Gaza Mutual Aid Support Network
Jan
23
to Dec 31

Gaza Mutual Aid Support Network

Please share widely!

This campaign is an ongoing effort between trusted friends and families with immediate relationships on the ground and in the diaspora. Through our networks of kinship and community love, we redistribute funds directly to families who need it. No NGO’s, no bureaucracy. Just fast, immediate support directly through our real life relationships. These funds will support basic survival including relocation fees for those seeking to leave, natal and postnatal care, the cost of tents and basic living supplies under excruciating circumstances and limitations imposed by genocidal violence. 

Please note that each family's needs likely exceed the cost of the entire campaign, which will likely be raised as we go to accomodate the realities at hand. Those trying to relocate are being charged multiple thousand dollars per head, and most have large families who hope to travel towards safety together. Those choosing to stay have lost everything they have - their homes and all of their possessions. The road ahead is long to support them in rebuilding their lives in all cases. 

Generosity is deeply needed and appreciated. 

If you would like to help us further, please also consider running a fundraiser in your local community, regularly sharing this page with your personal networks, donating a portion of your monthly sales, donating valuable items to contribute to our auction, or other such things to help build our pool of funds.

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Return to the Source | Talks with Kali Akuno
Mar
13
to Apr 3

Return to the Source | Talks with Kali Akuno

I am particularly keen on this conversation as Kali is amongst my closest and longest friends and comrades, and someone I consider to be my primary political mentor in foundational ways. We have been discussing these subjects for years and building towards materialized action in their light, so I am very excited to build on some of these conversations more publicly. Make sure to check out his recent book.

Return to the Source

A Discussion about decolonization, indigenization, and the need for ancestral knowledge to survive the present and build a regenerative future

Join Kali Akuno in discussion with Layla K. Feghali in a conversation about why in a time of genocide we need urgently need to recenter indigenous knowledge(s) and practices and challenge the dominant narratives of nationhood, nation-states, nationality, empire, international law and human rights.

This will be a 2 part discussion.

They will be live-streamed.

Part 1 will take place on Wednesday, March 13th at 5 pm est/4 pm cst/3 pm mst/2 pm pst

Part 2 will take place on Wednesday, April 3rd at 5 pm est/4 pm cst/3 pm mst/2 pm pst


Kali is co-founder and co-director of Cooperation Jackson and the Institute for Social Ecology’s racial and environmental justice program coordinator.

Kali served as the Director of Special Projects and External Funding in the Mayoral Administration of the late Chokwe Lumumba of Jackson, MS. His focus in this role was supporting cooperative development, the introduction of eco-friendly and carbon reduction methods of operation, and the promotion of human rights and international relations for the city.

He is co-editor of Jackson Rising: the Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, MS and Jackson Rising Redux: Lessons on Building the Future in the Present and the author of numerous articles and pamphlets including “The Jackson-Kush Plan: The Struggle for Black Self-Determination and Economic Democracy,” “Until We Win: Black Labor and Liberation in the Disposable Era,” “Operation Ghetto Storm: Every 28 Hours report,” and “Let Your Motto Be Resistance: A Handbook on Organizing New Afrikan and Oppressed Communities for Self-Defense”.

He has served as the Co-Director of the US Human Rights Network and the Executive Director of the Peoples’ Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF) based in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. He was a co-founder of the School of Social Justice and Community Development (SSJCD), a public school serving the academic needs of low-income African American and Latino communities in Oakland, California.

Layla K. Feghali is an ethnobotanist, cultural worker, and author who lives between her ancestral village in Lebanon and her diasporic home in California, where she was born and raised. Her dedication is the stewardship of eco-cultural re-membrance and decolonization movements (not as a metaphor), and the many layers of relational restoration, systemic reckoning, and healing that entails. Feghali offers a line of plantcestral medicine, education, and other culturally-rooted offerings and mutual aid efforts, with an emphasis on the land-based ancestral practices from the Crossroads (southwest Asia + northern Africa) and its diasporas. Her recent book, The Land in Our Bones, documents cultural herbal and healing knowledge from Syria to the Sinai, while interrogating colonialism and its lingering wounds on the culture of our displaced world.

Feghali asks: How do we embody what binds us together while holding the ways we’ve been wrested apart? What does it mean to be of a place when extraction and empire destroy its geographies? How do we disentangle ourselves from exploitive paradigms to create more liberatory worlds? What can we re-member when we reach beyond what’s been lost and tend to what remains? How do we cultivate regenerative kinships with the lands where we live, especially when displacement has led us to other peoples' unceded territories?

Hosted by the Institute of Social Ecology.

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On the Land in Our Bones | CIIS Book Talk with Maryam Hasnaa
Apr
4
6:00 PM18:00

On the Land in Our Bones | CIIS Book Talk with Maryam Hasnaa

This book talk will feature Layla in conversation with Maryam Hasnaa.

Join us for a profound conversation that is a vital invitation to re-member our roots, to deepen our relationship with the lands where we live in diaspora, and a beckoning call towards belonging, healing, and freedom through tending the land in your own bones. 

It is open to the public. Register via the link below.

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Land, Lineage, and Resisting Genocide | Hosted by SAND
Mar
7
11:30 AM11:30

Land, Lineage, and Resisting Genocide | Hosted by SAND

We are now over four months into a worsening genocide in Gaza — with over 30,000 murdered and over 2 million now enduring military-enforced famine enacted by Israel, the US, and their global allies. There is no way a 90-minute teaching can impact the depth of sorrow, injustice, betrayal, and state-sponsored violence unfolding in Palestine. And yet, we share a moral obligation to resist the life-desecrating forces at work.

In this gathering, our three guests will share of their personal attempts as Earth-honoring ritualists and educators to embody core values and take tangible action in a time of genocide.

* Donations for this event will go to the Middle East Children’s Alliance and
Mutual Aid Support Network. You can continue to donate after the event is over. We also invite you to support SAND’s GoFundMe to Help Amina & Her Family Escape the Crisis in Gaza

Topics:

  • In which ways do we each inherit ancestral debts that compel us to work for peace and healing in the present? How can embracing a generational perspective be liberating?

  • How can spiritual practices complement tangible activism and work for justice?

  • What is the responsibility of spiritual practitioners towards global movements for Indigenous sovereignty? Especially those living as citizens of the nations who perpetuate colonial violence.

  • What role can the land and relationship with the Earth play in the work for cultural and systemic healing?

  • How do we reckon with traditions and lineages that have perpetuated violence?

Presenters

Layla K. Feghali

Layla K. Feghali is an ethnobotanist, cultural worker, and author who lives between her ancestral village in Lebanon and her diasporic home in California, where she was born and raised. Her dedication is the stewardship of our earth’s eco-cultural integrity and the many layers of relational restoration, systemic reckoning, and healing that entails. Feghali offers a line of plantcestral medicine and other culturally-rooted offerings, with an emphasis on Southwest Asia and its diasporas. Her recent book, The Land in Our Bones, documents cultural herbal and healing knowledge from Syria to the Sinai, while interrogating colonialism and its lingering wounds on the culture of our displaced world.

WEBSITE

Taya Mâ Shere

Taya Mâ Shere is a ritual artist embracing embodied, earth-honoring devotion as liberatory spiritual practice. She serves as a professor of Organic Multi-Religious Ritual at Starr King School for the Ministry and co-weaves Makam Shekhina, a Jewish and Sufi Muslim multi-religious community committed to counter-oppressive spiritual practice. Taya Mâ hosts the acclaimed Jewish Ancestral Healing podcast and The Sarah & Hajar Series: Sacred Practice and Possibility at the Intersections of Judaism and Islam. She co-founded the Kohenet movement and  is co-author of The Hebrew Priestess: Ancient and New Visions of Jewish Women’s Spiritual Leadership. Her five albums of sacred chant have been heralded as “cutting-edge mystic medicine music.” She is currently tending Ceasefire movement chaplaincy and offers bespoke immersions in earth-reverent ritual and embodied, counter-oppressive devotion.

WEBSITE

Daniel Foor

Daniel is a doctor of psychology, experienced ritualist, and the author of Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing. He is a practicing Muslim and initiate in the Òrìṣà tradition of Yoruba-speaking West Africa who has also learned from Mahayan Buddhism and the older ways of his English and German ancestors. Daniel was a U.S. Fulbright scholar in Cairo, Egypt as a student of Arabic language, and he is passionate about generational healing and training leaders and change makers in the intersections of cultural healing, animist ethics, and applied ritual arts. He lives with his wife and daughters near his adoptive home of Granada, Spain in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

WEBSITE

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Love is Our Lifeline | Book Launch + Mutual Aid event!!!
Feb
16
6:30 PM18:30

Love is Our Lifeline | Book Launch + Mutual Aid event!!!

Will you be my Palentine?

Join us for an evening of cultural healing and remembrance.

Since its inception, The Land in Our Bones has been a devotion of stewardship and care for and from my own ancestors and the Levant’s liberatory relationships to land, love, and life. The book’s culmination is both in resistance to our erasure, and the ongoing cultivation of pathways that can fortify sovereign futures. As genocidal assaults on our people continue, please help me birth this offering in a spirit of collective healing, the cultivation of sumud (steadfastness), communal generosity, and ancestral nourishment as we plant seeds of our liberatory futures together and re-member the roots which fortify us to do so.

Reem’s California will be cooking delicious food featured in the book, including a special Gazan dish in connection towards our kindred relatives on the ground. There will be live folk music, a brief book reading, signing, and q+a with some thoughtful words and invitations for this time. We will have an altar to uplift the spirits of our martyrs - please bring symbolic items to contribute in their honor if you feel called, and a special place to plant native seeds of love and vision towards liberated futures together - from our diasporic homes to our ancestral ones.

While all these generous things are being offered without cost and registration is technically free, I invite folks to purchase tickets with as much generosity is possible for you. ALL fees from the tickets will go directly to our mutual aid efforts to provide basic needs to Gazan civilians enduring genocide: relocation costs, prenatal and postnatal care supplies, tents to protect displaced families, and other such daily living needs. There will be items for sale to collect more funds for our relatives in Gaza on the day of the event as well.

If you would like to donate a customized amount that is not included in the fixed registration tickets, please feel free to register for "free" and then repeat the process by clicking "DONATE + TICKETS" and following the link at the bottom that says "no thanks. I just want to make a donation" to make the contribution in whatever amount you would like to.

* Please wear a mask to increase safety and access for as much of our community as possible.

* RSVP to register your spot, as there is limited capacity and this will help us prepare for adequate amounts of food. Can’t wait to see you!

