2024

PLANT SPIRIT TALK

WISDOM EXCHANGE

CONFLUENCE

Exploring the Intersections of

Plant Medicine, Stewardship and Spirituality

Saturday, September 7th | 9am-7pm

Sebastopol, California

Join us for a day filled with learning, community care, connection, and celebration while exploring plants, healing, stewardship, and spirituality.

Offering a wide range of over a dozen immersive areas and workshops to choose from, including medicine making, herbal experientials, dream work, rituals, meditations, herb walks, land stewardship circle, and more! Participants will choose their flow and pace for the day and be nurtured in mind, body, and soul.

The gathering will take place in a beautiful private community, whose intentions are centered around ethical land stewardship and earth-based spirituality, situated on 15 acres of land in lush West Sonoma County.

Schedule

9:00am arrival

9:30am welcome and intro to teachers and offerings

10:00am-11:00am

session 1

  • BARN: Wisdom of Wilderness with Dana Ngo

  • KIVA: Sahumerio with Ana Moreno

  • TIPI: White Champaca Flower Circle with Terry Hwang

  • HARMONY CLINIC: The Many Ways to Use Mugwort in TCM with Laurel Brody

11:30am-12:30pm

session 2

  • BARN: Intro to Beneficial Fire with Rob Wadleigh

  • KIVA: Soul Retrieval through Meditating with the Elements with Eve Ekman

  • TIPI: Suob Therapies: A Hilot Spiritual Cleansing Modality with Dayang Marlena

  • GARDEN: The Eastern and Western Herbs That Grow All Around Us! with Laurel Brody

12:30pm lunch

2:00pm-3:00pm

session 3

  • BARN: Belonging to the Earth with Laura Ash

  • KIVA: Templefy with Francisca Santibanez

  • TIPI: Topical Oil Making for Anointing & Ritual with Sami Knowles

  • MEDICINE WHEEL: Becoming Animal with Asha Sparenberg

3:30pm- 4:30pm

session 4

  • BARN: Losing Our Minds to Get Back to the Senses with Kishasa Bennett and Renata Moreira

  • KIVA: Dreaming in Community with Adam Elmaghraby

  • TIPI: Land Stewrdship Circle with La Tierra Elders and guests

  • MEDICINE WHEEL: Tantra de las Plantas with Asha Kohli

5:00pm dinner

6:00pm-7:00pm

integration circle and share

7:00pm close  

Offerings

We are so honored and grateful to have a diverse group of guest teachers share generously their wisdom traditions in healing, stewardship, and culture.

Land Stewardship Circle

Tending to land is a choice that demands lots of time, attention, commitment, and deep devotion. Join the elders of La Tierra Community, who have been stewarding fifteen acres of land for the past thirty-five years. Learn about their journey, how they’ve connected with the spirit of the land for guidance and practice permaculture, and other methods of sustainable cultivation of harmony on the land.

Taught by Elders of La Tierra Community

Dreaming in Community: an Introduction

This is an introduction to dream work and projective dream work and the basic principles of sharing dreams in community. The session will provide an introduction to the significance that dreams play in our health and healing and larger culture, as well as an opportunity to co-create a dream circle to share dreams.

Taught by Adam Elmaghraby

Wisdom of Wilderness

Guided by living systems, we will be nurturing the web of relations between food, forest, fire, water, and spirit in an interactive session on how we tend to the Earth and our role within it as humans. At Teravana, we hold the perspective that nature carries an inherent wisdom to share, and that we play roles as listeners and actors of that voice. We invite you all to join us in this journey as we continue to co-create a place of belonging to nature and remembering that we are nature.

Taught by Dana Ngo

Topical Oil Making for Anointing & Ritual

A small peek into the ancient art of herb oil-making for anointing & ritual. Cross over into a sensual realm where you can embody your intentions & desires by crafting your own unique oil infusion to enhance your magical & spiritual practices.

Taught by Sami Knowles

Soul Retrieval through Meditating with the Elements: Meditations From Bön Indigenous Buddhist Wisdom

Drawing from the meditations of the Buddhist Bön tradition, which has deep roots in the indigenous and shamanic approach to training the mind and heart through the natural essences of the world, this workshop is an experiential journey to gain inner resources through meditating upon earth, water, fire, air, and space. The session will begin with learning about this tradition and its gifts, offering our practice and intention as reciprocity for these teachings. We will begin the guided meditation through the three "precious doors" of stillness in the body, silence of the speech, and openness and warmth of the heartmind. Once this stability and clarity has been established we will call upon the specific sacred qualities of earth, water, fire, air, and space to help as a path towards establishing ourselves in the intrinsic goodness which is always already within us.We will close with sharing our experiences and considering which of the elements we might need more of in our life to return and sustain the presence of connection to our deepest nature as love.

