Donate $3,000 or more & receive a complimentary 3-night stay in Mount Shasta or Hawaii!

meet Our PaSt Scholarship recipients

NOLA KESIA BRANTLEY
activist & trainer

“I am forever grateful for the 3 days I spent on the land you and Peter are stewarding. It was amazing. It was magical. It was spiritual. It was life changing.

I have been healing myself as well as guiding the healing of others over for the past two decades. My area of concentration has been sexually abused and exploited children and youth.

I myself am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, sexual exploitation and commercial sexual exploitation. I also come from patterns of historical oppression, generational trauma and generational poverty so my connection to trauma and healing is personal, collective and generational.

I found the land you are stewarding to have some of the most healing energy I have experienced, and I am already a person who considers nature my medicine and my church.”

POM (MICHAEL PRESTON)
sacred artist & activist from the Winnemem Wintu tribe using cryptocurrency for land regeneration and cultural restoration

“Hestia allowed me the space I needed to grow into a more integrated person. It actually spring boarded me into a process of healing that I was not fully ready for but very much needed. I needed to grow through it in order to reach a space of better visioning for my project in the 2022 winter incubator program.

The people I met there helped me gain invaluable perspective on how to harness a dream, which then allowed me to grow my vision into a more expanded one.

The healing and space to vision has benefited me in a way I am still actualizing. I have come very far in this dream and Hestia helped tremendously.”

Listen to Pom’s vision and winter incubator project on the Gratitude Blooming podcast!

MALIK AMIR HILL

musician & inventor

2021 Winter Incubator Program Participant

JANINE PEÑAFORT

educator

“I had the opportunity to visit Hestia on a mini-sabbatical retreat this fall during a critical time of transition in my life.

I chose to stay at Hestia because of my love and connection to Mama Shasta and the alignment I could feel from speaking on the phone with Belinda about my intentions and her work in stewarding the land at Hestia. It was a blissful week that I spent meditating, creating, reflecting, and simply being.

The guidance shared at the beginning of my sabbatical helped me to follow my heart and body throughout my time there. I came to deeply value the solitude and connection I felt with each of the chakras on the land, and the beauty of my surroundings.

My return home is full of deeper clarity and rootedness as a result of my time at Hestia. As I navigate the void during this period of time, I am grounded in the lessons from Hestia and knowing that abundance and prosperity are near.

I am deeply grateful to the land and the folks that have listened and contributed to taking care of this special place!”

NIJLAN ROSALIA BASTET (they/them)

priest/priestess, medicine person temple Kat’wando

“In February 2021, I arrived to Hestia Magic with the intention of staying for only one month as a visitor during the inception of the first Incubator. I came to Mama Yurt in the midnight, just before a snowfall blanketed the landscape and tucked us in for a few days.

Fire crackled in the wood stove and wind howled around the abode. I fell to my knees and cried. I had cried such tears before, another life-spiral ago, when sacred land had called me home through darkness to re-member Soul.

These tears were my body saying yes, my mind letting go, my heart opening to the unknown while knowing at least, that in falling in love with land-that-calls-me-home, it would have to break. Such is the way of true intimacy with Earth under feet - to become beloved with this particular tree and that specific rock, and the exact turn of creek just here, heart must break.”

KINSHASA BENNET

seeker, gatherer, retreatant, new tree-hugger

"Thank you for welcoming me and my spirit. Thank you for welcoming my hopes, my dreams, my fears, and my wounds. Within the shadow of mama Shasta and amongst the trees and the tranquility I have found a home in the north. 

The winter chill and the crisp sunny air turn my lodgings into a cozy hideaway for mediation and reflection. The land becomes a soft landing for my musings and ponderings and explorations. Venturing farther out from the Hestia land itself, I find majestic water-snowmelt lakes, waterfalls, and rivers and streams.

Every time I come, I expand on my feeling of community and leave with a refreshed vision. I first went to Hestia with the hope of finding a welcoming place near Mt. Shasta and now it’s firmly become a place to land. Belinda has also been integral to this. Thank you for welcoming me. I’m there in spirit as I write.”

NAMIKO

somatic coach & spaceholder

"I had the pleasure of resting into a weeklong solo retreat on the winnemum wintu lands of Hestia. I entered a wintertime cave of healing, cleansing, and support. I am grateful for the opportunity to slow down and listen to my body in a deeper and more consistent way.

This listening was supported by the land and allowed me to open to deeper levels of compassion for myself, for loved ones, and for the pain of the world. The yurt was cozy and comfortable and had everything I needed and more. Belinda, Peter, and Amaya were gracious hosts and checked in on me while also giving me space.

The smell of the earth, the bright starry nights, the sound of the flowing river, and the quality of light through the trees all contributed to an awakening of presence and gratitude in my heart. I could also feel the care and respect with which Hestia is stewarded; it seems the land returns and mirrors back the love received.

I will be back. <3 Thank you!"

& created ripple effects for future generations…