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Descriptions 2008: Session 1 • Session 2 • Session 3
Massey’s career as a natural builder began in her early years, when she was known to dig clay out of riverbanks and leave it in piles around the yard. She continued her studies as an apprentice at Emerald Earth. She is currently a natural building instructor for the Solar Living Institute and Emerald Earth and a collaborator with Kleiwerks West and other organizations.
1. INTENSIVE: Hands-on: An Intro to Natural Building through the Ancient Art of Making Adobes (All levels)
During this class we will dig up clay and make adobe bricks. We will use the process of making adobes to learn about the fundamental materials of natural building: clay, sand, and straw. (This should happen early in the weekend so that the adobes can dry, and people can take them home.)
2. Natural Building and the Prevailing World, Part 1 (All levels)
What is natural building and why is it so important for our culture? What does it have to teach us about the culture that we currently live in, and how can it help us rebuild a culture that makes sense?
3. Natural Building and the Prevailing World. Part 2 (All levels)
We will continue
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Pamala lives here in Mendocino County. She has two girls, whom she adores. She has been canning for over 25 years and with her mom since she can remember. She is an avid gardener, potter, candle, and horse lover! Tis’ the canning season, and if you live in the area and want to learn canning with her contact her. pamala9@yahoo.com
1. Canning/Preparation (Beginning)
This is for all beginners. We will teach you what you need to know to do waterbath canning, what the preparations will be, and what the tools are you will need. This is a hands-on class; bring a towel, and something comfortable to sit on. Please, no small children at this class, we will be working with hot objects. Class limited to 14 for canning, but all are welcome for information and to help!
2. Working with a Pressure Canner
This class if for those of you who have learned the basic of canning and have some experience in waterbath canning. We will teach you how to go to the next level by using a pressure canner. This method is not only time saving, but also a sure way to know that all your bacteria are killed. Class is limited to 14 for canning, but all are welcome to learn!
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Pam Fischer has worked with hundreds of clients using the healing power of herbs since 1986. Among the Bay Area's most respected herbal practitioners, she has taught courses in medicine making, plant identification, wild crafting, and herbal theory and practice for more than 16 years. The founder of the Bay Area Clinical Herbalist Association in 1991, Pam became one of the first Western herbalists on staff at the Charlotte Maxwell Complementary Clinic that provides free alternative and complementary medicine to low-income women with cancer. A fifth generation Californian, she has an extensive knowledge of, and deep love for California native plants.. Pam has lectured about approaches to herbal healing throughout the Bay Area, at the University of California at San Francisco, the University of California at Berkeley, and California State University campuses.
1. Adaptogens, Herbs for Stamina and Stress.
A corner stone of most herbal therapy is the use of adaptogens. Pam will discuss what is an adaptogen, how does it works and when to use them. Samples of six popular adaptogens will be tasted, and there indications for use discussed.
2. Digestive System in Detail
3. The Business of Herbal Practice
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As a Clinical Practitioner, Intern Supervisor, and member of the teaching faculty at the California College of Ayurveda (CCA) in Nevada County, Brenda enjoys her roles managing the Department of Herbal Medicines and teaching the Herbal Medicines Workshops. Beyond her vast training with Indian herbs through the CCA and study with Dr. Liladhar Gupta of Vrindaban, India; Brenda’s relationship with Western medicinal plants has continued to be nourished through a lifelong apprenticeship with nationally known herbalist Kathi Keville along with her favorite teachers, the plant spirits themselves.
