59. Woo Woo in the Redwoods: Nurturing Community and Healing in Nature

Hi, we're Cinthia Vargaviser and Michelle Walters, co-hosts of Mind Power Meets Mystic.

Our weekly show is here to expand your mind to what's possible, to uplift your spirits,

to move forward with confidence and joy, and to create a space for your collaboration with

the invisible.

Welcome to Mind Power Meets Mystic!

Welcome. We are Mind Power Meets Mystic. I am Michelle Walters and I am here with my

co-host Cinthia Varkevisser. We are so excited today to be speaking to Annie Blackstone.

Annie Blackstone is the founder and mother of Woo Woo in the Redwoods, a biannual gathering

in the Redwoods near Canyon, California. She teaches shamanic practices, hypnotherapy,

EFT, Reiki, and other classes at HCH Institute.

Annie's goal is to provide her students

with a solid foundation in shamanic practices

and to create a supportive and dynamic community of healers

because the world needs us more now than ever.

Annie's teaching draws on a variety of cultures,

teachers, and traditions,

which all stem from an understanding

of working in relationship and reciprocity with nature

and the unseen forces that shape our world.

Annie has a wide variety of modalities,

including hypnotherapy, shamanic practices,

ancestral healing, EFT, past life regression,

spirit release, sand play therapy, and brain spotting.

Welcome, Annie, we're so happy to have you here today.

- Thank you, it's good to be here.

It's good to see you both.

- So I was very excited.

I met Annie about a year ago, introduced by some friends who

had been telling me for months about this great event

that Annie puts on called Woo Woo in the Redwoods.

And it's a hard thing to explain.

We're going to be talking about it a little bit more

throughout the show.

But I was so excited to get to meet Annie, who's

the inspirer, the person who had the little inspiration, somebody

who told her source, I don't know what it is. But somehow

Annie's the one who came up with the whole thing. And it's really

just a very magical kind of event. So Annie, I know that one

of the pieces of all of this is that you have a personal and

long standing relationship with this magical location in Canyon

California, where the event is held. Can you tell us a little

bit more about how you came to find Canyon and and recognize

the the potential of this special space?

Hmm. I first came here and he 79 I think I was just kid and

loved it. I immediately thought the first time I came here, because I'd been in Oakland for a

little while by then, I had thought that, oh, this is where all the magic came when it got pushed out

of the city. So I was here for a bit, and then I went away and did some other things. And then

when I had kids, I wanted to come back here. This is where I wanted to raise them. So that's what I

did. And I raised five kids here. Four of them went to Canyon School, and I spent so much time there,

of course, with my kids.

And the Grove at the school is just the most beautiful

and magical place.

And I always had a dream of bringing people,

woo woo people like myself, there to spend the day.

And then COVID hit and I was like,

I just so much wanted people to come together

and community in person.

And so I had been thinking about it for many years

and I finally just took the plunge

and made the arrangements with the school

and started inviting my people and my students and people I knew to come and present and

come hang out for the day. And it just took off from there.

Well, it's funny because I grew up in the East Bay and I remember being a kid sometime.

I have no idea why, but I remember being in the back of mom's station wagon and at some

point driving past Canyon and thinking, what is this town that has like a school in a post

office and that's about it. But here it was nestled in the

redwoods, not far from a really big city. And yet it feels like

a place that is completely I don't know, out of outside of

time and space. It's um, it's a really special. It's a special

little location. And I've always been a redwood lover. I went to

UC Santa Cruz because I really had to live up in the redwoods

for a time in my life. And so it's just it's just fantastic.

You've been able to put this event together in such a pretty,

pretty place.

Yeah, yeah, we need to come together in community and we

need to like just be outside. Yeah, so often we're so well

taken care of that we just shuffle into one room into

another room from one chair to another chair. You know, it's

very nice to just come out and like, Oh, I'm going into the

woods today. And I'm going to go in the woods and I'm going to

meet a lot of people that are interested in all the woo things.

