FOUNDATIONS

– ancestral reconnection for witches and radicals of Celtic descent –

FOUNDATIONS is an ancestral remembrance circle.

Join us in a sacred container as we engage in conversations on ethical relationship building with culturally significant plantkin to Celtic cultures from the lands today known as Eiré (Ireland), Alba (Scotland) and Cymru (Wales). Together we will open into lore and historical practice; ritual & sacred practice for connection to season, place and kin; dialogue on settler identity and responsibility on North America / Turtle Island; and community connection with others of shared lineage and politics for resourcing and accountability. Participants will be invited to consider their relationship to land and kin, to the places their practices align with their values (or do not); and how they might draw closer to a culturally rooted way of relating to the holy wild. Furthermore, participants are invited to reflect on what ancestrally rooted unsettling processes could look like, and, together with plantkin, envision personal and collective steps toward justice.

OVERVIEW

Join us for the fourth year of this community project toward remembrance and reconnection.

Over the course of six months, we will spend time with specific plantkin and themes as we open to the wisdom of our Celtic diasporic lineages.  We will take time to get to know these plantkin, and to explore for ourselves what the months content stirs up.

Through recorded content, optional bonus co-working sessions and monthly live Zoom calls to share our experiences, we will deepen together into our ancestral lineages and build living breathing community networks.

Make monthly payments for the duration of six months ($300-100) or pay all at once upon registration.

Note: When you sign up for a payment plan, you are agreeing to pay the complete amount. No refunds are available after signup. Thank you.

To access the base or lower tier prices, use the coupon codes ARC120 for 120/month or ARC90 for 90/month at checkout.

SOLIDARITY SPOTS

There are three Solidarity spots available for this cohort. These are intended for for low income trans folks & QTBIPOC. These Solidarity spots are $50 per month or $600 total. To request one of these places, email me: ofhawthornandyew@protonmail.com. 

Living breathing community webs

All the work I do is deeply impacted by the world around me, my teachers, mentors, peers and beloveds.

I wanted to name some of the influences that inform my approach to this work specifically, orienting myself in the wider ecosystem.

This program grew out of childhood passion for my heritage, a love of books, and a family that raised me with an Irish American identity in the n east of the US. This groundwork was then built upon through institutional academic study (both undergraduate in NYC and graduate in Belfast). My life was deeply impacted by spending extended periods in the SWANA region, both in Egypt and in occupied Palestine, as well as living in Ireland in the occupied north. As a lifelong student of cultural lineage, I love learning languages, song & dance, reading old books, ethnobotany, and talking to those of undisrupted lineage connection. I am an herbalist trained in the vitalist tradition of so called TW herbalism, and I am a commitment to reweaving cultural herbalisms for sake of justice and healing.

My perspectives have been deeply shaped by political movement spaces focused on anarchism, biocentrism and eco defense, healing justice, Palestinian liberation, the movement for Black Lives, Indigenous sovereignty on Turtle Island, and queer liberation. In my early politicization, I was deeply influenced by Palestinian, Italian and German anarchists while living abroad.

As a child I deeply loved the wild world and the land I lived upon, and believed that everything would be better if we took care of each other; as an adult, I hold those childhood truths close. My spiritual grounding as a practitioner of earth based devotion informs everything I do, as does my ever deepening relationship with my ancestors.

More recently, I am shaped as a student of and fledgling practitioner of politicized somatics, in the living lineage of generative and Strozzi Somatics. Some teachers I am lucky enough to learn from directly include: Staci Haines, Ream, MawuLisa Thomas-Adeyemo, Tesfaye Tekelu, and more. The combination of somatics and ancestral work facilitated by Marika Heinrichs and Stevie Joy Leigh via EAI has shaped my practices as well, as has the Lineage of Embodiment series from the Embodiment Institute.

More broadly, I am deeply influenced by the work of Prentis Hemphill, Susan Raffo, leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha, Nazbah Tom, Pavini Moray, Phillippe Citrine, Mary Oliver, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Angela Davis, Ursula Le Guin, and many other writers, healers and revolutionaries who work for a better world.

Other herbalists, artists and somatic practitioners whose work has shaped me include: Layla Feghali, Nicole Rose, Sirius Heart, hannah harris-sutro, Nikki Minor, the Sage Femme collective, Cody Cooke-Parrot, Becky Beyer, Ayelet Hashachar, Janet Kent, Tara of Catalyst Community Herbals, Ember Peters, and more.

Other peoples work in this field (politicized ancestral lineage work for settlers in diaspora) who I deeply admire include MaryBeth Bonfiglio, Lisa Fazio, Marika Heinrichs and Stevie Joy Leigh.

Beyond these relations, I am just one in a long lineage of peoples who cared deeply about the world, loved the land beneath their feet, and dreamed of freedom. I listen and learn from my ancestors of blood and community, and above all, I live in service to the holy wild. May this work support us all in moving toward the dream of liberation.