Our Lineup for 2024

Toni Jones

Matriarch Rising's Headliner

Our beloved headliner Toni is back for a new-and-improved, hyped-up performance that will get your hearts open, your body shaking, and your spirit singing. Toni Jones is a former life-coach and mental health advocate turned Affirmation Musician who channels positivity with her self-affirming, women-centered beats. Her songs have become anthems of power for the women at MRF, and her one-of-a-kind energy pulses love and joy into any space.

Jessica Ash

The Art of Female Nourishment

Female nourishment is a lost art. We have forgotten the importance of meeting our body’s basic needs- leading to a waning of the metabolic fire. Fast-paced living, convenience, diet-culture and restriction have stolen the power in being able to prepare a balancing and nourishing plate for ourselves and our families. We will explore how women’s relationship with food is often tied up with misogyny, scarcity and hypervigilance, but should be one filled with devotion and love.

You will learn how the simple act of nourishing female physiology is able to restore the fire of womankind and can bring healing to the matrilineal line.

Come join as we walk through how to collectively bring back this lost art that impacts fertility, libido, hormones, perception of the world, our ability to be present, creativity, the depth of love we feel and so much more. 

Simone Sobers

The Boss Chick Dance Workout's: Twerk Basics + Flow Activation

Simone created The Boss Chick Dance Workout as a safe space for women to explore to explore the art of twerk as a fun workout, a resource for healing, and as a transformative form of therapy. The Mission of this workout is to create diverse safe spaces in the fitness industry for women to discover their power, build confidence, and experience the duality of strength and release through dance and community.

Join us for an introduction to basic twerk steps as an exploration of accessing and awakening the hips, root, and sacral chakra through an invigorating afro/soca movement session coupled with an exploration of twerk as a healing practice.

Rebecca Cohen

Your Medicine Bowl

Deepen your connection to your pelvic bowl - "the cauldron of your creativity." Tap into your core feminine energy to restore creative flow and overall health.

This class introduces anatomy and physiology of your pelvis, breath-work and awareness techniques to deepen your connection and also introduces how to do your own physical hands-in care with vaginal self massage to improve pelvic floor vitality. Learning how to care for the root of your body through sacred self care helps with pelvic floor issues, including pelvic pain, prolapse, painful sex but most importantly helps prevent those challenges to begin with.

Tatiana Berindei

Voice of the Womb

We hold the world in our wombs. We hold the connection to our deepest knowing, to our ancestors and to the future - all within this sacred portal. In this workshop we dive deep into our womb, explore the vagina-voice connection and find creative ways to express what our womb is wanting to say.

Drawing on a lifetime as a singer and over 20 years exploring the feminine mysteries, Tatiana will guide you through a womb, voice and heart-opening experience unlike any other. Come prepared to open, to express, to heal, to move and to sing - and maybe growl a little bit, too!

Toni Jones

Affirmation PlayShop

Toni Jones facilitates fun centered interactive activities that guide audience participation in transforming their negative self talk into positive self talk. 

Tea Time with Toni 

Along with music/instruments playing Toni leads a soulful and vulnerable conversation and meditation circle while drinking different teas that ignite the senses. 

Arielle de Martinez

Solstice Herb Walk

Join our in-house herbalist Arielle de Martinez as she takes us on a walk discovering the sacred flora on our festival grounds. This is a walk for all experience levels, kids included! Herbalists are encouraged to join.

Kate Varsava & Emilee Saldaya

Transmuting the Witch Wound and Setting Your Essential Self Free

We carry the wounds of persecution in our bones. From these wounds stem the limitations which we place on ourselves, stopping us short of fulfillment, success, pleasure, freedom… But we also hold the capacity to transform that which no longer serves us.

We have more access than ever before to self-led healing, and at the same time more distractions than ever vying for our evolving consciousness. Learn practices to support you staying on your golden path and embodying your authentic self.

Jessica Ash

Learning to Read the Language of Your Body

What if our body sent us messages letting us know exactly what type of nourishment it needed? Guess what? It does! Many of us are stuck in never-ending cycles of self-restriction, which keeps our body in a state of scarcity and hypervigilance. We chase symptoms instead of chasing vitality. Keeping us energetically stagnant, survival-based eating patterns impact our moods, self-perception, relationships, fertility, hormones, digestion and more.

Come explore what “metabolic messages” your body is sending you, how to decipher them and how deep nourishment can return you to yourself in a profound way.

 Facilitating Women's Circles

Join a panel of experienced women's circle facilitators hosting this live circle experience together where you'll learn the importance of circling, how to find your women, start your own circle, maintain the space, navigate troubleshooting, and more.

Come with ideas, questions, and openness to stepping into the role of circle facilitator yourself. If you’ve always wanted to have all the tools and no more excuses to start your own Women’s circle, this is it!

