Lindsay Adams
Lindsay Adams (she/her) is Clinical Herbalist, Nutritionist, Postpartum Caregiver & Licensed Practical Nurse. A lover of the liminal, she is fascinated with life’s transitions, big or small. Her greatest lessons have emerged from birth, death, change & grief. She is passionate about supporting people navigating pregnancy, postpartum, hormone balance, grief, the medical system, parenting & pregnancy loss/release. She prioritizes marginalized humans in her practice, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ & disabled folks. She loves learning, music, dreamwork, magic, communication & parenting. You can find her playing, tending, teaching, writing & spending time with beloved friends & her sweet little family.
Breathe Easy: Herbal Therapeutics for Coughs, Cold & Fever
Vital Menses: Food, Herbs & Lifestyle for Moontime
Katrina Blair
Katrina Blair began studying wild plants in her teens when she camped out alone for a summer to focus on eating wild foods. She later wrote “The Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants of the San Juan Mountains” for her senior project at Colorado College. In 1997 she completed a MA at John F Kennedy University in Orinda, CA in Holistic Health Education. She founded Turtle Lake Refuge in 1998, a non-profit, whose mission is to celebrate the connection between personal health and wild lands. Turtle Lake Refuge is a wild harvested, locally grown and living foods café and sustainable education center for the community. Katrina teaches sustainable living practices and wild edible and medicinal classes locally and globally. She is author of a book titled “Local Wild Life- Turtle Lake Refuge’s Recipes for Living Deep” and “ The Wild Wisdom of Weeds: 13 Essential Plants for Human Survival” published by Chelsea Green 2014.
Wild Greens for Self-Care
Wild Food Dessert Recipes
Eric Scott Bresselsmith
Eric Scott Bresselsmith has been pursuing therapeutic living (prioritizing wellness & health above all else) through lifestyle for quite a spell now. Good food and the best of medicines became obvious choices early on in life not to mention taking the message of rock and roll to heart – go up the country and rebel with a cause!! Living well and contemplating Death has been a lifelong pursuit.
Introduction to Essential Oils & Hydrosols
From the Forest to the Bottle - Hands-on Essential Oil Distillation
Sam Coffman
Sam Coffman (MSAOM, RH[AHG]), W-EMT began his medical education in the US Army as a Green Beret Medic in 1989. Over the years that followed, he looked toward herbalism as a way to provide sustainable health care in remote and post-disaster regions for chronic, acute and physical trauma care. Sam has taught herbalism for over 30 years and has worked as a clinical herbalist for over 15 years. His herbal clinic and apothecary are located in Taos, NM. In 2007, Sam founded Herbal Medics Academy (AKA The Human Path), which offers four primary herbalism programs - Clinical Herbalism, Austere Medicine, Advanced Medicine Making and Family Herbalism. Sam and his wife Suchil also co-founded Herbal Medics in 2011 which is an outreach organization that gives their students and interns an opportunity to work in the field as a part of free herbal clinics, off-grid engineering, sustainable medicine and food programs and health-related education for underserved communities. His book, "Herbal Medic" has been in the top 3 best-sellers for Storey Publishing for the past 2 years.
Herbal First Aid - Principles & Techniques
Herbal First Aid - Herbal Applications
Medicine Making for Apothecary and in the Field
Courtney Cosgriff
Courtney is a Clinical Herbalist, Flower Essence Practitioner, Gardener, Medicine Maker, & Beekeeper. Courtney was born and raised in Colorado and currently resides in the mountains just west of Boulder. Courtney began her path with the honeybees in 2011 after a series of events which led her to meet a beekeeper on her travels. After this she spent years studying and apprenticing with various beekeepers until forming her own path and relationship to the bees. Her approach to beekeeping is different and combines animism, shamanic practices, & ancient wisdom. In addition to her work with bees, Courtney began her studies in herbalism and holistic health in 2012. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Integrative Healthcare and also completed a two-year intensive Clinical Herbalism Program. In 2017 Courtney launched her business Honeybee Herbals as a way to combine her various passions and skill sets. Honeybee Herbals is a business that is dedicated to providing Earth centered healing and education in the hopes of restoring our connection to the natural world through rekindling an appreciation of the beauty and medicine it provides.
