The ReMembering Journey
Re-originating climate change into colonization
“[I]n the church I come from…..we were counseled, from time to time, to do our first works over. Go back to where you started, or as far back as you can, examine all of it, travel your road again, and tell the truth about it. Sing or shout or testify or keep it to yourself but know whence you came.”
James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket, xix
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What do you ReMember about where and why we are where we are?
Re-integrate the history of climate change into the history of colonization.
Join us for a spiritual journey through time and space into our shared inheritance…..
“I took ReMembering for Life four years ago. It fundamentally changed my life. And I took this course after receiving my seminary degree and working for many years!
To all my beloveds, seekers, wild souls, the creatives, and the curious… if there’s a part of you that craves re-membering in this time… don’t hesitate. Do this now.”
- Isabel Mares, Artist, mother, and faith-based program designer
The name my parents gave me is Sara Jolena Wolcott. I carry in my name the history of heroes and victims; of oppressors and oppressed. I carry this history in the structure of my bones, the rhythm of my breath, and the power of my song.
I am walking a path of ReMembering and ReEnchanting.
On this profound journey of ReMembering, participants refer to me as “teacher,” or “guide.”
Your most true Guide is the within you. I - and your fellow participants on the journey, and the multiple dimensions of the history itself - help you to improve your listening.
“The teacher of the course is at least as important as the material. This is true for any form of education. A good teacher is teaching through themselves. You do that: that is why I took this ReMembering course and that - and the community you cultivate - is why I keep taking courses with you. That is what I want future students to understand. Learning from you is a great opportunity."
- Amy Kietzman, Quaker Elder, Mother, and Storyteller
...climate change - race - wilderness - ancestors - class - historical trauma - art - grief - islamaphobia - religion - legacies of slavery - intellectual property - living history - corporations - colonization - inheritance - fear - gender - theology - nature - spirituality - witch/hunts- music - drowning islands - healing bodies - storytelling - re/centering - meditation - indigenous knowledge - ritual - violence - somatic beings - despair - doctrine of discovery - raising a family - belonging - hope - past - present - future - space - time - love ...
Connect the disconnected.
Climate Change does not begin with the industrial revolution. We can more accurately originate climate change into colonization/the Doctrine of Discovery.
We must re-member social, ecological, spiritual and personal histories if we have any hope of creating a viable, regenerative culture. This is not work we can or should do alone.
Structure your journey of ReMembering with a community of other ReMemberers.
Ground yourself for the Anthropocene Age through engaged questioning and deep thinking in a context of emotional, intellectual, spiritual support and accountability for doing the difficult work.
With opportunities for creative expression and multiple forms of integration, ReMembering enhances your capacity to serve your communities as we transition into a "New Earth" transformed by climate change.
We have to do this work.
“Climate system change mandates that we ‘do our first works over.’
Sara Jolena Wolcott helps us travel our road again and tell the truth about it. This is indispensable work."
- Dr. Larry Rasmussen, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor emeritus of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary
The Course
12 sessions over 24 weeks. 90-minute zoom gatherings every other week.
One individualized call with Sara Jolena
2 Creative Integration sessions
Course material conveys unauthorized histories via: rituals, readings, audio, music videos, movement, critical engagement, ancestral research and embodied exercises.
Expected time commitment:
Minimum: 45 minutes between sessions (listen to audio by Sara Jolena) and the 90 minute session.
Maximum: 3 hours. Sometimes more, if you like rabbit holes.
Part I: 1450-1600
Global DisMembering
Session 1: Grounding in Gratitude and Praise: An Introduction to ReMembering
Session 2. Early Empire: Imperialism and Jesus
Session 3: Connecting Race and Place
Session 4: The Burning Times: the Great European Witch Hunts, Colonization and Climate Change
Session 5: Destroying Turtle Island: Producing White Sugar, Global Tastes and Modern Economies
Session 6: Creative Integration
Part II: 1600s-1800s
Institutional Formation
Session 7: Belonging, Ownership and Family Histories
Session 8: Governance, Sovereignty, and Intellectual Property
Session 9: Westward Expansion and the Creation of "Wilderness"
Session 10: Codification of Doctrine of Discovery
Session 11: The Real Origins of the Women's Rights movement … and its Implications
Session 12: ReEnchanting and Living Different Narratives
ReMembering is not some speedy, superficial engagement with “wisdom keepers.”
