Plant spirit Medicine training
An 18-month immersive journey into relationship with plants, healing, and the living natural world.
Six residential immersions.
Direct teachings in the tradition of Plant Spirit Medicine brought forth by Eliot Cowan.
Outdoor experiential learning, classroom study, hands-on practice, and clinical experience.
For those who feel called to go deeper.
The Opening invitation
What if healing begins with relationship?
There is a difference between knowing about a plant and knowing a plant.
You can learn its name, its properties, where it grows, and how it has traditionally been used.
But Plant Spirit Medicine begins somewhere deeper.
What happens when we learn to listen?
When we approach plants not simply as substances to be used, but as living beings with whom we can develop a relationship, an entirely different way of understanding healing begins to emerge.
This training invites you into that relationship.
The Call
Perhaps you’ve felt it already.
A nudge that there is something more.
A sense that nature is communicating something you haven’t yet learned how to hear.
A desire to understand healing beyond symptoms.
A longing to work more deeply with the natural world.
A feeling that becoming a healer is not simply about acquiring information—but about becoming different through what you learn.
A draw from something inexplicable: a sense, a feeling, a desire for connection and a bigger picture: a whisper or knowing that life has more to offer you, even if you aren’t a plant person
If any of this resonates with you, you may be ready to explore Plant Spirit Medicine.
What is plant spirit medicine
A different way of approaching healing
Plant Spirit Medicine brings together direct relationships with plants, a Five Element and seasonal methodology, root-level inquiry, and working with the body, mind, and spirit.
The approach recognizes nature as alive and relational.
Students learn to develop relationships with plants, listen to and interpret their medicine, understand seasonal energies, explore the root of imbalance, and discern what a person may need to return toward greater balance.
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.
a methodology
Learning the language of nature
The training uses the Five Elements and 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 toward 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.
A journey
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 you will study
The foundations of the healer’s path
What Is Healing?
Explore the deeper meaning of healing and what it means to accompany another person on a healing journey.
Building Relationship With Plants
Develop direct, experiential relationships with plants through time spent outdoors and indoors entering the dream of the plants through intentional practices.
Listening to Plant Medicine
Learn practices for listening to and interpreting what the plants are communicating within the methodology.
Five Elements & Seasonal Energies
Learn to recognize patterns through the Five Element and seasonal framework—the language of nature used within Plant Spirit Medicine.
Matching Plant and Person
Learn the process of discerning what plant medicine may correspond with what the person needs at a root level.
Finding the Root
Learn the methodology for exploring what may lie beneath the presenting condition or symptom.
The Art of Pulse Taking
Develop the art and practice of pulse taking as part of the assessment methodology.
Protocols & Practice
Learn the principles, protocols, and practical framework necessary to bring the methodology into practice.
Hands-On & Clinical Experience
Students have opportunities for hands-on experience and, where appropriate, clinical experience as part of their training.
Learning happens in two worlds
Outside and inside
With the plants
Students spend time outdoors developing relationship with plants through direct experience.
This isn’t learning about nature from a screen.
You go outside.
You observe.
You listen.
You experience.
You practice.
In the classroom
Classroom learning provides the framework that allows those experiences to become a coherent methodology.
Students study:
Principles
Methodology
Protocols
Five Element theory
Seasonal energies
Root-level assessment
Pulse taking
Plant relationships
Practical application
experience and understanding develop together
Learning from Alison Gayek
A living tradition, as originally taught by its founder.
This training was developed by Eliot Cowan, the founder of Plant Spirit Medicine. In 2002, Eliot invited Alison Gayek to begin a teaching apprenticeship with him. After teaching together for several years, absorbing his teachings and knowledge, Alison began teaching Plant Spirit Medicine on her own, as well as continuing to teach in partnership with Eliot over the next many years.
Since his passing, Alison has continued to teach students the path of Plant Spirit Medicine. In this course, students have the opportunity to learn directly from Alison Gayek. Having a deep connection with this medicine, Alison holds true to Eliot’s approach and offers a doorway to experience the methodology and living natural world as it has been taught and practiced over the years.
