Sacred Sisterhood: Roots Festival Recap
Welcome to the story of Roots, a Festival of Women’s Embodiment. Two weeks ago on Dharug Country, 400 women gathered to celebrate the unseen connections that provide strength and nourishment to the feminine spirit. Sacred immersed in 3 days of embodiment modalities - including yoga, dance, breathwork, massage, art, meditation, ceremony and so much more! Our cups were positively overflowing.
In the river we shed our layers, embracing the undulating flow of seasons and cycles. Beneath the trees, we reflected in unity at how important and intricate our underground networks of connection truly are.
The inspiration for Roots came from the freedom founder Katy Johnstone discovered through yoga and ecstatic dance. During a challenging season of her life, she found confidence and the strength to start anew through these embodiment practices.
When a retreat she’d organised got cancelled due to COVID, Katy sat with the sense of restriction. It was uncomfortable, but instead of allowing it to limit her, she found a way to create something unexpected. Camping was still allowed at that time, so the retreat changed shape and doubled in size, because the land could accomodate more. Katy called on her community for facilitators, space holders, healers and teachers to support her in holding the space for what was now 80 women! And so Roots was born.
It became what Katy describes as ‘beyond her wildest dreams.’ Three years later, it is thriving, evolving and nourishing the deep roots of connection and community! Roots festival is all about embracing the taboo. Letting our creative impulses roam uninhibited, as founder Katy Johnstone describes below:
“When it’s just women there’s permission for all the barriers to drop. Permission to scream and shake and be psycho. We all have it in us, we just don’t have a place to express it. It’s time to reclaim the crazy, intuitive, embodied, majestic energy that women are, that has been suppressed.”
From dance to meditation, from ritual to raw expression, Roots is a place to embrace the feminine spirit through shapes, rhythms, sounds, and cycles. Together, we create a safe space where shame melts away, replaced by play, growth, healing, and renewal. Just as nature evolves, so do we. We rewrite our stories, reclaim our power, and embrace the fullness of our beings.
So honoured to have been part of Roots Festival. Be sure to share this story with the sister you’re bringing along next year!
Follow Root's Festival here.
Be part of the Sacred community!
Words by Poetics of Practice.