The morning sun streamed down on the hills of West Rockport as I drove toward Avena Institute. It was one of those magical fall days, and the russet-colored leaves danced on a warm breeze as I wound my way past sweeping farmsteads and centuries-old stone walls.

At the top of a hill, a small sign and a big green mailbox told me I had arrived, and as I headed down the driveway, the scene was equally enchanting. Though much had gone past in the garden, many of the herbs held on late into the autumn. A huge weeping willow screened a restored farmhouse from view. And down the road a bit farther, a pair of yurts rose from a clearing like fairy huts in the distance, one of which would be my classroom for the day.

Avena Botanicals, the medicinal herbal company founded by Deb Soule in 1985, may sound familiar. But the Avena Institute is a separate nonprofit entity which Soule formed in 1996 as an educational center focused on medicinal herbs, organic gardening and healing arts. Oh, and the name is Avena, not to be confused with Aveda, the natural cosmetics company, or Aveeno, the oatmeal-based skincare line.

The institute started small, with Soule offering classes for women in the living room of the building that also housed her herbal apothecary. But the classes grew in popularity – hence the yurts – and scope. Today, the center offers courses for women, men, children, even pets. Workshops include “Getting in Touch with Your Animal Companion” for pets and their humans; a holiday gift workshop, which I attended; an after-school program on garden gnomes; as well as classes on homeopathic, Eastern and alternative healing, to name a few.

“We have 30 or 40 teachers coming in with their knowledge,” said Stephanie Rae, who became Avena Institute’s first executive director in August. “People have that many [options] to choose how they want to be healthy or how they want to heal – not everybody wants to heal the same way. It’s wonderful to be able to supply a diverse choice.”

With Rae on staff, the institute is poised to provide even more diversity in terms of programming and outreach. Though Soule still serves on the institute’s board, hiring an executive director freed her to focus on the business side of Avena. Rae, a Boston native who moved to Maine a year and a half ago, hopes to strengthen the center’s ties with the medical community, youth, and area residents, as well as expand offerings in other cities and towns (the institute now holds on-site workshops in Islesboro, Portland and Liberty). Rae and the board eventually hope to turn an old barn on the property into a permanent home for the institute.

“This would probably be the answer to what I’d call my lifelong dream,” said Rae, a Reiki master who most recently directed the dance department of the Harlem School of the Arts in New York. “The one thread that had connected things together was healing and helping people, and bridging communities. It’s an honor to be able to work at a place that provides so much to so many people.”

People come to Avena for many reasons – some want to learn about healing in a safe, woman-centered environment. Others want to strengthen their relationship with their children or parents. During an October workshop, cats, dogs and people gathered in the yurt to learn about animal communication and touch. And recently, Connecticut herbalist Carol Brennan held a holiday gift workshop, in which she taught a group of women how to make a natural salt glow, milk bath and hair tonic for their loved ones.

Stella Harrington of Manchester, N.H., and her friend Tish Reidy of Weymouth, Mass., made a weekend of the workshop. Harrington discovered the Avena Institute last summer, when she and her husband rented a house in Rockport.

“When I came up here I looked around and saw some really neat stuff,” Harrington said. “I went home, called Tish and said, ‘We’ve gotta do this! We’ve gotta do this!'”

When Lisa Dubbert of Bowdoinham went to the Avena booth at the Common Ground Fair, she picked up a course booklet. She was familiar with Avena Botanicals, and she wanted to learn more about herbals.

“It’s always something I wanted to do,” Dubbert said as she walked through the garden during the lunch break. “What’s around you, what’s available is attractive.”

So she and her friend Tina Gardner-Best of New Harbor came up and joined eight other women for the daylong class, which felt less like a workshop and more like a playshop. We spent the morning sipping Avena Botanicals’ Fairy Flower Tea, mixing a rose-geranium bundt cake, and concocting lusciously scented skin and hair-care products.

Brennan started her own herbal business in 1989, and later took a medicinal herb course with Soule. She enjoyed her time at Avena so much that she became an instructor for the institute two years ago.

“The women learning and sharing together – that was a wonderful find for me because I do my work by myself,” Brennan said. “The camaraderie was great for me.”

Office manager Linda Cote-Small has found that for some students, especially women, the camaraderie is just as appealing as the subject matter.

“I have a sense that for some of them, a very strong draw for them is also being with the women in the group,” Cote-Small said.

Bonnie Rukin Miller of Camden, chairwoman of the institute’s board, said that regardless of what draws students to Avena, they leave with a greater sense of how things are interconnected – in the earth, in their relationships and in themselves.

“You can make a connection with the land and what you grow and how you heal and whom you know and how you interact,” Rukin Miller said. “There’s a full circle, a connection that meets people in their spirit.”

For more information on Avena Institute, visit www.avenainstitute.org or call 594-2403 for a workshop booklet.