The Lodge at Headwaters
~5 min13524 NY-12, Boonville, NY 13309
A refusal to
surrender our
bodies — and
invitation
to
walk back and
get what was lost
Ava, New York & Online
In the days of old, when a person lost their way, the elders would say: "Go back to the forest. Walk with the medicines. Listen again."
WILD! Healing is a return to that ancient remembering. It is not simply a program. It is a journey — a walk across time and continents, guided by healers, farmers, herbalists, and wisdom keepers who still remember how to call the body back to life. Across two days of virtual immersion, you travel a living landscape of ancestral healing, culminating in a third day on the land: a glorious feast and festival in the woods, where the community celebrates the miracle of healing and honors those who heal the healers.

We have all been witness — to the poisoning of our food and water, to the slow violence of a world that forgot how sacred the body is, to the diseases awakened inside us.
And still, you are here. Still breathing. Still searching for a path back to life. WILD! Healing gathers international healers, farmers, herbalists, and physicians not to dominate illness, but to outnumber it with wisdom. It is an infrastructure of survival — a living sanctuary where healing is communal, sacred, and possible.
Honoring the supporters and partners of Restore Forward and The Reconciliation Center, whose extraordinary work and enduring legacies enrich our lives.






An opening ritual calls the spirit of the ancestors and the land. From there, the walk unfolds.
A global circle of healers guides you to confront trauma, dismantle medical paradigms, and map a personal foundation for health sovereignty.
Walk Day One Day Two · Online · 10am–5pm ETFrom knowledge to embodiment — walk the medicine paths, breathe in the living herbs of the ancestors’ formulary, and sit in council with healers, farmers, and physicians weaving clinical wisdom back into the web of earth, culture, and community.
Walk Day Two Day Three · Travel dayThe journey to the land is as sacred as the gathering — so travel gently, and bring something, if you wish, in honor of someone lost, someone healing, or yourself.
Walk Day Three Day Four · On the land · 5pm ETOnto the land at dusk — lanterns between the trees, a feast of medicines, drums and dancers, and the honoring of those who heal the healers.
Enter the woods













