cultivating a profound plant connection and nature immersion. Delve into deep ecology, systems thinking, and ecological principles through an in-depth study of medicinal plants, foraging skills, medicine-making, and real-world case studies. This evolving spiral course deepens with each weekly session, fostering a harmonious collective experience. Engage in small and significant groups, supporting one another in the natural world. Seasonal learning continues through small group tutoring, buddy check-ins, and personalized educational materials. Full participation is key for trust and harmony, with peer coaching and individual projects complementing sessions. Empower your life and work with research programs designed for your growth. Apply now for a transformative journey into herbal wisdom!
9 May - 25 July, 2024
Course Information (click the tabs below)
Our Approach
The forests of Carolinian Canada are home to over 2,000 plants. Aboriginal people have been using medicinal plants in traditional health care systems for thousands of years. This knowledge, transmitted by oral tradition from generation to generation, has been eroding in recent decades due to rapid cultural change. 98% percent of these plants have the potential to be used as local medicine.
An herbalist occupies a unique position, bridging the gap between humans and plants. They care for medicinal plants, the natural world, and the Earth. By forging a connection between people and plants, herbalists guide the path to healing. Their work is both a source of joy and an honour as they strive to restore balance and harmony to the world around them. Ultimately, the journey of the herbalist is one of regeneration and reverence.
This program allows you to learn about the diverse and intricate language of the plant world. You will discover the interconnected relationships between different plants, their unique properties, and their subtle healing qualities. By completing this program, you will become a Community Herbal Educator – an advocate for using wild and native plant medicines. Join us and explore the fascinating world of plant-based healing.
Reconnect with nature and tap into your natural ability to connect with the plant world. Learn from and be nourished by the life-giving power of the plants surrounding you. Reclaim your birthright to gather, prepare, and create plant-based medicines that support your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health.
Medicine of the People
Plants have been essential for nourishment and healing in every culture throughout history. In today’s fast-paced world, it’s necessary to recognize and respect the power of nature. A plant medicine program that integrates traditional herbal knowledge, wild plant intelligence, and ecological design of permaculture is revolutionizing this field. Herbal medicine is gaining popularity, and more people might increase their use of herbs in the coming years. Those who know how to develop, sustain, harvest, produce, and recommend natural medicines are highly valued and in demand.
A unique opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of plants by observing where they grow and how they thrive. Our herbal programs are designed to be practical and engaging, making them applicable to everyday life.
The Leadership Pathway
“To become a true herbalist, means to be sensitive to the being of the herbs, to commune in receptive awareness with the plant-light of the universe. It is to listen when the plant speaks, to speak to the plant as to another human being, and to look upon it as one’s teacher.”
- Dr. David Frawley and Dr, Vasant Lad, The Yoga of Herbs
We seek passionate change agents willing to collaborate and develop fresh ideas for socially equitable and ecologically restorative lifestyles. We are looking for individuals who are eager to take risks and pioneer a new approach in this field.
We welcome enthusiastic and self-motivated individuals interested in gaining hands-on experience in herbal and ecological education. We aim to support those who wish to develop a deep and long-lasting relationship with medicinal plants.
Shantree has been practicing and sharing his passion for practical herbalism and plant medicine throughout his adult life. He blends his experience with ancient herbal wisdom to support individuals who want to explore the functional use of plants. Shantree has developed an integrative system of philosophies, transformation strategies, and primordial understanding, which can help expand and deepen your journey into the powers of plant medicine.
We can experience a sense of connection and unity with the natural world by following the lead of wild and native plants. Living in harmony with the cycles and laws of nature can provide us with a blueprint for creating positive relationships and communities.
This course is an excellent supplement to any self-directed study program. It benefits those interested in or training in holistic ecological nutrition, herbalism, forest gardening, or permaculture. We will work together during this season to accelerate your growth and learning—a simple yet effective process, system, and structure to help you overcome personal and ecological challenges.
A process-oriented, learner-directed approach to learning about ecological design focuses on helping students design and implement real-life projects, enabling them to learn professional design skills while balancing inner and outer regeneration. This ‘action learning’ methodology involves participants researching and documenting their chosen project while maintaining regular one-on-one sessions.
The course aims to encourage all participants to act in their communities. Imagine being the catalyst for positive change in your family and community by practicing herbalism. This not only heals and nourishes but also awakens in others the joy and empowerment that comes from remembering our deep connection with the plants in our bio-region.
The Process
Why a Herbal Mentorship Approach
The course aims to create a deep plant connection and nature immersion while fostering deep ecology, systems thinking, and ecological principles. It involves an in-depth study of medicinal plants, foraging skills, medicine-making, and case studies.
The course is designed as an evolving spiral, deepening with each training session. We meet online weekly for an engaging session, introducing you to new content and plant experiences.
