Our Roots - LAFS

Sylvana and Ellie at MASS MoCA
Co-founders, Lotus Arts Farm Sanctuary

Sometimes there comes a moment when all previous moments make sense, this is one of those. Through dreaming about and creating Lotus Arts Farm Sanctuary during the winter of 2020, Ellie and Sylvana realized many of their individual life experiences had brought them together to create something amazing, in this moment.

As children, finding wonder and magic in the natural world
Both experiencing the power of animals to open hearts
Finding sanctuary in nature, holding them through times of trauma, and stress
Meeting as two pregnant women in a holistic birthing class in 2003 (Birthing from Within)
The shared desire to create something meaningful that could uplift the lives of humans, animals, plants and spirit

These collective moments are like cogs in a wheel clicking, creating a cohesive movement forward…

Sylvana Weinstein
Co-founder, Lotus Arts Farm Sanctuary
Program Designer and Facilitator at LAFS, Permaculture Designer/regenerative gardener, INELDA trained Death Doula, Passionate Medicinal Cook, Recreational Therapist, Registered Nurse.

Partnering with the land, I am excited to implement my knowledge of permaculture design, mirroring the diversity seen in nature with the regenerative practices of growing more perennial gardens and food forest. As the Volunteer Coordinator/Designer for Food For Free, I work at Lindentree Farm. We grow fresh vegetables that go directly to organizations that provide food for underserved communities.
As a young adult I spent four years working in a variety of self-sustaining communities in Arizona, Oregon, Idaho, and New York, growing my love for the earth. Of special significance is the Shree Muktananda Ashram, a spiritual retreat center in South Fallsburg, New York, where I lived and worked as a cook for three years. Daily spiritual practices of meditation, yoga, and chanting deepened my desire to share contemplative practices with others. Thirty years of personal, individual and group therapy and workshops inform my leadership.

Read More

   Another way my love of nature manifests is through leading and facilitating life rituals, maiden circles and women’s circles honoring nature and native traditions–I believe these are ways we heal individually and as a community. Lotus Arts Farm Sanctuary is a collaborative organization bringing regenerative farming into a balanced relationship with community needs. We are excited to share a place for people to continue to heal and restore themselves and our beloved Mother Earth.
   Some of my earliest memories were hearing stories about the farm from my father. For generations my father’s family farmed on the plains of Illinois. My older siblings spent their formative years on the family farm. We had horses, cows, sheep, lambs, piglets, dogs, cats, and a very large garden. My mother made all of our own cream, yogurt and butter. The stories of the animals, fresh food and the farm played in my dreams as a child and propelled my exploration and working on farms as an adult.
   My parents left the farm to move closer to my grandparents, and continued growing fruits and vegetables in multiple community gardens. At the end of my street there were five acres of forest and meadow where my father and I grew strawberries and vegetables. We loved sharing them with neighbors. Sharing farming, meditation, and chanting with my own children has been an ongoing joy.
   Five generations of my family are linked by the six log cabins built by my great grandparents at the end of a peninsula on Lower Kaubashine Lake in northern Wisconsin. My childhood summers there anchor my understanding of the wild. We pumped our water from a well and an outhouse was our only bathroom. We roamed unchaperoned all over the peninsula with countless cousins, our feet bare, kissing the earth with every step. Early mornings before anyone else in my family awoke found me down at the dock taking in the beauty of the dawn, the frogs on nearby lily pads, majestic calls of the loons echoing across the lake. The day promised us swimming, canoeing, and sailing. One might have mistaken us for otters with how much we played in the water. This is where I felt one with everything.
   It was an honor and an education to attend invitational ceremonies at the Lac du Flambeau Reservation, run by the Lake Superior Chippewa tribe. Their power and connection to the earth, and celebration of life shaped my early spirituality. Their reverence and the way they embraced each other and the land, kindled a longing inside me for spiritual community. The creation of Lotus Arts Farm Sanctuary is coming full circle, I welcome you with open arms!