For the ones who know the language of symptoms, who have heard the word diagnosis spoken aloud, who live with the quiet vigilance of survival — this letter is for you.
Read the love letterChoose how you’ll join us — the two online days, the gathering on the land, or a patron seat that holds space for someone who couldn't otherwise be there.
The Reconciliation Center
11518 Webster Hill Road
Ava, NY (Boonville)
The in-person gathering on Day Three unfolds on the Restore Forward land — in the forests and fields of upstate New York.
Get directionsLeave your email for occasional word on WILD! Healing — the program, the speakers, and the gathering on the land. No noise, only what matters.
Read it slowly. It was written for you.
Beloved,
This is a call to healing. Not the kind that comes only in sterile rooms or printed prescriptions. But the kind that rises from the earth itself. The kind that remembers what our ancestors knew before forgetting became policy. Before healing became industry. Before the language of medicine stopped listening to the wisdom of plants and soil and rivers.
There are ways we have forgotten.
Ways that knew how to cool inflammation with leaves.Ways that knew how to strengthen blood with roots.Ways that knew how to quiet the nervous system with the rhythm of drum and breath.Ways that taught the body how to return.
And now the whisper is rising again. From forests. From farms. From grandmothers who still remember the names of plants. From great-grandmothers whose prayers still hover over our bloodlines.
They whisper across time: You were never meant to heal alone.
This is an invitation. An invitation to step into an infrastructure of survival. A living sanctuary where we begin again. A place where healing is not rushed. Where bodies are listened to. Where symptoms are not dismissed but understood as messages.
A place where we walk with medicine. Where we learn the language of herbs again. Where food returns to its sacred role as nourishment, not harm. Where the soil teaches the body how to regenerate. Where international healers, farmers, herbalists, and physicians gather not to dominate illness, but to outnumber it with wisdom.
A place where we remember that healing is communal. And sacred. And possible.
We call it WILD! Healing.
Not wild in chaos. Wild in the way forests are wild — self-repairing, intelligent, abundant with remedies waiting to be discovered.
Here we resurrect knowledge buried beneath centuries of forgetting. Here we make room for miracles. Here we honor those who have survived illness and those who stand beside them. Here we sit at long tables beneath trees and eat foods that nourish the blood. Here drums echo through the woods and dancers carry the stories of resilience in their feet. Here the healers are honored. And the healers of healers are honored too.
And as the evening lanterns glow between the trees, something ancient happens again. A remembering. You begin to feel it in your chest. A softening. A breath that travels deeper than it has in years.
And perhaps, just perhaps, you hear them. The voices of your grandmothers. The voices of your great-grandmothers. Leaning close to your spirit. Whispering over your life the words that have always belonged to you:
Be well.
So we ask you now — gently, with reverence for everything you have endured:
Are you ready to be well?
If you are — come walk with us. Come walk with the medicines. Come walk toward the miracle of your own healing.
You enter through a virtual gateway — an opening ritual that calls the spirit of the ancestors and the land. A singing bowl rings. A drumbeat begins. The screen opens onto forests, gardens, and medicine fields from around the world. A voice says: "Welcome to the medicine walk."
The day unfolds along the continuum of life — we revisit each stage to imagine what it looks like when we restore the wisdom of health we once knew.
African mystic, author, healer, and midwife, Dr. Motsei awakens us to the reality that health sovereignty begins at birth—a sacred act that restores our severed connections to ancestors and the earth, transforming the lives of generations past, present, and future.
Holistic health practitioner, Naimah Efia, guides us on our first reflection in self-determined healing, regulating our nervous systems as we reckon with what our people once knew about healing that the world taught us to forget.
Integrative physician and OBGYN, Dr. Nathan Riley, guides us through his departure from the medical industrial complex, illustrating why holistic reproductive health and preconception care are essential to our survival—weaving together environmental exposure, nutrition, and epigenetics to reveal birth as a profound physiological, spiritual, and ecological experience.
A Kanien’kehá:ka/Mohawk leader, Iakowi:he’ne’ Oakes, and Farah Tanis expand the continuum of healing from the individual body to the collective Earth, illuminating how the poisoning of our rivers, forests, and soil—alongside the disruption of traditional food systems—has fractured both Indigenous ecosystems and community health and well-being.
Dr Neena Van Luven, an Internal Medicine Physician, specializing in Integrative Cancer Care, explores how environmental toxicity, nutrient depletion, and chronic stress disrupt our internal terrain, driving inflammation and chronic disease. By bridging internal medicine with root-cause inquiry, she exposes the limitations of conventional symptom-based care, urging a shift toward truly integrative health.
Guided by holistic health practitioner, Naimah Efia, we begin creating a personal map of our own history—tracing the threads of stress, environment, and relationships to understand exactly where our vitality is being nurtured and where it is being depleted.
Integrative physician Dr. Jean-Baptiste translates root-cause medicine into a practical framework for health sovereignty, equipping us with the questions to ask, patterns to track, supports to build, and informed choices to explore with our practitioners.
The Resurrection unearths the truth: food is medicine, soil and body are one, and the apothecary was only waiting to be found. Join healers, farmers, and physicians to weave clinical wisdom back into our collective life. Rise carrying your first practices of reclamation—and a summons to the land itself.
Be guided beyond the limitations of isolated diagnoses. By exploring the biological terrain where illness develops and healing thrives, understand the holistic conditions required to restore our vital health, moving from reactive management toward proactive well-being.
Farah Tanis reframes our bodies as witnesses to our lived experiences rather than as failures, highlighting how chronic stress impacts our physiological health. By acknowledging the pathways of stress-induced illness, she encourages us to interrupt these cycles without the burden of shame or blame. She will guide us through a practical protocol for regulation and recovery, empowering us to become active participants in our own healing journey.
A Kanien’kehá:ka/Mohawk leader, Katsitsienhawi Iakoskarewake (Tiffany Cook) and Alicia Luhrssen-Zombek reveal the living connection between soil health and human vitality. By exploring regenerative farming and the biodiversity of nutrient-rich food, they illuminate how ecological stewardship—from the rivers to the gut—serves as the ultimate preventive medicine for our community well-being.
Kanien’kehá:ka/Mohawk leaders, Eddie Gray of Turtle Clan and Della Adams of Snipe Clan, invite us on a medicine walk across their land, re-introducing us to the ancient apothecary found in our own backyards.
Karen Rose guides us through the sensory landscape of the apothecary. Using scent, touch, and the living folklore of herbs, she teaches us how to listen to the plants and incorporate their ancestral wisdom into our daily rituals of restoration, proving that the apothecary was never lost—only waiting to be remembered.
In a culminating roundtable, our faculty weaves together clinical wisdom, food sovereignty, and ancestral practice. Together, we explore what a true infrastructure of healing looks like when our community, culture, and care systems are designed to support the wholeness of our lives, closing with a call to bring this work onto the land.
Day three moves from embodiment to the road. This is the journey itself — you travel to the land, body settled for the trip, arriving where the gathering unfolds in person on September 12. Now you set out for the woods — settled, awake, and holding what you chose to bring.
A truth carried down through Indigenous lineage, to hold as you travel: that the land is not a backdrop to healing, but the healer itself.
In the days of old, when a person lost their way, the elders would say: go back to the forest. Walk with the medicines. Listen again. Day three is the day you begin to walk.
You do not travel to the land to be healed by it. You travel to remember you were never separate from it.
After all you have received across Day One and Day Two, the journey opens a ritual that is yours alone. A seed or a tree to plant, or a small thing you hold dear — brought to the land in honor of a name:
What will you bring, and whose name will you speak into the soil?
A pilgrimage is asked of the body as much as the spirit. We know there's a flight to catch, a ride to arrange, a train to board. Before you close the screen and set out, you tend the nervous system so you travel settled, open, and awake:
This day is a pilgrimage, a medicine walk across time and continents; you travel regulated, holding what you chose to bring, ready to arrive not as a guest but as one coming home.
The journey to the land is just as sacred as the land itself.
The gathering is on the land at Restore Forward, Ava, New York. However you travel, here's how to arrive:
From your destination city, the nearest airport to listed lodging and the event site is Syracuse Hancock International Airport. From the airport, it's about an hour's drive to Restore Forward.
For navigation, please input this address:
The Reconciliation Center, 11518 Webster Hill Road, Ava, NY (Boonville)
The nearest Amtrak station is Utica — about a 35-minute drive from the land at Restore Forward.
A charter bus will run to the land. Pickup points, times and booking to follow.
As dusk settles over the forest, lanterns glow between the trees. This is not a gala. It is a ceremony of gratitude.
Enter The GatheringTickets are open. Join us online and on the land — September 9–12, 2026.
Get ticketsAs dusk settles over the forest, lanterns glow between the trees. Tables are set beneath the canopy. Wildflowers and branches decorate the space. The air fills with the sound of drums. This is not a gala — this is a ceremony of gratitude.
The gathering, on the land in Ava, New York
The dinner is prepared entirely with healing foods. Each dish tells a story of land and lineage. Food becomes prayer.
Drummers begin. Dancers emerge from between the trees. Ancestral movement traditions unfold — African healing dances, Caribbean rhythm ceremonies, Indigenous drum invocations. The performance tells the story of humanity's relationship with the earth.
How we forgot.
How we suffered.
How we returned.
Names are called. Those who heal the healers are honored — and each honoree receives a blessing. The crowd stands. Drums rise.
Miracles are not accidents. They are what happens when we remember how to live.
The lead elder speaks. The invitation is clear: this program is not the end of the journey — it is the beginning. A return to the sacred responsibility of healing ourselves, our communities, and the land.
"In the days of old, people could rise. Not because they were stronger, but because they remembered who they were."
Between the gatherings, the land holds quiet stations — practices to wander into whenever the spirit calls.
Slow immersion among the trees — letting the woods reach the nervous system.
Rhythm and flame after dark — the oldest medicine for the body and the chest.
Plant and name a tree on the land — a living root left behind for those who come after.
Meditation and care at the oldest tree — supporting the one that supports the grove.
Planting, seeding, weeding — learning stations for hands in the soil.
Bare feet, breath, and earth — a place to remember the body belongs here.
As the lanterns dim, the sky opens — quiet wonder beneath the canopy's edge.
Self-guided movement and breath in the open air, at your own pace.
Short self-paced workshops scattered through the grounds — medicine walks and more.
The Reconciliation Center
11518 Webster Hill Road
Ava, NY (Boonville)
The in-person gathering on Day Three unfolds on the Restore Forward land — in the forests and fields of upstate New York.
Get directionsTickets are open. Choose how you'll walk with us — join the two online days, come to the gathering on the land, or fund a seat for someone who needs one.
The gathering, on the land in Ava, New York
Days One & Two — online summit, join from anywhere
Day Three — the journey to the land
Day Four — on the Restore Forward land, in person gathering
Three ways to walk with us:
Secure checkout in the next step.
Leave your email and we'll keep you posted on the gathering — and nothing else.
Bringing a group, an elder, a healer to honor, or hoping to partner with us? Get in touch or write to info@restoreny.org, and tell us who you'd walk in with.
Questions about the gathering, bringing a group, partnering with us, or a healer you'd like to honor — write below, or email us directly. A real person reads every note.
Tell us a little about why you're reaching out — we'll write back.
Email the team anytime. A real person reads every message and will write back — usually within a few days, and sooner as the gathering nears.
MD, MDH, FAAFP · Integrative Physician & Clinical Immunologist
Dr. Jesse A. Stoff is an integrative physician and clinical immunologist who has spent more than three decades focused on the immune system and its role in healing. He earned his BA in biology, cum laude, from Adelphi University, and his MD from New York Medical College in 1981 — followed by postgraduate training that included a family-practice residency year and a fellowship in emergency medicine, and postdoctoral study in clinical medicine and homeopathy at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital in London, England.
He is founder and Medical Director of Integrative Medicine of New York (formerly Linchitz Medical Wellness) on Long Island, where the work centers on immunotherapy for autoimmune disease, onco-immunology for cancer, and preventative medicine. His approach draws on clinical immunology and the principle of biochemical individuality, integrating conventional and holistic modalities to help restore immune function and the body’s own capacity to heal. He has taught integrative immunology within Dr. Andrew Weil’s Integrative Medicine Fellowship at the University of Arizona and consulted for Cancer Treatment Centers of America.
Beyond his practice, Dr. Stoff founded the Stoff Institute for Medical Research, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit devoted to public education, patient advocacy, and consultation on immune-system disorders and immune reconstitution. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians and a Fellow of the American College of Longevity Medicine, an elected member of the Male Breast Cancer Coalition’s Clinical Advisory Board, and serves on the executive board of the New York Cancer Resource Alliance.
A prolific author, he is best known for the bestselling Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: The Hidden Epidemic and The Prostate Miracle, and more recently the medical text Clinical Immunology, Volume 1: Integrative Onco-Immunology — reflecting a career-long emphasis on integrative, immune-centered care.
Tickets are open. Join the speakers at WILD! Healing — September 9–12, 2026.
Get ticketsMD, MSc, CFMP · Functional & Longevity Medicine