The program involves spending time in small and significant groups, learning and supporting each other in the natural world. The learning and support continue through the seasons through small group tutoring sessions, buddy check-ins, and one-on-one educational materials with Shantree.
It is essential that participants attend all sessions to build harmony and trust for our collective experience and deepening journey. You should also expect to spend time between sessions in peer coaching and engaging in program projects on your own time. You will be given research programs designed to empower your life and work. Please consider your capacity to participate fully before applying to the program.
“True education does not consist merely in the acquiring of a few facts of science, history, literature, or art, but in the development of character.” - David O. McKay
**Certificate of Completion in Practical Herbalism is granted upon completing this practical herbal course and practical herbalism correspondence course.
Medicine of the People: Path of the Herbalist
Foundational Workshop (Optional Extra)
May 3 – 5, 2024
This hands-on foundational workshop is for those ready to begin this exploratory journey. An integration of edible and medicinal plants, local living nutrition, permaculture fundamentals, wholistic energetic medicine, herbalism principles and deep ecology of forest gardening. Learn more>
Herbalism’s ecological roots are for those interested in exploring and deepening into herbalism, those desiring to gather the information to care for their families naturally, and those wishing to pursue herbalism in a professional setting. This is foundational Training in the incredible world of plants and their medicinal uses. It provides a practical study of herbalism through an in-depth understanding of medicinal plants and an analysis of herbal medicine for the body’s systems. Knowledge and experience will enable you to assist family and friends in crafting wholistic, healthy lifestyles.
Our planet’s health, communities, and bodies are inextricably connected. The first step is to approach plant medicine from an ecological perspective, cultivating a regenerative practice that focuses on our bioregion’s medicinal plants. A hands-on approach is the best for learning and working with the plants directly to build our knowledge. Herbalism is a wholistic study, recognizing that nutrition, exercise, stress management, and other natural modalities offer a complete health experience. We encourage individuals to integrate their investigation into a personal practice to benefit daily and master the material through first-hand experience.
Some of the possible topics included in this are:
Plant Botany
Herbal Actions & Properties
Study of Body Systems
Plant Formulations & Administrations
Herbal Medicine-Making
Regenerative Medicine
The Herbalist Lifestyle
Module I
The Essential Dozen: Be Your Own Herbalist
May 9 – 30, 2024
Thursday Evenings
7 – 9:30 pm.
Explore the diverse aspects of herbalism by focusing on the “essential dozen” plants. These plants grow in our medicine wheel herb garden, wildflower meadows, and forest gardens. This course will examine the healing properties of these plants from various perspectives, including botanical, native, therapeutic, energetic, historical, and sacred.
This workshop was one of the first courses offered at The Living Centre in the early 1980s and was later taught at Fanshawe College for 12 years. After 45-years, it remains an essential and foundational study of plant medicine.
This course covers plants that grow around us and can be used as food, spice, and medicine. Many of these plants are safe for pregnant people, infants, and the elderly. We will also discuss some of the most common health ailments and how these plants can be used daily to prevent disease and promote overall health. Come and discover the gifts of these plants and be empowered by their healing properties.
Some of the possible topics included in this are:
Plant Identification
Herbal Therapeutics
The 12 Essential Herbal Families
Ancient and Modern Applications
Using Plants Internally & Externally
Creative Hands-on Medicine-Making
Module II
The Family/Community Herbalist: The Art of Medicine-Making
June 6 – 27, 2024
Thursday Evenings
7 – 9:30 pm.
The Family Herbalist path is a beautiful way to incorporate the benefits of herbal medicine into your life. This program introduces students to the fascinating world of plants and their medicinal uses across various cultures. You will learn about the history of plant-based therapies, how to identify and apply herbs, how to use plant-based foods to maintain health, and how to make and apply herbal remedies to restore vitality.
In each session, you will be able to discuss medicinal plant cultivation, including seed gathering, harvesting, drying, preserving, and preparing medicinal plants. You will get to interact one-on-one with Shantree about the wild herbs and learn about the principles of being an ethical herbalist.
This course promises to be a unique and intimate herbal experience! Expand your knowledge of medicinal herbs to help your family and friends.
Curriculum
Week 1
The Foundations
Dry & Fresh Juice Extracts
Making Your Own Herbal Remedies
The Art of Formulating Herbal Medicine
Week 2
Medicine-Making from the simple to the complex
Herbal First-Aid Solutions
Cleansing & Detoxification Protocols
Week 3
How to Do Basic Case Studies
Acid Reflex & Heartburn
Eczema & Acne
Headaches & Migraines
Cholesterol
Depression
Week 4
Constitutional Case Studies
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Cold and Flu
Anxiety
Inflammation & Pain
Herbs for Allergies
Cancer Prevention
“Every single cell in the human body replaces itself over seven years.
