Grandmother Cherry Sanctuary
Welcome to a Healing Sanctuary in the Forest
Grandmother Cherry Sanctuary is named after the 200+ year old Black Cherry Tree who stands majestically in the heart of a micro herb and food-is-medicine farm. The land is lovingly stewarded with intentional care to cultivating organic and wildcrafted medicinal plants, replanting indigenous medicinal and pollinator plants, tending to spacious tree diversity, regenerating soil for a robust mycelium network, creating portals in elemental magic sacred spaces, and inviting relationship with wildlife and unseen beings on 7 acres of enchanting, healing land.
Grandmother Cherry Sanctuary is located on N’dakinna, homeland of the Western Abenaki Indigenous People. We recognize the violence of settler colonialism, racialized capitalism, western european dominant culture oppression, and cultural appropriation of spiritual practice and plant medicine. We recognize as white land tenders from western european descent, we collude in these systems even with our intentional efforts to practice anti-racism and decolonization. We are committed to a lifelong path of unlearning and relearning, being in solidarity and movement with multi-cultural communities, and being in integrity to collective accountability and healing. We reclaim our own animist roots and spiritual practices to reweave relationships of communal care, reciprocity, and responsibility to shifting dominant cultural norms of separation and individualism to relationships of kinship.
Grandmother Cherry Sanctuary Land Access Trade Partnership
Create Camp ~ Grow Food & Medicine ~ Make Music ~ Retreat in the Forest
Grandmother Cherry Sanctuary Land Access Trade Partnership is a mutual aid relationship between land holders, Rae Carter and Mitch Pauley, and a small group of community members seeking land for seasonal camping, garden space to grow food and medicine in creative ways, music studio space, private forest, and enchanting retreat space to access as a small community camp.
This is a creative solution to match needs with resources and explore ways to share home ownership, care for the land, grow food and medicine for the community, and keep land in local ownership with intentional succession planning.
Herbal Medicine
Organically Grown Herbs & Plants Made into Small-Batch Herbal Remedies & Spiritual Potions
After 5 years of listening to, responding, and caring for the land–when Rae Carter was diagnosed with cancer–she deepened her herbalism studies and began growing the medicinal plants supportive of her root cause healing. She began making herbal medicines and remedies for her body and practicing community herbalism. Grandmother Cherry handcrafted herbal products are made with organic cultivated and wildcrafted plants grown on the land. Products are sold at Plainfield Farmers Market and available to people in the Plainfield Community through Rae’s community organizing work as a farmers market manager and a project manager with the emerging Plainfield Resilience Hub; as well as for clients and guests at Grandmother Cherry Sanctuary, with mailing and delivery upon request.
Remote Camping
Witchy Woods Campsite
Located in the forest, Witchy Woods campsite is a remote getaway for peace, solitude, and enchanted forest camping. A screened-in tent with cots, hammock, rustic equipped kitchen, and compost sanitation offers 360 degree views of an Old Growth Forest and Certified National Wildlife Habitat.
Situated below the western slopes of Spruce Mountain with land lines connecting to the Groton State Forest, Grandmother Cherry Sanctuary includes open and wooded forest in an active renewal process from the damages of colonization. Medicinal herbal, kitchen, and perennial gardens circle the land; surrounded by fruit trees and bushes; wildcrafted habitats; a pond and stream—spreading into the forest. Called into being by the trees, the Sanctuary provides generous wisdom, healing, and elemental magic rooted in cocreating relationships of reciprocity, building community, and being in right relationship with Mother Earth.
Healing Sessions
Reiki Energy Healing, Sound & Voice Therapy, Root Healing, and Imagination & Visioning Sessions
Therapeutic healing sessions are offered in both outside and inside spaces at Grandmother Cherry Sanctuary. Reiki & Light Touch Energy Healing can be held in the nourishing and magical inside Sanctuary Room or in a hammock in one of several locations by the gardens or in the woods. Sound & Voice Therapy sessions are held in the Hygge Den Studio or occasionally outside. Root Healing and Imagination & Visioning sessions can be held anywhere inside or outside on the land. Healing practitioner, Rae Carter, awakened her healing capabilities recovering from cancer and a subsequent health crisis by being in reciprocal relationship with this magical land. Clients are invited to spend time in the gardens or forest before or after healing sessions for deeper integration.
Nature Retreats
Seasonal Community and Organizational Retreats
Grandmother Cherry Sanctuary is a beautiful venue for small group, team, and organization retreats with expert facilitation provided by our team. We also occasionally offer specialized retreats for the public and invite you to stay in the know by subscribing to our newsletter.
The Sanctuary is an active member of United Plant Savers, planting indigenous and endangered plants to regenerate the landscape every year. As an organic micro herbal farm, we are also a member of the Northeast Organic Farmers Association, and is a provider of community herbalism and organizing activities in Plainfield, Vermont.
Affiliations
