June 2024 * Love Letter
Change is the only thing that's constant and we're raising the Yurt!
Hello Beautiful!
Thanks for meeting me here in our cozy new home for Rootstock’s Love Letters. Migrating from one digital platform (Mailchimp) to another (Substack) can be rocky and my hope is that this switch is seamless for you and that you like the new format and the possibilities that it brings.
Every month I find myself trying to cram 111 lbs of content into a 1/4 lb email and it always feels like a compromise. It’s a beautiful compromise, sure, but I can never really fully share what’s alive in me and make sure that you all know what’s happening and how to participate.
I want to be clear with my invitations and I want to pour my heart into the world, catch poetry in motion, reflect on my own growth and process, and celebrate the people and experiences that make me. I made a promise that I wouldn’t ‘traditionally market’ my work anymore, solicit, or inundate anybody with canned emails from some contrived AI funnel since I’m not here to ‘convert you’ or sell you something.
I simply want to share how I feel, reflect what I see, and offer up some invitations to activate our individual and collective potential at this critical time on Planet Earth.
One, dang email a month a - straight from my heart - has been my commitment and after 5 or so years, I am giving myself a little more room to create, communicate, and express what wants to move through me.
There’s no action to take if you’re happy to receive my Love Letter once a month in your inbox. I’ll write it and you’ll receive it, just like always. Hooray!
If you’d like to receive more of what I create and share, well, now you’ll be able to. Folks that subscribe can get the Love Letters aaaaaand whatever else wants to fall out of my heart by way of my hands. Folks that offer up a little energetic exchange each month and support this writing practice of mine will be treated to ‘subscriber-only’ heart shares and I’m aiming for at least one or two a month.
I’m going to be waxing poetic on all things life, psychedelic healing, homesteading, imagination farming, living in community, and whatever else the muse moves in me. I’ll share some photos, a smattering of videos, and maybe even some audio recordings too if my fingers can’t translate my heart fast enough…From my heart to yours!
Ok! Time to love you now…
It’s been an intense month of change here at Rootstock and the tiny shoots of rye and clover are just barely filling in the naked and changed hillside. Excavating land, exposing the bones of the Earth, displacing and killing the little things that live in the soil, and tearing down the big things that have been growing for years is not something I take lightly.
It’s painful.
It’s violent.
It’s loud and it’s dirty.
I cried a lot and died a little this last month and, on the other side of the earthwork is the reminder that life insists on living! Even in the face of destruction and change, Life wants to live and it will!
The Temple is finding its footing and arriving into its new home. The fruit trees are drinking this rain with glee and taking in their new vistas and community in the orchard. The cascading terraces, new fire pit, Temple at Grandmother Maple, and the Infinite Loop surprised us with their confident emergence and the energy is flowing here.
BIG TIME.
It’s a lot to bear and it’s also a fucking miracle.
Wiser people might do what I am doing differently.
They might wait for funding, security blankets, government grants or they might take 20 years to do what I’m doing in 5. It’s possible that there are better and different ways of building the New Earth that I haven’t yet considered. It’s possible that there is a way to whistle in the exact right frequency and turn boulders into feathers that require no stress or heavy lifting… (If you know how to do that, please get in touch me with ASAP!)
But I can’t help but wonder, is ‘easier’ what we’re striving for?
One thing my life has taught me is that ‘ease’ sure don’t come easy and that “luck is the residue of design.” The callouses on my hands, mud under my fingernails, tiredness in my muscles, and bugs in my teeth are some the alchemical magic of Creation. Pouring a whole self into a moment is, I think, what makes a life. Giving your life all of your life is, I think, where meaning and medicine are made.
Anyway, this moment - this growth spurt - is taking everything I have, everything I will have, everything I am, was, and may one day be.
In our Land Blessing a couple weeks ago I recommitted myself and my love to this magnificent hill and it’s taking me up on it daily, holding me to my Word, and grounding me firmly in my work of tending.
What are you tending these days?
On this wet, lush, green morning I pray that whatever it is that you are tending is tending you in return. I pray that you are clear like the raindrops on the Lady’s Mantle, sweet like the Lilac in the breeze, bold like the flowering Rhubarb, and supple like the very first carrot tops bravely emerging from the soil. I pray that you are letting life live you even when, maybe especially when, it’s challenging.
The focus here this Summer is bringing this new space into being, fortifying the systems that hold me, sharing my heart & medicine with the folks in my retreats and immersions, and nurturing the Rootstock Community with invitations to come and pray and play together. Here are some invitations to come and participate…
Tuesday, June 18th - Rootstock Discovery Zoom - 6pm Come learn all about my healing practice, seasonal immersions, get your questions answered, and learn how to book!
Sunday, June 23rd - Sunrise Solstice Ceremony & Yurt Arrival - 5am - 12pm Another Stone Circle with Eyal Amiel will celebrate the Summer Sun with ceremony, a potluck breakfast, and the arrival (& unloading) of our temple. Folks wanting to camp or book a bunk on Saturday night to wake up here are welcome!
Sundays in July - Community Wood-Fired Bathhouse!! Come Come!
The cold spring days have been ideal to hunker in what feels like a cloud forest and sooth our bodies, nurture our spirits, sweat out our anxiety, cold dunk our doubt, and enjoy togetherness… It would be easier to not fill and fire tubs but, again, easier isn’t what’s going to heal the world. We want for you to come and immerse in this experience and let it nourish you.
For real…the bathhouse only works when folks come and, with a sold out winter, we’re encouraged to try this Spring and Summer but we need your participation.
Tuesday, July 2nd - Psychedelic Integration Circle 7-8:30pm Whether you have worked with Beana or Juliana or not, this is a safe and supportive space to navigate bringing the medicine of your experience into your life. Free or by donation monthly.
Friday - Monday, July 5-8 - Community Weekend & Yurt Raising!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Men meet on Friday at Rootstock, Women gather Saturday, and Sunday we love up the Oasis and restock sauna wood and Monday…..drumrollllllllll plllllllease…..we raise the yurt!
Whether you come for a circle or for the whole, dang time we’re hopeful for a full house this weekend with hands, hearts, and help to make something beautiful happen! Go ahead and book yourself a bunk for Moon or Sun Circle to participate or reply to this email and let us know you’d just like to come up on Sunday!
There’s still a whole lotta heavy lifting to do to pull this Temple together and I’d be sooooooooooooooooooo grateful for some support if you think that this space, this place, this community, or this center has or can support you in your becoming. A little or a lot helps. Thanks to all the sweet beings who have already helped to carry this forward with me. It means so so so much.
Medicine of the West - Fall Microdosing Immersion - The waitlist just opened and you can hop on there to secure priority registration in July. These immersions fill for good reasons…they are useful and beautiful. The energetics of Autumn are perfect support to release patterns, thought forms, and belief systems that you’d prefer not to carry into next winter.
I’m doing my best to stay grounded in right here and right now and it’s also very exciting to imagine what these Love Letters and invitations will start to look like as the Temple finds its voice and service… I’ve been imagining offerings that I would like to give you and offerings that I would like to receive and it’s exhilarating to know that, soon soon soon, we’ll have a space to make it all happen. To gather. To grow. Together.
Ok dear one.
Thank you for your kind eyes and attention.
Thank you for being curious about this experiment and living laboratory called Rootstock.
Thank you for being curious and kind to this being called Beana Bern.
Thank you for being alive, right here and right now.
I hope that this next month delivers you into the arms of the Medicine of the South with your soft power in tact, your pleasure prioritized, your body nourished, and your heart beating louder than the noise of the world.
With love and longing,
Beana
So happy to see this! Greetings from Wales!