Good Medicine News: March ‘25
Monthly Newsletter featuring upcoming events at GMC, creative reflections and critical commentary from our Collective members on the front lines of healing and consciousness change work.
There’s A Thread You Follow…
During these volatile times, it seems the whole tapestry is unraveling… the solid is becoming evermore ethereal. There’s a Thread You Follow is a collection of photographs that invites the experience of the ephemeral. These photos soften our understanding of time and space. Our sight is not truth, but images filtered through the lens of our past, fleeting and fading into a dream. What do we hold onto, if anything? Beauty, perhaps.
There’s a thread you follow.
It goes among things that change.
But it doesn’t change…
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
An excerpt from The Way It Is by William Stafford.
This First Friday, we’ll have a gallery opening for our first featured community artist, Julie McCarter, whose photos “hold a felt-sense of the thread we follow.” She writes, “I photographed objects that my mom ultimately left behind, bringing them into nature and witnessing them transform from ordinary forms to new visual imprints of understanding about love, death and conscious connection.”
Along with the photographic installation, Good Medicine providers will be offering other creative experiences of the ephemeral including a sound bath with Maddy Riker and fire art with Cinnamon Brûlée.
With love,
Liz
March Collective Calendar
Ongoing Donation-Based Community Offerings:
First Friday Art Walk March 7th 5-8pm featuring artist and psychotherapist, Julie McCarter, sound bowls with Maddy Riker and fire art with Cinnamon Brûlée.
Second Wednesday of the Month, March 12th 6-8pm Psychedelic Studio: Psychedelics & Sexuality: Shedding Light on a Taboo Intersection featuring Kellie Ryan, certified holistic sex educator and bodyworker and Liz Strawbridge, Riverbird therapist.
Last Tuesday of the Month, March 25th 5-6:30pm GRACE Circle: Grief Remembered And Communally Embraced. Inspired by Francis Weller’s grief work, this circle is co-held by Good Medicine Providers and interfaith minister, Ashley Jansen.
March 26th 6pm: Consciousness Lab: A Monthly Meditation Group. Meditation Beyond Mindfulness, hosted by Zach Haigney. Each session begins with a 25-minute guided meditation, followed by an open group conversation to share insights, questions, and observations.
Events and Workshops:
Sound Meditation with singing bowls, gong and chimes on Sunday, March 9th, 3-4pm with Vivian Rae
Ancient Greek practice of Asclepian Dream Healing with Tessy Seward and Gabriella Damianaki on Tuesday, March 11th, 6-8pm
Every Wednesday 12-3pm Community Acupuncture with West End Acupuncture; March 12th, 19th, 26th
Friday, March 14th, 7- 9pm Rhythmic Ritual dance with Sabra Saperstein
REGEN ME Community Supper, Conversation & Music on Thursday, March 20th 6-8:30pm hosted by Elizabeth Ross and Rich Gorvett
3rd Tuesday of the month, March 18th 5:30-7:30pm Spiraldance Monthly Community Breathwork Circle with Tania Zuckerman
Thursday, March 20th, 6- 8pm Embody Your Voice: A Movement, Dance, Sound-Making Improv Lab with Sandra Sneiderman, LCPC, BC-DMT
Sunday, March 23rd from 6-6:45 pm Yoga Nidra and Sound Bath for Social Change with Maddy Riker
March 24th start date for a 9 week Riverbird Ketamine Assisted Grief work Group: KAT for the Grieving Soul, facilitated by Liz Strawbridge, David Wright and Ashley Jansen.
Last Thursday of every month, 5:30-7pm 12 Steps for Regenerative Change & Transformation: A Journey Through the Seasons of Life with Brad Peirce.
Friday, March 28th Riverbird Introduction to Ketamine Group Experience for Healers with Matt Stevens, DO and Liz Strawbridge, MD
Friday, March 28th 7-8:30pm Elemental Ecstatic Dance with DJ CJ Fee' (Charity Joy Robinson)
Saturday, March 29, 10am-4pm, explore the most beautiful, sublime and often hidden or repressed parts of ourselves in Dr. Marc Felix’s workshop, The Golden Shadow
Sunday, March 30th 6:30-8:30 in Portal, DJ Bodie will take us on a Journey Through Sound hosted by Sabra Saperstein and Bodie Royal
Signs ups are open for the Fall 2025 Alchemical Alignment training happening at Good Medicine. Learn more here.
