2013 Rituals & Workshops
Workshop & Ritual: Rediscovering Ancestral Plant Wisdom
When: Wednesday, May 8, 2013 (9:30am-12:30pm)
Where: BC Shamanic Conference, Squamish, B.C.
Web: www.circleofgreatmystery.com
An overview of the history, mythology, and traditional ritual uses of European entheogens followed by a more practical discussion on their application as incense, smoking blends, teas, ointments, tinctures as well as herbal beers and wines to be used in our modern rites. The emphasis will be on legal and unregulated visionary herbs with a long history of ritual use. The discussion will be followed by a tea or pipe ceremony and a journey session for the participants to apply and experience the knowledge learned. In this journey they will be asked to commune with the plant ingested and share their experiences afterward.
Women’s Mystery Ritual: Queen of the Earth
When: Saturday, May 18, 2013 (7pm-9pm)
Where: Gathering for Life on Earth Festival, Belcarra, B.C.
Web: www.gatheringforlife.org
Joining forces with the priestesses of the Coru Cathubodua and Mel Tomlinson of the Wolven Path Shamanic Tradition, we will all aid our community’s women in aligning themselves with the great Queens of myth and the Goddess as her primal, carnal, devouring, and wild ancient image.
Ritual: The Witches’ Sabbat at Raven’s Knoll
When: Saturday, July 13, 2013
Where: Raven’s Knoll Campground, Nepean, Ontario
Web: www.walkingthehedge.net/witchessabbat/
I will be hosting the main ritual Saturday night by taking everyone between the worlds to meet the Horned Lord in an old fashioned witches’ sabbat fueled by wormwood spirits, ointment, and smoke.
Workshop: Animistic Herbalism
When: September 19-22, 2013
Where: Herbal Resurgence Conference, Mormon Lake, Arizona
Web: www.herbalresurgence.org
Discover an animist’s approach to working and communing with plants and trees. In animism, every plant is considered sentient and as full of anima as any person or animal. They are not just tools to be used for their active constituents, but are considered living beings deserving of respectful treatment. Recent scientific studies have shown plants really do communicate with each other, show intelligence, recognize family members, and feel pain.
If we herbalists start treating plants and trees like fellow healers and teachers we’d sure get a lot more from our work with them as well as teach our family, friends, and clients to better respect them through our own actions. Our medicines would work so much better with the aid of willing plant spirit allies who we tell what we’re doing with them and why we need their help. Let’s start thanking them in return for that help. Let’s stop taking power from nature and start asking for it. We might just find that the dynamics and efficacy of our medicine changes completely for the better.
Workshop: Bioregional Incense
When: September 19-22, 2013
Where: Herbal Resurgence Conference, Mormon Lake, Arizona
Web: www.herbalresurgence.org
Scent is a balm with as many healing and therapeutic applications as any herbal remedy. We use so many exotic resins and plants for their fragrance and as incense that we often forget there are amazing alternatives right under our very noses. By using local botanicals for incense and fragrance we support local sustainable wild harvesting and agriculture over commercial practices which are leading to deforestation and extinction for profit. Discover the fragrant botanicals of your bioregion whether they be flowers, seeds, barks, evergreen trees, plants, roots, berries or resins. Learn how to craft them into loose and compound incenses, smudge, spray smudge, insect repellent, and other applications of plant-derived smoke for medicinal and ceremonial use.
