“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
As the world unravels, you need a crysalis. A safe container where you also can do some unraveling - 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.
Sequoia Samanvaya is one of those places where you can bring the fragments of the world and of yourself and collage them into beauty.
Like the ancient and ever-evolving Sequoia groves, we rise rooted.
Practically dwelling in mystery. Embracing cutting edge common sense.
“Connecting continents, histories, and experiences not by lines (linear thinking) but by circles, spirals, and embodiment.”
Our work is that of ReMembering and ReEnchanting our world.
What People Are Saying
"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, husband and father
“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
Our Story
Sequoia Samanvaya emerged from Founder 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 the content and her cutting edge pedagogical style and her creative capacity for 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 formed 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.
Over time, an “anticipatory community” formed around climate change. The onset of the global quarantine led us to take some of what we’ve developed in our Anticipatory Community to create much beloved Apocalypse Wisdom Circles.Remarkable new creations, innovations, collaborations, and publications keep arising.
As you reMember, enchant, and anticipate - what will you create?
About Sara Jolena
"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 and unconventional minister, she is the founder of Sequoia Samanvaya, a healer, a ceremonialist, and a Legacy Advisor with Innovation 4.4. She is primarily interested in 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.
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 Masters 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 enjoys painting dragons, sitting around fires, and moonlit walks.
Sequoia Samanvaya
Sequoia Samanvaya
We Offer:
Online courses providing chrysalises for powerful change
Wisdom Circles
Circular Temporal Technologies and other useful tools
Structured learning journeys for spiritual entrepreneurs
“Sequoia Samanvaya is unlike any other company, educational institution, or spiritual community. Which is part of why I keep coming back.”
Within each of our offerings we are:
creating ancient/new soulful gatherings, rituals, liturgies, music and art, and temporal technologies
theologies, philosophies, and new/ancient stories
closely tied to livelihoods, health, parenting, craft, education, entrepreneurship, investment, publishing… the practical work of everyday living.
We are continuously serving and collaborating with absolutely amazing people. Partners and clients include:
The Family Office Association, Montcalm Wealth Advisors, 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), TimeTrace, and The Work that Reconnects community.
Our work… in the words of one of our 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.