Understanding the Conference Focus

• What is the focus of the Conference?
• What do you mean by the “Wise Woman Tradition”?
• What do you mean by “Folk Herbalism”?
• Why a focus on local plants?
• Is the Conference inclusive of diversity?
  
• Is the Conference appropriate for nurses?
• Is the Conference biased against allopathic medicine?
• Can you offer more information on allopathic medicine?
• Why a focus on nutrition?
• Are you against vegetarianism?
• Why a focus on sexuality?
• What do you mean by “empowerment”?
• Why don’t you allow men at the Conference?

What is the focus of the Conference?

The Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference is a weekend for women to learn, connect, and deepen into the Wise Woman Tradition through herbal education, nourishing foods, empowerment, and community. The Conference includes aspects on herbs, healing, nutrition, sexuality, and empowerment. Our approach to herbs and healing is steeped in the Wise Woman Tradition with a strong emphasis on the folk herbal tradition and use of local plants. That being said, we have healers from many paths teach at our conference.

What do you mean by the “Wise Woman Tradition”?

The Wise Woman Tradition embraces simple living, earth-based healing, and local plants. As Susun Weed puts it: “The Wise Woman Tradition is the oldest tradition of healing known on our planet, yet one that is rarely identified, rarely written or talked about. A woman-centered tradition of self love, respectful of the earth and all her creatures, the Wise Woman Tradition tells us that compassion, simple ritual, and common herbs heal the whole person and maintain health/wholeness/holiness.” The Wise Woman Tradition values nourishment, flexibility, transformation, groundedness, and the cycles of life, death, and rebirth. For more information see Susun Weed’s book Healing Wise.

What do you mean by “Folk Herbalism”?

By definition, herbalism is a traditional or folk practice based on the use of plants. By using the word folk we are emphasizing the plants and practices that have been used by our grandmothers from every culture for generations upon generations. We love using kitchen remedies and simple herbs that grow around us and finding ways to incorporate them in our daily lives. We love seeing women get excited about relating to the plants directly and making their own medicines. We love learning what the plants have to teach us…they were here before us after all. We are also excited by scientific and clinical findings and don’t exclude them from our program. We tend to stay away from teachings based on herbal constituents alone, standardized extracts, and a "popping pills" approach to health. Our teachers usually offer a blend of many approaches in their workshops.

Why a focus on local plants?

We feel that local--preferably in your own yard or surrounding area-- is the best place to harvest herbs. They are vibrant, fresh, and breathe the same air as we do. Exotic herbs that come from other countries are not our preference.

Is the Conference inclusive of diversity?

The Conference welcomes women of all ages, spiritual paths, races, sexual orientations, colors, shapes, stripes, and sizes! As white women living in the Southeast United States, we cannot ignore the history of the oppression that African American women have endured in these lands, and continue to face today—as well as Native American women and other women of color. In our scholarship selection process, in addition to financial need, we prioritize minorities, physically challenged women, and elders. With the help of our participants, we make it a priority to include women from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds in our teaching lineup and in our outreach.

Is the Conference appropriate for nurses?

While the Conference would not suit all nurses, it is a well loved event for many holistic nurses who wish to deepen their understanding of herbs and women’s health.

Nurses benefit from the Conference by the augmentation of their knowledge in the following areas: herbs, women’s health, alternative modalities, integrative approaches, and self care techniques. This enhances their personal lives through empowerment, confidence, and connection. This in turn enhances their professional lives, by the integration of these holistic skills and attitudes into the care they give to others.

Is the Conference biased against allopathic medicine?

Definitely not. All healing practices have their strengths and weaknesses, their time and place in each person’s life. By celebrating and focusing on folk medicine does not mean that we eschew or judge hospitals, surgery, or pharmaceuticals. We honor the right of all women to reduce these influences in their lives or embrace them, as they will. We also appreciate many aspects of natural medicine such as yoga, meditation, massage, acupuncture and more.

Can you offer more information on allopathic medicine? That is more my preference for a conference . . .

If you wish for more infromation regarding allopathic medicine, please consult the many schools, conferences and trainings offered throughout the world. We encourage you to find an educational opportunity more suited to your needs.

Why a focus on nutrition?

