Palestine’s longitudinal coordinate is 31.9522° N, Gill Tract Farm’s is 37.8867° N, creating a viable possibility that there is shared botany.  In our class today we will meet some of the plants on the farm also found in Palestine. We will learn their medicinal uses and create a tea to enjoy as we share words for a free and liberated world.

We will also create a Sharbat known as an oxymel in Western herbalism.  Sharbats are syrups made from fruit, flower extracts, and/or herbs. We will use a combination of Palestinian herbs and plants indigenous to the Lisjan Ohlone land. Participants will take home their sharbat to share with family and community.

Please bring a journal and pen for quiet reflection.

About the Teacher:

Hanan Masri is a teacher, poet, herbalist, and dancer with over 25 years of experience in the classroom. She is grateful to be teaching at Berkwood Hedge School where students can learn the academic and soulful rigor of herbalism, local botany, responsible foraging, and create “lotions and potions” to support the physical, emotional, and mental health of their lives.

Born in Halab [Aleppo], Syria, Hanan is of Lebanese and Palestinian descent, crediting her grandparents with quietly instilling a love of the land and the indigenous hands that cultivated it. Hanan also wants to give a shout out to her friend-sister Layla Feghali who just published a formidable book called The Land in Our Bones which archives the plants endemic to South West Asia [aka the Middle East].

Hanan is co-founder of High Road Scholars, LLC, a dream enterprise which takes young people on local, domestic, and international journeys which center the arts, nature, and culture with trips to the Amazon region of Peru to study plant medicine with indigenous communities, a beautiful, sprawling organic farm on Big Island, Hawaii to learn about novel permaculture practices, and Andros Island, Bahamas to center Caribbean biodiversity and learn the artisanal trades and practices of the Black Seminoles.

One of her favorite plants at Gill Tract Farm has been grindelia which has opened her lungs up to deeper breaths during these heartbreaking times. She is ever grateful for her community of chosen family, steadfast and vocal allies and friends working towards liberation for all.