Dear Medicine Family and Friends,
I am writing to share updates with you about changes coming for our family, as well as details about our offering to this world: Radical Love Enterprises.
Nearly one year ago I decided to let go of my corporate role as Senior Director of Health and Healing at Canyon Ranch to begin a private healing practice with my wife and partner, Erica Christenson. In the time since, Erica and I have been hard at work birthing an ecosystem of Radical Love. We have hosted over a dozen sacred earth medicine retreats in Arizona, Montana, New York and Michigan. We have entered into deep collaboration with our dear sister and friend Stacey Tompkins of the Awakened Heart Project. We have developed, recorded and released an online learning curriculum through Radical Love Learning. We have coached people from all over the country in the responsible and sacred use of plant medicine. We have begun a practice of Shamanic Counseling to support the healing and growth of our brothers and sisters. None of this would have been possible without your love, support, and dedication to transforming your life, expanding your consciousness, and bringing forth a new paradigm for being human into this world.
I have been fascinated with paradigm shifts since I was introduced to the concept in 2005. It is exhilarating to know we are collectively participating in such profound human transformation right now. Paradigm shifts are bigger than just one person. They are bigger than any one project. They require radical collaboration, bravery, and courage beyond what we can imagine. They require stepping outside of the existing dominant paradigm of thought in order to root new growth, emerging simultaneously as the old ways are dying. When I chose to set down my ‘career job’ I also committed to stepping out of the status-quo way of living. I am blessed and honored that my family accompanied me, in full awareness that our lives would change in unpredictable ways–ways that will be guided by Spirit–ways that look nothing like the conventional measurements of success.
I am writing to you from an intersection in this transition out of one paradigm, as my family and I begin to nurture the growth of another. We were just informed on March 7th that the owners of our house in Tucson will not be renewing our lease. Our last day in this house will be April 30th. While it was not a complete shock (for which I am grateful), it has provided us with a much needed punctuation mark. We are experiencing a pause in our narrative, guided by Spirit, that is allowing us to take inventory of the resources needed to move forward in Love. We have been deeply changed by our nearly 4 years in Arizona. We have been healed by this land and been given the stability we craved and needed to raise our daughter Luna. And we have also known, since I left Canyon Ranch, that this specific piece of the earth is not where Radical Love Enterprises wants to set down permanent roots.
Having this decision laid down in front of us is a blessing. It gives us confirmation from Spirit that it is time for what we have virtually created to root in a physical place that feels good and right to us. Radical Love Enterprises wants to grow roots in Montana. Erica and I want to grow roots in Montana. When we traveled through Glacier National Park, Missoula, Bozeman, and Ennis last Fall, our bodies told us as much. Many of you have also reflected back this yes to us by showing us support and love in innumerable ways, encouraging us to dream in this move.
We are sharing this because we know that we cannot make this move to Montana without the support of others. Part of stepping out of the status-quo means that we are not compensated in the same ways as folks who are generating monetary wealth from within the status-quo. Part of stepping into our medicine has required us to sacrifice the numerical measurements of success that landlords use to determine whether or not someone is “approved” to live on their property. It also means that we do not have the means to purchase our own home. We are honestly not even sure how we will cover our moving costs. We are willing to take these risks and be in this discomfort in order to support the bringing of medicine to people in a safe, loving, skillful, and musically inspired container.
There are many ways that you could choose to support us, all of which are welcomed and appreciated. Here are some specific examples that would allow us to launch forward. This list is not exhaustive, so if something else arises, we welcome it:
If you have the means and desire to purchase a house and/or property and then rent it to us, we would love to speak with you.
If you own a property or know of a property that is available for rent in Montana, please contact us.
If you feel called to make a donation to help us cover our moving costs and potentially a rental deposit, or possibly a down payment for a house of our own, we would welcome this: my personal Venmo, @andrew-groggel
Register and come to one of our medicine retreats, book a private session or journey, purchase our teaching curriculum, this will help us with day-to-day expenses.
Hold us in your prayers, hold our vision of Radical Love in your prayers, light a candle for us on your altar, sing us songs in ceremony, bring our cries for change into the sweat lodge, load your pipe with tobacco, and pray for insight and creativity that will support us. We welcome all prayers for our family and business, prayers that lift us toward our highest good and strongest capacity to make a meaningful and lasting shift in the world.
We are intentionally not seeking out bank loans, venture capital funding or angel investing that would require company stakes, board appointments or percentage shares in what we are building. We have already entertained these options and believe they would dilute the power of the container we are building for true paradigm shifting work to happen. This project is meant to be rooted outside our current defining paradigm. Radical Love, Radical Collaboration, Radical Transformation–this is what we are calling in, and this is the form we believe meaningful support will require. Thank you for taking the time to read this with an open heart, an open mind, and curiosity of spirit. We look forward to many many more years of meaningful work together.
In Radical Love,
Andy & Erica
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