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What is it? Botany, habitat, migration, constituents, historical & cultural uses(recreational, industrial, medicinal, nutritional), actions & indications from Oriental medicine, Western allopathic medicine & homeopathic medicine perspectives.
Dr. John Hauser is a naturopath, registered nurse, oriental medicine practitioner using homeopathic, botanical, dietary & acupuncture therapies for the past 30 years in private practice in the Twin Cities.
Health care, at its simplest, is the art of returning imbalance to balance. If you look at medicine in terms of Yin and Yang, the balancing barometer for all things, then you could say that allopathic medicine is (very) yang; aggressive, strong and masculine – and it has dominated our health care systems for the last century. So what happens to a society that is treated by an imbalanced heath care system? Obscure illness, chronic disease and heavy reliance on numbing medications. Sound familiar? Insert the antidote — Yin.
To learn more, join us as we discuss the spectrum of illness, the journey to health and the dire need for herbal medicine in mainstream medicine.
Anna Needham is owner and CEO of Tao Natural Foods, a health and wellness shop located in Minneapolis. Tao Natural Foods is a multi faceted business that includes an organic cafe, herbal shop, health services and community classes. Anna is also a practicing Acupuncturist and carries a MN medical license. Her passion for natural health care is driving her business’s evolution to include the first natural acute care clinic in the Twin Cities where patients will be seen, diagnosed and treated with only natural remedies on a walk-in basis. The goal of this clinic is to create an alternative healing option for patients looking to treat illnesses with natural, safe and effective medicines.
Finally a simple technique to help you pick remedies for your friends and family. Learn to sense the quality of different peoples’ pulses and feel shifts when different remedies are administered. Absolutely hands-on.
Please bring 5-7 things you are curious how your body reacts to, but don’t take those things internally that day (like supplements — if it’s necessary medication, please do take it anyway). This could be medication, herbs, supplements, jewelry, bits of food (like a chunk of cheese), etc. The students will pulse test each other on these substances.
Lise Wolff, Registered Herbalist, AHG has studied herbalism for twenty-eight years, with herbalists from Susun Weed to Matthew Wood with whom she apprenticed in 1995. She is a professional member of The American Herbalist Guild and received her MSc in Scotland. An active practitioner, Lise supplies her apothecary primarily with herbs she gathers and prepares. She maintains a private practice in South Minneapolis and is available for private consultations. For the past seventen years she has taught beginning and advanced herb classes in the Midwest based on actual case histories. Lise’s primary focus is on the most prolific plants available commonly called weeds, that insistently volunteer their nutrition and healing powers everywhere we walk. Since 2010 Lise has taught at the University of Minnesota Center for Spirituality and Healing as a part of the School of Nursing curriculum for the Doctor of Nursing Practice. Fall 2010 Lise was appointed to the academic faculty of St. Katherine University. As adjun ct professor, she teaches the Herbology course for the Master of Arts in Holistic Health Studies. Beyond herbalism, her other great loves include her husband and son Nick.
Join Twin Cities herbalist Sonia Casey for an interactive evening connecting with the deep and profound healing wisdom of our beautiful native plants and weeds. With plant spirit healing, we can move through challenges in the physical, emotional, and spiritual bodies with the plant-person connection. Plant spirit healing is also about your personal experience with plants. This is an opportunity for you to expand your natural gift of intuition with the simple tools we will practice together. The intention is to help you gain a greater, deeper, connection to yourself and to your relationship with our amazing plant allies!
Sonia Casey is a Traditional Western Herbalist, Wellness Coach, and Educator based in the west metro of the Twin Cities. She takes a heart-centered, whole-body, and whole-life approach that is centered around empowering people along their healing journey. Sonia put her busy accounting career aside in 2011 to focus on the health and well-being of herself and her two boys. Inspired by the profound healing experienced by her family through various natural healing modalities, Sonia made the transition to herbalism and wellness coaching. She loves teaching interactive herbal and wellness classes that integrate all of the senses.
Sonia received her training in herbalism from Twin Cities herbalists Lise Wolff and Erin Piorier and her wellness coaching certificate from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN). Sonia is also a Reiki Master, an ordained Shamanic minister, and a volunteer for Herbalists Without Borders (HWB). She is actively involved in community activism to eliminate the use of chemicals on lawns to increase pollinator and herbal habitat.
