April 22: Tongue Assessment for Western Herbalists with Larken Bunce

Tongue Assessment for Western Herbalists 

with Larken Bunce, MS

Wednesday, April 22, 2026, 6-9 pm Eastern Time

Live Streamed via Zoom (& Recorded)
This class will be recorded and a replay link sent to students within 48 hours after the class.

*This class is geared towards advanced students and practitioners.  It is iincluded within the Full Advanced Series and  2026 Advanced Clinical & Assessment Skills Series, and also available for drop-in registrations here. 

Traditional assessment methods, such as reading the tongue, face or pulse, are invaluable doorways to the inner terrain, giving us clues about qualities such as moisture and heat, as well as a sense of tension and overall vitality. We can also gain entry into the psychoemotional world of the client, allowing insight into a person’s world view and perceptions, as held in and expressed through the body. Assessing the tongue is especially useful for understanding the state of digestion, but also serves as a microcosmic mirror of all of the organs, as well as a person’s integrated function. Tongue assessment is relatively easy to learn and apply and will give practitioners a valuable starting point for crafting effective, individualized protocols based on the specific energetic and functional presentations of each client.  

Using tongue assessment, you'll learn to:

• assess qualities of temperature, moisture, tension, tissue integrity, circulation and overall vitality
• determine broad personal constitution and energetic properties of specific dysfunctions
• differentiate acute vs. long-term tongue qualities and how they might change over time
• recognize simple and more complex patterns and understand appropriate goals to address them
• match plants (and other strategies like foods and lifestyle choices) to people based on pattern recognition
• create individualized and effective protocols for yourself, family and clients

Larken Bunce, MS is a clinical herbalist, educator, writer, gardener, and photographer. She is executive director and core faculty at Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism, which runs a full-time sliding-scale community clinic and training programs spanning self-care to clinical practice. Her practice and teaching draw equally from science and spirit, novel practice and tradition, clinic and garden, reflecting her diverse experiences in over 25 years in the field. She holds a Master of Science in Clinical Herbal Medicine from MUIH (previously Tai Sophia Institute), as well as certificates in Zen Shiatsu and Swedish/Esalen Massage, and is an advanced-level intern practitioner of Somatic Experiencing. Her teaching interests lie at the intersections of liberation studies, ecopsychology, trauma studies and somatic therapies. Larken is passionate about accessible and inclusive care, bridging traditional medical systems with biomedical sciences, and restoring Nature to culture through herbal medicine. For more on Larken's individual work visit LarkenBunce.com; for long-term training (now in-person and virtual!) at Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism, visit vtherbcenter.org.

This class is also available as an expanded 12-hour, self-paced on-line course via The School for Aromatics Studies for folks who want to explore this subject further.

You will receive an email at least 24 hours prior to each live class as a reminder and zoom/class materials access links. If you do not see that message, check your spam folder. If it's not there, email the Wintergreen Botanicals team directly at support@wintergreenbotanicals.com or call 603-340-5161.

The post-class recording link(s) will be sent out within 24 hours after the live class. There is no deadline to watch or access materials.