Well, this festival of the spring equinox is called Ostara, but in fact, Easter is a bit later this year – not until the beginning of April. We are taking a couple of weeks off the Jing Fang Apprenticeship for Easter and start again on April 11th. Amazingly, the apprentices are already in their third term of this year – how fast their time goes! After Easter there are only seven more clinics to graduation, then five extra summer clinics, which are open, free of charge, to all those enrolled on the Apprenticeship yearly path.
As a reminder, apprentices can sign up for the Jing Fang Apprenticeship on the yearly, termly or daily path. The yearly path is recommended for those studying herbs for the first time, while the termly path can be more useful for herbalists who wish to add Jing Fang Classical Herbalism to their toolbox. The daily path is really for those who want to come and try out the Apprenticeship model, and all are welcome. This is a flexible training, and you can create your own pathway through it. Here are some of the 2022 apprentices wrapping herbs under the guidance of Andrew Nuttall.
If you are interested in studying herbs in this way, please have a look at the website, and you can also get in touch with me, Frances, directly via the website.
By the way, Easter is also a good time for nettles. When the nettles are young, and before they have started flowering (which is usually in May) you just pick a good quantity of young nettle tips and make them into a soup with some kind of starchy veg – I prefer sweet potato, but any kind of potato will work. Nettles are wonderful to nourish the blood after the winter and help build our strength to meet anything that we have to face in the coming year. They can also help us to get over colds and flus by building up our internal strength.