Welcome to
Sophia's Wisdom School
of Healing Arts
Upcoming Classes:
Medicine of Place:
A 10 Week Intro to Herbalism Course
Rooted in the Bay Area
About the Class:
This class welcomes the beginner herbalist and those who have been self teaching, taking classes here and there, or tinkering away with herbs in their kitchen and are now ready to take a deeper dive. This is an all in person class taking a hands-on, bioregional, and ancestral herbalism approach.
We'll be listening to the diverse array of plants that call the Bay Area home
to better understand the medicine and story of this uniquely textured place on Earth.
To begin our journey together, we will each make an offering to the land, share our ancestral and personal story of arrival, and give acknowledgement and gratitude to the First Nations people, the Lisjan Ohlone, who have lived here for millennia and through the current day still live on and actively tend these lands and the many medicinal plants that grow. We will be discussing what it means to live on unceded indigenous land and how place based and ancestrally rooted community herbalism can play a crucial role in decolonizing and healing our communities today.
Throughout the course, we will learn what grows around the Bay Area in abundance. We will ask, what grows in our own backyards, local community gardens, urban farms, neighborhood parks, and green spaces? And how can we develop deep relationships with these plants and become the people who tend to them and make medicines with them to share with our communities? As herbalism gains popularity, and the industry imports so many plants from far away lands, many of which can and do grow locally, how can we return to a place based, deeply rooted, and more sustainable approach? Wildcrafting and foraging have also become big trends, but are these practices sustainable in a highly impacted urban area? Part of lovingly walking on this land is protecting wild spaces for future generations, so we will focus on how we can grow our own medicines and tend them in community. We will develop relationships with growers of plant medicine locally and learn how to become those growers ourselves, translating the slow food approach to slow medicine.
To illuminate this, our classroom will be a variety of community gardens, urban farms, East Bay parks, botanical gardens, and other neighborhood green spaces which will provide a taster of the many plant projects we can get involved in. And of course, this will allow the plants and ecosystems to speak for themselves and be our greatest teachers.
We will also learn about each body system and the plants with affinities to each. Within that, we will discover practical ways of using plants to support common health imbalances addressing body, mind, and spirit. Students will also be supported on the journey of rekindling their own ancestral herbalism practices and plant relationships through an ancestral medicine research project.
We will learn a variety of medicine making preparations including: tinctures, teas, infused oils, salves, liniments, glycerites, vinegar extracts, syrups and more. By the end you will have a foundation to start growing your own home apothecary with confidence and begin the process of becoming a community herbalist and plant whisper rooted to place.
Let the forest and garden be our classroom and the plants our wisest teachers!
When:
There are 2 tracks to chose between:
Mondays:
10 - 5 pm
April 7 - June 9, 2025
(60 instructional hours)
Or
Sundays:
1 - 5 pm
April 13 - June 29, 2025
*No class May 4 or June 1
(40 instructional hours)
*What is the difference between the Sunday and Monday track?*
Both classes include the same core content and will both cover all the same medicine making preparations and body systems but Sunday will be a little less spacious for long plant sits, solo time with the plants, and more in depth discussions.
It will be slightly more abbreviated, but still super lush I promise!
If you have more questions about the 2 tracks or can't decide, please reach out!
Where:
Moving throughout various East Bay parks, community gardens, urban farms, botanical gardens and other neighborhood green spaces
Throughout the East Bay ~ Berkeley, Oakland, Richmond, El Sobrante... CA
Huchiun, unceded Lisjan Ohlone territory
Cost:
Mondays:
3 Tier Sliding Scale:
Tier 1 - Growing Sprouts: $900
Tier 2 - Nourished Fruits: $1200
Tier 3 - Abundant Seeds: $1500
Sundays:
3 Tier Sliding Scale:
Tier 1 - Growing Sprouts: $750
Tier 2 - Nourished Fruits: $1005
Tier 3 - Abundant Seeds: $1245
Payment Plans Also Available in 3 Installments:
Mondays:
Tier 1: 3 Monthly Payments of $300
Tier 2: 3 Monthly Payments of $400
Tier 3: 3 Monthly Payments of $500
Sundays:
Tier 1: 3 Monthly Payments of $250
Tier 2: 3 Monthly Payments of $335
Tier 3: 3 Monthly Payments of $415
1st payment due to secure your spot in the class
2nd payment due May 1
3rd payment due June 1
* I use a sliding scale with a payment plan option to make this offering accessible to as many people as I possibly can. Please pay what you can truly afford. Those who pay the highest tier make it possible for the lowest tier to exist.
Let's foster a community of taking care of each other and valuing
equal access to education.
Would you like to sponsor another student?
Do you have any questions?
Please reach out!
To learn more about local Indigenous women-led rematriation efforts on Lisjan Ohlone land visit
https://sogoreate-landtrust.org/
Sogorea Te’ Land Trust is an urban Indigenous women-led land trust that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people.
And join me in paying Shuumi tax here!
Womb Wisdom:
Seeding Essential Knowledge For All Wombs
~ 36 hour course ~
About the Class:
Imagine feeling like an empowered, informed, resourced, and well womb.
That is exactly our goal in this class which gathers some of the most important wisdom and knowledge to carry as a womb bearer that this society does not commonly encourage nor nurture.
We will begin our journey by learning the anatomy and physiology of our reproductive organs the way none of us learned in school...
With an understanding of hormones and cycle phases we will learn how to practice fertility awareness method to achieve our desired fertility and reproductive wellness goals and live more liberated and in tune with our cyclical bodies.
