trans·for·ma·tion /ˌtran(t)sfərˈmāSH(ə)n/ noun

a metamorphosis during the life cycle of an animal.

We’re transforming every minute of our lives. Growing, changing and biodegrading without any need to ask those processes to function. Each breath automatically brings life that’s followed by death and it’s a silent process that runs in the background while we scroll Instagram, work jobs, shepherd children and distract ourselves with the elements of living that interest us most or that we’ve been programmed to believe are most important. Minutes, hours, days, months and years pass while we dutifully serve an ideal that we may or may not have put on the altar ourselves.

I prayed to the Goddess of Material Success, Social Acceptability, Be A BossLady That Men Take Seriously, and Don’t Make Anybody Feel Too Uncomfortable or Inadequate for most of my professional life. Traversing between feeling like I was “too much” or “not enough” resulted in kind of roller coaster trajectory for most of my adult life with mixed success. I can look back on it now with some tenderness and I know that a lot of that wasn’t my fault. Forgiving myself for trusting that society, my parents and our culture knew what was best for me might have made sense a few thousand years ago when we were a small village living close to the land, but in the context of today’s exploitative global culture, it’s a slippery slope filled with predatory capitalist tactics and lots of gaslighting.

‘Conscious transformation’ has even been co-opted and is also mostly packaged for consumption in the form of therapists you can text 24/7, miracle diets, luxury retreats in far off places and ‘thought-provoking’ Netflix series. The desire to change is BIG BUSINESS and corporate capitalism wants a seat at the table. But do we need some shiny gimmick to welcome change? Do we need to empty our bank accounts on spiritual wardrobes, psychic mediums, self-help books and celery juice to feel ourselves shift?

Creating space for authentic, heart-centered and conscious transformation is at the core of Rootstock, and Rootstock Retreat is the container where this new healing modality is taking shape. I’ve called it “lifestyle medicine” and “space holding” and a few other things but what it really is is an invitation. An invitation to feel into other ways of being, perceiving, connecting and growing.

Last week we held a 100 Hour Fire for Transformation here at Rootstock. When is the last time you tended a fire for 100 hours? It was a radically simple idea and a surprisingly huge endeavor to experience and execute. A generous man sought to tend the fire for the full duration and another ~50 or so individuals filtered through the ceremonies over 4 days. There was no religious dogma, no prescribed format for prayer, no rules to follow beyond “show up” and what resulted was joyful, helpful and staggeringly beautiful. We essentially wove a tapestry of medicine, traditions, generations, and genders around our shared desire to heal ourselves and our broken world and we did just that.

What I can say is that, for the most part, ‘ceremony’ isn’t that comfortable for anybody. It’s filled with awkward smiles, insecurity of ‘doing it wrong,’ uncomfortable silence, fear of public speaking and a host of other anxiety-producing possibilities. What I can also say is that simply showing up and sitting in circle around a fire is powerful medicine and worth making time for. It’s worth doing and it’s especially worth exposing your children to.

Every day and night of the 100 hour ceremony forged new connections, new perspectives, new confidence and newfound courage. It was a profoundly meaningful way to bless Rootstock’s birth and I am eternally grateful to all of the beings that made it happen and to this exquisite land for holding us with such beauty, comfort and grace. The songs, the prayers, the heart-shares, the tears, the laughter, the dancing, the conversation, the smoke and wind and rain…it revealed that healing can be a joyful act and that we can do it together.

If you made it to the fire (and to the end of this blog post!!) please know that your presence here was a real blessing and your support of this vision is needed and appreciated. If you were curious but couldn’t get here for this event, please find a way to support yourself to come and join another gathering. And finally, if the idea of ‘ceremony’ sounds creepy, cult-y, religious and like something you want to avoid at all costs, I get it, but consider joining us as an explorer or researcher and allow yourself to make an informed decision. There is power in numbers and when we heal ourselves we really do heal our world.