Taught by Eve Ekman

Sahumerio: The Ritual of Smoke Cleansing

In this workshop, we will explore the ritual of smoke cleansing which is an ancient indigenous practice that has both spiritual and physical medicine. A variety of aromatic plants and their virtues will be shared as alternatives to the more commonly known sage and palo santo. Participants will set intentions and make an individualized smoke cleansing bundle.

Taught by Ana Moreno

White Champaca Flower Circle: The enchantment of ancestral flower allies

A circle gathering to introduce and explore the medicine of white champaca flower, as a pathway to understanding sacred flowers as ancestral allies and protectors. White champaca-infused flower water will be served while we share about flowers that have been present in our family's migration stories and what they mean to us; talk story of the cultural history, herbal and medicinal uses of white champaca. We will close with making flower medicine and amulet for you to take home with you.

Taught by Terry Hwang

The Many Ways to Use Mugwort in the TCM Clinic

We will discuss all the different forms that Mugwort can be used in the clinic. Direct moxa, indirect moxa, smokeless moxa, moxa boxes, moxa sticks, and turning breech babies with moxa. We will also visit the thriving Mugwort that lives here on the land.

Taught by Laurel Brody, L.Ac

Templefy: The Art of Sacred Tending

Templefy embodies the practice of tending to life in a good and beautiful way. Tending is an act of love, a form of stewardship for what we deeply care about, value, and honor. It involves directing our attention and efforts to nourish, recuperate, and harmonize. This love language speaks to vitality and emphasizes our interdependence. In this workshop we’ll explore how to embrace sacred tending as a lifestyle; to Templefy our lives.

Taught by Francisca Santibanez

Tantra de Las Plantas: Weaving our Sacred Stories

"Tantra" is a Sanskrit word that means "to weave." This is an ancient practice of intertwining the spiritual with the physical. It is a way of opening our senses and hearts to feel and relish in the aliveness of our being. Tantra invites us to fully welcome connection—with Pachamama, with self, with earth, and with each other. Tantra de Las Plantas will guide participants into a somatic journey with the support of a plant teacher, sound medicine, embodiment exercises, and guided visualization - into a space for deep listening. Students will forage their stories from the inner wellspring of the body and translate them through movement storytelling — decolonizing our cognitive ways of thinking and expanding into our intuitive ways of knowing.

Taught by Asha Kohli

Belonging to the Earth

People have relied on plants for food, medicine, and ceremonies for time immemorial. Yet, for many of us, we have lost our connection to our ancestry, our lineage, our indigeneity. This is due to colonization of our minds, our bodies, and the earth.
But, there’s hope. You can find it again. Connecting to the earth and understanding your relationship with the plants around you, and unearthing your lineage is key to creating community, and unlocking the messages of your ancestors.

Join Laura Ash, clinical herbalist and Indigenous medicine preservation enthusiast, to learn how to reconnect to your ancestral roots, no matter your lineage. We will discuss key ideas of rewilding and reconnecting to herbal and plant traditions in our modern world.

Taught by Laura Ash

Intro to Beneficial Fire: Reconnecting with the role of Fire in our culture

The workshop begins with a short film on beneficial fire to demonstrate the beauty of beneficial fire and give a brief overview on what types of issues we’re dealing with and the solutions being discussed and implemented.

Taught by Rob Wadleigh

Suob Therapies: A Hilot Spiritual Cleansing Modality

Hilot is an indigenous Filipinx spiritual and physical healing belief system that has survived generations of colonization. This remembering is an introduction to one way that a hilot binabaylan practitioner can co-create a container of healing with a client after tawas (spiritual diagnostic) in order to bring in elemental alignment. This demonstration of a wet suob uses plant spirits in a traditional steam bath/vapor therapy to support blood circulation, the breath, and reduce cold and air elements in the body.

Taught by Dayang Marlena

Losing Our Minds to Get Back to the Senses: Memory, mindfulness, and Maracujá

What does it mean to be well? How do we let the mind rest, so the body can intuit? Bring your passion and join us for a journey into the senses. We'll hold a passion flower ceremony, somatic meditation session, and time travel together.

