Arc and Craft
An Exploration of Creativity
and Culture Making
November 16–20 2025
Live at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico
An Exploration of Creativity
An in-person gathering to apprentice leadership, eloquence, elderhood, culture work, and alchemy with Stephen Jenkinson, Kimberly Ann Johnson and Tad Hargrave.
What are the mechanics of storytelling and conducting-
and how do we conjure lift-off?
How does an event become ceremonial, become culture work?
What are the mechanics of building an arc- a beginning, middle and ending-
of a composition, a song, an evening, a retreat?
Arc and Craft
A 5 Day Gathering
with Stephen Jenkinson, Kimberly Ann Johnson
and Tad Hargrave
November 16–20
Ghost Ranch, New Mexico
Email juli@kimberlyannjohnson.com to register.
Are you a:
- Culture maker
- Storyteller
- Men or women’s work leader
- Workshop / retreat facilitator
- Wilderness guide
- Ceremonialist
- Counselor or professor
- Coach or teacher trying to bridge into more explicit culture work
- Birth doula or death doula
- Person trying to proliferate presence in an attention deficit time
Dear Ones,
This gathering is years in the conceiving and conjuring. Last year was really touch-and-go with Stephen’s health and there was a sense of doors closing and less being possible.
With great fortune, some of the dense fog has lifted making a multi-day gathering possible.
Tad Hargrave and I have spoken about how we love hearing Stephen talk about craft and composition.
In August, Stephen’s long awaited book Matrimony: Ritual, Culture, and the Heart at Work (Sounds True) will make her appearance. We will use this text as a center point. You’ll be asked to read it and work it prior to the gathering. So your questions and longings will be influenced by what you’ve read, and we will weave those into our days together.
We have two other written, not-yet-published, works- The Rite of No More, and the Green Book: A Thinking Man’s Dance with Neurodegeneration – that we will make there way in, and you will get some first “glimpses.”
There will be other surprises.
These gatherings are evocative, emergent, generative, devastating, multi-generational, time-traveling and unforgettable.
We will honor New Mexico and her people through a Feast.
This invitation probably would sound a little too cheerful for SJ’s liking. (or spunky, as he likes to describe me)
He would say something like:
It’s time to disseminate a sense of burden.
A critical mass of people in the room brings a degree of survivability to the times.
I’m saying:
We need you for that critical mass.
This might be for you if:
- You’d like to hear what Stephen has to say about storytelling, speech, eloquence, oration, composition, invocation and creativity.
- Have been doing your thing for a while and sense there’s a deeper layer to what you have to offer that you haven’t been able to reach yet.
- Want to find a way to do your work that isn’t formulaic.
- Secretly feel daunted as you look at the generation of teachers above you and think, “I’m never gonna get there. I’ll never be that good.” or “Am I as alone as I feel?”
- Are not willing to concede that English is a bereft and bankrupt language fit only for colonizers and Empire, etc.
A day may look like:
Breakfast
Opening / Prayer
Morning – Home Group Sessions & Open Space Breakouts
Lunch
Walk on the Land
Afternoon – Session with Stephen Jenkinson
Dinner
Evening – Music / Performance / Gathering
Accommodations are simple, and almost all housing is shared. Single housing options are few and reserved for those with special needs. Reach out to Juli so that we can accommodate you!
The retreat location is beautiful, elemental and rustic. The land is stunning and powerful. Little to no cell phone service. Vast horizons. Red earth. Quiet starry nights.
We will be gathering to apprentice leadership, eloquence, elderhood, culture work, and alchemy.
You in?
Kimberly, Stephen and Tad
These gatherings are evocative, emergent, generative, devastating, multi-generational, time-traveling and unforgettable.
INVESTMENT
Full Price
$2,500
payment plans & a small amount of off-site tickets available
Registration and Questions:
Email juli@kimberlyannjohnson.com
About Stephen Jenkinson:
Stephen is a worker, author, storyteller, culture activist, and co-founder of the Orphan Wisdom School with his wife Nathalie Roy. The school is a teaching house for skills of deep living and making human culture that are mandatory in endangered, endangering times. He makes books, tends farm and mends broken handles and fences, succumbs to interviews, teaches and performs internationally.
He has Master’s degrees from Harvard University (Theology) and the University of Toronto (Social Work).
Apprenticed to a master storyteller when a young man, he has worked extensively with dying people and their families, is former program director in a major Canadian hospital, former assistant professor in a prominent Canadian medical school.
Stephen Jenkinson is the author of: Reckoning (2022), co-authored with Kimberly Ann Johnson, A Generation’s Worth: Spirit Work While the Crisis Reigns (2021), Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble (2018), the award-winning Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul (2015), Homecoming: The Haiku Sessions (a live teaching, 2013), How it All Could Be: A workbook for dying people and those who love them (2009), Angel and Executioner: Grief and the Love of Life – (live teaching, 2009), and Money and The Soul’s Desires: A Meditation (2002).