Dr. Dieudonné Jean-Baptiste is a Haitian physician and the founder and lead physician of La Clinique PHI — a functional, integrative and longevity medicine practice in Pétion-Ville, in metropolitan Port-au-Prince. He holds a Doctor of Medicine and a Master of Science in Public Health from the Université de Montréal, and is a Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner (CFMP).
His clinical philosophy is rooted in what he calls la médecine des causes — the medicine of root causes. Rather than treating disease by name, PHI seeks to understand why the body has lost its capacity to repair itself, and to help it recover that capacity. Conventional medicine, as he frames it, excels at managing crises and relieving symptoms; but for chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and persistent fatigue, his work asks why the problem appeared in the first place — with an emphasis on the foundations of health: sleep, stress, movement and nutrition.
At La Clinique PHI, care follows a structured method of evaluation, treatment, reassessment and follow-up, guided by three stated values: scientific excellence, transparency and education, and integrity and empathy. The clinic frames its mission as transforming health through the medicine of causes, under the tagline “La médecine, autrement !” — “Medicine, differently.”
Dr. Jean-Baptiste is an active public voice for functional medicine in Haiti, featured by the Haitian outlet Juno7 and interviewed on LE POINT, the current-affairs program of Métropole Télé, on his root-cause approach to chronic disease and healthy longevity. He also writes for the clinic’s blog, teaching on topics from detoxification to metabolic health.
Tickets are open. Join the speakers at WILD! Healing — September 9–12, 2026.
Get ticketsMD · Dual board-certified in OB/GYN and Hospice & Palliative Medicine

