Roots & Rhythms:
An Earth-Based Spirit Circle for Collective Joy
You belong here, on this Earth.
You have a center of wisdom that connects you to all of creation. And right now in these turbulent times the world needs you navigating from that rooted place.
But I know firsthand: it's hard to do that by yourself.
In this rich rhythmic immersive journey of seasonal community practice, you will be nurtured in essential skills of downshifting survival mode and consistently anchoring to your innate resilient center.
We will do this together for the mutual thriving of each other, our kin and community, our ecosystems and all of creation.
Is this you?
- You feel overwhelmed in the face of personal, national and/or global crises, including the ecological crisis and white supremacy
- You feel disconnected from healthy ancestry, isolated from nourishing community, and long to be a part of healthier community and culture
- You want to feel more at home in your body, your relationships and on the earth while being of service to our world
OR maybe you feel personally well-resourced AND...
- You want a deepened sense of belonging and reciprocity within your own body, community, ecosystem and the land
- You want to enjoy culturally rich seasonal celebrations with like-practicing friends
- You want to be of service and share your gifts rooted in relationship to the land where you and the community you belong to
Roots & Rhythms is a haven of practice for big-hearted earth-loving spiritual seekers longing for a sense of home in themselves, their relationships, and in the web of life, from which to navigate skillfully even in these troubled times.
Through simple seasonal rhythms of community practice, you will be nurtured in:
- Simple, rich, culturally respectful earth- and body- based wisdom
- Nervous system resilience and ‘good enough' relating to each other and our complex world
- Shifting overwhelm, indecision, paralysis and reactivity into grounded, creative responsiveness and unshakeable trust in your own sacred connection
- Living from a more grounded, nourished, intuitive and joyful place
- A deepened awareness of belonging to the web of creation as a felt sense and experience of your innate sacredness, amidst everyday life for the liberation of all
Blessings and Acknowledgements
A deep bow of gratitude to the earth my home and teacher. Thank you to the elemental forces, animals, plants, waters, sun and moon, and the more-than-human teachers, guides and allies that have nurtured me and this work in visible and invisible ways.
Blessings to the Coast Salish peoples, gentle stewards of the land I occupy and that has been a primary shaper of this work. Thank you to my spiritual and biological ancestors, to my teachers and the communities of practice from which this work emerges. For a more complete list of those who have influenced this offering, read here.
It is with gratitude to each of them, all my teachers and guides, and all of the stewards of the wisdom traditions worldwide, known and unknown, that I make this attempt to respectfully hold, share from, and evolve my small piece of the puzzle.
May it be one small offering of restoring/returning back to the composting earth.
What You Get Inside Roots & Rhythms
Light-hearted earth-based seasonal rhythms and celebrations for collective lament and joy
Mentorship and opportunity for resource sharing with each other and our wider ecosystems
Local, land-based, liberatory, contextualized, emergent group process
Simple, rich, non-bypassing, accessible sense-making practices
A cyclical, organic practice model designed for you to integrate, deepen and be creative at your own pace
Body- and land-based skill-building for good-enough relating to each other and our complex world
What makes Roots & Rhythms so Different?
- This isn't a magic bullet or weekend "transformational" intensive. This is a journey. It takes time to build relationships and nurture change.
- This is not a solo journey. Environment is stronger than will power. This is a cultural, alchemical container we are creating together.
- It has some 'church-like' attributes, but it's not a church. We aim towards harmony through shared exploration and contextual rather than unifying creed or belief.
- This is not like those courses that give you tons of pre-recorded content and then leave you to your own devices. Roots & Rhythms consists of regular live in-person circles. You won't fall through the cracks.
- This is not a linear, expertise-driven information dump. Rather, through rhythms of practice, we let the earth, our ecosystems, our bodies, and the web of our relationships be our primary texts and teachers
What Past Circle Participants say:
Beth S.
“I’ve just learned an entirely new framework for thinking and understanding. There are so many areas of my life and in the world that have become clear in looking at things through this lens of cultural attachment, somatics, animism….
This has impacted my ability to have more fun with my daughter, engage more fully in the cycles and regenerative nature of the earth, and provided me with specific practices to draw on when I feel undersupported and overburdened...reconnecting with my own relationship as a human animal on this earth.
JL, Psychologist
[The Sanctuary Circle is] a very nourishing space...a set aside place to learn and practice body based practices that connect within the self, to community, and to the larger ecosystem, with a strong eye to justice and our cultural lenses...
The animist/somatic practices have been really transformational in building a steadily traveled path to inhabiting my own body and being able to draw on my own wisdom and knowing. It's been a 'slow simmer' sort of process which initially may have undershone its eventual build and significance.