And when I say woo things, I mean, we have a pretty strong

shamanic group that show up and teach different things,

different practitioners, we have, like yourself, several

hypnotherapy folks that come. We have people who talk to the

stars and talk to the plants and yoga with the trees and sing

songs and do crystal ball healing. We do, we have a Reiki clinic there where all my Reiki students,

I invite them to come and donate their, everybody donates their time, but they come and give

sessions during the throughout the time of the Woo Woo. And we have a kids program so everybody

can bring their kids and the kids get to play in the woods that day too. It's really very beautiful.

Finally, you know, I finally made the decision to do it and I started putting the information out.

And for many years, I homeschooled my kids for a while,

so I just get involved in everything, right?

So I helped to create some of the homeschooling

California networking thing for homeschoolers.

I helped create their kids program

for their yearly convention.

And then after that, between the last 20 years,

I've been leading medical trips teams to Haiti.

I have a nonprofit for Haiti.

- Oh, wow.

- I'm used to like leading groups, doing big things,

and you know, like people,

people concentrated people things.

And so after the first woo, I got home

and I was like, "That's nice, that's really nice."

But something was missing.

And I was home and I was, it's quiet and I'm relaxed.

What was missing was trouble.

There was no trouble.

You get 150 people in the woods and no trouble at all.

Like what a wonderful group of people that is,

that they all just come there and they're just so happy

to be in the scene and to share their wisdom

and to, yeah, just be together.

- Yeah, no, it's a beautiful, beautiful event.

I was also wondering, Annie, tell me a little bit more

about your work at HCH and how you came to be a part

that institution? They asked me really though. So I was first certified as a

hypnotherapist in: 1992

anyway, and that was made my heart sing. I loved it. I had been on the spiritual

path for my whole dang life and had many teachers and then found

hypnotherapy and was like, this is it for me.

And I had a good practice in Oakland

for many years after that.

But eventually I started having kids

and eventually had five and no real time.

- Yeah, that's quite a handful.

(both laughing)

- No real time for working outside the home,

just kind of dealing with their stuff.

So I did that for a good long time.

And then when that kind of, not that it's ever done,

but when there began to be room to breathe for myself,

I started looking for what makes me happy

and my heart sing again.

And lo and behold, I found HCH,

which HCH stands for hypnotherapy clearing house,

but it's been there for like 35, 40 years in Lafayette.

It's been the, it's long standing hypnotherapy institute.

And so I just started taking classes there

and I teach now and one of the things I always tell people

and maybe somebody who listens to this

might also need to hear it,

is the way to find the thing that you need

in your life's path is to follow what makes you happy.

And that is totally what I did.

And I was in crisis when I decided to just like

find what makes me happy.

And I just kept moving toward it.

And HCH was a big part of that.

It was just, I don't, I wasn't looking to, you know,

it for a job, I wasn't looking to teach,

I wasn't looking for anything that I've ended up with

in this like wonderful life that I have.

but I just kept following what made me feel good.

And eventually I ended up doing what makes my heart sing

all the time.

I am so lucky.

I woke up the other morning and I thought,

you know, my job is to love dogs and love people.

Like how great is that, right?

- Well, that might be your job.

That might be how you see it,

but I'm sure other people see it in other ways too.

So, but along the lines of following the things that you love, you have created this amazing

community. So can you tell us a little bit more about the community you've created? I mean,

I have to say the thing that there are two things that really struck me about in the redwoods

besides the absolute beauty of the space. And that is that the kids you had set up programs

for the kids throughout the day. And the kids said, we are having so much fun tramping through the

woods, that that's what it was. It was they get to follow their heart's desire, which I think is

the greatest thing in the whole wide world. And the second is that people were very willingly

and joyfully introducing themselves and hugging and just so welcoming and lovely. And that's,

that's a community that you've created. And so I'd love to know more about how that came to be.

I just let it happen.

Is that the same with the shamanic work? Did you just let that happen? And it kind of appeared in

your life and? Yeah, well, I had five kids, you know, they rub off all the rough edges. Not that

that I don't have a lot of rough edges left,

but that, you know, like you just learn to, you know,

soften and allow things to happen.

And so when I wanted to do the woo woo,

and I wanted to bring people together

and I started talking to my students first

because the HCH folks are my students,

I knew would come and be there.

