Your Invitation
If you are reading this, you were invited for a reason.
Root and Rise is a sacred gathering that invites you to reconnect with yourself through embodied practice, intuitive insight, and the restorative power of women coming together. Held in beauty, stillness, and intimacy, this private event offers space to arrive, slow down, and remember that the things worth protecting often begin quietly, beneath the surface.
In the arc of the experience, you will be guided through Kundalini, Human Design, astrology, curated music, unhurried conversation, and seasonal snacks prepared by a professional chef as a practice in presence and connection. Each offering is held by practitioners chosen for the impact and integrity of their work.
Root and Rise is presented by The Acorn Collective and directly supports the Santa Barbara Birth Center, honoring both inner nourishment and the continued legacy of birth, care, and community in Santa Barbara.
Root & Rise - Event Details
Date: June 13, 2026
Time: 2:00 to 6:00 PM (Please arrive promptly at 2:00 PM)
Contribution: $333 per guest.*
Attire: Comfortable white clothing for movement
Setting: Elegant seaside setting
Location: Full location details will be shared following registration
*100% of ticket sales benefits The Santa Barbara Birth Center
The Arc of the Experience
2:00 PM
2:30 PM
5:15 PM
6:00 PM
Arrival, welcome beverages [sponsored by FERAL Future], and mediation circle.Guided offerings with Harmanjot, Julie, Anne, NextHealth Montecito, and a crafting station.Toast [with La Lieff Winery], Q&A with Laurel Phillips-Director of Santa Barbara Birth Center, Introduction to the Acorn Collective.Music, movement and closing circleWho Holds the Space
Anne Van De Water
❋ Human Design
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Anne Van de Water has been a Human Design guide, life coach, and spiritual teacher since 1994. She holds a BA in Religious Studies from UC Santa Barbara and has been a faculty member at Esalen Institute since 2010. She has taught yoga, coaching, and wellness programs to over 10,000 people worldwide and lives and practices in Santa Barbara. Her work centers on helping people reconnect with their own design, not someone else's vision of who they should be.
Read more at annevandewater.com
Julie Anderson
❋ Astrology
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Julie Anderson is a certified astrologer, integrative coach, and yogi based in Santa Barbara, with nearly twenty years immersed in alternative healing and soul-centered guidance. Her practice centers on the birth chart as a tool for self-recognition, helping people name what they have long carried and return to their own clarity. She works with individuals and hosts group events, and her work is known for being precise, personal, and quietly transformative.
To learn more → readingswithjulie.com
Harmanjot
❋ Kundalini Yoga
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Harmanjot is a Kundalini yoga teacher and program architect with nearly two decades of practice and teaching. She spent years helping build the RA MA Institutes across Los Angeles, New York, and Mallorca, where she served as Director of Programming and Curriculum. She now leads a global teaching practice and lives in Montecito. Her work centers on bringing sacred practice into the texture of everyday life, with clarity and without pretense.
To learn more → harmanjot.com
Monique Williamson
❋ Reiki Master
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Monique Williamson is a certified Reiki Master, intuitive healer, and spiritual advisor whose path began in movement as a professional dancer with the Oakland Raiders' Raiderettes. Her practice centers on the threshold between what is seen and unseen, helping people access what they already carry but cannot yet name. Her work is known for its depth, precision, and the particular kind of quiet it creates in a room.
Learn more at https://www.instagram.com/moniquewilliamson/
Zola Phillips
❋ Event Chef
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Zola Phillips is a Santa Barbara-born chef whose cooking is grounded in season, place, and the belief that a shared table is one of the most honest forms of connection. After years cooking across the country, she returned home to the community she grew up in. Her work is oriented toward nourishment in its fullest sense: what the land offers, what a meal can hold, and what happens when people gather around food that was made with care.
"Food is an extension of our values and offers endless opportunity for beauty, play, exploration, and connection."
❋ Photographer
Isabella Grossman
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A Santa Barbara-based photographer and visual artist whose work centers on mood, light, and the quiet detail that makes a moment worth keeping.
Stacy Gottula
❋ Co-Event Designer
Shelley Anne Powell
❋ Santa Barbara Birth Center Board member & Event Host
Thank You to Our Sponsors
La Lieff Winery
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LivOn Labs
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NextHealth Montecito
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FERAL Future
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Original by Nature Flower Essence
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Cassie's Cardinals
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La Lieff Winery | LivOn Labs | NextHealth Montecito | FERAL Future | Original by Nature Flower Essence | Cassie's Cardinals |
What This Supports
The Santa Barbara Birth Center offers comprehensive midwifery care for all stages of life. Collaborating with the broader medical community, we offer a personalized approach with an emphasis on wholistic and trauma-informed care for reproductive health including pregnancy, labor, birth, postpartum and beyond.
Founded in 2009 as a non-profit, our mission is to increase health equity by supporting low-income and underrepresented women, ensuring every woman receives compassionate, respectful healthcare.
This gathering exists to help protect that continuity. It brings together women who understand the value of what is being held here, and who want to help hold it forward.
The Acorn Collective
The Acorn Collective is an invitation-only circle of women gathered around Santa Barbara Birth Center and the quiet legacy this work can leave behind. It was created for women drawn toward meaningful connection, shared influence, and participation in something rooted beyond the present moment.
The acorn is the guiding metaphor. Small. Mostly unseen. Capable of becoming shelter, continuity, and life for generations.
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To participate is to help plant something. For the birth center as it exists now, and for the families, babies, relationships, and future communities shaped through this model of care over time.
An acorn's first work happens underground, without recognition. What grows from it, given time and tending, can shelter generations. The women of The Acorn Collective understand that the most lasting forms of influence rarely announce themselves. They gather around beauty, reflection, shared values, and the steady protection of what is life-giving.
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The Acorn Collective is entering its founding season in 2026.
A small number of women will be invited into the circle through an intentional process. The vision includes private gatherings throughout the year, meaningful shared experiences, and ongoing participation in the future of Santa Barbara Birth Center.
This gathering is the first expression of that circle. The first invitation to step inside.
Join Us
Root & Rise is a private gathering with limited space.
*Full location details will be shared following registration.