Plants are not only healers, but teachers.
"The Living Apothecary" is a series of learning-circle opportunities to connect with medicinal herbs of various traditions and explore with our senses. Together, we are growing a community of practice to help us reconnect with the herbs growing just outside our doors - and the quiet wisdom they share when we learn to listen.
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Each session invites the senses to lead: smell, taste, touch, intuition and memory guide us though planting, harvesting, medicine-making and plant communication.
2025 Workshop Line-up
Spring
Ethical Wild Harvesting
Thursday May 15th - 6-8:15pm, Field/Forest TBD
Spring is a wonderful time to forage, as long as you know how. Join us for a walk to identify and discuss a number of spring edibles and medicinals as well as explore best-practices for safe and ethical harvesting.
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Awakening the Herbal Garden
Thursday May 29th - 6-8:15pm, TheYurtKW (in the barn)​
Let's dig into medicinal herb growing! In this session we will take a permaculture approach to garden design, while reviewing a number of garden-friendly medicinal herbs and how to grow them. We end with a seed give-away/swap!
Summer
Making Custom 'Nourishing' Tea Blends
Thursday June 5th - 6-8:15pm, The YurtKW
Let's blend teas together! In this session we will explore the world of nourishing herbs and discuss their power as 'everyday' herbs (preventative medicine). This is an opportunity to share and learn, while we gather with the herbs to make our own blends to take home.
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Engaging Herbs that Ease Stress
Thursday June 26th - 6-8:15pm, The YurtKW
This session will focus on connecting with herbal medicines that help mitigate the negative effects of stress (emotional, physical and environmental). Come taste, touch, smell and see the herbs up close, while discussing strategies for working with them based on the various ways one can experience stress.
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Harvesting and Storytelling
*Sunday* July 6th - 10am-1pm, Petersburg Garden
This is a 'harvest & play' session held in the garden. Together we will harvest medicines to take home as well as play with, and reflect on, the power of 'story-medicine' and folk lore. ​
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Fall
Plant Communication (Intuitive Listening)
*Sunday* Sept 14th - 10am-1pm, Garden TBD
Together we will practice deep listening by sitting with a plant, and noticing what arises. For many of us, this type of exercise deepens our awareness and strengthens our ability to trust our (ever important!) intuitive abilities. ​
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Embodied Herbal Wisdom: Drop Dosing 1
Thursday Oct 2nd - 6-8:15pm, TheYurtKW
This is one of our favourite ways to deepen our knowledge of medicinal herbs, taking us beyond textbook learning, to experience the "felt sense" of the plants. Each session we will work with one 'mystery herb' in single drop doses. It's amazing what comes alive in our bodies when we listen in this way.
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Embodied Herbal Wisdom: Drop Dosing 2
Thursday Oct 9th - 6-8:15pm, TheYurtKW
We will be working with a different 'mystery herb' for this session and are hosting these as back-to-back weekly sessions to allow for an opportunity to peel the onion and drop into the practice/experience more deeply.
Winter
Echinacea Harvest & Tincture Making
*Sunday* Oct 19th - 10am-1pm, Garden TBD
Together we will harvest Echinacea roots, discuss the difference in variety and prepare a shelf-stable immune boosting remedy for our medicine cabinets.
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Winter Prep: Elderberry Syrup Making
*Sunday* Nov 9th - 10am-1pm, TheYurtKW (in the barn)
Elderberry Syrup is an important winter tonic and staple remedy in most medicine cabinets. In this session we will come together to practice medicine-making, in community.
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Winter Prep: Cough Syrup Making
*Sunday* Nov 30th - 10am-1pm, TheYurtKW (in the barn)
We will taste, discuss and prepare herbal cough syrups. This is an opportunity to explore lung health as a wide topic as well as zoom in on the different types of coughs and how to herbs/herbal actions support these differences.
Pricing Details
We are experimenting with the gift economy, so...
how does 'payment' work?
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'The Living Apothecary' workshops are not your typical pay-and-receive experience, because we value what happens to community learning when entry fees are removed.
As such, these sessions are free to attend (supplies will be priced at cost when remedy-making is an option) AND we will gladly accept financial donations (cash or e-transfer). We invite you to offer a donation, as a gift of thanks and reciprocity for what you received. The gift economy flows through the spirit of generosity, and the amount you donate is up to you. For those who appreciate an estimate, we suggest $30/$40 per person for the 2hr/3hr workshops.
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We thank you for helping us carry this work forward!
Meet your Hosts
Dedication. Experience. Passion.
Nikola and Heather have been collaboratively hosting herbal medicine workshops and Learning Circles since 2022. They offer these from a place of passion, dedication and service to the process of 'remembering ourselves home'.
What you'll experience:
Plant identification
Ethical wild harvesting
Medicinal herb gardening
Learning through 'felt sense'
Intuitive herbalism
Herbal remedy making:
tea, infusions, syrups, etc.
Deepening connection with:
the land, community, self