Introduction to Natural Beekeeping
Honey Medicine & Alchemy
Erica Davis
Best known as Wild Food Girl, Erica Davis teaches edible plant and mushroom classes in Fairplay, Colorado. Erica started blogging about her adventures with wild food back in 2009. A teacher at heart, she has taught classes on edible, medicinal, and toolcraft plants for Colorado Mountain College, and presented at the Midwest Wild Harvest Festival. Her background includes a BA in archaeology, an elementary school teaching credential, and an MA in technology education. Today she maintains an active Facebook community and is hard at work on her first book about edible wild plants in the West, with author Samuel Thayer as her mentor. For her affordable online classes about wild berries, weeds, and mushrooms, check out wildfoodgirl.com/wfg-events.
Edible Plant Walk
Colorado’s Wild Pine Nuts
Summer Downs
Summer Downs (they/she) is a ritualist, community deathcare provider, grief tender, and ancestral healing practitioner based on the lands of the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, & Ute peoples (Denver, CO). She spends her days crafting ceremonies, planting memorial trees, and supporting folx in times of grief and death through her business Fiercely Beloved and her work with Be a Tree Cremation (water cremation). They are passionate about reclaiming and reimagining ways of living that are rooted in tending the land, tending to our ancestors & Beloved Dead, and tending to our communities & ecologies of relationships. Summer is also a sibling loss survivor, performance artist, avid reader, & lover of thunderstorms.
Reclaiming Community Deathcare: Home Funerals, Natural Burial, & Walking Each Other Home
Nate Flamik
Nate is a lifelong student of the natural world, a farmer, and forager of all things food, medicine, and beyond. With a lifetime of gardening experience and over a decade in the agricultural industry, he has studied and practiced many forms and facets of regenerative agriculture. He founded and runs High Country Cactus and currently manages an off grid farm in the mountains of Colorado.
San Pedro 101
Lisa Ganora
Lisa Ganora began studying herbal medicine in the early ‘80s. After practicing as a Wise Woman tradition community herbalist, wildcrafter, and medicine-maker for a decade, Lisa returned to school at UNCA and graduated summa cum laude with multiple awards in biology and chemistry. After graduation she focused on exploring herbal constituents (pharmacognosy and phytochemistry) in the context of Western clinical herbalism and Vitalist therapeutics. Lisa offers workshops at Elderberry's Farm in Paonia and teaches at the Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism, online, and internationally.
Sensory Herb Walk (Organoleptics)
Percolation for the People
Forrest Gillies
Forrest was fortunate to be raised at one of the oldest intentional communities, nestled into the red sandstone foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Being surrounded by wilderness, sustainable agriculture and abundant community shaped him into a human inspired to share these gifts with a world starving for land based connection. Guided by the question of how to create and sustain real, viable culture, Forrest found answers in the seeds. After studying Ecological Agriculture: Seeds, Bees & Soil at the Evergreen State College, he discovered the ways in which seed, subsistence agricultural systems and traditional life-ways create the foundational framework for real culture to emerge. Forrest has managed multiple regenerative farm and education projects including Siskiyou Seeds and White Oak Farm, offers nature connection programs for youth and is apprenticing in natural building. Rooted in reverence for the human & more-than-human world, Forrest walks in service to a more beautiful world we all know is possible.
Hide Tanning Demo
Corn Nixtamalization/Tortilla Making
Fire by Friction
Lindsey Harnett Martin
Lindsey is a mountain mama who gained an interest in herbalism by way of self-care, a yoga path and and passion for a harmonious lifestyle. She is a 20+ year adventurista and resident of southern Colorado, currently nurturing her family and garden, running her herbal skincare business, teaching yoga and recreating in Salida, CO.
