The Tonic Way
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What if we stopped waiting for crisis…

and started strengthening what already wants to thrive?

In a world that moves fast and reacts quickly, tonic herbalism offers something steadier.

It’s the practice of nourishing resilience before breakdown.

Of supporting vitality instead of chasing symptoms.

Of listening for relationship instead of trying to control outcomes.

In this six-part journey, we’ll explore why this ancient principle feels so necessary right now — and how it reshapes not only how we work with plants, but how we live.

What's Inside this Program?

Through this extensive 6-week program, you will learn...
  • The gift cycles that shape healing, creativity, and growth.
  • Why our minds and spirits are not separate from the world around us.
  • How plant chemistry offers guidance rather than intervention.
  • What it means to support living systems instead of managing them.

Grounded in both traditional wisdom and emergent science, this series invites us into a wider way of seeing — one where people, plants, and place are in ongoing conversation.

Tonic herbalism becomes less about fixing and more about resonance.

Less about mastery and more about participation.

In the second half of the series, we move from philosophy to practice. We explore how to meet life where it is now and respond skillfully with the gifts of tonic herbs — not as tools of control, but as signals that invite adaptation and resilience.

By the end of this journey, you will:

Understand tonification as a living principle, not just a category of herbs...

  • See how tonic thinking applies beyond health — into relationships, organizations, and culture.
  • Gain practical ways to support vitality in yourself and the systems you’re part of.
  • Feel more at home in the ecological intelligence that moves through everything.

Understand tonification clearly and confidently…

  • Distinguish tonic approaches from acute or suppressive strategies.
  • Recognize when strengthening is more appropriate than intervening.
  • See how tonic thinking shifts the entire arc of care.

Apply tonic principles in real-world practice…

  • Identify plant chemistries that support adaptation and resilience.
  • Work with herbs as meaningful signals rather than blunt tools.
  • Align herbal choices with rhythms, patterns, and long-term vitality.

Think in systems, not symptoms…

  • Recognize the gift cycles that shape growth and healing.
  • Understand how relationship—not isolation—drives resilience.
  • Apply these insights to clinical practice, community work, and personal life.

Expand your framework beyond the body…

  • See how tonic principles apply to organizations, culture, and ecology.
  • Support learning and creativity without control or coercion.
  • Cultivate curiosity, humility, and responsiveness in complex systems.

Experience a shift in your own orientation…

  • Move from “fixing” toward supporting.
  • Feel more grounded in ecological belonging.
  • Develop trust in living systems—including your own.

This isn’t a new idea.

Plants have always modeled reciprocity and responsiveness.

The Tonic Way simply invites us to remember.

What You’ll Receive

  • Inspiring live video sessions with Guido and our dynamic lineup of guest presenters.
  • Downloadable study guides and slideshows.
  • Live Q&A sessions with our teachers
  • Access to a private online community of folks walking this path together

You’ll have lifetime access to all sessions — because, let’s be honest, sometimes Guido’s information is so mind-blowing, we need to hear things twice.

Bonuses

This program also includes the following bonus materials…

Allies in Healing: Expanding the Practice of Herbalism

with Guido Masé

Dive even deeper into the teachings of Guido Masé with these 3 pre-recorded classes:

🌿 The Gifts of Nature: Plants, Mushrooms, and the Circle of Renewal

🌿 Herbs and Entheogens for Brain Health and Function – and How to Use Them Right!

🌿 Talking to Fire: Botanical Immunomodulation and the Herbal Materia Medica

This collection, recorded in 2020, is a savings of $85!

Exclusive Discount on Biohacking Your Brain

with Guido Masé

To achieve peak brain performance, you need to balance your inward-looking and outward-seeking tendencies. You can achieve this by cyclically using herbal protocols to support both processes. In Biohacking Your Brain, herbalist Guido Masé offers an innovative cyclical approach to achieve peak brain performance.

Savings of 50% on the full program!

