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We are a North Carolina Piedmont-based 508c(c)1(a) non-profit religious organization focused on the intersection of spirituality, ecology and culture. We curate events and ceremonies that celebrate embodiment, honor the earth and build community. Our guiding star is midwifing metamorphosis: stewarding transformation, healing and reconnection at personal and collective levels. The practical heart of what we do includes weekly dance services, seasonal ritual observances, healing and rites of passage work.
HS currently stewards an urban space, The Flowjo, in downtown Carrboro focused on embodied practices for all ages (closed during COVID) as well as a rural location in Silk Hope, NC for elemental ritual, earth reconnection, ancestral healing, ritual dances, personal retreats, sacred transitions and natural burials.
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More about us
Beltane
CEREMONY
Midwifing
Metamorphosis
ECSTATIC
DANCE
SANCTUARY
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at Heartward Sanctuary
Saturday, May 1
2pm
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We are dancers in this ancient, cyclical, life-generating choreography of the earth and the Sun. We are the Earth dancing her praise for her beloved.
For nearly one full revolution, we've gathered in community in the open-air to honor this exquisite love story. Even amidst this pandemic, we've celebrated this dynamic relationship through prayer, song, dance, play and elemental ritual attuned to the earth's rhythms. In doing this, we've also deepened into relationship with this place and the spirits of the land who are generously hosting us.
On May 1, we'll circle in community to honor this celestial circumambulation and welcome the first phase of summer, or Beltane, the cross-quarter day named by some of our Gaelic ancestors.
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The Initiatory Chrysalis
9 week series
February 25 - April 22, 2021
Live calls Thursdays at 3pm-5pm EST
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Join us in weaving a collective cocoon to engage ritually with the transformative spirit of the times as we explore the dynamics of initiation, personal and collective. We'll be creating a container to grieve personal and collective losses, honor our own dying and birthing process, and forming community committed to transformative change from within.
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Facilitated by Heartward Sanctuary founders Julia Hartsell and Jonathan Hadas Edwards.
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Open-Air & Virtual Community Dances
Sundays throughout winter
A continuation from The Flowjo's decade of Ecstatic Dance ritual, we now gather at Heartward Sanctuary for Open-air Dances (and other rituals) and also by Zoom. We will continue holding down the hearth fire this way throughout
Winter
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Online Dances
resume in January
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next Ceremony TBA
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in the virtual temple
Dance has traditionally been a way to honor and connect with the earth, sun and lunar cycles, our other-than-human kin and the ancestors. Music and dance have been essential ways of grieving, celebration and healing.
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This virtual ceremony is for dancers who desire a ritualized communal container for grief expression in these transformative times. We can weave our home cocoons to tend our shared sorrow and access sacred support.
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The Ancestral Grove​
Green burial ground
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The Ancestral Grove at Heartward Sanctuary is a natural cemetery in Silk Hope, NC. The burial ground aspires to be a place for people of diverse ancestries, faiths and means to return to the earth in sacred and environmentally nourishing ways. We are also dedicated to reclaiming ancestral practices for tending this sacred transition, for honoring the ancestors of the land, blood and lineage.
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Photo: Our beloved Pablo's gravesite at the North side of the Ancestral Grove. We are deeply saddened by his physical departure and grateful that he will forever be a guardian of this Sanctuary.
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Coming soon...
book a session
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Acupuncture, ancestral healing, spiritual readings (divination), herbal consultations, mentorship, custom personal ritual support and death doula work are available.
