So You Wanna Learn about Herbs?

I attended the three year clinical program at Arbor Vitae and I not only learned an incredible amount of information ranging from physiology and pathology, interpreting labs, materia medica, Chinese medicine to flower essences - I did it in an educational format that created deep bonds for my cohort and took the punishment out of learning. Feel free to contact me to discuss if this would be the right school for you.

A Few of my Teachers

I met Ayelet early into deciding to devote my time and energy to herbalism and I’m so glad that I did. She teaches with such attention to specificity, responsibility to the plants and the people and curiosity. I cannot recommend her classes and plant walks more - the trans perspective and research you need to prepare for surgery.

I was lucky enough to have H.E. and Alyssa in my cohort at Arbor Vitae, and I was so lucky for it. They are both such deep and generous lovers of herbs, and this monthly class teaches you IMHO the FUNNEST parts of herbalism - which is where and how to find plants and make medicine with them. I will be teaching on cannabis, lube and milky oats with through them in June of 2026!

While I haven’t had the chance to go to his own school, I have gotten to learn from 7song in other formats, and you can too - for free! He does online lessons which get posted onto Youtube - deep nerdy dives on plants and tangible information about how we can use herbal medicine as accessible emergency response care. If you like your teachers direct, funny and without the twee energy endemic to the practice I definitely recommend!

Soledad has been my teacher on community care for much longer than either of us have being in these current roles. They are an absolutely transformative acupuncturist specializing in surgery preparation, and also teach body based practices and herbal support from a Traditional Chinese medicine practice. Follow their instagram for upcoming classes.

Books, websites and more!

I am a big fan of local radio and while out of my range I use the app Radio Garden to listen to many shows on Radio Kingston but in particular Midday Medicine - a mash up of plant medicine, sci fi, poetry and music from an afro-futurist lens. Jaguar Mary X dishes out absolute gems one after another. Thursdays from 1-3pm at 107.9FM

This book was my favorite of all of last year. A love letter from the author to her mentor Keewaydinoquay, this book weaves together Anashinaabe stories about how the plants came to have their gifts, along with practical knowledge of how to work with them for food, medicine, clothing and housing. Reading this book made me understand a lot about what moving with reverance looks like.

This treasure trove is the archived teachings of Michael Moore, a Southwestern herbalist who died in 2009 after teaching for 3 decades. One of 7songs teachers, he brings a similar direct vibe and I deeply enjoyed his way of talking about concepts like energetics and tongue diagnosis. Apart from his own writings the site contains many PDF’s of classic herbal books ranging from the ecclectics to ethnobotanical texts.

What do you think I’m missing out on? Send me your suggestions of teachers, books, podcasts and more that you cannot get enough of!