One Day Herbal Education... with Terry-Anya Hayes July 27th, 2-6pm Wild mushrooms are a treat for the eye and taste buds, and, as traditional cultures the world over have long understood, they are also powerful medicines. Currently, modern science is beginning to catch up, and clinical trials have confirmed health benefits in fungi ranging from cholesterol regulation and tumor inhibition to immune system support. These days many supermarkets regularly offer Shiitake and Oyster Mushrooms, and in upscale produce aisles a wealth of wild fungi in all shapes, sizes and colors vie for attention. There’s a lot to learn, but mushrooms don’t come with owner’s manuals!
Please note that we have a small teaching space. Reserve your space with a $20 non-refundable deposit. Walk-ins will be welcomed at the teacher's discretion.
Mushrooms as Food and Medicine:
The Delectable Defenders
Cost: $90.00
Join herbalist and mushroom educator Terry-Anya Hayes, a past president of the New York Mycological Society, to explore the medicinal virtues and incomparable flavors of a whole basketful of interesting and utterly delicious mushrooms. Whether your goal is to maintain optimum health or encourage a healing process, you'll learn how simple it ca be to incorporate these incredible allies into your life. We will walk the woods in search of fungi and prepare and taste mushroom delights! Detailed handouts will be provided.
Terry-Anya Hayes is a Maine-based writer, herbalist and educator who teaches ethical wildcrafting and plant and mushroom identification wherever the herbs and fungi beckon. She teaches Food Writing for the International Women's Writing Guild, leads popular classes on herbal medicine making and managing health with medicinal mushrooms at the Natural Gourmet Institute in Manhattan. She was co-director of the National Gourmet Institue in Manhattan and co-director of the Poets Union in Brooklyn, New York for over a decade. She is a past president of the New York Mycological Society. Questions? Email Terry-Anya at anyahayes@aol.com.
Three Faces of the Mother: A Workshop Series for Summer 2008
Tuition for the full series is $75.00. Individual classes are $30.00 each if space is available.
Part One: Mother Goddess Meditation (Saturday, June 21st – the Summer Solstice)
Who is the Mother Goddess? Join a small group of women to explore the concept of the goddess as a “mother” and to reflect on our role as her children. Immerse yourself in ancient images of the Mother Goddess -- some from as long ago as 20,000 B.C. Giving birth to your self, you become born again, to your goddess-self. Participants will go on a guided meditative journey, and have the opportunity to fashion a mother goddess figurine in molding clay to take home (giving shape to the essence of the creatrix within you.)
The workshop will explore:
? the concept of a Creatrix or Female Creator
? the relationship between the Mother and her children
? pre-history and the mother goddess (did religion begin with honoring the Mother?)
? the Mother as the vessel that transmutes spirit into matter (creation)
? how learning to love the Mother is really all about learning to love ourselves
Looking back so many thousands of years later at these earliest figures, it seems as if humanity’s first image of life was the Mother. This must go back to a time when human beings experienced themselves as the children of Nature, in relationship with all things, part of the whole. It may seem astonishing that people who lived then were already speaking a language that is still intelligible to us today. Yet, exploring the art of that time from the perspective of the present, it seems that many of the images known to us later from the worship of the Mother Goddess in more complex traditions had here their earliest manifestation. - Anne Baring and Jules Cashford in The Myth of the Goddess, page 9
Part Two: Sex, Pleasure and Creation (Saturday, July 19th – Feast of Isis and Osiris)
“All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.” - The Charge of the Goddess
Since life itself, particularly human life, is created through acts of pleasure, how did we allow ourselves to come to view sex and related sensual pleasures as “naughty,” “bad” or “sinful”? Reclaiming a healthy, vibrant, empowered, natural and sensitive sexuality is an important part of goddess spirituality. In this workshop, we will consider issues related to power, gender and sex, especially as these relate to the idea of “sovereignty.” We will also explore the sacred dimension of human sexuality and consider what happens to our attitudes toward sexuality when we embrace the concept of the sacredness of the natural world. The workshop will include a facilitated group discussion as well as the use of art to create positive visualizations for our own blossoming sexuality. Each participant will have the opportunity to design a sacred altar for her bedroom to enshrine the spirit of sacred sexuality, and as a reminder of her own indwelling goddess nature.
The workshop will explore:
? the relationship between sexuality and motherhood
? the connection between sexuality and creativity
? what does an empowered female sexuality look like?
? why are sex and violence so often paired in our society?
? ways we can heal and nurture our own sexuality
The view that sex has a spiritual dimension is so alien to everything that we have been taught that it takes most people completely aback. But actually this view is rooted in ancient traditions vividly expressed in prehistoric art that earlier scholars often found too embarrassing to deal with, and in some cases to even fully see. These traditions not only provide important information about our past, but have profound implications for our present and future. And they are traditions about which we in fact have long had many clues. – Riane Eisler, Sacred Pleasure, page 7
Part Three: Nurturing Mother Nature (Saturday, August 2 - Lammas)
“slow down, slow down
really listen to the land
she is a wild old woman
who will not be rushed”
(Wyldearth 2006)
The concept of “mother earth” or “mother nature” is so deeply engrained in our psyches that we sometimes take it for granted, and forget that we are children of nature, birthed by the earth, and forever part of the planet. As the health of ecosystems around the globe continues to deteriorate, can we find a way to become more connected to our own natural environment through contemplating the ways in which Mother Earth cradles us? We will create individualized, feasible plans or contracts that each of us can implement to begin the important work of healing our ecosystems, one home at a time.
The workshop will explore:
? the Gaia Theory (formerly known as the Gaia Hypothesis)
? how we can learn to love Mother Earth
? where do our bodies end and the earth begin?
? the use of imagery of the mother goddess for ecological healin
“The earth just gives, without condition, unnoticed, and that’s the proof of love. She doesn’t ever withhold. She doesn’t compromise. The way she speaks is through the wind and the rain, the sand, the rocks, the sounds of her creatures. She just sings her song without meaning, and she continues to give without any expectation of return. She’ll support you all your life, and if you throw a tin can onto her or dump poison in her bloodstream or drop a bomb on her, there is still total, unconditional love.” - Byron Katie in A Thousand Names for Joy (page 53)
Elizabeth R. Mackenzie, Ph.D. has a B.A. in Myth Studies. Her senior thesis, “The Female Archetype in Celtic and Scandinavian Mythology” was one of the first academic monographs on this topic. Since then, she has earned advanced degrees from the
Community Herbalist Training (9 Month Course)
September 2008-July 2009 with Maia Toll
The class will now meet one Sunday a month for 10 months. We will start at 9am, enjoy a pot luck lunch together, and end between 5 and 6 pm.
Dates for the class starting September 2008 are:
9/14, 10/19, 11/16, (no class in December), 1/11, 2/8, 3/15, 4/19, 5/17, 6/14, 7/12
cost: $1360 if paid in full by 9/14
payment plans also available
$200 non-refundable deposit required
to hold your spot
For more information, please contact Maia at 215-247-2110 or maia@theapothecarygarden.com