And first thing, my friend Renata says,

"Hey, I've wanted to do this with kids for forever."

And I'm like, okay,

Please do, you can do what you want to do.

Like make a beautiful kids program

and she spends so much time doing it

and is so thoughtful and caring about how she brings

the children into the community and into sacred space

and into spirit and like talking to trees

and having fairy tea parties and all the fun things.

Same with most everybody who wants to present

or give them the opportunity to be there

and share what they know and share their wisdom

is allowing people to just be who they are

and express what they have a desire in their heart to share.

Sometimes it takes folks a little while

'cause they're like looking for where's the boundaries

to bounce off of.

Not that I do have boundaries,

but I also am very fluid in allowing people to come forward

and share what they makes their heart sing

because that's, I think why we're here.

Is to share those things that make us,

that express who we are.

So the community is, they just come and it's just,

I welcome everybody like there, and it is really now

since especially the last few years,

it's like sometimes I only see people every six months.

So I have to do this twice a year, right?

so I can get them to come visit.

And yeah, it just, it kind of is very fluid.

And I try not to hold it too tightly

and allow things to happen.

And sometimes, you know, there have to be rules.

Somebody asked me their day, hey, can I still apply?

Can I, I said, yeah, because, you know, I make the rules.

And then I thought to myself,

and the first rule is there's no rules.

But people do need some containment sometimes.

So I do put deadlines on things.

and I do meet with people and I do try to do that.

But yeah, it's like that.

- That's really beautiful.

I wanna remind all of the folks we have listening today

that you are listening to Mind Power Meets Mystic

with me, Michelle Walters,

and my podcast, Pal Simpia Varkivisir.

Today we are talking to Annie Blackstone,

who is a shaman, a hypnotherapist, an EFT practitioner,

and many, many more things,

as well as the mother of Woo Woo in the Redwoods,

which is an upcoming event

that we should let everybody know about the date

and how to get tickets,

'cause of course that's key that this whole thing.

So if you can come or just wanna see gorgeous pictures

about what this is event is all about

so that you can come next time,

the next version of Woo Woo in the Redwoods

is happening on Sunday, October 1st.

It is in Canyon, California, which is between Moraga and Oakland.

And you can learn all about it at the easy to remember URL of woo-woointheredwoods.com,

which I think is just genius. And I will spell that out now just so nobody's going to miss it.

Woo Woo is W-O-O-W-O-O in the redwoods.

R-E-D-W-O-O-D-S. So beautiful website, Annie.

The person you have taking pictures does a lovely job.

And I think everybody should just take a look at the pictures.

They can't capture all of it, but they do a good job

of giving you a nice hint.

Yeah, Carmilla Obscura, who does the crystal bowl session in Redwoods, she does all the webby

things and the, you know, it's like, there's a few strong mamas who just like stepped right up

beside me when I wanted to do this. And they're like, "Oh, okay, so I'll do this piece." That's

what I meant, you know, Renata did that. She came in and said, "I want to do this." Carmilla says,

"Hey, I can make a website."

The first time, I only had a Facebook page

for like the first year

and just kind of put it out a little bit like that.

But we should say Eventbrite is where you get tickets.

- Okay.

- And there's links on the website too.

But they do all those things.

It's very like, people want this to happen.

That's why it happens.

It's very organic.

Sometimes we'll get somebody involved,

help things and want to make it big

I'm like, no, I don't want to make it big.

I wanted to just grow--

Don't, Annie, you told us a little bit about how you

found your way to HCH.

I'm curious, where did you learn hypnotherapy?

Where did you learn your shamanic work?

Maybe you meant that you learned that at HCH,

but maybe you picked that up somewhere else.

I'm curious.

Yeah, so I was raised on the Yurok Reservation

on the Klamath River.

That is not where I learned anything about shamanism,

but it is where I would learn to not say I was a shaman.

(laughs)

- Okay.

- That's not a presumption I would make,

but I am a person with some medicine, that is true.

I have, yes, I would say that.

So coming from there and I was accepted

into some of the tribal things and dances and stuff.

