6th Annual 100 Hour Fire

Welcome to the Community Village!

In 6 short years, we have built a world we want to live in.

A fractal universe of beautiful gardens and temples where people from all over come to reimagine their lives, reconnect to their spirits, and remember their way home. The imagination farm and transformational gathering space that is Rootstock Retreat has gifted so many of us with a portal back to the center of our hearts, back to our roots in the Earth, and back to a circle around the fire, and our 100 hour Transformation fire is our annual tradition where we gather in gratitude, celebration, and prayer to feed this place, smudge this place, animate this place, and say thank you, thank you, thank you to this world, each other, and to all beings seen and unseen.

Five days of ceremony in our modern world is rare. Of course there are in tact peoples who never forgot and have been keeping life alive since the Big Bang, but for many of the rest of us, the deracinated, rootless wanderers, well, we need to remember to remember, to reclaim and recover and, ultimately, reindiginize ourselves back into our places and the family of life.

The 100 hour fire is a an opportunity to make the meaning we seek and to come back into relationship with what’s sacred. It’s a co-creative endeavor that always assumes the shape of the beings the come to participate. Every year a magnificent, intense, and unique portal into a new season and a new year opens and we have the privilege to walk through it together, with intention, with beauty, and with care.

The 100 Hour fire is a safe, sober, container to reweave ourselves back into the sacred, back into the cycles of nature, and back into ourselves for the long winter ahead and you’re invited.

It Takes a Village

This year’s theme of the Community Village is born out of something beautiful and basic. All of the growth and becoming at Rootstock over the last 6 years has created an actual village, an actual world, a, literal 3 dimensional material place that - for realz - requires many hearts and hands to hold it.

Rootstock has outgrown its Mama’s arms and needs a whole, sweet family to care for all of its delicate and rugged beauty, its infrastructure, and its visitors. Rootstock’s fractal family is wide and deep and so many hands have helped create this place and now, together, we’re shifting into the era where many hands will help hold this place.

This years pop-up village will circle around and serve the 100 hour fire and it’s tenders at the Dragon Rock while also tending to and animating the many other old and new temples on the land here. People, perhaps you?, will come and hold some space in service at the Hearth, or in the Bathhouse, at the feet of Grandmother Maple, or among the Angelica and obsidian in the Wheel of Thyme. Maybe you’ll opt to come and tend the tenders? Gifting tea or songs or food to the folks on the land? Maybe you’ll make a Children’s Temple and build the fairies and devas homes for the winter? Maybe you’ll simply opt to come and walk the Infinite Loop and receive and commune and enjoy. There will be ample ways to co-create this year’s fire and you’re invited!

How WILL it Work?

As with every alchemical experiment, we can never really know how this will work or what to expect but we’ve anchored some offerings and will see and feel what happens between and around them:

  • 4 folks serve a 24 hour shift at the Dragon Rock tending the 100 hour fire and keeping the world alive.

  • A sweet selection of ways to commune each day have been scheduled including yoga, sound, tarot, fairy house building, Bean Magic and some other good stuff. Participants can plug into these offerings and spontaneously offer something of their own as well.

  • The Hearth will always need some tending preparing or cleaning up after our communal meals.

  • The Bathhouse and some Community Saunas will be spontaneously offered when there are hands and hearts to help.

The Schedule

All gatherings happen rain or shine or snow or wind. ~25 people is the maximum capacity for any gathering at Rootstock so you can expect these gatherings to be intimate and right-sized for communion and connection. If you’d like to book multiple days, that’s welcome, and you can plan to camp and/or slumber party in the Belly.

Registration for a day grants you access to the hill for all the gatherings on that day (7am-10pm) but does not include overnight accommodations. Offerings are subject to change without notice.

Monday, October 28 (RSVP 10/28)

  • 11am-1pm - Altar Building at Dragon Rock

  • 1pm - Light the 100 Hour Fire

  • 5pm-6pm - Gratitude Fire with Beana Bern (Handing the fire to Kaliah & Ann)

  • 6:30pm - 4th Annual Walter Sobchak Transformation Turkey Supper

  • 7:30-9:00pm - Sound & Silence Circle with Brian & Melissa (rhythm & sound circle)

Tuesday, October 29 (RSVP for 10/29)

  • 8am-10am - Mindful Movement & Meditation with Mel

  • 10am-11am - Potluck Brunch

  • 11:30am-1:30pm - Bean Magic, Husking & Magical Objects with Jody Frey

  • 2:00pm-3:30pm - Temple Tending

  • 4:00pm-5:00pm - Potluck Soup Supper (Melissa Laurita Kohl & a cauldron of kitchari!)

  • 5:00pm-6:00pm - Mother Earth Fire Ceremony with Kim Bangs (Handing the fire to TBD)

  • 7:00pm-8:30pm - Cacao Ceremony in the Belly with Aida Real

Wednesday, October 30 (RSVP for 10/30)

  • 8am - 10am Yoga with Madeline Balcom

  • 10am-11am - Potluck Brunch

  • 10am-1pm - Shamanic Healing Sessions with Ada Guzman

  • 11:30am-1:30pm - Fairy House Building

  • 4:00pm-5:00pm - Potluck Supper

  • 5:00pm-6:00pm - Fire Ceremony with Jonah Run Roberts (Handing the fire to Walter)

  • 6:30pm-7:30pm - Concert in the Belly with Isaac Luxton

  • 7:30pm-9:00pm - Drum & Sound Circle

Thursday, October 31 (RSVP for 10/31)

  • 8:00am - 10am - Thai-Style Partner Stretch & Release with Cody

  • 10:00am - 11am - Potluck Brunch

  • 10:00am-1pm - Shamanic Healing Sessions with Ada Guzman

  • 1:00pm-4:00pm - Tarot Readings with Cameron Chapman

  • 2:00pm-4:00pm - Sound & Silence Circle with Melissa & Brian

  • 4:00pm-5:00pm - Potluck Supper

  • 5:00pm-6:30pm - Samhain Ancestor Fire with Eyal Amiel (Handing the fire to TBD)

  • 7:00pm-9:00pm - Dance Party in the Belly with DJ Mel

Friday, November 1

  • 9:00am-10:00am - Silent Meditation

  • 10:00am-11:00am - Potluck Breakfast

  • 11:00am-1:00pm - Drumming at Grandma Maple with Katherine

  • 11:30-2:30pm - Take Down Tipi for Winter

  • 3:00pm-4:00pm - Final Fire Ceremony, Sun Circle prepare to carry fire to Crowing Heart

RECIPROCITY

The Transformation Fire is a devotional offering to the hill and all donations support the food and firewood needed to share this space with any profit going into the Rootstock Medicine Fund.  In the spirit of reciprocity, guests are invited to bring offerings for the altars, the fires, the temples, the tenders, the hill, or the community gathered.  Musical instruments, poetry, songs, meditations, sage, beeswax candles, fair-trade organic chocolate, winter squash and other offerings are most welcome.

All attendees should expect to participate in dishes, cleanup, and other tending as needed and are also encouraged to bring any magical tools or offerings or practices that they might want to share with the land, the fire, or the community here. This is a co-creative gathering which means that we all work to make the meaning and magic that we seek.