Plant Spirit Medicine Trainings
An 18-month immersive journey into relationship with plants, healing, and the living natural world.
Direct teachings in the tradition of Plant Spirit Medicine.
Outdoor experiential learning, classroom study,
hands-on practice, and clinical experience.
For those who feel called to go deeper.
The Plants Are Calling
Are you ready to listen?
ENROLLMENT FOR 2027 PLANT SPIRIT MEDICINE TRAINING IS OPEN
Six immersions. One unfolding journey. The training unfolds over approximately 18 months, through six intensive residential gatherings of approximately six days each. The spacing between immersions is intentional. You don’t simply learn something and move immediately to the next subject. You have time to:
Learn. Integrate. Digest. Practice. Observe. Live with the work. Return. Go deeper.
Each gathering becomes another layer of the journey. And because the work includes seasonal energies, the changing cycles of nature become part of the learning itself.
What is Plant Spirit Medicine
A different way of approaching healing
Plant Spirit Medicine invites us into a deeper understanding of healing—one rooted in direct relationship with plants, the living world, and the whole human being.
While human suffering touches every dimension of our lives, modern healthcare is often ill-equipped to reach beyond surface symptoms. True healing requires an approach that meets the entire person—body, mind, and spirit—to address the root of imbalance.
At the heart of this work is the understanding that nature is intelligent and relational. Plants are not merely physical resources, but sentient allies with tremendous healing ability.
Through time-tested practices and ancient worldviews, students of Plant Spirit Medicine learn to open their senses in order to listen, interpret, and see what is needed for a person to heal.
The work is both experiential and methodical. It is not simply intuitive exploration, nor is it simply intellectual study.
It is a practice of learning to listen, understand, discern, practice, and observe.
Our Roots
How it all began…
In 1996, Eliot Cowan published Plant Spirit Medicine, igniting a movement amongst herbalists and non-herbalists alike. Striking a chord deep within about our relationship with healing, plants, and the natural world, Eliot opened a doorway to an ancient way of understanding medicine – one rooted not only in the qualities of the plants, but in relationship, connection, and direct experience.
For many, Plant Spirit Medicine offered a radical shift in perspective: plants were not simply substances to be studied, harvested, or prescribed, but living beings with whom we could enter into relationship. His work invited people to reconsider what it means to heal, what it means to know a plant, and what becomes possible when we approach the natural world with respect, attention, and reciprocity.
Nearly three decades later, that doorway remains open. Alison Gayek continues this lineage. Having studied, apprenticed, and then co-taught with Eliot for over 30 years, she brings a wealth of knowledge and experience, creating the space for students to learn, grow, and develop their own relationship with the healing power of the plants.
The Plant Spirit Medicine Approach…
Our methodology
Learning the language of nature
The training uses the seasonal energies as a language for understanding patterns in nature and in people, while incorporating the traditional practice of working with plant spirits for healing.
Students explore the relationship between:
Person → Pattern → Root → Element → Season → Plant → Medicine → Balance
An essential part of the training is learning to assess whether the person is actually moving to greater balance. The work doesn’t end when a plant is chosen. Students learn checks and balances that allow them to observe, re-assess, and determine whether the approach is producing the desired movement toward health and balance.
What Students are Saying
Plant Spirit Medicine students give their testimonials.
“The Plant Spirit Medicine course is one of the best courses I have taken. I read first the Plant Spirit Medicine book, and I was very impressed by the book. Then I found the course and honestly it happened to be way better than I expected, I resonated a lot with the teachings and the way it is taught…. I´m deepening my connection with nature since this course, talking to plants, herbs, flowers and trees. I´m so impressed with how much they tend to respond to me. Thanks so much, the course is way better than I imagined it.”
-A.G.
“It is hard to encompass with words what the course has contributed to my learning experience. There are many elements of the course that resonated with me and from which I benefitted deeply, both personally and professionally…. The dream journeying has been simply life changing. An introduction to this practice has created deep healing in who I am as a person, that has flowed into my professional experiences. This reawakening to an alternate path has granted me something I had been missing. They have changed the way I envisage what is possible for myself. I am deeply grateful for this course; it has filled a part of myself that was always been missing. It has connected me to a spiritual path that feels like I am coming home too. I am encouraged by the connection to the plant spirits and while my journey is in its infancy, and I encouraged by the learning before me.”
-L.O.
“This course had a profound impact on my personal and professional understanding of diagnostics and healing. While I have studied Traditional Chinese Medicine and am familiar with the Five Elements theory, this course expanded my perspective in a much deeper and more embodied way. The explanation of the Five Elements in direct connection with emotions, mental states, and subtle sensory perceptions—such as the specific smell of a person—opened an entirely new layer of diagnostic awareness for me. It helped me understand imbalances not only through physical symptoms, but through the person’s inner world: their mind, feelings, and emotional patterns…. In addition, I greatly benefited from the shamanic journeying practices included in the course. These journeys have helped me deepen my relationship with plants and with the healing process itself. I regularly repeat the journeys. This practice has become an essential part of my life and my work as a healer, and I can no longer imagine my path without it.”
-S.L.
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