He is also the subject of the feature length documentary film Griefwalker, a portrait of his work with dying people, and Lost Nation Road, a shorter documentary on the crafting of the Nights of Grief and Mystery tours.
About Kimberly Ann Johnson:
Kimberly Johnson is an author, postpartum care activist, trauma educator, structural bodyworker and single mother. She graduated Valedictorian from Northwestern University with a BS in Social Policy (‘97).
She studied yoga directly with the three main lineage holders of the Krishnamacharya tradition- Desikachar, BKS Iyengar, and Pattabhi Jois and taught yoga full time for 15 years, while running a Structural Integration practice.
When radically rearranged by childbirth, Kimberly’s life changed shape to attend to the cultural chasm of postpartum care, and as a result she trained in Somatic Experiencing and Sexological Bodywork to be able to help women heal from birth injuries, gynecological surgeries and sexual boundary violations.
She is the author of the feminist trauma book Call of the Wild: How We Heal Trauma, Awaken Our Own Power and Use it for Good (HarperWave, 2021) as well as the early mothering classic, The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions and Restoring Your Vitality (Shambhala, 2017) – translated into 8 languages. She is the host of the Sex Birth Trauma podcast with over 1M unique downloads.
About Tad Hargrave:
Tad Hargrave is a hippy who developed a knack for marketing (and then learned to be a hippy again).
Since 2001, he has been weaving together strands of ethical marketing, Waldorf School education, a history in the performing arts, local culture making, anti-globalization activism, an interest in his ancestral, traditional cultures, community building and supporting local economies into his work helping people create profitable businesses that are ethically grown while restoring the beauty of the marketplace.
Tad spent his late teens being schooled in a mixed bag of approaches to sales and marketing – some manipulative and some not. When that career ended, he spent a decade unlearning and unpacking what he’d been through. How had he been swept up in it? Why didn’t those approaches work as well as advertised? Were there ways of marketing that both worked better and felt better to all involved? It took him time but he began to find a better way to market.
By 2006, he had become one of the first, full-time ‘conscious business’ marketing coaches (for hippies) and created a business where he could share the understanding he had come to: Marketing could feel good. You didn’t have to choose between marketing that worked (but felt awful) or marketing that felt good (but got you no clients). Since 2001, he has been touring his around Canada, the United States, Europe, and online, bringing refreshing and unorthodox ideas to conscious entrepreneurs and green businesses that help them grow their organizations and businesses (without selling their souls). Instead of charging outrageous amounts, he started doing most of his events on a pay what you can basis. He is the author of sixteen books and workbooks on marketing. Tad currently lives in Edmonton, Alberta (traditionally known, in the local indigenous language of the Cree, as Amiskwaciy (Beaver Hill) and later Amiskwaciwaskihegan (Beaver Hill House) and his ancestors come primarily from Scotland with some from the Ukraine as well. He is now dedicated to spending the rest of his days preserving and fostering a more deeply respectful, beautiful and human culture.
Arc and Craft
November 16 –20, Ghost Ranch, New Mexico
Arc and Craft
An Exploration of Creativity and Culture Making
November 16–20 2025
Live at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico
An in-person gathering to apprentice leadership, eloquence, elderhood, culture work, and alchemy with Stephen Jenkinson, Kimberly Ann Johnson and Tad Hargrave.
What are the mechanics of storytelling and conducting-
and how do we conjure lift-off?
How does an event become ceremonial, become culture work?
What are the mechanics of building an arc- a beginning, middle and ending-
of a composition, a song, an evening, a retreat?
Arc and Craft
A 5 Day Gathering
with Stephen Jenkinson, Kimberly Ann Johnson
and Tad Hargrave
November 16–20
Ghost Ranch,
New Mexico
Email juli@kimberlyannjohnson.com to register.
Are you a:
- Culture maker
- Storyteller
- Men or women’s work leader
- Workshop / retreat facilitator
- Wilderness guide
- Ceremonialist
- Counselor or professor
- Coach or teacher trying to bridge into more explicit culture work
- Birth doula or death doula
- Person trying to proliferate presence in an attention deficit time
Dear Ones,
This gathering is years in the conceiving and conjuring. Last year was really touch-and-go with Stephen’s health and there was a sense of doors closing and less being possible.
With great fortune, some of the dense fog has lifted making a multi-day gathering possible.
Tad Hargrave and I have spoken about how we love hearing Stephen talk about craft and composition.
In August, Stephen’s long awaited book Matrimony: Ritual, Culture, and the Heart at Work (Sounds True) will make her appearance. We will use this text as a center point. You’ll be asked to read it and work it prior to the gathering. So your questions and longings will be influenced by what you’ve read, and we will weave those into our days together.
We have two other written, not-yet-published, works- The Rite of No More, and the Green Book: A Thinking Man’s Dance with Neurodegeneration – that we will make there way in, and you will get some first “glimpses.”
There will be other surprises.
These gatherings are evocative, emergent, generative, devastating, multi-generational, time-traveling and unforgettable.
We will honor New Mexico and her people through a Feast.