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Reconnecting to ancestral healing practices - with the Radical Therapists Network
Feb
5
11:00 AM11:00

Reconnecting to ancestral healing practices - with the Radical Therapists Network

Feghali's upcoming book The Land in Our Bones, documents cultural herbal and healing knowledge from Syria to the Sinai, while interrogating colonialism and its lingering wounds on the culture of our displaced world. The book features her Plantcestral Re-Membrance methodology as an emergent pathway towards cultural repair within herbalism, while engaging nuanced conversations about identity, loss, and exile, and the critical importance of tending the land and life where we are to restore the fundamental integrity of our communities.

The founder of the Radical Therapist Network, Sage M Stephanou, will be in conversation with Layla drawing on key themes within the book, particularly the links between ecological destruction, displacement, and consequences of colonisation on our capacity to heal. We will be holding particular care and attention to these themes in light of the current genocide in Palestine.

A percentage of the fees will be going to the Gaza Mutual Aid Support Network

No-one will be turned away for lack of funds - please contact the Radical Therapists Network.

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Plantcestral Re-Membrance Circle [for SWANA folks]
Apr
17
to Oct 30

Plantcestral Re-Membrance Circle [for SWANA folks]

(**Please note: This class is reserved to persons who have native ancestry from the SWANA [aka Middle East and N. Africa] region- mixed ancestry included. Please note that identity is more than a genetic consideration. This circle is intended for people with traceable generational relationships to the SWANA region. Thank you for respecting this space.

This space is inclusive to trans and queer kin, and welcomes ethnically marginalized communities from the SWANA region to join us in re-membrance. This work explicitly celebrate the pluralism of the SWANA region and strives to reject internalized nationalism and supremacy based on dominant identities, and colonial erasure and violence. The space does not tolerate harm of this nature in our communal spaces.)

This extended ONLINE series is for SWANA* community to engage in embodied learning about our ancestral plants and their uses as medicinal, cultural, and spiritual allies. It is designed for people interested in cultivating deeper, embodied relationships with plants, lineage, and the earth in general.

Registration deadline is April 1st, 2023

This is a 7 month long immersion, from April - October.

Plants are agents of consciousness, story, and memory. Our ancestral plants carry the DNA of our homelands, of our ancestors, and resonate this memory with the truths that live deep inside our own bodies and hearts. We will work with this relationship to access deeply held wisdom, revitalize lost bodies of knowledge, and re-establish relationship to ourselves, our ancestors, and the resilience and medicine available through being in conscious relationship with our plantcestors/homelands. Each participant will receive a package of SWANA native plant medicines to work with through the course of our class together. Experiential relationship with the plantcestors will be emphasized and facilitated through the duration of the class.

In this class we will:

  • Immerse deeply in the Plantcestral Re-Membrance methodology, to deepen at the intersection of ancestral re-connection and herbal medicine

  • Develop fundamental tools to work with plants as medicinal, cultural, and spiritual allies

  • Practice and learn tools to communicate with our medicines, land, and our internal selves

  • Engage in a process of personal healing through building relationship with plantcestors, working with our dreams, our ancestral stories, and each other

  • Learn traditional principles and ethical practice around harvesting, medicine making, and more

  • Build embodied relationships and gain experiential, folk, and medicinal knowledge about 3-4 SWANA plants

  • Deepen relationship with our lineage lands from wherever we are in the world

  • Learn how to better connect to our own embodied wisdom, intuition, and the cues of the natural and spiritual worlds to support our day-to-day lives and healing

  • Contribute to strengthening the knowledge and practice of our SWANA plantcestral traditions, stories, dreams, and ways of knowing

  • Receive a package of SWANA plantcestral medicines to work, heal, and learn with at home

  • Explore and revitalize traditional ways of healing and connecting to place

  • Take a personal journey into the plantcestral realm with the support of a close community, a generous facilitator, and a deeply intentional and caring container

  • Gain access to private community spaces for flourishing support during and after the circle

Circle Structure, Time & Participation Commitment:

  • A combo of live, pre-recorded, experiential, and written educational engagement.

  • The online sessions are conducted via live video conference calling on Zoom (can download for free).

  • Communication and a private member forum will occur through the BAND app. (dowload for free) and a password protected webpage.

  • Participants should be prepared to spend a little time (5-30 mins) each day with the online material and medicine packages sent to you via mail, in between sessions. This is a CRITICAL part of the collective process.

  • There will be small groups arranged based on your timezone, to support your process in between live classes. Communicating/meeting with them on the suggested dates will be required.

  • The foundation of this class is based on the cultivation of your own experiential personal relationship with the plantcestral allies we will be working with. This often opens up deeper healing processes. Participants must be willing and available to this process.

  • You will have exclusive access to discounted 1-on-1 mentorship sessions with Layla, if additional support is needed.

dates and times:

  • This circle entails a combo of live, pre-recorded, experiential, and written educational engagement.

  • Large group live sessions will occur on the following dates (time tbd based on applications submitted):

Mon, April 17th
Sat, May 20th
Fri, July 21th
Fri, Sept 22th
Sat, Oct 28th

  • With additional small cohort live sessions on:

June 10th
Aug 9th
Oct 10th

FEE EXCHANGE: 

The registration for this immersive circle equals $125/month plus the cost of the herbal package and shipping to your home. The total amounts to:

$999 [FOR BASIC PLANT PACKAGE]

+ Includes all teachings and sessions.

+ 1oz bottle of microdosis with flower essence of each plant we will work with in the circle.

+ A bonus bottle with a plant remedy for supporting integration.

$1111 [FOR GENEROUS PLANT PACKAGE]

LIMITED QUANTITIES AVAILABLE.

+ Includes all teachings and sessions.

+ 1oz bottle of microdosis and/or flower essence of each plant we will work with in the circle.

+ A bonus bottle with a plant remedy for supporting integration.

+ At least one additional preparation of each plant we will work with. For example, an infused honey, tincture, herbal oil, oxymel, hydrosol, dry tea, dyed fabric, or other such remedies, depending on the plant.

PAYMENT PLANS AVAILABLE

+ 4 monthly payments of $250 - for basic package

+ 4 monthly payments of $278 - for deluxe package

+ 6 monthly payments of $167 - for basic package

+ 6 monthly payments of $186 - for deluxe package

SCHOLARSHIPS + WORK-TRADE AVAILABLE.

Limited numbers of partial scholarship and work-trade are available. Details for application are included in the application form.

If you would like to contribute to our scholarship funds, you may do so here. THANK YOU in advance!

REGISTRATION DEADLINE:

The application form is a confirmation of your intention to participate in the class and MUST be submitted by April 1, 2023. Once you are accepted into the course, a follow up form will be established to confirm final dates, due with initial payment links by the first week of April, to ensure your place. This is also a COMMITMENT and agreement to completing all following payments and participation to the best of your ability in our circle. If for some reason, you discontinue participation in our circle, the completion of your payments will still be expected.

Space is limited and no refunds will be given (questions concerning alternative financial arrangements will be addressed in the application).


Help us find each other: PLEASE SHARE with SWANA friends and community who would enjoy or benefit from such a circle.

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Introduction to Plantcestors of the Levant
Feb
9
5:00 PM17:00

Introduction to Plantcestors of the Levant

*** Missed this class? Fear not! A recording of it can be purchased on my souk site here. ***


This knowledge share is hosted by Herban Cura and can be registered directly through them.

This share will offer an introduction to herbal medicine from South West Asia and North Africa, with a focus on the Levant region (modern day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, parts of Egypt) and the Eastern Mediterranean (including Anatolia and North Africa). From Sumeria to Ancient Egypt to the lineages of Sufi and Islamic medicine and Unani Tibb, the herbal practices of this region have had a tremendous influence on western medicine and herbalism that is often unnamed. This share will offer insight about some of the region's common herbs and herbal preparations, alongside intimate and soulful stories rooted in the personal relationships between the peoples and plants of this special place on earth.

Knowledge Share Includes

  • Brief context of SWANA

  • What are "plantcestors" and what is "plantcestral re-membrance"

  • Common herbal preparations in the SWANA region

  • Ethnobotanical information about several common SWANA herbs, many also found commonly across the Americas

  • We will do a plant meditation together and practice how to "listen" to plants and our bodies together

Resource Package

Optional resource packages are available for purchase directly from Layla.

"This bundle will include a small sampling of the main plants we will be discussing in our circle. This will offer an opportunity to taste, smell, and feel the plants while we share about them, which in my experience offers a deeper, more intimate, embodied experience of knowledge building and remembrance."

Layla is offering these bundles through her website. Please click here to purchase and for more details.

**If you are interested, please place your resource package order through the link above before Friday, January 28th**

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Plantcestral re-Membrance for SWANA Healing | Spring + Summer 2020
Apr
5
to Aug 30

Plantcestral re-Membrance for SWANA Healing | Spring + Summer 2020

(**Please note: This class is reserved to persons who have native ancestry from the SWANA [aka Middle East and N. Africa] region- mixed ancestry included. Thank you for respecting this space.)

This extended ONLINE series is for SWANA* community to engage in embodied learning about our ancestral plants and their uses as medicinal, cultural, and spiritual allies. Agents of consciousness, story, and memory. Our ancestral plants carry the DNA of our homelands, of our ancestors, and resonate this memory with the truths that live deep inside our own bodies and hearts. We will work with this relationship to access deeply held wisdom, revitalize lost bodies of knowledge, and re-establish relationship to ourselves, our ancestors, and the resilience and medicine available through being in conscious relationship with our plantcestors/homelands. Each participant will receive a package of SWANA native plant medicines to work with through the course of our class together. Experiential relationship with the plantcestors will be emphasized and facilitated through the duration of the class.

In this class we will:
* Develop fundamental tools to work with plants as medicinal, cultural, and spiritual allies
* Practice and learn tools to communicate with our medicines and our internal selves
* Engage in a process of personal healing through building relationship with plantcestors, working with our dreams, our ancestral stories, and witnessing each other
* Learn traditional principles and ethical practice around harvesting, medicine making, and more
* Gain & generate experiential, folk, and medicinal knowledge about several plants
* Deepen relationship with our ancestors and ourselves
* Learn how to better connect to our own internal wisdom, intuition, and the cues of the natural & spiritual worlds to support our day-to-day lives and healing
* Contribute to strengthening the knowledge and practice of our SWANA plantcestral traditions, cosmologies, dreams, and ways of knowing
* Receive a package of SWANA plantcestral medicines to work, heal, and learn with at home
* Explore and revitalize traditional ways of healing ourselves and our communities
* Take a personal journey into the plantcestral realm with the support of a safe community


MORE INFO...
- This online class is a small group and is conducted via live video conference calling for more than half of our sessions, which requires LIVE ATTENDANCE and participation (must have access to internet/camera or audio to participate via Zoom- can download for free). Participants should be prepared to spend a little time (5-30 mins) each day with the medicines/material in between classes in order to contribute to our sessions- this is a CRITICAL part of the collective re-membering. 1x per month, we will have pre-recorded sessions which participants will be asked to engage via audio or text comments on our class website or class phone thread via WhatsApp (please download the app in preparation). There will be small groups arranged to support your process in between live classes. Communicating/meeting with them at least 1x per month will be required.

