Beloved Elder, Healing Sanctuary

Dear community,

As many of you know, my dearest friend, mentor, collaborator and all-around love, James Stark, passed on to the ancestor realm July 23. He was dearly loved and deeply respected by so many, and has planted seeds and tended relationships far and wide, in dedication to bringing forward the world we wish to inhabit.

I was honored to walk with him closely on this path to and across the threshold, and have been deep in ceremony space with him from July 7th through the end of a beautiful four day Sacred Fire for him and his community here in the Commonweal Garden.

So many teachings, transmissions, magic, beauty and grace in this process. So much love. A truly transformative experience for me, to hold a sustained focus on holding a beloved with love so intensely through this. So many tears. So much love.

I am taking it all down in my heart like a golden treasure, and will be integrating this for years to come.

I see James everywhere here on the land. He stewarded the Commonweal Garden with Penny Livingston for the fourteen years prior to our tenure here, creating so much of the infrastructure, the layout of much of the landscape. He gave the house I live in it's current form. In the transition from RDI to Natura holding the Garden, he mentored us in the rather complex task of stewarding the land. From water systems to woodrat relationships and waayyyy beyond, we have been beautifully mentored in this relationship with land. James and I leaned into clearing spaces of downed trees, brush, poison oak like two happy workhorses, joyfully experiencing the satisfaction of physical labor dedicated to the creation of beautiful sanctuary.

Beyond the physical, he mentored me in how to hold space for people in their healing. How to weave a supportive container around those doing deep healing work. Our dialogues in the early years of our partnership crackled with creative energy, our mutual focus on evolving community structures well met. Integrative community medicine, spiritual psychology, depth ecology, love and connection a rich nourishing broth we ladled out together. These collaborative exchanges have been foundational to all we have done here in the Commonweal Garden in these last seven years.

Now I feel him in my heart, behind my eyes, in my mind as I drop into the very sanctuary spaces we created together, reflecting back on our time in circles together, strategy conversations on how to move the vision forward. Experiencing the healing sanctuary now, myself. Feeling so very held, by community and land. By James.

We created and facilitated beautiful programs together over the years. In our last two weeks together, I have been feeling the pang of sorrow that we had not been teaching together for the last two years. The space we held together was magic, shimmering with playfulness and the sort of love that creates a sweet field within which to do healing work. I am grateful to feel him so strongly in my heart now, and am in deep reflection as to how I'll be bringing this teaching partnership back to the fore. How I will honor his legacy and continue to move the vision forward. How I will honor and inhabit the transformative healing power of love, in my voice, presence and teaching.

I wish to dwell in this place of devotion, love, beloved community with all of life, and the ongoing belief in the power we hold to make the world a better place. Living life full out. Brimming with the vitality that love and service yields. All the way to the end, like James.