Course content outline
Herb Growing in our front field - Grá Nádúr
Year 1 - Starting on The Plant Medicine Path
The first year helps you to learn about the plants, their healing properties, how to grow them, harvest them sustainably and make medicine from them; using direct perception to learn about our plant allies is a central theme to the course.
History and philosophy – the roots of healing; history of medicine and herbal medicine; reductionism and the place of science; different approaches to science and consilience; traditional uses of plants by our ancestors; comparison of core techniques and wisdom from different cultures; the sacred ordinary and plants as spiritual beings and healers.
Ethics - the healer’s way: Rigorous self-examination; the ego and holism.
How plants work: Botany, ecology, habitats, habitat restoration, sustainable use, the web of nature, chemistry, how plants make medicine, cultivation, and sustainable wild crafting.
Herbal pharmacy: Plant constituents, processing and making therapeutic preparations.
Materia medica: the holistic therapeutics of medicinal plants and their different forms (including infusions, tinctures, essential oils, aromatic waters, macerated oils, talcs, salts, smudge, incense, syrups, vinegars).
Energetics and working with the plants to heal spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically
Inular - Elecampane flowering in Grá Nádúr
Year 2 - Deepening the Medicine
In the second year we focus on therapeutics, relating the medicine of herbs to human wellness
It includes the following areas:
The miracle of the human being and helping people re-balance their health on all levels
How the human works in health and illness – a holistic view of anatomy, physiology, and pathology; we investigate cultural aspects of disease and attitudes to different health problems, the symbolism and metaphysics of wellness and of disease
Systems therapeutics and Materia medica, including herbs, aromatic waters, essential oils, nutrition, and lifestyle
Traditional energetic approaches and cutting-edge scientific discoveries
Ancillary techniques such as breath work, body unwinding, visualisation and much more
No-one enjoys dry and stuffy study. Although this course covers some intensely complex and deep material (we are after all talking about some of the most complex beings on the face of the planet), it is hoped that it will be fun, amusing, demanding and enjoyable. Learning conducted this way sticks and embeds better! The study will be a journey and an adventure which may change your life and will definitely change some of your perceptions and perspectives.
You will learn more about clarity and perception, experience how to bridge the scientific and spiritual approach and meet yourself through working with the plants. The study of the art and science of herbal medicine is a tradition that spans thousands of years, is continually evolving and can be guaranteed to provide stimulation for at least one lifetime; the more you learn, the more you find there is to learn and enjoy….
Please note that this is a foundation course, and that it does not qualify you to practice on the public as a medical herbalist who diagnoses and dispenses extemporaneous prescription.
For those wishing to take their studies further progression onto the Practitioner Training programme is dependent upon successful completion of the Apprenticeship including continuous assessment of capacities and aptitudes.