Dr. Nathan Riley is a dual board-certified obstetrician–gynecologist and hospice & palliative medicine physician who practices holistic women’s health in Louisville, Kentucky. He earned his MD from Temple University, completed his OB/GYN residency at Kaiser in Los Angeles, and his fellowship in Hospice & Palliative Medicine at UC San Diego — a rare pairing that lets him care for people across the full arc of life.
Through his practice, Beloved Holistics, he serves women and families looking for more than the conventional model. His care runs from pre-conception and fertility through home birth and the whole of reproductive life, working with the body’s own intelligence rather than against it. He also offers a comprehensive online support program to support families who wish to have autonomy from conception through postpartum called Born Free Method, which was co-created with midwife Sara Rosser, CPM.
Having accompanied families through both birth and loss, Dr. Riley brings uncommon depth to fertility, perinatal care, and health optimization at every stage. A vocal advocate for physiologic birth, midwifery collaboration, and personal agency in health, he shares this work widely as host of Born Free Method, the podcast.
Tickets are open. Join the speakers at WILD! Healing — September 9–12, 2026.
Get ticketsKanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk), Bear Clan · Food as Medicine

Katsitsienhawi Iakoskarewake (Tiffany Cook) is a grandmother and mother of three. She runs a successful juicing and nutritional support initiative that brings healing through food to the tribe. She also has a farm and indoor facility where she grows all of her own microgreens for her business, helping people get off their diabetes pills, heal and detox from the poisonous environment surrounding them.
Tickets are open. Join the speakers at WILD! Healing — September 9–12, 2026.
Get ticketsKanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk), Turtle Clan · Traditional Medicine

Eddie Gray is a medicine man, cultural knowledge holder, and community educator. He is a lifelong resident of Akwesasne, born and raised on his homelands with the language and culture as part of his upbringing. Eddie has been in many leadership positions throughout the years. He recently retired from the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne as a knowledge holder for the Traditional Medicine Program.
He also has served on the traditional council of chiefs within the Iroquois Confederacy representing the Turtle Clan since the mid 80’s, notably negotiating and working alongside other tribes, on treaties, policies, and at the United Nations. Currently, Eddie, alongside Della Adams, has started the Haudenosaunee Everlasting Academy of Learnings (HEAL). This new healing lodge teaches cultural approaches and ancestral medicine for holistic healing for members of the Akwesasne community.
Tickets are open. Join the speakers at WILD! Healing — September 9–12, 2026.
Get ticketsKanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk), Snipe Clan · Traditional Medicine

Della Adams is a traditional medicine holder and wholistic health educator that is based in Akwesasne. Della has been deeply embedded in serving her community through education and community organizing. In 2021, Della retired from the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne as a wholistic health and wellness worker for the Traditional Medicine Program after 22 years.
In 2022 Della, alongside Eddie Gray, launched the Haudenosaunee Everlasting Academy of Learnings (HEAL), a traditional holistic healing lodge that serves the community of Akwesasne with teachings of medicines, ceremonies, workshops, teaching seminars, treatment rooms, and healing sessions.
Tickets are open. Join the speakers at WILD! Healing — September 9–12, 2026.
Get ticketsKanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) · Founder & Director, North American Indigenous Center of New York

Iakowi:he’ne’ Oakes is a Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) multidisciplinary artist, leader, and advocate dedicated to advancing Indigenous sovereignty and land stewardship. Born and raised in Akwesasne Mohawk Territory, she has spent her career focused on nation-building and cultural revitalization through a diverse range of artistic and athletic endeavors. An inaugural Lortel Indigenous Theatermaker awardee in 2023, Oakes integrates performance, design, and advocacy to strengthen Indigenous presence and social justice across bicultural landscapes.
As the founder and director of the North American Indigenous Center of New York (NAIC-NY), Oakes has established a vital community hub in downtown Manhattan. Her leadership has spearheaded numerous initiatives, including the Northeastern Native Arts Festival, Native Census NYC, and Indigenous language forums, alongside wellness programming like the FIT Native workout series. Through traditional gatherings, empowerment workshops, and contemporary arts seminars, she continues to foster cultural advocacy and provide essential platforms for Indigenous programming and community connection.
Tickets are open. Join the speakers at WILD! Healing — September 9–12, 2026.
Get ticketsBirth worker · Founder, Sanctuary for Integrative Medicine

