Sequoia Samanvaya is an ecotheology learning community
strengthening leaders and edgewalkers called forth by Earth/Spirit
to Orient yourself in Time,
even as the times themselves are changing.
In between the worlds that have been and the worlds that might be,
we need fluid and dynamic forms of orientation; as well as that which well-rooted and powerfully-sourced.
We explore and strengthen orientations in:
The long histories of colonization that shape climate change,
Eco-spiritual stories, rituals, music, art, and multi-faceted knowledge needed over the arc of your lifetime,
Calendar systems that accurately reflect Earth’s circular and spiraling pathways.
Such orientations enable us to live and work from the actual ground of our being.
“Sequoia"
The great Sequoia trees live in the California mountains and are close to founder Sara Jolena’s personal origin story. They can thrive in fire; regenerate after supposed death; and in whose presence one experiences deep peace, majestic wisdom and alignment.
“Samanvaya"
The Sanskrit term for living in deep, active harmony—the harmony that was there are the beginning of all time and which will be at the end of time and which is always present, if we but bring our awareness into it. The term was recommended to Sara Jolena to use for our work by her adopted family in India and the network of Indian changemakers who continue to partner with us.
Sequoia Samanvaya: coming into deeper harmony with ancient living wisdom
To do this work as the world unravels, you need a chrysalis: a safe container where you can do some unraveling of your own - and have others help you in the process of re-weaving. A place to keep coming back to. For we have an amazing tapestry to weave. A garden - a forest, a whole multitude of ecosystems - to engage in.
At Sequoia Samanvaya, you can bring the fragments of the world and of yourself and collage them into even greater beauty.
We Develop and Offer:
Original online courses providing chrysalises for powerful change
Circular Temporal Technologies and other useful tools connecting spirituality, eco-systems, your personal life, systems change and collective change
Eco-spiritual rituals for major life transitions (ie: weddings, memorial services, career/vocational shifts, baby blessings, etc.) and support for officiants who are leading such rituals
1-1 work/spiritual direction for climate and spiritual leaders and unconventional ministers
Theologies, stories/myths and approaches to rematriation and working with time differently
In person retreats and workshops
“Sequoia Samanvaya is unlike any other company, educational institution, or spiritual community. Which is part of why I keep coming back.”
About Sara Jolena Wolcott
"Sara Jolena is an industry leader - one of those rare people who sets the tune that others follow. You may not see it yet, but look closely at her work and you will find a trend-setter."
- Andy T., Business Coach for over 500 entrepreneurs
Descendent of some of Founding Fathers of the United States of America, Sara Jolena Wolcott, M.Div, is now building people's capacity to collectively reMember our ecological familial, national and global origin stories to enable more harmonious futures. An ecotheologian, artist, minister, and healer, she is the founder of Sequoia Samanvaya. As a spiritual director, she advises leaders who are themselves called forth by Earth. She is developing the work of ReMembering and ReEnchanting our world. She is known for her laughter and the (sometimes wild) power of her presence.
Born and raised on the historical Ohlone lands in the California Bay Area into a Quaker family, her quest to understand how we might navigate through the current social and ecological crises took her on a global odyssey. Her wide and wild range of experience, all of which brings depth to her ministry, includes: co-leading the 33-country multi-disciplinary ReImagining Development Program at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), consulting for the World Bank, living as a traveling singer in India, serving as a community minister at Judson Memorial Church in New York City, working as a prison chaplain on Rikers Island Correctional Facility in NYC and working as a Fellow in Spirituality and Climate Change at the Institute of the Advancement of Science and Society in Germany. She also has nearly 20 years of experience as a healer and ceremonialist. She currently is a guest preacher in multiple churches in the Hudson Valley.
Her formal education includes a CMT from the McKinnon Institute of Massage Therapy in Oakland, CA; a BA from Haverford College in Anthropology, an MA in international development from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK; and a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) at Union Theological Seminary. Her international speaking engagements have brought her to 10 countries and she has spoken in over 16 U.S. states. She currently lives on the historical homeland of the Mohigan/Mahican people in the Hudson Valley. She is a member of Spiritual Directors International. She enjoys painting dragons, sitting around fires, and moonlit walks.
Our Story
Sequoia Samanvaya emerged from Rev. Sara Jolena Wolcott's global odyssey to better understand both the causes of our current intersecting personal, social and ecological crises and what might be possible as move through a climate changed future.
She spent nearly three decades gathering ecological and community innovators, indigenous wisdom/narratives from the East to the West, creations mythos, agricultural wisdoms, and origin stories that have become subversive whispers and hidden truths.
She taught her first ReMembering for Life class in the summer of 2017, immediately after completing her Masters of Divinity at Union Theological Seminary, where she wrote a much-lauded thesis, ReMembering the origins of the Anthropocene Age, in which she followed the lead of her indigenous colleagues and re-originated the story of climate change and her own family history into the Doctrine of Discovery and the European Witchhunts. Simultaneously, she was creating new-ancient forms of spiritually-minded development initiatives addressing socio-economic challenges around air pollution in India. Students, clients and communities began significantly benefiting from ReMembering, her cutting edge pedagogical style and her creative approach to spiritual-practical problem solving.
