PRIMITIVE SKILLS + RELEVANT TALKS

::  with More to COMe ::

Learn how to do simple vegetable ferments, pickles, and natural sodas! We will discuss how the art of fermentation can heal us on a micro and macro level. Connect with your food in a way that brings deeper health and community to your life. Handouts with recipes available. 

There is no cost to attendees. The food cost is covered by me because we are not doing make and take. There is no limit on attendees. Just need space for everyone to see. I will need some water for cleanup.

Learn how to prepare wild edibles and cook them over the fire to create dishes fit for 5 star restaurants. We will work with what nature gives us, but a typical lesson includes an appetizer, main dish, side, dessert, and a beverage, all featuring seasonal wild plants and mushrooms. And, of course, students get to eat their lesson. So bring your plate, fork, and cup and try something new! 

As a child Rachel often camped, hunted, trapped, and harvested and preserved foods with her family. She is a lifelong student of the environment and traditional skills, with a special interest in understanding why nature creates those characteristics that give plants and animals their useful qualities. Rachel is the organizer of Will Forage for Food, (willforageforfood.com), a southern Michigan venture dedicated to community building and the teaching of traditional and homesteading skills, sustainable living, and self-sufficiency.

Join Luna on the back hill Friday evening for a heart-expanding opening ceremony during which we will invite the spirit of *Cacao* to support us on our weekend journey in The Pines! *Please bring a drinking vessel if you’d like to be served cacao medicine. *(Cacao is the purest form of chocolate & has been used ceremonially by indigenous people for centuries. In addition to its numerous physical health benefits, it works energetically to open the heart & spiritually presents an opportunity to connect with the divine essence of LOVE). Join as a participant, or observer. *Feel free to bring an instrument, or your own beautiful voice to share a prayer or song.

Carrie “Luna” Collins finds inspiration in nature & human connection. Bare feet on earth, or sky clad in sweet water are her favorite places to be. Movement, music & medicines from mama earth inspire & inform her walk. She finds delight in holding sacred space for transformation & healing. Luna’s current planetary missions include: harnessing energy, using it for good & having fun.

Meditative Plant Communication

In this workshop, we will journey with plants by encountering their consciousness through smelling experiences with hydrosols (plant waters) as well as direct meditative experiences with living plants. As we open that intuitive, imaginative space within us to listen deeply, the plants help us grow our capacity to sense consciousness all around us. We will learn about tuning into expanded forms of sensing in order to experience the plants’ unique qualities, how they make us feel, and what impressions they communicate to us through our bodies and hearts. This workshop is for anyone who wants to grow their ability to communicate with plants, for herbalists and healers who want to enrich their spiritual relationship with the plants they work with on a daily basis, or for those who simply want to settle into an energy of earthy nourishment.

Kate Daughdrill is an artist, urban farmer, speaker, and yogini who is based at her urban farm in Detroit, Michigan. Kate weaves together art, yoga, plants/food, and spiritual practice to create transformative experiences of embodied presence. Her approach to meditation, ritual, and art is blissful, surrender-oriented, and often plant-inspired. Kate’s creative work has received national attention from the New York Times, Dwell, Oprah Magazine, and Cosmopolitan. She has shared her sculptures, performative dinners, cooking, yoga practices, ceremonies, writing, and creative immersions all over the world. Learn more about her recent art, gardening, and community-inspired projects at www.kdaughdrill.com

Learn about circadian biology and how to optimize it.  Learn about body alignment, posture, and energy meridians and how to optimize them.  Lastly, Blake will dive deep into non native electromagnetic fields, the damaging impacts of them, and the best ways to thrive in an EMF polluted environment!

Blake Bowman is a holistic health expert, biohacker, forager, rewilder, and coach.  He helps people optimize themselves from a mind, body, and spirit level.

Enjoyer of nature, wildlife watcher, and an avid Earth-systems junkie. Emily is a producer of many creative forms, from mandala making, yoga and creative movement, wordsmithing, to finding the best that nature provides in a lense. Grown here in the Jackson, Michigan area, she is an explorer of our great state, called to be a mother goddess of two young spawnlings, a farrier, a teacher of many and a engaged student of more.

Art on the Earth: Nature Mandala Crafting

Discover the Earth as your co-creator and as a provider for the creative soul we all have. All the materials needed to make a nature mandala form will be found on a meditative walk and gather. We will be searching for the remnants that plants, trees and wildlife leave behind to help us create. Then, getting down and dirty, working on and then leaving these beautiful works of art for everyone to enjoy and allowing Pachimama to take them back as she sees fit.