CREDENTIALS & EXPERIENCE

Registered Nurse, since 2002
Bachelors of Science in Recreational Therapy, Western Carolina University, 1991-1994
Permaculture Design Certification, Sowing Solutions, MA
Shree Muktananda Ashram, South Fallsburg, NY: head cook/volunteer-coordinator, 1997- 2000
INELDA Death Doula Training, 2019
Mindful Schools: Mindfulness Foundations and Mindfulness in the Classroom
Reevis Mountain School, Globe, AZ: self-sustaining farm, medicinal plant study, Jin Shin Jyutsu healing practice
Earth’s Rising Farm, Monroe, OR, 1994-1997 organic farming experience
Ronniger’s Organics, Moyie Springs, ID
Lumos Winery, Philomath, OR

Ellie Coolidge-Behrstock
Co-founder, Lotus Arts Farm Sanctuary
Program Designer and Facilitator at LAFS, Artist, Writer, Expressive Arts Therapist, Coach of the Creative, Horsewoman, Therapeutic Riding Instructor and Certified facilitator, The Equus Effect.

I had the good fortune to grow up on an old farm in Harvard, MA, living at or visiting “Deerhorn” until my folks sold the place when I was thirty. Horses, dogs and a variety of marvelous farm animals; parents, Frank and Emilie, older brothers Francis and Will, and the land itself— filled with mystery and the presence of the Nipmuc who lived there many years before, whispering trees, fields and meandering stonewalls— left a deep impression on me. My dream to create Lotus Arts Farm Sanctuary is a gesture reaching full circle back to those roots, seeking to create for others the blessing and sanctuary I experienced as a youth.
Not everything was easy, of course. I had my share of struggles, heart-break and challenge.

Read More

   Painfully shy as an adolescent, I shut-down to relationships and school. I threw myself into horses as a way to both find myself and to escape. Both things happened and both things were true. I tasted joy, pain, trauma and success, eventually finding my way forward through college, grad school and life! It took me a long time to discover in my shy and subtle nature, gifts of creativity and spirit. These gifts and the work of therapy allowed me to heal and grow whole eventually.
   I studied English, art and expressive art therapy, going on to work in these fields as a teacher and coach-of-the-creative as an adult. I worked with children and adults in these fields, in different contexts of creativity and art-making in Massachusetts and New Mexico (4 yrs), for many years. I currently work in the field of therapeutic riding, helping people to find balance, joy, connection and self-regulation through the healing powers of the horse. My goal is to bring my love for the creative together with my love for horses, offering a synergistic model of balance and learning through art and the magnificent teacher/guide, horse(s).
   I love to paint and write stories. I am currently at work on a novel called “Butterflies of Winter,” a tale of magical realism about the settling of the American West and one European woman’s journey to escape the grip of colonialism. This story is my story.
   My story is not unique. Healing balm was always there on the land where I lived; in plants and trees, the very same ponies and horses who dumped me; in lichen-filled rocks, wild rose, lilacs, streams, marshes… frogs, katydid’s, fireflies, butterflies, song birds and hawk… to name a few who shared home. I just didn’t know how to access this balm often. The place of Deerhorn, and many spaces on that land, had its own voice and spirit.
   A member of Native American-style Lodge communities in Taos, NM, and Lincoln, MA, over the last 15 years, I am grateful for the wisdom teachings Indigenous teachers share. These teachings ground, guide and orient my creative life and life-work to grow LAFS. Through these communities I experience a river of spirit and creativity running through all things, connecting and binding us to one other and the natural world in a web of mutuality and interdependence. Healing and possibility lie in this river-like place.
   Lotus Arts Farm Sanctuary is a coming-together of all I believe-in and care about. It is a joy to create this dream and vision in concert with dear friends. Like a bouquet of wild flowers I/we offer LAFS for the benefit of earth, animals, plants and humans: A place of wildness and beauty (that may need restoration!), community, horses, deep listening, workshops in self-care, restorative farm practices, native plant medicinals, partnering with and stewarding animals, creativity, play and art-making. Together, we can find and create new/old ways to care for one another and our amazing, beautiful earth and her bounty of beings. Let’s leave a model of restorative living for the next 7 generations, one of deep respect and reverence for the land.

