From our first annual Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference event in 2005, we quickly discovered that women in the Southeast were ready and eager for this community of teaching and connection that we were creating at the conference. We discovered that we were filling a deep need. Our first conference drew 250 women, a high number for a start-up event. By 2010, our sixth year, over 800 women attended, during a rough economic time when event after event was collapsing.

It seems that part of the draw to the conference comes from the authenticity that we bring to it as organizers. We use the weekend to give women a taste of the way we actually live. For us, green business and sustainability aren’t just buzz words: they’re the way of life. Our office and apothecary run entirely on solar and hydro electricity, our homes and offices are built and heated by wood from our land, we grow much of our own food on our adjacent farms and gardens, we raise our children in a community context and we practice herbal medicine, natural health, and women’s cooperation in our everyday lives.

Renee, Corinna, Ema, and Lee are the organizers of the SE Women’s Herbal Conference and all live at or near EH.

The Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference, ‘Bringing Back the Wise Woman Ways,’ takes place on October 14-16, 2011 at beautiful Lake Eden in Black Mountain, NC. It’s a weekend to learn, connect, and deepen into the Wise Woman Tradition: earth-based healing, local wisdom, & deep nourishment.

For more information and to register, visit sewisewomen.com

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The three conference organizers have been working together as a team for 5 years now. Corinna Wood and Lee Warren are both Earthaven members living and working in the Village Terraces Cohousing Neighborhood, and Ema Carmona is living a similar close-to-the-earth life in a neighboring community. “The conference gives us women the opportunity for a part-time living-wage income in a rural area without much opportunity for employment and allows us work that is deeply aligned with our values.”

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The Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference is the sister company of Red Moon Herbs –  sharing the same mother, owner and director, Corinna Wood. Corinna, a long-time Earthaven member, runs these two businesses here at Earthaven, employing not only herself but other local women, bringing much-needed income to families in our economically depressed Appalachian region.

Two Earthaven women, Corinna and Lee Warren, as well as a neighbor, Ema Carmona, work year round to organize The Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference, which offers hundreds of women the opportunity to learn, connect, and deepen in to the Wise Woman Tradition. This year marks the 5th anniversary of the conference which will take place in Black Mountain on October 2-4

The Wise Woman Tradition is very close to many of the values embodied at Earthaven. In brief, it means simple living, earth-based healing, and local plants. It encourages connection to place, honoring of cycles, nourishment of the body–of the human and of the earth, and community with each other. The conference is an opportunity to introduce these ideas to women from many different walks of life in a format and style that is empowering and deeply transformative.

The conference draws hundreds of women (expected participation this year is 500) from around the Southeast coming for classes taught by more than 30 teachers, herbalists, wise women elders, and gifted healers. They will teach more than 50 classes on topics such as: Herb Walks, Tea Blending Secrets, Herbal Skin Care, Herbal Baths, Menstrual Health, Menopause, Women’s Wellness, Nutrition, Phytochemicals, HPV, Shamanic Breathwork, Talking Stick, Self Esteem, as well as art, dance, yoga, poetry, and more.

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