Community Herbal Foundations Online

Community Herbal Foundations

ONLINE PROGRAM

The Community Herbal Foundations program centers around empowering you to deepen your relationship with your own body, the land region you reside, individual medicinal plants, and fellow herbal enthusiasts from various parts of the world. Upon completion of this program, you will feel confident in continuing your lifelong study & practice of at-home community herbalism.

The program incorporates medicine-making, folkloric & international healing perspectives, biomedical & phytochemical knowledge, and principles of spiritual ecology. We will focus on medicinal plants that are commonly found both in Western Europe and the Eastern United States, but it is open to anyone around the globe.

This program is a community program, meaning that you join a group of plant medicine enthusiasts and move through the program together. It is a hybrid online program; with some time spent in live group sessions and some time outside with the plants making up your ecosystem. There are medicine-making exercises, readings, writing prompts, research assignments, pre-recorded lectures, and monthly evaluation forms.

This program is perfect for those who learn best in an environment that includes deadlines, group discussions, mentorship and directed home study. It is also designed specifically for those who need a certain amount of flexibility, are looking for a rigorous program, and don’t want the additional expense of travel.

COURSE STRUCTURE

The Community Herbal Foundations program is a total of 150 hours of herbal study, communal exchange, and hands-on practice. Each month includes two live sessions, each 2 hours in length, held via Zoom. The remaining time is a curated mix of experiential practices, outdoor exercises, readings, pre-recorded lectures, journaling, and assignments. In addition to all this, you receive 40+ monographs, access to a lively Collective Wonder Whatsapp group, and one-on-one mentorship from Olivia Fite.

2024 GUEST TEACHERS

Alyssa Dennis

Alyssa Dennis is a clinical herbalist and visual artist. After graduating from ArborVitae School of Traditional Herbalism, she founded Eclipta Herbal, a practice germinated from recognizing the cultural need for reclaiming plant medicine as common knowledge for the sustainability of human health and vitality. Alyssa offers personalized healthcare consultations, interactive educational opportunities and customized herbal educational products. She lives in northeast Baltimore where she nurtures a 0.7 acre urban herb farm. Alyssa also has a background in the fine arts and applies the artist’s perspective to her herbal practice.

Ayo Ngozi

Ayo (she/her) is a descendant of agrarian Black folks who left the Southern US during the Great Migration, passing forward their practices of gardening and foraging. She has worked as an herbalist for over a decade, with a practice that centers the land, the community, Spirit, and ancestral ways of being. Ayo has co-created several projects, including Planting Reparations and Black Mystery School (an Afrofuturist learning community dedicated to liberatory healing, knowledge and practice), serves on the faculties of the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism, Wild Ginger Herbal Center, Seed Soil + Spirit School, and is currently visioning a new farming project, Brickyard Gardens, on Guale land (Savannah, GA) with her family. Ayo is a 2023-24 recipient of the Braiding Seeds Fellowship and the Center for Cultural Power's Narrative Design Lab Fellowship.

Fernanda Botelho

Fernanda is Portugal’s most cherished herbalist. She was born in rural Portugal in 1959. Fernanda acquired her initial herbal training with Christopher Hedley and at the Scottish School of Herbal Medicine. For the last 30+ years, her work as an herbalist has included writing, photographing, and teaching about medicinal plants all over Portugal. Fernanda is the author of numerous published herbals, and has taught thousands of people and guided hundreds of herb walks. Always advocating for our planet, she travels across the country sharing plant stories and building gardens with children, bringing people back to their roots of traditional medicine.

Robin Rose Bennett

A storyteller, writer, and herbalist. Robin Rose has been offering classes in WiseWoman Healing Ways: Herbal Medicine and EarthSpirit Teachings since 1986 - at herb conferences, festivals, clinics, medical and nursing schools, and most joyously, outside with the plants. She shares herbal medicine with gratitude for the loving generosity of the plants and the magic, mystery, and beauty of the web of life. She is on the faculty of the New York Open Center and the Arbor-Vitae School of Traditional Herbalism. Author to several books including one of our key texts The Gift of Healing Herbs and most recently A Green Witch’s Pocket Book of Wisdom. What a gift it will be to learn alongside the author herself!

Sarah Holmes

Sarah Holmes, clinical herbalist, has been in continuous private practice since 1998. She works from an energetic perspective while addressing the mind, body and spirit. She believes in the interconnectedness and interdependence of all life and looks for places of disconnect where illness and imbalance begin. Sarah is also passionate about supporting the next generation of herbalists and through individual and group work supports practitioners to gain confidence and find their strengths so they can step into service for their communities. Sarah, along with her wife Karyn Sanders, is the Co-Founder/Instructor of the Blue Otter School of Herbal Medicine as well as Co-Producer/Host of The Herbal Highway podcast. She resides in Tacoma, WA, USA.

Sílvia Martins

Sílvia holds a degree in Biological Engineering, a master's in Food Chemistry and a PhD in Phytochemistry. In addition to Portugal, her home country, she has lived in Ireland, Mexico, and Brazil - places with a cultural diversity and a biodiversity that have deeply influenced her. Sílvia co-founded the Natursense brand in Brazil, worked in the field of natural soap and cosmetics from 2014 to 2021 and she has been training in the field of natural cosmetics and medicinal plants since 2017. Currently based in Portugal, she co-founded the project Sentidos da Terra, with the purpose of teaching and reviving traditional ways of working with everything the Earth has to offer, while bridging two cultures - Portugal and Brazil.

PROGRAM DETAILS

your time Each month...

6 HOURS DIRECTED TIME WITH PLANTS

Growing, foraging, guided meditations, medicine making, working on individual projects, and creative practices.

4 HOURS AT-HOME ASSIGNMENTS

Assigned reading, writing assignments, watching/listening to pre-recorded presentations, and journaling.

4 HOURS LIVE ZOOM SESSIONS

Live community Zoom classes, a mix of mini-lectures, and breakout group work, much of this time will be spent learning about specific plants. Each month there are 2 live community Zoom classes, 2 Wednesdays each month. See the dates above.

2 HOURS MONTHLY EVALUATIONS

Each month you have an evaluation form that helps Olivia evaluate your learning and hear from you about how your experiential practices went. Some quiz questions are also included. Notes can be used to answer these questions. The purpose is to help you review important information and help you evaluate your progress.

PRICING

It is of utmost importance that this program is accessible to those who are inspired to participate. Below you will find a recommended payment schedule for both early bird and non-early bird tuition fees.

The CWHS Community Herbal Foundations Program for 2024 was 935 euros, about 6 euros per instructional hour (not including IVA).

Updates to pricing for 2025 will happen in September of 2024.

Participants are free to make one payment for the total cost of the program. Participants may also make spaced-out payments according to one of the payment plans below.

Payment plans are provided

For 2024 registrations made between Nov. 15th, 2023 – Jan. 7th, 2024

Due by Jan 7th: A non-refundable deposit of 235 euros

Due throughout 2024: 100 euros x 7 monthly payments made by the 15th of the following months: February, March, May, June, July, September, and October.

If even with the payment plan options, the program is financially inaccessible, please feel free to reach out and inquire about scholarship and work-trade opportunities.