Sevonna Brown is a maternal health visionary, birth worker, and founder of Sanctuary for Integrative Medicine, a community-rooted model of maternal wellness integrating clinical care, ancestral wisdom, childbirth education, birth support, and holistic healing. For more than 15 years, Sevonna has worked at the intersection of maternal health, reproductive justice, and systems transformation. Her work centers on health sovereignty and the belief that every person deserves to experience pregnancy, birth, and parenthood with dignity, safety, cultural connection, and care.
Sevonna also serves as Treasurer of Restore Forward, where she supports the organization’s financial stewardship and long-term sustainability as it advances racial, reproductive, and health justice through community-rooted wellness and systems change. A Gates Millennium Scholar and NGen Fellow, Sevonna has contributed to maternal health research, policy, and community-based initiatives nationally and internationally. Her work has been featured in Aftershock and The Business of Birth Control. Through Sanctuary for Integrative Medicine, she continues to build a more sacred, integrative, and equitable future for birthing people, families, and communities.
Tickets are open. Join the speakers at WILD! Healing — September 9–12, 2026.
Get ticketsEducator, restorative grower & community program developer

Alicia Zombek is an educator, restorative grower, and community-based program developer whose work connects plant and soil science, food systems, community engagement, and social justice.
With more than twenty years of experience in community-based program development, agricultural education, and food systems, Alicia draws on her background in sustainability and soil science to inform her teaching and practice. Her work explores soil health, biodiversity, regenerative agriculture, food justice, food sovereignty, and the connections among diet, human health, agriculture, and environmental sustainability. Her experience includes Cornell University, Restore Forward, Hamilton College, Northeast Organic Farming Association, Mohawk Valley Community College, and community-led agricultural initiatives throughout New York and Massachusetts.
Alicia brings principles of restorative justice into her relationship with land and growing systems, exploring what repair, fairness, participation, and care can mean when the environment is understood as part of the community. Her approach makes space for soil, plants, water, people, and the living systems that sustain us. It also recognizes that whether someone is encountering the land for the first time or carrying knowledge passed through generations, everyone has a place to learn, contribute, and belong.
Her work centers restorative, land-based practices that strengthen biodiversity, climate resilience, food sovereignty, and our relationships with the living world.
Tickets are open. Join the speakers at WILD! Healing — September 9–12, 2026.
Get ticketsPhD, PhD (h.c.) · Healing Justice & Decolonising Childbirth Practices

Dr. Mmatshilo Motsei is a South African healer, guide, Indigenous midwife, scholar and cultural expert. She is the founder of Afrika Ikalafe, an organization that specialises in personal and societal transformation based on African spiritual principles. Her overall aim is to uncover the truth that Africa is great and powerful and that, because of the poisoning of our mind, our soul is afflicted. Consequently, Africa’s traumatic past has led to a condition which calls for multigenerational healing, hence the name Afrika Ikalafe, which means “Afrika Heal Thyself.”
She holds a Doctorate in Sociology from University of Pretoria. In her quest to decolonise childbirth practices in post-apartheid South Africa, her research focus is on the role of indigenous midwifery in countering obstetric violence. She is a recipient of two Honorary Doctorates: one in Community Psychology from the University of Zululand for her integrative healing work with women and men, and another in Social Professions from the Faculty of Health at Nelson Mandela University for her work in using the indigenous healing justice framework to respond to sexual violence in South Africa.
Dr. Motsei started her career as a nurse, midwife, nursing lecturer, social science researcher and community development facilitator. She is the author of six books. In honor of her work, she received numerous awards, including the UN Scroll of Honour Award for her efforts in involving men as part of the solution to violence against women.
Tickets are open. Join the speakers at WILD! Healing — September 9–12, 2026.
Get ticketsHolistic health & psychic emancipation · Healing justice practitioner

Naimah Efia is a holistic health maven, specializing in mental health and psychic emancipation. Through a commitment to self-determined healing for Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), Naimah activates transformation within a politicized praxis of decolonial care. Decolonial care allows for the return to our inherent right to heal, and be healed on our own terms, and in line with our legacies and traditions past, present and future.
Naimah teaches yoga and offers integrative training on the intersections of yoga, social justice and identity politics. They’re a proud Ma-MaGe of twins, as well as a doula, who centers reproductive mental health across the spectrum of birthwork. Naimah also offers their skills and care as a healing justice practitioner, liberation-based educator and community activist. Their array of expertise creates an integrated approach to healing and responding to violence — informed by activism, esotericism, mindfulness, liberation psychology, and traditions of the diaspora, and grounded in over 20 years of clinical experience and a deep understanding of trauma and its psychic impact on the human condition.
Alongside their direct healing work with communities, Naimah works with organizations, institutions and collectives, providing liberation-based training, facilitating community healing spaces, and creating processes to transform conflict and activate collective peace, power and possibility. In 2018 they founded #FreeToo, a BIPOC healing justice initiative focused on survivor-centered collective care. Over the past decade Naimah has built and co-created with Harriet’s Apothecary, Black Women’s Blueprint, Ancient Song Doula Services, Black Youth Project 100, and In Our Names Network, among others. Naimah believes in healing as a revolutionary act of resistance that is essential to our liberation, and centers Black survivors in that work.
Tickets are open. Join the speakers at WILD! Healing — September 9–12, 2026.
Get ticketsMD · Family & Functional Medicine

Dr. Vincent “Vinny” Leonti, MD, is a board-certified family medicine and functional medicine physician based in New Jersey. He is the co-founder and medical director of Princeton Integrative Health in Lawrence Township, which he established alongside his daughter, Jenna Richardson.
Tickets are open. Join the speakers at WILD! Healing — September 9–12, 2026.
Get ticketsMD · Internal Medicine & Integrative Cancer Care

