There are a plethora of choices when it comes to herbal medicine courses. Whether in-person or online, there is something to suit just about everyone. Some courses focus more heavily on the information about the herbs, themselves, but excellent herbal medicine courses take you on a journey beyond herbal facts to life changing, empowering experiences. Here’s why.
1. Herbal Medicine Courses Teach You How to Understand Your Body
Yes, you are learning about medicinal herbs and how to prepare them on herbal medicine courses, but another fundamental aspect of excellent herbal medicine courses is teaching you to understand your body. You’ll learn how the body works - sometimes from a scientific anatomy and physiology approach, sometimes from a more elemental and energetic perspective, often a combination of both. Almost all herbal medicine courses will teach and work with a particular energetic system (or a combination of a few). On our herbal medicine courses in the northern English countryside, we blend Western herbal medicine and Ayurvedic perspectives to make learning about how our bodies work, what throws them out of balance and how to support them in getting back into balance elemental, embodied and experiential. We are feeling into ourselves. We are igniting our intuition. We are learning to hear, decipher and act upon our body’s messages. And we are doing it in a way that is as tangible as possible, so you can feel it in your own body as you learn.
Engaging in this process takes you on a journey deep within yourself. It connects you more closely to your physical body. It sheds light on how inexorably interwoven your thoughts and emotions are with your organs, your structures, your systems and processes. It brings understanding to the surface of common themes of imbalance you may have experienced throughout your life (digestive challenges, irritated skin, painful periods, etc.). And, importantly, you increasingly realise just how much you are able to do to support yourself naturally with herbs with the knowledge and skills you’ve been building.
2. Herbal Medicine Courses Inspire You to Question the Status Quo
Herbal medicine is the original medicine and was the people’s medicine, long before allopathic systems and the sequestering of knowledge and resources for a small group of the population. On excellent herbal medicine courses where you bring this knowledge we all once had back into your conscious mind, you will find yourself inspired to start asking questions - a lot of questions. What other skills can you reclaim? What family recipes can you resurface? If this is how distant mainstream medicine has become from its original form, what about our food, our water, our education systems, our communities? If each ‘system’ in our body is interconnected, rather than separate, how might my experiences, my emotions, my environment, my relationships also be able to impact my health and my physical body? How do we really want to be supported through major life events - birth, puberty, parenthood, elderhood, death? What rites of passage have we lost? The questions are limitless, but an excellent herbal medicine course will inspire you to ask them, help you open those doors and guide you towards more resources for further discovery.
3. Herbal Medicine Courses Connect You with the Rest of Nature
As you begin to identify, responsibly forage, grow, harvest and transform herbs into medicinal remedies, your landscape comes alive. At first, you see the details in the sea of green around you - the different textures of the leaves, the different shapes of the petals. Then you begin to see the web, the interconnectedness, the ecosystems. You notice how the birds rely on the hedgerows, how the smaller creatures and fungi weave the soil. As the seasons pass, you notice patterns - and when something changes. The hawthorn bloomed very early this year. Meadowsweet and mugwort are cropping up in the verges in abundance - and in spots where they don’t usually appear. There wasn’t much elderflower this summer, so there won’t be many berries come autumn. And with each of these details you notice, you taste, you smell, you hold in your hands, you have on and in your body, you absorb the knowing that nature is not something ‘out there’ or ‘wild’ or separate from you. You are also nature. You have a part to play. You are part of that ancient conversation that has not stopped since the dawn of time - we just have to listen a lot more intently to hear it and heed it in the current fabric of society.
And so herbal medicine courses take you on a journey far beyond the facts of medicinal plants and which herbs are ‘good for’ what. They teach you how to understand your body, igniting your intuition, your autonomy and your power. They inspire you to question the status quo, bringing you to ask questions you may never have thought to ask before and guiding you towards more resources to explore. They connect you with the rest of nature, bringing your landscape to life and enabling you to realise you are also nature and have a role to play in the vast web of life. Find the right herbal medicine courses for you and allow yourself to be taken on a journey, being open to wherever it may lead you.
If you’re here in the UK, 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.
Whatever your next step is learning herbal medicine, I hope you 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!