Kids Nature Mandala 

Children need Nature as a teacher and a friend. Kids will create and explore the crafting of a nature material mandala. We will look all around on the ground for earth materials and enjoy our art making with all of our senses. Kids can work individually or be included in a group make mandala as their abilities allow.

In this class Dominique will demonstrate how to easily make a no-sew, reusable bag out of an upcycled tshirt. This will be a judgment free exploration of the environmental, social and economical impact plastic has on our world. Questions will be asked to help lead the conversation like:
🙅🏽‍♀️What have you integrated into your life that has helped you stop buying plastic?
🛒 What plastic household items seem to be the hardest to break away from?
🗣How can we influence companies to drop plastic?
👚🧠👕All you need to bring is an old tshirt and an open mind!

An open conversation on how to be empowered to explore nature and share that curiosity with others! We will discuss the reasons we started our organization and the methods we have found to lead people to the joys and benefits of being outdoors.

Nature Enthusiast and Executive Director of The Wandering Association,  an organization committed to empowering others to Wander, Explore, and Protect natural areas. I am a mother, an artist, and a lover of all things Green and Wild. I currently run the Wandering Washtenaw branch of our organization and call Washtenaw County my home.

Discussion on how the business model of private consultations with medical cannabis patients and community outreach initiatives display and honor the feminine nature of the plant itself. Updates will be given on the current state of policy from a state and federal level as well as insights on the industry as it continues to grow.

Lisa Conine is the Community Outreach Coordinator for the Om of Medicine, a medical cannabis provisioning center in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Lisa is also a medical cannabis patient herself, using cannabis to treat Crohn's Disease. Her role at Om entails organizing partnerships with local non-profits, facilitating monthly events at our facility, and educating patients on how to become politically active. In addition, Lisa also interacts with patients on a daily basis in Om's one-on-one private consultation rooms. Lisa feels this environment is optimal for healing holistically and for developing long term and trustworthy relationships with patients.

In this course, participants will learn how to create a tried and true primitive trap constructed of the elements amount them. Making cordage from down tree bark, shaping branches into kinetic elements, and using natures products in replacement of human produced tools will be the main learning objectives. Through these exercises, one will learn how to spot useful items in different environments and utilize them to their potential. This course requires no prior knowledge of primitive survival and all ages are welcome! Primitive survival is a great set to add to your arsenal. We are powerful individuals, and I believe that by creating with our hands, from nothing but the elements around us, we can observe just how strong we truly are.

Hello! My name is Blair Miller. My time is engaged making music, woodworking, and finding the next woodland adventure.  I have a strong connection to earlier outdoor practices and find myself happiest surrounded by trees. It is through creating with our own hands that I believe we grow as humans and recognize our inner strength. Along with woodworking, I work at a museum where I have the opportunity teach people the way that older tools were used and their transition into what we see today. I look forward to seeing you in the Pines!

Learn about the personal, social, and global benefits of a vegan lifestyle. Find out how simple, easy, and inexpensive it is to be healthy, compassionate, and ecologically responsible. Sample some tasty plant-based food, too!

Artist, vegan cookbook author, photographer, navel-gazer, and lover of the planet and all its inhabitants. I believe a healthy vegan life can be simple and inexpensive and promote personal, social, and global health and wellness.

You already care about clean food and water - let's talk clean cannabis! Change the world by growing healthy cannabis in beautiful regenerative systems. You can improve soil health and structure, increase biodiversity, sequester carbon, and increase yields while producing an abundance of higher medicinal values with incredible flavor. I will lead a conversation of step by step processes you can incorporate into your existing gardens to begin building regenerative systems. We’re chattin soil based sun grown outdoor systems.

Amber is a forest dwelling goddess serving Mother Earth. She is co-creator of Moon Mtn in the wild Huron Mountain Range. You’ll find her spreading abundance and walking barefoot thru her northern medicinal food gardens.

Discover your basic makeup and simple ways to maintain wellness and joy. We come to planet Earth with our own combination of elements.  Learn what yours might be, how you may be out of balance and then recover before dis-ease ever finds you.

BA and MA in Education Practitioner of yoga for 30 years Certified yoga teacher for 19 years in the Joseph LePage tradition of Integrative Yoga Therapy. Many additional trainings with teachers of many traditions. Certified Ayurveda Practitioner for 10 years.

We will take a walk and point out some basic flora and fauna ID, as well as observe and discuss the relationships of the various species we see sharing the land together. We will learn how to listen to what they are communicating about the health or sickness of the particular ecosystems we are in, learn what can be done to restore the parts that are damaged, see where the wild food is to be found, and attempt to sort out how these relate to each other.