While developing a new class several years ago, I started researching the influences in Dr. Edward Bach’s life and thinking that may have influenced the way he created Flower Essence Therapy as a form of healing. He’s a hard character to pin down, but it seems that many of his inspirations, as well as the source of many of his disagreements with practitioners in other modalities, can be be traced back to certain very basic questions of healing and his unique answers to these questions. Mostly they deal with very simple and innocuous words that most people never think to question (“What is a person, a disease, a symptom, a remedy, a cure, etc.?”), but they turn out to be some of the most confusing and ultimately enlightening notions a healer can consider. Depending upon how you answer these questions, you create a distinct approach to healing. We’ll look at Bach’s answers and how he fashioned Flower Essence Therapy in response, and how modern practitioners might forge our own path for our times.
Martin Bulgerin has been active in a number of natural healing modalities for 29 years now. In particular, he is recognized as a skilled and sensitive practitioner and teacher of flower essence therapy, and has created his own line of essences and related remedies over the years. He’s been teaching classes and workshops in this field for over two decades.
Martin Bulgerin
BioPsciences Institute, POB 11026, Minneapolis, MN 55412
612-872-7998, bunlion@bitstream.net
BPI Website: www.BioPscInst.com/bpi/
Join us to learn about the importance of growing native North American Elderberry, its hobby and commercial opportunities, as well as its incredible health potentials.
Christopher Patton, MA, MBA has an academic background in Israeli Archeology, Old World Prehistory (including paleoenvironments) and International Business Management/Marketing. His business background includes experience as an info technologist for Pillsbury Engineering and International R&D, specifically Haagen-Dazs International.
Chris is the Founding Director and President of the Midwest Elderberry Cooperative (MEC). He lives in Minneapolis, and has networked relationships with elderberry growers throughout the Midwest. MEC partners with growers and provides education about the growing of native North American Elderberry. It also produces and sells native North American elder berry and flower product ingredients including bulk de-stemmed, frozen, sanitized elderberries, dried berries, dried flowers, bulk frozen juice, and is working on IQF berries, freeze dried berries and puree.
Chris is also CEO of River Hills Harvest Marketers, LLC. He brings extensive knowledge and marketing of shelf-stable elderberry products for Terry Durham’s River Hills Harvest brand, a leading Missouri-based elderberry producer/processor. He also has established distribution relationships with Ron-Mar Foods, Market Distributing in the Twin Cities, Elegant Foods in Madison, WI, Hy-Vee Distributing, Inc. in Des Moines and KeHE Distributors to about 500 retail locations from Ohio to California.
Join Elizabeth Heck as we explore the many ways to eat our medicinal plants. The benefits of and when best to use herbs as food will be discussed. We will also create and eat a healthy, delicious herbal treat together.
Elizabeth Heck is an inspirational herbal educator and writer with a passion for nurturing the human/plant connection. She teaches at herbal conferences nationally as well as online with a series of courses focused on herbalism for the home. She also devotes time to honoring the plants. Elizabeth spent several years on the Board of the Minnesota Native Plant Society and as a naturalist at Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden. Additionally, she participates in plant conservation and land stewardship projects.
Aszani Stoddard will review the history and current status of tick-borne illness in the US, delve deeply into the complexities of stealth pathogens, and give tools for screening, diagnosing and treating tick borne illnesses with herbs.
Aszani Stoddard is a nurse–midwife by training, and a wise–woman by avocation. She has studied and used plant–based medicine for her entire 30+ year career. Three years ago, she stopped attending births, and trained with Dr. Laurie Radovsky to become a “Lyme–literate” practitioner. Further training includes shadowing three famous Lyme disease practitioners, two on the East Coast (the epicenter of the Lyme epidemic) and one in California. She has also attended the jam–packed International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) conference every year, and has passed testing that enables her to be a referral on ILADS website.
Aszani sees clients in her office in Minneapolis, which she shares with Jessie Belden, owner of the Medicine Tree Herbal Pharmacy.
We have both city gardeners and country gardeners. some even grow in pots but we all love plants.
+ How to grow a successful organic garden, soil, seeds, weeds.bugs, saving seeds- where to buy?
+ How to fertilize and what to use
+ Why not use round-up?? We all know why not but discussing this is enforcing more use of organic ways to grow and eat.
Come with your ideas of what an organic farmer like Greg could grow that herbalist would use.