We engage with historical trauma. We don’t run away. We delve into complexity and unauthorized (family) histories.
You want to see clearly: to feel deeply; to be grounded. To make a difference from a place of truth and compassion.
To ensure a good fit we interview all applicants. We invest heavily in every participant - as you invest in us. If you want something fast and easy, this course is not for you.
If you have the courage of your convictions -
What people are saying.
"Unless we take fundamental action which involves changing our priorities in production and consumption and in our relationships to one another at all levels … to see ourselves first as humans, and not as Americans or whatever, then we are going towards extinction.
Understanding what has stopped us from seeing ourselves that way is part of how we’ve become aware of how to change our relationship to the whole. This is a global history.
This course helps in that process. This material is foundational."
— Leonard Joy, Governance Consultant, former UNDP economist
“This work is amongst the most important work we can do. It is so big and requires such courage.
Sara Jolena is gifted in eliciting that courage in others."
— Course Participant, 2019
"This course helps us get closer to understand how we have been sundered from our closeness to God.
I keep going, oh! That is how we got here!
That’s incredibly spiritual, to understand the past-present of what has and is continuing to happen. Its like when you have a disease – to heal from it, you need to know what it is.
In this course, I have begun to get a better sense, a little sense, of what it might mean to belong to land and to a people. Even though I live on the land.... I am now coming closer to belonging."
— Amy Kietzman, Faith Leader and Farmer
"Anyone who is trying to improve the connections between people and place should take this course."
— Ken Kirtani, Director, Forum 21, New York City
I highly recommend this work...the ReMembering for Life Course (which I hesitate to label as such as it is so much more than learning new facts or skills) is radical and much needed culture work!
- Emma Collins, Artist, England
“This course profoundly changed not just how I am thinking about my work but my entire spiritual approach to the journey I am on. It was not that I didn't make these connections before—my whole spiritual journey started with an encounter with the real history of Native American genocides in the work of the historian David Stannard.
I was a Hindu monk for five years. I have been studying ecotheology at Union Theological Seminary for nearly seven years, where I am now pursuing my PhD. The reMembering course has brought me back, on my spiritual journey, to these places of fierce historical truth-seeking.
It is so important that we have deep living wisdom within ourselves about our histories. Knowing well, knowing holistically, where we have come from is essential to figure out where we are going. I’m reaching into my own self and where I come from anew.
This course is a courageous and beautiful thing.
The practice of ReMembering—being able to remember and understand the history that happened to us as American people—we need this so much. So many of us really need and desire this practice. We can better understand the ways ecology and race entangle with each other. We get rooted where we need to be rooted.
This is hard work. It's painful work! But if we are going to have any chance of anticipating better ways forward in the Anthropocene this is the work we have to do together
We have to engage with how it (the past) impacts us on a spiritual level. This course is "spiritual" in the best sense of the word - it is about our real lives..
This class has given me hope. I know that sounds strange, but it has."
— Christopher Fici, Eco-theologian, PhD student at Union Theological Seminary, occasional farmer and current teacher-in-training of the ReMembering for Life Course
“Sara Jolena Wolcott is providing a new model of creative pedagogy. She is weaving together strands of history and theology, feminism and ecology, Indigenous justice and the arts to help us move toward personal, social and environmental healing. I highly recommend the ReMembering for Life course.”
— John S., Solidarity Activist for Native land return
"The ReMembering for Life course has changed my life.
My depth of perception was transformed by the overlapping and devastating histories that we explored, but I see now that this mess we're in came from somewhere—it was not inevitable—and looking into these painful places is integral to the process of change.
It feels revolutionary to experience a "history class" in such a way that deep history matters; I am not merely a curious observer of historical fact but allow myself to become aware—mentally, emotionally, and physically—of the legacy of trauma that is eating our planet alive.
Practically speaking, I appreciated the architecture of the course and especially moving through the material slowly and deliberately, making our emotional response a critical aspect of the process. Sara was careful to guide us through these experiences, and I felt entirely supported throughout.
Sara does a remarkable job of creating a space where I could show up as myself with all aspects of my identity, which include being a mother, a grassroots midwife working with people to reclaim their power, as someone who has benefited ancestrally from settler colonialism and carries ancestral trauma alike, and Muslim.
