Introduction & Contents
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. Teaching nature awareness, healing and rewilding skills to further wholeness, self-sufficiency and reconnection.
What We Offer:
Animá Lifeways & Herbal School Classes, Workshops & Courses
The Animá Lifeways & Herbal School provides both on-site and online educational opportunities for studying nature awareness, herbal medicine & rewilding skills. School faculty members Kiva Rose, Loba and Jesse Wolf Hardin work toward furthering an evolving ecology of healing between humans and the natural world we are each an integral part of. The School teaches classes in traditional healing and lifeways with hands-on skills like herbalism and wild foods preparation as well as through profound personal tools such as practical shamanism and nature therapy.
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. Please go to the Anima Programs page to read about our approach and current programs of study and read our Mission Statement to gain a better understanding of the goals and purpose of the Animá Lifeways & Herbal School.
Being offered are Herbal and Lifeways Distance Programs & Correspondence Courses, each focused on areas of study from botanical medicine to tracking to rewilding skills. Individual courses are available, as are comprehensive programs based on traditional archetypes such as The Village Herbalist, The Hearth-Keeper and the Shaman.
We also host annual on-site workshops,including Foundations in Western Herbalism Intensive each May, the Shaman’s Path Intensive in July and our Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference near Santa Fe each September, featuring some of the best teachers in the field.
Beginning in the Spring of 2011, we will be offering a 7 month on-site intensive herbal program. This is an in-depth, experiential education in botanical medicine that will cover the skills and information necessary that provide the foundation for working as a practicing herbalist.
We recommend that anyone interested start by reading from the growing collection of informative and inspiring Books & Recordings by Animá faculty members, as well as free online archives of various other writings by Kiva Rose, Jesse Wolf Hardin and Loba. To read the latest of their articles as they are written, as well as tales of life at the Sanctuary, subscribe to the Animá Lifeways & Herbal School Blog.
Our homestead and the school grounds are located in the bio-diverse and beautiful Gila bioregion of southwestern New Mexico. On 80 acres of dedicated botanical sanctuary surrounded on all sides by the Gila National Forest, we are able to provide exceptional opportunities for the study of herbal medicine, a broad array of rewilding skills and an overall experience of living intimately with wild land.
Animá Healing Arts Health & Herbal Clinic
The Anima Healing Arts Health & Herbal Clinic provides online and on-site care on a per donation basis, with no one ever turned away for lack of funds. Integrating multiple healing modalities in order to provide optimal wellness, we offer lifeways counseling, herbal consultations, nutritional healing & other holistic therapies. We deeply desire to foster a life-affirming, grassroots and common sense approach to healing based around the unique needs of each individual and informed by the wisdom of the natural world.
The Mission of Anima Healing Arts:
- To provide accessible healing services to those who need it.
- To gift the local and larger community with tools for caring for themselves and each other.
- To empower individuals to take charge of their own health and healing.
- To restore a vital connection and integration between the person, their body and the living earth.
- To support the emotional, physical and mental well-being of human beings in order to contribute to the health of the planet.
Animá School Grounds, Wildlife Sanctuary & Wilderness Retreats
Animá Lifeways & Herbal School is rooted in and based out of a particularly special place, a lush restored Botanical Sanctuary 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, Lifeways Counsel, Herbal Consultations as well as Classes and Workshops.
You can meet your instructors on the Faculty page, and we highly recommend reading the many Testimonials from grateful past participants and students.
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.
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!
This site is also here 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 Anima Healing Arts Blog.