New for the 2026 season

Abunuhi Yáro.
Traditional lifestyle practice.

Revive household ecology through the daily practices our ancestors lived by. Natural detergents, skin oils, hair foods, and ceremonial cleansing with roots and stones. Leave with a working apothecary and the rhythms of a home that tends itself.

Workshopiv. of vi.

Circle4 to 17 March

Seats14 in the circle

TuitionFrom $4,200

A master apothecary grinding botanicals in a dark basalt mortar at the worktable of a jar-lined Saint Vincent apothecary hall, an open shutter to the tropical garden behind her.

A master apothecary of the KWAJI:YÄ K'NÖGÉ Nation at the cold-press table, surrounded by hand-labeled glass jars.

The master apothecaries

A chemistry held by hand.

The lead instructors of Abunuhi Yáro are master apothecaries of the KWAJI:YÄ K'NÖGÉ Nation: women who have spent decades reading saponin plants, cold-pressing native oils, and tending the household chemistry our grandmothers ran by hand.

By the end of week two, your hands know the work.

The promise

A home that tends itself.

Before commercial soap, before pharmacy shelves, before the perfume industry, our grandmothers ran a household chemistry that was complete. Roots cleansed. Leaves nourished. Stones held heat and breath. A home tended itself.

Abunuhi Yáro is a 14-day intensive in that chemistry. You will identify the plants, learn to harvest and prepare them, build the working preparations, and leave with a complete take-home apothecary plus the daily rhythm that uses it.

Two weeks. Smaller circle of fourteen. The pace is intentionally slower than the longer workshops, designed for the body that has been working too hard for too long.

The five practices

Cleansing. Anointing. Tending.

A Vincentian master soap-maker grinding saponin root into a lather-paste in a basalt mortar, beside a bowl of wood ash and cured root-soap cakes.

Natural detergents.

Saponin plants. Wood ash. Root soaps. A clean house without industrial residue.

A Vincentian master decanting fresh-pressed golden botanical oil through a brass funnel into a hand-blown jar at a small hardwood screw-press.

ii.

Skin oils and balms.

Cold-pressing. Infusing. Salves and balms from native botanicals.

A Vincentian master lifting a ribbon of green-amber hair dressing from a carved hardwood bowl beside a steaming pot of botanical decoction and fresh hibiscus and aloe.

iii.

Hair food.

Ancestral recipes for scalp and strand. Decoctions and dressings.

A Vincentian elder kneeling at a bluestone basin, pouring root-water over a smooth cleansing stone while a thin ribbon of herb smoke rises in low firelight.

iv.

Ceremonial cleansing.

Stones, herbs, smoke, and root water. Held with the proper instruction.

A Vincentian household master seating a numbered salve jar into its cradle on a hand-built hardwood household altar laid with the day's preparations in first morning light.

The daily rhythm.

Building the household altar. The cadence of an Indigenous home.

Incense and smoke

A craft within the craft.

A dedicated thread inside Abunuhi Yáro. Smoke as prayer, cleansing, and covenant renewal. Smoke as fragrance, repellent, and household purification. The continuity of ancestral smoke traditions across Caribbean and intertribal lineages, taught hand by hand.

Herbal selection.

Lemongrass, basil, sage, neem, hibiscus, cinnamon bark, dried citrus peel. The cleansing, protective, and fragrant properties of each, read from the leaf and the bark.

ii.

Incense crafting.

Loose blends dried for charcoal. Stick incense: powdered herbs bound with gum arabic and cassava starch, hand-rolled onto natural reed splints. Cone incense shaped from herbal powders and clay binders.

iii.

Ceremonial use.

Smoke-cleansing of garments, tools, and spaces. The chants and invocations that accompany a smoke offering, held with the proper instruction.

iv.

Household ecology.

Incense as a working alternative to chemical air fresheners and repellents. Each fellow leaves with a starter bundle of herbs, reed splints, and hand-written recipe cards.

Two weeks

The pantry. The practice.

Week 1

The pantry.

Identifying plants in the wild and on the land. Harvesting respectfully. Decoction, infusion, cold-pressing, drying, storage. The working chemistry our grandmothers knew. By the end of week one, your shelf is built.

Week 2

The practice.

Daily rhythm of cleansing, dressing, anointing. Building the household altar. Ceremonial cleansing instruction. Closing apothecary, take-home bundle preparation, and a private one-on-one with the lead practitioner.

The working herbalist pantry at Fountain Villa: oiled-hardwood shelves of hand-blown glass jars, bundles of herbs drying under the rafters, a worktable with a basalt mortar and open ledger. — The working herbalist pantry at Fountain Villa. By the end of week one, your shelf is built.

A travel apothecary

The case you carry home.

Each fellow leaves with a hand-built tropical hardwood travel case: fourteen numbered hand-blown glass jars, a brass scale, a basalt mortar, and a leather-bound twelve-month calendar of practice.

A close detail of the hand-built travel apothecary case: numbered hand-blown jars in carved purpleheart cradles with a brass scale and basalt mortar, hands seating a jar.

Three fellows at the worktable at warm dusk, each fastening their own hand-built travel apothecary case of numbered jars, the nearest lifting a jar into its cradle.

What you carry home

A working apothecary.

Every participant leaves with a hand-prepared bundle in a hand-stitched cloth pouch. Enough to begin practising at home immediately, and a written guide for the year ahead.

Two skin oils prepared in your handsCarried
One hair food preparationCarried
A starter set of saponin and root powdersCarried
A ceremonial cleansing stoneCarried
An incense starter bundle with reed splints and recipe cardsCarried
The written guide and twelve-month calendarCarried

Tuition

From
$4,200 USD.

$800 deposit reserves your seat. Final payment due 60 days before arrival. Inaugural circle of the 2026 season.

Reserve a seat. March.

Tuition includes

Single-occupancy lodgingIncluded
Three meals daily from the gardensIncluded
All instruction and ceremonial materialsIncluded
Take-home apothecary bundleIncluded
Transfers from Argyle International Airport (SVD)Included

Abunuhi Yáro. Traditional lifestyle practice.