The Plants are Calling: a Bioregional Year-Long Apprenticeship in Community Herbalism
Our Community Orientation
Plants are Calling is a community of learners committed to building joyous, relational, traditions of medicine-making while radically reimagining systems of community care. A multi-racial, cross-cultural, inter-generational gathering of souls who are weaving more than just an understanding of plant medicine - we are rebuilding relationship with each other, the earth, and traditions that, by their nature, challenge racism, systemic harm, and a culture of blind, extractive consumption.
Earth-honoring plant medicine honors the sanctity of all beings, helps us redfine “wealth”, and remember that plants are kin who can teach us about community, our eco systems, and healing of the land. By sharing ancestral wisdom and scientific knowledge we are rebuilding a culture of mutual regard. - and preserving essential ways of being for future generations
Practical Benefits of Learning Plant Medicine
“80% of the world relies on traditional plant medicine for at least part of their primary healthcare.” World Health Organization - March 2022
Taking our well-being into our own hands is one of the most powerful, liberating, and cost-effective things we can do. Even a single year of dedicated study can turn a “blur of green out there” into clear and useful knowledge that offers a treasure trove of nourishment, relationship, and medicinal remedies for the rest of our lives. Plant medicine is a practical and accessible answer to the needs of our time.
Plants are Calling emphasizes experiential education in the field and hands-on medicine making. You will learn to identify, grow, and make your own medicines.
Applications are closed for 2024.
You can get on a waitlist for next year here:
Calendar
Monthly community gatherings are an essential part of our rhythm and how we learn. Not only do they provide the opportunity to get outside together to learn to identify and make medicines, but to build relationship with each other and with the land/ecosystem where we are. for We are typically outside come rain or shine, in truly inclement weather, we will either work inside (with Covid precautions in mind) and/or do a Zoom video gathering.
Plants are Calling Gatherings
Sunday, April 21, 1pm - 4pm
Sunday, May 19, 1pm - 4pm
Sunday, June 16, 1pm - 4pm
Saturday, July 13, 10:00am -1pm 1st hour merged with Food Forest - Medicine Walk
Sunday, August 18, 1pm - 4pm
Sunday, September 8, 1pm - 4pm
Sunday, November 17, 1pm - 4pm
Sunday, December 15, 4pm - 7pm
Additional FREE Gatherings and Educational Events at the Community Food Forest
Saturday, May 11, Spring Festival @ the Community Food Forest 2:00
Sunday, June 2, Medicine Walk @ the Community Food Forest 10am
Friday, June 21, Summer Soirée @ the Community Food Forest 7:00pm
Sunday, July 13, Medicine Walk @ the Community Food Forest 10am
Sunday, August 4, Medicine Walk @ the Community Food Forest 10am
Saturday, October 12, Harvest Festival @ the Community Food Forest 2pm
Food Forest Work Days (2nd and 4th Thursdays) 5:30pm
April 11 and 25
May 9 and 23
June 13 and 27
July 11 and 25
August 8 and 22
September 12
October 10 and 24
Our Ethic of Community Care - How Cost Breaks Down
The Plants are Calling asks a sliding scale contribution of $125.00 - $400.00+ per month.
Our True Earth community is dedicated to redefining wealth as a well planet and a well community; in this spirit we hold a firm ethic of community care. Living this ethic means redistributing access to care (often determined by access to money) in the work that we do. We are continually making strides in our ability to speak more clearly to this ethic and are thankful for the support we continue to receive. To those of you who are considering coming into the community and/or our intensive offerings this year, we want to thank you for showing up to these important conversations about effecting cultural changes with an open heart. For those of you already standing in community with us, thank you for being a part of laying to rest violent systems and being dedicated to reimagining and remaking the culture together. In practical terms, this most often breaks down to giving generously in this active reimagining. This consciousness is something that we ask explicitly of all participants in our core offerings. True reimagining and healing of the culture must address who has access to what. This is the function of our Community Care ethic.
Those of us who make up the True Earth workforce demonstrate our consistent commitment to actual repair and redistribution in many ways:
by putting hundreds of volunteer hours each year into our community resilience projects and earth-honoring collaborations,
by accepting a modest salary within the organization, as this is how things shake out when we prioritize principles over profit,
by sharing our services, time, medicines, and offerings with family/community members who need such support but whose access to resources is diminished by cultural violence.
Approximately 40%-50% of participants in our core offerings are supported by partial to full scholarships. In order to be here with us, and for us to be able to keep doing this work, our culture/community must commit to a climate of generosity. We believe that these are the same changes that need to happen in the wider world and we’re just doing our part by learning to generously share what we have. We prioritize our community members most deeply targeted by cultural violence in these scholarships, and ask community members with more financial breathing room and/or access to resources to participate in this ethic of Community Care by helping to fund these scholarships. If you are Indigenous, Black, trans/non-binary, disabled or genuinely need relief from cultural violence, know that you have a place with us, and that we are doing our best to make this community safe and accessible for you.
Giving as generously as we are able, in this work and on the sliding scale, is an embodiment of Community Care that makes it possible for others to be here. It’s that simple. If you are interested in being a part of authentic, earth-honoring community (which is the point of intensive study with us) true participation in such community asks willingness to sit with the big, sometimes uncomfortable questions that cultural reimagining unfolds and requires. We must all take practical, daily steps toward dismantling harm. We are so grateful to community members who have worked hard to pull together resources, stories, ethical considerations, and guidelines to help you decide where to pay on the sliding scale, should you need support.
Who’s teaching this?
Hi there, I’m ShuNahSii Rose (she/her) and I have been wildly in love with plants ever since I was a little girl. I was busy “making potions” and digging in the earth (in a serious inner-city environment) because my intuition that plants bring healing in so many ways felt like straight up ancestral memory. I began my formal study and met my first “herb mothers” at a local herb shop in Chicago when I was 19, in 1982. While my study started with reading and researching in earnest, my medicines were coming from purchased dried herbs; there was a disconnect from the earth and from practical field knowledge. It was when I met my first teachers that my world blew open. They drew me into the field, and a passionate relationship with medicine-making, and eventually teaching and sharing, began. I studied and worked with Anishinaabe elder and ethnobotanist, Grandmother Keewaydinoquay for 17 years in the Great Lakes region (until her passing). I also did an intensive three-year apprenticeship with internationally renowned Dr. Rosita Arvigo (author of several books including “Sastun-My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer”). While I went on to study, learn from and collaborate with a number of other herbalists since 1982 (most notably Susun Weed), it was the foundation of these traditional apprenticeships and continued relationships with the plants themselves that served, and continue to serve, as my greatest teachers. It is why I want to offer intimate time in person, time in the field and hands-on medicine-making while we sing and share stories; I believe in the power of relationship, to each other and to the earth, to bring the planetary healing our times call for.