A package of medicines will be sent to you via mail for you to work with through the course of our class.

- The foundation of this class is based on the cultivation of your own experiential personal relationship with the plantcestral allies we will be working with. This often opens up deeper healing processes. Participants must be willing and available to this process. The group and facilitator are here to support thru each step of the way, but having support networks and routines in place to hold yourself through the deepest parts of the process are advised. If you have any questions about this, please feel free to ask. 

Class will meet for 13 sessions from April - August. Exact time and dates of the class will be determined based on the group's schedule and announced on March 6th. Answer registration form questions to include your own needs, timezone, and preferences so that we can determine this ASAP please.

FEE EXCHANGE: $555 USD (includes all teachings plus medicine package mailed to your home to work with through the course)

Fill out this application to register: APPLICATION SPRING 2020
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: The application form is a confirmation of your intention to participate in the class and MUST be submitted by March 2, 2020. Once you are accepted into the course, a follow up form will be established to confirm final dates, due with deposit of $155 USD by March 6th to ensure your place. This is also a COMMITMENT and agreement to completing all following payments and participation to the best of your ability in our circle. If for some reason, you discontinue participation in our circle, the completion of your payments will still be expected. Space is limited and no refunds will be given (questions concerning alternative financial arrangements will be addressed in the application).
Send registration deposit and following payments to venmo @plantcestral or  paypal.me/riverrose (friends and family option, please).

Help us find each other: PLEASE SHARE with SWANA friends and community who would enjoy or benefit from such a circle.

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JOIN our Ancestor HUB on Patreon!
May
18
to Jan 1

JOIN our Ancestor HUB on Patreon!

📢 WE INVITE YOU to join our Ancestor HUB, via Patreon!

an extension of our original SWANA Ancestral Medicine HUB + نجمع جذورنا | reGather our Ancestors project. it was established by the participants of our Plantcestral re-Memberance for SWANA Healing courses over the past 5+ years.

#patreon is a membership based platform where folks can subscribe on a monthly or by-post basis to gain access to our offerings + support our growing body of work in an ongoing way. we are using patreon to run an online magazine of sorts dedicated to themes of SWANA #ancestral + #plantcestral re-membrance.

we are a multi-ethnic group of #SWANA* folks in motherland and diaspora, re-membering ourselves home. restoring the integrity of our relationships and relatedness. our wholeness and unity. the sacred, severed, and lost.

we are re-collecting ancestral stories, memories, and wisdoms alive in our bones. in collaboration with each other, our ancestors + plantcestors, the water, stories, and soils we live on and come from. co-creating, dreaming, and collaborating to revive roadmaps of ancestral inheritance towards a more wise and dignified future. a more just and life-affirming world.

if you find yourself here, it is not by accident.

on our patreon, we share & cross-pollinate pieces of our SWANA re-memberance with you through original works published every New and Full Moon by different members of our diversely brilliant collective.

your patronage will help us become more accessible to our communities and world by making scholarship funds, co-creative residencies, and the manifestation of our dream archival platform possible so we can truly deepen, share, and expand this work.

learn more on our Patreon page, and be sure to check out our VERY FIRST offering, a podcast interview with Sara Abdullah (of Earth Seed Holistic) and Layla K. Feghali (of River Rose Apothecary) about the backstory inspirations behind this work.

and be sure to join us on Instagram @swana.ancestral for regular updates. or, use and follow the hashtag #hub4hub to join the conversation!

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#swanaancestral #ancestralrememberance #ancestralhealing #hub4hub

*SWANA = South West Asia + North Africa, a less colonial way to address the diverse geographical region usually called Middle East + North Africa.

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Plantcestral re-Memberance for SWANA Healing
Jan
14
to Mar 18

Plantcestral re-Memberance for SWANA Healing

Copy of plantcestral rememb for swana healing 2017 fall.png

ONLINE 5-class series | January 14 - March 18, exact time TBD| $333

(**Please note: This class is reserved to persons who have native ancestry from the SWANA [aka Middle East and N. Africa] region- mixed ancestry included. Thank you for respecting this space.)

Good folks, many of you have been requesting and asking for another one of these series to come up. I haven’t offered one for a year and I’m not sure when I will again, so join us for this chance while it is here!

This extended ONLINE series is for SWANA* community to engage in embodied learning about our ancestral plants and their uses as medicinal and spiritual allies. Our ancestral plants carry the DNA of our homelands, of our ancestors, and resonate this memory with the truths that live deep inside our own bodies and hearts. We will work with this relationship to access deeply held wisdom, revitalize lost bodies of knowledge, and re-establish relationship to ourselves, our ancestors, and the resilience and medicine available through being in conscious relationship with our plantcestors. Each participant will receive a package of SWANA native plant medicines to work with through the course of our class together. Experiential relationship with the plantcestors will be emphasized and facilitated through the duration of the class.

In this class we will:
* Develop fundamental tools to work with plants as medicinal and spiritual allies
* Practice and learn tools to communicate with our medicines and our internal selves
* Engage in a process of personal healing through building relationship with plantcestral allies and witnessing each other
* Learn traditional principles and ethical practice around harvesting, medicine making, and more
* Gain & generate experiential, folk, and medicinal knowledge about several plants
* Deepen relationship with our ancestors and ourselves
* Learn how to better connect to our own internal wisdom, intuition, and the cues of the natural & spiritual worlds to support our day-to-day lives and healing
* Contribute to strengthening the knowledge and practice of our SWANA plantcestral traditions, cosmologies, and ways of knowing
* Receive a package of SWANA plantcestral medicines to work, heal, and learn with at home
* Explore and revitalize traditional ways of healing ourselves and our communities
* Take a personal journey into the plantcestral realm with the support of a safe community


MORE INFO...
- This online class is a small group and is conducted via live video conference calling, and requires LIVE ATTENDANCE and participation each class (must have access to internet/camera or audio & google hangouts to participate- can download for free). Homework will be assigned each week and participants should be prepared to spend a little time (at least 10 mins, ideally 30 mins) each day with the medicines/material in between classes.

A package of medicines will be sent to you via mail for you to work with through the course of our class.

- The foundation of this class is based on the cultivation of your own experiential personal relationship with the plantcestral allies we will be working with. This often opens up deeper healing processes. Participants must be willing and available to this process. The group and facilitator are here to support thru each step of the way. If you have any questions about this, please feel free to ask. 

Class will meet for 5 sessions from mid-January - mid-March. Exact time and dates of the class will be determined based on the group's schedule. Answer registration form questions to include your own needs, timezone, and preferences so that we can determine this ASAP please.

FEE EXCHANGE: $333 (includes all teachings plus medicine package mailed to your home to work with through the course.)

Fill out this application to register: https://goo.gl/forms/rGKFQtYN7U95HJvy1
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: The application form is a confirmation of your intention to participate in the class and MUST be submitted by December 27, 2018 with an email to me informing me of your intent to register. Since it is holiday season, I am extending the paid non-refundable deposit of $111 to January 6. But PLEASE NOTE that submitting the application form and being accepted is a COMMITMENT to following through with complete payment and participation in the class. Space is limited and I am not able to give any refunds (please reach out to me personally if you need a payment plan or an alternative arrangement).
Send registration deposit to paypal.me/riverrose (friends and family option, please).

Help us find each other: PLEASE SHARE with SWANA friends and community who would enjoy or benefit from such a circle.

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SWANA Ethnobotany Knowledge Share
Jan
10
6:00 PM18:00

SWANA Ethnobotany Knowledge Share

swana ethnobotany oakland (2).png

Oakland, CA | January 10, 6-9pm | $40

This circle will be an experiential introduction into SWANA plantcestors, welcome to all BIPOC folks who would like to learn. Thanks to the lovely Francine Madrid, who offers beautiful ancestral and womb massage, midwifery, and herbal services in the Bay Area, for hosting and inspiring this sharing. It will take place at her private residence. Address will be shared only to registered participants. Space is limited, so be sure to register ASAP if you would like to join us and share with Bay Area friends who you think might like to participate!

Email river.rose.layla@gmail.com and send $40 to paypal.me/RiverRose to register. Deadline is January 3rd.

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Plantcestors for Emotional Health
Sep
16
1:00 PM13:00

Plantcestors for Emotional Health

Plantcestors Emotional Health.png

This is one of my favorite and closest to the heart subjects. Some of y’all know I am actually trained in mental health and emotional/spiritual health from both western and traditional healing perspectives before even formally training in herbs, and trauma related healing (somatic approaches too) and all the relational healing underneath it all are what really set me on this path (esp after the movement just sayin and yeah, I still consider what I do liberation/movement work fyi, just more refined the older I get and more I integrate understanding and follow the root of what oppresses and allows us to be oppressed). I will incorporate a lot of integrated knowledge thru this offering.

In addition to getting to know some plantcestors that can help us through things like anxiety, depression and sadness, despair, and anger, it will include some important conversations about grieving, trauma, and relationship and lots more. Sheesh. We might need to make it a day long in the jabal somewhere. 

I have not decided exactly where I will conduct this workshop yet. Maybe in Beirut or maybe in Kfaraabida again, or maybe in the Jabal (if you have suggestions or know of somewhere to host, I am open to hearing them). 

Please spread the word (I posted it on IG and FB and you can share easily there or via this webpage) to anyone who may be interested in joining or may benefit from this information. And please let me know ASAP if you will join us so I can save your spot. Space will be limited. 

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Plantcestral reMembrance for SWANA Healing: ONLINE Series
Nov
6
to Dec 11

Plantcestral reMembrance for SWANA Healing: ONLINE Series

(**Please note: This class is reserved to persons who have native ancestry from the SWANA [aka Middle East and N. Africa] region- mixed ancestry included. Thank you for respecting this space.)