Dr. Neena (Iyer) Van Luven is an internal medicine physician and advocate dedicated to providing personalized, holistic healthcare. She earned her medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School and completed her specialty training at the University of California, San Diego. Board-certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), Dr. Van Luven also holds a specialized certification through the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM). Her clinical approach emphasizes treating the root causes of illness rather than just symptoms, utilizing her deep expertise to manage complex health conditions affecting the body’s internal systems, including the heart, lungs, and digestive tract.
A leader in her field, Dr. Van Luven maintains a specialized practice with a profound passion for integrative cancer care. Throughout her career, she has supported hundreds of patients on their journey toward remission, blending clinical excellence with a deeply compassionate approach. Her unwavering dedication to helping individuals achieve optimal health through patient-centered care makes her a pivotal figure in holistic medicine. By combining traditional internal medicine with functional insights, she ensures that every patient receives a comprehensive and supportive path to wellness.
Tickets are open. Join the speakers at WILD! Healing — September 9–12, 2026.
Get ticketsHerbalist · Founder, Sacred Vibes Apothecary

Karen Rose is the founder and owner of Sacred Vibes Apothecary, a premier herb-focused destination in Brooklyn. Drawing deep inspiration from her upbringing in coastal Guyana, Karen’s expertise is rooted in the ancestral wisdom of her community’s elders and grandparents, who were revered for their mastery of herbal medicine and root work. Her journey into professional herbalism began as a personal mission to preserve these traditional healing practices for future generations.
A dedicated practitioner and educator, Karen formalised her extensive knowledge through rigorous training at herbal medicine school and by collaborating with Indigenous practitioners across Mexico and Jamaica. Recognizing a significant gap in the Brooklyn wellness landscape, she opened Sacred Vibes Apothecary to provide her community with direct access to high-quality botanical resources and consultations. Under her leadership, the apothecary recently celebrated a decade of success, establishing itself as a cornerstone of holistic health and spiritual service in East Flatbush.
Tickets are open. Join the speakers at WILD! Healing — September 9–12, 2026.
Get ticketsEverything you need for your visit — how to reach the land, and where to stay.
The WILD! Healing gathers on the land at Restore Forward, Ava, New York. However you travel, here's how to arrive.
From your destination city, the nearest airport to listed lodging and the event site is Syracuse Hancock International Airport. From the airport, it's about an hour's drive to Restore Forward.
For navigation, please input this address:
The Reconciliation Center, 11518 Webster Hill Road, Ava, NY (Boonville)
The nearest Amtrak station is Utica — about a 35-minute drive from the land at Restore Forward.
A charter bus will run to the land. Pickup points, times and booking to follow.
Lodges, hotels, treehouses, and grottos
Located in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, the location boasts more than 2,000 miles of hiking trails, over 3,000 lakes and ponds and 1,200 miles of rivers. Restore Forward's land features pavilions and hammocks, meditation yurts, an open meadow, and a 12,000 square foot event space. If you walk to the edge of the forest you will find a peaceful point. We are a preservation space for the natural world, including wetlands and Monarch butterflies. The land lends guests to hours of sun and forest bathing. The Gala will take place in the Woods at Restore Forward.
Nearby hotels & lodging — approximate drive times from the land
13524 NY-12, Boonville, NY 13309
3952 NY-12, Lyons Falls, NY 13368
1352 Floyd Ave, Rome, NY 13441
90 Dart Circle, Rome, NY 13441
172–180 N Genesee St, Utica, NY 13502
71 N Genesee St, Utica, NY 13502
23 Wells Ave, Utica, NY 13502
200 Genesee St, Utica, NY 13502
Join us for an unforgettable evening in the woods, and help us make WILD! Healing, a Harvest of Medicine, a success! This unique Feast and Festival will feature a Dinner and Theater performance by our artists and youth in residence.
Volunteer Opportunities: We are looking for 100 WILD! Volunteers to help with various tasks to ensure the event runs smoothly on-site.
Roles include
Why volunteer?
Join us at WILD! Healing and make a difference in our community. We look forward to seeing you there!
Tickets are open. Ready to join us? September 9–12, 2026 — online & on the land.
Get ticketsHonoring the supporters and partners of Restore Forward and The Reconciliation Center, whose extraordinary work and enduring legacies enrich our lives.




