Greg Reynolds and his wife Mary own and operate Riverbend Farm. First certified organic in 1994, Riverbend produces 10 acres of vegetables and 5 acres of corn, beans, and small grains. Many of our seeds are selected and saved on the farm. Crops are produced in a four year rotation that includes two years of sod based soil building and two years of crop production. In 2015 Greg and Mary were selected as MOSA Organic Farmers of the Year.
Helen Healy, N.D. is a Registered Naturopathic Doctor in Minnesota. She received her B.A. in BioPsychology from Vassar College in 1977. Following graduation she worked in the Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research at the National Institutes of Health until 1979.
She earned her degree of Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine in 1983 from The National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, Oregon, where she continues to hold a license to practice. She practiced in Portland‘s Alameda Clinic and taught acupressure at the East–West College of Massage. In 1984, Dr. Healy moved to St. Paul, MN to join Dr. Thomas Stowell at Wellspring Naturopathic Clinic, where she utilized her knowledge of botanical medicine, nutrition, homeopathy, and acupuncture. She assisted parents in natural home birthing, and gave birth to her own two daughters safely at home.
Dr. Healy taught Herbology at the College of St. Catherine for the Masters Level Holistic Studies program from 2004 to 2008. She is a community based faculty member of the University of Minnesota Medical School and other Naturopathic Medical Schools from around the country. Students and residents observe Helen at Wellspring Naturopathic Clinic as part of their rotation within the Spirituality and Healing program of the U of M. Dr. Healy is a founding member of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP), has served on its Board for two terms (1987–88 and 2010–present), and is the AANP Speaker of the House of Delegates. She is also a member of the Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians (OncANP), and is the Immediate Past President of the Minnesota Association of Naturopathic Physicians (MNANP). She has appeared before both the Minnesota Health Department and the State Legislature as a spokesperson for Natural Medicine and to promote regulation of Naturo pathic Medicine in Minnesota. She continues to work hard to achieve truly integrated healthcare within all specialty areas of natural medicine and the allopathic medical community.
From the time Jane Hawley Stevens chose her professional path, it was clear it was with the plant world. For over 30 years she has specialized in herbs. In 1987 Jane started producing herbal products made from herbs she grew on her farm. Certified organic since 1990, she still grows and produces herbal products from the 130 acre farm in the Baraboo Bluffs, Four Elements Organic Herbals (fourelementsherbals.com). Her products are inspired by the healing qualities of herbs and align with the power of Nature.
For this evening’s North Country Herb Guild Meeting, Carolyn Smith will present a topic she researched for her masters degree thesis — what we can learn about our unconscious attitudes and thought patterns when we become aware of the automatic language we use on a daily basis. The topic will explore how we rely heavily on a war/military metaphor to understand immunity, disease, and medicine and how awareness of this allows us to understand the cognitive obstacles that inhibit understanding of our bodies, systems of medical treatment and our relationship to the larger environment as well. This language has been challenged by critics but still remains largely unchanged in public conception, which reflects a deep and violent thought paradigm and might impose some potentially negative limitations on how we might better behave in relationship to our own health as well as the natural environment. We will take a light look at the physiology of the immune system to question how well suited these metaphors are, and look at a few plants as well to find some clues as to how we might think more carefully when choosing our words.
Carolyn Smith has been a student of herbal medicine for just over 10 years. Brought up in St. Paul, MN, with relatively little exposure to alternative healthcare, she began developing an awareness of plants and their medicinal value through classes with herbalist, Lise Wolff. She completed Lise’s Three Seasons Herbal Intensive in 2010, and spent time as Lise’s apprentice for several years. Working closely with Lise, Carolyn has learned: the power of subtle small doses of plants for healing; the use of local abundant plants for medicine; the value of carefully listening to people and their pulse to hear what they need; and listening to plants to learn what they do. Through this mentorship she has established her own practice and has been doing herbal consultations with clients for 6 years. For 6 months over the summer of 2017 Carolyn worked as the full time intern at Red Clover Herbal Apothecary in Amery Wisconsin, founded and run by herbalist and herb farmer Nancy Graden, where she assisted with growing, cultivating and making plant medicine from the organic 3 acre farm. Carolyn has also worked several years in retail with natural health care products at Whole Foods and Mastel’s Health Foods in St. Paul. She completed a 10 week intensive internship at HerbPharm during the summer of 2013, working on their organic farm in Williams, Oregon, cultivating medicinal plants and studying with a variety of herbalists, naturopaths, and herb farmers while there. She has studied with Martin Bulgerin (of BioPsciences Institute) on Flower Essences, taken classes with Matthew Wood, and studied ethnobotany, ethnopharmacology, and traditional plant usage in Hawaii with Kathleen Harrison, Dennis McKenna and Momi Subiono. She earned a Masters of Liberal Studies in Spring 2013 through the University of MN, incorporating classes from the Center for Spirituality and Healing into a thesis which focused on changing paradigms of body and healing metaphors through looking at alternative medicine.