Jeremy and Colleen recently launched a new *donation based* stewardship school @opengrownschool in the Irish Hills. We are thankful to call these members of our local community friends and host the in the Pines.

The saying "your voice matters" has two equally important meanings. First, it means that you and your voice are invaluable, unique, worthy, and assisting in the unfolding of all creation. Secondly, it means that your voice is creative - it literally creates and influences energy and matter. 

In this vocal play shop, we'll embrace and honor our voices. We'll explore them as vessels for healing and creativity, learn simple vocal techniques to sound and feel better immediately, and sing medicine songs that raise and beautify our vibration and that of our planet. Sacred sound, here we come!

It's not required, but if you wish, you may bring drums or other instruments for our group sing along.

Kimberly Harrison is an accomplished singer, musician, and holistic vocal empowerment coach. Her Singing For Your Soul voice studio has won multiple awards as Best Voice Studio and Best Performing Arts Business in Santa Monica, CA, and she has offered her Signature Voice Training in collaboration with Yoga Journal. She maintains a busy schedule of vocal empowerment and sound healing worldwide, both in person and online. Kimberly passionately believes that singing is our birthright, and that for many reasons, reclaiming our voices is essential to our evolving consciousness and wellbeing as a species and planet.

You’ve probably heard that pollinators like bees and butterflies are in decline – which is disturbing, since pollinators are critical to ecosystem function and production of food crops. But you can support these important insects, right in your own back yard, through your plant choices and gardening practices. Attendees will learn how to help pollinators by providing food, shelter, and places to raise young. Plant choice will be discussed, with an emphasis on species that are native to southeast Michigan, along with green management practices and sources for purchasing native plants.

Lee Walsh is a Master Gardener, a certified Pollinator Champion through MSU Extension, and a beekeeper. She’s passionate about supporting bees, butterflies, and birds with native plants and green gardening practices. A Tecumseh resident, she has transformed her perfectly ordinary city lot into an urban oasis, stuffed to bursting with native plants and overflowing with life.

With the 2 Cup method it is a extreamly powerful way to let go and go within, to find your true desires, and get them.
 We will meditate, and release low Vibrational energies trapped in our body cells. Talk about restructuring water, connection with community and will allow participants to connect with Mother Earth, Universal all, higher self, Ascended Masters and Guides. Balance and find our Neutral selves. Discover in our current situation and our desire for our new timeline. Then we will create our Quantum leap into our new time to manifest what we truly desire.

Shannon with Mother Firefly's Healing,  is a Certified Master/ of Reiki Seichim & Sekhem,  Medical Reiki CMRI, Dance Meditation Technique facilitator D.M.T.F, Mindfulness/ Meditation Instructor C.M.I. with many more modalities of healing and meditation. 
Mother Firefly's purpose is to help raise the Vibrational Frequency of Humanity with the expansion of hearts. She is a organic healer, workshop facilitator, and compassionate heart felt person, that enjoys loving and supporting everyone's own beautiful personal journey that the universe has to offer.

Will begin with a guided mindfulness meditation followed by an open discussion about mental health to include: defining mental illness (the labels vs the Symptomatology of the MI), coping skills for yourself, being a support to others, emotional fatigue/ burnout of people within the healing profession, class is open to suggestions and topics from those attending. 

Please bring something to sit on.

LMSW (licensed masters social worker) 

I earned a Bachelors of Social Work from Adrian College in 2015 and a Masters of Social Work from Wayne State University in 2016 and my full clinical license in 2019  I have experience working one on one for the past three years with individuals in a mental health setting in metro-Detroit.. I find it most rewarding to work with individuals who struggle with anger and anxiety as well as deep emotional traumas.. I help people move through unfelt emotions through expression and work to establish effective coping skills on a personal, spiritual, and physical level. I act as a catalyst for growth and wellness. Although certified through level two reiki, I do not use any direct energy work.. one day I hope to include energy work as well as dance and yoga movement into my scope of practice.

In Mushrooms 101, Peter Savoie from Havenswood will be discussing the following topics.

Introduction to what mushrooms and mycelium are as well as why they are so important to our environment. 
Outdoor Cultivation techniques and applications. 
Common Michigan wild mushrooms and their medicinal qualities.

Peter Savoie will also be leading a Mushroom Patch Demonstration where we will learn how to grow delicious mushrooms quickly and easily for very little investment.

