Meet Erin

Hi! My name is Erin Elizabeth Geesaman Rabke. The photo to the left was taken by my dear friend Nini Rich on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

I hope you feel warmly welcome here. I love connecting with those who choose kindness over competition, curiosity over righteousness, and courageous embodied living over a speedy and disembodied life. I love good questions and don’t care to ruin them with certain answers. I’m interested in sharing and connecting with others about living wisely, kindly, and well, now as we divest from the toxic overculture that is rooted in domination and oppression of so many kinds. I’m interested in rehydrating seeds of possibility inherent in each of our lives and in the connections between us. I’m devoted to living my life as a love poem to the beautiful world I know is possible for present and future generations. Thank you for being here with me.

 

A few perspectives on who I am and what I’m about:

By training and profession, I am a somatic educator. For more than 30 years I have studied and taught many kinds of embodied practice. It started organically with dance, then for many years I studied yoga and yoga therapy, specializing in back pain. For many reasons, I left teaching yoga in 2006. At age 18, I began to study tai chi and bagua and in 1996 I was certified as a Tai Chi teacher. I completed a 4-year professional Feldenkrais training in 2007 and a 3-year Embodied Life training in 2014. I am also a nursing school dropout. After working for a semester at the V.A. hospital as a student nurse, I knew the western medical system would kill my spirit. After quitting nursing school, I designed my own degree in Integrated Somatics at the U of U. I also study and work with somatic meditation and the profound practice of embodied inner listening known as Focusing, Embodied Listening, or Somatic Descent. For the past several years, I've been regularly mentored by Francis Weller in Tracking Soul and Grief Tending, both personally and communally. Over the past many years, I have been fortunate to be mentored by wild and wise elder, Deena Metzger in The 19 Ways. I've completed a year-long training as a facilitator in the profound body of work known as The Work That Reconnects, pioneered by the late, great Joanna Macy, which includes Deep Ecology, Systems Thinking, and Mindful Practices, and I weave it with somatics, soul, and embodied practice. I'm deeply interested in anti-oppression and liberation for all beings. I continue to learn from many wonderful teachers in this realm. I've developed a powerful, living body of work that I call Refugia and I'm extremely proud of it. It beautifully braids together mindful embodiment and contemplative practices with the profound practices and anti-oppression perspectives of Soul work, Deep Ecology and The Work That Reconnects, all dedicated to thriving life for all. I feel its deep importance for our times. 

 

My work is about sharing potent practices not only to heal and befriend the body, but to enter into a radically new, non-dual, and liberating relationship with embodiment itself; and through that, with the world and life itself. My work is about listening to Life through the ever more finely-tuned instrument of the living body. My work is to support people in learning to move with greater awareness, pleasure, ease, and clarity – a surprisingly powerful and unending education that affects everything else in life in deeply potent ways – and to bring that into the movement of the Great Turning toward a life-sustaining way of being human in the greater Earth community. My work is to help people soften and befriend themselves such that they become available for deeper listening for how to be in a life-giving relationship with land and community and to kindle the courage to bring forth their inherent, unique gifts.  I believe embodied learning, decolonizing our body-minds, and returning to our intelligent, organic wholeness are intimately connected to the healing of our world, the ending of harmful systems of dominance, and the creation of a more beautiful world. I believe mindfulness and loving-kindness must be lived, embodied practices dedicated to the welfare of all, now and into the future, rather than focused solely on personal evolution, in order to be of genuine benefit. I believe contextualizing these practices in light of the current context of the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and a culture rooted in racism and kyriarchy is essential. Read my piece here about why to do somatic practice and how it relates to all these rich topics. I believe in holding courageous love at the center of it all. 

 

By lineage and inclination, I am a meditator and spiritual practitioner, blessed by more than 30 years of study and practice in the Tibetan Buddhist traditions of Dzogchen, Lojong, and Somatic Meditation. Over the past 15 years, I've loved diving into the inevitable return to animism and ancestral reconnection – both of which are a remembering of wisdom my bones already know. I'm passionate about home herbalism, learning from dreams, permaculture gardening, bee-centric beekeeping, sharing beautiful food and poetry with people I love, and parenting our beautiful son. I'm passionate about learning deeply from and about plants, animal kin, and the living Earth. I'm passionate about honoring natural cycles and re-aligning my life with them. I'm passionate about The Great Turning and inviting everyone to take part in making Refugia in their own unique ways. Just like you and I, all of my teachers and elders are imperfect, ordinary, fallible human beings who also carry important gifts and medicine for these times.  I am profoundly grateful to my teachers.

