COURSES

•    Introduction to Herbs and Medicine-making Processes

• Treat Your Body with Nature. Making Soap and Natural Cosmetics

   

  

  Here you can find a short movie from one of my clasess (thank you Alek Kowalski):

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vH6ys6DUI4

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Introduction to Herbs and Medicine-making Processes

Two day course

A journey through the world of plants during which you will learn how foods we ingest influence our health, what plants we can find in nearby meadows, and how in our own kitchen we can create herbal medicines that help to restore balance in our bodies.

It is my hope that instead of going to the pharmacy to buy drugs, we can all head to the forests or self-created orchard and to collect our medicines, or visit the local herbal “pharmacy” each of our herbal circles has created together.

During this theoretical and practical course we will cover such topics (among others), as:

• Herbs as medicine and food
  
• Herbs vs. pharmaceutical drugs
  
• Ethical wild-crafting
  
• Introduction to extracts
  
• Maceration (folkloric) extracts (used for either fresh or dried plant materials)
  
• Percolation (scientific) extracts (used for dry plant materials)
  
• Herbs of Europe,  their habitat, uses, physiological effects.
  
• Salves
• Herbal teas
• Herbs and creating community / Herbal Circles /creating an herbal pharmacy / spreading and sharing this information
  

When to come:

We start each day at 10 am and end at 5.30 pm (with lunch break from 1pm to 2.30pm)

Please come 5 – 10 minutes before we begin a class.



What to bring:
Notebook and a pen
Loose, comfortable clothes that can get dirty
A blanket
A pillow to sit on
Musical instruments (drums, rattles, etc.) for the evening celebration.

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Treat Your Body with Nature

Two day course 

During the first day of this course you will learn brief history of soap-making, from ancient times to the present, we will discuss the amazing possibilities for variation, in color, texture, and aroma and then we will learn how to make soap and get busy... playing. Most of the class will be spent actually making the soap.

We will follow a favorite formula which was created in spring of this year for a group of Polish women who came to New Mexico. We use a tested formula which has been proven to work. In this way, we can focus on the process, and on the qualities which each ingredient ads to the quality of the soap.

On the second day of classes, we will cut up the large bar of soap we poured the day before. Each participant will take home two bars of soap which they can air-dry, and then use, to test the qualities for themselves. Next, we will make a simple herbal lotion for face and body use (a sample of this lotion will also be given to each person to take home) and we will learn (in theory as the process is simple) how to create an aromatic, nourishing massage oil.

Composing and making cosmetics is very pleasurable and you know what is in your soap! Besides self-made cosmetics are wonderful gift. It is nice to receive a gift that does not come from a store but carries the energy of a person. 

* there is a chance of participating in only first day of the course, during which we will make soap. However soap needs time to solidify so you will not be able to take a final product home.

What we provide:

Herbs, oils, bottles, etc.

Printed copies of recipes, formulas

Drinking water

Each participant will get two bars of soap and a sample of lotion

When to come:

We start each day at 10 am and end at 5.30 pm (with lunch break from 1pm to 2.30pm)

Please come  5 – 10 minutes before we begin a class.

What to bring:

Notebook and a pen

Loose, comfortable clothes that can get dirty

A blanket or a pillow to sit on

Musical instruments (drums, rattles, etc.) for the evening celebration.