1. Painting with Herbs
The plants are our teachers, our healers, our companions, and now our artist is called to join them in creative delight! Unleash your inner artist through a workshop designed to show you a healthy, simple and sustainable alternative to modern synthetic paints. Here you will learn about some of the medicinal qualities within the various herb powders being used, with a focus on how they can be applied to healing through the expression of art. In this interactive learning you will mix from scratch clean, sustainable paints without harsh smells or residues, and have opportunity to develop your own canvas creation in a supportive environment! Previous art experience is NOT necessary by any means…
2. Cultivating an Ayurvedic Herb Garden
What is an “Ayurvedic” Herb Garden? From the perspective of Ayurvedic Medicine everything (including ourselves and our plant friends) is made up of a balance of the five elements; ether, air, fire, water, and earth. The elements are each comprised of particular qualities (i.e: cold, moist, heavy) which correlates to their unique interactions with our bodies. Some plants are nourishing, some stimulating, some cooling, some purifying, and the list goes on...In this workshop you will explore how to cultivate a well balanced and individualized medicinal garden for yourself based on these Ayurvedic principles. Topics from climate and soil needs, along with growing habits will be covered as well at the actions of the herbs within our bodies. We will explore a select collection of key herbs from India, and you will leave with a deeper understanding of how to choose plants appropriately for both your growing environment and health needs. Take the mystery out of “exotic” herb cultivation and learn how to choose plants based on their unique actions from an Ayurvedic perspective.
3. Ayurvedic Herbal Skin Care
Remove synthetic chemical compounds, return to natural skin care and feel relief from common ailments such as back pain and muscle inflammation! By learning the process of applying a traditional Ayurvedic herbal plaster, called Lepa, you will see how deep healing can occur with the use of simple mixtures including herbs, mung dahl, and essential oils. The workshop will cover the qualities and actions of various herbal plaster formulas, what types of conditions they might be used for, how to make them yourself with ease, and the application procedure. After watching a demonstration of making and applying the Lepa you will have opportunity to work in small groups and experience the application procedure yourself through practice with each other!
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Solar Kelly operates an alternative energy design, installation and repair service in Northern Mendocino County. She has an electrical engineering degree, and is an Electrical Contractor, (CA license # 868189). Kelly spent seven years with Alternative Energy Engineering, (now AEE Solar), as a staff engineer, has taught solar and electricity classes for nine years, and delights in simplifying concepts for beginning students.
1. Living With A Smaller Energy Footprint (All levels)
As global climate change and rising energy costs bring energy into the mainstream conscience, it can be confusing what we can do to be part of the solution. In this workshop we will explore ways we can lesson our impact on Mother Earth. Focusing on the ways energy is used in our homes and communities, we will also touch on into how we can produce energy with solar and other renewable resources. Participants are encouraged to share solutions and brainstorm ideas.
2. Off-grid Renewable Energy Systems (All levels)
Learn about energy and off-grid living in this workshop. We will start with a primer on basic electrical terms and concepts, and discuss how to produce all the electricity we need for lighting, refrigeration, water pumping and more, using renewably produced power.
3. On-Grid Renewable Energy Systems (All levels)
Get your electricity from the sun! In this class we will discuss Grid-tie solar electric systems. We will look at the cost of systems, how they work, the equipment used to build them, and what needs to be done to get them installed.
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1. Activating the Brain Using Essential Oils
2. Anointing and Blessing Using Essential Oils
3. Medicinal Uses of Common Problems Using Essential Oils
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1. INTENSIVE; Biodiesel 101
1. Earthen Plasters/Light Straw Clay
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1. INTENSIVE: Medical Cannabis in California: The California Compassionate Use Act and Its Implementation (All levels)
This seminar explains some current understandings of the Compassionate Use Act (California Health and Safety Code Section 11362.5) for patients and health care providers who wish to use or recommend the use of medical cannabis. Its focus will be primarily on the medico-legal aspects of cannabis use including the legal status of cannabis as a medicine, informed consent, necessary medical records documentation, medical research studies on the efficacy of medical cannabis, and standards of responsible use. The seminar is intended for women who are seeking approval or recommendation of cannabis use under the California Compassionate Use Act, and for physicians and health care providers interested in implementing this law.
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Manyrivers Collective is a rainwater harvesting business in Santa Cruz County. Partner Kem White is an ecological landscape artist, accomplished herbalist and mother. She lives in her dome off the grid. Partner Kristen Manyrivers is a Watershed Ecologist and Charter School Teacher in the Santa Cruz Mountains with 20 years of experience raising her children, Steelhead Salmon and consciousness.
