Successfully completed!

Hooray! On the 6th January this year I successfully completed the ten modules of the Intermediate Herbal Course, which included the study of anatomy, physiology, herbal therapeutics and the relevant examinations.
I'm eager to deepen my knowledge further. I've learned a LOT in a short time. Now I want to go back to it all, revise, build on my materia medica and get to know 'my plants' better.

If you ever consider to study herbalism, I can really recommend the Intermediate Herbal Course. I took the Intermediate Herbal Course, which is an in-depth study, but you could also start with the Introductory Herbal course. If you'd rather read into articles, monographs and connect with a community, The Herbarium is your way to go.





( These are affiliate links. If you decide to buy from the Herbal Academy of New England I will get a  fee towards supporting my herbalist life and my family. )


And now I will jump back to a couple of weeks ago...
During the Christmas vacation we were to our place in France, where the foodforest is still a baby but has taken root.
Upon arrival we had wonderfully sunny, mellow days - and I got my top bar beehive ready for its first season! We didn't 'install' it in the field yet, that will happen the next time, but it's now there, ready and waiting.

 goldenrod in winter

 the last roses, before frost

I found the last nasturtiums and something orange peeking in between them. The tiniest pumpkin!

And then came the frost and snow. 

Everything was under a white glittery coat overnight.

What does an eager gardener with an impossibly long to do-list do in the case of snow?!

After some hours of being torn between frustration and awe, I snapped out of it, grabbed the camera and headed out for a track hunt. Fun!

These animals are roaming within the garden(s)...the first being our cat.

 And this one is the neighbors' dog :)

The following tracks are from our New Years' walk, outside our garden(s). Can you identify the animals by their tracks? Feel free to comment!

Herbal walk

Today I enjoyed a herbal walk with Lynn from Urban Herbology at Park Frankendael. Lovely weather, a great group and a wonderful walk in a beautiful park - what more could you ask for?
We, the participants came from the Netherlands, Portugal, Ireland, UK and Finland (ahem!) and went back to our Amsterdam homes full with useful information. Thank you Lynn!

You can find more about Urban Herbology here:
http://urbanherbology.org/

An Update, at last - Animal Communication workshop with Anna Breytenbach

Field harvest in July. Inside the linen towel are nettles for dinner.

Hello there!

In these digital times it is not done to be off-line for the amount of time I did...but I did.

I do recommend weeks and weeks of off-line time - it grounds, gets you back to your roots, back to who you really are.

The updates will be in separate posts, beginning with ...

 

...Animal Communication workshop with Anna Breytenbach

these photos come from the All Is Energy Academy's blog

Very early in this year I saw the documentary of Anna, the animal communicator, on the internet . 

Tears of gratitude were rolling down my cheeks - here was my proof that inter-species communication exists!

Here is a trailer of the film    (for those viewing this post on Nina's Nature website, click on the header of the post to take you to blogger = see the trailer):

I subscribed to her newsletter, and by chance, two weeks later I got the announcement she was coming to teach in the Netherlands! I jumped at the chance, and got in, amongst an international group of enthusiastic participants, learning to "get out of our own way" with the guidance of Anna, in the first weekend of July.

Anna is a very gentle, firm, informative and gifted tutor, with lots of humour and compassion.

I recommend her to anyone who is interested in learning animal communication.

My own motivation was learning to communicate (better) with plants. I thought that animal communication and plant communication would not be very different. And indeed, it is all interspecies communication, and although after a weekend I can't fluently communicate with all other beings on this Planet, I'm happy to have a solid base to practise further on. (And yes, it works!)

You can find Anna via her website AnimalSpirit.org. On her site, on the media page, you can also find more information about the documentary.

Herbalism

As a child I loved to spend time in the woods and in the meadows, looking at plants, talking to them, listening to what they had to say, sometimes tasting them.
I wanted to heal with herbs. I looked in the kitchen cupboards of my mother - dried oregano, thyme...hmmm.
I got a book about Flower Fairies and tried to find them outside. Hmmm.
Later I got a book on withcraft and many books on healing with herbs. And a necklace with a calendula pendant.

And yet, it took a couple of decades for me to realise: this, herbalism, is what I'm supposed to be doing!

I wanted to find the best herbalist course there is, or, more accurately: the most fitting for me.

Pretty soon I found the online intermediate herbal course by the Herbal Academy of New England. After examining their (informative, abundant!) website and reading the reviews I decided to invest in myself, and thereby also on the health of those whose lives touch mine*.
I was particularly happy about the promise of high quality, in depth information and about the prospect of studying online, at my own pace.






The herbal course consists of ten learning units, each consisting of chapters and a quiz - or, I would call it a test. Only after passing the test of the unit you have been learning you can move on to the next one. There is also an online community, and the people of Academy of New England are very helpful and friendly.

It was only when I started the first unit that I realized how solid this training would be! It is packed with in-depth information, full of useful plant portraits and liberally sprinkled with herbal remedy recipes. 

If you want to learn herbalism in depth, I recommend this course wholeheartedly!



* My personal motivation to practice herbalism is inherently connected with the life power of the plants. Nature is woven is such a infinitely intricate manner that for every problem there is a cure.
By returning to my roots - having a deeply meaningful relationship with the deva's of the plants - I'm closing a circle that was uncomfortably open... and now I can rise up this spiral again, helping those whose lives touch mine, with herbal medicine.