Category Archives: Blog

Herbalism & Medicine-Making: Session Three

…”we commenced measuring, dividing, pouring, boiling, simmering, blending, dividing into jars, and then moisturizing ourselves with the leftovers. And then moisturizing again. And again. As I ran out of surface area onto which I could apply the concoctions, I swear my skin had never been softer. “

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students on an herb walk during the herbalism course near santa cruz california

Herbalism & Medicine-Making: Session Two

Tinctures extract and amplify herbal constituents and their actions, so even a single drop was enough to set off cascades of sensory experience from the moment the tincture touched the skin. This was a solid reminder of how much respect, consideration, practice, and specificity is called upon in working with herbal medicine.

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Herbalism & Medicine-Making: Session One

by Marina Vernovsky Herbalism and Medicine Making, a six-weekend course offered by Santa Cruz Permaculture, brought together a group of eclectic individuals to set the tone for a new year through the exploration of plants from multitudinous perspectives including medicine-making, botany, horticulture, and examination of naturally occurring ecological relationships. Individuals – some who had come from […]

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Permaculture design course participants show their enthusiasm for coming together

Our Permaculture Community Comes Together 

Our 6-month Permaculture Design Courses run twice a year. This spring/summer, we are joined by Gail McNulty, a student in one of our courses. Gail is new to permaculture and after each of the 6 course weekends, she’ll be sharing a blog post about the weekend – what she learned, what inspired her, what connections […]

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Advanced Permaculture Design students celebrate earning their certificates

Take Permaculture to an Advanced Level

What do you do after the permaculture course? How do you dig deeper and take your designs to a professional and ultra-practical level? How can become more skillful in design implementation? Permaculture Design Courses are popular worldwide for the transformative experiences they provide and the introduction to a whole way of viewing landscapes and communities […]

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Permaculture course participants gardening in an organic garden.

Dirt Time

After six months of creating bonds with new people, transforming the way they think about ecosystems, communities, gardens, and relationships, and gathering hands-on experiences that broaden their skills and deepen their knowledge, our permaculture design students are eager to evaluate their new strengths and chart their next course. During our last weekend together we have […]

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Depiction of forest thinning for wildfire risk mitigation

Woodland Fire Risk Mitigation & Ecosystem Restoration

The content in this post was written by PINA & Siskiyou Permaculture on the PINA website . We found it so interesting, we wanted to share! It is reprinted with their permission. Fire Ecology Restoration Project PINA has received a $75,000 grant to research improved methods of wildfire risk mitigation in relation to forest health. […]

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