Slow Beauty Facials - Nurture by Nature
Herbal Self-Care for Everyone
Brian Hedden
Brian Hedden has facilitated men’s circles for 9 years and has trained extensively with The ManKind Project, Sacred Sons, and in Nonviolent Communication. He is passionate about making the world a better place by teaching men to understand themselves so they can show up fully and authentically in their relationships. Brian is also a filmmaker, activist, farmer, and entrepreneur. More information about his work is available at BrianHedden.com
Men's Circle
Jimy Keskimaki
James began his formal herbal studies in 1999 at the California School of Herbal Studies under the tutelage of the renowned herbalist James Greene. After many years of traveling extensively around the country, James returned to his studies at the California Ayurvedic School in Nevada City in 2006. Shortly after, he founded Ojas Naturals by focusing on creating products that combine the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda with Western herbalism. In 2016 James joined the School of Forest Medicine Reciprocal Illumination program. This program focused on holding space for community healing through Plant spirit meditation/medicine and nature connection. In 2017 James began his training/ studies with his Maestro Basillio of the Siekopa’ai tribe in the Ecuadorian Amazon. He is still working closely with the family and has helped them to start their own small Herbal products company "Winã Botanicals" along with bringing small groups down once a year for sacred healing retreats. James lives in Eugene, Oregon where he offers Plant Immersion workshops and retreats, Plant Meditations, Plant walks, and runs his herbal company Ojas Naturals.
Plant meditation/ spirit plant medicine
Herb Walk
Amanda Rose Klenner
Amanda Rose is a Professional Clinical Herbalist and Green Witch who does all things plant related. She is a Certified Permaculture Designer, Organic Gardener, and native plant gardener who works with clients across Northern Colorado and the Front Range. She has been making plant medicines for over 15 years, and loves bringing that experience to her students and community. She loves formulating and brewing custom infusion blends, as well as specific herbal remedies for her clients and custom blends small coffee/tea shops, and herb conferences. When she isn't playing with plants, she is spending time with her teenage mutant ninja children, camping, hiking, or working on her suburban homestead.
Making Plant Medicines in the Field - Tinctures, Liniments, and Glycerites
Making Infused Oils and Herbal Infusions In The Field
Journey to the Spirit of Rose
Daniel Larcker & Lauren Kenton
Daniel was working on a farm in Denver and felt the pull to get out of the city, he moved to Paonia in 2016. Lauren had some farm experience but not with pigs. In 2018 Daniel brought home a few piglets. They quickly learned how to butcher, breed, farrow, and further process the meat and fat together. A cold smoker was built and bacon was made. Daniel also learned the traditional ways of dry aging whole muscles and making salami. Lauren rendered the fat to make lard, medicinal salves and soaps. They also grow peppers, garlic, onions and spices for the sausage and salami, and herbs and flowers for the salves. Whatever they can’t make or grow they source local whenever they can.
Basic hog breakdown and preservation
Adrienne Leeds
Adrienne is a midwife & herbalist who has supported women in health and birth for over 25 years. After numerous women told her she had "midwife energy" she heeded the calling. Adrienne has studied birth, women’s health, and bodywork with Wise Womanhood, The Matrona, The Association of Texas Midwives, Ysha Oakes, Ruth Shepard and Dr. Rosita Arvigo. She graduated from the Rocky Mountain Center for Botanical Studies' 3-year clinical herbalism program in 2001 and is a married mother of two homebirthed children. When not catching babies or making placenta medicine, you can find her in the garden or out hiking & wildcrafting.
Herbs and Lactation
Your Period Doesn't Have to Suck!