Kristen Manyrivers is a watershed Ecologist and long time teacher in the Santa Cruz bioregion where she raises her three children. They met at a yearlong permculture design course and are now partner’s in Manyriver’s collective where they Endeavor through education to contribute to a sustainable future. Their last project was a class where they designed and installed rainwater. Kem White is a landscape designer who uses permaculture principles in order to design and install landscapes that have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. She has lived off the grid with her three children in communities for the last 10 years where rainwater catchment is a integral part of life.
1. INTENSIVE: Rainwater Harvesting Principles and Design
In the first half of the class, we will discuss the fundamentals of designing rainwater harvesting system and the history and principles of rainwater harvesting throughout the world. In the second part of the class, we will show you the components that go into designing a system, look at the newest developments, and assist you in designing a project you have in mind.
2. Conservation and Keeping Water On-Site
We will discuss the current state of worldwide water and how it affects our future. We will give easily adopted examples of how we can conserve water in our homes. We will also discuss keeping water on site using rainwater harvesting, dry stream beds, the keyline system of burms and swales, as well as greywater systems.
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Megan McElroy has been a drummer since age 18. She has studied many styles of drumming with an emphasis on djembe. Her interest has centered on rhythm and how it relates to music, making her able to play many things moderately well especially dog bowls and objects about to be recycled. She is also a song writer with two cd's. www.meganmcelroy.com
1. Drum What you Know
A fun look at rhythm through the American musical perspective. Play a doumbek to disco? A djembe to country music? A mash-up of musical styles that concentrates on finding a one note center of the rhythm and playing from there. This class is suitable for all levels of drumming with a focus on beginners. Please bring a drum if you can.
2. Building a FUNctional Drum Circle
A practice and discussion of what it takes to build a FUNctional drum circle. It offers some drum circle etiquette, ways to find your musical way into an already jamming circle, ways to begin a drum circle, and ways to accompany yourselves to a few circle-type songs. Together we will build a drum circle where everyone understands the dynamics and feels free to sing out and solo if called to. Suitable for all levels with a focus on beginners. Please bring a drum if you can.
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Kate is a singer/songwriter who lives with her family, sings, works and swims along the shores of Tomales Bay and has led community singing for over 3 decades. In 2000, Kate founded the first Threshold Choir for women who are called to sing at the bedsides of people who are dying, in coma, children in hospital and with women who are incarcerated. Today there are 55 Choirs and over 1200 singers in the US. These choirs bring together a magnificent community of huge-hearted, collaborating, creative women who know that true service heals everyone. The Choirs have released two CDs; "Listening at the Threshold" and "Tenderly Rain: Songs of Gratitude, Remembrance and Keeping Watch."
1. Community Singing, 1
Kate is honored to walk among the women of the plants; Women, plants, singing....delight! She will share her creation and her work, the Threshold Choir, with the women of the Herbal Symposium. She'll also lead community singing, sacred dance; reveling in the tradition of circles of women, celebrating and honoring the Earth and each other. Songs about Bamboo, wind through the pines, walking toward the stars, the fragrance of forgiveness, maybe even YOUR song.
2. Community Singing, 2
This class will repeat. See Community Singing, 1 for full description.
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Jackie is a mother of 4 living on the land for 15 years. She has learned many things, including yurt building, simple construction, homebirthing, gardening, and farming of livestock, including chickens, rabbits and goats. She has studied and practiced ritual, ceremony, esoteric and spiritual philosophies, and religion. Her passion in life is the contemplation and practice of “spiritual livelihood,” the experience of connection through the simple practices of survival.
1. Simple Home Construction
We will cover yurt building, simple cabin design, using recycled material and avoiding toxic and non-sustainable materials.
2. “Harvesting Protein” Why Meat?
We will discuss raising our own meats and why, most sustainable livestock and what this means, basic care and management of goats, rabbits, and chickens, spiritual implications of killing/hunting. Jackie will share personal experience stories.
