Meet this Year's Presenters...
Opening & Closing Ceremonies will be Facilitated by Diana MacAuley.
Diana MacAuley- Diana has lived in the countryside her whole life, except for a few years of schooling many moons ago. Opening to Energy Healing and Plant medicines happened gradually, and continues to this day.Her structured, post WW2 illusions of reality shattered when, in her mid-twenties, she had the opportunity to live and work, as a school teacher, in a Cree community on Hudson Bay. Forever altered by her close association for years with Indigenous people, Diana found herself unwilling and unable to realign herself ever again with a consumeristic, career - oriented life ! She began foraging and gardening and exploring herbal medicines as her babies appeared in her life, and was fortunate to have been drawn to a communal farm where several families lived off grid, committed to supporting each other in conscious living and the growth of spiritual integrity. Here, she watched her children grow strong and secure in their own relationship to the Earth and the Elements.
Sarah Lawless - is the founder, head herbalist, and web mistress of Fern & Fungi. She has been a forager and folk herbalist for a decade and was a professional cook for more than half of that. If she's not behind her computer or cook stove, you can find her in her garden or foraging in the woods. Hailing from the Pacific Northwest, she recently moved back to rural Ontario to be closer to family and her roots.
Alex Marchant- A local Ontarian, Alex is our forager, mushroom whisperer, and herbalist in training. You can find him blending into the woods in his green coat hunting for spruce resin and chaga. He teaches our mushroom workshops and identification walks and can cook up a mean feast too with his culinary background.
Sarah and Alex with speak about Wild (herbal) First Aid. A primer on first aid skills for when you are in the wilds and unable to seek immediate medical attention. Wild first aid is a valuable skill for foragers, woodcutters, sportsmen, hikers, hunters, and people who live off-grid. We will teach you how to create your own first aid kid using a combination of goods from the pharmacy and botanicals from nature. Learn how to identify, harvest, and prepare wild plants as medicines to act as antibacterials, to stop bleeding, to prevent and treat sunburn, soothe nasty bug bites, and to take care of cuts, burns, scratches, poison oak, poison ivy, and any other wounds that can occur when you are out in the bush. We will provide examples of our own homemade first aid kits and herbal specimens for identification as well as handouts so you can continue your own research at home.
Robbie H. Anderman- Robbie Hanna Anderman, an organic orchardist, farmer, musician and co-founder of Morninglory Farm Community, has researched and worked with the local trees in the Wilno Hills for over 40 years. His book, 'The Healing Trees' is due to be launched within the year.
Welcome to an introduction to the edible and herbal qualities of local Northeastern trees regularly used by Native Peoples and early European settlers. We will learn and see and sample, examples of how to use the leaves/needles, twigs, resins, buds, fruits, nuts and barks, etc. of 5 trees, for food, tea, forestry, first aid, and healing remedies. Methods of how to harvest tree parts causing minimal damage to the trees will be shown. Useful while camping, hiking, canoeing, and in everyday life.
Robbie will speak about local Healing Trees.
Amber Westfall- Amber Westfall is the owner of the Wild Garden, a small business in Ottawa, ON that provides community members with a variety of local, organic and sustainably harvested wild food and herb products such as herbal teas and wild food preserves.
As an educator, Amber shares her passion about wild food and medicinal plants through plant walks, workshops and teaching courses on herbalism at the International Academy of Natural Health Sciences.
When she is not teaching, Amber is the caretaker of a 1/2 acre parcel of land on the Just Food Farm. This site is in its early years of being a certified organic, medicinal food forest. At this location Amber also runs a Young Herbalists' Apprenticeship program for youth, ages 8 and up.
In her work Amber strives to encourage stewardship, co-creative relationships and regenerative care of the spaces we inhabit. She believes that connecting people and plants in this way imparts a vital intimacy with nature and deeper understanding of local landscapes.
Tasting the Wild
“A plant's scent is its language. Its colour communicates. In its flavour it speaks to us; not in our language, but in its.” ~Jim McDonald
In the slippery mucilage of a violet leaf, the bitter bite of dandelion or the sweetness of clover, plants speak to us. When we understand the language of their tastes we deepen our knowledge of their therapeutic actions in the body and become more connected and effective as herbalists. Join Amber Westfall on a unique plant walk to discover what the plants are communicating to us through their tastes, as we explore the properties of sweet, sour, salty, bitter, aromatic, astringent, diffusive and more!
*Please bring water to drink.
We welcome Tamara Segal of hawthornherbals.com to the Killaloe Herb Gathering! She'll be running a workshop on Invasive Plant Medicine!
We welcome Katie Wolk, RMT and Clinical Herbalist, who will do a circle with us on Healthy Adrenal Function.
