BOTANICAL ALLIES FOR BECOMING BETTER HUMANS
Develop Relationships with Plants for Interconnected
Psychological, Emotional, and Energetic Well-being
YOur Entryway into the many realms
of medicinal plant knowledge
Whether you’re just beginning or wanting to deepen your appreciation of plants, Botanical Allies provides inspiration and guidance for you on your journey along the green path of plant knowledge.
From their medicinal properties to their embodied and archetypal teachings, explore all that plants have to offer!
online Experiential learning at your own pace
In each of these three online, available anytime modules we explore the physical and psycho-spiritual properties of six of our most important medicinal plants. Guided by Scott Kloos, we learn about each plant through experiential meditation and a materia medica presentation that includes:
photos
part(s) used
habitat/appearance
historical background
energetic qualities
profiles of the physical and psycho-spiritual properties
contraindications
It is helpful, though not necessary, when learning about a plant’s medicinal, energetic, and archetypal properties to also ingest a botanical extract of the plant. Those who would like to include this aspect of getting to know the plants can purchase Botanical Allies Extract Kits from Cascadia Folk Medicine.
“To be human literally means to be of this Earth, and with their intimate earthly connections, plants have much to teach us about becoming better humans within the community of life.”
Botanical Allies Modules
The Plants: Black Cottonwood, Devil’s Club, Pacific Dogwood, St. Johns Wort, Yarrow, Western Redcedar
This course is accessible whenever you want. After you register we will send you a course page link and password. This page contains introductory information, videos, links to materia medica presentations and songs, and other information relating to the plants covered.
Purchase the accompanying Botanical Allies Extract Kit from Cascadia Folk Medicine.
The Plants: Blue Elderflower, Cascara Sagrada, Red Alder, Western Juniper, Yellow Pond-Lily, Yerba Santa
This course is accessible whenever you want. After you register we will send you a course page link and password. This page contains introductory information, videos, links to materia medica presentations and songs, and other information relating to the plants covered.
Purchase the accompanying Botanical Allies Extract Kit from Cascadia Folk Medicine.
The Plants: Hawthorn, Quaking Aspen, Silktassel, Western Aralia, Western Pasqueflower, Western Peony
This course is accessible whenever you want. After you register we will send you a course page link and password. This page contains introductory information, videos, links to materia medica presentations and songs, and other information relating to the plants covered.
Purchase the accompanying Botanical Allies Extract Kit from Cascadia Folk Medicine.
Purchase access for all three modules and receive a $30 discount.
After registering participants will receive links and passwords to access each module along with relevant info to prepare the classes.
Purchase the accompanying Botanical Allies Extract Kits from Cascadia Folk Medicine.
“The act of opening ourselves to connection with nonhuman beings itself bridges the gap precipitated by the modern conception of the separate self. This in turn relieves our sense of alienation, fosters an alignment with our greater ecological selves, and supports our psychological, emotional, and energetic well-being.”
Guides for IDENTIFYING and working with each plant
The ARCHETYPAL Intelligence of Plants
Each species of plant embodies particular archetypal energies, and if we enter into respectful relationships with them, plants are capable of teaching us on all levels of our being: physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual. By ingesting them with intention and communing through meditative practices that inspire embodied, participatory presence and awareness, forgotten pathways of perception and expression open.
New patterns of thinking and feeling emerge, and as we continue to participate in these collaborative processes, the ecological wisdom that informs healthy bioregional lifeways flows more freely through our beings so we can better understand our proper role in the web of life.
Learning to align ourselves with the intelligence of plants also prevents us from succumbing to unhealthy individual or cultural customs rooted in detrimental mental or emotional pathways. These habitual ways of being affect our individual health as well as that of the greater Earth community, but by working with them in these ways, plants present us with opportunities to let go of and release old stories that no longer serve. In their place, new stories emerge to guide us through life as they help us become more whole and increase our connections with the living world.
Course Intros
The healing benefit of each plant runs along a continuum. On one side we see the imbalanced or unhealthy aspects of ourselves. We are conditioned to stop the process when the discomfort or unease ceases, but if we follow the trajectory of the plant’s medicine, previously hidden, highly functioning aspects of our beings emerge and become normal and integral parts of who we are.
“What is needed in these times is a non-oppositional approach to ecology like the one Scott Kloos provides. His Botanical Allies course has started me on a path of discovering what is truly essential to our health as individuals and to the health of our ecosystem. Through deep discussion and meditation, Scott gently guides us into practices that move us into formation with various plant intelligences. This enables us to become malleable enough to withstand the complex ways of being that have been trying to move through us, beyond the confines of simplistic calculative thought. The course has helped me to realize the ways in which all of my deepest desires are essentially desires to do the work of the Earth.”
“I took my first Forest Medicine course in 2016 and loved learning about the wonderful plants that live among us in Oregon. Taking another course via Zoom during this time of quarantine has deepened my love and respect for these botanical allies. Scott Kloos, with his ecological wisdom, personal experience of the healing journey, and deep connection to the plants, weaves together his knowledge and shares it in a gentle and beautiful way with participants. Now, more than ever, we need to pay close attention to what the Earth is saying and the Botanical Allies course helps us remember the language we once knew.”
“The thought that plants are our teachers is revolutionary in modern society. Scott holds space in this class to learn, for ourselves, from the wisdom of archetypal intelligence of these plant allies. I come away from this class able to better chisel away at separate-self ideology and have gained a deeper understanding of how to align with these and other plant energies going forward.”
“The Botanical Allies course is woven together into a delightful mélange of song, story, science and spiritual sharing. Every class holds the possibilities of revealing the development of a personal relationship with plant allies. It is not unusual to find oneself awaiting the next session in anticipation of what else might be unveiled.”