Our courses on herbal medicine span up to three years of developing your herbalism knowledge and skills, as well as welcome you into a wonderful community of like-minded souls with student and alumni gatherings. Everyone begins their journey with us on the first year of Awaken Herbal Wisdom and then has the option to progress to the second and third years. Progression is not a requirement, but we find most students enjoy it so much, they carry on! You can explore each year in depth here (year one, year two, year three), but read on for a synopsis of the full three-year journey and beyond.
1. Year One of Our Courses on Herbal Medicine: Opening to the Messages of the Plants and Ourselves
In the first year of our courses on herbal medicine, we open to the messages of the plants and ourselves, laying the foundations of the knowledge and skills of herbalism. We focus on accessing the knowledge that is already laying dormant deep within us - that inner knowing of how to work with plant medicine (the original medicine) that is baked into our bones, passed down to us from our ancestors since the dawn of time. We awaken this knowledge within us through our senses, using the tastes of herbs as the gateway to unlocking how we transform them into medicine that supports our health. In learning this way, we lock herbalism into our conscious minds, our hearts and our hands so it becomes part of our daily lived reality.
When we turn our attention inwards to our bodies and how they work, before we start pairing people and plants, we blend physiology, energetics and the elements. But our holistic approach to health doesn’t just focus on our individual selves. We also examine a few more ripples out from ourselves - exploring societal messaging, marketing, habits, ‘the way things are done’. We see the veil of the status quo that is disconnecting us from our wellbeing and our power and we unpick the threads, we poke holes, we tear at sections until we pull down as much of the veil as we can to see what’s really surrounding us - all of nature, ourselves included, and the never-ending conversation we are part of that lies behind the facade of the reality that’s been sold to us.
2. Year Two of Our Courses on Herbal Medicine: Attuning to Seasons, Rhythms and Flow
This is when we orientate ourselves to the wheel of the year and its changing energies, developing the skills of listening, observing and refining to create rhythms in our daily lives that infuse herbalism into how we move from each hour, day, month and season to the next. We are creating habits of resilience that connect us more deeply with the rest of nature.
In noticing the dynamics of the world around us, so too do we feel the dynamics of the world within us - the inner workings of our bodies, their interconnectedness, the interplay of elements, emotions and environments to develop a tangible knowing of holistic anatomy and physiology.
In year two, we synchronise the unique melody of our body to the heartbeat of the earth.
3. Year Three of Our Courses on Herbal Medicine: Weaving through the Cycles of Life
After our second year of attuning to the wheel of the year, in our third year, we walk the spiral of life. This is when we weave all the knowledge and skills you have developed into a finely crafted basket that will carry you through each stage of your life on this earth.
Our cadence is slightly different this year, spending four weeks in deep exploration of each of the six stages of life in turn - infancy and childhood, adolescence, adulthood, motherhood, menopause and elderhood - starting in the spring and carrying all the way through to winter.
As we take each step walking the spiral, we weave in the elements, the doshas, the tissues and the pathways. We weave in the seasons and the ebb and flow of their energies. We weave in our 24 old friends and our final set of 12 new herbal familiars. We weave in the common messages and imbalances that naturally arrive with each stage of life. We weave in the most suitable forms of herbal remedies and expand our formulating to include up to seven herbs. We weave in more intricate patterns of listening to others. We weave in our questioning of the status quo and what messages and meanings we've been told to accept and expect at each stage of life.
In weaving, you create and strengthen your own power.
4. Our Annual Student and Alumni Winter Gathering
Whether students have completed their first year or are further along in their journeys, something all our students miss is the opportunity to connect in-person during the long winter months after we have our closing ceremonies in early December. Once Christmas/Yuletide celebrations have passed and the new year has been rung in, the ‘bleak mid-winter’ sets in and we yearn to be with our herbal friends and community, but we just can’t wait until spring arrives to meet up. This is why any students who have completed the first year of our courses on herbal medicine are welcome to join us in the yurt each year in February, just as the light is slowly returning to the land and the snowdrops are popping up and giving us hope of the season to come. It is, quite frankly, a party! We get the wood burning stove going and all the fairy lights on, making the yurt lovely and cosy. We get a little glammed up (but not too much, as we’re still in wellies to get to the yurt and cosy slippers/socks when we’re inside - think glamping chic!). We FEAST on gorgeous food. We play herbal pub quiz games. We make a little something special that will be gifted to the coming year’s new first-year students as they begin their journeys and are welcomed into the community. And we connect. People who have become old friends over their time on our courses in herbal medicine meetup. Students who have all sorts of wonderful things in common across cohorts get the opportunity to meet for the first time. We enjoy our beautiful community with each year it continues to blossom.
5. Coming Soon: Our Annual Alumni Summer Intensive
When our students become alumni, they don’t want to stop coming together to practise, refine, deepen and share their knowledge, skills and love of herbalism. So we’re plotting something to begin in the coming years - an annual summer intensive for alumni (think herbal summer camp for adults!). The details are still taking shape, but it’s looking like it will be a three- to five-day event in the early summer before everyone heads off on summer holidays with all sorts of sessions available and likely some skill-sharing from our alumni, themselves. We’ll still keep the experience intimate - it won’t be a massive festival - but big enough to feel like a lovely immersive experience in the sun! Watch this space!
I hope this has provided you with a helpful summary of the journey we offer across our courses on herbalism, both for the three years of our Awaken Herbal Wisdom course, as well as the ongoing seasonal alumni events we offer. If you are considering joining us, but still have a few questions, you are more than welcome to get in touch.
If our courses on herbal medicine and community call to you, you’re very welcome to take the next step on your journey building your knowledge, skills and confidence as a home herbalist with us on our intensive herbalism course - Awaken Herbal Wisdom - which spans all four seasons and gets herbalism both deep into your bones and your daily life. Although it is intense, it’s suitable for a wide range of herbalists, including beginners! You can learn more about our herbal medicine course here. Be sure to put your name on the waiting list to see what the current cohorts are up to and get first access to enrolment before it opens.
However many turnings of the wheel you choose to join our courses on herbal medicine, I’m sure you will enjoy the journey!
At Rhodes Roots & Remedies School of Herbal Medicine, our practice of herbalism is rooted in the belief that we must remember, reclaim and relearn our knowledge of our bodies, our autonomy and how to work with plant medicine in order to bring control of our own health back into our families and homes for a sustainable future for ourselves and the planet. Through our intensive herbalism course, we facilitate the development of confident, empowered herbalists, attuned to the messages of their bodies and the natural world. Living the deep wisdom of herbal medicine within themselves, their homes and their communities, they uplift themselves and others, creating a stronger society organically. We do hope you'll join us on your journey!
