Pre-Symposium Intensives

Pre-Symposium Intensives, Friday, October 4, 2024

Our 2024 Pre-Symposium Intensives feature five three-hour classes offering in-depth information about topics presented by noted herbal practitioners and researchers. You will find descriptions of the individual Intensives below. Click on the speaker's name to access their bio.

Can't join us in person? Attend both of these Pre-Symposium Intensives Virtually - A Critical Look at Herb-Drug Interactions with Kevin Spelman, and Tracing Roots and Healing Wounds: Africa's Botanical Heritage in North American Herbalism with Lyani Powers When you register for the Virtual option, you can attend them live and have access to the recordings one year.

Note that Pre-Symposium Intensives are priced individualy and not included with your Symposium registration fee. Click on the BUY TICKETS button to purchase your tickets.

Afternoon (1:00pm-4:00pm)

Pre-Symposium Intensive: A Critical Look at Herb-Drug Interactions ADV
with Kevin Spelman
Afternoon (1:00pm-4:00pm)

Are you tired of hearing that every herb you use in your practice is dangerous because of the potential for herb-drug interactions (HDIs)? Are you flabbergasted by studies using a boatload of one herbal extract in In Vitro models and concluding that it causes HDIs? Join Kevin to learn a rational approach to evaluating HDIs. By looking at specific herbs and case studies and comparing them to real-world human data, you’ll learn how to assess what is real and not about potential herb-drug interaction data. 

$50 This session is available virtually (live-streamed and recorded). 

Pre-Symposium Intensive: Tracing Roots and Healing Wounds: Africa's Botanical Heritage in North American Herbalism GEN
with Lyani Powers
Afternoon (1:00pm-4:00pm)

This intensive explores Africa's botanical legacy and its enduring impact on healing practices on both sides of the Atlantic. We examine Africa before colonization, tracing the origin of different botanical traditions and species accompanying the transatlantic slave trade. You’ll also learn about traditional healing practices, key botanical species, memory gardens and cultural preservation. 

$50 This session is available virtually (live-streamed and recorded). 

Pre-Symposium Intensive: Phytochemistry Meets Gaia Plant Walk GEN
with Richard Mandelbaum
Afternoon (1:00pm-4:00pm)

Phytochemistry can sometimes feel abstract, divorced from our direct experience of plants.  On this walk, we’ll take phytochemistry outdoors, using our senses to discuss phytoconstituents, why plants produce them, and how they provide nutrition and medicine.  While immersed in the local flora, we’ll deconstruct the artificial wall between science-based and energetic or traditional herbalist approaches and reframe them as differing languages describing a single Gaia. 

$50 Limited to 20 people.

Pre-Symposium Intensive: Hands-On Reishi Double Extraction Workshop GEN
with Gina Rivers
Afternoon (1:00pm-4:00pm)
Bottle up the Mushroom of Immortality! If you have ever wanted to know how to craft your mushroom double extraction, this class is for you. Learn the basic folk method of functional mushroom extraction and a modern (and faster!) alternative.  In addition, we’ll discuss scientific evidence that validates Reishi's traditional use and how it can be incorporated into your clinical practice. Everyone leaves with their own Reishi double extraction. Materials fee required. 

$75, includes $25 materials fee (covers the reishi extract you'll take home)

Field Trip: The Chinese Medicinal Herb Growing Project – Margaret Bloomquist, Jeanine Davis and Thomas Avery Garan
with Keynote Speaker: Dr. Thomas Avery Garran, with Margaret Gove Bloomquist, with Jeanine Davis
This field trip departs Blue Ridge Assembly at 12:00 pm and returns around 5:00 pm.  
 
Demand for domestically produced Chinese Medicinal Herbs is high, but little information is available about how to grow and process these herbs in the United States. This field trip is designed to fill that gap, providing you with practical knowledge and insights from this research garden project. Since 1992, Jeanine Davis and her North Carolina State University staff have grown and propagated various Chinese herbs in cooperation with the late Joe Hollis of Mountain Gardens. On this visit, you’ll tour the Chinese Medicinal Herb collection and research fields at the Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center, followed by an indoor session where you’ll learn about the history of the project, recent efforts working with local farmers, and their partnership with Thomas Avery Garran. 
 
$55.00 includes transport to and from the Mountain Research Center. 

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