Ecological Archives • The Living Centre

The World Peace Diet: Creating a Culture of Peace – Online

“The revolution that is demanded by our yearning for peace, freedom, and happiness must provide a new foundation for our culture, moving it away from its herding values of oppression and disconnectedness toward the post-herding values of respect, kindness, equality, sensitivity, and connectedness. Above all, this revolution must change our relationship to our meals—our most practiced rituals—and to our food, our most powerful inner and outer symbol.”~ Dr. Will Tuttle, The World Peace Diet Do you feel called to help create a positive future for our children and the world? Are you concerned about our culture’s mistreatment of people, animals, and the Earth? Do you long to untangle and understand the hidden roots of the dilemmas we face as individuals and society? Do you aspire to develop skills to embody, share, and teach healthy and compassionate lifestyles that bring joy and purpose? Drawing on the wisdom in the World Peace Diet written by Dr. Will Tuttle, you will discover answers and effective responses to these questions. Shantree will share the tools and insights needed to understand veganism as a spiritual, cultural, physical and transformational path of awakening. A path that supports your health and the health of our planet. Learn … Read more

Wildculturing: The Art of Crafting Live-Cultured Foods

“Wildculturing works with increasing the fecundity and perennial abundance of the inner and outer terrain. Wildculturing is a toolbox packed with traditional techniques and practices from simple ways to increase the quality of microorganisms in an inner microbiome or a microclimate. It brings back wholeness of the combined genetic material of the microorganisms in a particular environment.” Wildculturing begins with the wild and native edible plants of field and forest, bringing them into our kitchens to start the culturing process. Come and discover the wonders of the gut microbiome, its role in health and how we can better support it. Learn the ancient food-preserving process of bacterial fermentation, how it works and why these foods and drinks matter so much to health. Through the evenings, we will taste a selection of delicious, nourishing mature fermented vegetable samples and herbal beverages together to give you some inspiration for eating and drinking with gut health in mind. Fermentation makes foods more nutritious, as well as delicious. Microscopic organisms – transform food and extend its usefulness. Fermentation is found throughout human cultures. Hundreds of medical and scientific studies confirm what folklore has always known: Fermented foods help people stay healthy. We will discuss some … Read more

Living the Experience: Herbalism, Wild Nutrition & Forest Gardening 7-Day Intensive

Overview The Flow Registration Overview “Something new is happening, a new vision, a new energy, a new sacred story is coming into being in the transition from one era to another.” ~Thomas Berry July 5 – 12, 2020 This 7-Day experiential intensive informs and engages you in the energetic and nutritional elements of herbalism, wild nutrition and forest gardening, to expand your awareness of the plant world through ecologically sustainable practices. Cultivating a human relationship with the plant kingdom and their cycles, from the garden to plate, is ancient and essential if we are to fully understand how to participate in regenerative food systems that support both our personal health and the health of the Earth. This week-long intensive invites you to deepen into a truly human intimacy with the natural world. Discover the diverse relationships you have with plants through plant medicine, wild nutrition, forest gardening, earth stewardship, edible plant foraging, herbal skills, eco-spiritual connection and nature immersion. The goal of this program is to cultivate an authentic, dedicated, growing herbal community of passionate leaders who hold a vision of a future that is ecologically resilient, socially just, and spiritually fulfilling for all beings. Meet the plants where they live and discover … Read more

The Family/Community Herbalist: The Art of Medicine-Making

September 9 & 10, 2023 Discovery of the many facets of herbalism by focusing on the essential applications of using medicinal plants. We will learn from the plants that grow in our medicine wheel herb garden or the wildflower meadows and forest gardens. We will look at the healing plants from numerous angles, including botanical, therapeutic, energetic, historical and the sacred. Each day will include hands-on medicinal preparations such as salves, oils and extracts. We will also discuss medicinal plant cultivation: seed gathering, harvesting, drying, preserving and ethical gardening. Includes samples of extracts and medicines made in class. This training promises to be a unique and intimate herbal experience! Why buy herbal products when making your own is so simple and empowering? Some of the possible topics: Plant Identification Foraging, Harvesting, Preserving Herb Drying & Storage Oil Infusions & Salve Making Choosing your Menstruum: alcohol, vinegar, glycerin Dry & Fresh Plant Tinctures Fresh Juice Extracts Making Your Own Herbal Remedies The Art of Formulating Herbal Medicine Medicine-Making from the simple to the complex Herbal First-Aid Solutions Case Studies “Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his scientific knowledge. Remedies from chemicals will never stand in favour … Read more

Wild Plant Permaculture & Rewilding Practicum (PDC)

Overview Objective & Process Schedule Registration Overview Rewilding Design System – Understanding the Language of Nature June 18 – November 15, 2020 16 Week Evening Series plus Two Weekends Learn to transform degraded woodlands and thickets into healthy, biodiverse, productive native plant habitats through hands-on, ecologically sound techniques. This part-time program is equally suited for the professional and the layperson, for landowners and land stewards, activists, naturalists, outdoor enthusiasts and native plant lovers. We begin with the permaculture foundations and then dive in deeper to understand how wild plants embody permaculture and cooperate to enhance the environment for the benefit of all. You will experience hands-on projects and expand your understanding of forest garden design through explorations of ecological practices. The wild wisdom of nature will be your inspiration while we re-design our own rhythmic patterns and participate more powerfully in a regenerative transformation of the world. What’s Rewilding? Rewilding is a process that nurtures resources, ecosystems, and communities back to health by reversing the devastating effects of industrial civilization. The modern person’s ability to intuit and discern the deep patterns and communications of the Earth have atrophied slowly over several thousand years of belief in human separation from and … Read more

Shamanu Mentorship: The Wild Wisdom of Wonder

event-images - SHAMANU-EARTH-WISDOM-TEACHINGS-300sq

Mentorship Pathway The Process Testimonials Dates & Registration Mentorship Pathway June 23 to October 1, 2023 As children we are instinctively in love with creation and, when allowed, develop wise respect and a fearless relationship with the natural world. We experience the world as alive, interconnected and sacred. Home is under our feet, in the nearest tree, the touch of the wind, the smell of fresh rain, in the mystery of a pond, the sound of thunder and the sunshine. This relationship naturally fosters curiosity, creativity, daring, confidence, humility and respect for all of Life. A sense of ‘place’ and belonging is experienced, and natural instinct of ‘care’ for the wonders of creation emerges. With the rise of industrialization and materialist science, we live in a time denoted by writers, philosophers and artists as ‘the age of disenchantment.’ Deepening into the mysteries of creation, and the sacred wild wisdom of wonder reawakens a primal, life-giving and life-saving essence of what it means to be a human living in relation with billions of other-than-human beings. This mentorship is for those who want to experience the powers of Earth, Air, Sun/Fire, Water and Ether as fundamental forces of who you are. To … Read more