Friday-Sunday, October 17-19

(Re)Connect with Mother Earth

We'll gather in person at Cedar Valley Retreat Center, West Bend, WI, Our keynote is Kerry Hagy, Executive Director of the South Haven (MI) Center for the Arts.

Sage is our Lead for this event.

Our Keynote Speaker Kerry Hagy is a naturalist, arts administrator and gardener working on a 16-acre permaculture project at her home in Southwest Michigan with her husband three cats. She has certifications and experience in permaculture design, fruit and vegetable farming, and community gardening, mushroom foraging. Kerry has experience in community organizing and advocacy in both urban and rural communities. She has a love for food preservation and cooking, and an art making process that includes waste-streamed and natural materials. 

Kerry will share the first ten years of her permaculture project, while highlighting easy ways to connect with nature through a gardening practice that focuses on observation with minimal intervention, perennials, self-seeding annuals, native plants, and foraging plants and mushrooms.

LOCATION

We will again meet at Cedar Valley Retreat Center near West Bend, Wisconsin. We enjoyed the food last year, and it is a cozy and comfortable space.

Cedar Valley is 100 acres of pastoral beauty nestled in the heart of Washington County, just a short drive north of the metro Milwaukee area. Your creative spirit will soar while walking the beautiful trails, or enjoying a sunset. There are abundant indoor and outdoor recreation opportunities. You can attend workshops, enjoy thoughtfully sourced and prepared meals, and simply relax.

DeKoven Center, Racine, Wisconsin

October 6-8, 2023

Our keynote was Sue Balaschak!

Sue Balaschak is the creator of Primal Rhythm and a founding member of Burning Sage. She has produced and engineered many CDs and records. She owns her own record label, Fireband Records. Her first CD received rave reviews in national publications and is featured in the Cleveland documentary, "Return of the Cuyahoga" which aired on PBS.

Sue has been playing the drums professionally since the age of 12 and has taught drumming since she was 17. She has facilitated drum circles and drum workshops within the Pagan community for the past 20 years. She has taught accredited classes for Licensed Music Therapists. She has facilitated healing circles at Memory Care facilities and has performed journey work. Sue blends her professional musical career and her spiritual life.

She lives in Cleveland with three canines, one feline and a turtle, her totem. If she is not drumming, she can be found hiking in the National Parks or on the Appalachian Trail, with her backpack and her dogs. She hosts the show "Drumming Ceremony," an internet radio show that airs on International Pagan Radio on Sundays.