South African Medicinal Plants And Healing Walk

Dear students

Welcome to the Fourth Course unit: South African Medicinal Plants And Healing Walk.

In this field course, Jean takes us on healing journey through the beautiful Klipriviersberg Nature Reserve close to Johannesburg to learn to identify and use South Africa’s most powerful medicinal healing plants, wild edible plants, as well as explaining principles of holistic medicine and how ayahuasca and other visionary plants heal from personal experiences. 1hr: 18 min

This module integrates much of the knowledge from the previous units into practical ways we can heal using; nutrition, nature, medicinal plants and importantly-ourselves: our beliefs and attitudes, that some of the plants like true teachers can show us!

Some topics discussed include:

South Africa’s most useful and powerful medicinal plants: their applications: cosmetics, tonics, antimicrobials, psychoactives, wild edible foods etc, and how to prepare them.

How to identify and sustainably use medicinal plants.

Traditional medicinal plant uses and popular preparation methods.

The chemistry of medicinal plants-global patterns and main chemical groups and their actions: alkaloids, saponins etc, how medicinal plants produce different levels of plant chemicals and in different parts of the plants.

How different medicinal plants can be used together for synergistic actions.

Principles of holistic medicine and healing for application in everyday life

What are psychoactive plants and their healing affects: e.g., Ayahuasca, ubulawu, and much more…

Important research questions are left with you to contemplate that can steer you into exploring new avenues of plant research and healing and Jean explores some poorly known yet powerful psychoactive and other medicinal plants that need urgent further investigation.

Enjoy this relaxing adventure into the African Bush to explore its healing gems!