 

My work is to grow the capacity for grounded, centered, embodied presence and vast, spacious awareness, dedicated to the welfare of all life. Together, these offer generous room for the broken-open heart that can fully welcome the beauty and heartbreak of this precious life and respond with courage and skill. I also consider it my work to grow brave and unconditional friendliness toward what is – and to support my clients and students to do the same. This kind of brave lovingkindness is an embodied wisdom that can transform all that it touches – body, mind, soul, community, and world. Additionally, I’ve been powerfully called to Tend the River of Grief. Alongside this, Praise Practice is an essential thread of my calling. By blood lineage, I am a white woman of Bohemian Czech, Scottish, German, and English descent. I respectfully acknowledge that I live and work on the gorgeous stolen ancestral lands of the Shoshone, Ute, Paiute, and Goshute nations. My work is about waking up more and more fully so I can be of benefit to the web of life. I commit to using all that arises in my life in support of this intention. 

 

By choice and good fortune, I am honored to mother a brave, soulful, and bright 16-year-old young man who is one of the most wonderful humans I've ever met. I am ever-honored to be partnered with Carl, my beloved companion in all things that matter, my one true. I am a daughter, a sister, an auntie, and a friend. I am a writer, a photographer, a passionate learner, and a convener of inspired communities. I am a naturalist and a lover of wandering in the wilderness. I am a fortunate student of many powerful and profound teachers. I live with my lil' family, our beautiful cat Freya, our gecko Geeky, our python Luna, a million good books, many hilarious hens, an abundant and wild garden, a stocked pantry, and countless altars to the sacred in many forms. It's usually a beautiful mess, and I love it. 

 

My work is to honor my good fortune with gratitude of equal measure, and to use my great good fortune and privilege to work toward the healing of our world. I’m deeply inspired and humbled by Nelson Mandela’s phrase: “Free yourself. Free others. Serve every day.” This is my work. I truly believe that we can help each other flourish. Let's. 

 

I am devoted to growing:

  • embodied presence,
  • intimacy with life,
  • an awake, open, listening heart-mind,
  • spacious awareness,
  • and embodied freedom in myself and in the world
  • all dedicated toward the welfare of Life now and into the future,
  • deeply rooted in intimacy with the land, ancestors, future beings, community, and the living Earth.

I am called to help my clients and students develop:

  • integrated embodied experience and intimacy with life,
  • unconditional, brave friendliness within and without,
  • embodied compassion
  • reverent curiosity and learning how to learn (beyond systems of domination and indoctrination)
  • their unique place in The Great Turning toward a life-sustaining culture
  • authentic gratitude and joy
  • spacious, grounded, aware presence
  • deep trust in their own capacity for direct knowing and wisdom, (gnosis liberated from guru culture)
  • courage and wholehearted participation and a deep sense of workability,
  • somatic intelligence and physical autonomy,
  • a courtship with their unique genius and gifts,
  • dedication toward the welfare of all life, now and in the future
  • a good sense of humor
  •  trust in the indigenous soul and the embodied perspective.

I am inspired to help my clients and students uncover:

  • a sense of self as vast and open as the sky,
  • a heart as naturally warm as the sun,
  • trust in the uncontrived indigenous naturalness of body and mind
  • reverence for the holy in nature both within and without
  • and dedication toward a life-giving future for the generations we'll never see.

I am motivated to help my clients and students develop:

  • skills of deep listening (inner and outer),
  • unprecedented creativity in many aspects of life,
  • a gorgeous courtship with their unique genius (which is often connected with a soul wound)

I am honored to help my clients and students to develop:

  • a sense of play mind,
  • possibilitarianism,
  • authentic, unforced gratefulness
  • a compassionate and courageous relationship with grief,
  • sustainability rooted in reduced effort and increased pleasure, even in the most challenging situations
  • potent practices of positive neuroplasticity
  • and to free their inherent love for Life.

