Medicine for the People
9-week in-person intensive in bioregional community herbalism
Mondays and some Sundays, April 21st - June 16th
The Spirit of the Space and the Teachings -
who we are and what it means to study with us - joined by some of our Plants are Calling Plant Medicine Apprentices - where the class happens, focus on hands-on medicine making, take home apothecary
Come together with an amazing cohort of people and learn to make your own medicines. 80% of the world’s population WHO - part of what defines our learning community is that we offer our teachings explicitly through an earth-honoring liberation lens - .we hold a firm commitment to dismantling systemic harm and sustaining safe space for community of wildly varied identities.
What You’ll Learn and Come Away With
How to identify, grow, respectfully harvest and wildcraft many common local medicinal plants.
How to safely make all basic medicinal preparations and stock your home medicinal apothecary: tinctures, double processed tinctures, infused oil, salves/balms, flower essences - and build a beautiful and nutritional kitchen apothecary with teas, infusions, vinegars, oxymels, and electuaries (infused honey).
You will take home a starter kit apothecary from the medicines we make in our time together as well as the solid ability to prepare these medicines again in the future.
The Calendar - 9 Weeks of Herbal Magic! Please NOTE: we meet 7 Monday evenings and 2 Sunday daytimes
Three Mondays, April 21, 28, and May 5 - 7:00-9:00 PM
Sunday, May 11 - 9:00 AM -12:00 PM Mother’s Day
Three Mondays, May 19, 26, and June 2 - 7:00-9:00
Sunday - June 8 - 1:00 - 4:00 PM
Monday, June 16 - 7:00 - (:00 ish - Culminating Class, Apothecary Dissemination, and Solstice Celebration
Reciprocity and Cost - We hold a firm commitment to accessibility and want to work with people
Base Level Offering - 400.00
Community Care Contributor Level 1- 450.00
Community Care Contributor Level 2 - 500.00
Partial and Full Scholarships Available - Scholarship Policy - scholarships are available and prioritized for Black, Indigenous, trans, queer, disabled people, or those who need relief from systemic cultural violence. Please don’t hesitate to reach out and let us know your interest and circumstances.
Our Fee Structure - we are a small grassroots intersectional (queer, Black, Trans, working class) and intergenerational community-building org. Not only does our core crew need to be paid, but we also ask our community of participants to share responsibility for making these offerings available to those who could not otherwise afford them. Whether you are new to economic redistribution or collective care or very familiar when deciding where to pay on the scale, please read through these resources we have created to help you navigate your decision.
Thank you for supporting our work.
community care writing and scholarship info
Who’s Facilitating? - ShuNahSii Rose (she/her) - Welcome to this foray into earth-honoring herbalism. For me, it has always been essential to have a sense of the values and practices of teachers I’m considering working with. Hopefully, the character of tour community is already shining through, and, here’s a bit about my personal foundation, orientation, and commitment to liberation oriented, earth-honoring, community herbalism.
I began my study of herbal medicine, our of necessity, in the early 80s in inner-city Chicago. The call to original medicine was born of both, my innate love for plants, and my community’s need for affordable, accessible care. While my study began in books and with my work at a little herb shop on Halsted Street , soon after this, at eighteen, my passion for herbal medicine blew open when I went on my first inner-city herb walk with Rosita Arvigo. Learning to identify medicinal plants that we were tripping over daily and to make affordable and safe medicinal preparations was life-changing and Rosita became my first Herb Mother.
Soon after, I met my primary foundational Herb Mother, Anishinaabe Grandmother and Ethnobotanist, Keewaydinoquay. Kee was a mentor, remarkable teacher, and dear family friend until her passing seventeen years later (she remains an uppity and engaged ancestor). While I have respect for clinical herbalists and the role they can play in our communities, earth-honoring folk herbalism, hands-on training in the field, up close and personal with the plants, is my foundational orientation to practice and education. I am helping people learn to identify, grow, respectfully harvest, process, and preserve a plethora of simply home remedies to stock medicine cabinets, strengthen resilience, and empower communities - because I believe that plant medicine, our original medicine, belongs in the hands of the the people.
Community Participation - In 2020, we began both - The Plants are Calling (year-long intimate apprenticeship) and The Community Food Forest at Leslie Park - a mutual aid public project that serves as a demonstration garden and provides free education, sanctuary, seasonal celebrations and harvests of culinary and medicinal herbs as well as cutting flowers and fruits. The Plants are Calling core apprenticeship has evolved into a tight knit ongoing educational community, many apprentices have stayed with us since the beginning and will be joining us for aspects of Medicine for the People.