Study Guides, Slideshows, and Class Transcripts
Personalized Certificate of
Completion
Lifetime
Access to Program
Get Registered

The live classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6 PM Eastern Time, plus time for questions. Class replays are yours forever!

Thursday, April 16, 2026 | 6-8 PM ET

When Plants and People Connect with Guido Masé

Plants change our lives. They bring context to the healing arts. They teach us patterns and reveal how entangled our physiologies are with our internal and external worlds.

When you bring herbalists together, we light up with the shared “aha” moments—stories of lives changed by plants.

In this class, we’ll discover the huge creative potential that plants bring to our lives.

You will learn to…

🌿 Identify and assess key balance points in the body, building a practical framework to ground our decisions when working with healing plants.

🌿 Apply pattern recognition skills—rhythms, imbalances, and relational dynamics—for precise and personalized herbal support.

🌿 Approach each herbal evaluation as a co-creative experience—strengthening healing presence, deep listening, and the ability to match plant remedies to the person.

Tuesday, April 21, 2026 | 6-7:30 PM ET

A Taste of Yoga Nidra: Getting the Rest You Hunger For with Guest Krista Nelson

In this 90-minute class, you are invited into the deeply restorative practice of Yoga Nidra—a space where the body can rest and the mind can soften.

We will begin with a gentle meditation to arrive together, followed by light, accessible movement paired with a grounding gratitude ritual. From there, you will be guided through “75 Breaths,” one of Krista’s favorite practices for unwinding the nervous system and offering a steady, soothing pathway through the overwhelm of daily life.

We will close with time for quiet journaling, allowing space to integrate what has been felt, noticed, and restored.

This class is perfect for anyone curious about Yoga Nidra, as well as those simply longing for a new way to experience deep rest, inner calm, and renewal.

Please wear comfortable clothing, have a yoga mat or a towel to lie on, a blanket cover, an optional eye pillow, and a journal for writing.

You will learn…

🌿 Krista’s Gratitude Ritual – Gentle, physical movements to express gratitude with the body and the mind to remind us of the power of choice.

🌿 Nadi Shodhana – Also known as alternate nostril breathing, this gentle practice increases relaxation.

🌿 75 Breaths – A gentle technique of focusing the mind on breath and body awareness.

Thursday, April 23, 2026 | 6-8 PM ET

Introducing the Gift Cycle with Guido Masé

Initiation, opening, integration, and sharing—these 4 phases of the Gift Cycle trace our quiet rhythms, where steadiness and change take turns leading the dance.

This Gift Cycle helps consolidate learning—creating opportunity for new habits and patterns. 

Awareness of these phases guides our choice of tonic herbs to support primary therapy with care and timing.

We begin to see healing as a cycle of giving and receiving, where every remedy is part of a wider conversation between plants, people, and possibility. 🌿

You will learn to…

🌿 Map the four stages of the Gift Cycle to recognize where someone is in their healing process and choose the next steps.

🌿 Select tonic herbs with timing and intention, using the Gift Cycle to support healing and encourage new habits, learning, and physical change.

🌿 Track healing gifts through simple reflection practices that help clients anchor progress into daily life.

Tuesday, April 28, 2026 | 6-7:30 PM ET

Art that Breathes: Drawing in Relationship with the Living World with Guest Tony Lemos

In this hands-on session, artist and herbalist Tony(a) Lemos will introduce Art that Breathes, a creative philosophy rooted in the understanding that Healing and Art are two languages for the same relationship, and that art-making can be a living relationship with the natural world.

Drawing from over two decades of teaching herbalism and ecological art, Tony explores how slowing down with plants, through observation, touch, and simple creative practices, can deepen our sense of connection and reciprocity with the more-than-human world. 

Rather than focusing on technical skill, this session invites participants into a gentle practice of nature journaling and intuitive drawing as a form of attention. Through guided observation, we will explore how plants, leaves, seeds, or other natural materials can become companions in the creative process, teachers that invite us to notice pattern, rhythm, and form. 