From that initial and revolutionary course in eco-theology, decolonization and ecological family histories, more safe chrysalises where participants could unravel—shifting their senses and their identity formation—and re-weave themselves arose. This is the practical work of multi-faith eco-theology. More courses digging into spiritual sustenance for the journey (ie, the works of Howard Thurman) and women's Writing courses emerged. A community began to form of fiercely compassionate people from a breadth of backgrounds - religious leaders, environmentalists, teachers, nurses, students, business people, scholars, mothers, crafters, artists, doers, inheritors, writers, diplomats, grandmothers… and we keep growing.
As you reMember, enchant, and anticipate - what will you create?
So…. what’s “eco-spirituality”?
Earth is alive. We are living beings within a living being. Humans are in relationship with all of life.
This experience/knowing/way of being in the world is far beyond any one faith tradition. Some variation of eco-spirituality can and has been found as an important force within all major global religious traditions.
It is related to, but does not always include: Animism, “witchy”, “the woods are my church”, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Other Ways of Knowing, Mysticism, nature spirituality, Interconnection and Interbeing, Ecological Responsibility, paganism and eco-feminism, amongst others. Eco-spirituality leans into embodied and mystical experiences over analysis.
What’s Eco-theology?
Ecotheology is, for us, a form of constructive theology (as compared to deconstructive theology that inquires into worldviews/cosmovisions with the assumption that ecosystems and the more-than-human world always play a key role. We see the ecological crises as a) interrelated to multiple other crises and b) part of a larger spiritual crisis in which c) codes of domination have come to prevail in multiple realms of life, including religious and spiritual formation. We interpret eco-theology as the ‘thinking’ dimension of eco-spirituality.
That said, we also view the mind as embodied, and refuse the common (Cartesian) interpretation that separates “thinking” from “experience.” Instead, we find ways to acknowledge and work with their pre-existing integration.
Is this a religious organization?
Sequoia Samanvaya is not associated with any particular faith tradition. We actively work with leaders situated both within and outside of faith traditions. Sara Jolena grew up Quaker, a tradition rooted in protestant Christianity, is connected to sacred lands and traditions in her ancestral homelands (England and Scandinavia), spent several years in India where she learned from land-based, Hindu, Muslim and Christian spiritual teachers, and graduated from a Christian Seminary known for its focus on social justice and liberation theology. She attends to a distinctly “witchy” lineage. From the beginning of Sequoia Samanvaya, participants come from Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Catholic, Christian, Indigenous, Pagan, and Jewish, Agnostic, and Spiritual but Not Religious traditions.
What People Are Saying
"Sara Jolena offers a great gift to the world. It is wrong to say that is another set of online courses. I have taken many of those. This is - ReMembering, evoking, seeding, quenching, feeding, stirring, grief soakedness. It is learning faithful witness. Sara Jolena is truly a minister."
- Gayano Shaw
“Sequoia Samanavaya offers the depth of historical and visionary work we need for the societal transformation before us. I consider this company to be one of the most innovative social enterprises I know, with the potential to powerfully impact the needed shift.”
— Leonard Joy, Strategic Advisor, UNDP, Grandfather
"I continually take Sequoia Samanvaya’s courses and actively engage in this community because they create the space for me to make meaning in a world that increasingly makes little sense to me, to face histories that I didn’t know how to face, and to take steps to become a better ancestor, myself.”
— Anna Mudd, Educator, Harvard Divinity School, Mother
There are many forms of being in relationship and reciprocity.
Sequoia Samanvaya arises from the premise that for humans to survive a changing climate, we need to come closer to right relationship with Spirit and with Earth. That work has many manifestations for many people. For those of us of European descent, it includes the question of what it means to be in right relationship to Indigenous Peoples.
For Sara Jolena and Sequoia Samanvaya, this includes:
Ongoing learning and listening, in both formal and informal spaces, to Indigenous leaders and teachers. Ongoing engagement with de-colonial and anti-racist work.
Continuing to take on the emotionally heavy work of teaching the histories of colonization, so that our Indigenous neighbors, friends, and colleagues don’t have to do that as much.
Sharing our learnings with others (such as presenting at Indigenous-led gatherings around the Doctrine of Discovery at the Syracuse University, publishing our experiential findings in research collections, etc.)
Volunteering for Indigenous and BIPOC-led initiatives. For example, the return of the Mohican people to the Hudson Valley (where Sara Jolena lives); collaborating in bringing BIPOC/Global South and Indigenous entrepreneurs into funding opportunities (such as at NEXUS and SOCAP): and the development of Strawberry Wisdom.
Showing up at Indigenous and BIPOC-led events (usually as asked) such as those hosted by the Life Comes From It Foundation. Following the lead of Native collaborators. Being willing to step back.
Indigenous wisdom keepers who are guests (such as on our podcast) are always offered some form of compensation for their time.
Ongoing connections of support and mutual sharing with European ancestral heritages, songlines, and wisdom keepers.