CREDENTIALS & EXPERIENCE

MA in Expressive Art Therapies, Lesley University, Cambridge, MA 1990
Coach of the Creative, Charles River Studio Workshop, Watertown, MA, 1991
Art classes at MASS Art, Boston Museum School, Decordova Museum, Charles River Studio for Art-Making, 1985-1995
BA in English (cum laude), Boston University, 1985
PATH Intl Certified Riding Instructor 1987-present
MA registered riding instructor, 2012-present
North American Junior Champion, 3-Day Event riding (dressage, cross-country, show jumping), 1979

Sylvana’s mom at family cabin, Hazelhurst, WI

Grandmother Rosalie (child in front), homestead on Marco Island, FL

A winter sleigh ride with Dad and Nana (St. Bernard)

Sylvana’s sister Heidi on our foal, Katie

Sylvana on tractor at Dad’s farm

Earth’s Rising Co-Op Farm, OR

Harvesting Sweet Potatoes. Lindentree Farm, MA

Sylvana and Joshua, Lindentree Farm, MA

Sylvana enjoying the glory of the forest. Breitenbush, OR

Pastel, 2008

Deerhorn Farm, 1990, acrylic on canvas

Coolidge Family, 1966

Barred Rock Hens, 2014, watercolor and watercolor pencil on paper

Ellie & Wandering Joe, 1986

View of Deerhorn Farm, 1991

Vision Quest Cedar, 2012, oil on wooden board

Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, SD, 2016

Lotus Butterfly, 2022, watercolor pencil on paper

Sacred In Motion, 2021, oil on wooden board

Council Members

Ayla Daley
Council Member, Lotus Arts Farm Sanctuary

   I’m honored to be a member of the Lotus Arts Farm Sanctuary council. It has been so enriching to gather together with these three women and to connect with spirit in the creation of this amazing project. I am sort of the business mind in the group and organizational nerd, so I’ve been supporting LAFS through Google Docs, Google Calendar as well as designing the website with my partner, Peter Needle.
   Being raised in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, I’m of the generation that spent a lot of time outdoors, nature was my church, my playmate, my teacher and my healer. Through difficult times in my life, I have always found ways to spend extended amounts of time outside, playing in the woods by the Back Bay in Biloxi, doing forestry fieldwork in the forests of the Pacific Northwest or spending time at the beach. I’ve always felt that Nature could “hold it all”, everything I couldn’t anymore. I’m in deep gratitude to our mother earth.
   I’m also in deep gratitude to Sylvana and Ellie and to Lotus for inviting me in to be a part of creating something with such profound meaning at such a rich time in history.

Joy Mandler
Council Member, Lotus Arts Farm Sanctuary

I was blessed to spend much of my childhood outside playing in trees and fields and frequently biking over to a nearby horse pasture and woodland trails. Many of my fondest memories are from the summers I spent on my cousins’ farms in western Massachusetts. The time on that land, with the animals and extended family coming together with shared purpose and the afternoons of rock jumping up a beautiful brook to its magical deep clear pools for full-body plunging…it was transformative & planted seeds within me. Throughout the course of my life, I have spent precious time in nature and working and learning on farms in MA, NY, NM, New Zealand, Australia and countries in E. Africa.
Another significant influence in my life was witnessing my father’s journey through a terminal diagnosis. He was given three months to live when I was five years old. A physically and soulfully strong Irishman, my father went on to live an additional thirty three years. During those years, I witnessed my father’s health in a living laboratory with the interplay of western treatments and pharmaceuticals as well as a wide range of complementary modalities.

Read More