Participants will be encouraged to approach drawing not as representation, but as a conversation with the living world, a way of listening through line, mark, and movement.

No drawing experience is necessary. Only curiosity, a pencil, paper, and a plant or natural object nearby.

You will…

🌿 Understand the core philosophy of Art that Breathes as a creative practice rooted in attention, ecological relationship, and the ethical engagement with the living world.

🌿 Develop observational awareness of plants and natural materials through guided sensory attention and slow looking.

🌿 Practice intuitive drawing techniques as a way to deepen personal connection with plant allies and the surrounding landscape.

Thursday, April 30, 2026 | 6-8 PM ET

The Gift Cycle as a Living Systems Science with Guido Masé

Have you ever looked closely at how life grows and transforms? When we do, we can see a shared way of being that moves beyond form or species—a kinship that unites form and spirit. Here, the Gift Cycle emerges as a map, guiding traditions of learning, renewal, and creativity. 

When we look at the miracle of how our body works, we can see the Gift Cycle in action and consider how herbal tonics steady and harmonize these unfolding patterns.

Then we see plant chemistry as more than isolated compounds––as living evidence of ancient Gift Cycles connecting all living things. 

You will learn to…

🌿 Apply the Gift Cycle as a healing tool, tracing how each phase shows up in physiology, ecosystems, and repair—and using that map to plan more coherent herbal protocols.

🌿 Recognize when well-timed herbs—bitters, adaptogens, stimulants—can gently strengthen resilience and guide safer, more effective dosing strategies.

🌿 Connect plant chemistry to ecological and cultural patterns so you can explain treatment plans more clearly and help others see their healing as part of a wider web of relationships.

Tuesday, May 5, 2026 | 6-7:30 PM ET

Weaving Flower Essences into your Herbal Practice with Guest Kate Gilday

Often, in caring for people dealing with challenging physical issues, the emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of their healing process surface and invite exploration and support. This deep inner work can be gracefully woven into the journey of self-discovery and healing in ways that are sometimes gentle and at other times quite profound by adding flower essences to a client’s protocol.

When one tends to the garden of the soul through these vibrational remedies, a flowering of the individual’s nature and essence occurs!

You will learn…

🌿 What flower essences are and how they tend the body, mind, and spirit.

🌿 How to weave flower essences into a client’s protocol.

🌿 How to prepare and dose flower essences.

Thursday, May 7, 2026 | 6-8 PM ET

Nesting, Connecting, Evolving: When Gift Cycles Meet with Guido Masé

Gift Cycles are everywhere. They work together—one cycle nests inside another —and spark new qualities that neither holds alone. Like the flow of water over a millwheel—we now see how living systems draw energy from difference, and how the longing to ease imbalance becomes a quiet engine of learning and growth.

Your body seeks balance—an unceasing effort by your nervous, cardiovascular, immune, and metabolic systems. Through the Gift Cycle lens, you’ll see this process not as an isolated mechanism but as an unfolding set of relationships.

The Gift Cycle adds something special to our healing work—feeling, awe, and intuition—as a compass, helping us braid energies and patterns through its resonance. 

Now we can understand a new concept, called ‘botanoesis’—the idea that the shared ecological mind connects plants and people. Herbalism becomes a botanoetic song refracted through the human prism. 

You will learn to…

🌿 Map nested Gift Cycles across body systems, linking neurologic, cardiovascular, immune, and metabolic balance points to see how patterns of flow and gradient inform your protocols.

🌿 Use gradients and “difference” as clinical clues, to identify where tension or imbalance can be gently leveraged—through herb choice, dosing, and lifestyle—to encourage change and resilience.

🌿 Integrate intuition in practice, developing simple reflection and tracking methods that help you notice emotional and sensory signals while working with plants.

Tuesday, May 12, 2026 | 6-7:30 PM ET

Held by the Earth with Guest Naila Francis

In her poem, “Sleeping in the Forest,” Mary Oliver writes: “I thought the earth remembered me/ she took me back so tenderly,/ arranging her dark skirts, her pockets/full of lichens and seeds.”