Supporting students, participants, and clients in finding concrete ways to support Indigenous peoples and to engage in the art and practice of rematriation.
Since our founding, every year, a percentage of our profits (the percentage varies year to year) are donated to Indigenous-led organizations. When we work with wealth-holders, a higher percentage of that profit is donated. Over time, this has included: Tewa Women United; Decolonizing Wealth; Mohican Homelands Pow Wow; and Strawberry Wisdom.
Speaking, Preaching, and Spiritual Direction
Sequoia Samanvaya is the container that holds Sara Jolena’s growing body of work, teachings, studio, and the community that is cultivating around the work of ReMembering and ReEnchanting.
Sara Jolena is also a speaker, preacher, ritual/ceremonial designer and a spiritual director/coach. In order to create a clear separation between the more community orientated space and Sara Jolena’s speaking, we have created a separate webpage: www.sarajolena.com. While either page can easily help you connect with her, this other page is where we are encouraging her speaking/preaching and 1-1 work.
Sequoia Samanvaya
Sequoia Samanvaya
We are continuously serving and collaborating with absolutely amazing people.
Sequoia Samanvaya was founded in 2017 and is directed by Rev Sara Jolena Wolcott.
Early on, Sequoia Samanvaya drew remarkable people around our fire. These included volunteers, interns, consultants, friends, students, teachers, and participants in our programming. Of particular importance was the formation of the Anticipation Community in 2019: a group of eight people, most of whom took Sara Jolena’s ReMembering Course and then her one-year Anticipations and ReEnchantments Course. That group continues to meet together and support one another in the ongoing work of ReMembering, Anticipating, ReEnchanting and just living life.
In 2021, Michael joined as an Associate. Sara Jolena and Michael are the only two people who work for Sequoia Samanvaya full time: we are small team!
We are artists. Everything we create - from our social media to our courses - is, in its own way, hand-crafted. We do not rely upon outside consultants - or AI - to decide our strategy for us. There are no big funders or family money behind this initiative. As a small business, we keep finding ways to be both sustainable and to financially meet you where you are at. We read every email and aim to respond to all inquiries within 3 business days.
We are blessed to work with an array of partners, consultants, and volunteers.
Sequoia Samanvaya frequently co-creates with Kristine Hill, a member of the Tuscarora Nation, who is in a committed partnership with Sara Jolena. Kristine recently started the non-profit, Strawberry Wisdom.
Partners and Clients, past and present, include:
The Family Office Association, Montcalm TCR, NextGen Initiative, Nibezun, Tribal Links, NEXUS Global, Keep Families Giving Foundation, Interfaith Power and Light, Institute for the Advancement of Sustainability Studies (Germany), Transition Towns (Media, PA), University of Uppsala (Sweden), Dark Mountain (UK), Samanvaya Social Ventures (India), Dharma Institute (India), Sustainable Livelihoods Institute (India), Iliff School of Theology (Denver, CO), Naropa University, the Norbertine Abbey (New Mexico), Innovation 4.4, Rē: the Regenerative School, TimeTrace, Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, Alliance for a Viable Future, Land Justice Futures, Collective Wisdoms, Strawberry Wisdom, Jump/Scale, Sun Valley Forum, Old Dutch Church, Outlaw Abbey, School of Wise Innovation, Ben Lomond Quaker Center, Woolman Hill, and Hudson Harmonic.
New here?
Not sure where to begin?
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Stories from everyday life that open up the possibilities of the extra-ordinary. Inspiration. Ideas. Resources. Once a week, delivered to your inbox. An easy way to link your journey to our journey.
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The ReMembering Course is a core foundational offering. At six months long, the Course itself is a commitment. The one-hour informational webinar is (usually) a small circle, and its a powerful and easy way to get to know us a bit better.
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We offer multiple online courses throughout the year. Circular Time is the most popular course - offering an eco-spiritual way to decolonize your calendar and take (another?) step towards rematriating time.
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Not as consistent as our weekly newsletter to be sure, but the podcast has a rich array of conversations and a few mythological stories. You might enjoy it!
Our work… in the words of one of our long-term community members
Why should there be just one way of explaining what we do?
“Soaking up the mineral rich groundwater of the historical, psycho-spiritual wells of past and present traumas of land and peoples, in light of colonialism, capitalism, and the Anthropocene.
Connecting continents, histories, and experiences not by lines (linear thinking) but rather by circles and spirals.
What does this really mean?
Well, it means that by recounting and weaving dominant historical narratives with those that came before, those that survived centuries’ suppression, and those that have evolved to meet us in this present apocalypse – we seek sound from silence, and regeneration from histories of violence. We use multidisciplinary research, collaborative education, individual and cohort training, interfaith dialogue, music, interspiritual reflection, and prayer.
The combined research and lived experiences of our core Anticipatory Community models an actuality of healing both environmental, political, and personal traumas, locally and globally, through conversation and circular methods of learning and tracking time.
As we now share in the collective ramifications of post-Colonial influence and dominance, the work of Sequoia Samanvaya has never been more relevant, urgent, and possible.
With so much fractured and forgotten, we circle up to re-member ourselves.”