Day on the Mountain with Betzy Bancroft
$60.00
Join us for an inspiring and enriching day on the Mountain!
Start your day with a plant walk led by herbalist Betzy Bancroft to meet the plant allies of the Sage Mountain gardens and forests. Pause midday for a nourishing organic vegetarian lunch. Spend the afternoon in the gardens, the forest trails, or swimming at the pond! Enjoy a restorative, nourishing day at the teaching center that inspired thousands of Rosemary Gladstar’s students for over thirty years.
Book your opportunity to spend time at the Sanctuary and connect with the creatures who call this space home. Come to learn, stay to grow, and leave inspired.
Day visits open with check in and introductions at 10 am followed by plant walk, lunch, and free thyme. Tuition of $60 includes a nourishing organic vegetarian lunch and herbal tea. Register two weeks in advance for early bird tuition discount $45. Contact us for group rates, scholarship opportunities, and private bookings.
Join us for an inspiring and enriching day on the Mountain!
Start your day with a plant walk led by herbalist Betzy Bancroft to meet the plant allies of the Sage Mountain gardens and forests. Pause midday for a nourishing organic vegetarian lunch. Spend the afternoon in the gardens, the forest trails, or swimming at the pond!
Book your opportunity to spend time at the Sanctuary and connect with the creatures who call this space home. Come to learn, stay to grow, and leave inspired.
Join us for one or all of our 2024 Days on the Mountain.
Saturdays from 10 am – 4 pm
– July 27th
– August 17th
– September 21st
– October 12th
Day visits open with check in and introductions at 10 am followed by plant walk, lunch, and free thyme. Tuition of $60 includes a nourishing organic vegetarian lunch and herbal tea. Register two weeks in advance for early bird tuition discount $45. Contact us for group rates, scholarship opportunities, and private bookings.
Betzy Bancroft, RH(AHG) is a teacher, clinical herbalist, gardener, craftsperson and environmentalist who’s had a deep appreciation for the magic of plants since childhood. As VCIH co-director and core faculty, Betzy provides the earth element to the organization’s staff. Plants are truly her friends, and she feels ever inspired by the natural world—all its varied beings and the amazing interconnections and beauty that make up the great web of life.
In 1987 she began formal study at Herbal Therapeutics School of Botanical Medicine (now David Winston’s Center for Herbal Studies) and went on to teach herbal pharmacy, field botany and other subjects as an assistant instructor at the school. Lucky to be in the only class of David’s that continued for 3 years, Betzy went on to complete two graduate courses in clinical herbalism with him, as well.Still an avid student, she has taught classes in herbal medicine, wild edible plants and the medicinal uses of food throughout the Northeast for over two decades, including major conferences such as Northeast Organic Farming Association, Pennsylvania Sustainable Agriculture Conference, the American Herbalists Guild Symposia and the New England Women’s Herbal Conference. Betzy was a part time instructor at the Tracker School for 7 years, specializing in edible wild plants and the physical languages of plants. Teaching there enabled her to take many classes in primitive skills, and she happily maintains connection to that community by teaching at the ROOTS School Rendezvous.
Betzy currently serves on the United Plant Savers’ Advisory Board. Her experience also includes over a decade in the herbal product industry as staff herbalist and general manager for Herbalist & Alchemist, Inc., a manufacturer of quality herbal extracts and other herbal products. She’s also taken weekend or multi-weekend courses with a number of respected herbalists, including Amanda McQuade-Crawford and the late William LeSassier, two teachers who have particularly inspired her.
Practicing in the Western energetic tradition of herbal medicine, Betzy has been influenced by the Eclectic and other botanic physicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries in this country, and deeper back to the traditions of Europe. Her focus is on the common threads between all ancient medical systems, which ultimately lead to Nature itself–the four basic elements and the qualities intrinsic to them. Helping students and clients recognize the Nature of herbs, peoples’ constitutions and imbalances is a key part of her approach.
Betzy loves to introduce others to her green friends, to share the herbal wisdom she feels very blessed to have learned. Her goal is to help students and clients understand the plants’ “personalities” and relate to them as fellow living beings and guides to better health.