Elder is one of those herbs that deserves a volume of its own in the herbal libraries. In this class we will look at this wonderful helper and healer from various perspectives — folklore, Five Phases of Chinese medicine, plant signature, clinical experience, etc. — to weave a complete picture of its embodied spirit, and thus, the clinical applications of its gently powerful flower essence. In the words of Lao Tzu (John C. H. Wu translation): “The Spirit of the Fountain dies not. It is called the Mysterious Feminine. The Doorway of the Mysterious Feminine Is called the Root of Heaven-and-Earth. Lingering like a gossamer, it has only a hint of existence; and yet when you draw upon it, it is inexhaustible.”
Loey (Loyola) Colebeck is a Minnesota native, trained and accredited in Spain as a professional clinical Flower Essence Therapist. She is a minister of the Homeopathy Congress, and teaches an in-depth Flower Essence Therapy training course. She translated Pablo Noriega’s book, Bach Flower Essences and Chinese Medicine, to English, and uses flower essences from a Chinese medical perspective for balancing Qi patterns that resonate throughout the body, emotions and mind. Loey also works with systemic constellations for healing epi-genetic inheritance and early childhood trauma, and Jade Egg and Taoist practices for feminine and masculine fortitude and healing. She also loves making herbal oils and tinctures for home use, getting her hands in the dirt, and general “urban homesteading”.
Join Jessie Belden for a medicinal plant walk through Coldwater Springs in Minneapolis. Jessie will identify and talk about how to use the medicinal plants growing in the park. The parking is metered on the road up to Coldwater Springs.
Coldwater Spring: https://www.nps.gov/miss/planyourvisit/coldwater.htm
DIRECTIONS: Coldwater Springs is between Minnehaha Park & Fort Snelling, in Minneapolis, just North of the Hwy 55/62 interchange. From Hwy 55/Hiawatha, turn East (toward the Mississippi) at 54th Street, take an immediate right, & drive South on the frontage road for 1/2 mile past the parking meters.
Jessie Belden grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis and spent most of her free time exploring the woodlands, creek, and surrounding hills of the home she grew up in. It wasn’t until a high school environmental science class, that she learned of even the possibility of edible and medicinal flora in her immediate areas, (although she had been eating clover, cedar, and dandelions in secret for as long as she could remember).
Once armed with this knowledge, her passion for plants snowballed. She is now a mother, community herbalist, botanical product creatrix, facilitator, and forever student of the plants in Minneapolis, MN. She has studied with such amazing and inspirational teachers as; Rosemary Gladstar, Kiva Rose, Matthew Wood, Darcy Blue, jim mcdonald, Martin Bulgerin, Dina Goodwill and more! Jessie adores dancing, cuddling her family and friends, singing, roller skating, hiking and adventuring, and of course, being with the plants! She facilitates an accessible and eclectic 6-month herbal apprenticeship in the heart of Minneapolis, and various fun and informative classes and workshops in the surrounding twin cities area. Follow her adventures on facebook at Herban Vagabond Apothecary and on instagram at @herbanvagabond
Please join us for the June 6th Guild meeting featuring Matthew Wood – the topic this year is Adrenal Fatigue.
Discover (or rediscover) the fascinating world of adaptogenic herbs and their medicinal properties. The presentation will begin with an overview of what they are, why they are beneficial, with some ideas (and recipes) of tasty ways to use them as part of your daily routine. As time allows, we will then focus on those that can be grown in Minnesota, with tips on growing and making remedies with them.
LuAnn Raadt was raised on a farm in southern Minnesota and grew up with a love of plants and growing things. She now happily gathers many of the “weeds” her family once tried to eradicate, and uses them in remedies for common physical ailments and imbalances. Trained under Lise Wolff and other local herbalists, this farmer’s daughter enjoys growing a wide variety medicinal herbs that are not readily available or are considered at-risk in the wild. She is also passionate about introducing others to the fascinating world of herbal remedies and teas and teaching them how to make and use remedies for themselves.