Taught by Kinshasa Bennett & Renata Moreira

The Eastern and Western Herbs That Grow All Around Us!

We will take an herb walk on the 15-acre parcel of land we have been cultivating for the past 35 years. While we meander around, we will visit many medicinal plants. We will primarily focus on the Asian plants that grow here in Sonoma County and discuss the Western herbs that grow here and are used clinically.

Taught by Laurel Brody, L.Ac

Becoming Animal

We are coming at this from the perspective that all beings, plants, animals are our peoples. That we inhabit this earth, no matter how briefly in community with them. So I ask you to take a few moments and think of a being, some creature that you are perhaps in contact with, or one that holds special significance in your life.

Take whatever animal or plant it is, and dream into them. Think about their lives, how their hearts beat, their longevity, their experience of the elements.

When we talk about our ancestors, we are not just speaking of our human ancestors but all ancestors, plants and animals. They are our relatives. All arts, song, dance, paintings started out as either prayers to or for these beings. Part of our healing this earth is for us to return to a place of right relations with our relatives. Leaving behind the hierarchy which places humans above them rather than in community with them. Part of this is quieting our lives to be in relation with them.

Taught by Asha Sparenberg

Community Care Areas

Tea Lounge

Relax, commune, and enjoy herbal infusions while sitting under the cedar tree in community with the spirit of the plants.

Earth Altaring

Connect with your heart and with your prayers as we collectively create an offering of beauty for our earth mama

Herbal Foot Baths

Take a moment to rest, heal, and replenish with an herbal foot bath made with your plants of choice.

Kid’s Herbal Play Hub

A supervised kid’s immersive area with herbal explorations, potion making, games, art-making and more!

Entertainment

Mercadito

Enjoy our wellness market pop up, featuring local herbalists, makers, and curated crafts. Not to be missed!

Elixir Bar

Stop by the elixir bar and delight on an herbal health/mood-boosting tonic.

Silent Auction

You won’t want to miss this chance to bid on amazing products and experiences from our dear sponsors. All proceeds go to the PST BIPOC love fund.

Meet The Teachers

Admission

ONLINE REGISTRATIONS CLOSED ON SEPTEMBER 1st.

CONTACT US DIRECTLY HERE TO INQUIRE ABOUT TICKETS AFTER SEPTEMBER 1st

General Admission

$250

*This is admission for the general public

BIPOC Admission

$200

*This reduced admission fee is available to people who identify as members of the Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) communities.

Sponsorship Admission

$300

*We depend on those of you in a position to pay the sponsorship admission fee, to offer the reduced admission fee to our BIPOC community.

Acupunturist Admission

$350

*This admission is for acupuncturists who wish to deepen their TCM plant knowledge with 9 California CEUs approved.

  • The admission fee covers admittance to all workshops, supplies, lunch and dinner, access to care areas, parking, and parking shuttle.

  • Event location will be sent out with further instructions to confirmed participants once tickets are purchased.

  • REFUND POLICY: If a cancellation is made before August 31st, a full refund will be granted minus processing fees. If a cancellation is made between September 1st and September 4th, 50% of the admission price paid will be given minus the processing fees. Cancellations made on September 5th and later will receive NO REFUND.

Who We Are

Plant Spirit Talk is a community of plant-loving, life learners, liberation workers, Pachamama worshippers, truth seekers, dedicated healers, therapists, and artists, who practice deep listening and apprenticing with plants and the earth.

We walk our life journey, cultivating harmony, healing, growth, and liberation for our lives and our communities, by following the guidance we receive from Pachamama, the spirit world, and our intuitive impulses, which we trust are connected to the earth, as she manifests through us; always striving to thrive and find homeostasis.

Honoring the teachings and time-tried wisdom carried and generously shared by our Indigenous teachers from the Amazon and the Andes, we practice the integration of ancestral and folkways to cleanse, process, and heal from collective and individual trauma.

By dedicating time and focused intention to learn and remember from the plants, the elements, the land, and her beings; we’re able to recalibrate our lives to align ourselves with our sacred purpose as earth stewards and carriers of the wisdom she provides.

Our Mission

Our mission is to support individual and collective liberation, the awakening of our innate healing potential, and the remembrance of our sacred purpose as earth’s guardians and stewards of creation. 

We do this by listening to the guidance and teachings of Indigenous elders & wisdom carriers and nature while reclaiming and reconnecting with our own intuition.