The Verdant Path

✨🌿 THE VERDANT PATH: Plant Spirit Medicine Apprenticeship 🌿✨

The green ones, plants, herbs, and trees, have been by our side since the dawn of time. They bring us healing, nourishment, spiritual guidance, protection, shelter, and consciousness-shifting powers, and as such have been revered in all human cultures the world over. Plants are known to be healers, teachers and ancestors, embodying the wisdom of those who came before. They are kin whose memory reaches back to the dawn of time and deep into the very soul of the world, the numinous spirit of all things. 

The Verdant Path is a 9-month group apprenticeship that weaves together plant spirit medicine, folk herbalism, and intuitive / psychic development wherein we will focus on building personal relationship with the land. Personal relationship is foundational, and developing the intuitive and psychic skills needed for deep communication with plants and the earth will be the core of this program.

This is a circle for those who long to deepen their intimacy with the green world, cultivate the ability to connect directly with plant spirits, understand their holistic medicine ways, and incorporate them into your life and healing practices with love, confidence, and reverence.

Each class combines some form of plant spirit meditation with lecture and discussion time. Seasonal plant walks, class foraging trips, and hands-on medicine making will be woven throughout. We will dive deep with two herbs each class (4 herbs/month), exploring their entire being through folklore, story, myth, ethnobotany, traditional cultural uses, medicinal powers and preparations, and how to grow, find or forage them.

By the end of the program you will have a deeper understanding of plant healing and folk magic, practical herbal medicine-making and medicine-using skills, and a confident relationship with your intuition and the green world.

Our time together will include:

• Plant spirit meditation (guided shamanic journey/trance, plant sits, various meditation forms)

• Direct experience of 75+ healing plants - through tasting medicines, nibbling the living herb, foraging, processing, etc.

• Discussions on holistic herbalism, plant spirit shamanism, reclaiming ancestral folkways, and more

• Hands-on small batch medicine making

• Seasonal plant walks and foraging trips in local forests, meadows, and other local ecosystems

• Homework and supported self-study can be completed outside of class for those interested

The scope and practice of plant spirit medicine is vast, as plants have been used by every human culture throughout time for a multitude of uses, but we will focus on the beautiful Great Lakes and Midwest bioregion and on the folk magic traditions of Europe. From herbs for beauty to plants for protection, a wide range of traditional applications will be explored and created together.

WHERE: Teacher’s residence, centrally located in Duluth, as well as green spaces around the city.

WHEN: February - October 2025.

9am-1pm Saturday’s, 2x/month.

COST:  $900 for 9-month program. ($50 per 4-hour class).

Payment plans are available.

To honor the sacred and rigorous nature of this work, our circle will be capped at 10 students.

Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions: blackspruceherbals@gmail.com

SCHEDULE

Open to slight shifts as needed to accomodate seasonality of plants, timing, and class desires.

February: Initiation onto the Green Path

✧ Herbs: Cedar, Angelica, Spruce, Cinnamon 

Animism, plant spirit medicine and shamanism. Cultivating a living cosmology through belonging to the land, crafting a materia magica. Smoke and scent medicine. Sit with Grandmother Cedar. Opening ceremony.

Dates: 2/8 and 2/22

March: Awakening the Inner Sight

✧ Herbs: Willow, Wormwood, Myrrh, Chaga

Plant spirit shamanism in the global North. Intro to trance work and shamanic journeying. The wisdom of folklore. The art of offerings. Sacred herbs for protection and clearing. Ancestral plant allies. Winter plant walk.

Dates: 3/8 and 3/22

April: Foundations of Herbalism

✧ Herbs: Alder, Nettle, Violet, Wild leek

Intro to the many types of “herbalism.” The Wise Woman Way.  Using herbs for self and others. Making good medicine for a home apothecary. Overview of internal and external usages of plant medicine. Plant walk and sit with Wild Leek. 

Dates: 4/12 and 4/26

May: Rising with the Spring

✧ Herbs: Hawthorn, Mint, Wild raspberry, Dandelion

Nourishing herbs and wild foods. Folk magic of the springtime awakening. The enlivening green viriditas, Bitter medicines. Healing with water and herbs - sauna, bathing, teas, and more. Growing luscious and productive gardens. Mindful use and sourcing. Spring plant walks.

Dates: 5/10 and 5/24

June: Opening the Heart Gate with Flowers

✧ Herbs: Birch, Wild rose, Our Lady’s Bedstraw, Meadowsweet

Plants of the Goddess - sacred herbs for love and beauty. Remedies for the Heart. Honey medicines. Flower essence making and magic. Early summer plant walk. Sit with wild rose. Solstice celebration. 

Dates: 6/14 and 6/28

July: Folk Family Herbalism

✧ Herbs: Linden, Mugwort, St. John’s wort, Thyme

Earth-Mother healing - the plants of midwives for the motherhood continuum and female vitality. Herbal best practices with babies and children. Plant medicine for eros, sex, fertility, and hormonal vitality. Summer plant walks. St. John’s wort sit.

Dates: 7/12 and 7/26

August: Blessings of the Harvest

✧ Herbs: Apple, Hazel, Yarrow, Lavender

Folk magic of the harvest time and the Divine Mother of Herbs. Sacred plants for blessings, luck, and prosperity. Fat medicine - salves, balms, butters, and oils. The Doctrine of Signatures. Herb garden immersion. High summer plant walks.

Dates: 8/9 and 8/23

September: The Hearth-Keeper’s Art 

✧ Herbs: Rowan, Vervain, Calendula, Marshmallow

Sacred herbs for the hearth and home. Making plant charms and amulets. Kitchen witchery, spice rack medicine, herbal vinegars, salts, and more. Folk remedies for immunity, learning and medicine-making. Late summer plant walks. 

Dates: 9/13 and 9/27

October: Walking with the Ancestors 

✧ Herbs: Juniper, Elder, Elecampane, Garlic

Ancestral connection and relating. Longevity and resilience with adaptogens. The “witches’ herbs” - poison plants. Herbs for dreaming, meditation, and altered consciousness. Plant walk and sit with Juniper. Elder Mother ritual. Closing ceremony.

Dates: 10/11 and 10/25