Roots Herbalist Certificate Course
The Roots Herbalist Training and Certificate program is a hands-on, experiential, herbalist training that personally guides you to developing a deep understanding of the profound healing abilities of medicinal plants. With what you learn here, you can immediately begin to safely and effectively use herbs in your daily life to transform your health.
The Vital Ways Roots Herbalist Courses is based on traditional wisdom, integrated with modern science, and informed by your intuition.
If you’ve tried to learn herbalism before, from books or the internet and found it challenging, you’ll really appreciate our course.
Herbalism is a Living Medicine, that can only be truly learned in a hands-on way, as you feel the effects of herbs in your own body, and make medicine from them with your own hands.
Our Number One Priority at Vital Ways Is To Support You To Truly Learn this Beautiful Art and Science, So We Provide:
- A Hands-On Experiential Class: All of our classes are hands-on. If you’re online, we ship you herbs right to your doorstep.
- Support of a Community: We learn better together, and when you join Vital Ways, you join a community of like-minded people, whether in-person or online who share your passion for healing and inspire, support, and encourage each other on the herbalist’s path.
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Personal Guidance by Experts in the Field: Our nationally renowned herbalists and teachers guide you and take an active interest in your learning.
Roots Herbalist Certificate
If you want to feel confident to step into the role of a trusted healer and herbalist, able to offer effective health guidance to your loved ones, then this course may be right for you.
You know that plants are the most ancient medicine and that they are as useful now as ever, as they unlock our innate healing potential in ways that nothing else can.
In your herbal journey at Vital Ways, you also learn advanced detoxification strategies, wild plant identification, effective stress management, herbal formulation, medicine making, tongue and pulse analysis and much more.
Course Highlights:
Hands-On Experiential Learning: We Ship You Herbs Every Month
Personal Guidance From Caring Highly Experienced Instructors: We want you to learn, so take an active role.
Holistic for the Most Effective Healing Approach: For whole person healing.
Live and Recorded Classes: You can re-watch all classes, with unlimited access to recordings.
Learning with a Great Community: For Fun, and Inspiration
You can learn the skills to become the healer that you envision yourself to be, to transform your health, and that of your loved ones. And if you feel called, you can even use your herbal skills for a new career in healing.
All Classes can be taken Online, In-person and are Recorded for unlimited viewing and for self-paced learners
The Roots Program is a complete Community Herbalist Course and can be a part of our 4 year Clinical Herbalist Program.
“This class changed me from the inside-out. I never dreamed I could learn such amazing herbal healing skills so quickly. I feel so lucky to have found the Vital Ways program and to have been able to learn with such passionate and caring instructors.”
“I received an amazing education at Vital Ways that gave me new perspectives, and abilities with herbs and mental-emotional healing. Chris and the rest of the educators have the deepest integrity for healing and led the way with their commitment and passion for holistic health. I couldn’t be more thankful that I found, and was able to attend this program.”
Specific Topics of Study:
Medicinal Plants: Traditional and time honored European, Native American, and Asian herbal medicine informed by cutting edge scientific and state of the art clinical understanding of medicinal plants.
Botany for Herbalists: Plant and Mushroom ID.
Wildcrafting: How to harvest your own medicinal plants and mushrooms.
Holistic Physiology for the Herbalist: The essentials of physiology for herbal approaches to healing.
Foundations of Nutrition: Essentials of Food as Medicine
Holistic Approach to Stress Transformation and Emotional Balance: Holistic approach to mind-body balance.
Medicine making skills: Infusions, decoctions, infused honeys, oils, salves, tinctures, herbal vinegars and more.
Holistic evaluation skills: Tongue, Pulse, Reading the body
Wild foods: Harvest and Preparation
Ethnobotany & Ethnonutrition: Northwest cultural ecosystems and native plant foods.
Your Guides
Roots Herbalist Certificate Program Co-Directors
Christopher Smaka, Vital Ways Director
Chris is the owner and director of the Vital Ways Center for Holistic Herbalism, our 1-4 year Holistic Clinical Herbalist School, Community Free Clinic, and The Herbal Apothecary, a community based herb store.
He has been fortunate to study herbalism and holistic health since 1995 with amazing educators in the US and in India, China and Nepal.
In his clinical practice, Chris combines traditional herbalism with modern advancements in holistic health, from nutrition, functional medicine and mind-body approaches for whole person healing. In his spare time, he is most likely to be found in the woods with his Siberian husky, sitting on a bed of moss, stooped over a patch of colorful fungi, field lens in hand.
Elise Krohn M. Ed
Elise is an educator, author of several books, herbalist, and native foods specialist living in the Northwest. During her 15 years of experience teaching in tribal communities, she has worked with elders and cultural specialists to develop community gardens, food sovereignty resources, a program on healing addiction, and curricula on chronic disease prevention. She also has over 10 years of experience as a clinical herbalist, and has authored two books and numerous articles on herbal medicine and wild foods. Elise is currently a Fellow in Ethnobotany and Ethnonutrition at the Center for World Indigenous Studies.
2021 Schedule
Class Dates and Times
One Saturday and Sunday per month
10:00AM – 5:00PM
May 22,23
June 12, 13
July 17,18
August 14,15
September 18,19
October 16,17
November 13,14
December 4,5
Tuition
$2100 includes all supplies and materials
“My time at Vital Ways deepened my understanding of holistic health and nutrition, and taught me how to use medicinal plants in a powerful way. It also gave me a sense of connection and fostered deep personal growth that I didn’t expect. It was a truly transformative journey, that I am eternally grateful for.”
Vital Ways is a Proud Member School
of the American Herbalist Guild
of the American Herbalist Guild
The only professional organization of Herbalists in the United States. All of our students can become student members of the Guild and all of our coursework counts towards the requirements for professional membership.
