Come Apprentice With Us!
Please fill out an application for our rolling admissions!
Openings for Fall 2025
Sastimos Holistic Health, located in San Francisco Bay Area, offers a rolling one-on-one holistic health apprenticeship that is one-three months in length. This apprenticeship is a rigorous and dynamic in person program, focused on practical hands on learning of herbal and Ayurvedic medicine. Applicant will learn herbs, the physical landscape, how to make medicines, how to work with clients and help them truly heal while also taking care of oneself. This opportunity is industry, not classroom, focused. Applicant’s primary education will take place in the apothecary, in nature, shadowing client sessions, and in the retail environment. Apprenticeships will be tailored to applicant’s particular interests while also incorporating basic Ayurveda and Bioregional Herbalism tenets, as well as Rromani understandings about relationship to land. Applicant can also expect to learn how to incorporate the understandings of societal ills like intergenerational trauma, racism, and attempted genocide of indigenous/nomadic peoples into their overall applications of their practice. Most importantly, applicants will use knowledge gained in the apprenticeship to move toward their own dreams.
Indigenous and folk medicines from cultures the world over are finally being acknowledged as having deep wisdom and carrying communal intelligences. Working with a respected herbalist and Ayurvedic practitioner will allow for a thorough understanding of the herbs and the industry. Mentees will be supported to uplift and clarify their individual voice, as well as the influences from the traditions and cultures they come from. One cannot separate who one is from one’s herbal education and future herbal endeavors. Each apprenticeship runs one-three months.
Rolling start dates: enter date preferences on application form.
Please note: Application submission does not guarantee admission to this program. Qualified applicants will be invited to interview to ultimately determine acceptance.
Details:
3 days per week, 8 hours per day
Days to be discussed
Approximately 4-13 weeks of learning / up to 315 total program hours
Program cost is per month:
$2000
*need based scholarships up to $400/month are available to members of BIPOC (this includes Rromani) communities
Apprenticeship also includes:
Weekly field trips to learn how to read/respect the land and see how/where herbs grow, with a pointed focus on harvesting invasives.
One-on-one private holistic health consultations to further experience and understand the craft from the client end.
Recommended custom formulas at no additional cost
A discount on all retail products.
Certificate of completion, as well as letter of reference for future programs and opportunities.
Please apply only if you meet the following criteria:
Applicants will need to to pay for and support themselves during the program. We encourage those who come from working class or poor backgrounds to apply for this position and we leave time in the week to obtain work for pay.
Applicant is willing to explore why humans develop disease from a sociological, racial, indigenous, societal perspective.
Applicant can lift 20 pounds and is able to do moderate hiking.
Applicant is not afraid of hard work.
Applicant has completed one or more of the following: herbal coursework, Ayurvedic coursework, ecological studies, extensive gardening or farming, permaculture design, yoga training, work with a medicine person from one’s culture, or brought up fluent in your people’s version of herbal medicine.
Applicant must have a genuine interest in learning the craft of natural medicine and understands that the natural medicine industry is built on integrity, trust, and again, hard work.
Applicant must be punctual and follow through on commitments. The apprenticeship learning takes place in a business. We will depend on you to help things run smoothly and in a timely manner.
Applicant is open to building lifelong friendships!
Applicant is willing to be and doesn’t mind being wrong (a fundamental and beautiful part of the learning process).
Please email any inquiries to contactjennileen@gmail.com. Feel free to check us out on social media to get a feel for who we are and if you'd like to learn from us.