Blue Otter School of Herbal Medicine

Our goal is to train individuals in the Native American tradition – providing knowledge and skills, and nurturing the individual student’s talents. We approach herbalism from an indigenous perspective; offering a non-Western, non-scientific perspective of viewing medicine, health, the plants and the earth.

The plant people were the first beings, our elders and teachers, and hold the oldest knowledge. Plants were also people’s first medicine and we are committed to passing on this knowledge. We offer a full-time four month certificate program as well as part-time courses. Class size is kept small to ensure a productive learning environment.

Many people ask us, ‘Why Blue Otter?’ We spent a good deal of time thinking of a name as we were envisioning our school. Since the heart of the school comes from the Native American teachings Karyn was raised with, we included one of her family plants, blue cohosh, into the name. Besides being a beautiful and elegant plant, blue cohosh is deer medicine; heart medicine. The energy of the otter brings a grace, gentleness, playfulness and generosity to the school that we also felt was key to the learning environment we were creating.

We had been teaching for many years prior to the creation of this school, but this was a new level of immersion into the world of plants that we wanted to create for our students. We moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to the mountains of far, Northern California and opened the doors of the Blue Otter School of Herbal Medicine in 2003.

At the Blue Otter School of Herbal Medicine we offer a variety of learning experiences from our intensive, four month certification program to classes from 10 days, one weekend or one evening. We have courses for the person who wants to incorporate herbs into his or her own life for personal use to advanced clinical levels of training.

We approach teaching from a Native American, energetic perspective; that learning as well as healing needs to engage us on physical, emotional and spiritual levels. We keep class size small in order to ensure a productive learning environment.
For further information about our courses, click here: Blue Otter Courses

The Blue Otter School of Herbal Medicine is located in the mountains of Siskiyou County in Northern California. Siskiyou County borders Oregon and is home to Mount Shasta, the Marble, Scott, Cascade Eddy and Trinity Mountain Ranges and the Klamath, Scott and Salmon Rivers. Numerous creeks, alpine lakes, animals and plants abound in this county sparsely populated by people.

Our land is seven miles outside the town of Fort Jones in the beautiful Scott Valley. Just over nine acres, the land holding the Blue Otter School of Herbal Medicine has a forested hillside, open meadow, a creek, stunning views of Mt. Shasta and is adjacent to the Marble Mountain Wilderness.

The Herbal Highway has been airing live on public radio since 1996. This weekly radio show is dedicated to providing free herbal information to the public. Hosted and produced by Karyn Sanders, The Herbal Highway enhances the community’s knowledge of herbal medicine and alternative choices to standard medical practices for healing. Sarah Holmes also hosts the program on a monthly basis.

The Herbal Highway airs on KPFA, the oldest public radio station in the country. KPFA is completely listener sponsored and is located in Berkeley, California.
To learn more about The Herbal Highway, click here: http://kpfa.org/herbal-highway