Matriarchs, Crones, Heffalumps and Woozles
Brigitte Mars
Brigitte Mars is an herbalist and nutritional consultant of Natural Health with over sixty years of experience. She teaches Herbal Medicine at Naropa University. She has taught at Omega Institute, Esalen, Kripalu, Sivananda Yoga Ashram, Envision, Arise Festivals, and even The Mayo Clinic. She is a founding and professional member of the American Herbalist Guild. Brigitte is the author of many books and DVDs, including The Natural First Aid Handbook, The Home Reference to Holistic Health and Healing, The Country Almanac of Home Remedies, The Desktop Guide to Herbal Medicine, Beauty by Nature, Addiction Free Naturally, The Sexual Herbal, Healing Herbal Teas, Rawsome! and co-author of The HempNut Cookbook. Her latest project is an online course https://sevenroots.com/herbal and a phone app called IPlant.
Sacred Psychedelics
Herb Walk
Bonnie McIntosh
Bonnie is a Certified Clinical Herbalist & Nutritionist, Full Spectrum Doula, and Flower Essence Practitioner. She is a co-founder of the Colorado Doula Project, a non-profit whose mission is to provide free emotional, logistical, and physical support to abortion seekers in the state of CO. Her work as a doula focuses on abortion, miscarriage, & birth, where she brings nutrition, herbalism, and ritual together to provide a holistic experience tailored to each client.
In her clinical herbalism practice, she works with reproductive health issues, chronic illness, autoimmune disease, gut issues & addiction, among others. She works from a trauma-informed lens and believes reclaiming plant medicine is both a birthright and an act of resistance. She loves supporting people in cultivating a relationship with plants, and sharing her passion for all things herbs & reproductive justice.
The Medicine & Magic of Queen Anne's Lace
Holistic Support for Abortion & Miscarriage
Kelly Moody
Kelly Moody is a writer, photographer, artist, craft dabbler, a botanist, herbalist, gardener, ethnobotanist, researcher, renegade journalist of sorts. She's from the deep south, and has been on the road for the last decade primarily across the west, southwest and the southeast researching landscapes in the field and experimenting with learning land-based skills. She runs the Ground Shots Podcast interviewing folks on the topics of art+ecology+activism. She has conducted botanical research work over the last decade, with the goals of providing alternative ways of contextualizing plants in modern times. She hiked the Colorado Trail in 2020 documenting the plants on the trail and experimenting with wild-tending across Colorado ecologies. This summer she is teaching immersive field ecology courses in western Colorado weaving the intersections of critical theory, wild-tending, field botany and experiential ethnobotany with reciprocity in mind.
Dogbane Fiber Processing, Cordage and Ethnobotany
Allie Olson
Working with fiber has been a constant for most of Allie's life. Allie's mom taught her to sew when she was seven and she has spent the last 10+ years working in the apparel sewing world, teaching sewing workshops, designing sewing patterns, and selling eco-conscious fabrics. In the last three years, Allie has discovered her love of basketry and pine needles, and now spends most of her time stitching pine needles into spiral baskets, art, and wearable goods. She forages needles in her home state of Montana, paying deep homage to the Blackfeet people on whose land she gathers needles. She sells her pine needle earrings, baskets, and art at markets near her current home in the Front Range of Colorado and at allieolson.com
The Sacred Spiral: Pine Needle Coils
The Sacred Spiral: Pine Needle Basketry
Susan Manchester
The Dagara say, Susan has LUCKY, spending part of each year deep in the African bush sleeping in mud huts and participating in the elementally guided and powerfully magic rituals of the Dagara Tribe. She is an Initiated Elder and Bopora (shaman) within the tribe, Susan traveled and taught African Spiritual Technology with Malidoma Patrica Somé until his passing in 2021. Her devotion is to our Ancestral lands, passing on the Art of Divination, Ritual & Community to the next generation. You are welcome to join in a Divination with Susan during Forest to Field or participate in the upcoming Water Ritual, September13-15, 2024. For more details go to Dagaralegacy.com or oracle-earth.com
Ancestors, Invocation, and Earth Shrine
Healers Garden Practitioner - Cowry Shell Divinations
Joshua Paquette
Joshua Paquette is a botanist, carpenter, and teacher who enjoys sharing his love of plants, ecology, and the natural world. Of particular interest to him is how our personal stories transform when we intersect with the wider ecosystems around us. Joshua finds that engagement with natural landscapes coupled with in-depth observation and wonder brings a sense of engagement and joy to people’s lives and he aspires to share that sense of place with his community.