By sponsoring WILD! Healing, you are not simply supporting an event — you are helping launch a new movement at the intersection of Healing Justice, Integrative Medicine, regenerative agriculture, Indigenous knowledge, Food as Medicine, and community well-being. Your investment helps cultivate a future in which health is rooted in prevention, environmental stewardship, cultural wisdom, and collective care.
Rather than metals — gold, silver, bronze — our levels reflect growth, stewardship, and healing. Every level carries meaningful recognition and benefits.
$2,500
$10,000
$25,000
$50,000
$100,000
You can also underwrite a specific experience — giving it your name and helping bring it to life.
Tell us which level or experience speaks to you and we’ll send the full sponsorship packet. We’re glad to tailor a package to your interests.
One hundred people to stand at the very beginning of WILD! Healing — and help shape what this community becomes. Not simply attendees.
September 9–12, 2026 · Online & on the land
One pass ($159) covers all four days. You can attend just one, a few, or all of them — you’re one of the Founding 100 either way.
Two days of online immersion — September 9 and 10, from wherever you are.
One day in person at The Reconciliation Center in Ava, New York.
The feast and festival in the woods — lanterns, long tables, drums.
All four days, online and on the land, from the first ritual to the closing fire.
One pass covers all four days — September 9–12, online and on the land. Attend just one day, a few, or all of them; either way you are one of the Founding 100.
Not ready yet? Leave your email and we’ll keep you posted.
For more than thirty years, I've worked at the intersection of healing justice, trauma recovery, and community transformation.
After my own journey with breast cancer, one question became impossible to ignore:
What would happen if we brought together physicians, Indigenous knowledge keepers, herbalists, farmers, nutrition leaders, trauma experts, and communities — not to debate healing, but to experience it together?
That question became WILD! Healing: A Harvest of Medicine.
This September, we gather on regenerative land in Upstate New York — and online — to explore food as medicine, integrative health, environmental wellbeing, trauma recovery, and our relationship with the Earth and one another.
Today, I'm looking for the Founding 100. Not simply attendees — one hundred people willing to be part of the very first WILD! Healing gathering, and to help shape what this community becomes.
Farah Tanis · Founder, Restore Forward
The Founding 100 are the ones who arrive while a thing is still becoming. Your presence helps set the tone, the culture, and the spirit of every gathering that follows.
The Founding 100 begins on Farah's birthday. Join her live for one hour as she shares the next chapter of her life and her work — on Instagram and Facebook Live. This year she isn't asking for gifts; her birthday wish is these first hundred people.
Stand at the beginning. One hundred people, September 9–12, 2026 — online & on the land.
Get your pass — $159Retired sections, kept here for reference. This page isn't linked publicly.
Honoring the supporters and partners of Restore Forward and The Reconciliation Center, whose extraordinary work and enduring legacies enrich our lives.















Read it slowly. It was written for you.
Everything you need for your visit — how to reach the land, and where to stay.
Everything you need for your visit — how to reach the land, and where to stay.
The old “Come walk with us” attend page — ticket tiers plus the email-capture “Join the circle” form. Retired once the footer newsletter took over email capture and ticketing moved to the external page. Its markup is still in this source file for reference, but the page is now fully locked: it is unreachable from any URL and excluded from search.
A refusal to surrender our bodies — and an invitation to walk back and get what was lost.
Ava, New York & Online
A refusal to surrender our bodies — and an invitation to walk back and get what was lost.
Ava, New York & Online
In the days of old, when a person lost their way, the elders would say: "Go back to the forest. Walk with the medicines. Listen again."
WILD! Healing is a return to that ancient remembering. It is not simply a program. It is a pilgrimage — a medicine walk across time and continents, guided by healers, farmers, herbalists, and wisdom keepers who still remember how to call the body back to life. Across two days of virtual immersion, you travel a living landscape of ancestral healing, culminating in a third day on the land: a glorious feast and festival in the woods, where the community celebrates the miracle of healing and honors those who heal the healers.

Day three moves from embodiment to passage. This is the journey itself — you travel to the land, body settled for the road, arriving where the gathering unfolds in person on September 12. You have remembered; you have begun to resurrect. Now you set out for the woods — settled, awake, and holding what you chose to bring.
A truth carried down through Indigenous lineage, to hold as you travel: that the land is not a backdrop to healing, but the healer itself.
In the days of old, when a person lost their way, the elders would say: go back to the forest. Walk with the medicines. Listen again. Day three is the day you begin to walk.
You do not travel to the land to be healed by it. You travel to remember you were never separate from it.
After all you have received across Day One and Day Two, the journey offers you a ritual of your own. A seed or a tree to plant, or a small thing you hold dear — brought to the land in honor of a name:
What will you plant, and whose name will you speak into the soil?
A pilgrimage is asked of the body as much as the spirit. Before you close the screen and set out, you tend the nervous system so you travel settled, open, and awake:
This is not simply a program. It is a pilgrimage — a medicine walk across time and continents. You leave the screen regulated, carrying your seed, ready to arrive not as a guest but as one coming home.
The journey to the land is just as sacred as the land itself.
The gathering is on the land at Restore Forward, Ava, New York. However you travel, here's how to arrive:
From your destination city, the nearest airport to listed lodging and the event site is Syracuse Hancock International Airport. From the airport, it's about an hour's drive to Restore Forward.
For navigation, please input this address:
11518 Webster Hill Road, Ava, New York 13309
The nearest Amtrak station is Utica — about a 35-minute drive from the land at Restore Forward.
Catch the charter bus from Brooklyn or Harlem. [Charter bus pickup points, times & booking — to be confirmed]
A refusal to surrender our bodies — and an invitation to walk back and get what was lost.
The gathering, on the land in Ava, New York
Choose how you'll join the circle — the two online days, the gathering on the land, or a patron seat that holds space for someone who couldn't otherwise be there.
Sections being built right now — one block per chat, owned by the handle it carries. Only that chat edits its block. Not linked publicly. Rules: see CLAUDE.md, “Parallel development — the Workbench”.
Every named place on the Restore Forward land. Tap a pin on the map, or pick from the list underneath.
Internal draft. Names here come from the landmark artwork, not the dedication legend — that list carries donor names we have not confirmed are public, so none of them appear in this page or its source. Four pins have no artwork yet and read as “Space to be named”. Pricing and availability slot in without a rebuild once Farah confirms them.
A staging area for sections in progress, before they go live. This page isn't linked publicly.
Both use the real hero button styling. On the live hero they sit over a photo; here they are on the page background, so judge the wording and the width rather than the colour. Narrow the window to phone size to see the width question.
Option A — live now
A signpost: it names the destination, in the same voice as “Get tickets” beside it. Shortest, and safest at narrow widths.
Option B
A verb, so it invites rather than points — closer to the ask in Farah’s message. Five characters longer, which is the whole question at phone width.
Right now the subtitle (a space dedicated in the luminary’s honor) reads like it’s their own title or organization. Three ways to make the relationship clear:

A tiny label sets the site apart from a job title. Minimal, and easy to read at a glance.