This extended ONLINE series is for SWANA* community to engage in embodied learning about our ancestral plants and their uses as medicinal and spiritual allies. Our ancestral plants carry the DNA of our homelands, of our ancestors, and resonate this memory with the truths that live deep inside our own bodies and hearts. We will work with this relationship to access deeply held wisdom, revitalize lost bodies of knowledge, and re-establish relationship to ourselves, our ancestors, and the resilience and medicine available through being in conscious relationship with our plantcestors. Each participant will receive a package of SWANA native plant medicines to work with through the course of our class together. Experiential relationship with the plantcestors will be emphasized and facilitated through the duration of the class.

In this class we will:
* Develop fundamental tools to work with plants as medicinal and spiritual allies
* Practice and learn tools to communicate with our medicines and our internal selves
* Engage in a process of personal healing through building relationship with plantcestral allies and witnessing each other
* Learn traditional principles and ethical practice around harvesting, medicine making, and more
* Gain & generate experiential, folk, and medicinal knowledge about several plants
* Deepen relationship with our ancestors and ourselves
* Learn how to better connect to our own internal wisdom, intuition, and the cues of the natural & spiritual worlds to support our day-to-day lives and healing
* Contribute to strengthening the knowledge and practice of our SWANA plantcestral traditions
* Receive a package of SWANA plantcestral medicines to work, heal, and learn with at home
* Explore and revitalize traditional ways of healing ourselves and our communities
* Take a personal journey into the plantcestral realm with the support of a safe community

This season will be focused on deepening resilience through our shared space together and with the plants, as well as on honoring and healing relationship to not only our SWANA ancestors, but to those of the diasporic places we live in and are nourished by daily. 

 
 

MORE INFO...
- This online class is a small group and is conducted via live video conference calling, and requires LIVE ATTENDANCE and participation each class (must have access to internet/camera or audio & google hangouts to participate- can download for free). Homework will be assigned each week and participants should be prepared to spend a little time (at least 10 mins, ideally 30 mins) each day with the medicines/material in between classes.

- A package of medicines will be sent to you via mail for you to work with through the course of our class.

- The foundation of this class is based on the cultivation of your own experiential personal relationship with the plantcestral allies we will be working with. This often opens up deeper healing processes. Participants must be willing and available to this process. The group and facilitator are their to support thru each step of the way. If you have any questions about this, please feel free to ask. 

- Class will meet for 6 Mondays from November 6 - December 11. Time of the class will be determined based on the group's schedule. Answer registration form questions to include your own needs, timezone, and preferences. Please also note if days other than Monday are preferable for you, as nothing is set in stone. 

FEE EXCHANGE: $333 (includes all teachings plus medicine package mailed to your home to work with through the course.)

Fill out this application to register: https://goo.gl/forms/204UL9BFManVgPjh1
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: October 26, 2017 Non-refundable deposit of $168 due by this date, as well as the application above. (please reach out to me personally if you need a payment plan or an alternative arrangment)
Send registration deposit to paypal.me/riverrose (friends and family option, please).

*Minimum of 7 participants, maximum of 18. No group will be larger than 9 people each.

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Plantcestral re-Membrance: Honoring our Ancestors and the Lands we Live on
Nov
1
to Nov 29

Plantcestral re-Membrance: Honoring our Ancestors and the Lands we Live on

All over the world, fall is regarded as the season of the ancestors. Veils are thin, and the energy of the earth is deepening back into the roots and seeds where life originates from. It is my FAVORITE season, and taking cues from the natural world, it is an excellent time to deepen and nourish our OWN roots and origins as well. 

In this series, we will partner intentionally with native and ancestral plants to cultivate resilience, deepen relationship, and nourish healing for ourselves, our lineages, and the Tongva lands that nourish us daily. We will engage in an introductory practice of "Plantcestral re-Membrance", an honoring way of building relationships with our plant allies to support us as agents of memory, healing, and consciousness connecting us to the wisdom and resilience of our ancestors still alive inside of us. 

In this series, we will:
* Honor and acknowledge our ancestors and the ones whose land we are living on (we will offer an altar on our first day of class, the same week as Dia de los Muertos)
* Tend and deepen relationship with both Tongva & ancestral plants respective to our own lineage
* Learn how to be in respectful relationship with plants as medicinal and spiritual allies
* Learn how to work with plants as allies for ancestral healing and memory
* Deepen our intuition and honor the knowledge within our own bodies & relationships
* Learn and share with each other about a few medicinal plants
* Start to identify plantcestral allies to support our own resilience
* Engage these healing practices in a community of support

 
 

DATES:

This is a 3 class series which will take place in Los Angeles, CA on Wed Nov 1, 15, and 29 from 6-9pm. Participants commit to coming to every class and participating in the material in between. 


REGISTER:
$159 for full series, all materials included.
Must send an email to river.rose.layla@gmail.com plus deposit of $59 by OCTOBER 27th to secure your spot. Send payment via friend/family option to paypal.me/riverrose.
Remaining $100 due before the start of first class. 

(If you need an alternative payment plan or other arrangement, talk to me privately.)

Only 15 spaces available. 

WHO:
This class is open to respectful people of ALL ETHNICITIES. 

ALL River Rose classes are queer and trans inclusive and uplift the experiences of indigenous, femme, and POC communities and ways of knowing and being. 

ACCESSIBILITY:
Accessibility info and other space related details will be announced later. They are still in the works.

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Plantcestors for Immune Support, LEBANON
Sep
3
12:00 PM12:00

Plantcestors for Immune Support, LEBANON

The struggle is real. Trash problems, water contamination, and pollution are causing serious illness left and right- to both ourselves and our environment and homes. Increased rates of cancer, bacterial infections, auto-immune illnesses, heavy metal toxicity, allergies, and weakened immunity in general. We need to know how to protect, strengthen, and heal ourselves and our families on a day-to-day basis. Good thing is, we are literally SURROUNDED with natural anti-bacterial, immune strengthening, and even cancer preventative, healing plants and medicines.  We will work in collaboration with these abundant plant medicines to explore healing remedies that can benefit both us and our local environment. 

***

This workshop is dedicated to equipping the people residing in Lebanon with an introduction to accessible, practical information and locally available herbal and nutritional remedies for strengthening and protecting our immunity in the face of increasing toxicity in our environments. We will start building relationships with a few local plantcestors (aka. herbal medicines) that can help us with this, and we will collectively prepare a remedy to help protect ourselves and our families and loved ones through the fall and winter and year round. We will learn some of the foundational principles of working with plants as medicine and how to approach this partnership in a respectful and sustainable way. We will learn and practice a technique for getting to know the plants that surround us every day and how they can be allies to our health and well being of body and spirit alike. As we consider the toxicity being caused to our bodies, we will conduct this workshop with utmost respect and reciprocity to our local environment which is also under attack, learning to heal this relationship through our work with the plants as medicinal allies. 

DATE/TIME: Sunday, September 3, 2017, 12-3 PM

LOCATION: Batroun Area (you will be given the specific location upon registration)

REGISTRATION: If you would like to participate in this workshop, please email river.rose.layla@gmail.com to register. 

FEE: $33 USD/ 50,000 LL (nobody turned away for lack of funds, just let me know when you register if you need a scholarship or other arrangement)

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SWANA Plantcestral reMembrance: Half-day Intensive (SF BAY AREA)
Jan
28
4:30 PM16:30

SWANA Plantcestral reMembrance: Half-day Intensive (SF BAY AREA)

(**Please note: This class is reserved to persons who have native ancestry from the SWANA [aka Middle East and North Africa] region. A broader report-back is listed below and welcomes all participants of all ancestry. Thank you!)

This circle will be dedicated to sharing, experiencing, and deepening with some of the medicines cultivated through my Homeward Healing journey of the past 9 months through the SWANA region. We will work with vibrational essences of sacred sites, flower essences, plant medicines, and other sharing from my journey in an intimate circle honoring our SWANA homelands and lineages.

Must register by January 15, 2017. 
Exchange: $55-$99 sliding scale, 30% off for Elders (52+)

 

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Plantcestral reMembrance for SWANA Healing: ONLINE Series Winter-Spring 2017
Jan
24
to Apr 22

Plantcestral reMembrance for SWANA Healing: ONLINE Series Winter-Spring 2017

(**Please note: This class is reserved to persons who have native ancestry from the SWANA [aka Middle East and N. Africa] region- mixed ancestry included. Thank you for respecting this space.)

This extended ONLINE series is for SWANA* community to engage in embodied learning about our ancestral plants and their uses as medicinal and spiritual allies.  Our ancestral plants carry the DNA of our homelands, of our ancestors, and resonate this memory with the truths that live deep inside our own bodies and hearts. We will work with this relationship to access deeply held wisdom, revitalize lost bodies of knowledge, and re-establish relationship to ourselves, our ancestors, and the resilience and medicine available through being in conscious relationship with our plantcestors.  Each participant will receive a package of SWANA native plant medicines to work with through the course of our class together. Experiential relationship with the plantcestors will be emphasized and facilitated through the duration of the class.

In this class we will:
* Develop the fundamental tools to work with plants as medicinal and spiritual allies
* Practice and learn tools to communicate with our medicines
* Learn traditional principles and ethical practice around harvesting, medicine making, and more
* Gain & generate experiential, folk, and medicinal knowledge about several plants native to the SWANA region
* Deepen relationship with our ancestors and ourselves
* Learn how to better connect to our own internal wisdom, intuition, and the cues of the natural & spiritual worlds to support our day-to-day lives and healing
* Learn to make medicine
* Contribute to strengthening the knowledge and practice of our SWANA plantcestral traditions
* Receive a package of SWANA plantcestral medicines to work, heal, and learn with at home
* Explore and revitalize traditional ways of healing ourselves and our communities
* Take a personal journey into the plantcestral realm with the support of a safe community

MORE INFO...
- This online class is a small group and is conducted via live video conference calling, and requires live attendance and participation each class (must have access to internet/camera or audio & google hangouts to participate- can download for free). Homework will be assigned each week and participants should be prepared to spend a little time (at least 10 mins, ideally 30 mins) each day with the medicines/material in between classes.

- A package of medicines will be sent to you via mail for you to work with through the course of our class.

- Class will meet every other Tuesday through March and on one SATURDAY in April (special timing for this class listed below). Time of Tuesday classes will be 5:30-8pm PST/ 8:30-11pm EST:
Tues, January 24
Tues, February 7
Tues, February 21
Tues, March 7
Tues, March 21

* During this 1 month break, participants will engage in an intensive relationship building process with 1 plant. I will offer guidance and support via short video and online teachings, as well as be available for 1-on-1 support on the assignment through this time. 
Saturday, April 22, 10:30am-1:30pm PST/ 1:30pm-4:30pm EST

FEE EXCHANGE: $333 (includes all teachings plus medicine package mailed to your home to work with through the course.)