Pete was born and raised in New Hampshire, spending many years in Boston working in the fine dining industry where his love for quality food and ingredients began. His passion for cultivating mushrooms started ten years ago when he purchased a house in Peterborough, NH that had several wild mushroom varieties growing on the property. He started a mushroom farm in 2010 where he cultivated a wide variety of mushrooms using both indoor and outdoor techniques. His mushrooms were sold at farmers markets and to restaurants around southern NH. He studied under David Wichland based in Keene, NH until relocating to Grass Lake Michigan in 2014. In 2017 he partnered with Andrea Ericksen and together they founded Havenswood. Havenswood is a federally recognized non-profit created to help people re-establish their relationship to food, medicine and nature. Their main goal is to minimize food insecurity in Jackson County. Pete and everyone at Havenswood grow the most medicinal and delicious mushrooms they can and gives them out at no cost to the people who need them most. To learn more about what Havenswood is up to and how you can get involved, visit us on Facebook or at havenwoods.org

Join me this year at the Pines for an interactive discussion delving into some of the ideas and symbolism that continually show up in the music and art of the Grateful Dead, Phish, the String Cheese Incident, and other similar bands. We will take a look at these ideas and compare them to similar concepts found in the teachings of different mystery schools and ancient traditions, as well as recent breakthroughs in consciousness research, and work together as a group to uncover what it is about this Community Music scene that creates such a powerful draw for so many. Is it really just about the groove? Find out this year at the Pines!

Fred Ribits is an occult researcher and writer with a passion for education and music. A science nerd at heart, his fascination with the teachings of the ancient mystery schools and our connection to the cosmos has led him on an open-ended exploration of the human experience, with a focus on the areas of our culture that provide us a glimpse into the non-physical world that exists all around us. Fred resides in Cincinnati, OH with his wife and their beloved pups.

SweetWater Yoga was founded in 2014 by certified SUP Yoga instructor, Sally Lyons and RYT 200. Her love of yoga and water easily came together and her vision of SUP Yoga was clear. Classes began on her home base lake of Clark Lake and since then has expanded to various bodies of water in Michigan and Ohio. SweetWater has a variety of amazing teachers who will be sharing their gifts on the water at Divine Pine Gathering again this year. Sally continues to be honored and humbled by those interested in SUP Yoga and wants everyone to experience the sweet summer bliss it has to offer. She promises it is easier than it looks but does encompass what yoga teaches us.. to be focused on breath and present moment. Shivasana on a paddleboard is one of her favorite places to be. Sally is looking forward to sharing the unique, serene practice once again at the Divine Pine Gathering.

Ryan Richardson lives his life to the fullest as a nature loving intuitive empath open to sharing his gifts as a Reiki energy healer, yoga instructor, and youth empowerment leader. Join Ryan on the back water a she gently guides you to find your center in an empowering SUP yoga flow.

Greg Monzel is a native Hoosier, husband, father, and student of nature and history with a gift for nourishing deep connections between people and plants. He first experienced the medicinal power of plants directly when he used raw pineapple as an effective treatment for chronic strep-throat in his teens. In 2007, Greg studied with renowned herbalist 7song at the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine and in 2013 with herbalist jim mcdonald in Michigan. He has parlayed his nurturing temperament and deep connection with plants into a career as an herbal educator, medicine maker and grower.  Greg co-founded Wild Persimmon School of Wellness in Indianapolis to hold a plant-centered space to build healing community.  

In this open discussion, we will cover topics such as human evolution alongside plants and fungi that have fed, clothed, and healed us, and mutually beneficial relationships including sustainable foraging. We’ll share practices that can help lead back to the land, and share experiences of deep nature connection. We’ll discuss some common (and delicious) wild foods + medicines of Michigan and the Great Lakes area, and have a sampling of wild food snacks to try. Our goal is to spark inspiration to try incorporating some wild food or medicine into your life and in turn helping to further reconnect back to earth, our shared home.

Linnea + Forrest Schoen spend their days with their son Leeland foraging and exploring the wild spaces of Michigan and running their small business, Organic + Wild, which produces small-batch offerings of herbal skin care, tinctures, and sustainably harvested wild food and herb provisions.

Andrea Ericksen from Havenswood will be breaking down our dairy industry and exploring the benefits of raw milk! Restrictive State laws regarding raw milk create a secret culture around this living food, but we can’t keep our mouths shut any longer! Join me at DPG2019 to discuss all things real, fresh, raw milk! 

'Ask the Herbalist’ is a new and special offering DPG 2019. Catch each of these experienced herablists for an hour in the healing village where you can ask them about herbalism, natural healing, foraging and more!