3. Hands-On Butchering
Jackie will demonstrate how to slaughter a rabbit and a chicken. There will be opportunities for participation. This class will be held off-site and highly encouraged for all meat-eaters.
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Sally, Acupuncturist and Herbalist, blends both Traditional Japanese and Chinese Medicine in her Holistic Healing practice. She lived in Asia for eight years, is Certified in Oriental Medicine in Japan and has a Masters in Traditional Chinese Medicine. She is a member of BirthPoint, specializing in pediatrics, women's health, fertility, prenatal and postpartum.
1. “Elysian Ears” (Elysian is Greek for “Yielding the Highest Bliss”) (All levels)
We will identify the location and healing action of points on the ear and learn how to treat these points with “Ear Seeds”. “Ear Seeds” are Vaccaria Seeds which we will tape onto points of the ear. Participants will treat and be treated. Lots of fun and very effective for pain, insomnia, addictions, stress, pms etc.
2. Healthy Child, Whole Child, Part 1 (All levels)
Empower Mothers and Aunties to care for and treat their babies and children with Tuina and Shoni-Shin. Tuina is a traditional Chinese massage technique and Shoni-Shin is a traditional Japanese technique using small implements to stimulate the skin. Children enjoy these treatments and their immune system responds quickly. Great for coughs, colds, fever, runny noses, asthma etc.
3. Healthy Child, Whole Child, Part 2 (All levels)
We will continue
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Kat is a passionate educator, community builder and ecological designer from Oakland, CA. With a background in media and the arts, she works on an Urban Permaculture training & leadership development program addressing a wide range of sustainability issues. She trains teachers, works with leading-edge sustainability institutes & was recently trained by Al Gore in delivering his presentation on climate change.
1. Permaculture for the Inner Landscape, Part 1 (All levels)
We will use Permaculture Design Principles for creating a Sustainable Life Design. We will first look at what Permaculture is and it’s usefulness as a design system. We will then learn it’s key approaches and principles. Next we explore how to apply these ecological design principles to our own life designs. Incorporating collaborative group processes, group facilitation, teaching, writing, counseling/deep listening, participants will learn to ‘connect-the-dots’ and weave the story of their lives into a map of intention for the future. Kat’s transformative program includes discovering or rediscovering your vision, bridge building between cultures, seed planting of innovative ideas and network weaving between communities. Participants will walk away with a vision statement and action plan with next steps for their eco-life design.
2. Permaculture for the Inner Landscape, Part 2
We will continue.
3. Eco-Village Economics (All levels)
We will use emerging eco-village economics as framework for understanding and embracing our relationship to money. Using exercises from Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin’s “Your Money or Your Life” and Bari Tesslers’s “Conscious Bookeeping” programs we will intimately explore our relationship to money. Through a series of exercises we will first look at our family’s relationship to money and how that has influenced our own behaviors. Through doing some financial therapy exercises we’ll uncover some of the patterns that we unconsciously are fulfilling and learn how to begin to shift them. We’ll discuss our values, intention and practices and learn innovative ways to track and account for the money we earn, receive, spend and gift. Participants will walk away with a clearer understanding of their relationship to money and tools for creating a conscious practice of financial awareness and peace. We will arrive at a place of “enough” and actually enjoy our (spiritual) practice of bookkeeping!
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Victoria has studied African music, dance & spirituality with masters from Central and West Africa, Cuba, Haiti, Strowbridge and Brazil. At an early age she was taught to walk respectfully in nature by a great woodsman of the eastern deciduous forest, her father. Over many years she has studied with Rosemary Gladstar, Jane Bothwell and a long list of great herbal teachers. She continues the practice of listening & learning the lessons from the plant Queendom. She lives in Santa Rosa, CA.
1. African Dance, 1
Reconnect with Mother Earth and celebrate all elemental forces through music, dance, story and song. Let the movements of African dance and dances of the Diaspora open your heart, quiet your mind, and free your spirit. We come with beginner’s mind to this non-competitive sister circle of dance. We allow the rhythms of Africa to lift us, invoking joy for ourselves and all our relations.
