Survivorship & Sovereignty

this program is currently on hiatus. sign up for my newsletter to hear when the next cohort will be running!

Healing and reconnection after harm come in so many ways. So many ways, and waves, and cycles, spiraling through time.  Survivorship and Sovereignty is an offering to survivors of s*xual violence as a space to continue our healing journeys in sacred, intentional community.  A space for us to be, to breathe, to tend, to deepen into resource.

This program is intended to serve as a gentle container for healing, reconnection to self, and/or reclamation of personal sovereignty.  We will explore themes of Survivorship and Sovereignty in community together through creative expression, plantcraft, and ritual craft.

This is a space for gentleness, for slowness, for listening to our bodies and to the whispers of magic all around us. This is a space to prioritize our healing, our journeys to wholeness, and to opening to the resource and nourishment all around. This is a space to witness and honor each other as both survivors and as sovereign beings.  Every invitation will be optional and each of us will be at choice with how we choose to engage.

If you feel called to continue your journey of coming home to yourself after harm, and creative and ritual craft support your healing process, please join us. This space is for you, just as you are.

The Potent Companionship of Plant kin

Plants are powerful companions in any healing work. In my own life, I have found them to be so supportive for tending the wounds of relational harm and interpersonal violence. Each unique plant has so much to offer us; many of us have been being cared for by plants all along, whether we knew it or not. And when we intentionally, thoughtfully build relationships with them, the relationship itself offers its own healing power.

Weaving in these relationships alongside creative, reflective and ritual practices can offer us deep nourishment in our healing journeys around survivorship, as we tend our very real pain, meet any lingering shadows and reclaim a felt sense of sovereignty in our bones.

Logistics

WHEN:  The program will run for five consecutive weeks. Upcoming cohort dates to be determined. Sessions will be 1.5 hours.

WHERE: We will gather digitally, meeting online weekly via Zoom. These sessions will not be recorded for intimacy and privacy. These calls will have live closed captions.

FORMAT: This container will include five live weekly gatherings held via Zoom that last 1.5 hours. The sessions will include live infosharing, processing, reflection through journaling & embodiment practices, and more. All practices are invitational. In addition to our calls, each participant will be invited to engage in personal practices in between our sessions.

WHO IS THIS FOR: This is an intentionally crafted small circle to allow for intimate connection. This space is intended as a container for folks who identify as LGBTQIA2S+. Transgender, nonbinary, genderqueer, gender non-conforming, Two-Spirit, intersex, gender divergent, agender folks will be centered. Queer cis-gendered folks are also welcome to participate.

Note: This is not for those in active crisis. This is not meant to replace therapeutic, peer and/or professional mental health support. Participants will be expected to have personal webs of support and care outside of this cohort, to support them as they do this specific work. This offer is meant to be another layer of support to weave into your existing web.

Program Cost

This program will be offered on a sliding scale basis with various price points. Those who pay on the higher end of the scale will enable the participation of those who are no/low-income. Payment will be accepted upon registration.

Investment: 700 / 450 / 300

The median rate for this program is $450.

For folks experiencing financial ease, middle class, upper middle class and/or upper class living, you are invited to pay $700.

Low income folks who are experiencing financial hardship, disability or other fixed income constraints, and have no access to generational wealth or community resources are welcome to register at $300. You may select to pay this all at once or in three payments at registration.

Special note on solidarity access: For low-income participants for whom $300 is a barrier to access, there are a limited number of scholarship spots available. QTBPOC and disabled folks will be prioritized for these spaces. Please email to inquire!

FAQ: Is this program right for me?

Healing around survivorship is such an individual process that looks so different for everyone. I honor wherever you are in your process.

However, for the safety and support of participants, this program is intended for folks who have been working around their own survivorship, past trauma, and reconnecting to their power and worth as needed for some time. This is intended for people who have transitioned into a space where some feelings of embodiment and safety can be felt in their bodies, where they feel embodiment practices are actively supportive, and where they feel ready for more strategies and allies to support their continued process.

This may be a deep and potent process for you. Participants should have a therapist or other practitioner who is supporting their healing process around survivorship.  We will proceed gently and slowly, but we cannot always know what we might find activating.  Ideally participants would also have the support of community and kin (chosen or blood) for additional care in case this program unearths anything that needs deeper tending.

This program is meant to add another element to your already existing process, not serve as the only piece. This is not intended to replace professional support.

This space is not appropriate for folks who feel activated or triggered by being in community that is explicitly survivor-centric, by engaging with embodiment practices, or by general nonspecific conversation around survivorship and healing after harm.   This space is also not suitable for someone who desires community in which to verbally tell their personal stories of survivorship and/or harm.

There will not be any direct discussion of personal survivorship stories, nor explicit story sharing of any of the specific violence that folks might have experienced.  Rather, our meetings together will be gentle gatherings of folks who identify as survivors and are seeking sacred space to continue their healing work in connection with others.  We will witness and honor each other as both survivors and as sovereign beings. However, participants will be invited to work with their personal survivorship stories outside of our calls through proposed weekly practices.

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions around this.

Who is facilitating this program?

For folks new to me & my work –

my name is rowan (they/them) and I’m a qt herbalist, bodyworker, writer, facilitator and devotee to plant kin. I deeply believe in the powerful potential in queer healing, radical community care, and embodying our values to create the world we long for.

The threads of my work include queer healing, ritual and devotion with the holy, long-c & DJ, politicized ancestral reconnection for settlers on Turtle Island/N America, cultural traditions and ethnobotany, and more. I’m a white-bodied 3rd gen US person who comes from Irish, Lithuanian, Scottish & Sicilian lineages and resides currently in the n east of the US, on Abenaki land.

I am deeply curious about what lies within us, especially the tangled, darker threads, and have found potent healing when tending these threads in community spaces for the sake of healing and collective liberation. I have re-found great power from facing my own pain stories and histories of violence, and working with plants & creative practices have long been a way of tending, processing and integrating these stories. 

I have many years of experience working with plants to tend trauma, pain and violence, including DV, SA, and suicidality both personally and supporting others in their processes. I base all my work off of my lived personal experiences, relationships with the holy wild, and experiences as a queer healing practitioner. For this offering specifically, I am also holding this space based on my own personal work around survivorship and being held by the plants in it.

Note: I am not a therapist nor currently an active crisis counselor. Though I have training and professional experience working with folks in active mental health crisis & trauma, this is not my current work, nor is it the role I am offering for this specific program. Participants will be expected to have circles of care to support them outside of this writing group. My role for this specific group is of facilitator, guide, plant kin companion, and fellow in the work.

thanks for being in community with me, for your support of my ongoing work, and for being a part of this broader weaving.