I felt safe being authentic and exploring the feelings that inevitably arise when confronting the painful histories we explored.
I cannot recommend this course more strongly to anyone who wants to better understand climate change, or works on any social justice issue — all are connected."
— Krystina Friedlander, Midwife
"For me, this class has been a gift of integration and expansion.
At a stage of life when I am hungry to engage more deeply with many threads of my own identity and place in the world — as a new parent considering both my own and my child’s relationship to past generations; as a someone engaged with political activism who has never felt that I had an effective point of entry to working on climate change; as a white American struggling to confront with integrity my whiteness in relationship to those who have been harmed by the violence of whiteness.
This course has been a way into understanding a relationship between each of these threads, and to bring my whole self to that process."
— Anna Mudd, Mother of Robin, Educator at Harvard Divinity School
Before going further, let’s talk about financial exchanges and Our Happy Money Policy
We value your time, energy, commitment, and presence for showing up for this deep work. We are committed to serving you to the best of our ability. With that commitment comes responsibility: for all of us to show up as best as we can. Sequoia Samanvaya has a "no refunds" policy. When you join the ReMembering Course, please do so because you are ready to fully engage with this work. Not sure? That’s part of what the information session and the free exploration calls are for!
I only want to receive the investment from you that you feel good about making. This is an important part of our Happy Money Policy and our sliding scale, which you can read more about here. Keep in mind that these are rare and valuable teachings. There are not big funders supporting this work. The financial exchange between us is what creates the container for this work to be possible.
The 2024 Contribution Scale for the ReMembering Course, which includes 2 one-to-one sessions with Sara Jolena, unlimited email access, learning via a small community, regular rituals, 12 powerful lessons and life-long access to the material is: $900-$1800. Payment plans are available. Venmo or check is preferred, but credit cards are also possible.
Before you make the commitment to join us, try taking a moment to infuse the energy of the money you are sending with a sense of abundance, gratitude, and appreciation for all that you have learned that has brought you here, and for the lessons that you are about to receive. With this intention, I believe your investment will be blessed.
Ready to dive in?
Now is the time to engage more deeply with reality.
Now is the time to ReMember.
An experience that will ripple through your life - your family, your work, your teaching, your sense of home - for years to come.
To register, you can either set up a phone call or write us a very brief email stating why you are interested in this class and any questions you may have.
Spring Course Orientation:
March 25, 2024 - 6:30 pm ET
First lesson: Monday April 8, 6:30pm.
We will meet every other Monday through the Summer: 12 sessions over 24 weeks.
The final session is at the end of August.
Applications accepted through April 8.
To apply, simply send us an email about why you want to join this course and what financial contribution feels most aligned to you. Please also include any questions you might have!
Clips from previous info sessions
More Testimonials…
“A bow with you, Sara Jolena, for crafting ReMemberings as one part of your work - for telling hitherto hidden stories and for re-stitching into the fabric of our days not only people forgotten, misjudged, unseen, or misguidedly celebrated - but the land and place too. For your willingness to seek out the ‘unauthorised histories’ and to be undone by what you have read and seen and recognise as being so. I haven’t been able to keep up with all the reading (which is extensive, heartbreaking, hard and needed)...or attend to all the offerings and guidance you give for prayer, ceremony and actions towards honoring our ancestral lines and re-awakening a lived humble relationship to those that came before us.
Even so - ReMembering is a deeply stirring gift no matter how much or how little I can attend to at the time. It is ‘working us all the time’: a root to restoring beauty in a troubled time, it is seed sowing and tending to hurts that beg for ‘right and proper attention’. Our dear earth home has much to bear from the weight of so much ‘on the takeness’; truth telling and bearing faithful witness in the company of others is more needed than ever...thank you”
- Gayano Shaw, Storyteller and Community Weaver, crafting home in Wales
“ReMembering is beautifully held by Sara Jolena; music, pauses, time for deep listening, movement and insightful learning, unlike anything I’ve experienced before. Diving deep into history I’ve been continuously stunned by all I didn’t know; the revelations bringing me to my knees in grief many times. ReMembering has gifted me a restored connection to place and time and a greater sense of how our current situation has come to pass. Connecting with the ancestors has been a revealing and truly inspiring experience. I am grateful beyond words.”
- Lis O’Kelley, creating art and family in England and Italy