Become a Matthew Wood Certified Herbalist!
Much more than an online program
- Guided, herbal education
- Community atmosphere: online and live events
- New website with amazing features like interactive searchable transcripts and Closed Captions
- Become a Herbalist with an emphasis on: Astrology, Animal Medicines, Nutrition, Materia Medica, Natura Sophia.
- Real people to help with teachers and knowledgeable staff
NEW Accelerated Option! Be ready for Year 2 Program in early 2025.
Upcoming Classes
Herbs for the Musculoskeletal System
Available for FREE for a limited time! Herbal First Aid for Acute Conditions + Q&A with Teachers
*UPCOMING* Class Friday, April 26th 1:00-5:30pm US Central (Chicago)
Bitter Herbs
This class demystifies bitterness, akin to unsweetened coffee or chocolate, not acrid like bile. We'll delve into common bitters like dandelion, barely bitter options like barberry root, and intense choices like wormwood. We'll also honor Marrubium, known as maror mara in Hebrew, originally eaten at Passover.
This class complements Green Thursday, exploring the holistic power of herbs.
FREE SET of Materia Media Cards
Get on the List
Materia Medica Flashcard Deck
Sold Out. Get on the list for the next round.
(Still available in digital form in the Library.)
- 57 cards: Year 1 Curriculum
- High-quality cards made to last!
- Large 5" x 7" cards: bigger, easier to read!
- UV-protected glossy finish: feels better, lasts longer
- On a ring: cards stay in one place!
- Designed and Printed locally (in Matt's 'neck of the woods') in Minnesota.
ForageFun
Sold Out. Get on the list for the next round.
A game created to introduce families and friends to the world of herbalism through foraging and fun! This is a terrific stocking stuffer and an affordable gift.
- 2 sets of 14 different herb cards
- 2 sets of 12 apothecary cards
- 2 wild cards
*Cards only. No outer box
New to Herbalism?
These are some great courses to get you started on your herbal journey.
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Free Classes
BundleLearn herbal medicine from MWIH with free herbalism classes online led by an outstanding lineup of Traditional Western herbalists.
Free
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Herbal Medicine Making - Beginner to Advanced
Course5.0 average rating (17 reviews)In this course professor Lori Rose, PhD. teaches you how to make herbal remedies: teas, infusions, decoctions, tinctures, salves, hydrosols and more! Enjoy pre-recorded videos, helpful handouts and live online classes.
$275
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Monthly Class - Herbs A to Z - Materia Medica
Course4.9 average rating (34 reviews)Looking for one of the best herbalist courses for beginners? Learn with our A-Z herb classes online with MWIH Materia Medica.
$24 / month
Subscription Courses
One great monthly price with lots of amazing content.
Many available a la carte too.
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Monthly Class - Herbs A to Z - Materia Medica
Course4.9 average rating (34 reviews)Looking for one of the best herbalist courses for beginners? Learn with our A-Z herb classes online with MWIH Materia Medica.
$24 / month
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Real Spirit Journey
Course5.0 average rating (9 reviews)The Real Spirit Journey Podcast and classes with Master Herbalist and Shaman Matthew Wood and Businessman, Remote Viewer and Modern Shaman, Jon Baklund.
$18 / month
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Herbal Medicine Making - Beginner to Advanced
Course5.0 average rating (17 reviews)In this course professor Lori Rose, PhD. teaches you how to make herbal remedies: teas, infusions, decoctions, tinctures, salves, hydrosols and more! Enjoy pre-recorded videos, helpful handouts and live online classes.
$275
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Medical Astrology Sun Signs
Course4.9 average rating (18 reviews)For herbalists and astrologers on all levels! Get out charts! Get out your herbals! Month by month, sign by sign, starting with Capricorn in January, this class will cover the health strengths and weaknesses of each sign, including the influences of
$45 / month
Unique Online Herbal Education
taught and curated by
World-Renowned Herbalist & Author
Matthew Wood
Grow your herbal education by leaps and bounds with online herbal education from the Matthew Wood Institute of Herbalism.
Other benefits include:
- Herbal Study Programs with the freedom to explore
- Options to study at your own pace
- Live, online, and recorded classes (all classes are recorded!)
- Learn from a variety of knowledgeable & experienced instructors
- Affordable payment options
- Online help from herbalism teachers
- Free, lifetime access to a private, online herbal community
- Certificates designed and signed by Matthew are available
Recent Blog Posts
"...medicine, to be holistic and curative, must include
mythic elements to satisfy the soul and spirit."
- Matthew Wood
Mission Statement
Matthew Wood Institute of Herbalism
The focus of Matthew Wood Institute of Herbalism is on a spiritual practice of herbalism, healing, and medicine. The main points in this approach are an overall emphasis on Nature as a Living Being, acknowledging the body, soul, and spirit, the four directions or elements, the seven lessons of the medicine path (described below), and the plants themselves. This is undertaken from a vitalist, holistic, natural, and traditional perspective.
The Living Nature (anima mundi) is experienced through the heart, both as a loving presence and as a fountain of wisdom. In order to practice herbalism, healing, and medicine in a sacred way we need to understand the basic principles by which Nature regulates her creatures. The traditional name for this knowledge is natura sophia (Nature Wisdom).
The Living Nature encompasses the mineral, plant, animal, and human worlds. As an herbal program, our emphasis is on the plant world, which provides so many of our great healing remedies. However, the animal world is also of great importance because it is the source of our animal vitality (vital force or qi), senses, instincts, emotions, and dreams. We sleep and dream only because we are warm-blooded animals. Internal exploration shows that the dream world is the spirit world; this is an age-old teaching of shamanism, Native spirituality, and the Nature Wisdom tradition. The human adds just self-consciousness and self-determination (a two-edged sword).
So we also need to study the animal world. This includes the vital force, which is also equivalent to the animal self (the double with which we co-walk during life in the body), the so-called etheric body, light-body, or energy body. It is the actualization of the animal self in dreamtime that allows us to have eyes and ears in the spirit world, for the animal world is the source of sensory awareness. The animal carries the human into the spirit world. This is why the eternal symbol of the shaman is the Human/Animal. This is known as the Old, Old Path, innate to the Living Nature. This is not a religion but an experience.
The mineral world adds the physical Earth, which we need to learn to approach in a sacred manner, with regard to our growing, picking, and selection of herbal medicines, and our living upon the surface.
Thus, Nature Wisdom encompasses the four elements (earth, water, air, and fire), also the fifth (spirit, inspiration). It also teaches us that the medicine of Nature is based on natural laws. These include the law of action and reaction (“karma”), manifesting as the great therapeutic laws of similars (like to like) and contraries (hot to cold). Healing proceeds from the “touch of the essence,” through similarity or opposition, then continues through the healing principle of the law of direction of cure and the law of the healing crisis. These three constitute the basic directives for healing from an innately spiritual perspective, in alignment with the Living Nature. There are, however, a total of seven laws, the higher four constituting therapeutic letting go, therapeutic sight, therapeutic grabbing hold, and therapeutic authority and responsibility.
These seven principles also correspond to the organizational themes of spiritual life, the seven levels or rungs on the shamanic ladder (“Jacob’s ladder”), which led us to self-knowledge and the opening of spiritual vision. For this reason, therefore, our curriculum also offers material on the spiritual journey through life.
These are the principles of Nature Wisdom and the way our school of herbal medicine is organized. A secondary mission will be to collect and offer materials relating to the history of herbalism and herbal practitioners in the last several generations.
Matthew Wood, MSC (Herbal Medicine), Registered Herbalist (AHG)
Lowgap, North Carolina
9:35 am, Jan. 30, 2019