 

A few more things:

I love poetry. I've been weaving the poets' wise voices into my teachings for over 30 years. I've never owned a bathroom scale, a television, or a microwave. (Updated 2026 - I bought my first microwave, but not for food! Only for flax-seed hot packs.) I adore good questions, especially unanswerable ones. I’m a hardcore introvert and small talk drains my life force more than anything else. I'd rather do a grief ritual with you than small talk any day. I'm a voracious reader and a lover of books. I go barefoot as often as possible. I love to cook. I love to learn. I love to wander in the wilderness. I love spending a stupid amount of money each month to feed the birds. I love having my hands in the soil and spending time with plants and seeds. I love to hear what's deep and true and emergent in your heart. I love being in my 50s. And I love wearing hats. 

Some of my heroes are Joanna Macy, Maya Angelou, Mary Oliver, Georgia O’Keeffe, Pina Bausch, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Brother David Steindl-Rast,  Ruthy Alon, Mr. Rogers, Leymah Gbowee, Pat McCabe, Rigoberta Menchú, Wangarĩ Maathai, Cynthia Jurs, Ruthy Alon, Vandana Shiva, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Kathleen Dean Moore, Deena Metzger, Shabkar, and Pema Chodron.

I have deep resonance with the high desert beauty in southern Utah, southern Colorado, and northern New Mexico. I'm not a fan of gossip. I really love minding my own business. I adore hanging out on our porch, with the birds, with squirrels, with good books, with coffee or tea, with my beloveds, with my journal and purple Uniball pen, with good food, with too many plants, with a glass of wine, with deep conversations with dear, trusted heartfriends. 

I am in love with my morning coffee and am an unapologetic coffee snob. I also love good whiskey and big red wine and love sharing them with people I love. I try to celebrate every single day I'm lucky enough to be alive. It's worth celebrating, no? 

I am seeking a sane and humane relationship with digital technology. It ain't easy. I adore silent retreats and time in the wilderness. They fund my life. I love having defected from the ridiculous spectacle and attention-sucking, outrage-algorithm-driven reactivity circus that is social media and instead, deepening into soulful, supportive, tender relationships with real human beings. I am so blessed with incredible friends, mentors, students, community, and the generous natural beauty gifts from Pachamama, and truly, I am nothing without them. 

I’m an INFJ Scorpio Ox, and my top 3 strengths are Connectedness, Empathy, and Positivity. I really love being alive. I have a really big heart, a deep commitment to courageous kindness, and I truly love a lot of people and things. I'm also severely allergic to codependent or entangled relationships, to unsolicited advice, and I am fiercely intolerant of relational bullshit. Best if you don't try me. 

Thanks to the amazing writer, Kathleen Dean Moore, for the framing ("by training and profession," "by lineage and inclination," "by choice and good fortune"). Her self-reflection inspired mine. If you haven’t read her book Great Tide Rising, may I highly recommend it?

In addition to our Embodiment Matters newsletter and blog, I post writings regularly on Substack at Seeds of Possibility. If you've read this far, you might enjoy reading this piece or this one, both straight from my heart.

Your support of our work supports more than just our family. While we don’t have huge amounts to donate, we believe in giving back. We are grateful that through proceeds from our work, we're able to support the following organizations regularly:

 

  • Land Peace Foundation
  • Timpanogos Tribe
  • Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
  • Planned Parenthood
  • American Civil Liberties Union
  • The Nature Conservancy
  • Utah Rivers Council
  • Utah Food Bank
  • Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance
  • Save Our Canyons
  • Treesisters
  • Pundarika Foundation
  • Audubon
  • Chuffed/Palestine
  • World Central Kitchen
  • Act Blue
  • Alliance for the Earth
  • Cultural Survival
  • Amazon Frontlines
  • The Sonder Project
  • Mosaic Multicultural
  • Biomimicry Institute
  • Jung Society of Utah
  • Science And NonDuality
  • International Funders for Indigenous People
  • Doctors Without Borders
  • Western Rivers Conservancy
  • ReHuman School
  • Lots of diverse Substack writers and Patreon creators
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  • Save the Children
  • Revolutionary Love Project
  • International Rescue Committee
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  • and more