You are purchasing a recording of an online class taught online via ZOOM in April 2024.

Here is the original description:

An online seminar surveying plants containing tannins across Turtle Island for Natural Dyers, Hide Tanners and Herbalists and how to use them, in order to connect to the plants as they intersect craft and medicine.

We will get into different regions, and do a Q & A and discussion at the end where folks can ask about certain plants and also share their experiences.

as someone who has traveled all over, I’ve managed to tan leather using 95% harvested plants. I also make medicine on the road and gather dye materials when I find them. There are also ways to gather plants in a wild-tending and mindful reciprocity fashion and we will discuss this also with the plants we discuss.

We’ll talk a little about some of the popular tannins folks buy from around the world and contextualize some of them in ecological context.

we live in a global world and It’s impossible to always be in direct connection or know where everything comes from or how to be in direction connection when trying to work with land based craft and medicine. But, the least we can do is try bit my bit to educate ourselves on what is possible.

This gives you access to the video recording of the ZOOM class offered on Cottonwood Medicine and Ecology in the fall of 2022.

Different Cottonwood species grow from east to west on Turtle Island connected through vast veins of water spider webbing across varied landscapes. You may recognize these often grand and majestic trees tucked in southwestern canyons or in dry creek beds, or Aspens as immense clonal colonies across mountainsides. For over a decade I've traveled around the country studying and hanging out with these beings from the Pacific Northwest, the Sierras, and across the Rockies. I've made medicine from them, and tried to better understand their significance where they grow. Balm of Gilead some call the medicine of Cottonwood and if you come to the class you can find out why.

In this class, we will take a look at a couple different species of Cottonwood and Aspen, how to ID them, where they grow and their significance in the ecosystems they inhabit. We'll discuss the modern issues Cottonwoods face during climate change, as well as how Cottonwoods and Aspens can be used for medicine.

This is a video recording of the talk I did fall 2022 via ZOOM on the medicine and ecology of the Redroots, otherwise known as plants in the Ceanothus genus.

There’s a significant number of Ceanothus species on Turtle Island, especially concentrated on the West Coast, in fact over 30 species are found in California alone. But, species of Redroot, sometimes called New Jersey Tea, Snowbush, Deerbrush, Buckbrush, or Whitethorn among other common names— have traditions of use often where they are found, and also play a huge role cross-ecologically in the lands they inhabit. What can we learn from the tenacity of the Redroots where they grow, and how can we notice them more in our landscapes?

Sometimes Ceanothus species are incredibly abundant, sometimes they are threatened and somewhat rare depending on their location. Often the powerful medicine of Ceanothus is overlooked, under seen or set aside in typical Western materia medica. But, we could use a reconsideration of engagement with this group of plants in our modern times, and perhaps really NEED to ecologically and culturally.

Want to get into the Redroots with me? Join me for a ZOOM class on these plants. Bring questions about Redroots where you live and I can try to answer those questions the last part of class.

This class is based in part on a plant profile I wrote on my blog, back in 2018. Read it here.