The Women's Herbal Conference: more images

Women, Women, Women!

Its always amazing to me to see this event come together -- a three-day celebration that creates an instant community around the study of herbs. My tribe. I love visualizing all of us setting off from our normal lives, kissing kids and responsibilities good-bye to come together for these three days. We four, leaving from Pennsylvania, drive most of the way up into New Hampshire on thursday, and stay overnight at a motel.   We find this unexpectedly lovely spot hidden behind the dumpsters!  Gotta be a good sign.

This year the organizers were challenged by moving the event from a long-beloved camp near Peterborough

to a new site....

But, as we came out of  registration, we looked up to see a a bald eagle
circling above the tennis courts...no lie! really, a Bald Eagle,
circling once, twice, three and four times. ....
The new site was thus blessed.

This year I was honored to have been asked to teach, and I presented my first workshop on Friday,

5. My Mother’s Booke…
or Reclaiming the hidden legacy of western women’s herbal wisdom w/Jeannine Vannais.

Women’s medicinal, herbal and household remedy books offer a window into the sophisticated and nuanced herbal knowledge they possessed.  The English Housewife, as characterized by Gervase Markham (1615) was a storehouse of herbal knowledge: a botanist, gardener, and chemist; an estate manager, distiller, brewer and compounder of everything from cordial waters for the plague to lavender washing balls. We will give voice to this rich legacy as well as discuss some of the many important herbs ceded to us from our European  heritage.

 It turned out to be a pretty free-form lecture, with time at the end to

  compound a blessing bag from lavender, calendula lemon balm and orris root.

That evening, we gathered in the tent, laughing, dancing, telling stories, sharing tales of the afternoon's workshops, and being stirred by the drums and dancing some more... 



Five-hundred and some amazing women...
kicking up our heels.