Speaker: Rebecca Dyson Tichbon
Join Rebecca as she profiles her favourite essential oil – Bergamot. Learn more about this versatile oil’s chemistry, uses, safety concerns and future applications.
Speaker: Vivienne Campbell
Arnica, comfrey, calendula and St Johns Wort are herbs that are well-known to aromatherapists and frequently used in their practises. However, there are many more that are safe, effective and can be easily integrated into this work, enhancing aromatherapy treatments and blending beautifully with essential oils. In this lecture Vivienne will introduce her favourite herbs for combining in blends to treat various conditions.
Tour Guide: Lisa Day
Please join me, Lisa Day in introducing our family and taking you on a virtual tour of our farm and office/warehouse. I will show you the plants, and how they are grown, managed, harvested and distilled to produce our beautiful pure essential oils.
Speaker: Jade Shutes
Through the lens of Western Herbal Energetics, we will explore the six tissues states and how the understanding of western herbal energetics can be used as a guide in formulating aromatic remedies. We will then discuss the role of system affinities and therapeutic actions of essential oils serve to create effective remedies for the individual client. The respiratory system will be used as an example in building an aromatic formulation based upon western herbal energetics.
Speaker: Jonathan Benavides
Death is the only certainty we have while living on the planet, and it is undoubtedly one of the most natural episodes in the rhythm of life. To be able to work with aromatherapy accompanying a person in the last phase on earth is a privilege and an honour. It comprises a very subtle and gentle way of using aromas holistically for pain (body), anxiety (mind) and transition (spirit).
During my presentation I will present my work in palliative and terminal care and how in my opinion, some essential oils can help and might be used as a guiding loving hand in the process of closing earthly life and jumping into the Light.
Speaker: Elizabeth Ashley
I’d imagine most of us here have had occasion to experience the healing of an essential oil, to have understood it intellectually in so far as the chemical components, but still not quite believe it has happened.
It can be utterly astonishing, even when you have worked with oils for years.
Somehow, there is a whisper, outside of the breath, that tells you there is something more.
In this presentation we’ll talk about that “je ne sais quoi” and ways to tap into that understanding.
Speaker: Gergely Hollódi
Over a decade ago, Gergely designed a game to help his students make friends with chemical compounds and understand their therapeutic properties better. Here, groups of students are given selection of oils high in particular chemical groups to study. Tapping into imagination, feeling, and their sense of smell students are asked to describe a personality for the given group.
10 years worth of playing, Gergely has realised that people not knowing each other or given prepossessed factors come up with very similar – if the same in many cases – profiles. Would you figure that sesquiterpene alcohols remind many people of George Clooney? Or that sweet fennel very much elicits feelings from people of the clergy? Gergely reckons that we might have a collective knowledge of essential oils and the ones sharing similar chemicals might represent a human archetype. In addition, this concept is compared to Western herbalist energetics and other author's findings. Come and join Gergely for this podcast in discussing what our sense of smell says.
Tour Guide: Lise Racine
Follow the journey of our natural skincare products from seed to cream.
At The Herbal Gardener we have been fully certified Demeter Biodynamic since 2008. We grown botanicals for skincare making as well as for workshops focussing on practical home herbalism.
During the visit you will see the gardens where we grow calendula for our range of skincare. The calendula, grown every year from seeds, are carefully tended, hand picked on a daily basis before being dried at a low controlled temperature.
The dried and still beautifully vibrant calendula are then made into infused oil (a traditional herbalist method). The infused oil is then used in the making of natural skincare.
During the visit, you will see:
The calendula growing in their natural environment
The hand harvesting
The customised herb drier
The Biodynamic preparation used in the management of the soil and creating the balanced environment for the plant to grow
The equipment used in stirring the biodynamic preparation and their application.
Calendula plant with a balanced expression - typical of a biodynamic plant
The resulting calendula infused oil
The range of products created with the use of the calendula oil
Also included in the visit are the gardens where a range of medicinal herbs are grown on a smaller scale for medicinal herb making and used for workshops.
Speaker: Madeleine Kerkhof
This presentation is focused on aromatic strategies for optimal comfort care in patients with life limiting or life threatening illnesses. For these patients not all aromatics we would use for more common respiratory ailments are suitable.
Madeleine will illustrate how her 10 step Clinical Approach to choosing aromatics, amongst which essential oils and CO2 extracts, help you with decision making, illustrated by examples and cases.
Speaker: Melani Kovac
In this one hour demonstration Dropsmith's founder, Melani Kovac, will reveal her tips and tricks on how to use this unique platform as well as some of her professional take on formulating blends for a specific ailment and teaching techniques.
Speakers: Fiona Carr & Elizabeth Rea
In this virtual workshop, you will discover the “Nursing Touch ®”, a soothing and relaxing therapeutic touch technique suitable for all health care practitioners – carers, nurses, and therapists alike.
Nursing Touch ® was developed by Wendy Belcour (France) as an innovative method for soothing pain and promoting physical and emotional wellbeing. It provides pain relief and personalised
support to people living with difficult and/or long-term illnesses, along with supporting those dealing with the trials and tribulations of everyday life, i.e. stress, insomnia etc.
During this informative workshop we will be demonstrating the Nursing Touch® arm technique using
an aromatic powdered medium as the carrier.
Speaker: Jill Mulvaney
I like to use a small still for workshops and demonstrations. Not all teachers do this. If you start small its manageable to get an entry level kit, the capital outlay is quite small. Even though the yields maybe small, they can be set up in a small space, you do not need a lot of plant material, they are quick to get results, you can practice many times and distil a wide array of plants and aromatics until you arrive at what works for you. It will be fun and give you joy. We encourage you to be playful, experiment, embrace your mistakes and learn from them. We encourage you to make small amounts, use and enjoy them.
We will make both a hydrosol and an essential oil using a 10L Column style copper alembic still
Part one
Hydro-distillation for hydrosol or hydrolat
· Setting up your space
· Setting up your still and safety
· Preparing your plant
· Hydro distillation
· Lets talk about the plant and how to use the hydrosol appropriately while its distilling
Part two
Steam distillation
· Setting your still up for steam distillation
· Preparing the plant and packing the column
· Lets talk about VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and why the plants make them
· Lets talk about how VOCs become essential oils through the process of distillation
· Lets talk about how precious these oils are and how to encourage sustainable practice
· Separate our oil from the distillate, drying our oil and what can we do with the distillate we have removed the essential oil from?
Speaker: Vivienne Campbell
Learn how to make your own herbal extracts in this practical class. It’s easy to make safe and effective herbal remedies at home without the need for any specialist equipment. We will look at some common herbs that grow in most countries around the world and how to prepare and extract them to use as herbal medicines. Start to collect and dry your own herbs to use for herbal teas, poultices, tinctures etc. A great introduction to get you started at home, with options for going on to learn in more depth
Speaker: Deby Atterby & Sandra Venables
Be surprised by the revelations on Australiana Profiles, it might not be what you are expecting, though the presentations will be full of fun and laughter, bringing to you, the special profiles from Australia.