Classes

Welcome to our website! You may know that our story, in this form, began in far Northern California in 2003. In the fall of 2022 we moved from our home in the mountains of California to make a new home by the ocean in Tacoma, Washington.

Along with this transition in geography comes a transition in our work. We sometimes offer classes online and in the fall of 2023 we started offering in-person classes in Tacoma, WA. See our latest class line-up below! 

Have any questions about our courses? Are there courses you missed that you’d like to see again? Are you interested in inviting Karyn or Sarah to teach at your school or in your community? Feel free to email us. Info@blueotterschool.com. 

From our family to yours, may you know the presence of the plants in your life.

Photo by Richard Sagredo on Unsplash

Energetic Herbalism Intensive…the Series!

In response to the appreciation for our Energetic Herbalism Intensives, we are bringing to you a series of four in person workshops to deepen and add to your skills and practices. You can take one, all or pick and choose what is useful for you. People registering for three or more intensives will receive an 18% discount.

All intensives will include a combination of lecture, discussion, plant meditations and energy exercises. Sarah Holmes will be the instructor for each of these three day intensives. All will be held in person in Tacoma, WA; five hours of class with an additional hour for lunch. Class size will be kept small to enable a supportive learning environment. Students are responsible for their own food and lodging.

*Pre-requisite for Showing Up, Gathering and Integrating: Foundations, previous Energetic Herbalism Intensive or our four month certificate program (we no longer offer this program). 

Foundations 

Dive into our perspective of what is energetic herbalism; how energy moves and lives in the body, how plants carry their energy and how to approach combining the energies of person, plant and illness/imbalance. Required for the rest of the series if you have not previously studied with us. You are also welcome to take Foundations if you have studied with us previously. 

April 23-25, 2027; 10-4 daily.

          To sign up start with our Registration Form.

 

Showing Up

Setting and holding space and boundaries, presence, confidentiality and integrity in your practice, as well as self care. Applicable for practitioners in related fields as well. Pre-requisite.*

June 4-6, 2027; 10-4 daily.

To sign up start with our Registration Form.

Gathering

Deep listening, interviewing skills, working with trauma. Applicable for practitioners in related fields as well. Pre-requisite.*

TBA Fall 2027; 10-4 daily. Registration is not yet open. Stay tuned.

 

Integrating

Deep dive on herbal formulations, long term work with people, case studies. Specific to the practice of herbalism. Pre-requisite.*

TBA Fall 2027; 10-4 daily. Registration is not yet open. Stay tuned.

 

 

 

Cost: The tuition for each intensive in the Energetic Herbalism Intensive Series is $650-400 sliding scale*. People registering for three or more intensives in this series will receive an 18% discount. Please also consider this discount when finding your place on the sliding scale. Building Resilience and Animal Spirit Medicine are not a part of this series. Further deposit and payment details are on the Registration Form.

*A note about our sliding scale. We are offering a sliding scale in an effort to be accessible to as many people as we can. If you could not take the class otherwise, please use the sliding scale, that is what it is for. If you cannot afford the lowest price, contact us. If you can afford the highest price, then please pay it, this gives us greater flexibility in offering discounts. We appreciate your honesty in carefully considering your decision.

Mentoring Sessions

Get individualized attention with your questions. One hour sessions are available with Karyn Sanders or Sarah Holmes to ask about what is coming up for you in your herbal practice. The intention of these sessions is to provide a mentoring space for practice questions as they come up for you; from the practical to the personal. Call or email for scheduling and pricing. By appointment only. Karyn@BlueOtterSchool.com or Sarah@BlueOtterSchool.com. We look forward to hearing from you and supporting your work in the world.

 

Check out our Radio Page for the latest news about The Herbal Highway and our archives.

Signing up for our newsletter or following us on Bluesky,  Instagram or Facebook are all good ways to stay up to date with our class offerings.

We hope you can join us! 

 

“Studying with Karyn and Sarah was hands-down one of the most special, most energizing, and most challenging experiences of my life. I completed the full-time program in 2015 and I constantly draw on the wealth of knowledge I gained during that time. Offerings such as materia medica, medicine-making, and gardening are invaluable and unique to this program. Karyn and Sarah are accessible, generous, and energetic instructors who are deeply committed to their students and to the practice of truly holistic energetic herbalism.”               

Gina Badger, Graduate of the full-time program, 2015

 

“It was Octavia Butler who wrote “All that you touch you change, all that you change changes you.” This is how I feel about Blue Otter School of Herbal Medicine and Sarah’s teachings. As a practicing psychotherapist who works in community mental health serving families in San Francisco, I feel my mental-emotional-spiritual cup replenished after these nourishing intensives. Sarah is a magically gifted and empowering teacher, she excels at creating spaces that are like retreats for the heart and soul. I walk away from her classes more attuned to my plantcestral intuition, more grounded, more present, and clearer about the unique ways I want to braid together energetic herbalism with psychotherapy work. The energetic herbalist intensives light up the rainbow streets in my herbalist DNA: Shaping light, changing light, refracting light so the rainbows can shine more. These rainbows we all carry as herbalists, they are the color-full medicines that get activated with the places that feel most aligned to our styles of learning: for me this place is Blue Otter and Sarah’s livingroom classroom: to which I am immensely grateful  <3 “

jamil moises liban-ortanez, anti-colonial expressive arts psychotherapist

participant of the 2025 and 2026 energetic herbalism intensives

 

“Blue Otter is a dream come true- it’s incredible to have the opportunity to be completely immersed in plant medicine through this full time program. The teachers are exceptional, supporting you to learn an extensive understanding of plant medicine and physiology, and a deep understanding of how to work with clients. The herb garden is an incredible resource where you can actually spend time with the plants you learn about, getting an opportunity to learn how to care for them as well. As a student, this class is a safe container to also do work on yourself, so you can become a strong practitioner. I can’t thank these two wonderful folks enough for the incredible support and encouragement they have provided through this program- Karyn and Sarah truly hold this medicine as sacred, and I recommend their school to anyone who is ready to do this work in a deep way. ” 

Elokin Orton-Cheung, founder of Shooting Star Botanicals