And you know, this was a long time ago

and this was before kind of native indigenous folks

were getting their power back.

They were still very marginalized when I was growing up.

And one of the most beautiful things in my life

has been on the climate through, right?

I'm from right on where the river goes into the ocean,

right on Highway 101 there.

- Oh, that's beautiful.

I can't hear there once.

It's stunning. - That's amazing.

- Yeah, that's where I'm from.

But when I was a kid, it was a totally different place.

And it's been such a joy to watch the river come back,

to watch the people of that place come back, right?

Like things do, the mother earth will repair herself

if we can just support her in it

and get the hell out of the way, really.

So it's been really beautiful to watch that happen.

In my lifetime, when I was a kid,

there were a lot of the animals that are there

were not there, there weren't eagles,

there were barely any osprey,

and now it's just, the skies are full and it's beautiful.

Yeah, it's really special.

- You're making me smile as I imagine nature,

'cause I just love nature.

- It is a very powerful place, you know,

when you're on the Klamath River,

you're like, she is not sleeping.

She is an active, active being this mother earth.

So being from there, I am registered

with the Cherokee tribe as a person in that,

but that wasn't how I was raised

because my grandfather himself had been,

his family had been marginalized

and scattered and then he left our family.

So I wasn't raised in that culture, but I knew it, you know?

I knew it from growing up and I knew what I wasn't

and what I was.

So I was very careful to seek out teachers along the way

in a way that was respectful and in a way

that wasn't appropriating or pretending anything.

That wasn't true.

So basically for the teachings that I teach,

it's just common core shamanism kind of stuff.

it's not any secret tribal stuff at all.

And it's mostly animism, right?

It's that we've all known forever that there are forces

that are influencing us all the time.

So it's just being more open to that

and learning how to relate in that kind of unseen worlds.

And as well as with the seen things

that are right outside our windows and under our feet

and having access to that,

which has a lot to do with listening.

Not expecting what we hear to be in English

'cause we're speaking English or whatever language we speak,

but maybe trees talk a little differently, right?

- Yeah.

- So me, I kind of just kept going on my own path

and doing my own thing and have many teachers.

And I like the saying of, I had many teachers

and many of those teachers didn't know they were teaching me

and I didn't know I was learning anything.

And eventually what happened was, as far as teaching this

Shimano course, which is a lovely community of people

who come to the WUWU, is that Holly Holmes Meredith,

who owns HCH, asked me to teach it.

And I was like, "What?"

(laughs)

And yeah, so I had to figure that out.

I had to figure out if it was okay with me

and the spirits that support me.

And it was, and I've been doing it ever since.

- Yeah, so it's kind of how I got where I am.

I did a lot of work in between and a lot of gathering.

I have had a nonprofit for Haiti now for,

it'll be 20 years next year.

I support schools in Haiti.

Now we have just one school with about 400 kids

and we feed and educate them every day.

And we employ about 30 people.

And I've been doing that for a good long time now.

keeps happening because it's supposed to. That's all I can

say about that. It's who knows, you know, Haiti is just such a

hard place.

And it's wonderful to hear about your work there because I, I've

never been but whenever I speak to someone who's been to Haiti

who has a better understanding of what's going on there, it's

just clear it's a place that really needs love and resources

and healing and I think it's wonderful and commendable

that you're running a school there, that's fantastic.

- Yeah, well, I started doing,

my kids are Haitian, I have two Haitian daughters

and I started doing it 'cause I realized

that most of the kids in the orphanages there

when I went to visit weren't there

because their parents were dead or they were there

because their parents couldn't feed them

and they couldn't send them to school.

So they moved into the orphanages.

So I tried to look, for me it was like,

you know, the children are the fruit of this tree.

What is at the root of it?

And so we started some schools.

I built about six or seven schools in Haiti

and I've just continued to do this work

and get people involved who have the money to do it

and for the heart to do it.

And yeah, 'cause if people can feed and educate their kids,

they're more likely to be able to keep them.

And two, nobody's gonna come from outside and save Haiti.

It's gonna be Haitian people who save Haiti

and maybe we can educate some of those children

so that they're the next people who lead Haiti.