Diana MacAuley- Diana has lived in the countryside her whole life, except for a few years of schooling many moons ago. Opening to Energy Healing and Plant medicines happened gradually, and continues to this day.Her structured, post WW2 illusions of reality shattered when, in her mid-twenties, she had the opportunity to live and work, as a school teacher, in a Cree community on Hudson Bay. Forever altered by her close association for years with Indigenous people, Diana found herself unwilling and unable to realign herself ever again with a consumeristic, career - oriented life ! She began foraging and gardening and exploring herbal medicines as her babies appeared in her life, and was fortunate to have been drawn to a communal farm where several families lived off grid, committed to supporting each other in conscious living and the growth of spiritual integrity. Here, she watched her children grow strong and secure in their own relationship to the Earth and the Elements.
Sarah Lawless - is the founder, head herbalist, and web mistress of Fern & Fungi. She has been a forager and folk herbalist for a decade and was a professional cook for more than half of that. If she's not behind her computer or cook stove, you can find her in her garden or foraging in the woods. Hailing from the Pacific Northwest, she recently moved back to rural Ontario to be closer to family and her roots.
Alex Marchant- A local Ontarian, Alex is our forager, mushroom whisperer, and herbalist in training. You can find him blending into the woods in his green coat hunting for spruce resin and chaga. He teaches our mushroom workshops and identification walks and can cook up a mean feast too with his culinary background.
Sarah and Alex with speak about Wild (herbal) First Aid. A primer on first aid skills for when you are in the wilds and unable to seek immediate medical attention. Wild first aid is a valuable skill for foragers, woodcutters, sportsmen, hikers, hunters, and people who live off-grid. We will teach you how to create your own first aid kid using a combination of goods from the pharmacy and botanicals from nature. Learn how to identify, harvest, and prepare wild plants as medicines to act as antibacterials, to stop bleeding, to prevent and treat sunburn, soothe nasty bug bites, and to take care of cuts, burns, scratches, poison oak, poison ivy, and any other wounds that can occur when you are out in the bush. We will provide examples of our own homemade first aid kits and herbal specimens for identification as well as handouts so you can continue your own research at home.
Robbie H. Anderman- Robbie Hanna Anderman, an organic orchardist, farmer, musician and co-founder of Morninglory Farm Community, has researched and worked with the local trees in the Wilno Hills for over 40 years. His book, 'The Healing Trees' is due to be launched within the year.
Welcome to an introduction to the edible and herbal qualities of local Northeastern trees regularly used by Native Peoples and early European settlers. We will learn and see and sample, examples of how to use the leaves/needles, twigs, resins, buds, fruits, nuts and barks, etc. of 5 trees, for food, tea, forestry, first aid, and healing remedies. Methods of how to harvest tree parts causing minimal damage to the trees will be shown. Useful while camping, hiking, canoeing, and in everyday life.
Robbie will speak about local Healing Trees.
Amber Westfall- Amber Westfall is the owner of the Wild Garden, a small business in Ottawa, ON that provides community members with a variety of local, organic and sustainably harvested wild food and herb products such as herbal teas and wild food preserves.
As an educator, Amber shares her passion about wild food and medicinal plants through plant walks, workshops and teaching courses on herbalism at the International Academy of Natural Health Sciences.
When she is not teaching, Amber is the caretaker of a 1/2 acre parcel of land on the Just Food Farm. This site is in its early years of being a certified organic, medicinal food forest. At this location Amber also runs a Young Herbalists' Apprenticeship program for youth, ages 8 and up.
In her work Amber strives to encourage stewardship, co-creative relationships and regenerative care of the spaces we inhabit. She believes that connecting people and plants in this way imparts a vital intimacy with nature and deeper understanding of local landscapes.
Tasting the Wild
“A plant's scent is its language. Its colour communicates. In its flavour it speaks to us; not in our language, but in its.” ~Jim McDonald
In the slippery mucilage of a violet leaf, the bitter bite of dandelion or the sweetness of clover, plants speak to us. When we understand the language of their tastes we deepen our knowledge of their therapeutic actions in the body and become more connected and effective as herbalists. Join Amber Westfall on a unique plant walk to discover what the plants are communicating to us through their tastes, as we explore the properties of sweet, sour, salty, bitter, aromatic, astringent, diffusive and more!
*Please bring water to drink.
We welcome Tamara Segal of hawthornherbals.com to the Killaloe Herb Gathering! She'll be running a workshop on Invasive Plant Medicine!
We welcome Katie Wolk, RMT and Clinical Herbalist, who will do a circle with us on Healthy Adrenal Function.