Recipes & Rituals for Community Care: Generative Conflict & Herbal Supports

Conflict is inevitable. We are all capable of hurting someone and people can also hurt us too. Conflict can be a moment to learn about ourselves, our relationships and an opportunity to express our needs inside of those relationships. 

Participants will learn about the framework of conflict transformation and accountability, how to have hard conversations, and learn about herbs that can support them throughout this process. Participants will also have an opportunity to practice providing and receiving feedback and they will take home a customized tea blend to support them in future hard conversations. 

Teachings are based on work from Prentis Hemphill, Mariame Kaba, Shannon Perez-Darby, Ejeris Dixon, Mia Mingus and more.

Your Facilitator: Diana Arellano

Diana is a clinical herbalist-in-training born and raised in the southside of Chicago with roots in Durango, Mexico now based in Brooklyn, NY. For the past 15 years, herbal medicine has played a key role in Diana’s healing journey and she has been working closely with plants, teachers, and curanderas to continue deepening her knowledge of plants. She loves to teach single herb workshops to highlight the extensive magic and medicine that any herb holds. During her herbal workshops, Diana empowers participants to use their intuition and senses to guide their own relationship with plants. Through establishing a reciprocal relationship with plants, we’re reminded of the connection and aliveness in ourselves and in plant beings.

Join us for Recipes and Rituals for Collective Care every Wednesday!

What does it mean to heal in community? What does it feel like when we extend care to ourselves and the collective? How do plants and our local ecologies care for us? How can we care for the plants and local ecologies in return?

Weave in rituals and recipes into your own self-care and community care practices through weekly explorations in herbal arts, somatic movement in the greenhouse and garden, folk remedies, and other wild-crafts and meditative activities that foster a deeper connection to plants to care for the body, mental health, and the people you move with.

Each week, be guided by a guest herbalist, healing artist, or wellness practitioner who will help you create your own toolkit and apothecary for self and communal care.

This is a free drop-in program. Come to every class to build on your skill or come to one or two that you are available for. Explore your relationship to food and agriculture and the ways our food systems can connect us more deeply to our local ecosystems and communities.

Workshops are rain or shine.

Accessibility: Our kitchen/classroom space is wheelchair accessible. With prior planning, we can add a few small mats onto the pebbled ground of greenhouse to make a small wheel-chair accessible path. Our learning garden has grass paths, and the entrance is through a gate with a small, raised entrance. Our tables can be lowered/raised, and we have several backless benches or stools. Our kitchen is in regular use, and while we try to cook without peanuts, much of our cookware is shared and we cannot guarantee a nut-free environment. We have a first aid kit, and the closest AED is in another building several yards away. Drinking water is made available in refillable pitchers.

When inside the greenhouse and kitchen we will open our double-doors and windows to vent the space and encourage masking and social distancing when in more closed-in spaces.

Our closest bathrooms are a building away, about a one-minute walk. A gender neutral bathroom is also available, and this is accessible by key which you can request from staff. We are not a scent-free zone, and because herbalism classes take place here, cannot guarantee that the site will be clear of any essential oil smells. If you have needs not addressed here, please reach out to Mallory Craig at mcraig@thehort.org.