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
Building Resilience
December 4-6, 2026
Building Resilience is about fine tuning our self care so that we are better able to show up in our lives and, hopefully, have the capacity to move beyond surviving into thriving. Class time will be a combination of lecture, plant meditations, energy exercises and journaling prompts with a focus on building resilience in preparation for winter and for our lives.
In this class we will explore:
- Physical support, including herbs for:
- Immune building
- Digestion
- preventive care with tonics
- Emotional and Spiritual support, including:
- Stress and depression
- Identifying your own sticky points/areas of work
- supporting self-exploration and winter dreaming
Class size limited to 16 people. In person only in Tacoma, WA. Taught by Sarah Holmes
Tuition is $650-400 sliding scale.* Registration is not yet open. Stay tuned for further details.
Animal Spirit Medicine
March 26-28, 2027
Immerse yourself in a weekend of exploring the medicine of working with animal spirit medicine. Animal medicine is an energetic practice of working with the energies of animals within the herbs and working with the animals. This class will include:
- Properties/medicine of the different animals
- Herbs associated with each animal
- Examples of working with the animals
- Plant meditations to directly experience these energies
Explore the energy of the plants through understanding the animals associated with them. Class time will be a combination of lecture, plant meditations and energy exercises.
Please note, this is not a class about giving herbs to the physical animals in our lives. This animal medicine class also does not cover every animal, rather it will include the animal medicines more commonly used in this particular Choctaw lineage.
Class size limited to 16 people. In person only in Tacoma, WA. Taught by Karyn Sanders and Sarah Holmes
Tuition is $650-400 sliding scale.* Registration is not yet open. Stay tuned for further details.
Energetic Herbalism Intensive…the Series!
In response to the appreciation for our Energetic Herbalism Intensives, we are bringing to you a series of 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 a 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. Registration is not yet open. Stay tuned.
Showing Up
Setting and holding space and boundaries, presence, confidentiality and integrity in your practice, self care. Applicable for practitioners in related fields as well. Pre-requisite.*
June 18-20, 2027; 10-4 daily. Registration is not yet open. Stay tuned.
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 will be 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.
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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
“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