Nancy Lucina & Kristin Hauser

Journey Through the Womb Heart

Journey into the sacred and the mundane of the Womb Heart through the lens of Chinese Medicine, hormonal intelligence and sacred sound. You’ll be guided into this inner temple to alchemize any emotional stagnation, clarify your inner connection to womb wisdom and increase your innate vitality. Harmonizing the Womb Heart can clear deep seated womb and hormone issues, release trauma and transform your path forward. You’ll emerge rooted in your power and body wisdom. We’ll have space to share, be seen and held in sisterhood.

Jana Cruder

Breast Health & The Lymphatic

Empowering women to deepen and cultivate a breast practice, break down barriers around the health of their breast tissue, properly educate on the role of our lymphatic system from the lens of Ayurveda. This workshop will demystify common shared fears and narratives, address and identify breast imbalances and teach you to unwind and listen to your symptoms. Meeting you where you are at all stages of life whether you are pregnant, a new momma or post-menopausal this information belongs to us all.  

We will review in depth the breast and lymph connection, the impact of emotions and trauma on our heart chakra and breast tissue, discuss the role of the lymph in our body and reproductive health and arm you with knowledge to act if and when you have an imbalance.

Brandi Sadler

Kirtan: Invoking Divinity Within

Derived from the Sanskrit root meaning to call, recite, or praise, kirtan is the singing of call and response mantras to call the Divine into the heart.

Mantra, a sacred utterance, serves as a tool to guide and protect the mind. Through reciting mantra, we guide our consciousness away from excessive thoughts into a seat of awareness of quiet and stillness.

In kirtan, we praise the divine through the many forms in which it manifests, through specific words that focus our intention and energy to the consciousness that lives within, as we invite divinity in.

Renowned Kirtan artist Krishna Das, says kirtan is “like an older, deeper, bigger being. It's a space, a presence, a feeling. These names are the names of that place inside of us that is love, pure being, pure awareness, pure joy, helping us to uncover our true nature.”

Join Brandi Sadler and other MRF musicians for an afternoon of Kirtan to open and expand your heart and mind.

Dr. Elderberry

Remineralizing the Spirit

Learn what Homeopathy is and how it differs from plant medicine, how Homeopathy can help us reach the deepest depths within ourselves, and how minerals can be used beyond the physical and into Homeopathic form to guide us on our human journey from womb to tomb.

This is a class for those that wish to support themselves or others in feeling supported with a strong foundation with which to build a sense of safety, connection, abundance, and lasting joy from within.

Erica Davis

Wild Woman Yoga

Start your festival mornings with an energizing yoga practice, moving and breathing together as the sun rises over Solstice stage.

Rediscover your wild woman by fully inhabiting your physical vessel, stretching and strengthening each part of you.  Cultivate presence and clarity through mindful movements set to awesome playlists and creative sequences.   

Each practice will focus on movements for the female body, designed to awaken and invigorate.  With a combination of traditional yoga asanas and breathing techniques as well as playful, explorative movements, this practice will suit every body.  Whether you’re pregnant, postpartum, advanced to beginner, there will be  options to make the practice feel good for everyone.

We’ll finish our classes with a super sweet savasana under the morning sun, alongside your sisters, restoring balance and ease into body and mind and preparing you for an action packed day of festival fun.  

Powerful, calm, and focused; your inner wild woman awaits.

Village Prenatal

Village Prenatal is a reclamation of birth, back to community, back into the hands and the hearts of those who are the tribe of her belonging.  

Carrying on the tradition of Sister MorningStar, we gather around the pregnant mothers, no matter where they plan to birth, how they plan to birth or with whom they plan to birth. We gather around them because they carry the future of humanity. They are the Holy Mothers. We shower them with our finest foods and make them a place of honor. We oil their feet and tell them positive birth stories.

We hand them the talking stick and we ask them, “If you could birth any way you wish, what would it look like, sound like, be like?” We listen. We respond, “May it be so!” Then we ask, “What is your big fear, worry, concern, doubt, anxiousness or preoccupation?” We listen. We hold the sacred space. We don’t solve the problem. We don’t let any professional hat crown the head of anyone present.

We are women together in this great mystery. We respond, “We are here for you!” We ask permission to touch and listen to her baby, to paint the belly and body with mud or color. We laugh and play and talk to the baby. “We are your elephant circle!” We tell mother and baby. We sing the power songs around her. We bless her.

Nya Boucher

Mandala Vinyasa Yoga

Join Nya for a universal, energetic flow to ignite your inner fire with the rising morning sun. Through a conscious and scientific sequencing of ancient postures, Nya will take you on an energy spiral-journey to uncoil the goddess within.

This yoga asana class will awaken and communicate with all Maya Koshas - all layers of your being - as we turn and move around the mat with vibrant fluidity. We will face the four sacred directions and utilize pranayama to swirl our energy into an even deeper spiral groove, and cultivate powerful tumo or tapas (inner-fire) through accessing your personal-edge of each posture.