That means there’s not even the smallest part of you now that was part of you seven years ago.”
~Steven Hall
“Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge. Remedies from chemicals will never stand in favour compared with the products of nature, the living cell of the plant, the final result of the rays of the sun, the mother of all life.” - Thomas Edison
Module III
The Ecological Herbalist: The Roots of Plant Medicine
June 6 – 27, 2024
Thursday Evenings
7 – 9:30 pm.
Curriculum
Week 1
The Ecology of Herbalism
Herbalism Ethics & Regenerative Medicine
Plant Botany
Week 2
The Deep Foundations Roots of Plant Medicine
Study of Body Systems
Herbal Actions & Properties
Week 3
Creating a Herbal Apothecary
Plant Formulations & Administrations
Herbal Medicine-Making
Regenerative Medicine
Week 4
Living a Regenerative Way
The Herbalist Lifestyle
Nature’s Wild Medicine
Case Studies
Celebrating & Sharing Our Passions – Going Forth
Date to Be Determined
Our final weekend prepares the way to re-weave ourselves back into modern culture, making our vision and purpose a reality. This time focuses on supporting you in clarifying, shaping, energizing and fulfilling your vision. We spend plenty of time exploring how our unique service can help craft positive cultures of connection in an increasingly chaotic and unstable world. Identifying essential inner and outer resources, creating a supportive community, and following the herbal guidelines will allow us to confidently anchor and nurture the passion you bring to our community’s healing. This final weekend will let you share your love and creativity with our community.
As we grasp new conceptual frameworks by applying practical herbalism and regenerative design techniques, you will learn essential skills for replenishing and regenerating ourselves, our ecological biospheres, and our human communities back home.
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and do it.
Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
- Howard Thurman
Includes:
3-Modules - 12 Evening Sessions
Integrative Home-Study Research Projects
3-One-on-One Hour Sessions (spaced out between each module)
Handouts and articles
Practical Herbalism workbook
Engaging Practices
28-Day Transformation Process in Each Module
Living the Essential Keys
Reflections & Insights
Interactive Format
Group Processes
Buddy Mate for Change
Key Lessons
Q & A
Recorded Sessions for Future Viewing
*** It also includes numerous herbal articles, plant medicine charts and reference material.
The Experience
“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” - Benjamin Franklin
The course offers a beautiful blend of modern science and trans-disciplinary knowledge essential to becoming an herbal educator, with a wide range of hands-on experience in the meadows, fields, forests, and herbal apothecary.
You will come out of this engaging course with a unique compendium of specific skills, practices, and approaches to improve your well-being and effectiveness as an herbal educator. Topics include visioning, project development, and stewardship. We will also explore aspects of inner leadership, such as cultivating gratitude, balance, and ‘inner resilience,’ and exercises to root and ground your leadership in the heart, in nature, and partnership with a community of other leaders.
Through this herbal regeneration design program, you will learn a new way of thinking and being. You will experience what is naturally yours – an intimate relationship with the wild and native plants. You will discover how to source your leadership from this connection and stay attuned to the patterns in your own life, creating a new level of success and awareness in your stepping forth – empowered!
Explore the correlation between ecological design thinking and the related disciplines of bioregionalism and ecology and their application to herbal design;
The foundation of an ecological worldview (deep ecology, systems thinking, Gaia theory) and the application of living systems principles to the design of systems, objects, and places;
Develop personal and group inquiry practices to raise awareness of the interdependent relationship between the individual, society, and nature and between theory, experience and practice;
Develop and enhance your design, communication, and facilitation skills in support of communities of place and interest;
Co-create participatory, hands-on practices and theoretical principles for new approaches to the regenerative ecological design process of projects and apply these in class and your community projects. Learn how to assess the connection between the environment and behaviour, well-being and resource consumption using research indicators and case studies.
“All the beauty that’s been lost before. Wants to find us again.”
The Leadership Pathway
“To become a true herbalist, means to be sensitive to the being of the herbs, to commune in receptive awareness with the plant-light of the universe. It is to listen when the plant speaks, to speak to the plant as to another human being, and to look upon it as one’s teacher.”
- Dr. David Frawley and Dr, Vasant Lad, The Yoga of Herbs
We are looking for enthusiastic agents-of-change who are ready to co-design new approaches to the way we live that are socially just and ecologically regenerative. We are looking for those prepared to take risks and stand on the cutting edge of a new practice in this area.
We intend to work with inspired and self-motivated individuals who want to move their herbal and ecological education beyond bookwork into an experience. To support individuals who desire to build a long-term and deep relationship with medicinal plants.