Fill out this application to register.
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: January 3, 2017 Non-refundable deposit of $168 due by this date, as well as the application above.
Send registration deposit to cash.me/$RiverRose.

*Minimum of 7 participants needed, maximum of 9 to make this class possible.

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SWANA Ancestral Medicine Workshop
Jan
5
to Feb 1

SWANA Ancestral Medicine Workshop

This workshop is dedicated to experiencing vibrational remedies & stories/teachings of select plantcestors, ancient sites, and flower essences collected during my Homeward Healing journey through the SWANA* region (*South West Asia & N. Africa, colonially referred to as the Middle East and North Africa). It will be a medicine honoring of SWANA ancestral legacies, and an offering to my communities to share in the medicinal vibrations and wisdom of some of the sacred places & plants that I was acquainted with. *It is open to all persons of all ancestral backgrounds.*

DATES & LOCATION:

Los Angeles - Thur, Jan 5, 6:30-9:30pm
Oakland - Tues, Jan 31, 6:30-9:30pm

Exact locations will be announced upon registration.

Email river.rose.layla@gmail.com ASAP to sign up.
Space is limited to 20 people.

EXCHANGE:   $44, Elders (52+) get 50% off

15% of all profits will go to Standing Rock. 

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Homeward Healing Report-back & Storytelling
Dec
29
to Jan 29

Homeward Healing Report-back & Storytelling

Late December in San Diego, CA  (exact location & date TBA. Email river.rose.layla@gmail.com if you would like to join/get more details.)
Sunday, January 29, 6:30-9pm, Oakland, CA (exact location TBA. Check FB event page or email me to stay posted on updates.)

This will be an intimate space to share some reflections about my recent 9 month Homeward Healing journey to reconnect to the ancestral wisdom that lives in the lands of the SWANA region where my own people originate from (SWANA= South West Asia and North Africa/ a less colonial way to refer to the region typically described as the Middle East and North Africa).  It will be a spirited and organic sharing over SWANA tea, and perhaps even around a fire if we can manage that :), to tell stories and share a lil bit of the medicine that I made/gathered along the way and answer any questions and reflections that come up. 

*I will be accepting donations to help recover from some of the financial expenses of the trip and support ongoing work in this area going forward. I will also have my SWANA book and some other medicine offerings for sale. If you would like to purchase or contribute, please come prepared with cash <3.* 

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AIR: Blooming into Spring - Flower medicines to heal the consciousness & spirit
Mar
19
11:00 AM11:00

AIR: Blooming into Spring - Flower medicines to heal the consciousness & spirit

Details: 
This is part 3 of our 4 part yearly series. The 4 parts are as follows: 
1- (Fall) CENTER: Building relationships with our Plantcestors & Ancestors, and... 
EARTH: Fall transitions - Healing the nervous system, recovering from stress, anxiety, & trauma
2- (Winter) WATER: Navigating Winter’s Underworld- Easing grief & sadness
3- (Spring) AIR: Blooming into Spring - Flower medicines to heal the consciousness & spirit
4- (Summer) FIRE: Summer vitality - Following our purpose, honoring our creativity

On the weekend of the Spring Equinox, we will honor the energies of this transition by working with flower medicines! Some of my FAVORITE of all. Flower essences are powerful water based medicines which work at the vibrational level to support deep healing. Want to learn more about them? You can read here

Flowers have been used for healing and ritual all over the world for thousands of years. We will learn how to make flower essences, learn what they are used for, a bit about their history, and engage in a group healing process of community with the flower realm to make a healing essence together and understand how to connect with its medicine. This day-long intensive will be in an outdoor park working with the energies and plants of the Chumash and Tongva lands we live on. Entering the magic of the flower realm together is always a very beautiful experience. You will all take home the flower essence(s) we make together. 

Location: 
A natural outdoor area in Los Angeles (exact address TBA at registration)

Registration: 
Email river.rose.layla@gmail.com to register & complete payment before
March 2. 

Exchange: 
Before Feb 24 - $111
After Feb 24 - $135
As a package with the WATER workshop by Feb 24 - $150/ $185 after the 20th. (WATER workshop link)
(All medicine making materials included.)

* This is a QT/QTPOC/POC affirmative space.*

ACCESSIBILITY INFO:
* Location is still to be determined, and it will be in an outdoor area in L.A. and will likely involve some light hiking.
* Some of the plant medicines we are working with may have strong scents including the smudging aromatic plants at the begining of our class.
* If you have a disability and require a specific accomodation in order to participate, please feel free to reach out to me personally and we can work together to make it possible for you best I can!

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WATER: Healing Drought, Easing Grief & Sadness
Mar
17
6:30 PM18:30

WATER: Healing Drought, Easing Grief & Sadness

If you are a Facebook user, feel free to "join" our event page so you can receive more regular updates about this class. 

Details: This is part 2 of our 4 part yearly series. The 4 parts are as follows: 
1- (Fall) CENTER: Building relationships with our Plantcestors & Ancestors, and... 
EARTH: Fall transitions - Healing the nervous system, recovering from stress, anxiety, & trauma
2- (Winter) WATER: Navigating Winter’s Underworld- Easing grief & sadness
3- (Spring) AIR: Blooming into Spring - Flower medicines to heal the consciousness & spirit
4- (Summer) FIRE: Summer vitality - Following our purpose, honoring our creativity

This workshop will explore plantcestral medicines and the element Water as allies to support us in moving through grief, sadness, and other related emotional states. Whether it is loss of loved ones, loss of homeland, or loss of a part of ourself that we are shedding as we make a major change in our lives, grief is a universal aspect of our human experience. These letting go's are sacred transitions that we will explore with the help of our plantcestors and the element Water. We will also be exploring the spiritual and energetic conditions of drought that affect us inside-out, and work with medicines that can help us flow with greater harmony to address it, also related to the themes above. Water is an element that teaches us about reflection, emotions, purification, nourishment, and dreams and we will build with plantcestors that can support us in some of these areas. We will make medicine together to take home.

**This workshop flows perfectly into the AIR workshop focused on flower essences (described in detail below), which are water based medicines that we use to heal our consciousness and spirits. Participants have the option to take these classes as a package or individually.**

Location: 
Los Angeles area (exact address TBA at registration)

Registration: 
Email river.rose.layla@gmail.com to register & complete payment before Mar 2. We need a minimum of 5 participants and a max of 15 to do this workshop. 

Exchange: 
Before Feb 24 - $55
After Feb 24 - $65
As a package with the AIR workshop by Feb 24 - $150/ $185 after the 20th. (AIR workshop link)
(All medicine making materials included) 

* This is a QT/QTPOC/POC affirmative space.*

ACCESSIBILITY INFO:
* Location is still to be determined. Will confirm if it is wheelchair accessible as soon as more details are known.
* Some of the plant medicines we are working with may have strong scents including the potential use of essential oils in our medicine making portion, as well as smudging aromatic plants at the begining of our class.
* If you have a disability and require a specific accomodation in order to participate, please feel free to reach out to me personally and we can work together to make it possible for you best I can!

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LEARN Coffee Cup Divination &amp; SWANA Medicinal plants: Love is in the Homeland
Mar
8
to Jul 1

LEARN Coffee Cup Divination & SWANA Medicinal plants: Love is in the Homeland

SHARE! JOIN! SUPPORT! In a time where the ancestral sites, traditional communities, and historical heritage of the SWANA region (aka. Middle East & N. Africa) is being actively attacked and desecrated, support me in recovering ancestral & plantcestral wisdom towards the affirmation of LIFE in our lands and communities.

Updates from my SWANA ancestral healing journeys, August 2016.

My big news and my FUN offerings to support fundraising to make this important journey possible. Please SHARE and please JOIN US!

Below, you will find details about 3 DONATION BASED ONLINE OFFERINGS this Spring to support my Embodied Research trip to the SWANA* (aka. Middle East & N. Africa) region to invest in #plantcestral and #ancestral re-membrance work which I have been cultivating for the past decade and sharing with you all through River Rose and the نجمع جذورنا -reGather our Ancestors project this past couple of years. 

Support me to fulfill my role and commitment to my communities in a time where restorative and healing practice is so greatly needed!This work reconnects us to the resilient, life-affirming wisdom and ancestral practices which have the power to restore, protect, and maintain the integrity of life and an order of justice in our region. The SWANA lands are increasingly under attack and our ancient traditions, sacred sites, and our indigenous ethnic communities are being especially targeted right now and need urgent attention. Please help me do my humble yet significant part in recovering, preserving, and uplifting these important cultural legacies of wisdom, especially in light of this critical time.

Through my research will be engaging and re-membering knowledge on SWANA:

1) Ethnobotany (the traditional knowledge and customs of a people concerning plants and their medical, sacred, folkloric, and other uses)

2) Cultural Preservation (including ecological and plant conservation, as well as historical & sacred sites)
3) Traditional Healing Practices (emphasis on spiritual and ceremonial healing traditions)
4) Indigenous History, Cosmologies, and Traditions 

I need to raise $9,999 to make this possible. (UPDATE: I managed to get the first $5,555 together in the spring, and the fundraiser is still open for more contributions!)

*SWANA means South West Asia and North Africa, a less colonial way to refer to the region usually called the Middle East and North Africa.

 

THE OFFERINGS:

1) AVAILABLE NOW! * "Love is in the Homeland: SWANA Plantcestors for Healing and Re-Membrance", a 20 page digital book featuring medicinal profiles, remedies, and recipes of 5 accessible and powerful SWANA plantcestors, as well as tips and reflections on how to do ancestral re-claimation and re-membrance work. It is full of photos and practical and spiritual info for supporting our health of body and soul in an every day way, all compiled and written by me and with a special SWANA flavor.

TO ORDER THIS BOOK: Send your donation to paypal (International participants can pay here instead) and then email river.rose.layla@gmail.com with the following information:
1) Your name
2) Specify if you would like an online or printed copy
3) Your address (if you want a printed copy)

SUGGESTED DONATION:
$22-$222, online version
$44-$444, printed version

2) AVAILABLE NOW!
* Love is in the Homeland: SWANA traditions of Coffee Cup Divination.  In this 1.5 hour online class, my Egyptian sister, Emanne Desouky and my Turkish sister, Emel Orhun join me to teach about the lovely plantcestor, coffee, share the ritual of preparation that our own families and traditions use, and then do a mini reading together where we teach some of the primary symbols and meanings in the cups per the tradition of our own family's and knowledge from the region, and offer tips and wisdom about how to read the cups and honor what it is telling you. It is a fun and informative class that will empower you to start preparing and interpreting the wisdom and symbols in your own coffee cup and path in general. There is also a recording of a q&a session that was live by me and Emel, and a comment/question board that is open to all registered participants for engagement and reflections indefinitely!

