Seeds of our Ancestors

This course is co-facilitated by naomi doe moody and Amber Arnold

We generally meet the third weekend of each month from April to December on both Saturday and Sunday, from 10 am-2:30 pm eastern

Dates:

April 24th & 25th

May 22nd & 23rd

June 19th & 20th

July 24th & 25th

August 14 & 15

Sept 18th & 19th

October 23rd & 24th

November 20 & 21

December 18 & 19

The allyship is a foundational program that centers Afro Indigenous folk wisdom and spiritual technologies and recognizes the àse, the essential life force, of the plants as a sacred and necessary component of both their medicine and their sovereignty while offering beginning herbalists tools that can help support them as they step into their role as self, family and/or community healer.

Why allyship?

We have chosen to continue to call our program an allyship to reflect the relationship of reciprocity that is inherent and indeed integral to working with plants.

Just as plants can be our allies in healing and growth, we can be theirs, too.

What does it mean to be trauma-conscious?

At its most basic, it reflects an awareness that experiences of trauma may be present within our circle.

Many of the BIPOC who attend our programs come from lineages who have experienced violence connected to land and we acknowledge that we may be carrying the generational trauma of that violence.

Like us, the land and our plant kin hold similar memories of trauma within them.

While working with plants, we believe creating a sacred container that acknowledges the historical, physical and emotional impact of that trauma is deeply important to the healing process for all of us, both human and non-human.

What is ancestral somatics?

Somatics is a broad term being widely used to describe many different modalities.

In the context of this program, we are speaking to somatics as a way to connect to our bodies, our senses, and listen to what is so as not to overwhelm our nervous system with all the thoughts and memories that arise when we focus on what was or what could be.

And to begin to move through feelings of discomfort when nervous system activation occurs.

We work with this technology to align with the innate wisdom of the intuition of our gut, as well as our thinking mind and feeling heart, to attune to our natural surroundings. To the land and the spirits of the land.

Our approach is offered via the frame work of ceremony and ritual, which is a lot more mundane than it sounds. It’s the magic of washing floors, listening to your breath or witnessing leaves rustle in a gentle breeze.

It is a remembering and a reclamation of the tools and techniques of our animist ancestors.

The Course

Our allyship focuses on native and naturalized plants of N’dakinna/New England as well as medicinal plants of the African Diaspora.

Knowing how to work with the plantcestors outside your door and honoring the original people who have stewarded them for millennia is as important as learning about the plants of our own lineages.

For those of you joining from outside of so called New England, know that many of the plants we study in this course are widespread throughout turtle island or have counterparts native to other regions.

Class Structure

Classes will be conducted live via zoom and include lecture, hands on learning, meditation and ritual. Additionally participants will recieve supplementary videos, reading materials and home practice assignments. A final project is required for course completion.

April: Creating the container

Orientation

Intro To Herbalism

Blessing Herbs

Nourishing Herbs

Intro To Somatics

Intro to Meditating With Herbal Allies: Linden

Medicine Making: Long Infusions

Altar Building

Introduction to Caring for Plants as Allies

Ritual: Seed Planting

May: Water Is Life

Herbal Terminology

Urinary and Lymphatic Systems

Water Element Correspondences

Tracking Sensations and Resourcing

Medicine Making: Water Based Extractions Including Compost Tea for Plant BBs

Water Ritual: Spiritual Bath

Working with the Moon

Meditation and Somatic Practice: Nettles

June: Boundaries and Protection

Intro to Soil

Immune and Integumentary Systems

Herbalism as Resistance

Herbal Allies for Boundaries and Protection

Earth Element Correspondences

Fight/Flight/Freeze/Fawn

Hands in the Dirt: Somatic Approach to Land Based Generational Trauma 

Medicine Making: Oil Based Extractions

Meditation: Elder, Yarrow

Earth Ritual: Boundary Altar

July: Cultivating Resilience

Nervous System

Adaptogens

Allies for Resilience and Restoration

Somatic Practice: Cultivating Resilience

Medicine Making: Alcohol Based Extractions

Meditation: Tulsi

Earth Ritual: Earth Mounds

(A)Mending the Soil

August: Embracing Fluidity

Basic Botany

Reproductive System

Allies for Sexual Health

Gender Affirming/Supporting Allies

Allies In Healing

Meditaton: Bee Balm, Hibiscus

Medicine Making: Flower Essences

Nature Ritual: Working with Essence

Queering Herbalism: Plant Magic

Somatic Lecture and Experiencing

September: Tending the Flame

Feeding the Plants

Digestive System

Herbal Tastes

Food as Medicine

Herbalism on EBT

Kitchen Conjure

Fire Element

Meditation: Marshmallow, Lemon Balm

Medicine Making: Bitters, Vinegars and Honeys

Fire Ritual

Somatic Lecture and Experiencing

October: Children of Blood and Bone

Stories in the Soil: Ancestral Connections to Land

Musculoskeletal System

Mineral Element

Somatic Lecture: Ancestral Healing

Medicine Making: Candle Fixing and Petitions

Mineral Ritual: Ancestor Connections 

Story Telling as Medicine

November: I Can Breathe

Singing To Our Siblings: Breath Exchange with our Plant Allies

Respiratory System

Allies for Speaking Our Truth and Holding Silence

Nature/Air Element

Moving With Grief

Meditation: Mullein, Plantain

Medicine Making: Herbal Smoke

Ritual: Tending to Our Grief

Song as Medicine

Somatic Lecture and Experiencing

December: Closing the Container

Plant Spirits and AfroIndigenous Energy Work

Putting the Pieces Together: Integration (Building a Protocol for Self Practice)

Final Projects

Closing Ceremony

The option to pay a deposit is available to hold your spot as they will be limited.

Payment plans will also be available and average $70-100 a month for the duration of the program.

We are hoping to secure funds for scholarship for 5 spots by the beginning of the program. Email for details.

If covid regulations permit, we are hoping to host an in-person weekend gathering near the end of summer/beginning of fall.

We have options to pay via Paypal at: susucommunityfarm@retreatfarm.org

or set up recurring payments using the link below

https://py.pl/UO6wz

Please email with any questions you may have regarding the course, the teachers or the cost.

naomi@susucommunityfarm.org