Please join us!
This is a prayer dance, …
to express our gratitude and celebrate Life!
Every ceremony requires both those who dance and those who hold the container. This September 5-8, at Camp Beausite Northwest in Washingtonโs Chimacum Valley, the 11th annual Dance to Heal the Earth seeks 20-24 dancers and 36 supporters to create a field of healing that extends far beyond the arborโs boundaries.
The ceremony works through three concentric circles of participation. In the inner circle, dancers offer their bodies as living prayer, fasting for two days while dancing to the Mother Drumโs heartbeat rhythm. The middle circle holds firekeepers who tend sacred flames continuously for four days and nights, plus drummers and singers whose voices carry dancers through each directional round. The outer circle of Earthkeeper supporters forms the foundation: preparing meals, maintaining facilities, creating safety, and most importantly, eating and drinking when they sense the dancersโ hunger and thirst.
In Dragon-shaped Land – A Guided Medicine Dance – Has Journeyed Sacred Sites Across Five Continents
Robin Youngblood and Bert Gunn have guided this medicine dance to sacred sites across five continents. The dragon-shaped land near Tamanowas, sacred to the SโKlallam and Chimacum peoples, provides the container for this yearโs theme: sharing your centered heart with the world. Whether you arrive as dancer or supporter, your role serves the whole.
For dancers, preparation begins at home.
Youโll create 105 prayer ties in seven sacred colors, each tiny tobacco bundle carrying specific intentions. Specific information will be sent after registration.
Earthkeeper supporters need different preparation.
Kitchen Angels nourish the community with vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals, understanding that feeding supporters feeds dancers energetically. Facilities teams ensure bathrooms and showers remain clean sanctuaries. Security maintains the ceremonial container with loving firmness. First Aid stands ready with both medical knowledge and spiritual awareness. Firekeepers make sure the Sweat Lodge fires and the Meditation fires are carefully maintained. Water pourers lead the Sweat Lodge prayers and songs. Drummers support the Dancers with their rhythms and songs.
The ceremony begins Friday afternoon
Everyone works together building the arbor and sweat lodge. This shared labor creates community from individuals whoโve traveled from across the continent. By eveningโs opening ceremony, youโve already entered into sacred time and space after youโve feasted.
Saturday morning, dancers enter the sweat lodge for purification while the entire field activates.
Dancers move through four directional rounds while supporters sing and dance around the arborโs outer edge, their movement and voices lifting the energy when dancers need support most. Between rounds, supporters maintain silence as dancers rest and smoke their pipes in prayer with those they invite to share the sacred pipe. Elders share teachings between the dance rounds.
This yearโs donation reflects energy exchange rather than commerce:
$325 minimum suggested donation for dancers, $225 minimum suggested donation for supporters. Your investment includes both food and lodging at beautifulย campbeausitenw.orgย Scholarships may be available if you have a financial hardship. Please talk with Grandmother Robin for approval. Your donation supports not only logistics but fair compensation (honorariums) for elders and ceremony holders.
Sunday brings the most profound rounds:
Above, Below, and Center, followed by a community round where everyone dances together. By Sunday eveningโs feast, the transformation shows in every face. Dancers break their fast surrounded by the supporters who carried them through. Stories flow. Connections deepen. The ceremonyโs medicine begins its integration.
Monday offers something new:
Monday included a Coyote Market from 9am to noon where artisans share their crafts while the community returns the land to its original state or better. Everyone participates in dismantling the sweat lodge and arbor, leaving the dragonโs heart space more beautiful than found.
The ceremonial protocols create safety for deep work.
Men and women wear long skirts or sarongs in the arbor. Camping separates dancers from supporters to maintain focus. No substances, no phones near sacred space, no romantic pursuits during ceremony. These boundaries allow profound opening within protected space.What emerges defies ordinary description. Participants speak of career shifts aligning with soul purpose, family patterns healing across generations, direct communication with the natural world continuing long after ceremony ends. The dance creates lasting change because it works through the body rather than concepts, through community rather than isolation, through sacrifice willingly offered rather than hardship endured.
To Register or For More Information