2. African Dance, 2
This class will repeat
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Maralee Wisewomyn is a Grandmother (and Mother), musician, composer, artist, real estate investor who is very interested in living a grand, joyous spirit-filled, prosperous, successful life. Care to join her on this journey? Maralee lives in the middle of a luscious organic flower, vegetable and herb garden in Bodega, with her Beloved.
Linda is a Mother, Grandmother AND a Great Grandmother. Can you believe it! She loves to grow gardens, make art, go to Ives Pool, take care of her babies, cook fabulous food, make floral arrangements and live near Mother Ocean. She lives in a cute little house in the tiny little town of Bodega with her Sweetheart.
1. INTENSIVE: Sea Sculptures: Playing With Flotsam and Jetsam, (All levels)
We will travel to a lovely, nearby (1 hour) ocean beach where we’ll join our hearts, spirits and creativity with whatever we find on the beach, to create in fun and whimsy. The sculptures can be left for Yemayah, or taken home. No experience needed. Bring water, sun and wind protection, and snacks if you like. The ocean/beach will provide all materials. Linda and Maralee will bring a few tools, encouragement and playfulness.
2. A Prosperity Journey, Part 1 (Beginning)
We will learn, via stories, games, writing, collaging, sharing, and searching our hearts and minds together, how to allow and attract money into our lives – and at the same time more health, loving relationships and all that we’re wanting, really. Our focus will be on shifting attitudes, thought and speech habits from those that no longer serve us, to those that help us manifest what we want in the present.
3. A Prosperity Journey, Part 2 (Beginning)
We will continue. See part 1 for full description.
Maria & Lynda welcome people from around the world to join them in celebrating our universal connection, bask in the energy of life affirming ritual, receive guidance from Spirit, study the principles of the ancient nature-based life philosophies of the Quero Apache Tlish Diyan and Romani Chovani, receive healing or counseling, and generally embrace the fine art of self and community nurturance. http://www.yraceburu.org & http://www.sistersofhonua.org
1. INTENSIVE: Message from the Grandmothers: Women's Prophecies & Rituals of this Time
Deepen connection to Earth and fulfill self prophecy! Powerful ceremony to create dynamic partnership with earth spirit. Ways of the ancestral grandmothers. Storytelling, Drumming, Chanting, Ritual, Prophecy, Talking Circle and more.
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1. Crone Health: Loving Life After Menopause
Finding joy, appreciation and health in our Crone years. We will discuss diet and herbs for our physical health and explore the many tools available for our spiritual and emotional health. This is not a life style change circle, rather celebrating and appreciating where we are while choosing some healthy and fun additions.
2. The Spirit Side of Being a Crone, Part 1 & Part 2
This is time to reflect and share our experiences of Cronehood and our love for our Wise Crone ways and bodies. Past menopause and into memorypause, we will tell our stories. A time to make a ritual Crone Broom will follow.
4. Honoring the Loss of an Unborn Child
Join us for a quiet honoring of the loss of an unborn child through miscarriage or abortion.
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Stargazing with Li, 1
Stargazing with Li, 2
1. Dragon-Time: A Class for Newly Menstruating
Young Women
Welcome maidens, to the circle of women! Join us in celebrating the beauty and strength of this phase of your life, the time of your bloods. We will chat, play a game, explore ideas and feelings, hear stories, make things to care for ourselves and prepare for the Maiden' s Rites of Passage Ceremony to be held Sunday evening at 6:30 p.m.
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1. An Introduction to Natural Building Through the Ancient Art of Making Adobes - Massey Burke
2. Biodiesel 101 – Kimber Holmes and Jennifer Radtke
3. Rainwater Harvesting Principles and Design - Kristen Manyrivesrs & Kem White
4. Sea Plant Sculptures – Maralee Wisewomyn & Linda Sauter
5. Message from the Grandmothers: Women's Prophecies & Rituals of this Time – Maria & Lynda Yraceburu
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