Regardless of your physical ability, stage of pregnancy, or experience with asana practices, this class will meet you at your precise edge and hold you there with excitement, compassion, and spiritual reverence. Nya's classes are accessible to all women, including those who are pregnant. We will end with a guided savasana to integrate the effects of your practice and open your heart to the rest of the day.

Tatiana Berindei

Path to Puberty

How do we keep from inadvertently passing on the toxic narratives we were taught about bodies and sex to our children? How do we raise a generation of women who genuinely know what it means to respect themselves, their planet, their peers and their elders? Why are rites of passage so important and what are essential elements for effective rites of passage for young people today? 

A workshop for anyone involved in raising the next generation, the Path to Puberty provides you with a framework to navigate the challenging, exciting and sometimes downright hard AF years leading up to and through puberty. Did you know that your daughter might start exhibiting signs of changing hormones as early as 6, 7 or 8 years old?

This workshop equips you with the tools needed to talk about bodies, sex and relationships with your kids in a healthy and life-affirming way and tailor the conversations to be age and developmentally appropriate as your children grow and mature. Leaning on her 20+ years of ceremonial experience, Tatiana will also offer some ideas on how to create effective and meaningful rites of passage for our youth.

Emileigh Zola

Broomcraft and Connection : Turkey Wing Whisks

More than a handcrafts class, Emileigh creates a ritual space for participants to settle in and create with intention. 

Each woman will have an opportunity to craft a traditional Appalachian turkey wing whisk broom with natural materials and lots of love and prayer. Leave the class feeling connected, accomplished, and empowered to bless and cleanse your home.

Broomcraft and Connection : Hawk Tail Whisks

Each woman will have an opportunity to craft a traditional Appalachian hawk tail whisk broom with natural materials and lots of love and prayer. Leave the class feeling connected, accomplished, and empowered to bless and cleanse your home.

Kristin Hauser & Nancy Lucina

Menarche Reclamation Ceremony

How were you initiated into the blood mysteries? Do you remember your first bleed with clarity? Maybe you were like many other women and that special day was clouded by embarrassment or shame.  Or maybe it just went unnoticed by those around you and wasn’t anything to celebrate. 

However that first rite of passage was for you, we’re going to reclaim it together in power and sisterhood and re-write our stories so that we feel even more rooted in the sacredness that the blood mysteries hold. 

Join Nancy Lucina and Kristin Hauser in this special, dynamic and interactive Menarche Reclamation Ceremony. Experience a deep dive into your womb while being guided and held by these Blood Mysteries School facilitators. You’ll learn about your inner maiden, your red thread, how this first initiation has impacted so many moments in your life and you’ll rise up to reclaim your story as powerful medicine for this world. 

Expect ritual, song, magic and transformation in this special Menarche Reclamation Ceremony.

Kat Harmon

Chakra Dance

Join Kat Harmon for an in depth experience through your energy centers. Balancing the energy centers with targeted, easy to follow, energy aligning moves to high energy or intentional music. With each song we will explore a chakra starting with the root and working our way to the crown. No experience necessary. Come ready to shift your energy and learn new ways to energize & find balance within yourself.

Emilee Saldaya

 A Mother's (re)Initiation Ceremony

The vast majority of women becoming mothers are improperly initiated into motherhood through the harmful practices of obstetrics and medical midwifery. Most women today are transition into motherhood with trauma, self-doubt, fear, anxiety, and disembodiment. This ceremony, led by Emilee Saldaya - trailblazer of the sovereign birth movement - is an opportunity for the mothers in our community who were improperly initiated, to walk through a complete and loving re-initiation, in order to write a new story, to be witnessed and held by their sisters, and to create a new marker of initiation for their lives.

There is nothing else like this deep and profound rite of passage, where you will get a chance to speak your lived story and completely welcome in new deep-seeded truths written by the loving and uplifting words of the women holding you in this sacred ceremony. Allow this to be the (re)starting point for your motherhood path. All women are welcome and called in to participate in this ceremony.

DeeAnn Macomson

Drum Circle

Join us for a fun, interactive drum circle. This drum circle will focus on building community and deepening connections as we create and build rhythms together. Bring whatever instruments you have (drums, shakers, flutes, pot and pans, anything!) and let’s have fun! 

Meg Edwards & Megan Borukhovsky

Tea Ceremony

Join us in ceremony as we make and drink tea, a traditional drink from the South Pacific. Learn about how we use tea today in our women's circles to bring this tradition back to life among the women. Tea is a deeply relaxing and heart-opening plant medicine, and is the perfect way to end your day at MRF.

*Important* Bring your own mug!

