Soy de Barro: Women’s Initiation & Rites of Passage Guide Training

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.

Journey with us as we become the earth, harvest from her, and craft our very own clay cook pots to be fired at the end in a culminating ceremony. We will 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.

Clay cook pots hold a time-honored place at the hearth of folklore and myth. They are snakes 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

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 an Ancestral Pottery Firing ceremony.

We form the vessels of our cookpots as our wombs. 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.

phase 1: Offering Ceremony & Wild Clay Harvest

We make offerings.We give thanks. We gather wild clay directly from Earth.

phase 2 — Clay Cook Pot Apprenticeship (Each Woman Makes Her Own Pot)

You learn — slowly, intentionally — how to transform raw clay into a functional cooking vessel:

• processing the clay

• hand-building using ancient coiling techniques

• shaping, smoothing, creating a pot that can withstand flame

• learning how clay teaches boundaries, patience, and embodied 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 ancient cooking 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 — 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 from 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.

You will:

• fire the pot you made with your own hands

• tend the flames

• witness transformation through heat, smoke, and ash

  You fire your pot. You fire and inspire your prayer. You cook your new self into being.

  
  

Every woman leaves with:

• a functional clay cook pot fired in ceremony

• a new relationship with the elements, this community of sisterhood and a fortification of your own power

  
  

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

• Fire Walk initiation

• Somatic + embodiment practices

• Sacred boundaries: the power of yes and no

  
  

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

Lena Eastes: Founder and Director of Earth Path Education

I have been a devoted student of clay since childhood, drawn to its ancient wisdom as both an artistic medium and a profound teacher of transformation. As a rites of passage guide for nearly two decades, I have come to know clay ceremony as one of the most powerful toolkits for initiation—inviting us to soften, be reshaped, and “cook” ourselves into the women we came here to be. This immersion is part of our Women’s Initiation & Rites of Passage Guide Training Full Certification, and the women gathering are deeply devoted, skillful, and wholeheartedly called to this path. After witnessing the extraordinary beauty of our 10-day Soy de Barro immersion this spring, my gratitude is overflowing to gather with Hosanna of Whitesnake Arts-one of my sheros and clay teachers who is coming from Oregon to co-teach and guide this joureny at Mandala Springs near Asheville NC. Along with Evie offering Food as Medicine as our chef Queen and teacher of Ayurvedic health and wellness- we invite you to this sacred rite of becoming through the medicine of clay, fire, water, and women.

Hosanna

Educator • Artist • Pigment Forager • Amuture Geologist • Wild Clay Potter • Homesteader

Hi, I am Hosanna! I am a descendent of early American settlers from the Albion Isles (UK and Ireland), living on Kalapuya territory in the foothills of the Coast Range in Western Oregon. I am an educator, artist, pigment forager, amuture geologist, wild clay potter, and homesteader. I blend bio-regional history and land stewardship into my earth pigment arts practice and place based pottery. These crafts have sparked a passion for clay chemistry and deepened my sense of belonging and responsibility to the land. I have always been drawn to all things local, ecologically wise, and pre-industrial for meeting my everyday needs. I believe that the land, the animals, and waters have never forgotten what so many of us humans have forgotten. I want to remember, so I am listening to them and practicing the ways of living that help me shed the expectations and objectifications that I learned within a consumer culture. It is a subversive act in an over industrialized society to cultivate and make the things we need with our hands. It is one way I remain grounded and am fighting for a regenerative future that honors life.

Evie Irving

Ayurvedic Practitioner • Chef Queen • Nourishment Keeper

Evie Irving is an Ayurvedic practitioner, wellness guide, and founder of both Ayurveda With Evie and Full Cup Catering Co. Her work bridges ancient wisdom with modern living, offering grounded, seasonal support for individuals and communities seeking nourishment in body, mind, and spirit.

With a deep background in hospitality — from food trucks to fine dining — Evie integrates her culinary expertise with her knowledge of holistic health to create vibrant, nourishing meals that celebrate the seasons. Whether cooking in a retreat kitchen or for a family table, her food reflects a belief that nourishment