Joshua holds certification in herbalism from the North American Institute of Medical Herbalism (NAIMH) where he studied with Paul Bergner, as well as from the Columbines School of Botanical Studies, where he studied with Howie Brounstein and Steven Yeager.
Joshua teaches workshops on field botany, wildcrafting ethics, herbalism, myth and story and worked as a core faculty member at Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism (CSCH) in Lafayette, CO, from 2013 - 2023.
Classes TBA
Shayna Powell
Shayna is a registered naturopathic doctor practicing in Montrose. She has a special interest in getting back to the basics - food, water, clothing and personal care products. She had a lot of skin issues growing up so she was ushered into making her own products in her early 20s to avoid allergic reactions to products claiming to be fragrance free. She is passionate about local economies and using what you have accessible to you. So if you hunt or process your own animals, you have a VALUABLE product that is often overlooked - fat! Fat can be rendered as used for cooking and making exquisite personal care products for your whole family!
Lye-Based Tallow Soap Making
Julian Scanlon
Julian is a mushroom forager, fermentation enthusiast and flavor fanatic who has found his calling in promoting sustainable and natural food practices. With a lifelong passion for mushrooms and their ecosystems, Julian's journey began as a child foraging alongside his family in the Jemez mountains. As he grew, so did his love for fungi, leading him to delve into the world of growing, extracting, fermenting and more! Julian expanded in the fermenting world to include various delights like koji, hot sauce, mushrooms, and kombucha, revealing the fascinating transformation of ingredients through this ancient preservation technique. Julian is committed to helping the environment by supporting local food systems as having a strong connection to one’s bioregion is the best way to be resilient in the face of uncertainty. Through his experience and knowledge, Julian strives to be a driving force in advocating for a more eco-friendly and locally-focused approach to food.
Fermenting Mushrooms
Koji 101
Kids Foraging class
Rachel Snow
Rachel Snow is an herbalist, community midwife, natural dyer, and flower-obsessed witch located in Louisville, Colorado. She exclusively uses plants she's grown on her land with love and intention, or foraged sustainably, to create one-kind pieces of fiber art. When she is not playing with flowers and trashing her kitchen with dye projects, you can find her catching babies, in her garden, or enjoying time in nature with her husband and two kiddos.
Botanical Printing on Fabric
Natalie Spears
Natalie Spears brings listeners in touch with the warmth of community, the quiet awe of wild places, and the intimate corners of humanity. Inspired by her father's English Folk heritage and talents as a Jazz pianist, Natalie carries a deep love for porch picking music and music that swings. Drawing on these roots and pulling from a quiver of instruments (banjo, bass, piano, and guitar), her sound is both nostalgic and contemporary, sassy and sweet, contemplative and playful. She also just finished recording debut solo album, The Hymn of Wild Things.
Learn more about Natalie and her music here.
Songwriting with the Landscape
Ian Mackinnon
Ian has been an ancestral skills teacher based in New England working with children, adults, and families since 2008. He studied for many years and eventually interned with Tom Brown, Jr. at the Tracker School, learning wilderness based living skills and nature philosophy. He has worked for various non-for-profit organizations working to bring nature awareness skills and connection to children and adults including COTEF, 4 Elements Earth Education, Earth Living Skills, and more.
He brings both passion and playfulness to his work connecting children with the earth, and has an especial focus on introducing wilderness skills through games and community learning.
Outside of his work with ancestral skills, Ian is a pianist, musician, and composer. You can find samplings of his music here.
Ian will be heading up our Children's classes this year, along with our lovely crew of volunteers.
