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GIVING GROUND 2008 Herbal Weekend Retreat/Workshop Schedule January - February 2008 January 19-21, 2008: Saturday - Monday, Martin Luther King Day is Monday the 21st Stone Soup! Kitchen medicine: culinary herbs as medicines Some medieval history of herbs, new vocabulary, an overview of the scientific basis for some herbs' medicinal values, cautions. We'll put together an elegant winter soup with very deliberately chosen ingredients for winter health. We'll also concoct a winter medicine from pantry ingredients, for the common cold, the flu, sore throats, coughs, bronchitis, laryngitis. You'll take this home, as well as taking home various herb tea mixes we will make up with your own personal winter health in mind. There'll be hand-outs as always, so no one will feel he or she is in a lecture hall scrambling to take notes. We'll have an herb walk (quite exotic in winter!) or herb snowshoe walk, and we'll have a warming Finnish traditional sauna bath. All containers and ingredients supplied, snowshoes supplied, all meals served in your cottage, beds all made up, heat and lights on. Maybe we'll be treated to a display of northern lights while you're here. We'll serve hot chocolate as one of the premier culinary medicines. January 25-27, 2008: Friday afternoon-Sunday afternoon Boreal Forest Winter Medicine In the "dead" of winter, besides all the animals who come closer to the clearing because of suet and seed feeders, there are more plants available for making medicines than you might expect! We'll look into some of the medieval history of herbs, some new vocabulary, an overview of the scientific basis for some herbs' medicinal value, wild-crafting (wild gathering) protocol, and cautions. We'll take an herb walk, or herb snowshoe walk on our trails, and we'll pick some herbs primed in winter to help humans with cold, flu, coughs and sore throats and various infections. We'll make up a tincture, and a powerful but very benign triple -antibiotic, anti-fungal salve, both for you to take home. As above, we'll make up some herbal tea mixtures with your own personal winter health in mind. As above, we'll have a warming Finnish traditional sauna bath, all equipment and ingredients supplied, along with all meals, cottage beds made up, heat and lights on. February 9-11, 2008: Friday afternoon-Sunday afternoon, the weekend before Valentine's Day Chocolate as Medicine! Same format as the above weekends, but we'll focus on chocolate which is not technically a boreal forest native. Chocolate in a dinner, chocolate in desserts, chocolate will figure in our sauna ablutions, there'll be a chocolate treasure hunt on snowshoes on the trail, chocolate medicine and recipes to take home. Chocolate is full of health-giving anti-oxidants, is a cardiac muscle strengthener, and helps to thin our blood. February 15-17, 2008: Friday afternoon - Sunday afternoon, Monday is Presidents' Day Beginning Herbology, with a focus on wild weed medicine of historic and Native American knowledge Scientific principles of how herbal medicines work to heal, wild gathering protocols and cautions. Herb walk, on snowshoes if necessary, and we'll make several medicinal products for your home medicine cabinet from vegetable matter we pick on the trails: an antibiotic salve, a tincture for coughs and sore throats. Traditional Finnish sauna bath, all meals, cottage beds made up, heat and lights on. |