Herbal History, Global Traditions, & Medicine Making

Herbal Foundations Certification Course

September 10th-11th, 10am-3pm

Students can join for the weekend or sign up for a single day.

Please email your questions to: MidAtlanticSchoolofHerbalism@gmail.com

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Saturday, Sept. 10th:

10 am-12pm: ‘What is Herbalism?’

Join the MASH herbalists online for this weekend as they lead you on an exploration of the many ways to use herbs as food and plant medicine. We will start off the day by talking about the ethnobotany of plants and how they evolved alongside animals and humans, We’ll explore the concept of evolutionary herbalism and how it developed into the art of ‘western herbalism’ we practice here in the US today.

1-3 pm:- Herbal Traditions Around the World

This afternoon’s class explores origins of herbalism traditions around the world. We’ll look at various philosophies and traditions of plant medicine use including European Vitalism, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda & Unani Tibb, the Greek & Roman Galenic-Hippocratic models, African and Shamanistic traditions.

Sunday, Sept. 11th:

10 am- 12 pm: Herbal Medicine Making: Tinctures, Glycerites and Herbal Vinegars

On Sunday morning we will learning how to make hydroalcoholic preparations (tinctures and elixirs), glycerites and herbal vinegars. We will discuss which solvents are best for using with various plants based on their phytochemistry, understand the benefits and drawbacks to using hydroalcoholic and vinegar preparations, and compare the folk and scientific method of making different preparations. We will be focusing on making medicine with herbs that can be used for building your own herbal medicine home kits.

1-3 pm: Herbal Medicine Making, Topical Preparations:

Topical preparations have been one of the main stays of herbal medicine, through the history of civilization. Records or remnants of healing balms and poultices have been found dating back to Sumerian and Egyptian times. Herbs have been used to make therapeutic compresses, plasters, fomentations, creams, pastes, salves, ointments, liniments, infused oils, suppositories, pessaries, douches, enemas, smoke treatments, and herbal hydrotherapy such as sitz and steam baths, just to name a few. Nowadays, we tend to forget about many of these traditional methods. It’s time to turn the tables back and resurrect some of these highly effective methods, so join us to learn the art of infused oils and basic salves as well as ’biblical balm’ made with frankincense and myrrh, medieval German black and yellow salves and many other methods of using ‘weeds’ from your backyard & local woods.

Please email your questions to:

MidAtlanticSchoolofHerbalism@gmail.com

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Intrigued by herbs? The herbalists at Mid-Atlantic School of Herbalism (MASH) have a combined experience of using them for more than 100 years! We’d love to share our expertise with you. Come and join our Foundations of Herbalism Certification at MASH at our home at the Smile Herb Shop. This certification course is currently taught online via Zoom in executive format, one (1) weekend (Saturday & Sunday, 10 am-12 pm, 1-3 pm) each month (except August) with a follow –up study group webinar 1 ½ weeks after the weekend classes. Assignments and study between classes are required for certification. Classes are recorded so they can be made up if missed. Each weekend is $199, which includes class recordings, power points, handouts, study material and the follow-up webinar. Enrollment is on a rolling basis so you can join at any time.

The one-year program consisting of 11 months of study, leads to a Foundations of Herbalism Certificate.