At Gather Well, this past year has been a season of listening, learning, deep reflection, and change. By slowing down, we gained clarity about who we are becoming and the path ahead. What has emerged is a renewed devotion to the values we hold dear along with a reconfiguration of who “we” are. Our Vision – a thriving, equitable world in which psychedelic care is accessible, respected, and practiced for personal healing and collective transformation, and our Mission – to support individuals’ healing and participate in a shift in collective consciousness by training and supporting psychedelic practitioners in the Gather Well approach, are living practices that guide the way we walk forward together. As we step into the future, we are grounded in these values and inspired by the imaginative seeds we hold of what is possible for humankind and this dearly beloved, living, breathing Earth we all belong to.
One of the most powerful truths we’ve come to learn is that at this stage of Gather Well’s development, the heart of our mission needs to be stewarded by those who have been here since the beginning, the individuals whose vision and devotion helped bring it to fruition. After exploring different leadership structures and meeting our own growth edges, we recognized that the most authentic path is a return to our roots. As one of the co-founders said, “We seem to have made some kind of soul contract to do this work together.”
Today, we want to share that Gather Well is being stewarded by three of the four original founders: Naama Thomas, devoted to visioning and program development as well as serving as a lead ceremonial guide; Jennalise Abridge, whose expertise lies in operations, building connections and crafting strategic initiatives; and Nikiya Schwarz, who finds meaning in co-stewarding Gather Well’s vision and mission, and by nurturing the imagery and language through which its spirit is felt. Our leadership is further strengthened by Gather Well’s fourth founder, Tyger Blair, who continues to shape programs, serve as a lead ceremonial guide, and offer visionary, heart-led guidance to the team. Gather Well is also tended and influenced by a small, dedicated team of fiercely passionate individuals who help bring the vision alive and help ensure that the programs are run with integrity.
Together we are nurturing a vision for psychedelic care that uplifts the principles of the feminine, even and especially amidst an overculture that has tended to favor more masculine, hierarchical approaches. We strive to allow vulnerability, connection, seasonal attunement and relational wisdom to inform how we move within the organization.
Our aspiration is to provide a sanctuary, a home for our students, where they will find nourishment, support, opportunities to meet their growth edges and the resources they need to offer their services to healing, each carrying their own brilliance, with skill, a strong ethical foundation, and capacity to meet the challenges and opportunities of this unique moment in time. This home is woven from the relationships we cultivate together, based on the understanding that healing and transformation unfolds in community, in trust, and with authentic connection.
We are grateful to walk this path with you. Your trust, presence, and support sustain us as we continue to grow.
With care and gratitude,
The Gather Well Team
We’d like to leave you with a few words from each of us, a glimpse into what it means to be part of this leadership circle:
Naama: “To me, being a co-founder of Gather Well is a commitment to caring for and attending to the wellbeing and evolution of the organization. It means speaking our prayer into the world, speaking it into the quiet moments of ceremony and into the storms of cultural and individual suffering. I keep the prayer close to my heart, letting it move me, grow me, and give me strength at my back- the strength that is required to steward with love through the challenges. By being a co-founder I help bring life and purpose to this effort and it brings purpose to my life. I choose to be of service to the greater good, dedicating my energy to alleviating suffering and cultivating a thriving world, both through Gather Well and in collaboration with all that also take up this stewardship in their own ways.”
Jennalise: “Co-founder speaks to the various roles we each played during this process: Creator. Disruptor. Doula. Mother. The co-founder role speaks to my unique contribution, my skill of structure, my commitment to collaboration and my continued learning as we move slowly, together. It represents my dedication to the wellbeing of this organization and of all those who come into relationship with us. The sense of responsibility I feel when I consider our future, how we will continue to move in harmony with nature and continue to make space for the perpetual cycle of emergence, growth, expansion, death and rest. Ultimately, I see Gather Well as a pebble dropped into water, sending ripples outward. My hope is that these ripples build into a wave, a wave that inspires a shift in consciousness and brings us closer together in compassion and connection.”
Nikiya: “To step into leadership at Gather Well is to enter into sacred relationship with the organization, with those who gather here, and with the unseen forces that shape our becoming. It is to offer my time and energy as ritual, as prayer, as nourishment for what longs to heal in me, in others, and in the wider world, and especially towards making this work more accessible. This path asks me to embody stewardship — to guard and guide, to speak when truth calls for a voice, and to hold space for paradox and complexity. It is also a covenant with mystery itself, an agreement to walk faithfully into the unknown. I strive to co-create the best possible model for people to flourish within, knowing it won’t be perfect, and that real planetary healing is a long game in which I invest consciously in, daily.”
Tyger: “It appears that so far in this lifetime I have eschewed most titles largely because as I hold it, my primary role is to keenly listen to the ancestors’ and other sacred helpers’ subtle transmissions and do my best to first, grasp and then, heed their prodding. Said prodding coupled with my own intelligences brings forth an attempt to move the needle forward a bit more on our evolutionary path of consciousness expansion. I sense that many of us are co-founders/collaborators of a prayer set into motion so very very long ago and if we are lucky we find our kindred, and with those kindred beings we work together to bring into fruition a small part of a far larger sacred collective vision. With Naama, Nikiya and Jennalise I’ve been fortunate to find myself amongst like minded beings that carry an intelligent, magical and loving signature that I recognize and so appreciate which has landed us on this path together that we now call Gather Well.”
