Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ellen Martin. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Ellen, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?
Parents all have their perfect downfalls that shape us in ways that are both challenging and needed. My parents intentionally… or unintentionally raised me and my brother to be independent and self-guided. They gave us the freedom to both choose and pave our own path. To be more specific, however, one of the greatest blessings my parents bestowed upon me was a Waldorf education. For those who are unfamiliar, Waldorf education is an alternative approach that supports the holistic needs of the child through the development process. It aims to inspire lifelong learning and support the development of each individuals’ unique capacities. It takes into consideration the development of the human being…the intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual aspects of each of us. The arts are imbued in every aspect of learning. The learning process is experiential and engaging and calls forth motivation from within. It doesn’t focus on memorization or competitive testing, but the cultivation of the individual’s inner enthusiasm for learning and exploration. In essence, it helps to develop and empower the individual instead of conditioning children to perform and follow suit. It teaches children to learn to think for themselves, instead of how to think like everyone else. Of course, as a child all of this seemed normal. I had little understanding of the purpose behind the experiences or learning I was absorbing. Our class size was about ten children, many of which I am still close with twenty years later. The connections that were made during that time in my life have been extremely impactful. To watch us all grow and express ourselves in the world in different ways has been amazing to watch. I don’t think I would show up in the world as I do today without that early protection from our society’s systemic approach to squashing the creative spark in children.
Ellen, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am the creator and event organizer of The ReUnion, an annual weekend festival celebrating the cultivation of connection to self, Spirit, and soul tribe, hosted on the beautiful Foxhollow Farm in Crestwood, KY. I sometimes wonder how exactly this came to be…. My educational background is in social work. I was drawn to this field after personal experiences of the difficulty individuals and families face trying to navigate the disjointed and broken mental healthcare systems. I saw how difficult it was for my family to navigate and care for my brother and realized how lost others without these connections would be. Wanting to help drew me into the field, but learning about the multitude of systems that impact our wellbeing kept my attention. Understanding that none of us live in a vacuum, our interplay within our close (family, friends… ) and distant societal systems (education, laws…) impacts us greatly. There is no way to remove our connection to these influences. Equally important to note in this equation, however, is how our actions within this same space can ripple out to impact the whole.
Fast forward a few years. It’s late 2020 and we are collectively realizing that the pandemic on our hands isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I firmly believe that this global, forced isolation has brought a lot to light, both on an individual and collective level. It woke me up, not only to my loss of connection to others but the blatant loss of connection I had with myself. It was a lot less easy to ignore without the hustle and bustle of everyday life. The yearning to build that connection with myself led me over the next two years on my own spiritual awakening journey. Through this longing for self-discovery, I was connected to communities of people seeking the same. With a greater appreciation for the returning ability to connect with community, I was reminded of the power and medicine of human connection. It brought me back to those early connections I had made in my formative years as a Waldorf student and the experiences that we had shared. I longed for the adult equivalent of those younger years…wondering where adults go to be enriched and supported as they develop as human beings in this wild world. With only a few months to pull it off, my best friend and I decided to create an event to do just that. In 2021, we hosted our first weekend campout festival at Foxhollow Farm in Crestwood, Ky. We opened the space for folks to host workshops to share their gifts and passions with one another. Creativity and community being the underlying themes for this event.
This year, things shifted and I had to decide whether or not to take a leap of faith and go out on my own. Could I pull this off on my own? If I put out the call would anyone answer? Is anyone even looking for what I want to create? I had to make that decision without the safety of answers. I took that leap of faith, rebranded and clarified my intention and vision for the event. I wanted to create an intentional weekend for adults to experience different methods for enriching their connection to self, spirit, and community. I set that intention and allowed the workshop schedule to fill itself with individuals from many different disciplines, sharing their personal approach to this intention. I ended with about twenty different workshops throughout the weekend including experiences such as intuitive art, Cacao and other tea ceremonies, sacred sound experiences, yoga, and intentional cooking! About twenty local vendors set up to sell their creations and services to participants throughout the weekend as well. Community meals, bonfires, music, and storytelling allowed for connections to blossom among all who joined in. I can’t wait to see how this community evolves and what new creations are born from the connections made each year!
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding and challenging aspect of creating is the blank canvas itself. All possibilities exist with no roadmap to the destination. Freeing and overwhelming all at once. The ability as a human to manifest a thought into form, whether that’s an object or an experience, is magic within itself. Realizing this innate ability that is hidden in plain sight, used all of the time, and taken for granted, reminds and connects me to my personal power instead of the inverse view that I am merely a victim to what life throws my way. Choosing instead to see life’s ups and downs as invitations to create.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
This one was quite the learning experience for me. I honestly didn’t know where to start. I wanted to put on an event in a few months with a new brand, no website and zero social media following. My work was cut out for me! My first piece of advice is to make friends with Canva. Learn the tools to create and plan content to share on your social media pages. Create, create, create! If you can, post at least once per day information that is engaging and shares a story about what you are creating. I chose to primarily focus on highlighting the collaborators who were coming to help co-create the weekends’ experiences. To show prospective guests what this weekend was all about, giving them a taste of the magic to come. Facebook is harder since you can primarily reach those that you already know or are connected via mutual friends. I created a Facebook group and public event where I cross posted content to reach as many people as possible. My approach for Instagram was to follow individuals who were following pages that were similar in content to my own. This was a beautiful way that some synchronistic connections came together as other healers and creators reached out to see how they could collaborate! Social media is probably the most time-consuming aspect of the entire job. I would say it’s a job of its own. My advice is to make peace with it until you can hire someone else to do it!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.re.union/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/760940135100609
- Other: email: [email protected]
Image Credits
Cami Glauser, Cassie Cameron