And who knows how that will play out

as far as what I've done,

but I know that we've fed some kids and educated

and brought some medical teams there

and helped in big ways for the most needy people there.

So that's a pretty cool thing.

- That's a fantastic thing, Annie.

I think that's more than just kind of cool.

But now I want to talk a little bit

about some of the upcoming events

that people can look forward to at WUWU.

I am delighted to be doing my manifesting workshop again.

My manifesting workshop is put together

that comes out of my book.

I have a book called An Alignment of Spirit,

Finding Work You Love.

And I figured out a way to teach some of the core pieces

of my book with games and fun things to do in the woods

in about 90 minutes.

And I'm delighted to be doing this again.

I've put it on a couple of times before.

It's been very well received.

People like my book, but I think people like the class

just as much because it kind of makes it all real

and human and attaching to the place really

as I put on the class.

So I'm really excited to be doing that again,

this coming up, woo woo.

- We're glad to have you.

Everybody's always having a great time at Yale Arts.

- Yeah, but-

- Like, yeah, they're having fun.

- It's fun.

- It's really great.

- Cinthia, share with us what you're gonna do at woo woo.

- I'm switching it up a little bit.

So last time I did play in your problems and spirit will win.

That was a lot of fun because it was a good time

to shake up--

people get emotionally connected to their challenges,

which makes it hard for people to see.

So we would shake things up so they could see their challenges

in a different way.

This time around, though, I'm going

to incorporate my martial arts so that we can do

Thought alignment, good thought alignment,

good bone alignment, excellent energy alignment.

So that'll be a lot of fun.

So it'll be about working your body and your thoughts

and seeing how your energy moves

as you shift your body and your statements.

So yeah, which is a lot of fun.

And I'm really excited to,

the most important thing for me

is connecting with the community

because there are so many amazing classes and workshops there.

I know that you have drumming, that you have crystal bowls,

that there's also shamanic work.

What else?

And those are the things that I was like, I want to take this,

I want to take that.

Didn't have a chance to do, but I know that you have other things going on.

I think we have maybe about four or five different shamanic workshops on different aspects of

the practice of shamanic practices. We have a collage class this time, which should be

really fun. I'm always wanting more art in everything. So collage class, what else? Reclaiming

your power by alchemizing fear into love with Sophia. We have

we have a couple of yoga's I think we have soulful trust

yoga circle with Nicole Norman. We have becoming shaman,

becoming shaman, eight timeless truths with Bonnie Russell. She's

done that a couple times. I've probably seen that that looks

really great.

She's going to be on our podcast next month.

There you go. Well,

hypnotic psychedelia with Desiree and Renata will be doing something. I don't know what that is. We

have a microdosing magic exploring the world of subtle psychedelic transformation with Tanya.

Interesting. Oracle Council said it is, I just talked with a

Maharami piece who's teaching this and she said it's about sitting in council and working together

as council and communicating and working things. Yeah, so that looks really interesting to me.

I haven't seen this one before. Tree yoga, there's another yoga. Ancestral wayfinding with

Inabel Itupio and healing and releasing trauma with Regina Perlmutter. I'm gonna do something.

I don't know what yet. Holly Holmes Meredith is gonna do past life regression stuff,

so that'll be nice to be with her in doing that. Carmela Obscura will do the crystal

walls in the redwood. So it's really beautiful. The redwoods are all around and she's in the

center and then at the end it's usually she goes in the last workshop. So there are three different

sessions. So there's a morning session that starts around 11 and after lunch we have one that starts

around one and then we have another one that starts around three. So there's three separate

sessions. Each of those sessions has anywhere from three to six-ish, three or four to you know

something depending on how many people and workshops are offered. So throughout the day,

there's usually 20 or so different opportunities to be in workshop and it's very free form. You

just you don't have to sign up in advance. The only thing you have to sign up for in advance is if

you want to have a one on individualized session with someone in the Reiki clinic. And it's not

just Reiki like people bring whatever healing modality that they want to share. And I was going

to say I was really lucky and I got to do readings for, you know, quick little 15-20 minute readings

for people and it was an honor to do that. Yeah, we also have a marketplace so we have a bunch of

people who bring stuff and sell it, handmade stuff for the most part and you remember the

guy last time, what's his name? I can't remember. I forgot the juice guy? The moss juice. Yeah, sea moss.

