Root to Rise: Initiation in the Great Turning
Root to Rise is a four season initiatory journey into remembering and reclaiming our interdependence in the web of life. It is an opportunity to examine, dismantle and transform personal and systemic structures rooted in violence and domination through practices that help us metabolize pain, grow capacity and mobilize our care for the world. The long arc orientation of this process in a group container fortifies our resiliency and emboldens action to serve our collective liberation.
Root to Rise grounds itself in the lineage of deep ecology elder, Joanna Macy, and the Work that Reconnects (WTR). The Spiral Map of the WTR will guide this initiatory journey through the four seasons. Together, we will research and practice somatic and mythic wisdom, regenerative earth practices, and elemental embodied ceremony to support participants in identifying and deepening relationship with a personal compass for direct liberatory action.
“The central purpose of the Work that Reconnects is to help people uncover and experience their innate connections with each other and with the systemic, self-healing powers of the web of life, so that they may be enlivened and motivated to play their part in creating a sustainable civilization.” ~Joanna Macy
This journey may be for you if you are asking
What is my ‘north star’ and mine to do?
What skills do I need to co-create resilient, life-honoring systems?
How can tending my ancestral lines clear trauma and liberate energy for creative emergence?
What ancestral lifeways and technologies are my allies?
How do we root down so we can rise up?
How do we gather our courage and grow our capacity to stay with the trouble?
How can working in a circle across difference strengthen our resilience and deepen our attuned action in service to life?
How does listening to the living earth support us in acts of solidarity with the global majority?
In a time where there is so much needed to ease suffering and protect life, what act of service can I focus my attention on right now to participate and make helpful change?
The Vessel
Our gatherings will include four 4-day immersions, a 9 day ceremony that will include a vision fast, with a few day-longs and 4 hour in-person sessions sprinkled throughout. All sessions will be based outside in wild and cultivated gardens. The immersions will take place on Coast Miwok/Southern Pomo land (in Sebastopol, California) and the 9 day fast ceremony will be on wild lands in California. Participants will be camping. The core immersions and fast ceremony (9 days) are listed below. You can read full descriptions here.
Entering the Bone House: Grounding in Deep Time and Gratitude
Dreaming the Dark: Honoring our Pain for the World
A Great Shedding: Honing Intuition and Receiving Vision
Feeding our Wild Gifts: Seeing with New and Ancient Eyes
Harvesting Flowers that Grow from the Bones: Going Forth in Courage
We welcome your story, your ancestry, your grief, your courage - there is a place for you in this circle. This journey is open to all adults ages 18+, across the spectrums of sexuality, gender and race.
Practices in this Initiation Journey Include
Ancestral connection and inquiry
Embodied practices and generative somatics
Myth, storytelling and improvisational play
Feminist, anti-racist, decolonial learning
Food and medicine growing
Land tending
Deepening relationship with the animate world
Handcrafting and ancestral skills
Elemental ritual, ceremony, prayer and dreamwork
Council and community practice
Identifying and engaging with a project that eases suffering and/or protects the web of life
Guardian Black Oak in the garden where we will gather for immersions
Is This Journey for You?
This journey is for all adults able to traverse wild, unknown and uneven terrains, both physically and emotionally.
You seek mentorship and earth-based, spiritually informed and action-oriented community.
You are open to grow relationships with the elements through the sacred vessel of your body, in ritual, ceremony and prayer.
You are ready to reclaim and re-wild your attention, to deepen your collaboration with the world.
You are ready to engage with your identity, privileges and intersections, to locate or deepen acts of solidarity, equality and justice.
You seek the opportunity to empty, commune, listen and receive insight from the living earth through a solo fast.
You seek reconnection with the wild, unpredictable, erotic, mystical play of the planet, trusting this as a tactic for transforming self, community, and culture.
You lean into gratitude, grief, expanded attention and awe as reliable scaffolding for sacred action on behalf of life.
You seek to clarify your relationship to your ancestral and spiritual lineages, your nervous system, and your particular genius and purpose - your unique way of giving gifts to the world that meet this moment.
“I dedicate this offering to Joanna, who’s loving and steadfast presence in my life shaped me into the leader I am today. I was able to share with Joanna about the seed of Root to Rise: Initiation in the Great Turning when I was with her in February and received her blessing. In loving memory of Joanna Macy (May 2, 1929-July 19, 2025). To learn more about Joanna and the Work that Reconnects, you can visit www.joannamacy.net”
Joanna Macy
Kari Stettler and Somatic Resiliency offerings reside on the stolen lands from the ancestral and current inhabitants of Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo tribal nations. These communities, currently represented by but not limited to, The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, who have called this place home for hundreds of generations before European and other mixed race settlers arrived, are the original and current human stewards of these dynamic ecologies. The diverse landscapes of this region which provide an abundance of food, medicine and textiles from which I benefit is an ongoing legacy from generations of their tending. Wherever you are reading this from, I invite you to take a moment, reflect on the Indigenous peoples of the place you call home. How can you learn more about them, their culture, their stories of past and present, and most importantly, what can you do to support local Indigenous led organizations, projects and movements? If you are living in or around the “Bay Area of California”, there is a list on the Allyship page of local Indigenous-led organizations and projects you can consider researching and supporting.