You Are the Medicine
Since my last post, the world has changed.
It’s not just that it changed…it’s that it is now rapidly in a sustained state of massive change and, for the first time in maybe forever, the modern world has a front row seat. We’re watching it on our phones, through our computers, in the empty streets of our towns, through the canceled events, the masks, the distance and the uncertainty. We’re watching the world as we know it transform.
Many folks haven’t missed a beat and just shifted their gatherings online without much effort, others kicked right into disaster response mode and are vigorously building new systems or hoarding toilet paper, some lost the last week in a deep Netflix hole and those with young children are being tested in ways I can’t imagine. There’s a million more shades of grey in the spectrum of how people are coping and it’s wild to watch it all. To sense it. It’s inspiring and also infuriating…it’s endearing and frustrating…it’s predictable and also delightfully surprising. There’s still so much we don’t know.
There is so much duality in me. I am SO grateful that the machine finally ‘broke’ and forced some serious change and re-thinking of our behavior and I am also deeply grieving the suffering, fear, pain and apathy that comes with this break. I want so badly for this to be a meaningful moment. One that actually changes our behavior, brings us closer to the Earth. One that stops some of the insanity, vanity, consumption, distraction and oblivion that has brought us to the brink of collapse. I fear that it’s just a death rattle though and not the real, finite death that will bring new life and a new paradigm…I hope I’m among the living death doulas that have the privilege to help put this era to rest and usher in whatever comes next but something tells me that extractive, corporate capitalism isn’t going to go down without a momentus fight.
Closing borders, isolation, who’s infected/who isn’t, canceled primaries, government support…there’s still so much potential for things to go terribly wrong and we could emerge from this episode wildly creative, well-read and oblivious with far less freedom and less opportunity to reclaim our sovereignty as a species than we had two weeks ago. Our vast power as the collective is so evident right now and I hope that we claim it, see it, hold it, cherish it and activate it rather than just keep up our business as usual in the ether.
Medicine Retreats
This is a profound time to be alive. An intense, important and interesting moment to be incarnate and awake. I feel so deeply grateful for the work that I have been doing at Rootstock the last year and, as a result of that deep work, I feel uniquely prepared to be of service now. Most, if not all, of the 50+ medicine retreats that I have guided in the last year have been dedicated to helping people overcome fear, overcome deep programming, overcome grief, apathy, trauma and change their relationship to themselves and their worlds.
Before the global COVID-19 crisis which is now forcing new thinking and new behavior, people were already proactively seeking a new paradigm. They are choosing to wake up, they are choosing to stop anesthetizing themselves with alcohol, cannabis and social media…they are choosing to rediscover the threads that connect them to all that is and they are choosing to feel into what it means to live their truth.
Excerpt from a card received by Beana from a 2020 winter medicine retreat participant.
The reality that we are mortal, that life is fleeting and that our days are precious is still not quite the conversation the world is having but it’s closer to the surface than it has been in millenia. The sensation of cosmic unity isn’t exactly the same as the existential dread welling up in the hearts and minds of the compromised masses, but it’s close to the truth.
WE ARE ALL CONNECTED.
WE ARE ALL DYING.
BUT WE ARE ALL ALSO LIVING RIGHT NOW. THIS MOMENT. WE’RE ALIVE. SO WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH THIS PRECIOUS LIFE?
Medicine retreats at Rootstock are a fold in time. A pause to be with your vast, deep and most authentic self. They provide space to explore the furthest reaches of your mindscape while diving directly into the center of your heart, revealing along the way your values, your boundaries, your weakness, your strength, your desires, dreams and your power. They reveal that you are, in fact, your wisest teacher, strongest healer and most compassionate guardian angel.
As we find ourselves with time, time, time and a new world to co-create, I want to remind you that Rootstock Retreat is holding this sacred space and is available to guide you deeper into your core to help you navigate this new terrain with grace, with authenticity, with radical self-acceptance and unbridled creativity. Now, more than ever, the world needs you. It needs your vitality, your ideas, your songs, your medicine, your truth and it’s your task to show up. All of your ancestors survived unimaginable experiences for thousands and thousands of years so that you could walk and breath and live.
We’re still holding space for medicine retreats here in Vermont and are also available to support out-of-towners with custom-built retreat packages to allow this work to happen in your own unique setting if you’re quarantined and unable to travel. This is not recreational, self-indulgent escapism…this is activism, this is therapy, this is accountability, this is healing. It’s available to you if you feel called and ready.
With so much gratitude and love vaster than the heavens and deeper than the ocean,
Beana