Notes From the Field
A space to hear the voices from members of the Collective and highlight their work. I encourage you to take a listen to Tana Forsthoefel’s new album, Woman that I Am, for soulful medicine songs. Tana is a psychotherapist, new mother and author. Check out her Substack here. Vivian Rae and Tessy Seward are this month’s featured Good Medicine Collective members who are both offering unique ways of remembering and reconnecting to our true nature.
Vivian, what is inspiring you right now? This song, Born for This Mission by India Arie
What was your path into this work? My path into wellness began as a deeply personal quest—seeking optimal health solutions for myself and loved ones—which evolved into a lifelong commitment to helping others discover their own healing potential.
A lot of people have been wondering, what is pelvic steaming? Pelvic Steaming is an ancient cross cultural practice of sitting over medicinal herbal steam. It’s also referred to as vaginal steaming or yoni steaming for women and lingam steaming for men. It involves sitting over medicinal herbal steam and allowing the gentle warmth to nourish the reproductive organs. A regular steam practice increases circulation, lubrication, and relaxation. Additionally, it may help treat many pelvic issues, including endometriosis, prolapse, postpartum and atrophy, infections, fibroids, and cysts. Steaming can also be a powerful support in healing and releasing sexual trauma.
Tessy, what is inspiring you right now? The Telepathy Tapes podcast. A documentary series about a neuroscientist studying families with nonspeaking autistic children who can communicate telepathically. It's a healthy dose of wonder, awe, laughter and tears: all the good stuff.
What was your path into this work? I grew up on the shores of a small town in eastern Maine. My early memories are full of the sensory experiences of running barefoot through the woods, climbing trees and swaying with the wind, wading in streams and tide pools, and gathering the harvest from our family garden. They represent a belonging to and intimacy with the earth that was once the birthright of each of us. I have come to know and deeply appreciate the healing power of that relationship, as it continues to sustain me despite life’s inevitable confusion and pain.
What do you want to share with this community? I’m really excited about a new quarterly Community Plant Practice I’m developing with another Good Medicine provider, Ginny Gill, designed to deepen our familiarity and relationship with local medicinal plants. We’ll explore the identities and traditional uses and connect with plants in teas, tinctures or essential oils. We’ll guide movement, meditation and breathwork practices carefully chosen to complement the energetics of each plant. Our first gathering is Tuesday April 8th, 6-8:30pm and we’ll be working with Nettle (Urtica Dioica).
Why Nettle? Nettle is one of the first green plants to emerge after winter, the stinging nettle aligns with the energy of lengthening days and the moment of the spring equinox. Nettle is a very old friend and healing partner for human beings, with evidence of widespread use throughout European and Asian history as well as among the indigenous tribes of the Americas. Nettle is packed with essential minerals, has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and analgesic properties, and demonstrates the energetic signature of protection and strong, healthy boundaries with the capacity to sting.
Good Medicine Collective Members
Zach Haigney, Lara Turnure, Riverbird Psychedelic Therapy Clinic (Shauna Sedler, Selma Holden, Matt Stevens, Maddy Riker, Carolyn Branson, Liz Strawbridge, Libbet Cone, Colin Reid, David Wright), Tania Zuckerman Tessy Seward, Tana & Andrew Forsthoefel / Cinnamon Brûlée / Desi Lester / Genell Huston/ Ginny Gill / Jonah Fertig-Burd / Janice Irvine / Michael Leary / Samantha Hubbell/ Sasha Lamour / Sarah Siegel / Terry Ann Scriven/ Therese Jornlin, Danielle Dellaquila, Todd Larlee, Vivian Rae, Natasha Salvo, Regenerative Maine (Elizabeth Holmstrom, Brad Peirce, Michael Stern), Tim Mclain, Khadija el Barkaoui and Sabra Saperstein
Thank you to the vital humans who support this project including Stewart Strawbridge, CJ Dirago, Desi Lester, Kristen Robichaud and Patti Keil.