Elements of Ritual with Kathleen Harrison

Explore the fundamentals of ritual to deepen connections in spiritual, human, and plant relationships

Over the coming few months, ethnobotanist and teacher Kathleen Harrison will present a series of workshops that focus on deep practice. The initial event will be devoted to the workings of ritual. What are the fundamental elements of ritual, and what makes such practices feel both real and effective? While the world’s rites and ceremonies are incredibly diverse, we can still identify some universal aspects of ritual that are both older and larger than any specific culture or era. After all, ritual itself is as old as Homo sapiens, or even older. Kat will identify these time-honed elements—invocation, protection, rhythm, etc.—and weave them into engaging stories that help illuminate crucial features of ritual work like intuition, healing, courage, and the ancestors. Regardless of your heritage or points of origin, you can learn to work ritual effectively by using these principles, by respecting nature's intelligence, and by learning to release and trust the insights that well up from your own roots. The goal is to develop sincerity in your spiritual, human, and plant relationships, and to manifest them in communal ceremony—a practice that can help us glimpse our own roles in the grand and challenging story.

Interested in volunteering for this event? Please fill out this form.

Kathleen Harrison, MA, is an independent scholar and teacher of ethnobotany. Her work explores the relationship between plants, mushrooms and human beings—particularly in the realms that are often hidden: cultural beliefs, personification of species, rituals of healing and initiation, vision-seeking modalities, and artistic creations that illustrate the plant-human relationship. She also studies and teaches the deep history of humans in nature, encompassing the eras both before and since the advent of agriculture.

Since the 1970s, Kathleen has done recurrent fieldwork in Mesoamerica, the Amazon Basin, the West Coast subcultures, and the Pacific islands, and is a published author and photographer. In 1985, Kathleen co-founded Botanical Dimensions, and has managed its projects in Mexico, Peru, Hawaii and California. She hosted BD’s exceptional Ethnobotany Library and classes in Northern California from 2015-2020. Kat continues to teach classes on psychedelic perspectives and various branches of ethnobotany.