For 47-years Shantree has been weaving and sharing his passion for practical herbalism and plant medicine. Synthesizing experience and ancient herbal wisdom to support you on this pragmatic plant journey. He has developed an integrative system of philosophies, personal transformation strategies, and primordial understanding to expand and deepen your journey into the powers of plant medicine.
With the wild and native plants as our guides, you will see through eyes of connection and oneness. To live rooted in the cycles and laws of the natural world is to yield a strategy for crafting joyful cultures of inter-relationship.
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” - Plutarch
This leadership program is an excellent adjunct to any self-directed studies. It complements those trained in or interested in ecological wholistic nutrition, herbalism, forest gardening, or permaculture experience. Throughout the course, we work together to accelerate growth in your studies. This course offers simple yet effective processes, systems, and structures to resolve personal and ecological challenges.
This action-learning program is process-oriented, learner-directed, and focused on designing and implementing real-life projects. It engages students in the fundamentals of ecological design through real-life situations. The ‘action learning’ methodology allows students to learn professional design skills to balance inner and outer regeneration. Each participant will research and document their project of choice while maintaining regular one-on-one sessions.
The objective is that all participants take action in their communities. Envision being the catalyst that brings positive change to your family and community – a herbal practice that not only heals and nourishes but awakens in others the joy and empowerment that comes as we remember our deeply rooted connection with the plants of our bio-region.
Registration
The Local Wild Living Design
Foundational Weekend Workshop (Optional Extra)
April 5-7, 2024
2024 Dates:
April 3-24- Ecological Design: Soil Ecology, Bio-intensive & Forest Gardening – (Module I)
May 8-29 – Miraculous Abundance: How to Grow More Nourishment than You Ever Imagined – (Module II)
June 5-26 – Resilient Forest Gardenes: Food & Medicines from the Edge – (Module III)
Time: 7 – 9 pm.
Note: Only 12 positions are available
Early-Bird – $1250 (payment one month before starting date)
Normal Price – $1500
Certification Package – Register for this Forest Gardening Course & Forest Gardening Correspondence Course together for $2500
Partial scholarships for up to $250 off the Regular Price of $1250 are available if funds are available.
Please inquire: 519-652-0230
Scholarships – We offer partial scholarships to promising young adults interested in our course program. These scholarships are designed to assist with tuition costs. To apply for the scholarship, please send us a detailed letter of recommendation. We aim to build bridges between future leaders and help them experience the powerful connections between personal and planetary health. For more information on the Scholarship Application Process, please visit our website.
We live in a time of significant change, and creating a new story for our world is crucial.
People all over the world are reclaiming their power and responding to the cry of Mother Earth.
Are there young adults in your community who would thrive in our mentorship program?
Help transform our culture, one heart at a time, by nominating a young adult who helps redefine our culture!
Includes:
3-Day – Local Wild Living Design Workshop
12-Week Online Learning Sessions
Study e-Manual /Handouts
Integrative Home-Study Research Projects
3-One-on-One Hour Sessions (spaced out between each training)
*Certificate of Completion in Forest Gardening is granted upon completing this Course and our Forest Gardening Long-Distance Learning Course.
Payment can be made through e-transfer (bank-to-bank transfer) using PayPal below or through the link below. Please make cheques payable and mailed to The Living Centre 5871 Bells Rd., London, ON., Canada, N6P 1P3.
Please Note that we require a minimum number of registrants for the program. If we do not receive the minimum registration, you will be notified one week before the start date, and a full refund will be issued for the amount paid until then.
For questions or additional information, please call 519-519-652-0230 or email info@thelivingcentre.com
Dates: May 9 - 25 July, 2024
Price:
Early-Bird – $1250 (payment one month before starting date)
Regular Price – $1500
Plus HST taxPlease send an e-transfer to our email address: info@thelivingcentre.com.
Pre-registration is essential for participation. Kindly register at least one month before the commencement date.
Please read our Commitment & Cancellation Policy.
Meet your instructor
Shantree Kacera
Shantree Kacera, R.H., D.N., Ph.D., an international author and teacher, co-directs The Living Centre and Living Arts Institute Eco-Spiritual Education Sanctuary since 1983. With a doctorate in Nutritional Medicine and Herbalism, Shantree pioneers integrative approaches to Ayurvedic Medicine, Living Nutrition, and Herbalism. Recognized as a Canadian Herbalist, he dispenses his herbal preparations, "HerbSpirit Botanicals," and counsels clients worldwide, promoting preventative well-being.
A passionate curator, mentor, and Earth advocate, Shantree focuses on Energetic Herbalism, Ayurvedic Living Nutrition, and forest gardening. Shantree has been honoured as an Herbal Elder by the Canadian Council of Herbalist Association.