No extra label — the wording itself carries the meaning. Cleanest, but each line gets a little longer.

A divider and small-caps set the site as a named place / plaque, distinct from a title. Most decorative.

A small pill categorises the line as a space, not a role. Reads instantly, adds a touch of colour.

The site sits on a clay band at the card’s base, like an engraved plaque — clearly a separate thing.

Keeps the site line as-is and adds a faint one-line note beneath that spells out the relationship.
Everything you need for your visit — how to reach the land, and where to stay.
Everything you need for your visit — how to reach the land, and where to stay.
Four ways to show the “by Restore Forward ↗” attribution in the header. v1 is live now — tell me a number and I'll swap the real header to it.
Resize inside a band:
the whole thing only zooms.
Line breaks never move —
nothing re-wraps or shifts.

A refusal to
surrender our
bodies — and
invitation to
walk back and
get what was lost
Ava, New York & Online
Ways to invite visitors on the other Restore Forward site to RSVP for WILD! Healing 2026 — a strip, a pop-up, and a full image-background section (shown at two heights, with an event description). Every RSVP button links out to the WILD website (wildgala.com) — swap the link to the tickets page if you'd rather send RSVPs straight there.
Option A · Announcement strip — dark
Option A · Announcement strip — light
Intended use: a full-width bar pinned to the top of the other site.
Option B · Pop-up
Tap “Preview the pop-up” to see it as a centred overlay (click the backdrop or “Maybe later” to close). The RSVP button is removed but its space is kept. Intended use: appears once on load, or after a short delay. The same design, shown static below:

A four-day medicine walk across cultures and landscapes — three days of virtual immersion, then a gathering on the land. Led by healers, farmers, and wisdom keepers, it’s a return to ancestral plant medicine and the work of calling the body back to life.
September 9–12 · Ava, New York & Online.
Option C · Full-height section — image background + description
A harvest of medicine.
WILD! Healing is a four-day medicine walk across cultures and landscapes — three days of virtual immersion, then a gathering on the land. Healers, farmers, herbalists, and wisdom keepers guide a return to ancestral plant medicine, culminating in a lantern-lit feast in the woods of Ava, New York.
RSVPOption D · Narrower band — same image, condensed copy
A four-day medicine walk — three days of virtual immersion, then a gathering on the land at Ava, New York. A refusal to surrender our bodies, and an invitation to walk back and get what was lost.
RSVPDay three moves from embodiment to the road. This is the journey itself — you travel to the land, body settled for the trip, arriving where the gathering unfolds in person on September 12. Now you set out for the woods — settled, awake, and holding what you chose to bring.
A truth carried down through Indigenous lineage, to hold as you travel: that the land is not a backdrop to healing, but the healer itself.
In the days of old, when a person lost their way, the elders would say: go back to the forest. Walk with the medicines. Listen again. Day three is the day you begin to walk.
You do not travel to the land to be healed by it. You travel to remember you were never separate from it.
After all you have received across Day One and Day Two, the journey opens a ritual that is yours alone. A seed or a tree to plant, or a small thing you hold dear — brought to the land in honor of a name:
What will you bring, and whose name will you speak into the soil?
A pilgrimage is asked of the body as much as the spirit. We know there's a flight to catch, a ride to arrange, a train to board. Before you close the screen and set out, you tend the nervous system so you travel settled, open, and awake:
This day is a pilgrimage, a medicine walk across time and continents; you travel regulated, holding what you chose to bring, ready to arrive not as a guest but as one coming home.
The journey to the land is just as sacred as the land itself.
A refusal to surrender our bodies — and an invitation to walk back and get what was lost.
Ava, New York & Online
A refusal to surrender our bodies — and an invitation to walk back and get what was lost.
Ava, New York & Online
A refusal to surrender our bodies — and an invitation to walk back and get what was lost.
Ava, New York & Online
In the days of old, when a person lost their way, the elders would say: "Go back to the forest. Walk with the medicines. Listen again."
WILD! Healing is a return to that ancient remembering. It is not simply a program. It is a pilgrimage — a medicine walk across time and continents, guided by healers, farmers, herbalists, and wisdom keepers who still remember how to call the body back to life. Across two days of virtual immersion, you travel a living landscape of ancestral healing, culminating in a third day on the land: a glorious feast and festival in the woods, where the community celebrates the miracle of healing and honors those who heal the healers.

Live traffic for wildgala.com — visits, top pages, referrers, and reach. The dashboard is private: it opens in your Claude workspace, and only you — signed in — can see the numbers. This page holds no data and no keys.
Opens claude.ai in a new tab — sign in as yourself to view. Ask Claude to “refresh the dashboard” for the latest figures.
A private workspace for internal notes, links, and references. Not linked publicly and not meant for visitors.