The Story of Tree of Life
Began with the deep yearning.
A deep yearning to be free, to be known, to belong to this earth, to belong to a healthy cosmology and community, and to be made wholly useful.
This yearning burns inside the young self. It spans across time and landscape. It is the larger soul centered self longing to break out of the smaller shell of the adolescent.
When the yearning is paired with deep nature connection, sound mentor & elder guidance, and healing ceremonies, powerful offerings emerge.
The story of Tree of Life began with Rachel Erin Ruach who had this yearning. The longing was sharpened; its appetite wetted by having the profound gift of sitting amongst Native American elders and inside of ceremonies - where Rachel was given a felt sense of what is possible. She was guided on a deep wilderness journey of coming back into belonging with this earth.
She had a call to both become her larger adult self and help birth a pathway into adulthood for others; to help reinstate our cultural rite as young folk to initiate. And to do this surrounded by community and elders. You may read about her story here. It is one of magic, perseverance, and collaboration.
Some key pieces to name in her story are that she went on her own quest to initiate into adulthood. In the winter of 2008 she was given a Sacred Vision. In 2009 she gave away her worldly possessions and set off on a 40 day walking pilgrimage North into the unknown, only knowing she needed to find the snow, find the elders, and initiate. This act led her into relationship with 6 profound elders and then into a 3 month wilderness solo at the base of a mountain in Northern Idaho. The what and how of her solo time was guided by Spirit. In the heart of that time, she walked up the mountain and spent 10 days camped in the bosom of the mountain. Indeed, she was contacted and guided by Spirit and was handed many pieces regarding culture for our times and initiation rites.
Eventually and reluctantly, she came off the mountain and out of her solo time. She journey back home to Northern California where she was welcomed back by elders in her home community. When she returned, she found home and birthed a process for others to come through.
Old Growth Oak Tree on the land, Polcum Springs, where Tree of Life culminating ceremony has taken place.
After receiving the Sacred Vision of the Cultural Map for Women and then going through the process of her own initiation with the support of her allies, teachers, mentors and community, Rachel began to understand what she was handed and her path as one who helps hold the portal of adulthood initiatory rites. In 2010 she invited a few young women into a process where they enacted these ceremonies and inquiries that followed the maps that she was shown from 2007-2008 and process she was led through by Spirit. Two women from this first group—Joti Shephi Levy and Kait Singley—have and continue to play influential roles in supporting the evolution of Tree of Life and have served as facilitators for the journey.
The first round was a rag tag group of daring, brave, and honest souls that wanted their own adulthood versions of themselves enough to say “yes” to a very unusual invitation. It was beautiful, potent, raw, and messy. A lot was learned and, miraculously, they remained friends through it all.
They laid the process down for a year to integrate the many big teachings.
The second round came through young folk in the community approaching Rachel and Joti Shefi Levy. They sat with their request. They prayed, made offerings, and solidified their elders and anchors. They agreed to take the second round of initiates through, and thusTree of Life as an organization began to have a life.
Through the second round more nuanced aspects of the process were born. Joti helped develop it in many ways. More folks came in to support and feed the fire we were tending of adulthood initiation.
For the third round Kari Stettler was brought in as a co-director, a strong leader in her own right, who brought wisdom, guidance, and helped form the Tree of Life into the tree that it is today. Since then, the journey has evolved into its full 2-year form and it continues to evolve based on the emergent needs that present themselves with the particular women who gather to form a circle, the mentors, elders and supporters, and the changing times we are in.
Over the past 15 years, the Sacred Vision has grown and evolved into the Tree of Life journey that exists today and is informed by elders Ann Rosencranz, Madeline Wade, Rachel Kaplan, Shadi Shamsavari, Susan Prince, and many other mentors and supporters who carry this vision for young women to have a solid container to undergo this transformational initiation into adulthood.
Manual for Initiation
excerpt by Rachel Ruach Golden:
Rachel Ruach speaking at Send Off Ceremony for 2019 Tree of Life Initiates
How do we reclaim a way of life that benefits and supports this Earth and All of Creation?
How do we reestablish healthy reciprocity and taking responsibility in all the ways t care-tend this earth which we rely upon?
What does a modern day regenerative culturally intact society look like? Sound and smell like? What does it feel like?
“People in modern America are battling now more than ever with a feeling of anxiety, emptiness, loneliness, sorrow, worthlessness, anger, meaninglessness, apathy, and fear with the symptoms from these depressed and repressed emotions displaying themselves in rampant illness and addictive behaviours through the rush-rush world of non-being, obsessive consumerism, overwork and over-extension of self, checking out through media and substance abuse, and epic levels of chronic illnesses, such as adrenal exhaustion, cancer and heart disease.
What are the values of the mainstream modern western culture? Though there is a moral awareness of being a good citizen, when Capitalist Corporations rather than elders answer the question of values, we are inundated with images that promote looking sexy, staying young, having the next great product, more media consumption, hyper-independence, being materially successful, and spending spare time recreating.
If these behaviors leave us feeling empty, depressed, and reaching into addiction – then maybe this isn’t our culture.
Maybe what we have been pushed into living is not what will truly feed life nor our souls. So, what, pray tell, does the culture look like that we are actually yearning for? What is the cultural map that produces healthy, upright, vibrant, happy people and a regenerative planet – people who know who they are, are fulfilled in how they live, are excited and happy to grow into their wisdom and age, glowing in their own love and gratitude for life, supportive of each other, who joyously and naturally care tend the earth and each other at each stage of life?
As my walk on the earth this time around is in a body carrying 7 different blood lineages while being born raised and living on lands that are not my ancestral homelands, the sacred question I began to carry and hold in my heart focused down into, “What is the Cultural Map for Our Times in This Place?” In other words: What is the way to live that will truly uplift our people for this day and age? I imagined I would be carrying this sacred question, this holy frustration, within me for twenty years, collecting bits and pieces as I went. But, alas, we live in extreme times where the extraordinary is dancing in our midst.
2008 was the hardest year of my life up to date, with 2009 close on its heels. After years of intensive cleansing and spending most my free time in nature and in some form of ceremony, it seemed that the intensity just increased until the prospect of death or insanity were my constant bedfellows. With the level of anguish, pain, spirit-twisting purging, sobbing, shaking, and other-worldly experiences, I didn’t know if I would come out the other side sane or alive. And somehow I made it through. These were also the years that I was asking very hard questions about myself and my cultural upbringing and, graciously, that some of the more miraculous visions and spiritual merging happened to me.
In late December of 2008 I was given a Sacred Vision. I know this to be a Sacred Vision due to the manner in which it was given and the content of the vision itself.
According to my teachers, a vision is considered sacred when the truth of it can stand alone and when other people are holding pieces to that same vision…
...Being given a Sacred Vision and understanding the Sacred Vision are two separate things. After the night of the vision, my whole body and being felt energized and excited while simultaneously feeling weighed down, as if I was carrying a very heavy bundle. For the next few years I went on a deeply soul searching journey to understand what was being shown to me. A good portion of this journey involved my own initiation. Through the help of the teachers, elders, and mentors around me, as well as my own spirit-journeying, I began to form a picture of what this Sacred Vision is speaking to; a picture of what cultural maturation for our modern western world can look like and how to get there.”
Being in an all women’s ceremonial space has been profoundly rich and an integral part of my healing journey and personal liberation. I feel confident of my place in this world and that I can truly stand in my power.
~Dana Becker, Acupuncturist, Co-founder of OvaMoon Supplements, 2017-19 Tree of Life Initiate
Co-Directors, Rachel Ruach and Kari Stettler with Ceremonial Elder, Ann Rosencranz