Kids Classes
Kat Mackinnon
Co-Founder of Forest to Field Festival
Kat Mackinnon, RH(AHG), has been a certified clinical herbalist and nutritionist through the NAIMH since 2011. Kat is the founder and director of Meet the Green, through which she runs a private clinical practice and teaches classes on herbalism and ancestral skills. She is the co-founder of Plant Camp, an online and in- person botanical learning community. She also served as primary faculty at the Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism in Lafayette, Colorado since 2012, and the Clinic Program Director for 3 years, where she mentored student clinicians at the public low-cost clinic, and was a principal reviewer of student clinician cases.
Herbs for Pain
Wild Spice Blending
Wildcrafted Mocktails and Cocktails
Plant Walk
Emily Stock
Emily Stock is a community herbalist in Moab, Utah where she has run Sundial Medicinals, an apothecary and herbal clinic since 2011. A graduate of Michael Tierra’s East West School of Planetary Herbology, her practice includes Western, Chinese and Ayurvedic constitutional analysis, pattern assessment, and herbal treatment. Emily’s focus has been supporting people with chronic disease patterns - inspiring wellness through herbal, nutritional, and lifestyle guidance. Emily is a doula through DONA International since 2013. She is inspired by helping people and families find fulfillment through childbearing, and offers many classes and trainings on the topic. Emily spends a lot of her time with herbs and her young children. Growing, harvesting, extracting and processing herbs, teaching, and consulting with individuals are her passions.
Nurturing Pregnancy and Birth
Nurturing Postpartum
Living by the Moon
Jake Takiff
Jake Takiff and his family own Cedar Springs Farm in Horchkiss, Colorado. They are transforming an old, overgrazed ranch in the desert into a lush perennial food forest by practicing agroforestry, water management and rotational grazing. Currently they produce beef, raw milk and pastured pork while they wait for the tens of thousands of trees that they’ve planted to mature. They are creating a model farm that is not only ecologically friendly, but also highly productive and economically viable. Cedar Springs Farm is utilizing regenerative farming practices that build soil, sequester carbon from the atmosphere and create healthy food for their community.
The Family Cow
Jeff Wagner
Jeff is an environmental educator working at the intersection of ecology and culture. When a university degree in environmental studies didn’t provide the answers, he began asking the big questions: how we might reimagine U.S. society in the age of climate change? What does it mean to be a responsible human in an unraveling world? Much of Jeff’s work is informed by environmental leaders he met while facilitating cross-cultural semesters in the Andes, the Amazon, the Himalaya, and the Mekong River Basin. Jeff’s biggest focus is teaching to the cultural roots of environmental issues, helping people experience and examine different ways of life that might inspire a better future. Dedicated to questioning the mindsets of modernity and colonialism, Jeff finds inspiration in the communities working to maintain and strengthen relationships with the natural world and with our sources of food, water, clothing, shelter, and meaning. Jeff runs an educational farm, weaves fabric and baskets, and grows beautiful varieties of heirloom seeds.
Spinning Yarn and Thread With A Drop Spindle
Intro to Willow Basketry
Briana Wiles
Co-founder of Forest to Field Festival
Briana is a mother, wife, business owner, teacher of the wild ways, author of Mountain States Foraging and Mountain States Medicinal Plants, and owner of Rooted Apothecary. She began studying herbalism and bodywork as a teen on a mission of self healing and discovery.
By the time she was 18 she had finished massage school, and was plotting her way westward for schooling in Structural Integration, also known as Rolfing, and continued yearning for learning herbs. She landed in Colorado at 20, and hasn't left! She has studied with herbalists from all over the country, including Jim Macdonald, Paul Bergner, Lisa Ganora, and many more.
Classes TBA
Antionette Yarrow
Antoinette Yarrow is a Clinical Herbalist, Self Love Coach & Sensual Empowerment Guide. She combines the power of plant medicines and powerful practices to support people with anxiety, grief, lack of self love and heart break, so they can feel their own radiance. She holds space for women to heal their sexual trauma and shame so they can take back their lives and own their own pleasure. She believes that when one can really own their own happiness, pleasure and radiance, the world will be a better place. Check her out at antoinetteyarrow.com.
Heal Your Sexual Trauma
Herbal Aphrodisiacs
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