- I do stuff from him.

- I still buy stuff from him.

- You can have him do on your podcast.

Yeah, he's pretty great.

- Yeah, got him a great vibe.

Yeah, and I do love that it's so free flowing.

I was actually a little bit worried because people said,

"You know, people will come in

and they'll come out of your class as they see fit."

And I love that free will of does it vibe?

Does it not vibe?

You get to change your mind.

But you know, I got a little bit ego-y.

I don't know about you, Michelle, but I did.

I was like, oh, I hope that they like me enough

that they keep going.

But that's really not what it's all about.

I do love that you just get to explore at your pace

and whatever your heart desires, you move through.

That in itself is quite an experience

because we don't get to do that very often.

- It is very, you know, it's funny

'cause in the beginning everybody's a little nervous.

- Yeah.

- You're like, where do I go?

what do I do? And then I just, and I have people kind of posted around to help,

but really it's like moving into it.

And then when we begin with the opening ceremony and everybody participates and I

just kind of lay it out, it just like settles because we're not used to,

you know, we're used to being kind of like caddled into, here's a,

what you're coming to a conference.

Now you're going to go to room A3 and you're going to sit in a chair and you

know, there's like that kind of structure. And there is a structure,

there is a structure of kindness. There's a structure of,

Here's the grove that's holding you

and the people that are around you

and you are free to do whatever you want to do.

And you're well held, however it is you wanna do that.

Maybe you wanna just sit in next to a tree, that's okay.

And there's no hurry too.

And guess what?

No cell phone reception for the most part.

Maybe if you have AT&T,

but that also blows people away a little bit

that they're like, "Oh, what am I?

How am I disconnected for a whole day?"

So there's something wonderful about being disconnected

and about bringing lunch, frankly,

because it's like, oh, this is what,

it just takes you one step back

and we all need that from time to time.

- You bring your lunch, you bring your chair,

whatever you need, bring your water,

you pack it in and pack it out.

It's lovely.

I mean, at first people are a little nervous

and they're like, no, it's okay.

And then spontaneously the second one,

people were like, oh, I brought food to share.

So suddenly now there's a food sharing table

and that just happened because people brought stuff

to share not because, and we don't want to plan it too much.

We want to just let it happen the way it happens.

- It's lovely.

It's lovely from beginning to end.

And I don't say that very often.

I'm kind of a smart ass.

Michelle's the nice one.

And so for me to say that it's-

- Well, not only that,

but I will share that Cinthia was a little skeptical.

She was not sure about this.

And then she arrived and she was like, oh my God.

I was like, yeah, see, I told ya.

(laughs)

- And I have to tell you,

I have known since its inception

because I know of some of the helpers

and I thought, holy shit,

I'm trying to get away from woo woo.

You know, I wanna be more grounded or everything.

And then as soon as I walked in, I said, I'm woo woo.

(laughs)

So thank you, thank you, Annie, for really embracing that

and letting, you know, because you embraced it in such a way

and you celebrate it in such a way

that people like me celebrate it in a very big way.

So I'm really grateful. - Somebody asked,

somebody asked one time,

"Shall we explain on the website what wuwu means?"

And I'm like, "No."

That's kind of the point is 'cause it is very, you know,

it is very grounded.

And it encompasses all,

like whatever you wanna imagine that it is.

It's grounded in the earth, it's there, we're solid.

And there's all kinds of things that that can encompass

that doesn't always have to be our cup of tea,

but it is somebody's.

- And that's who we wanna have TU is.

That's the truth, right?

- Thank you so much for being on our show today, Annie.

We really appreciate your time.

We love your event.

We're excited about the upcoming event on October 1st

and we will be there.

We will see you in the woods

and hopefully we will see all of our listeners too.

So thank you everybody and we'll be with you next week.

- Thank you for being willing to participate again.

You really make it happen.

you've been listening to, My Power is Mystic.