~ This class is open to ALL people, regardless of ancestry and location. ~

TO ENROLL: Send an email to river.rose.layla@gmail.com & send payment to Paypal. (International participants can pay here instead.)  
SUGGESTED DONATION: $33-$555

3) AVAILABLE NOW!
* Love is in the Homeland: Food is Medicine: Traditional Lebanese Recipes with common Medicinal "Weeds"
This 1 hr 20 minute long class features more SWANA medicine, including a special culinary practice with my very own family! It starts with a walk through my Maternal Teta's (grandmother's) garden to learn about her medicinal herbs, including many that commonly grow in North America and the SWANA region alike, and then a step-by-step recipe preparation with my grandma herself using very medicinal extremely common medicinal herbs that you can use for nutritious simple meal for your own family at home! Some other traditional Lebanese recipes with these common "weeds" and others will also be stated throughout the class teachings, as well as a comment/q&a board that is available for discussion for all registered participants indefinitely! One thing I LOVE about this class is that it offers ideas about how to work with common "invasive weeds" that we pull from our gardens all the time in a way that honors their medicine, blesses our tummies, and does the service of removing them so that more space can be claimed by our native plants that are so important to our local ecologies and ecosystems! It also offers the insight into a very uncommon extremely traditional recipe made by my grandma in her Southern Lebanese village throughout her childhood. 

~ This class is open to ALL people, regardless of ancestry and location. ~

TO ENROLL: Send an email to river.rose.layla@gmail.com & send payment to Paypal. (International participants can pay here instead.)  
SUGGESTED DONATION: $33-$555

---------------------------
SOME OTHER WAYS TO SUPPORT me in fulfilling my call to my ancestral lands this Spring...
* Participate in the special offerings I am making this season (listed above) or simply donate to my funds at Paypal.
* SHARE MY OFFERINGS & NEWS! This would be a GREAT help to get the word out about my project and my fundraiser and to acquire more support and connect to more of my kin in this world. I would love for as many people as possible to attend my online offerings and experience my "Love is in the Homeland" book this season!
* Send me any info regarding grants, scholarships, private sponsors, or other funding sources that you think would align with my work. Some areas might be cultural preservation, traditional arts, traditional healing, or something else. Or private sponsors you know perhaps who are invested or interested in this topic. SHARE this work with any of these sources please, or people who you think are invested in this work and have funds to allocate towards it!
* Put me in touch with any ally you know in the SWANA region who you think may be able to host me or help me find a place to stay, help me navigate my trip in their country, take me on a visit somewhere special, has interest in herbs, sacred sites or traditional culture, knows their village or land really well, is an elder who practices their traditional culture or knows a lot about it, historians, mystics, fortune tellers, midwives, traditional healers, traditional dancers or musicians, dreamers, elders, plant lovers, kind people, or anyone you know in the SWANA region who you think would be interested in my project or might be a good friend or ally to me along the way, or wants to adopt me as a grandkid :). Especially if you know folks in: Jordan, Egypt, Oman, Iran, Armenia, Palestine, or Lebanon. THANK YOU!
* Transfer any abundance of frequent flier miles to me.
* Follow and share my work often while I am away and as I share my offerings and work on raising funds this season! Staying tuned while I'm away is going to be so important for me especially as I am sure I will have things to share with you all from my journey, and also will continue needing your support to fulfill it.

*SWANA means South West Asia and North Africa, a less colonial way to refer to the region usually called the Middle East and North Africa.

ALSO, **please SHARE this work if it moves you**. Tell us in your sharing post: why is the work of ancestral reclamation or plantcestral medicine important to you? Why invest in #intergenerationalhealing and #traditionalwisdoms of our earth-based ancestors? How has this work touched or inspired you? Or any other personal testimonials you may have to offer.

DON'T WANNA PARTICIPATE IN THESE OFFERINGS BUT WOULD LIKE TO CONTRIBUTE ANYWAYS? No problem. Donations can be made here. (But you might as well participate in one of the lovely offerings above! Consider it my thank you :) ):

 

These offerings come from my heart and are offered with a lot of love to share a bit of my magical SWANA world with you and welcome you along my journey of making this trip possible, and experiencing just a little personal piece of why it is so special and close to my heart. I hope to continue making such offerings from the SWANA region if the circumstances permit me to do so! Please share this work, accept my offerings, and contribute as much as your abundant heart feels compelled and able to support me in acquiring the funds needed for me to fulfill this profoundly important spiritual calling for myself and by extension, my family and community. Please invest in the survival and flourishment of the life-giving and sacred traditions of the SWANA region in an era of time and context where it is being so fiercely suppressed and attacked, and has been for generations now largely neglected and hidden. Please support me in playing my humble role in this process of ancestral reclamation, healing, and re-membrance in a sacred way that I hope will contribute to our collective liberation and justice as original people of this beautiful earth we are all co-habitating. Please support me in preserving and uplifting the traditions of life-affirming SWANA ways and the sacred origins that we all in fact come from. We are people made of resilience, love, and soul, and these traditions are at the very pulse of what has sustained us despite all circumstances even as they have laid underground for so many of us. Please support me in uplifting this beautiful truth and strengthening/resurrecting these ancient medicine ways that have great power to bless the lives, lands, and spirits of my SWANA kindred in the homeland and diaspora and beyond, inshallah towards ever-multiplying expressions of life, culture, and day-to-day realities based in self-determination and LOVE for not just us, but all the life-affirming people of this planet. Please support me to fulfill my sacred purpose. THANK YOU! Your support means the world to me. 

I am deeply grateful for all your generosity and love. ♥

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Ancestral Herbal Medicine Intensive Workshop, in Chiapas, Mexico
Feb
12
to Feb 21

Ancestral Herbal Medicine Intensive Workshop, in Chiapas, Mexico

If you are a Facebook user, feel free to "join" our event page for more regular updates on this special workshop. 

River Rose Apothecary is greatly honored to be working in collaboration with Nichim Otanil to share & uplift the indigenous medicine knowledge and land vision of Dona Lucia Perez Santiz!

Come join us in a unique opportunity to learn directly from Maya-Tzeltal traditional herbalist & curandera Doña Lucía Pérez Sántiz in the highlands of Chiapas, México. 

In this week-long herbal intensive workshop we will explore:
- Herbalism & holistic health from a Mayan cosmological tradition
-Ancestral healing & traditional practices for individual healing & self care
-A unique materia medica of plants used in Mexican curanderisimo along with many other common plants to heal the body, emotions & spirit
-Taught in Spanish with an English translator, inclusive to all who want to learn

This trip is designed for all people who want to deepen their healing practices, whether they are ancestral, alternative and or mainstream practices with a holistic perspective. The main purpose is to provide support, healing, restoration to the body, mind and spirit while offering the opportunity to enhance skills in the healing arts and wellness work focusing on the ancient healing techniques.

THE TEACHER:
Doña Lucía Pérez Sántiz comes from a long lineage of traditional healers in Chiapas. She began her herbal training as a young girl, with her great-grandfather who lived to be 120 years old. She has treated many people in her community & has over 30 years of teaching experience. In March of 2015 the herbal school and healing center Nichim Otanil was inaugurated as a way to bring Dona Lucia’s healing wisdom into the community with greater accessibility and autonomy. Nichim Otanil translates to “flower of the heart” from her native language Tzeltal, and conveys Dona Lucia’s philosophy and belief that all healing starts with a flowering of love from the heart. We are very proud to extend her wisdom to the international and bi-cultural community via this unique bilingual course. 

THE VISION!
Your participation in this course will support Dona Lucia’s larger vision to eventually gain access to land in order to cultivate medicine for her community the way her great grandfather did, thus supporting indigenous wisdom to stay connected to ancestral lands. Indigenous access to land is a very necessary component for the radical preservation of ancestral wisdom in the unfortunate context of gentrification and land disposition of indigenous peoples. Your support & participation will ensure that this ancient knowledge may continue to be passed on to future generations and serve her local community. 


APPLICATION & REGISTRATION:
To apply, fill out this application form, and send an email to nichimotanil@gmail.com to confirm when you have completed it.

Once you have been accepted to the course, we will arrange PayPal course payments according to the following registration deadlines:

Standard Course Fee:

* $950 paid in full by February 1, 2015  

A $400 non-refundable deposit paid by January 6, 2016 will secure your enrollment and will go towards your course payment.

Early-Bird Specials:

**$825 if paid in full by December 22, 2015**

**$875 if paid in full by January 6, 2016**

Admission to the course is on a first come first serve basis for those who have paid their deposit. The course will be held with a minimum of 5 students and is limited to a maximum of 15 students.

* Course fees do not include travel or accommodations. *


TRAVEL:
If you think you are interested in participating in this course, we highly encourage that you start to look for airfare as soon as possible for best deals. Frequent flier miles are also an excellent option if you have access to them.

The nearest airport is in Tuxtla de Gutiérrez, which is about an hour from San Cristóbal de las Casas and airport shuttles leave frequently from the airport to San Cristobal. 

You may also choose to fly into Mexico City, and take a bus to San Cristóbal, just keep in mind that it is about a 14 hour bus ride, and first class or tourist class bus tickets cost almost as much as a plane to Tuxtla. 

ACCOMMODATIONS:
There are many hostels, hotels and bed and breakfasts in San Cristóbal to choose from that range in prices. Participants will be responsible to arrange their own accommodations. We will send a list of recommended places upon registration to get you started, but there are countless other options beyond our list as San Cristóbal is a popular destination for Mexican and international tourism. That being said, it will be a good idea to reserve a place in advance. The school Nichim Otanil is centrally located at the intersection of Calle Diego Dugelay & Calle Francisco Leon, which is a block from the main foot-traffic walkway Andador Real de Guadalupe. We will have a mid-day breaks each day where you will have time to explore San Cristóbal by foot or taxi. 

San Cristóbal de las Casas is a lovely mountainous town with a very rich local indigenous history, and is a popular destination for many people who visit from all over the world. In the winter, which is the dry season in Chiapas, days can be quite sunny, while nights are cold & chilly due to the elevation (6, 500” above sea level). So be sure to pack with layers & warm cloths to bundle up with at night. You will also find beautiful wool handmade textiles & garments in the local markets if you choose to support local artisans for some of those layers.

