Image 1 of 5
Image 2 of 5
Image 3 of 5
Image 4 of 5
Image 5 of 5
May 30, 2026
9am-4pm
This immersive course invites participants into a living relationship with the land through the ancient practices of foraging, medicine-making, and mindful attention. Guided by Rev. Genjo Sam Conway, a Zen monk and seasoned herbalist, students will learn to receive the wild—not as something to conquer or extract from, but as a generous teacher offering nourishment, healing, and insight.
Set in the fields and woods surrounding Avon Hills Folk School, the class blends practical instruction with contemplative practice. Participants will learn to identify common regional plants for food and medicine, understand ethical and sustainable harvesting, and explore basic preparations such as teas, tinctures, and simple foods. Alongside botanical knowledge, the course emphasizes slowing down, refining perception, and cultivating gratitude—learning how to meet plants as living beings rather than mere resources.
This session weaves together walking meditation, sensory awareness, folklore, ecology, and hands-on practice. No prior experience with foraging, herbalism, or Zen is required—only curiosity and a willingness to listen to each other and the land.
Participants will leave with:
• Practical skills in identifying edible and medicinal plants
• A grounded understanding of safe, ethical foraging
• Experience preparing simple herbal remedies and wild foods
• A deeper sense of connection to place, season, and body
• A contemplative framework for relating to the natural world
Please bring jars for anything we forage or make that you wish to bring home with you. Additionally, we will be hiking through the woods so please bring good walking shoes, a water bottle, and something to sit on if you wish (blanket, portable chair, etc).
Tuition: $95
Materials: $0
Since this is an all day course, lunch is included.
This course is for all ages.
Your Instructor
REV GENJO SAM CONWAY
(he/him)
Rev. Genjo Sam Conway, MS, LPCC, is a Zen priest in the lineage of Dainin Katagiri Roshi, ordained by his teacher, Byakuren Judith Ragir, Roshi. His practice stands at the confluence of Zen and psychoanalysis, where stillness and speech, emptiness and form, reveal their shared demand for truth. A psychoanalyst by vocation, Rev. Genjo’s work calls for an unflinching intimacy with the real — the courage to face what we most fear and what we most long for.
His teaching joins the discipline of zazen with the fierce tenderness of inquiry, each a way of remembering what it means to be fully human. Rooted also in his Irish ancestry, he walks an ancient path, honoring the old ways of land, weather, and kinship with all beings. This ancestral devotion infuses his Zen with earth and myth, wind and song — a reminder that awakening flowers not apart from the world, but intimately within it.