Megan Thornton
I love doing this work as a group. Kate understands that we are stronger and better in community, contributing our varied voices and experiences to the work of the whole, and she is such a skilled facilitator.
Attending circle felt a bit like going to my dream church, and maybe something like the early Christian gatherings.
This work has over time directly impacted my ability and willingness to slow down, listen to my body, and tune in to my feelings. It shines a light on my path towards healing my own generational trauma, connecting with earth, ancestors, feeling at home in my body, working with challenging relationship dynamics, and more fully stepping into my life's calling.
What's Included in Roots & Rhythms
This offer arises from the land of the Coast Salish peoples, aka Tacoma, Washington, through an ongoing relationship and attempt to listen to the land, to my community, and to the more-than-human beings present here with us.
As a descendant of settler-colonists and immigrants, a guiding question for me has been: how do I live in a good way with this land? And what is the land asking of us now?
Roots & Rhythms is designed with nods to what we can know of ancestral practices that revolved around natural processes, but with simple accessible formats that meet us where we are today. Though they will connect and weave together, each offering can stand alone.
R&R runs in a biannual cycle: Winter to Summer and Summer to Winter.
Each 6-month cycle will consist of:
- 1 Monthly Ritual or Mini-Retreat (This includes quarter, cross-quarter days, grief rituals, etc. Saturday AM, see FAQs for exact dates)
- 1 Monthly Song Circle (typically 2nd Wednesdays, 6:30-8 PM)
- 1 Monthly Community Care Give-Back (typically Last Sundays, 9-10:30 AM)
See FAQs for complete descriptions of each rhythm.
Every circle is a little different, but each consist of familiar elements, including:
- contemplative practice and somatic skill building
- tuning into and being guided by the subtle world of sensation, intuition, desire and dreams
- simple, accessible seasonally-informed ritual
- option for sharing and listening in community
- songs for grounding, expression and celebration
YOUR SYNERGISTIC CONTRIBUTION:
Roots & Rhythm Members will be invited/asked to contribute as active participants to our circle. This looks like:
- Your financial exchange (see below): probably obvious, but I want to underscore: your financial commitment forms a key aspect of the reciprocal containment of the offering which covers costs and affords me a livable salary while allowing me to keep other offerings open to the wider community on a more accessible drop-in and donation basis
- Being a "co-steward" of at least 1 circle per cycle, where we work together on curating the offering and nurturing hospitality. This will help me to share the responsibilities and labors of hosting, and make it more fun!
- Joining in the monthly community care offering, which will be in collaboration with other community organizations as a way to stay engaged and grounded in our wider community, particularly BIPOC led efforts. Families welcome and encouraged to join!
- Being a part of the evolution of Roots & Rhythms: provide feedback, your felt sense, leadership and your creative powers towards listening together into what this container wants to be.
Bonus Opportunities Include:
Families/children/friends welcome to all Community Care Sundays
Reduced Rate for other SNW offerings
Reduced Rate on 1:1 sessions with Kate
Participation in annual Sanctuary Northwest community rituals (Summer/Winter Solstice)
A guest pass for a friend who has not participated in any of my previous offerings
The semi-annual Roots & Rhythms seasonal mailer
Priority enrollment in offerings with space limitations
Lightly curated FB group
Why is Roots & Rhythms so important right now?
If the patterns of past empires are any indicator, we are living at the brink of collapse. It is already happening in many corners of our nation and world. Ecologies and systems across sectors are reaching their breaking point. The extreme polarities of politics, worldviews, and access to resources are staggering and seemingly irreconcilable. These coming years and decades will likely continue to be turbulent, unpredictable and painful.
What is on the other side of this portal? And how will we get through it?
Honestly: these are the questions that keep me up at night. I don’t know if I have any answers, but it is through wrestling with the reality of the world as I see it that Roots & Rhythms has emerged.
I see this as something of an attempt at what Margaret Wheatley describes as an “island of sanity”, a buoy anchored to that deepest source of love-life within each of us and within creation that might offer us a touchpoint to Reality, a reference point from which to navigate the coming changes with even a tiny bit more skill, honesty, groundedness, courage and companionship.
"[Circle] offers an understanding of how to connect with traditions that I’ve lost over generations of work, toil, colonialism, and 'progress' and remember that I have access to ancient wisdom and tradition. It feels like it helps me find home."
Beth S.
