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 as 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 an artist, photographer, former birth worker, space maker, mother, creator of Bloodroot Sessions, co-director of Bloodroot + owner of Rachel Liu Photography. Their life + art lives at the intersection of social justice, expressive arts, ritual, healing + body liberation. Rachel is particularly inspired by queer, disabled, trauma-informed visionaries, poets + boundary breakers as well as the trees that live near her home. 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. She considers it a great privilege to steward this work in herself + alongside others as they seek to remember who they are.

Angela CLinton

Angela (she/her) is a fiercely loving and joyful racial equity facilitator, embodiment guide and certified coach moving and activating 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.  She is co-director of Bloodroot, an honor that allows her to experience more freedom within herself and the raw power that occurs when people step into their truth.  She & Thema run expression movement sessions called Swamps.

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.

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.

Hanifa Nayo-washington

Hanifa (she/her) is an award winning sacred activist, creative visionary, storyteller, musician, heart-centered facilitator, and entrepreneur. She has been combining arts, healing, and activism to make the world a better place for 25+ years.  Hanifa is a certified Usui/Holy Fire Reiki Master Practitioner whose life practices focus on creating healing spaces rooted in the values of beloved community so all people can heal from the emotional, physical and spiritual impacts of systems of oppression and trauma.

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 and this bio - like them - is a continual work in progress - ever flowing, changing & growing. They have been their grandmother’s kitchen helper since the 1990’s and come from a family of agriculturalists, so much so that 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 all those who attend Bloodroot.