*SWANA stands for SouthWest Asia and North Africa, a less euro-centric way to describe the region commonly referred to as the Middle East and N. Africa.
Knowledge Share Description
This share will offer an introduction to herbal medicine from South West Asia and North Africa, with a focus on the Levant region (modern day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, parts of Egypt) and the Eastern Mediterranean (including Anatolia and North Africa). From Sumeria to Ancient Egypt to the lineages of Sufi and Islamic medicine and Unani Tibb, the herbal practices of this region have had a tremendous influence on western medicine and herbalism that is often unnamed. This share will offer insight about some of the region's common herbs and herbal preparations, alongside intimate and soulful stories rooted in the personal relationships between the peoples and plants of this special place on earth.
Knowledge Share Includes
Brief context of SWANA
What are "plantcestors" and what is "plantcestral re-membrance"
Common herbal preparations in the SWANA region
Ethnobotanical information about several common SWANA herbs, many also found commonly across the Americas
We will do a plant meditation together and practice how to "listen" to plants and our bodies together
Resource Package
Optional resource packages are available for purchase directly from Layla.
"This bundle will include a small sampling of the main plants we will be discussing in our circle. This will offer an opportunity to taste, smell, and feel the plants while we share about them, which in my experience offers a deeper, more intimate, embodied experience of knowledge building and remembrance."
**If you are interested, please place your resource package order through the link above before Friday, January 28th**
Cost
$35 - BIPOC or low income
$75 - standard or reparations (If you have financial abundance, this is our pay-it-forward option to fund our full tuition scholarships)
The zoom link will be sent 1-2 days prior to the knowledge share. Recording will be available for 30 days.
For scholarships please email herbancura@gmail.com with subject Plancestors of the Levant
Accessibility Information
*ASR (automated) captioning provided
*Live captioning & ASL interpretation may be available with advance notice
*Spanish interpretation may be available with advance notice (Si requiere interpretacion por favor mande un email a herbancura@gmail.com)
Virtual Gathering
Zoom link will be sent out via email 1-2 days before knowledge share
5:00pm - 8:00pm Eastern Standard Time
Class will be recorded and available for 30 days.
Facilitator
Layla Kristy Feghali lives between her ancestral village in Lebanon and her diasporic home in Tongva-Tataviam territories (Southern California), where she was born and raised by her immigrant family. She is a cultural worker and plantcestral medicine practitioner focused on the re-membrance of baladi (land-based/folk/indigenous) lifeways and ancestral wisdoms from SWANA*. Her dedication is to stewardship of our earth's eco-cultural integrity and the many layers of relational restoration and healing that entails. You can learn more at www.RiverRoseRemembrance.com // River Rose Remembrance on IG + FB, and visit the online community archival project she hosts at www.SWANAancestralHUB.org // @swana.ancestral on IG.
*SWANA stands for SouthWest Asia and North Africa, a less euro-centric way to describe the region commonly referred to as the Middle East and N. Africa.