Soy de Barro is an elemental rite of passage —where every woman learns the ancient earth-skills of harvesting wild clay, shaping a functional cook pot with her hands, friction fire and firing our pots in a firing ceremony.
Clay is a primal teacher; raw and gritty at the same time refined and supple. This sculptable rock dust under our feet is a miracle of a changing, alive creative planet.
As are we, being made of the same minerals of the earth shaped into vessels that hold these life giving waters. May we be fortified and flexible to face the obstacles of our times and incite everyday acts of love, beauty, and peacemaking.
Clay cook pots hold a time-honored place at the hearth of folklore and myth.
They are clay serpents coiled in our hands up from the earth, into the shape of a belly to cook up something potent.
Cook pots feed family and community, they breathe under heat and take their time, retaining the nutrients of the foods we are cooking.
Across the world and throughout time, cultures have cooked in clay and developed their unique flavors and recipes of their land. Building one of your own is like planting a seed in our ancestral memory as humans.
Soy de Barro | I am of the Clay
A Wild Clay & Elemental Initiation for Women
April 3rd - 12th | Sacred Mountain Waters, North Carolina
Soy de Barro is an elemental rite of passage —where every woman learns the ancient earth-skills of harvesting wild clay, shaping a functional cook pot with your hands, and firing our pots with in an open fire ceremony.
We form the vessels of our cookpots as our a reflection of our bodies. The wombs of our creation that will cook up the nourishment physically and spiritually that we offer ourselves, our family, our communities and this precious Earth for decades to come.
We reflect on how we have shaped our lives, repaired our cracks and fed our dreams and visions, as we prepare to surrender our creations to the fire.
Soy de Barro is built of these four pillars:
Creative immersion and skillbuilding with clay: harvesting and processing clay, making a cook pot, cooking in clay, fire making and tending
Time with the earth: camping, swimming, overnight solo, outdoor activities, night fires, and more
Community ritual, storytelling, and song
Facilitation and guidance in the work of initation and rites of passage for women
phase 1 — Offering Ceremony & Wild Clay Harvest
We meet the land with our senses, making offerings and giving thanks. We invite a conversation with the clay that unfolds through the processing of clay and building of our vessels.
We will harvest local clay to use in our cook pots and for smaller ritual items. This clay will be wedged into a commerical cooking clay body. Learning about how to work with the clay body of the Earth and your own body temple.
phase 2 — Clay Cook Pot Apprenticeship (Each Woman Makes Her Own Pot)
You learn — slowly, intentionally — how to transform clay into a functional cooking vessel:
process and prepare the clay with our hands and feet
build using ancient coiling and shaping techniques
smooth and decorate a pot that can withstand flame
learn how our ancestors made resilient pottery with the elements before electricty
ground into the earth and embody presence
Every woman makes her own cook pot, from start to finish.
phase 3 — Earthen Pigments & Body Paint
We grind pigments from soil and stone. We decorate our pots, and our bodies, with prayer and intention.
Adornment and attunement to symbols as devotion. We will also weave in storytelling with the pigments; telling our stories with the rainbows of the rocks, we will share a story stone ceremony
phase 4 — Fire by Friction & Fire Tending
You will learn how to:
make fire by friction (bow-drill)
tend a fire as an ancestor — with reverence
learn to cook in clay pots over the fire
We approach the Sacred Fire as one of our eldest and clearest teachers, here to cook us into who we came here to be.
phase 5 — Sweat Lodge: Becoming the Vessel
Before our pots enter the fire, we enter the fire.
Through a guided sweat lodge ceremony, we:
release old patterns that no longer serve the vision we are becoming.
step into personal power
Deeply connect with fire and our ability to raise our vibration
We prepare the inner vessel before we fire the outer vessel
phase 6 — Ancestral Ceremonial Firing
We place our pots into an open outdoor fire —not a kiln.
This is ancestral firing — intimate, alive, ceremonial. Learning a technique of ancestral firing and creating a protective womb with the ancestors of other fired pots. As if all that has been broken, all of our mistakes, all of our failures, and the majesty of all that has come before- joins in protection, to hold the heat of your transformation that which will make your pot sing in clarity and truth on the other side of this firing process.
We are not producing pottery. We are restoring culture. We are building cultural topsoil. Join us Woman of the Earth, Woman of the Clay, Woman who Remembers
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
Harvesting and processing wild clay
Making your own functional clay cook pot
Earthen pigments & body paint
Cacao ceremony & elemental ritual
Fire by friction (bow-drill)
Fire tending & fire safety
Somatic + embodiment practices
Rites of passage facilitation techniques (see below)
Soy de Barro is apart of the certification pathway for Earth Path Education’s Women’s Rites of Passage Guide Training. You do not need to be interested or committed to the training to participate in Soy de Barro as a personal initatory journey.
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Our Women's Initiation and Rites of Passage Guide Training is a transformational pathway for women who feel called to serve their communities through ceremony, mentorship, and initiatory leadership. Rooted in earth-based traditions, ancestral remembrance, the inner development that true initiation calls forth and village-model mentorship, this training opens the doorway into our Mystery School and the lifelong art of guiding others through thresholds.
Certification training unfolds through two in-person immersions, a year-long online training, and a practicum, all held in deep ceremony, sisterhood, and the integrity of our Earth Path lineage. Each immersion is an initiation and a training in its own right — and together they create the full foundation for graduation as a certified Rites of Passage Guide.
Find out more about the Certification Pathway here!
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We encourage particpants to camp. On site there are beautiful facilities, including indoor and outdoor bathrooms, sauna, hot tubs, swimming pond and river swimming.
Beautiful private rooms are available for $900 and a communal sleeping room (bring your own pad and bedding) for $400 if you would prefer not to camp. Item description
Cost
Full ten days of ceremonial guidance, lodging, meals, and materials is $2800. Pay in installments and hold your space with a deposit of $800.
Questions about this initation, contact us here!
Soy de Barro Guides
Hosanna White
Hosanna is dedicated to learning slow crafts like primitive firing, weaving, and foraging that connect her with the source of her materials and the magic that comes from transforming them for everyday use.
Hosanna lives in the foothills of Western Oregon, a geologically rich landscape that has inspired her studio work, Whitesnake Arts. She blends bio-regional history and land stewardship into her artwork and place based pottery.
Hosanna has led girls mentorship and supported adult rites of passage in her community since 2016. She is enlivened by ritual, the teachings of the land, and the power of coming together in community to witness each other rise and grow through the challenges and celebrations of our lives.
Lena Eastes
Lena is founding director of Earth Path Education and is devoted to cultural renewal, Earth connection, and sacred rites of passage. With contagious joy and deep empathy, she inspires others to live in alignment with their inner wisdom, the rhythms of nature, and the call of justice and beauty.
For over 16 years, Lena has led transformational Rites of Passage for girls and women, including Earth Path’s five-day “Growing Goddess” ceremony. As a thresHOLDER, she lovingly officiates life’s major thresholds—birth, motherhood, marriage, self-marriage, and the sacred passage from girlhood into womanhood.
She is a singer for the Earth, a protector of childhood and human dignity, and a creative artist of community and ceremony. Whether she's playing flute to the sunrise, blessing waters, crafting herbal medicine, or hiding in a bush during a Deer & Coyote game, Lena brings fierce grace, presence, and a wild-hearted devotion to all she touches.