What would it feel like to be remembered by the Earth, to know we are held by her generous living body through our heartaches and difficulties? 

In this careshop, we will spend some time reconnecting to the Earth through poetry, journaling, and embodied practice, to open up to her support. To listen for what wisdom she may have to offer to meet the sorrows we carry. 

Please bring a journal or something to write with, as well as an element from nature that you feel drawn to (a rock, leaf, flower, shell, etc.) All griefs, from the personal to the planetary, are welcome.

You will learn…

🌿 How beauty can be an anchor in times of heartache.

🌿 To identify some of the messages that may keep us closed off from feeling our sorrow.

🌿 How to commune with nature for support and resourcing.

Thursday, May 14, 2026 | 6-8 PM ET

Tonic Herbalism: The Art and Science of the ‘Botanoetic’ Gift Cycle with Guido Masé

Now we’re ready to put this to work. With practical tools—pulse reading, and attentive feedback—you can feel the Gift Cycle guiding you.

Have you ever had the feeling that mind and spirit may be the foundational elements of everything? Now even modern science is confirming what many of us have intuitively known–– that “matter” evolved from the Gift Cycle. The implications of this idea—they are radical—and the therapeutic pathways it opens—offer ways of healing that are imaginative and profoundly relational. 

You will learn to…

🌿 Use tonic herbs to amplify healing protocols and build long-term resilience. 

🌿 Practice perceptive assessment skills—including pulse reading and structured feedback—to refine herb selection, dosing, and timing.

🌿 Develop clear treatment plans, learning language and methods that clarify the “why” behind tonic strategies, and inspire active participation in the healing process.

Thursday, May 21, 2026 | 6-8 PM ET

Tonic Herbal Principles in a Living, Co-Creative, Deeply Aware World with Guido Masé

Imagine applying 3 guiding principles to your herbal tonic practice:
  1. Resonance is real. It lives in the natural world, arising when patterns of flow are braided together—breath…leaf…pulse…root…people…plants.
  2. Resonance is not abstract. It feels like something. It orients us. It guides us toward healing allies and links us in shared purpose.
  3. Resonance softens friction in daily life. And herbal tonics strengthen enduring gifts while sparking new ones—opening channels for creativity and change. Skilled herbalists move between these tasks, tending what is stable and inviting potential, often in careful alternation.

Throughout, we’ll honor the roles of imperfection, aesthetic sensibility, and flow—the subtle arts that make herbalism more than protocol. 

These principles cultivate a grounded practice with tonic herbs—for yourself, your family, your community, for the wider living world that holds us all. 

In this class, you will learn to…

🌿 Apply the three tonic principles in real cases, learning a step-by-step method to identify where resonance already exists in a client’s life and where herbal strategies can gently strengthen or spark new patterns.

🌿 Design balancing tonic protocols, alternating between stabilizing and supportive herbs to reduce daily friction, build resilience, and foster creativity in long-term healing plans.

🌿 Cultivate a personal tonic practice, using simple observation and reflection tools to bring awareness into your own routines, family life, and community work—so herbalism becomes a lived, co-creative habit.

Thursday, May 28, 2026 | 6-7:30 PM ET

Envision Together: A Community Conversation with Guido Masé

In this final class, we gather the threads of our journey and weave them together.

This is where the pieces meet—where systems science, the Gift Cycle, tonic practice, resonance, and botanoesis settle into lived experience. Rather than adding something new, we turn toward integration. 

Together, we’ll revisit what we’ve explored and ask: How does this change the way we practice? How does it shape the way we listen? How does it move in our own bodies?

This session is a conversation—spacious, reflective, and co-creative. We’ll share personal perspectives on herbalism as an embodied art, seen through the living patterns we’ve traced throughout the course. The Gift Cycle becomes not just a model, but a shared language. Systems science becomes not just a theory, but a way of perceiving relationship.