About the Founder
Eliot Cowan (1946-2022) was a healer, author and teacher of Plant Spirit Medicine.
As a young man in college, Eliot was fascinated by the ancient ways of indigenous peoples and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in anthropology. With expanded interest, he then studied ethnographic documentary filmmaking at the graduate level. During his “back-to-the-land” farmer phase of life, he owned a goat who fell ill. Even though the veterinarian said she was incurable and would soon die, Eliot treated her in the old way with herbs and she soon grew well.
Eliot realized his interest in natural and traditional healing and he eventually found the teacher he was looking for in J.R. Worsley, the late English acupuncturist. Although Worsley was not an herbalist, he introduced Eliot to a way of healing that touched people’s spirit and gave them a richer, fuller experience of life. Eliot received a Master of Acupuncture degree under Dr. Worsley, and taught on the faculty of the College of Traditional Acupuncture in England. When Eliot returned to the U.S., he made a promise to himself, “I am going to revive the use of local plants to heal the spirit”.
It was anthropologist and founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, Michael Harner, who suggested a technique for contacting plant spirits that was precisely the new approach Eliot needed to fulfill his pledge. English plantain, the first plant he contacted, assured Eliot that the plant spirits would be happy to teach him and had, in fact, been waiting for almost two hundred years in the hope that someone would ask for their help in healing the human spirit.
Unawares, Eliot had stumbled upon an ancient approach to healing. The local plants instructed him in their medicine. He learned quickly because the ancient Chinese worldview was the perfect language for teaching him. Gradually Eliot introduced what he called “Plant Spirit Medicine” into his healing practice. He expected the plants would provide healing comparable to what his acupuncture practice had provided, but the medicine of the plants exceeded his expectations. Eliot offered healing under the guidance of plant spirits and taught Plant Spirit Medicine for over 45 years. While not all became healers, his students benefited from seeing the world through new eyes, the ancient eyes of wisdom.
This training may be calling you if:
You have a longstanding relationship with plants and feel there is more to discover.
You sense that plants are more than their physical properties.
You don’t have much experience with plants but are drawn toward developing a relationship with the world around you.
You are drawn toward healing work and want to explore it at a deeper level.
You already work in a healing or helping profession and want to explore an additional dimension of your practice.
You want to develop greater connection, sensitivity, discernment, and relationship with nature.
You are willing to devote significant time to learning, practice, and personal transformation.
You aren’t looking for a quick course.
You’re looking for a path.
Who is this for?
Who is it not for?
This training isn’t for you if:
This work asks something of you.
This training may not be appropriate if you’re looking for:
A quick certification
A weekend introduction
A simple list of plants and their uses
A purely intellectual course
Instant answers
A formula that eliminates the need for discernment and practice
This is an invitation into a deeper process.
The Investment
Six residential immersions over 18 months
$1,900 per immersion week
The investment includes:
Tuition
Room
Board
Administrative costs
Six immersions × $1,900 = $11,400 total
See our Training Overview for the payment structure for each of the weeks.
…
Your investment is not simply in six weeks of instruction.
It is an 18-month opportunity to immerse yourself in a body of knowledge, practice, relationship, and experience of a new relationship with the living world.
What Students are Saying
“The Plant Spirit 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. hI 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.”
— LO“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.”
— SL, AcupSix immersions. Eighteen months. Seasons passing. Plants encountered directly. Methodology practiced repeatedly. Relationships developing. Understanding deepening.
The invitation
Is this your next step?
You may be interested in plants.
You may be interested in and have explored healing.
You may have studied other traditions.
You may have sensed that something deeper was waiting.
And perhaps you’ve reached the point where reading about it isn’t enough.
You want to experience it.
To spend time with the plants.
To learn the methodology.
To develop your ability to listen.
To deepen your understanding of healing.
To learn with others who are walking a similar path.
To discover what happens when knowledge becomes relationship.
If you feel the call, we invite you to learn more about the Plant Spirit Medicine Healer Training.