In this class Terra will offer an array of background information on essential oils, and a broad range of ideas and inspiration to use organic essential oils to enhance wellness and well-being.
Terra Johnson is National Educator for Veriditas by Pranorom. She brings a wealth of expertise and knowledge, from Essential Oils 101 to Advanced Aromatherapy. Her positive approach and knowledge provide an environment to learn and safely enjoy the many health and skincare benefits of essential oils.
There is no shortage of fundraisers in October bearing the symbol of breast cancer, the pink ribbon, from pink KitchenAids to pink Victorinox 7-function classic knives. But not enough is being done to prevent breast disease.
Genetics aside, there is plenty that can be done to promote breast health. Come learn about the many things that adversely affect your breast health plus the many powerful strategies to keep your breasts healthy.
Katherine Krumwiede is a licensed acupuncturist, an herbalist and uses nutrition extensively in her Uptown practice at Avenues of Health. Katherine had the pleasure of being the Board President of the North Country Herbalist Guild from 2008-2012.
As foliage dies back and starts to decompose, the energy in plants descends into their roots. This is the perfect time to collect and make medicine out of our deep, dark underground allies. This talk will cover plant identification of both weedy and cultivated medicinal roots; the medicinal properties of these plants; how to prepare them into tinctures; where to purchase these plants to grow in your own garden.
Angela Campbell is a traditional healing practitioner and educator practicing community-based earth & energy healing. Through her heart-centered practice that is grounded in earth and all the gifts it bestows upon us, she holds space for healing and matches plants & stones to people. She is a clinical herbalist practicing Traditional Western Herbalism, flower essence practitioner, crystal healer, Reiki master and professional gardener. She loves teaching and holding space for people to heal. She practices out of her home office in South Minneapolis and does distance sessions via phone.
Kathy will show us how some of the common herbs and spices you may already have in your kitchen can be use to heal us and taste great!! We will get some new ideas on putting together some awesome recipes and at the same time doing good for our bodies. Kathy will show us how to make Fire Cider, why it’s so healing, and some other folk remedies. We will serve one of her favorite recipes for a cold, Lemon Ginger tea with cayenne pepper. And Matthew Wood’s recipe for cucumber water. Sounds refreshing doesn’t it.
Kathy Tran, a woman of many interests, added herbs to her lifelong passions several years ago. She is also a graphic designer, artist, puppeteer and mom. She got sucked into the herbal rabbit hole after a hike with an herbalist in Northern Minnesota. It lead her on a tangent that has been life changing. She has studied with some amazing and inspirational teachers: Lise Wolf, Francis Bonaldo, Erin Piorier and Matthew Wood.
Internationally known herbalist Matthew Wood takes the guesswork out of the application of medicinal plants and provides an invaluable cross-reference of constitutional types, energetic categories, and specific symptoms that helps the herbalist narrow down the number of possible remedies for a specific condition. Unlike many reference books in which medicinal plants are defined simply by condition or disease name, this book contains tools to differentiate between remedies and analyze each case in a holistic fashion. While this system of cross-referencing is well known to homeopaths, it is less frequently used by herbalists; The Earthwise Herbal Repertory seeks to bridge the gap between different systems, incorporating knowledge from ancient Greek and traditional Native American medicine, nineteenth-century botanical medicine, homeopathy, and modern biomedical research. This definitive repertory proves useful for homeopaths and herbalists, professionals and home practitioners alike.
Matthew Wood has been a practicing herbalist since 1982. In a period when many authors and lecturers are merely “arm chair herbalists” who offer theories and opinions based on book learning, and others have turned to the exotic traditions of India or China, he has been an active practitioner of traditional Western herbalism. He has helped tens of thousands of clients over the years, with many difficult health problems. While Matthew believes in the virtue of many other healing modalities, he has always been inspired to learn, preserve, and practice the tradition of herbal medicine descending to us from our European, Anglo-American, and Native American heritage.
Join community herbalist and plant lover, Jessie Belden for an interactive and enthusiastic presentation on Spring Edibles of Minnesota. Learn common and even “invasive” spring fare that will excite and inspire the foodie and plant lover in you! A bountiful harvest of wild recipes will be provided, as well as snacks, and herbal community.
