the living laboratory

The Healing Homestead

Healing needs places.

Communities flourish when they have spaces designed for rest, learning, relationship, and collective care. The Healing Homestead exists to become one of those places.

A place where The Liberation Method™ is practiced not only in classrooms — but on the land, around the table, in community, and across generations.

This is the living laboratory of the ecosystem. Not a performance. Not a program. A place where Liberation is a Lifestyle is tested, tended, and lived.

Join the Collective →See upcoming events →Impact & Invest →

the liberation method™

Education • Somatics • Community

The Homestead is where Education, Somatics, and Community become a lived environment.

Learning happens here. Healing happens here. Belonging happens here.

why this place exists

Transformation is shaped by environments

The spaces we gather in influence how we heal, how we learn, and how we relate to one another.

The Healing Homestead exists because liberation deserves places where it can be practiced — not just imagined.

For the one arriving

You Were Never Meant To Do This Alone

A community-centered space for belonging, relationship, collective care, and liberation in practice.

Many of us were taught that strength means self-sufficiency. That asking for help is weakness. That needing others means we have somehow failed.

The result is exhaustion. Not because we are broken. Because we have been carrying alone what was always meant to be shared.

The Healing Homestead exists as a place to remember something many of us were never taught:

Belonging is not something you earn. Community is not a reward. Interdependence is part of being human.

Come practice being held by people who understand the weight you have been carrying.

Selenite & Sage Healing Homestead Co. is a community-based liberation infrastructure project in Southwest Atlanta: land, food sovereignty, somatic education, youth development, mutual aid, and community governance in one integrated ecosystem.

what becomes possible here

We don't separate healing from education, education from land, land from ritual, or any of it from community

Here, people practice rest, community, seasonal living, repair, collective care, joy, and interdependence. These seven areas work together, reinforcing one another. Someone may enter through one doorway and find themselves held by the entire ecosystem.

Somatic Healing & Nervous System Education

What this means

Somatic workshops · regulation practices · trauma-informed education · shadow work integration · restorative embodiment · movement & stillness rooted in The Liberation Method.

Why it matters

You can't think your way into safety. Healing happens through the body. We teach you to regulate your nervous system so you can show up differently in your relationships, your communities, and your life.

Current work

Weekly somatic circles, monthly shadow work integration, breathwork and movement practices.

Sacred Ceremony & Spiritual Practice

What this means

Led by LadySpeech. Hoodoo ritual · full moon and new moon ceremonies · seasonal celebrations · grief rituals · community blessing and repair · spiritual counsel and guidance.

Why it matters

Ritual is how we mark transformation. It's how we acknowledge what's been lost and what's possible. Sacred ceremony is a container for collective healing that words alone cannot hold.

Current work

Monthly full moon and new moon community ceremonies, seasonal rituals aligned with the earth's cycles, grief and celebration ceremonies, spiritual consultation and guidance.

Land-Based Healing & Food Sovereignty

What this means

Community gardens · seasonal growing cycles · food education · herbalism · soil wisdom · composting & sustainability · outdoor somatic practices.

Why it matters

The land isn't a backdrop, it's a teacher. When you reconnect to cycles, to growing food, to seasonal rhythms, you experience something your body remembers. This is regulation. This is power. This is sovereignty.

Current work

Tend gardens across two properties, lead monthly herb circles, teach composting and food preservation, hold seasonal planting ceremonies.

Youth & Family Liberation Education

What this means

ERIN's Place (neuroaffirming microschool) · creative regulation through art · kids' garden programs · Parenting for Liberation · seasonal camps · life skills · cultural affirmation.

Why it matters

We interrupt cycles at the root. Not just repairing harm, but preventing it, offering young people and families a different way of being, rooted in creativity, safety, cultural rooting, and community.

Current work

ERIN's Place serves neurodiverse youth · creative regulation workshops · seasonal kids' garden days · parenting circles and workshops · family healing gatherings.

Community Building & Collective Care

What this means

Liberation Nights ATL · community dinners · Sunday gatherings · peer-led circles · accountability spaces · mutual aid without shame · community agreements practice.

Why it matters

Healing alone is not freedom. This is the shift from individual healing to collective transformation. You don't just practice regulation, you practice it together.

Current work

Monthly Liberation Nights ATL, regular community dinners, Sunday gatherings, peer-led circles and accountability spaces.

Economic Justice & Resource Redistribution

What this means

Sliding scale & scholarship models · paid memberships · community-supported programming · stipends for facilitators and organizers · workforce development · cooperative economics.