We will be using the sympto-thermal approach to fertility tracking to recognize when we are in our fertile window versus when we are not. For this practice, we will be using the three biomarkers of basal body temperature, cervical fluid changes, and cervix position/sensation. We will learn how to apply this insight for a natural conception or contraception practice.
Beyond fertility goals we will learn how to utilize these biomarkers to better understand our hormones, reproductive health status, and overall health. What is unique about this FAM (fertility awareness method) space is that we will also focus on plants and nutrition to support our reproductive health and fertility goals (both conception and contraception) for a more holistic approach. Yes we will talk about herbal pregnancy prevention for a more robust FAM contraception practice!
From this foundational understanding of our bodies we will explore some of the most common imbalances womb bearers experience from painful menstruation, irregular cycles, mood swings, lack of menstruation, fatigue, anemia, cysts, fibroids, and more.
Throughout this class we will be focusing on herbal medicine, nutrition, life style practices, and rituals to sustain womb wellness and reharmonize our bodies, minds, and spirits when things go awry.
Topics We Will Cover:
- Fertility Awareness Method to achieve our fertility goals
(to conceive or not to conceive
that is the question...)
- Fertility markers as a 5th vital sign and window into our overall state of health
- Living in tune with our body's cyclical nature
- Herbal medicine for reproductive health and holistic womb wellness
- Herbal Contraception
- So called "PMS"
- Amenorrhea, Dysmenorrhea, & Menorrhagia
- Other common reproductive imbalances
- Personalized guidance and support for each student's womb journey and transformation
- Abdominal massage and limpias
- Healing from sexual trauma
& Reclaiming Your POWER!
When:
Saturday & Sunday: April 5 + 6
Saturday & Sunday: May 3 + 4
Saturday & Sunday: May 31 + June 1
*meeting over a series of weeks allows each participant to put fertility awareness method into practice and receive support along the way!
Where:
Oakland, CA
Location Given Upon Enrollment
Cost:
3 Tier Sliding Scale:
Tier 1 - Growing Sprouts: $540
Tier 2 - Nourished Fruits: $720
Tier 3 - Abundant Seeds: $900
Payment Plans Also Available in 3 Installments:
Tier 1: 3 Payments of $180
Tier 2: 3 Payments of $240
Tier 3: 3 Payments of $300
1st payment due to secure your spot in the class. 2nd payment due by May 1st
3rd payment due by June 1st
* I use a sliding scale with a payment plan option to make this offering accessible to as many people as I possibly can. Please pay what you can truly afford. Those who pay the highest tier make it possible for the lowest tier to exist. Let's foster a community of taking care of each other and valuing equal access to education.
Would you like to sponsor another student?
Please reach out!
Are you ready to become a
Womb Wisdom Keeper?
Womb Alchemy:
A Training For Radical Wombs
~ 30 hour course ~
About the Class:
Womb bearers have been in tune with their fertility cycles since time immemorial and have passed down the wisdom of how to wield that powerful gift over generations. Making fertility choices is innate to animal nature and is our birthright to intimately know. This ancestral wisdom has been severed in many places to keep us detached from knowing our bodies, being empowered, and honoring the deep portals of life and death that we are.
In this comprehensive and radical training, we will come together to learn the basics of fertility awareness method, and learn how to recognize when we are in our fertile window versus when we are not. For this practice, we will be using the three biomarkers of basal body temperature, cervical fluid changes, and cervix position/sensation.
This knowledge can be used to achieve our fertility goals of conceiving or not conceiving. Beyond this, it allows us to understand our overall state of health, as these fertility markers are considered the 5th vital sign and can clue us into various hormonal and reproductive imbalances that otherwise may be confusing or go unnoticed. To top it off, this practice is a way to honor and cultivate intimate relationship with our cyclical bodies, the moon, and all of the natural world.
Fertility Awareness will lay our foundation as we explore the world of plants in our toolkit to help us create a well rounded natural path to avoiding pregnancy.
We will be focusing on pregnancy prevention through working with plants that interrupt implantation and bring on menstruation.
We will place this practice on an unbroken continuum with abortion, pregnancy loss, and full term delivery as they are all different parts of the same sacred womb tree - from seed to sprout to root to flower to fruit and seed again...
We will learn that the same plants can support us through all of these womb rites of passage. They are not separate experiences but instead are so interconnected and the plants remind us of that.
We will learn about all the various ways to access abortion and pregnancy loss support today and how to integrate herbal medicine, bodywork, energy work, acupressure, art, ritual, and more to support a truly holistic, reverent, and beautifully transformative experience that may be cherished and remembered forever with love.
When:
Next Round Dates TBA...
Spring 2025
*Would you like to stay in the loop about the next time I teach this class?
Send me an email expressing interest and subscribe to my email list!
*meeting over a series of weeks allows each participant to put fertility awareness method into practice and receive support along the way!
Where:
Oakland, CA
Location Given Upon Enrollment
Cost:
3 Tier Sliding Scale:
Tier 1 - Growing Sprouts: $450
Tier 2 - Nourished Fruits: $600
Tier 3 - Abundant Seeds: $750
Payment Plans Also Available in 3 Installments:
Tier 1: 3 Payments of $150
Tier 2: 3 Payments of $200
Tier 3: 3 Payments of $250
1st payment due to secure your spot in the class. 2nd payment due... TBA
3rd payment due... TBA
* I use a sliding scale with a payment plan option to make this offering accessible to as many people as I possibly can. Please pay what you can truly afford. Those who pay the highest tier make it possible for the lowest tier to exist. Let's foster a community of taking care of each other and valuing equal access to education.
Would you like to sponsor another student?
Please reach out!
Are you ready to become a Womb Alchemist?
Some Past Classes...
With Sophia and hosted guest teachers
