This page is for both graduates and potential students to check that they have covered the basic skills we cover in our Introductoy classes – meaning you can book into the Immersion / Deepening / Foundation without doing the Intro class. Many of our applicants already have most of these skills, in which case the lead in is more like an induction into how to work with these skills with the plants and the simple frameworks we offer at the school. It feels important to say that we do not need you to have ‘high’ level skills in each of these areas – some of these take decades to develop (!) – but we do need you to have a familiarity and a foundation stone in each – something to grow from.

Ability to work with your own process

A practice of self-reflection, an ability to stay with an inner exploration theme in yourself and some ability with shadow-work. A recognition when additional support might be needed (e.g. therapy). Of course – there is a vast range of skill levels with this, what we need is enough foundation for you to be able to navigate this in youself and ask for support when you need it.

Liminal / dream-work

Some experience working intentional with dreams / liminal spaces / journeying / intentional imaginative processes. Some familiarity with how to access these places and how to work with the insights that come from here.

Plant initiations

To have an understanding what it means not just to have an experience with a plant, but to meaningfully internalise this such that the relationship with the plant brings about real change in you, your life and your ways of relating with the world. You don’t necessarily have to have gone through this process yet, but at least have an appreciation of what it might be to step through this threshold of plant meetings.

Touch / conscious-consent

Some familiarity giving and recieving touch. An awareness around consent and your own boundaries with this, a basic familiarity with ‘wheel of consent’.

Your growing edge

How to find the doorways within yourself to let a plant it. How these can equally be easy and visionary, as much as they can be trigger and provoke resistance. Ability to exercise choice in walking through doorways presented by the plants.

Three Cauldrons

A core model we work with at the school, which will be easy to grasp for anyone who has already worked with chakras as a system. Developing somatic, emotional and seership skills and learning to discern between the three and develop your blind spots within this.

Triskele

A familiarity with both working with the lemniscate and the triskele – in particular in the form of Plant – Pilgrim -Server. How this relates to our journey with plants.

Witnessing / deep empathy

Some experience holding space for and witnessing another. Recognition that listening is multilayered and that it is possible to listen with our entire beings.

Commitment for a moon cycle

Recognising the value of commiting to working with a plant over a length of time and the possibilites for ever deepening layers to present themself in this way.

Working with a group

There are so many benefits to working together, but for various reasons this doesn’t suit everyone. It’s great to know yourself in this – this means we can better support you either in a group setting or 1:1.

Familiarity with ritual spaces and talking circles

Much of the work we do in the school happens within a ritual space, some ‘light’ and some very immersive. These spaces invite people to surrender into the consciousness of the plant and let themselves be moved by it. Often we integrate these experiences through 1:1 witnessing and group sharing circles. Even at the Intro level, people need to have some experience of being in these types of spaces – common experiences are often something like a woman’s circle or a cacao ceremony. We don’t need you to have a high level of experience and confidence with this, but at least some familiarity with such spaces and an enthusiasm to dive deeper into this.

Trauma awareness

The plants open us up 🙂 In this they are also indiscriminate if they open ‘diffcult’ or ‘easy’ places within us, so it is very common that aspects of our own somatic internalised trauma will present themselves. As the work deepens it becomes every more important that students develop skillfullness in this, learning how to work with and pendulate into their own areas of pain and knowing how to seek professional support if they feel out of their depth with this. We also invite that everyone in the school has a basic understanding of systemic trauma (e.g. racism / ablism / sexism ) and how personal trauma experiences are almost always part of bigger cultural wounds.

Self responsibility

We expect a very high level of self-responsibility in the school … this is not the sort of training where you are led by the hand through every step. We invite people who deeply want to walk their own path and are able to ask for help when they need it.