Why it matters

We are modeling an alternative to extraction. Resources circulate. Community members can afford to participate. This is healing justice.

Current work

Sliding scale access across all programs, scholarship fund for youth, community-supported membership, monthly giving options.

Arts, Culture & Creative Expression

What this means

Open mics & storytelling · somatic painting · writing workshops · music, performance, ritual · creative workshops · poetry and spoken word.

Why it matters

Healing isn't only processed in circles, it's expressed. Culture is how you celebrate what's possible. Art is how you make the invisible visible. Creative practice is a form of resistance and reclamation.

Current work

Monthly open mics and storytelling, somatic painting circles, writing workshops, creative expression woven through gatherings.

The Healing Homestead Ecosystem, seven interconnected program areas surrounding the Selenite & Sage center: land-based healing, somatic education, youth & family liberation, community care, economic justice, arts & culture, and leadership.

We believe

Healing happens in relationship, not in isolation
The land is a teacher and a healer
Nervous system regulation is foundational to everything else
Youth are not future, they are present
Culture and creativity are non-negotiable parts of transformation
Communities can redistribute resources in ways that honor dignity
Liberation is not individual, it's collective
Spirit matters. Ritual matters. The body matters.

the land as teacher

The land reminds us of rhythm

Growth. Rest. Relationship. Interdependence.

The Homestead invites people to practice liberation not only with one another — but with the natural world.

this is what we are building together

2025 at a glance — the year the work came home.

These numbers are not a fundraising appeal. They are evidence of what a community built together in one year.

A permanent home base secured in Southwest Atlanta
180 people served
$12,694.87 in community support
$5,204 mobilized for Feed the Family during disrupted SNAP access
83 supporters, 14 of them monthly
87% of spending in direct community service, 0% in administration — every hour of labor volunteer-powered in the founding year

Full financials, the 2026 plan, and the 2028 vision live at Impact & Invest →

radical transparency

Transparency is a liberation practice

If we ask a community to help build something that belongs to all of us, then that community deserves to see how the work is progressing.

That is why we share our goals, milestones, funding, build phases, grant updates, and public accounting openly.

Every number tells part of the story of what we are building together.

organization & governance

How the Homestead is held

Selenite & Sage Healing Homestead Co. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit (EIN 33-4417542) governed by a community-rooted Board of Directors — Desireé B. Stephens (President, Founder), QuiAnna Ray / LadySpeech (Vice President), Telania Smith (Treasurer), Monique Johnson (Secretary) — with a three-member Advisory Council.

The Homestead work is distinct from Make Shi(f)t Happen (a Certified B Corporation housing the education and consulting practice); the two entities share a philosophy, not finances. Selenite & Sage also serves as fiscal sponsor to Warrior Artists.

Board, partners, and funding guidelines: Impact & Invest →

stewardship

Help build the place where this work lives

When you support the Healing Homestead, you are helping build a place where future generations can gather to learn, heal, rest, and practice liberation together. Every contribution helps create the physical home of this work.

Institutional

Grants & Partnerships

Funder and organizational partnerships that help hold the infrastructure.

With your labor

Volunteer

Land, gatherings, food, youth programs — pathways to show up in person.

With your resources

Fund the Work

Existing giving pathways that sustain community programs and mutual aid.

the ecosystem, distributed

Where the rest of the work lives

Membership, gatherings, the Founding Impact Report, financial transparency, board information, and pathways to invest each have their own home now.

practice environment

Community

Membership, the Healing Homestead Collective, practitioners, and community agreements.

dynamic gatherings

Events

Sunday Gatherings, ceremonies, workshops, retreats, and Homestead events.

stewardship & transparency

Impact & Invest

Founding Impact Report, where your money goes, board, partners, and pathways to give.

belonging

Every path matters

Some people will discover this work through a podcast. Some through a classroom. Some through community. Some will one day walk this land.

One ecosystem.
Many ways in.

The Homestead is one of those doorways.

legacy

This place exists not only for today

It is being built for future practitioners, families, educators, organizations, and communities who deserve spaces rooted in healing, justice, and belonging.

founder’s intent

The Healing Homestead was imagined as more than a destination. It is the living laboratory of The Liberation Method™ — a place where education, somatics, and community are practiced together in relationship with the land, the seasons, and one another.

It exists because healing is shaped not only by what we learn, but by the environments we create and the communities we cultivate.

The Homestead is an investment in future generations.

We also believe transparency is part of liberation. Every milestone, every dollar, every grant, and every phase of this project is shared publicly because stewardship is one of the ways we practice trust.

We are not simply building a place. We are building it in relationship with the community that believes in it.

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