bioregional intensives

Students in our Fundamentals of Community Herbalism program (self-paced or guided) are invited to our in-person Bioregional Intensives. These intensives are a chance to learn in the field in the Terra Sylva homelands around Asheville, North Carolina. On these days-long adventures, we will visit multiple sites in the area, meeting the plants who live there and the people who love and tend them. Field activities include plant walks, ecology lessons, practicing botany and plant identification skills, harvesting and making medicine, eating wild foods, and learning from knowledgeable guest teachers, as well as time for shared meals, laughter, and stories around the campfire.

DATES AND ACTIVITIES

High Summer Sun Medicine - June 13-15, 2025

Over the course of 3 days, we will explore aromatic medicines and the plants that grow at the height of summer, using all of our senses to build relationship with the plants that we meet. Tentative activities: Plant walks, harvest, and medicine making at a gorgeous local herb farm. Aromatic medicine explorations and preparations. Solstice flower botany. Materia medica deep-dives: tasting and beyond. And more...

Mountaintop Medicine Intensive - August 1-3, 2025

This 3 day field trip will truly be spent in the field. We will explore the biodiversity of the Great Balsam mountains of the Blue Ridge, meeting plants that grow in different habitats and the land that nurtures them. Tentative activities: High mountain botany and ecology at Black Balsam Knob and other locations near the Blue Ridge Parkway. Exploring medicinal properties of lesser-known plants. Practices that build relationship with place and land. Plant and ecosystem immersion. Practice identifying plants. Rethinking wilderness. And more...