Here’s a Recap of All the Value You Get in Roots & Rhythms:
- 2 Earth Rhythm Quarter Day Retreats (Value: $800)
- 2 Earth Rhythm Cross-Quarter Day Rituals (Value: $400)
- 1 Grief Ritual (Value: $200)
- 1 Visioning Ritual ($200)
- 5 Earth Blessings Song Circles (Value: $500)
Plus your sweet BONUSES:
-
Reduced Rate on all offerings with Kate (VALUE: $50-$500)
- Participation in annual Sanctuary Northwest community rituals (Summer Solstice’s Sing Your Little Heart Out) (VALUE: $50)
- A guest pass for you to bring a friend who has not participated in any of my previous offerings to an offering (does not include quarter day retreats or grief rituals) (VALUE: $100)
- Lightly curated FB group ($250)
- A container of community space-sharing with me and other like-practicing peers (priceless!)
The total value: $2,550+
(But don't worry, you won't pay that.)
Enroll now to get all this for just about half that.
A Few Notes on Finances and Culture
Our Economic Philosophy
Restorative Culture Sliding Scale
On being a white-led/white-dominant space
A spell for economic balance and reciprocity:
We invite you to consider your financial investment as a kind of spell-casting and energy practice that brings you into awareness of the reciprocal web of support that we all live in.
Take a few minutes to breathe into your belly and ask: where am I in that web right now? Do I feel the magic of this offer, and its potential to draw me into closer participation within that web? Then read through pricing structure and ask your belly again: is this right for me right now? Does my desire align with this exchange?
Pay In Full: Get 10% off. Email Kate.
By paying full price, either in full or through monthly payments, you are helping to sustainably make this offering more accessible to folks who have historically had more barriers to care.
Restorative Culture Sliding Scale: BIPOC, LGBTQ+ folks, folks with disabilities, and folks with severe financial need are eligible for alternative payment arrangements, work-study + sliding scale. Email Kate here.
But...how do I know if this will be right for me?
Truthfully: I don't know. Only you can know that. That is a question for you, your gut, your ancestors and spirit team. Take it to them prayerfully, without thinking too hard about it.
There is a lot that I will do my best to nurture for you in Roots & Rhythms.
But ultimately all I can promise you is that: this is a container in which you will have an experience.
What kind of experience will depend on the interplay of so many things: our bodies, personalities, personal and ancestral traumas, available resources, life circumstances, spiritual energies, seasons of the year and of life. I will do my best to gather us together to not be so lost and alone in our experiencing and in our metabolizing and integration of these experiences.
Roots & Rhythms doesn't (shouldn't!) have to be "the only right thing" or "the most right thing"...but just ask your inner wisdom: is it even just a part of the next right thing?
FAQ
What is the exact schedule?
Tell me more about each of the offerings.
What happens in a Somatic Spiritual Support Session?
What if I can't make a circle?
Is this a church?
Where is this located?
Shouldn't community and spiritual care be free?
What if it’s not my thing/I change my mind?
How did Roots & Rhythms Come About?
Meet the Roots & Rhythms Priestess:
Kate Fontana
Hello! I'm Kate. I have been a wandering spiritual misfit for almost two decades. After coming out as queer and leaving my Catholic faith, I got deep into the Goddess tradition of Kashmir Shaivism, where I had my first real 'hit' of being made in the 'divine image'.
In 2013 I received the unexpected call to be “priestess” and then in 2015, even more unexpectedly Jesus came back into my life--not as triumphant victor, not as dewy-eyed shepherd, but as a tender lover. I could not have been more shocked (or annoyed!).
Through major mental health crisis, job loss, seminary, psychic school, somatic animist apprenticeship, and a slow return to my body and earth-based rhythms, I have been attempting to make sense and live respectfully in the confluence of these strange intersections of lineages and modalities. This is my latest iteration of being as generous and authentic from my learnings as I can.
Here's what I know: how lonely, confusing, uncertain a life on the spiritual fringe can be. I also know that belonging is your birthright--you are a citizen of the earth.
You have a direct line of communication and connection to Earth/Source/God/dess/the Cosmos.
All it takes is a persistent commitment to removing the things that block your direct sense of original belonging.
As we find ourselves on the brink of global collapse, with crises mounting on every front, we believe now more than ever we need to find our way back home to ourselves and in the diverse and interdependent web of creation.
I am creating spaces like the Roots & Rhythms so we can all help each other do just that. So welcome!
So...are you in? I hope so.
Pay In Full: Get 10% off. Email Kate.
By paying full price, either in full or through monthly payments, you are helping to sustainably make this offering more accessible to folks who have historically had more barriers to care.
Restorative Culture Sliding Scale: BIPOC, LGBTQ+ folks, folks with disabilities, and folks with severe financial need are eligible for alternative payment arrangements, work-study + sliding scale. Email Kate here.