Julia Hempe

Toddler Yoga

Bring your toddler to shake their sillies out! This is an easy going, open ended class in which we’ll introduce basic yoga concepts and foundations in a fun and developmentally appropriate way. There will be some combination of asanas, breath work, stories, games, music, meditation, and more!

DeeAnn Macomson

Azul Conscious Movement

Azul Conscious Movement is an embodied dance practice for every “body!” We will move freely to harness the wisdom of the body with joy and full self expression. In the dance we will be working with Feeling, Expressing and Releasing. No dance experience is needed! 

Julia Hempe

Motherbaby Circle

A nurturing space for motherbabies to come together to connect, share, and collaborate. We’ll incorporate song, storytelling, and movement to explore and expand in our role as Mothers and beyond. Babies will be invited to engage through baby yoga/massage. (60 min)

Zainab Alradhi

The Cycle Wisdom Map

Cycle Wisdom map is designed to weave our cyclical understanding and connection to the cycles around, and within us. This map is inspired by the teachings of Jane Hardwicke Collings, founder of School of Shamanic Womancraft.

Anjali Cierva Blanca

Wounds to Wisdom: A Psychonaut’s Embrace

An expansive heart-to-heart for all women, psychonauts, and psychedelic-curious, walking with abuse, eating disorders, visceral grief, addictions, a growing resentment towards unhealed men, & spiritual isolation.

DJ Sed the Saint

Sed The Saint is an open-format DJ who hails from the endearing city of New Orleans, Louisiana. With over a decade on the industry scene, she comes from a long familial line of jazz musicians--three generations of music lovers, makers, and performers who have traveled the world.

Sed specializes in every genre under the Soundcloud sun. Whether it’s hip hop, pop, top of the Billboard charts, house, EDM or oldies, she mixes music like a spicy gumbo.

DJ Lyris aka The Hybrid Specialist

Lyris is a disc jockey hailing from Nashville, TN and now resides in Atlanta, GA. Lyris' name is derived from the word "lyric", meaning "the words of a song." With a name like Lyris, she was destined to gravitate to music, which is precisely what she did.

DJ Lyris' music is mood changing and mind bending, unconfined to any boxes. It evokes a warmth that is both soulful and nostalgic. Her signature hybrid mashups give listeners permission to let go, remain present, and open up to the unknown - if only for a moment.

Matriarch 1

MRF resident DJ Matriarch 1 brings the late night grooves in exhalation and grindy celebration. Matriarch 1 has developed a deep relationship with dirty bass and funky beats that keep the dance floor energy high. Her DJ sets build a foundation that entices the crowd to connect to the elements and find their embodiment with her precisely curated selections with booty shaking, big grinning vibes. A little dirty, a little funky, a little bit of everything, Matriarch 1’s sets will likely leaving you wanting to rip your clothes off and howl at the moon.

Variety Show

A core tradition of MRF, the Variety Show is an exciting and fun event where YOUR talent can shine on stage in the presence of consciously supportive women. Bring your divine talent, take the stage, and share it with us! Every year we get the pleasure of witnessing singers, dancers, poets, musicians, and more share their gift freely and proudly. And this year, Toni Jones will be hosting the Variety Show for an extra fun and energetic experience!

Silent Disco

If you're ready to laugh your ass off and boogie the night away - you're coming to the silent disco for one of the best dance parties of your life. We've got three different DJs with their own unique styles, rocking the same dance floor, so you can switch channel to channel depending on your vibe. And the best part? No amplified sounds. It's a riot, and we can't wait to do it again with you.

Opening & Closing Circle

Join us in these two circles to open and close the magical container of Matriarch Rising Festival. In these powerful circles, we harness ritualized energy to set the tone for our time together at The Magic Place. Together we will sing, cry, connect, vent, set intentions, move our bodies, and more, all in a collective ceremony. Here, you'll lock eyes with your sisters for the first and last times at MRF and open your heart to the healing transformation that this festival can offer you.

Song Circle

Start your morning off in song and community with our morning song circles. Song has long held a place in women’s lives and routine, and has been lost along the way.  Rediscover what it feels like to sing in harmony with your sisters, with no insecurity of what your voice sounds like or whether or not you know the words, and bask in the feeling of kinship and sisterhood.

Community Meals

We offer two meals per day where the entire festival eats together. This is a sweet opportunity to remember the old ways of communal living, to share in conscious eating of incredibly delicious and nourishing food, and to connect with the women around you the way we always have - talking our hearts out over a good meal. Sit beside each other, professional hats and labels aside, and just be, as women. This is where lifelong friendships are made!

Bonfire

Another famous MRF tradition, the bonfire is one of the ways we open the festival on the first day. Women come together to build a giant community bonfire throughout the day, and when the sun goes down, the flames fly high! We sing songs by the fire, dance naked under the Summer stars, play drums, howl at the moon, and let our witchy spirits run wild and free.