Imagine with us.

Imagine a space that is at once populous and intimate, safe yet deeply engaging.  A place we enter not to escape the world, but to face it.  A place we enter within ourselves.

The vision for Bloodroot is a gathering that holds space for the dark and the light, with the recognition that both are necessary to transform ourselves and this world. Our pillars are community singing, myth-telling/storytelling, dance, and grief ceremony.  

We intend to create an irresistible container for community-building and personal transformation.  We will travel to the depths, and emerge singing! This is a gathering that is not an experience to be purchased and consumed.  It challenges us to take a hard look at how we show up in the world, in the context of accelerating ecological catastrophe, loss of ancestral culture, and in the face of our own mortality.  And we won't stop there.  

In the words of Barbara McAfee, "Every time I go into the darkness, I return with fistfuls of jewels!"  We hope to foster a setting where we may recognize and hold the brokenness of the world, and our grief therein, that we may fully tap into our joy and fullness of being.

The Bloodroot Gathering is in its germination stage, fundraising, holding the vision, and laying the groundwork. With your help, we can make this an event like none other.

Our fundraising goal this year is $50,000 which will go toward bringing in some of the best talents in facilitation the world has to offer, as well as soul-nourishing food, and a gorgeous venue. Donations are tax-deductible and go through our fiscal sponsor, Abundance NC.  This fundraising period is designed to be a jump-start for the gathering to be world-class from the outset.

The videos to the left give a taste as to how we'd like the gathering to feel, how it might sound, and what lines of scent we may be tracking into the unknown. These snippets describe part of  the inspiration that Bloodroot is drawing upon, and while we will certainly be inviting them, these specific people will not necessarily be there in 2020!

Village Fire is a singing gathering in Decorah, Iowa that excels at creating an inclusive space, where from the moment you arrive, you are folded into the doings of the event.  Elders, Teens, and Children are honored in specific moments and ceremonies throughout the gathering. It holds a friendly open energy, and abundance of singing culture that serves at a waypoint for Bloodroot to strive for.

Shown here singing her father's song to the ancestors, Suzie Ro Prater is one of a large cohort of community choir leaders in the Natural Voice Network, based in the UK.  They have brought about a resurgence in relating to music and harmony as a people.  Natural voice composers make multiple-part harmony songs more accessible to regular folks, and these songs are ready to get woven into our lives! We hope to bring in a strong Natural Voice contingent at Bloodroot, and already have Kirsty Martin on the docket!  A workshop with one of these voice magicians can be life-changing. You will be bathed in song. 

Dr. Martin Shaw has helped bring myth-telling back into focus as a tool for unlocking our deep archetypal mysteries.   It has become an integral part of the Minnesota Men's Conference, and the Great Mother conference, and we invite this to be a core aspect of Bloodroot. Oral Storytelling is an ancient and largely lost art that was once a major aspect of human life and connection.  Bloodroot will invite spectacular storytellers to convey these depths, and to empower us to share our own living mythology.

Grief ceremony is the catalyzing ingredient of Bloodroot.  Francis Weller does a magnificent job here describing the reasons why tapping into the potent depths of our sorrow is so critical to fully experiencing life. 

"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.  And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.  And how else can it be?  The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."
                                                                                                     -Kahlil Gibran

It is our intention to humbly and prayerfully weave a  village that will live on in the hearts of those that create it; a space for humans to connect, rejoice, grieve, and grow into themselves.  We need this.  Let's become a people together.

Questions, Donation Inquiries, etc:
C o n t a c t:
Yuri Woodstock
jupitercommunitychoir@gmail.com