Bring your whole self (and a cup of tea). Bring your questions, your uncertainties, your insights, and your stories. As we let our voices entangle, we may discover that the practice itself is still unfolding—alive, relational, and participatory. 🌿

About Your Teacher

Guido Masé

Guido Mase

Guido Masé RH(AHG) is a clinically-trained herbalist, herbal educator, and garden steward specializing in holistic Western herbalism, though his approach is eclectic and draws upon many influences. He spent his childhood in Italy, in the central Alps, and in a Renaissance town called Ferrara. After traveling the United States, he settled in Vermont, where he has been living since 1996.

He serves as herbalist, principal scientist, and head formulator at Traditional Medicinals, where he works on research, development, formulation, and education for herbal teas and supplements. He also supports the team at Urban Moonshine, an organic herbal extract company focused on bitters and tonics. He is a member of the Stewardship Council for the Sustainable Herbs Initiative, a collaborative group seeking to cultivate resilience and reciprocity in the herbal industry.

He is a founder of the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism, a 501(c)(3) non-profit herbal medicine clinic and school that provides comprehensive services focused on whole plants and whole foods, and is also a founding member of the Railyard Apothecary, a community clinic and herb shop in Burlington, Vermont. He participates in herbal education at the University of Vermont, and is the author of The Wild Medicine Solution: Healing with Aromatic, Bitter and Tonic Plants (Healing Arts Press, 2013) and DIY Bitters (Fair Winds Press, 2016).

Guido's teaching style focuses on conveying the interconnections within the human organism and between the organism and its surrounding ecology. Relying on clinical experience, storytelling, and scientific research, he believes that true strength flows from nature and that herbal medicine is key to sustainable, successful living.

Special Guest Presenters

In addition to the core classes taught by Guido Masé, we’ve lined up 4 additional teachers to add even more depth to the topics!
Krista Nelson

Krista Nelson

Krista Nelson, an African American grandmother with Lenape ancestry, is a Native American flautist, Lenape language teacher, an ecotherapist, a grief guide, and certified Yoga Nidra Guide. Krista received Yoga Nidra transmission training under the guidance of Khushi Malhotra who’s teaching style is rooted in the classical yoga sutras, hatha yoga, tantra & Ayurveda.

Tony(a) Lemos

Tony(a) Lemos

Tonya Lemos is a multidisciplinary artist, herbalist, and educator whose work explores the intersection of art, ecology, and plant knowledge. Rooted in a lifelong relationship with the natural world, her practice—Art that Breathes—investigates collaborative image-making with plants through botanical printing, natural pigments, and experimental printmaking processes. Lemos is the founder of Blazing Star Herbal School in Conway, Massachusetts, where she has taught herbalism and earth-based healing traditions for over two decades. Drawing on both traditional plant knowledge and contemporary ecological art practices, her work invites a slower, more reciprocal relationship between creative practice and the living world.

Kate Gilday

Kate Gilday is a clinical herbalist, flower essence practitioner and creator, Ayurvedic lifestyle consultant, and founder of Woodland Essence, a forest botanicals and flower essence company in the southern Adirondacks, focused on Lyme-related and chronic health challenges. Songwriter of love songs to the plants, earth, and life, she is trying her best to write and share more.

Naila Francis

Naila Francis

Naila Francis is a certified grief coach and death midwife, ordained interfaith minister and writer/poet. She offers compassionate support and gentle guidance for life's inevitable losses and transitions through one-on-one coaching, workshops and rituals. Her work is informed by her love of poetry, the gifts of healing rooted in nature and community and her belief in grieving as a liberatory practice. Naila is also a co-founder of Salt Trails, a Philadelphia collective honoring and normalizing grief through community rituals, and a steering committee member for the Philadelphia Death & Arts Festival.

