School of Intuitive Herbalism
Learning from the plants directly
Starting 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 short 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.
Here are some of our facilitators, tutors and mentors. All of them are open to 1:1 sessions and mentoring and several contribute to the Foundation year training.
Nathaniel Hughes
Nathaniel is the founder of the school and has a passion for supporting people find their own unique ways to come into deeper relationship with plants. He has a passion for simple, potent plant ritual and the depths of insight that come from this. He has published several books about the work with the school – the latest are Wild Enchantments and Weeds in the Heart.
Emma Sampson
Emma is an experienced group facilitator and is deeply committed to the remembering of our innate connected nature and to cultivating healthy and harmonious relationship with humans and the more than humans.
Emily Taylor
Emily was one of the first graduates of the school and loves facilitating rich plant spaces as well as offering frequent 1:1 mentoring sessions. She is trained in Qi gong and Gathering the Bones and loves to support people in initiatory thresholds in their life.
Tara Devine
Tara is a passionate herbalist and ritualist. She is in her final years of training both at the school and with Pam Montgomery and loves assisting and mentoring.
Sara Ghanchi
Sara offers 1:1 sessions as a mentor in Insight Herbalism as well as deep somatic work where she combined her expertise and training in Somatic Experiencing and Neuro-affective Touch.
Claire Loussouarn
Claire is a very experienced movement facilitator with a deep focus on feral-movement in nature. She offers movement focused explorations in connection to the plants and landscape.
Lisa Raimund
Lisa is a passionate herb enthusiast with a particular skills in holding groups and plant distillation. She offers many courses in Switzerland where she is based, as well as online mentoring and facilitation in the UK