THE BLOODROOT TEAM IS MADE UP OF THE BADDEST AND BEST HUMANS each holding many years of experience, training + care in their offering. Honing their craft over time they show up fully to Bloodroot as seasoned artists, facilitators, coaches, politicized healers, teachers, therapists, space holders, spiritual doulas and joy makers. They are honored to bring their magic and skill to Bloodroot.

Rachel Liu

Rachel (they/she) is the creator of Bloodroot Sessions, the creative director of Bloodroot, a trauma informed healing artist + photographer as well as the owner of Rachel Liu Photography. Rachel is particularly inspired by queer, disabled, trauma-informed visionaries, poets + boundary breakers as well as the trees that live near their home. Their experience as a labor + birth nurse, doula + mother has strongly influenced their work in Bloodroot. They believe that deep witnessing + radical permission creates space for transformation + that, like birth, the cells of our bodies hold the wisdom to know how to birth ourselves into wholeness. For Rachel, Bloodroot is a holy thing, an ordinary thing + a world shaking thing- like a seed that grows into an oak tree. They considers it a great privilege to steward this work in themself + alongside others as they seek to remember who they are.

Angela CLinton

Angela (she/her) is the co-director of Bloodroot and the director of Bloodroot Retreats. Angela is a fiercely loving and joyful racial equity facilitator, embodiment guide and trauma-informed sexuality coach. She moves and activates others at the intersections of joy + justice, sexuality + power, flow + action and wholeness + liberation.  A long-time community organizer, Angela is fascinated by power and how to create both individual and systemic change.  Movement, dance and exploring erotic power have cracked open for her a path to healing, self-love and individual + collective liberation.  Pouring herself into Bloodroot is an honor that allows her to experience more freedom within herself and the raw power that occurs when people step into their truth.  She and Thema run expression movement sessions called Swamps. EmbodywithAngela.com

Terna TillEy-Gyado

Terna (say Tayna, she/her) is a liberian/nigerian/american-raised healing facilitator, body- & energy-based psychotherapist, energy & spirit worker, and artist based in Western Massachusetts (Pocumtuc territory). She believes that the process of re-membering our wholeness and transforming our relationship to our bodies is a fundamental part of the quest for liberation. She is the co-writer & co-performer of Coming Out Muslim: Radical Acts of Love and a steering committee member of the Muslim Alliance for Sexual & Gender Diversity. She is excited to be part of Bloodroot because it is a divine portal of healing, love, transformation and connection. You can learn more about her work at evolutionaryheart.com.


TW

TW (they/she) is a high school educator and organizer based in New Haven, Connecticut. They are committed to building a world that people are at home in, from our bodies to our literal neighborhoods and collectives. They feel most alive when getting shit done towards that vision, like carrying heavy things and singing songs.  To TW, Bloodroot is a wild and holy space where embodiment and expression of self is art, is reverberation, is healing, is a claiming, is collective power. TW holds a master's degree in Social Justice Education, leads a collective of teachers called "Aspiring Abolitionists: white educators contending with conscious use of power," and has been a student of Thich Nhat Hahn since age 7. They are the mother of a toddler and a warrior mama spirit. 

Thema Haida

Thema (she/her) is a black queer Reiki Witch, an intuitive spiritual guide, energy worker, and a creatrix/holder of healing spaces. Her joy is empowering folx to find healing through self connection, movement, stress relieving practices, and community. Her personal Bloodroot session continues to fuel her daily intention to embody freedom with every step, and is inspired by the palpable transformation of each person who chooses to take this courageous journey. Thema is a certified Usui/Holy Fire/Karuna Reiki Master Teacher, is certified in 13th Octave LaHoChi, a 500hr Yoga Alliance Registered Yoga Instructor, and an Advanced Metaphysical Healing Practitioner. 

Brandon Hutchinson

Brandon (she/her) is a seeker, community builder, space holder, facilitator, educator, and radical believer in the value of the pause. Attracted to the sweetness in life and the goodness in others, she often finds calm and peace with her indoor plants, trees, and garden beauties which offer her repeated/ tremendous lessons on surrender, healing, and stick-to-it-ness. Brandon is certified in Usui//Holy Fire/Angelic Reiki and is a Narrative 4 master practitioner. She believes in the transformative power of sacred rest, story-sharing, empathy, and being witnessed. These days she is remembering how to cry, storing her nuggets of daily gratefulness to read on blue days, and writing to unearth memories of pain stored in the viscera.

Hanifa Nayo-washington

Hanifa Nayo Washington (she/her/they/goddess) brings over 25 years of experience as a facilitator of healing spaces to her role at Bloodroot, where she serves as both a foundational participant and a revered healing practitioner and space holder. Her dedication to sacred ritualism and radical self-love, combined with a profound understanding of the healing power of beloved community, allows her to powerfully contribute to Bloodroot retreats. Hanifa lovingly brings her skills as a Reiki Master Practitioner, musician, song leader, empath, and meditation guide to Bloodroot retreats.