The Tonic Way with Guido Masè

An Invitation to Remember

  • Over 5 hours of on-demand classes by Guido Masé
  • 50% off Biohacking Your Brain: An Herbalist's perspective
  • Printer-Friendly Slideshows and Class Transcripts
  • Comprehensive Study Guides for each class
  • A vibrant active community to support you
  • Personalized Certificate of Completion
  • Lifetime access to program
$ 375
Get Started Now!
"Guido was my favorite thing about this course. He is a fabulous teacher, practitioner, and such a good human. The material was excellent, a lot to absorb, but so worth the time and effort. Very well done overall. Thumbs up, BotanicWise.”
~ Tracy
~ Tracy
“If you love learning and want to delve more deeply into plant medicine, I highly recommend taking a class with Guido and BotanicWise. This is the second course I have taken, the first with Guido. Given the depth and breadth of this course, the class summaries were so helpful and will be excellent resources for years to come. Thank you!”
~ Ann
~ Ann
“As a medicinal herbalist, I consider myself to be a student and am perpetually on the lookout for excellent teachers. Guido is beyond excellent—he is truly a master teacher who cannot hide his deep passion for nature. He puts an extraordinary amount of work into each class and touches upon every single aspect of the health and well-being of human beings. Guido's eloquent communication, excellent organization skills, and engaging personality make him a teacher whom I truly hope will be offering many more courses.”
~ Lana
~ Lana
“Guido has an amazing ability to present topics in a way that makes the audience feel elevated. This course is no exception. His research is PhD worthy, yet he explains it all in a way that leaves you wondering why you never understood this before.”
~ Laura
~ Laura
“This is a completely transformative experience with a brilliant teacher. I'm trying hard not to put Guido on a pedestal, but I haven't had a teacher like him in many years. His combination of in-depth scientific knowledge, spiritual and philosophical perspectives, and just obvious compassion and thoughtfulness is beyond inspiring. I am literally seeing my whole life and the world through a new lens now: the gift cycle. It feels like the beginning of a new chapter in my life, and I can already tell it is going to make me a better practitioner, family member, and human being."
~ Claire
~ Claire

100% Worth It!

We are so committed to our programs we will happily refund your full tuition price within 30 days of purchase if you are unhappy with it.

Who Is This Program Perfect For?

This program is intended for everybody who desires to learn. No prior experience is necessary.

This is an online program that requires a computer, laptop, or device with internet access. If you lack the technology or know-how to participate online, this program may not be an option for you..

Tuition and Guarantee

Full tuition for this in-depth course is $375 US Dollars. If you're in Canada (or any other country) and need a coupon to help cover the conversion rates, send us an email at [email protected]

Yes, we offer partial scholarships depending on financial need. Click here to complete our Scholarship Application.

Yes! To purchase a gift certificate, email us with your request at [email protected].

Yes! All live classes are recorded, and the replays are posted the next day. And your access to all the class materials never expires!

No, there is no need to renew membership. Your tuition includes ongoing access to course materials.

Yes! We offer a 100% “Worth It” guarantee. We are so committed to our programs we will happily refund you the full tuition price if you are unhappy with the course. Refunds must be requested within 30 days of purchase.

We accept all major credit cards as well as PayPal. We also offer customizable payment plans through Partia.ly (found on our checkout page).

At this time we only offer Certificates of Completion and do not provide formal CEU’s. 

Program Access

This course will take place within BotanicWise’s virtual Mighty Network Community.

The BotanicWise virtual community is compatible with all devices so you can conveniently access all class materials at home or on the go. You can download the Mighty Networks App directly from the App Store or Google Play Store by searching for "Mighty Networks." The iOS app is compatible for both iPhone and iPad, and the Android app is designed to work perfectly on your favorite Android device. Otherwise, you can use Text Me the App, the prompt at the bottom of your Personal Settings page of your Mighty Network account.

Last Little Details

In addition to class Q&A sessions, students will receive all the presentation slides with references, comprehensive study guides, class transcripts, and are encouraged to post any and all of their questions inside the Community. Access to these materials never expires.

Yes! Classes include live Q&A sessions, plus you may reach out with questions at any time via the BotanicWise community chat feature.

Please reach out to us with any questions using the contact form below!

Still have questions? Send us a message!

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