This 90-minute class covers the medicinal uses of Larrea tridentata, also known as Creosote or Chaparral. We'll discuss its historical uses, topical and internal applications, preparation methods, and important safety considerations.

The workshop is led by Amara Stack, an herbalist with over 10 years of study. Larrea was one of her first and most trusted plant allies.

Where lies the cure to diabetes? “Ask the prickly pear, or the mesquite bean pod…maybe they will tell you.” This is the answer you may hear from elder instructors of the Hualapai Ethnobotany Youth Project, an intergenerational program on the Hualapai Indian Reservation teaching the plant and land based knowledge. The ethnobotanical story of the Hualapai Tribe begins with the plant knowledge the people have inherited from their great grandparents who lived entirely off the land. Hualapai grandchildren live in a completely different modern world now. The information presented will share about the Hualapai Ethnobotany Youth Project examining the crucial role that plant resource acquisition has played in Hualapai culture, knowledge fine-tuned and perfected over millennia.

Darcey Blue is a plant whisperer, student of sacred nature, practicing clinical herbalist, animist, ceremonialist, medicine maker, wildcrafter, gardener, teacher and wilderness fast guide from Flagstaff, AZ.  

She has studied herbalism, shamanic practices and earth based ceremony for 20 + years in Arizona, the Rocky Mountains and the Eastern Woodlands of the US.  She studied under Charles Kane in 2003, Rosemary Gladstar  in 2004, and Clinical Herbalism and Nutrition at the North American Institute of Medical Herbalism under Paul Bergner in 2007.  She studied earth based ceremony & practices with the Q’ero medicine people of the Andes and Wilderness Ceremony & Fasting guiding with the School of Lost Borders from 2014-2017. She has learned the most from her years as a direct student and devotee to the plant spirits, and the wisdom of the Earth, the living, animate landscape around her.
Darcey found her love of the healing plants as a young girl of 13 in the sagebrush hills of her childhood home in N. Utah where her first tea from wildcrafted yarrow and Sagebrush healed her. A special Juniper Tree of the mountains called her to the plant path and initiated her into the world of the plant spirits and earth wisdom in 2003.   

She began her clinical practice and yearly apprenticeships in herbal medicine in 2009. She offers live classes, plant journey circles/ceremonies, annual herbal apprenticeship and works with private clients in Flagstaff, AZ. She teaches regularly for the School of Herbal Wisdom in Prescott, AZ, and various herbal conferences. In addition she has several online courses available for home study and offers distance herbal consultations online.
Darcey primarily wildcrafts and grows her own medicinal plants and has a small online apothecary at www.sacredwildness.org, and supplies her students and clients with handmade herbal remedies from her apothecary in Flagstaff.  She works with people of all ages and experience with an open mind and heart who are eager to listen and learn from the plants and nature spirits around them, cultivate a relationship with plant medicines and the earth, and are willing to commit to the healing and wisdom available to them through ceremony, rewilding and the living land.
To find out about upcoming apprenticeships and classes in plant spirit medicine, earth wisdom & ceremony, plant journey circles, herbal products or working with Darcey one on one please visit her website at www.sacredwildness.org and join the newsletter or email her at shamana.flora@gmail.com.

 For the past 20 years, Carrie has been a full time ethnobtanist in her work with the Hualapai Ethnobotany Youth Project at the Hualapai Nation in the western region of the Grand Canyon.

On the weekends, she is a silversmith and lapidary artist, creating unique native Southwestern turquoise jewelry.



Carrie is a member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, and also of Oglala Lakota, and German ancestry. She has an academic background in Wildlife Biology and Resource Management

As a Community Herbalist, Ashley emphasizes empowerment in a self-sufficient lifestyle, through her herb work, known as Cinderfly Apothecary.

Her work in the Flagstaff region includes wild food and herbal medicine workshops and the creation of a magazine, “The Underground Good Witch Watch”.

With an academic background in Nutrition and Dietetics, she has been immersed in the Flagstaff community since 2007 sharing the benefits of foraging, wildcrafting and gardening.

Brian Hornbeck has been working with healing plants since 1990. His background includes knowledge of traditional Western herbs and Chinese herbs as well as an extensive study of Indigenous uses of herbs in traditional medicine.

Brian was the founder and director of Escuela de la Madre Tierra in Tijuana BC, Mexico, He taught classes and had a thriving clinical practice. He has been a frequent presenter at The Mexican National Festival of Medicinal Plants as well as numerous regional herb events.
Now residing in Flagstaff, Arizona, Brian continues to teach as well as sharing his ”Tera Alchemy” line of herbal products at gatherings and markets throughout the Southwest.

www.teraalchemy.com

Susan Lamb is a local science and nature writer who has been managing the gardens at Willow Bend since 2018. Susan and her fellow garden volunteers create and maintain gardens representing the varied plant communities of the Flagstaff area, familiar foods domesticated by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and both native and introduced plants with healing, ceremonial, or culinary purposes. For more information, vist her website at  www.susanlamb.net .

Melissa is a bioregional herbalist based in Arizona.
She is an alumni of the Forager’s Path School of Botanical Medicine with herbalist Mike Masek in 2011.
She apprenticed with Southwestern herbalist and ethnobotanist Phyllis Hogan from 2014-2023.
She has an herbal company called Apotheca Vulgaris and is available for herbal consultations via Zoom.
You can visit apothecavulgaris.com for more information.
Melissa is truly passionate about sharing the empowering wisdom of plant medicine.

My name is Amara Stack(she/her).
I am a mom of two beautiful children who keep me young everyday.
I have been practicing/studying herbalism for 10 years.
My inspiration around natural healing started when I was a teenager and quickly grew into a passion that is fueled by a reclamation of our right to accessible and wholesome healing through the Earth and her wisdom.
My herbal knowledge specializes around the native plants of the Colorado Plateau and I have a certain hunger for bioregional, local medicines.
I’m excited to share some of the herbal wisdom I’ve learned at this year’s Flagstaff Herbfest.

A member of the Hualapai Tribe, Jorigine Paya has been actively working with Hualapai tribal youth in cultural heritage preservation, language revitalization, and traditional arts and crafts. She also teaches singing and dancing. She has been employed with the Peach Springs Elementary School District for 35 years. Upon her retirement at the school she began working for the Hualapai Department of Cultural Resources as a language program manager where she also participates as an elder instructor of the Hualapai Ethnobotany Youth Project. Jorigine is also a title holder for Elder-Pai and Pai Woman for the Yuman-Pai Affiliated Tribes where she represents her community.