Lisa Graustein

Lisa (she/her) is a teacher, facilitator, artist, Quaker minister, and mother working to support groups and organizations to become more aligned with their visions for wholeness and justice. Lisa first came to Bloodroot not long after the death of her mother, as she wrote about her experience: “I came with grief and for healing, swam naked in a freezing stream, wearing my mother’s face and cloth of my own creation. I reached back to my ancestors' reverence of the natural world and found space for all my being was carrying.” At Bloodroot, Lisa holds space, hosts, offers deep listening, and lots of materials & support for creative expression and exploration.

Disha Patel

Disha (they/she) is a queer South Asian (Indian) based in Jamaica Plain, MA who believes in the transformative power of community, the outdoors & snacks. They are a caregiver, network weaver, creative, wilderness skill builder, workshop facilitator, ancestral cook and urban farmer. Their grandmother’s kitchen helper since the 1990’s, they come from a family of agriculturalists. Their last name, Patel, stands for the Gujarati word “patlikh” or farmer. They find peace working with their hands, feeling tiny in the mountains and communing with fragrant plants. Disha brings their deep familial skill & capacity to cook and prepare food as a sensual spiritual practice and an offering of care, love and witnessing to Bloodroot.

ELIZABETH NEARING

Elizabeth (she/her) is delighted to have been the first session on the day Bloodroot Sessions began--that day incited a hunger for her to heal her relationship with her body. Since then she has been to nearly every retreat as a house mama, witness, or participant. Her relationship with her body has been forever changed by this work, these people. She’s a facilitator, artist, and die-hard friend, and spends her time making joyful meetings about hard things. She works both with Co-Creating Effective and Inclusive Organizations (CEIO) and independently with folks seeking to connect more deeply, disrupt injustices, and imagine new & freer worlds into being. She spends her time dreaming about fat liberation, disability justice, abolition, and radical joy for every body.

NAYAHRA RESENDE

Nayahra (they/them) is a bodyworker, energy worker, and space holder currently based out of Boston (Mass/ Wampanoag lands). Their practice is rooted in love and in our personal and collective liberation. They believe that as we find our way back to our bodies, releasing stuck energy, grief, and trauma, we are more resourced and grounded to offer our particular gifts to each other, the Earth, and to our interconnected movements for liberation. Nayahra is licensed as a Massage Therapist and has been trained as a meditation teacher, as a Restorative Justice practitioner, and as an educator in Boston Public Schools. Nayahra is excited to show up as a host for Bloodroot with all their skills to support the bodies and hearts of those who attend.

CARLA WHITE CROWE

Carla (she/her) is a professional dancer, choreographer, astrologer, and intuitive spiritual reader. She has a degree in dance performance and more than two decades of experience as an artistic director, dance instructor, and business owner. Her current work as The Dancing Oracle combines her love of divination and movement. She provides tools and education on how to build a spiritual dance practice, embody the energy of the cosmos, and channel spiritual insight with movement. Carla is the host of the Spiritual Dance Podcast and is also in the process of publishing a book and an online course on the topic of Dance Divination. She also provides virtual bookkeeping, marketing, and administrative support to small businesses and is thrilled to be able to support Bloodroot in this way.

Leyanne Oliveira (Le-Yah-nee)

Leyanne Oliveira (she/her) is a trauma-informed spiritual life coach, medicine woman, yogini, doula, mother & fierce protector of the feminine consciousness. Co-creating in Quinnipiac Lands colonized as New Haven, CT, Leyanne works with womxn as a healing partner, creating spaces for them to reclaim their authentic power, untamed feminine essence, and wild heart. Leyanne has committed her life to the liberation of all womxn. To Leyanne, Bloodroot a refuge for those rewilding their hearts. It's a space of reconnection to bodies, heart, community, and purpose of being. As a witness at Bloodroot, Leyanne serves as a gentle reminder of love and full acceptance. She considers it a privilege to have the opportunity to hold brave hearts at such a vulnerable expansive time in their rebirth.

NOA cancelmo

Noa Cancelmo (they/them) is a teacher, dancer, sociologist, and visual artist. They believe that it is our nature and birthright to create, that every human being is an artist, and that accessing our most liberated selves is an essential component to intersectional struggles as we build the world to come. Noa thinks that our best chance of survival at this time of  compounding social and environmental crises is to each follow our joy to uncover and use our unique gifts for tikkun olam - repairing the world. They know from their own experience the power of the Bloodroot container as a path to finding one's own true self and deepest joy, and they delight in witnessing others in their process and in supporting Bloodroot sessions and retreats. 

“Back in March of 2019, in Rachel’s little backyard studio, none of us truly understood the magic we were stepping into. During my time with Rachel’s medicine, her camera, and her gentle way, something cracked open within me on a subatomic level. I have not been the same since... in the best possible way. I feel in my heart that the community spiraling out from Bloodroot is healing the world, and I am honored to share in the magic of that unfurling.” ~ Hanifa