Introducing The School of Traditional Western Herbalism
Finally there is a school dedicated to the teachings of Matthew Wood!
The school is a three year herbalist training program based on the teachings of Matthew Wood held in beautiful Portland Oregon. Students can take a single year or enroll in all 3 years of the program. Matthew is the Primary Instructor and teaches his unique approach to herbal medicine based on his years of research and clinical practice.
The courses run from March through November and applications are currently being accepted through our website. For more information please email us at info@portlandherbalschool.com or visit our website at www.portlandherbalschool.com
Nature Wisdom Retreats in Rural France with Julia Graves
I had known for a long time that Matt had been dreaming of teaching advanced classes in Europe, and of having a school which teaches herbalism the way he sees it - as vibrant, alive, and energy-based. Still, when he called me to say he wanted me to co-teach and host this course at the farm I had just bought in France, I felt overwhelmed. With only six months left to make it all happen and a fallen down building, it all seemed impossible for the summer of 2010. But Matt ignored whatever I had to say, and in the sleepless full moon night of New Years Eve, I became filled with a vision of offering not just any herbal course, but to start a tradition of an herbal summer school to train planetary herbalists - herbalists who are fluent in all major planetary herbal systems (such as Western traditional herbalism, Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine, and the herbalism of the Native American Indians), and are trained to practice herbal medicine based on an energetic model. This being the invocation, we set about...
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The Nature Wisdom summer retreats are an ongoing herbal summer school of about two week length per module. Situated in rural France, they provide an intensive herbal training for herbal practitioners and students of herbalism alike. Taught on an intermediate to advanced level, they are dedicated to teaching energetic herbalism and diagnostic and clinical skills necessary to practice herbalism based on the underlying energetics of the herb, client, and disease process. A unique opportunity for fans of Matthew's way of practicing to receive such a complete training with him. The courses include a training in nature and plant attunement and learning to read plants in terms of their signature. Beginners welcome.
Module 1.
Herbal Medicine I.
The basis of a good, sound holistic evaluation and choice of therapy is based on three pillars: energetics, organ systems, and herbal actions. This is the system taught by Nicholas Culpeper in A Key to Galen's Method of Physick. Energetics establishes the basic pattern of the problem, organ systems estalbishes the locality (systems generally fall sick together, not individual tissues), while the herbal actions refine the character of the disease further (thickening, thinning, rising, falling, in, out, hardening, softening. Herbal medicines work Module 1 places the emphasis on energetics and herbal actions, both of which derive from Western herbal tradition and on the simpler organ systems (respiratory, thermoregulatory, gastrointestinal, muscular and skeletal) and the important model of detoxification (keep the channels open, keep the liver, thyroid, and lymph healthy). Module 1 also introduces 'Southern Blood Typology,' a system of analysis and diagnosis that comes to us from the American South and ultimately from Africa. In addition, we begin the study of pulses, tongue, and physiognomic evaluation. Another subject we will introduce is 'specific indications' and 'specific medicine,' in which we use herbal remedies very exactly.
Nature Wisdom
In both modules we continually emphasize the fact that Nature is illuminated from within by a spiritual light which helps us to understand the wisdom and knowledge inherent in plants, healing, the body, and Nature. This light helps us grow on our spiritual path and also as healers. If we are not growing as healers we are not able to do the best job, therapeutically, for our clients. Subjects include herb walks, the doctrine of signatures, the law of similars, the law of contraries, the law of direction of cure, and the law of the healing crisis. In the second Module we will discuss the "seven guideposts' on the healing and spiritual path, which is an outgrowth of the foregoing laws.
Module 2.
Herbal Medicine II.
In this module we review the six tissue states, pulse and tongue evaluation, Southern Blood Medicine, specific medicine, and the priniciples of thermoregulation (keep the pores open, watch the skin), and detoxification (use of alteratives). Then we cover all the major organ systems, adding lymph/immune, liver/gallbladder, cardiovascular, kidneys, bladder, endocrine and female and male sexual systems. Continue practicing and enlarging on evaluative skills.
The goals of the clinic are to:
Provide free natural health care to thousands of poor people in Port-au-Prince
Generate local employment
Feed one large poor family
Increase the respect of local people for their own healing tradition and knowledge
Include educational classes on herbal healing and preventive health
Serve as the base for future volunteers from the West to come and help
Enhance local self-sufficiency, rather than dependence
Julia Graves, a naturopathic doctor and homeopath, planned and organized the entire fund-raising effort and clinic.
For more information and to help contact: haiti.citronica.com/help
