Herbal School Homepage
Welcome to the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine's website. Within this website, you'll find current information about the herb school and its herbal education programs, a place to view and download a variety of herbal and other related handouts (more are continually posted), an herb student-dedicated area, and a place to find a wide variety of photos. Let the herbal education begin
The Human Coalition Services Award
I am honored to have recently won the above 'Volunteer of the Year' award for my work at the Ithaca Free Clinic. Definitely something to show my mom. And to the community of herbalists on how we can make a profound impact on our communities.
3-Day-Weekly Program
There are now 3 spaces for this year's program. All potential students for this program are interviewed in person (after a preliminary phone conversation). If you are interested in attending please contact me when you know approximately what dates you can visit. I will be traveling the last two weeks of April, so it is helpful for us to set up a meeting date in advance if you know you will be in the Ithaca region.
Weekend Herbal Program (One weekend per month)
May 1, 2009. There are still a few spaces left for this year's program, please contact me as soon as you can if you are interested. I've been on the road for the past 2 weeks and may not have received your phone calls or emails due to technical problems. If I have not gotten back to you recently, please call and email again soon.
Applications and interviews are still being accepted for the 2009 weekend program. If you are interested please fill out an application and contact me with any questions. For weekend dates please see our herbal school weekend page.
A Note on Field Trips in the Weekend Program
There are no field trips except for 1 day exursions in the Weekend Program. I write this as many people have either been excited to go on them, or do not have the time. Due to time constraints, the longer field trips are only for the 3-day weekly class (which includes apprentices).
Herb Student Apprenticeship Program 2009
The herbal apprenticeship program for 2009 is now full. Thank you for all who applied. It was a difficult choice amongst the applicants.
A quick note about the apprenticeship, some of you who applied to be an apprentice would probably fare well (if not better) being a student in the 3-day-weekly program. If interested, please give a call.
The 2010 apprenticeship program is now (a little unbelievably) filling up. So if you are interested (and like to plan ahead), please let me know.
Go to this link to see a more in-depth description of this program.
2009 Syllabi
The syllabi for both classes are now posted in the handout section (go here-at bottom of page). While the dates will change little, some of the classes, especially for the 3-Day Weekly class, will be filled in and fuddled around with for the next few weeks. I post them mainly so people can see which dates to plan for field trips and for the Weekend Program.
Herbal Education-Applying for future classes
3-Day-Weekly Program
For this program, all potential students need to apply in person. The best time to do this is during the school year, so that you can also sit in on a class and get a feel for the program. To set up a time and to receive directions, call any day between 8:30 am-6:30 pm eastern time.
Weekend Herbal Program (One weekend per month)
Students applying for this program do not need to come in for an interview, but it would be helpful for both you and the interview process if you did come in and sit in on a class during the school year. To apply, please call or email.
Photos
This website contains something that I have long been wanting to do. That is, there is an area to display the thousands of plant and other photos that I have been taking for years. Most of the plant photos were keyed-out (identified) by myself, so I hope they can be useful to help others in plant identification. There are just a small selection of photos available at the moment, as they take a long time to upload to the site, please check back as I continually add new photos. They are not copyrighted in any way, so use them freely (though I would appreciate recognition if you use them). Besides plant photos, there are photos of people (mainly students), animals, insects, places, injuries and other objects of my fancy. I hope you find them useful.
Herbal Handouts
This section contains a number of handouts used in the classes, the school application, a health intake form and various other forms and informative material. All of these are in pdf format, so you will need this free utility to download these. There is a wide variety of topics here, so please browse and copy any that you may be helpful. The handout section is similar to the below herb articles area, the main difference is that the herb articles are not in pdf format and not necessarily used in classes. I suggest perusing both sections to find herbal information of personal interest.
Herb Articles
This section is where I have put up a number of articles relating to herbs, books, or any subject that did not make it to the handouts sections. There are a number of plant identification field guide reviews there, book reports on the plant guides I have used to identify plants in my travels. More articles will continually be placed here.
Herb Student Web Board
There is an area on the website for past and present herbal students' use to submit stories, photos, and other whimsies. If you would like to post a memento, anecdote or other device, please send it to 7Song. There is also a yahoo chat group for students to join to stay in touch. For more information on either of these, please see the Student Contact Info under the Students button above.
I would like to thank all the herb students and teachers who have passed through the school and through my life, which has enriched it considerably. Many of you have become friends and peers and I am grateful for your presences.
This website was put together by the very helpful folks at Gorges Web Sites and so once again I thank them for putting up with my endless questions.