School of Intuitive Herbalism
Learning from the plants directly
Founded in 2008 from Ruskin Apothecary, a small turf roofed Apothecary next to the one of the mill lakes in the Horsley valley, the school has slowly and steadily grown from offering evening classes to an entire 3-7 year apprenticeship style training.
We have published three books, all incredibly well recieved, to be able to share our work and insight from the school. The first ‘Intuitive Herbalism (2014)‘ is a short guide to some of the core concepts and approaches in the school and is now available at a low cost as an e-book. The second ‘Weeds in the Heart (2017)’ was many years labour of love for Nathaniel Hughes and Fiona Owen – it is a large, case bound book full of Fiona’s stunning gold embossed paintings and Nathaniel’s lyrical reflections on countless meetings with the plants. Our latest book ‘Wild Enchantments (2024)‘ was designed to make this work even more accessible by combing an indepth book with a set of 33 Plant Wisdom cards – printed to an extemely high quality and entirely in the UK using the most ecological printers we could find to work with.
We soon outgrew the Apothecary (apart from for small winter classes) and created a purpose designed polygon-yurt structure for teaching whilst Nathaniel’s partner Alena (who training in Biodynamic agriculture) created a stunning herb garden. For many years now, classes are mostly run in 3 to 4 day blocks with around 12 people in each class. All the core teaching is in-person and experiential. In the later years, as people complete the profesionalisation process, it moves into smaller group supervision.
The aim of all our work is to support you in your own path as herbalist and nurture your relationships and connections with the plants. We work with intuition as an innate and professional skill – we all have immense innate skills that we help you uncover and refine, whilst professional intuition comes from hundreds to thousands of hours of deep experience with people and plants. By nurturing and celebrating each student’s path we are excited to have a growing community of graduates, each practicing deeply relational plant medicine in a different way – weaving together skills to create therapeutic, ritual, artistic, educational and community focused offerings in unique combinations and styles of practice.
We see that there is a profound need for people to reconnect to the land and the plants and we are proud to offer trainings that equip students with the professional skills they need to do this reliably, safely and with joy.
We soon outgrew the Apothecary (apart from for small winter classes) and created a purpose designed polygon-yurt structure for teaching whilst Nathaniel’s partner Alena (who training in Biodynamic agriculture) created a stunning herb garden. For many years now, classes are mostly run in 3 to 4 day blocks with around 12 people in each class. All the core teaching is in-person and experiential. In the later years, as people complete the profesionalisation process, it moves into smaller group supervision.
The aim of all our work is to support you in your own path as herbalist and nurture your relationships and connections with the plants. We work with intuition as an innate and professional skill – we all have immense innate skills that we help you uncover and refine, whilst professional intuition comes from hundreds to thousands of hours of deep experience with people and plants.
We see that there is a profound need for people to reconnect to the land and the plants and we are proud to offer trainings that equip students with the professional skills they need to do this reliably, safely and with joy.
Nathaniel Hughes is the founder and course director. His journey started with a degree in Chemistry with a focus on pharmacology. This was followed by a four year MSc level training in Medical Herbalism (1999-2003). He is a member of NIMH and URHP and for 10-15 years primarily practiced as a Medical Herbalist whilst also offering extensive ‘Listening Touch’ bodywork sessions for clients. These practices gradually converged, alongside insights gained through holding experiential herbalism courses. He is neurodiverse and recognises that this brings a profound sensitivity to subtleties within the human-human and human-plant relational fields which guide all this work. Turning this sensitivity from a challenge that triggered endless overwhelm and fatigue – to a gift – has been twenty years work, with almost weekly support from countless healers, therapists and teachers. Now it is a joy to help guide others in how to skillfully allow and process their sensitivity, in a way that both nourishes them and is in service to the plants and humans. Currently he works full time as course director as well as offering 1:1 supervision, mentoring and client sessions in Insight Herbalism ®. His unique background in pharmacology and medicine allows him to help bridge peoples’ understandings of the connections between their direct experiences of their bodies and herbs to health conditions – a journey of discovery that is as nuanced and complex as it is rewarding and enlivening. Much of this insight comes from a deep understanding of embodied trauma from over 25 year of practising as a bodyworker, supporting people on deep inner journeys, sometimes over years.
Emily Taylor was one of the early graduates of the school, completing in 2021 and now frequently assisting on the Foundation Year as well as offering many students 1:1 mentoring sessions. She has a passion for women’s work and birth wisdom keeping, supporting people in initiatory thresholds and phases of transition in their life. You can find our more about her work here.
Emily Taylor was one of the early graduates of the school, completing in 2021 and now frequently assisting on the Foundation Year as well as offering many students 1:1 mentoring sessions. She has a passion for women’s work and birth wisdom keeping, supporting people in initiatory thresholds and phases of transition in their life. You can find our more about her work here.
Here are three from our mentoring team, Sara Ghanchi, Emma Sampson and Claire Loussouarn. They offer widely different skills in the way they share plants – Sara combining Insight Herbalism with her Somatic Experiencing training, Emma with in-depth soul work, song and ritual and Claire with a deep focus on feral-movement in nature.