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Building Relationships with our Plantcestors: Foundations class
Feb
2
6:30 PM18:30

Building Relationships with our Plantcestors: Foundations class

*If you are a FB user, feel free to "join" the event page to get frequent updates about the status of this class.

This course explores how to work with plants as medicine. We focus on the importance of *building relationship* with the plantcestral world as (aspiring) herbalists, and cover foundational traditional principles as well as helpful techniques and approaches to kindle and deepen our exploration of the plantcestral world. We will do a couple of plant meditations as well as explore the ethics of sustainability while relating to our plants, particularly in their natural environments which are increasingly threatened by climate change, development, and pollution. You will walk away with some helpful tools, techniques, and guidelines to develop deeper relationships with plants as medicinal allies, to understand the communication of the natural and spiritual worlds, as well as practical ways to respect and walk in greater harmony with the natural world. You will also get to know a couple lovely plants along the way ;). 

*PLEASE NOTE: If you have not already taken a River Rose series, this class is a REQUIRED pre-requisite for the WATER class, and for all seasons of classes in the yearly elemental series. It will be offered quarterly. 

Location: Los Angeles, CA (exact address TBA at registration)   

Registration: Email river.rose.layla@gmail.com to register & pay by Jan 20.

Tuition: $40

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SWANA Plantcestral reMembrance: Exploring Plantcestors of our Cosmologies, Folklore, and "Magic"
Jan
11
to Feb 8

SWANA Plantcestral reMembrance: Exploring Plantcestors of our Cosmologies, Folklore, and "Magic"

If you are a Facebook user, feel free to "join" our event page for frequent updates about this workshop. 

*Please note: this class is a SWANA* community space. We ask that non-SWANA allies support by sharing it with SWANA friends and by donating to our scholarship fund if you feel called to! (*SWANA is a less Euro-centric term to identify the region commonly known as the Middle East and North Africa and its native people.*
 

DESCRIPTION:
This season, we will explore a handful of plants that are significant in our ancestor's cosmologies, folklore, and "magical" practice. Our ancestral plants carry the memory and wisdom of our ancestral homeland, resonating with the deepest essence of our own bodies and spirits. This series will be a journey to reconnect with our SWANA ancestral plants through experiential learning & collective sharing. It will offer a structure with guided activities and knowledge about how to deepen relationship with plants as medicine, a journey of relationship building with a small group of SWANA medicinal plants which carry significance in our ancestors cosmologies, folklore, and "magical" practice, hands on work with the plants on your own in between our meetings, shared knowledge about the medicinal values, some basic medicine making techniques, group plant meditations, dreaming with plants, and a group exploration of the relevant cosmological stories and folkloric oral wisdom associated with the plants we are exploring. Each participant will receive a package of plants to work with from home. 

Your participation in engaging the plantcestors and the stories together in class and in between meetings is truly what will make this circle most profound, so please come ready to be present and pro-active in co-creating this space. It is not normal "school" :) talking, feeling, sharing, will be as important as listening.

LOCATION:
ONLINE class (SWANA* only, please). We will be meeting via conference on Google+. 

*Your live attendance is required and expected for each class.* Classes will not be recorded. There is also homework that will require you to spend at least 5 minutes per day (the more time the better) with each plant we are working with and other suggested activities.

* SWANA is a less Euro-centric term to identify the region commonly known as the Middle East and North Africa and its native people. 

DATES & TIMES:

We will meet on 4 Monday evenings from Jan-Feb
from 5:20-8:20 PM PST/ 8:20-11:20 PM EST
Jan 11
Jan 18 (note that there is a 2 week break between these 2 classes only)
Feb 1
Feb 8

REGISTRATION:
Must register & complete payment by Mon, Dec 28. 

Fill out this application to register for this class: http://goo.gl/forms/IFmFUuncK7

Once your application is accepted, you will be sent an email with instructions on how to complete payment. All these steps must be complete before Dec 28 in order to participate. Please apply as early as possible to ensure this can happen smoothly. 

*There are only 9 spaces for this class, and a 5 person minimum to ensure it can happen.

TUITION:
$195 - $222 sliding scale** ($36-$43/live class + $50 for herbal package and shipping) {read below re: scholarship. please contact me directly for more info.}

**A note on sliding scale: I do this to make it as accessible as possible to as much community as possible. However, please consider that in order for me to dedicate myself to this work, I rely on community support. If you are able to pay the top of the sliding scale without creating a hardship in your day-to-day life, please do so. This will allow me to create possibility for those in our community who cannot afford the bottom of the sliding scale, making it a richer experience for us all. 

For each 3 people who sign up within the sliding-scale rate, I will be offering a greatly reduced scholarship fee to 1 community member who needs assistance financially to participate. This will allow for 3 scholarship positions in a full class, thanks to your help!

WANNA SUPPORT US?
- Share with your SWANA communities, networks and friends!
- Donate to our scholarship fund! Send donations via PayPal to river.rose.layla@gmail.com with a note saying "SWANA love scholarship fund" ♥.

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Plantcestral Allies for Self-Healing, (FALL series)
Oct
18
to Dec 6

Plantcestral Allies for Self-Healing, (FALL series)

  • Mid-city, Los Angeles, CA (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Part 1 of a 4 part year long series- (FALL)

Starting at the CENTER: Building relationships with our Plantcestors & Ancestors

     - Sunday, Oct 18, 3-6 pm
     - Sunday, Nov 1, 3-7 pm (Day of the Dead *special class with potluck after*)

EARTH: Fall transitions - Healing the nervous system, recovering from stress, anxiety, & trauma

     - Sunday, Nov 22, 3-6 pm
     - Sunday, Dec 6, 3-6 pm
 

Parts 2-4 of this series are as follows… Details, registration, and dates will be announced for each season separately:

Part 2- WATER: Navigating Winter’s Underworld- Easing grief & sadness

Part 3- AIR: Blooming into Spring - Flower medicines to heal the consciousness & spirit

Part 4- FIRE: Summer vitality - Following our purpose, honoring our creativity


WHAT:
This is Part 1 of a year long series that shares foundational tools and earth-based knowledge to facilitate relationship building with the abundant medicine of the natural and plantcestral* worlds. These relationships are the key to cultivating self-healing and self-development that is resonant, authentic, and foundational to deep healing. We will work with plantcestors as medicine to address specific themes with a natural affinity to each element and season, and will also explore the healing capacity of the elements themselves in helping us address these particular themes of healing. Through embodied experience with plants, medicine making, the elements, our bodies, and an exploration other relevant traditional healing methodologies, we will empower and re-member our own personal ways of communicating and relating to the natural, spiritual, and plantcestral realms for our own healing. We will learn from each other as we learn about ourselves, with the masterful help of our sacred allies and their particular lessons and teachings for each of us respectively, as well as through each other’s reflections and shared wisdom.

In Part 1 of this series, we will:

  • learn the foundations of building relationship with plants as medicine for the body and spirit
  • develop personal relationships with plants that allow us to deepen and rekindle kinship to our own ancestors and their healing support
  • take personal journeys with plantcestral allies that can facilitate our profound healing
  • learn about plant medicines utilized to address anxiety, stress, and trauma and how to prepare them
  • explore the sacred and healing qualities of the earth element and how to understand it for our healing
  • develop understanding of how the spiritual and natural world communicates with us personally
  • make medicine together to take home for personal use
  • learn in the context of a safe community in a sacred space with social justice values

WHO:
This class is open to anyone who would like to participate. This original series was designed in response to the traumas and healing needs expressed by the Arab community in a time of strife. It is taught through a lens that especially attunes to the needs, challenges, and histories of communities of color. I STRONGLY encourage and welcome QTPOC, WOC, and POC to come to this class and reclaim connection to our self-determined and traditional earth-based ways of healing. This class was truly designed with this intention in mind. 

PAYMENT & REGISTRATION:

$200, including all materials & herbs ($50/class) 

To register, email river.rose.layla@gmail.com with a $100 deposit by Oct. 6th (payment arranged over email). Remainder of all fees due by Oct 18th, unless arranged otherwise.

Early bird special $185 if you register and pay in full by October 6th.


WHERE:
This series will take place in Mid-city, Los Angeles, CA. Specific address will be shared upon registration. 

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Plantcestral reMembrance for SWANA Healing *extended ONLINE series*
Oct
8
to Dec 3

Plantcestral reMembrance for SWANA Healing *extended ONLINE series*

This 5 class ONLINE series is for SWANA* community to engage in embodied learning about our ancestral plants and their uses as medicinal and spiritual allies.  Our ancestral plants carry the DNA of our homelands, of our ancestors, and resonate this memory with the truths that live deep inside our own bodies and hearts. We will work with this relationship to access deeply held wisdom, revitalize lost bodies of knowledge, and re-establish relationship to ourselves, our ancestors, and the resilience and medicine available through being in conscious relationship with the natural and spiritual worlds.  Each participant will receive a package of SWANA native plant medicines to work with through the course of our class.

To all the diasporic folk who wished to be in our Bay Area class a few months ago, THIS ONLINE SERIES WAS CREATED FOR YOU!

 WHAT:

In this class we will:

* Develop the fundamental tools to work with plants as medicinal and spiritual allies

* Gain & generate knowledge about medicinal plants native to the SWANA region

* Deepen relationship with our ancestors

* Connect to our own internal wisdom, intuition, and the cues of the natural world to support our day-to-day lives and healing

* Connect to and honor our ancestral lands (even from the diaspora!)

* Receive a package of SWANA plantcestral medicines to work, heal, and learn with at home

* Explore and revitalize traditional ways of healing ourselves and our communities

* Take a personal journey into the plantcestral and ancestral realms with the support of a safe community

WHO:

**Please note- this class is for people with *native ancestry* from the SWANA (aka. Middle East and North Africa) region only.** Other classes dedicated to similar themes are offered by River Rose throughout the year to broader audiences. Thank you for respecting this space.

WHEN:

Every other Thursday for the Fall season. Times will be determined based on the group’s needs and time zones (fill out the registration to apply).

Days of meeting:

October 8, October 22, November 5, November 19, December 3

These are NOT pre-recorded classes. Please plan to be present via video conference call on Google video for all of the sessions. The class will accommodate a maximum of 13 people.

We will also have a private email list/forum in which we will correspond, support one another, and share in between classes in order to deepen our education through these 10 weeks, and Layla will be available for personal support throughout.
  