We feel that we’ve been given confusing and contradictory food advice from all directions for most of our lives. We believe that the regular dieting and self-denial that many women participate in are negative for body, mind, and soul. We believe that food is the basis of all health. We feel that low fat diets are dangerous and ill advised for most women. We aim to give health and nutrition information that is based in fact, tradition, and wisdom. We endorse and recommend through conference meals, speakers, and teachers, the Weston A. Price Foundation information on healthy foods. Please see www.westonaprice.org.

Are you for or against vegetarianism?

Neither. We offer organic meat as well as vegetarian dishes at our conference. We feel that vegetarianism is a fine choice for ethical, moral, environmental, and other reasons. We believe that a woman can be healthy on a vegetarian diet if she eats enough animal protein and healthy fats in the form of eggs and organic dairy. If a vegetarian diet lacks the proper amount of protein and fat we do believe that this can lead to menstrual abnormalities, emotional challenges, and illness.

Why a focus on sexuality?

For most of us sexuality has been a closeted, confusing, sometimes shameful subject. We offer the opportunity to explore topics on sexuality because they are seldom offered elsewhere and we believe it’s an important part of a healthy life.

What do you mean by “empowerment”?

We’ve grown up in a culture rife with racism, ageism, classism, and sexism. Women are often, from birth, treated differently then men. Most of us grow up in male dominated institutions, households and religions, were men are in charge almost exclusively. The very important work of our mothers and grandmothers who labor in positions of caregiving and child rearing as well as in nurturing professions is sorely undervalued in our culture. In many professional positions, we make a smaller percentage of what men make for the same work. Often by the time we are teens, we have been conditioned to stop playing sports, having an opinion, getting dirty, making speeches, acting strong. We often struggle to accept and love our bodies, wishing they looked more like the airbrushed images in fashion magazines. Often when we act powerfully, we are labeled as less than a woman.

Girls and women are natural leaders, are naturally at home in their bodies, and are naturally connected to each other through mutual respect, play, and friendship. Women are strong, tough, in control of their own lives. Women are loving, brilliant, brave, and creative. When we speak of empowerment we speak of a process to reclaim these truths for ourselves and to help each other remember!

Why don’t you allow men at the Conference?

We love men! Most of us have husbands, male lovers/partners, sons, and certainly brothers and fathers in our lives on a regular basis. We love the relationships we have with the beloved men and boys in our lives and don't consider men less than or inferior to women. We have created a women-only conference for many reasons:

• Women-only events tend to offer a different tone and "energy" than mixed conferences. If you've been to one you will understand this magical and somewhat mysterious truth.
• Women-only events offer a flavor of mutual support, awareness of sameness, friendship, and encouragement not often found in ordinary life or in mixed gendered groups.
• Women-only events reduce a tendency for some of us to feel insecure, competitive, or body-conscious, which can often come up in a mixed group.
• Historically, women spent far more day-to-day time together as a group/tribe than we do today. Women-only events allow us for a brief time to experience that.
• Women-only events allow us to focus on the issues that are important to us free from any potential shame or misunderstanding.
• Women-only events help us heal from a lifetime of patriarchy (a system of social and cultural organization characterized by male dominance).
• Women-only events helps get in touch with and deepen our relationships with each other and to our own abilities, strengths, and power.

Men have enjoyed public all-male groups for centuries including the Knights of Columbus, the Masons, all-male country and sports clubs of all kinds, as well as exclusive all-male colleges and universities. Some of this is changing in our times, yet men desire and seek out the comfort, camaraderie, relaxation, and escape that being with other men provides. We ask the same ­-- a place where we can be ourselves together for a weekend.

This policy can bring up feelings for some men and women as well. We'd ask for a deeper look at what feels threatening about women creating this experience and ask it to be respected. May it be an opportunity for us to look at how we may hold ourselves responsible for the feelings of others in these instances; how it may be an unspoken "rule" to be inclusive; or how it might be unfamiliar and new. Additionally, if you are one of these women or her male loved-one that has a hard time with the conference due to our women-only policy, you certainly may choose not to attend. There are other herbal education events, classes and teachers that offer information along these lines without the additional focus on women's connection.

We do our best to minimize contact during the weekend with male staff and residents on the grounds. When dropping off participants, we ask men to limit their presence to the parking lot so that there is a sense of "safe space" or "container" created during the weekend. This allows the participants to sink more deeply into their experience knowing that they will be "held" in this women-only atmosphere. We mean no disrespect at all by this but hope instead that men see this as an opportunity to serve the women in their lives and communities by sending us good will, trusting our process, and respecting our needs and desires for sacred time together.

 

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