Intro & Opportunities
The Animá Lifeways & Herbal School
Animá: n. (an-i-mah)
1) [Latin] Breath, Spirit, Courage; the “collective conscious”; the vital force connecting, enlivening and animating all things.
2) A contemporary, nature informed Lifeways and Herbal School, correspondence course, practice and way of life… helping to deepen awareness, authenticity, self-knowledge, sense of place, response-ability, sense of purpose, integrity, sentience and bliss.
3) A wilderness Learning Center, Retreat Center, Women’s Sanctuary, Botanical and Wildlife Refuge, and ancient “Place of Power” – located in a remote river canyon in the enchanted mountains of S.W. New Mexico.
Animá Lifeways & Herbal School is dedicated to assisting the awakening and healing of ourselves, our families, communities, and the natural world that we are all agents and extensions of… providing insights, skills and tools for living more healthy and conscious, meaningful and purposeful lives.
What We Offer:
Animá Lifeways & Herbal Teachings
Animá is the way of deepened sentience and expanded awareness, radical honesty and decisive choice, relationship and empathy, awakened response-ability and conscious action, natural health and healing service, balance and wholeness, meaningful purpose and a personal calling.
Both the herbal and lifeways components draw directly from the source: from the living earth with its plant and animal members and interdependent ecosystems, from our own instinctual bodies and intuitive hearts, from measured experience and revealing practice. You can refer to the many articles in this Blog’s Archives sections to learn more. And you can go to the website’s Teachings & Practice Page to read about How You Benefit, Ways of Learning, Animá & Society, Animá in Hard Times, Animá & Religion and more. If your primary interest is in herbal studies, you may want to begin with the Animá Tradition of Herbalism introductory page.
Being offered are 8 week long Animá Herbal and Lifeways Correspondence Courses for women and men, each focused on specific areas of study from Awareness and Sense of Place to Diagnostics, Energetics, and the Role of the Community Healer. For those desiring a greater commitment, there is a waiting list for a limited number of Medicine Woman Herbal and Shaman Path Mentorships featuring extensive assignments and exchanges, and lasting a full year or more. The very most committed of all students may want to consider applying for a much-involved Animá Apprenticeship. Applications are also available for life altering Personal Counsel at the Animá Sanctuary as well as powerful Online Counsel via email. We recommend that anyone interested start by reading from the growing collection of informative and inspiring Books & Recordings by Animá authors, as well as free online archives of various other writings by Kiva Rose, Jesse Wolf Hardin and Loba. To stay up on the latest of their articles as they are written, as well as tales of life at the Sanctuary, subscribe to this Blog.
The Animá Tradition of Herbalism
The Animá Tradition of Herbalism defines health as wholeness, with healing becoming the natural and sometimes deliberate process of contributing to wholeness and helping to restore balance. It is sourced in and fed by nature – nature’s plant medicines and all they have to teach us, and our own telling natures and knowing bodies – grounded in and continually tested by ongoing personal experience. Animá Herbalist Correspondence Courses include life enhancing self-awareness skills along with practical information on vitalism and energetics, medicinal plants and their uses, the Animá Medicine Wheel as a guide to constitutional diagnosis, formulas, wildcrafting and ethics. The Medicine Woman Mentorship is a year or more long online program for Kiva’s advanced women students only, primarily those who are already practitioners and teachers themselves There is a waiting list, so get your name in early for consideration. Students of herbalism can also participate in the powerful annual Herbal Intensive that’s held at the amazing Animá Sanctuary each Summer, and our Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference near Santa Fe each September, featuring some of the best teachers in the field. This site also exists as a free resource for you, with Kiva and Jesse’s articles and other materials online your use (please credit them to us and include our url when sharing or reprinting). These are grouped for your perusal under the categories Principles and Practice of the Tradition, Animá Medicine Wheel & Energetics, Materia Medica & Plant Profiles, Therapeutics & Nutrition, Terms of the Herbalist’s Trade, Simple Medicine Making, Recipes from the Hearth, and Botanica Poetica – Stories & Poetry. Those of you excited about plant medicines will want to subscribe to Kiva’s award winning Medicine Woman’s Roots Blog.
Kiva also takes a limited number of applications for her personal Healing Consultations, much sought after insight and advice for most health conditions.
Animá Sanctuary & Wilderness Retreats
Animá Lifeways & Herbal School is rooted in and based out of a particularly special place, a lush restored Botanical Preserve and Wildlife Refuge– nested in a secluded and incredibly enchanted river canyon in the Gila wildlands of Southwest New Mexico. On-Site opportunities include Wilderness Retreats in rustic riverside cabins, Personal Counsel, Healing Consultations and Events.
You can meet your hosts and teachers on the Teachers & Hosts page, and we highly recommend reading the many Testimonials from grateful past recipients.
All services and products other than the TWH Conference are offered on a suggested, sliding scale donation basis only, with no one turned away for lack of funds. Animá has no source of income and support other than your donations and tithings, and depends entirely on your assistance for its survival and work. You can make a contribution by mail or Paypal by going to the Donations Page, or using the Donate button on this blog.
Those of you who feel strongest about helping with the efforts of this school, the publications and outreach, are encouraged to consider going to the Animá Supporter’s Page and download an application to become a regular financial contributor at any level, or a one time benefactor to cover some important expense or need. Supporters have their bios listed here, our most essential allies.
And those unable to give financially, can still assist with the important task of getting the word out, helping with research, outreach, phone calls, posting flyers, or simply forwarding email announcements by going to the page Spread the Word. Thank you so much… and good to have you with us!