REGISTRATION & PAYMENT:

$333 Total + Cost of Shipping
(TBD based on your location):

$225 for 5 classes ($45/ 3hr class)+
$108 for SWANA plantcestral medicine package

Register by filling out this brief application form and emailing it back to river.rose.layla@gmail.com with a $158 deposit (plus shipping cost TBD at registration) by Sept. 28th. This is the LAST day possible for me to send your herbal package to you in time for you to participate in the class. Instructions for payment will be exchanged via email upon receipt of your registration form. Remainder of fees ($175) must be paid by Oct 20th unless otherwise arranged. *If you are outside the US or Canada, please register before Sept 20 to ensure the package arrives to you on time.*

* An early bird special of $300 + Shipping if you register and pay in full by Sept 21st. *

Please speak to me directly for alternative payment arrangements if necessary, at river.rose.layla@gmail.com.


*Please note: The value of this class + herbs easily exceeds $400. It is being offered as a discounted community price in the hopes that it can be more accessible to those who would like to participate. If funds are still an issue, please talk to me directly and I will do my BEST to work something out with you!*

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Building Immunity from the Inside-Out
Sep
26
2:00 PM14:00

Building Immunity from the Inside-Out

HELLO L.A.! This is my first L.A. class offering! Lets welcome the Fall by making medicine and gaining knowledge about our immune system and the plantcestral allies that can help us to stay healthy as the Fall weather starts getting cooler.  What is our immunity anyways, and how can we keep it healthy from the inside-out? Our immunity is the system in our body that protects and defends us so that we can stay healthy and balanced. Lets explore more deeply what this means together!  

WHAT:
In this class, we will:
* Learn about and get to know several medicinal plants that help strengthen our immunity
* Make tasty medicine to take home with us so we can stay healthy through the Fall and Winter seasons
* Gain an immune health recipe to share with community for basic well-being
* Explore immunity at both the physical and energetic/spiritual levels
* Learn how to do a plant meditation
* Gain hands on knowledge on how to work with plantcestors as medicinal allies for body and spirit
* HAVE FUN learning plantcestral medicine in an educational group setting! 

WHEN & WHERE: 
Saturday, September 26th
2:00-4:30pm
Eagle Rock, Los Angeles CA.
Exact location to be announced upon registration.
 

REGISTRATION & PAYMENT:
$40 - Pre-registration, before Sept. 20th
$50 - Registration after Sept. 20th

Email river.rose.layla@gmail.com to register.

*Space is limited. Sign up soon!*

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Women's Free Healing Clinic: Womb Wellness & Maternal Health
Jun
6
10:00 AM10:00

Women's Free Healing Clinic: Womb Wellness & Maternal Health

River Rose Apothecary is honored to be able to serve once again at this free women's healing clinic with a powerful and resonant mission and a strong group of sister's providing services to better the community. Come through and refer this to others who need healing support, especially if they don't typically have the means to access it. The theme of this particular clinic is womb and maternal health. 

River Rose is strongly aligned with the mission of The Healing Clinic Collective. Their goals and intentions are as follows:

The Healing Clinic Collective came together with a very intentional mission: The bring Healing to the People. As healers and social justice organizers, our goals and intentions are formed with a sacred and political framework:

  • To walk our missions and to share our gifts and medicines with others in reciprocity towards Great Spirit
  • To provide loving traditional healing sessions to people from especially traumatized populations in the Bay Area within a framework that is both sacred and political, specifically for persons who are:

– Domestic violence survivors
– Sexual assault survivors
– Persons in recovery/rehabilitation
– Previously incarcerated
– Overworked and under-cared for
– Low-income
– Undocumented

  • To build relationships between persons in need of natural healing (spiritual, mental or physical) and practitioners in the Bay Area
  • To encourage the resurgence of ancestral ways of healing and health care; to re-establish reverence, respect and legitimacy of non-industrial forms of healing and health care
  • To provide a safe space for queer and two-spirit people to receive healing care
  • To serve as a model for sacred, Earth-based, ancestral services to be offered to people in need without a capitalist/for-profit end
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Plantcestral re-Membering for SWANA Healing
Jun
4
12:00 PM12:00

Plantcestral re-Membering for SWANA Healing

Plantcestral re-Membering for SWANA Healing; 
Love is in the (home)Land <3

This class is a very special opportunity for the SWANA community to gather together to learn, heal, and deepen relationship with our SWANA plantcestors and *ourselves*. We will work specifically with medicinal plants from the SWANA ancestral region through this class. We do this work towards healing, reconnecting, and restoring the wisdom of our homelands and ourselves. The plantcestors carry the DNA of our homelands, of our ancestors, and resonate this memory with that of our own bodies and hearts. We will work with this relationship to access deeply held wisdom and reflections that can bring greater connection and well-being to our lives and communities, re-establishing relationship to the medicine of the natural world and its profound healing ability, and to the unique healing energy of our ancestral homelands and the memory and power they carry to help us live life in greater balance, purpose, and ultimately, with greater justice. 

In this class we will:
* Learn how to work with plants as medicinal allies
* Start building relationships with some of our ancestral plants
* Deepen relationship with our ancestors & traditions
* Connect to and honor our ancestral lands from the diaspora
* Explore and revitalize traditional ways of healing ourselves and our communities
* Make medicine to take home with us
* Learn how to connect to our own internal wisdom, intuition, and the cues of the natural world to support our day-to-day lives

WHO: 
Please note that this class is for people with *native ancestry* from the SWANA (aka. Middle East and North Africa) region only. Other classes with similar themes are offered for broader communities regularly. Stay tuned on the River Rose website for more details. 

WHEN & WHERE: 
Thursday, June 4, 2015
12 - 3:30pm, Oakland, CA (address given upon registration)

FEE:
Before May 25th - $45-$90 sliding scale, (all materials included)
After May 25th- $63-$99 sliding scale, (all materials included) 
Pre-registration is required- email river.rose.layla@gmail.com to register and offer payment.

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Sacred Medicine Garden
May
31
1:00 PM13:00

Sacred Medicine Garden

This class is a collaboration between Atabey's Rising Tides (ART) and River Rose Apothecary, dedicated to cultivating practical medicine tending skills while connecting more deeply with la tierra, la agua and the plantcestors. It will be both a spiritual and practical journey for creating & connecting with your own medicine garden!

Some activities will include:
* Building relationships with plants and nature in a sacred/mindful way
* Learning about selected medicinal plants
* Doing plant meditations
* Water and soil meditations
* Deepening our relationship with the elements

You will take home practical tools including:
* Hands on experience planting medicinal herbs
* Everything you need to know about soil in order to have happy thriving plants
* Sustainable ways to have a garden during drought
* Seeds we plant together that you get to take home
* What to plant, where to plant it, & how to harvest the medicine you grow

Where:

At a residential garden in Oakland’s Fruitvale Area. Specific address will be given to participants upon registration. 

Fee:

Early bird special - $75 by May 14th, 
$95 after May 14th

To Register:

Email raheni13@gamil.com

Teachers:

RaheNi González I'naru of Atabey’s Rising Tides (ART)

RaheNi is a CA Master Gardener, Two-Spirit Cura & Meditation Teacher who lives off the grid in the forest of Mendocino County. 

Layla Kristy Feghali of River Rose Apothecary

Layla is a Plantcestral Matchmaker (aka. Herbalist) and Founder of نجمع جذورنا - reGather our Ancestors Program, dedicated to re-membering and reclaiming the original medicine practices of the SWANA region, and healing our relationship to our ancestors and their indigenous/earth-based wisdom from our respective lineages around the globe.

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Healing the Feminine: Honoring Our Dreams and Intuition, Reclaiming our Medicine as Women- SWANA Women's Sacred Healing Circle
May
18
to Sep 15

Healing the Feminine: Honoring Our Dreams and Intuition, Reclaiming our Medicine as Women- SWANA Women's Sacred Healing Circle

This is an ongoing circle. For general background, open this event and read the info below.

Next Circle: Dream circle, Monday, May 18, 5:30-7:30 pm.

For more details about the specific theme and location of each month's meeting, please contact river.rose.layla@gmail.com and request to be on our private group mailing list or join our private facebook group to stay posted.  


WHO:  Women identified folks who have SWANA ancestral roots (mixed folks are welcome, masculine of center and trans* women are welcome). 

** SWANA means South West Asia and North Africa, a less colonial term to describe the region known as the "Middle East and North Africa". If you are a woman who has native ancestry from this region, this circle is specifically for you.**

COST:  To respect the ceremonial nature of this circle, it is offered by donation. Reciprocity of any and all heart-felt kinds is customary and encouraged in our culture and in all ceremonial spaces to maintain balance of energies and sustain the offerings made to keep it healthy and present. Contribution of materials, medicine, space, heart-felt gifts, help setting up and cleaning up, and other preparations are also always welcome. Please consider making donations in multiples of 9, a number which honors the ancestors. 

WHAT: This is a ceremonial circle dedicated to the healing of the feminine in the SWANA community.  We started it officially with a sacred fire ceremony on October 23, 2014 and a dream incubation to close the evening with. Self-healing is an ongoing process which greatly benefits from community support.  Without engaging in a level of our own healing, connecting consciously to the wisdom and medicine of our ancestors and our own intuition becomes clouded, difficult, and stagnated. The work of ancestral re-membrance is intimately tied into the work of our own healing and healing the more intuitive and indigenous ways of knowing that are often associated with the "feminine" side of our own human nature.  This healing circle will run monthly in alignment with the New and/or Full moon, and is dedicated to healing feminine ways of knowing. The full moon sessions will be dedicated to an evening ceremonial circle around the fire, supported by the elemental spirits, the moon, and the transformative nature of the fire to support us as we share our truths and prayers with one another. The New moon sessions will be an afternoon session dedicated to working with our dreams for healing.  Dreams and the wisdom of the night and moon times are associated throughout the world with feminine forms of knowledge and the mysteries of the sacred feminine. In this circle, we will collectively explore and honor the wisdom offered thru this realm (including waking dreams & visions), learning about and reclaiming attention to our own inherent wisdom, as well as the messages of our ancestors.  There will be opportunities to share and receive reflection on both personal dreams, as well as to participate in group incubations (calling upon dreams collectively- teachings on how to do this will be offered) towards addressing specific questions, healing needs, and concerns as identified by the group. Regional dream rituals and medicines will be explored and utilized, including those wisdom passed on by the grandmothers, mothers and elders of those present in the group. There will be opportunities to utilize plants, stones, creative expression, and other medicines to support the dreaming processes. 

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