Jessie Belden grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis and spent most of her free time exploring the woodlands, creek, and surrounding hills of the home she grew up in. It wasn’t until a high school environmental science class, that she learned of even the possibility of edible and medicinal flora in her immediate areas, (although she had been eating clover, cedar, and dandelions in secret for as long as she could remember). Once armed with this knowledge, her passion for plants snowballed. She is now a mother, community herbalist, botanical product creatrix, facilitator, and forever student of the plants in Minneapolis, MN. She has studied with such amazing and inspirational teachers as; Rosemary Gladstar, Kiva Rose, Matthew Wood, Darcy Blue, jim mcdonald, Martin Bulgerin, Dina Goodwill and more! Jessie adores dancing, cuddling her family and friends, singing, roller skating, hiking and adventuring, and of course, being with the plants! She facilitates an accessible and eclectic 6-month herbal apprenticeship in the heart of Minneapolis, and various fun and informative classes and workshops in the surrounding twin cities area.
Follow her adventures on facebook at Herban Vagabond Apothecary and on instagram at @herbanvagabond
If you have a menstrual cycle or know someone who does, this class is for you. Men and boys will learn how to be perceptive to better relate with their enigmatic daughters, sisters, partners, mothers. Women and girls will learn how to navigate and honor their cyclical nature with greater harmony and wisdom. Neat-o menstrual clocks will be handed out for posting on your fridge so that everyone in the household can become more aware, attuned and honoring of the natural moon phases that women and mature girls embody with their hearts, minds and physical beings.
A wise teacher once said about clinical Flower Essence Therapy: first, regulate the menstrual cycle. The menstrual cycle and endocrine system are intimately linked to the emotions. What is more, Blood, in Chinese Medicine, is the material base for Spirit. In this class we will cover a couple key flower essences for the menstrual cycle as a whole, and also look at how emotional trauma can affect the mind-body relationship, organs and menstrual cycle, and how flower essences and clinical Flower Essence Therapy can be of help.
Loey (Loyola) Colebeck is a Minnesota native, trained and accredited in Spain as a professional clinical Flower Essence Therapist. She is a minister of the Homeopathy Congress, and teaches an in-depth Flower Essence Therapy training course. She translated Pablo Noriega’s book, Bach Flower Essences and Chinese Medicine, to English, and uses flower essences from a Chinese medical perspective for balancing Qi patterns that resonate throughout the body, emotions and mind. Loey also works with systemic constellations for healing epi-genetic inheritance and early childhood trauma, and Jade Egg and Taoist practices for feminine and masculine fortitude and healing. She also loves making herbal oils and tinctures for home use, getting her hands in the dirt, and general “urban homesteading”.
Join the NCHG Board members for a fun and inspiring night where we will learn how to create 2 different bitters. The class will be a hands–on class where you will make your own bitters to bring home and enjoy. We will have a brief discussion on the benefits of incorporating bitters into your daily diet.
Please bring a pint–size glass jar and we also ask for a $5.00 donation to help cover the cost of the supplies.
We look forward to seeing you then,
Sue, Haggith, Selena, Vince and Tammy
NCHG Bitters Recipes (PDFs):
Bitter Pasilles recipe
Rose Pastilles and Cocoa Mint Pastilles recipes
Chamomile Bitters
Orange Peel Bitters
jim mcdonald’s Bitters
Old doctors, East and West were traditionally quite concerned with the study of constitution. Knowing how to regulate different kinds of body types to better adapt to local weather patterns, workload, and reproduction needs (fertility etc.) was a way to keep people in strong health.
This lecture will go through some common body types (tall, short, thick, skinny, tense, lax etc.), and the health issues they are invariably prone to. We will, of course discuss favorite plants to address these.
Francis Bonaldo has been a practicing herbalist for 11 years. He served as a member of faculty in the acupuncture department of Rosemont College (Montreal, Canada) from 2011 to 2015. He specializes in Chinese pulse evaluation and is co-author of “Traditional Western Herbalism and Pulse Evaluation – a conversation” with Matthew Wood and Phyllis Light. Francis wildcrafts over one hundred plants from the northeastern forests and prairies of the continent for use in his clinical practice and also commonly teaches beginning and intermediate classes in herbal medicine and pulse evaluation. Practicing and teaching these ancestral forms of medicine is for Francis both a passion and a vocation.
Francis holds a Master of Science degree in acupuncture and oriental Medicine from AAAOM (Minnesota). He is a continuing education provider certified with NCCAOM. He has also completed an apprenticeship with Lise Wolff, M. Sc. (herbalist) as well as advanced studies with Matthew Wood M. Sc. (herbalist).