This invitation probably would sound a little too cheerful for SJ’s liking. (or spunky, as he likes to describe me)
He would say something like:
It’s time to disseminate a sense of burden.
A critical mass of people in the room brings a degree of survivability to the times.
I’m saying:
We need you for that critical mass.
This might be for you if:
- You’d like to hear what Stephen has to say about storytelling, speech, eloquence, oration, composition, invocation and creativity.
- Have been doing your thing for a while and sense there’s a deeper layer to what you have to offer that you haven’t been able to reach yet.
- Want to find a way to do your work that isn’t formulaic.
- Secretly feel daunted as you look at the generation of teachers above you and think, “I’m never gonna get there. I’ll never be that good.” or “Am I as alone as I feel?”
- Are not willing to concede that English is a bereft and bankrupt language fit only for colonizers and Empire, etc.
A day may look like:
Breakfast
Opening / Prayer
Morning – Home Group Sessions & Open Space Breakouts
Lunch
Walk on the Land
Afternoon – Session with Stephen Jenkinson
Dinner
Evening – Music / Performance / Gathering
Accommodations are simple, and almost all housing is shared. Single housing options are few and reserved for those with special needs. Reach out to Juli so that we can accommodate you!
The retreat location is beautiful, elemental and rustic. The land is stunning and powerful. Little to no cell phone service. Vast horizons. Red earth. Quiet starry nights.
We will be gathering to apprentice leadership, eloquence, elderhood, culture work, and alchemy.
You in?
Kimberly, Stephen and Tad
These gatherings are evocative, emergent, generative, devastating, multi-generational, time-traveling and unforgettable.
INVESTMENT
Full Price
$2,500
payment plans & a small amount of off-site tickets available
Registration and Questions:
Email juli@kimberlyannjohnson.com
About Stephen Jenkinson:
Stephen is a worker, author, storyteller, culture activist, and co-founder of the Orphan Wisdom School with his wife Nathalie Roy. The school is a teaching house for skills of deep living and making human culture that are mandatory in endangered, endangering times. He makes books, tends farm and mends broken handles and fences, succumbs to interviews, teaches and performs internationally.
He has Master’s degrees from Harvard University (Theology) and the University of Toronto (Social Work).
Apprenticed to a master storyteller when a young man, he has worked extensively with dying people and their families, is former program director in a major Canadian hospital, former assistant professor in a prominent Canadian medical school.
Stephen Jenkinson is the author of: Reckoning (2022), co-authored with Kimberly Ann Johnson, A Generation’s Worth: Spirit Work While the Crisis Reigns (2021), Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble (2018), the award-winning Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul (2015), Homecoming: The Haiku Sessions (a live teaching, 2013), How it All Could Be: A workbook for dying people and those who love them (2009), Angel and Executioner: Grief and the Love of Life – (live teaching, 2009), and Money and The Soul’s Desires: A Meditation (2002).
He is also the subject of the feature length documentary film Griefwalker, a portrait of his work with dying people, and Lost Nation Road, a shorter documentary on the crafting of the Nights of Grief and Mystery tours.
About Kimberly Ann Johnson:
Kimberly Johnson is an author, postpartum care activist, trauma educator, structural bodyworker and single mother. She graduated Valedictorian from Northwestern University with a BS in Social Policy (‘97).
She studied yoga directly with the three main lineage holders of the Krishnamacharya tradition- Desikachar, BKS Iyengar, and Pattabhi Jois and taught yoga full time for 15 years, while running a Structural Integration practice.
When radically rearranged by childbirth, Kimberly’s life changed shape to attend to the cultural chasm of postpartum care, and as a result she trained in Somatic Experiencing and Sexological Bodywork to be able to help women heal from birth injuries, gynecological surgeries and sexual boundary violations.
She is the author of the feminist trauma book Call of the Wild: How We Heal Trauma, Awaken Our Own Power and Use it for Good (HarperWave, 2021) as well as the early mothering classic, The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions and Restoring Your Vitality (Shambhala, 2017) – translated into 8 languages. She is the host of the Sex Birth Trauma podcast with over 1M unique downloads.
About Tad Hargrave:
Tad Hargrave is a hippy who developed a knack for marketing (and then learned to be a hippy again).
Since 2001, he has been weaving together strands of ethical marketing, Waldorf School education, a history in the performing arts, local culture making, anti-globalization activism, an interest in his ancestral, traditional cultures, community building and supporting local economies into his work helping people create profitable businesses that are ethically grown while restoring the beauty of the marketplace.
Tad spent his late teens being schooled in a mixed bag of approaches to sales and marketing – some manipulative and some not. When that career ended, he spent a decade unlearning and unpacking what he’d been through. How had he been swept up in it? Why didn’t those approaches work as well as advertised? Were there ways of marketing that both worked better and felt better to all involved? It took him time but he began to find a better way to market.
By 2006, he had become one of the first, full-time ‘conscious business’ marketing coaches (for hippies) and created a business where he could share the understanding he had come to: Marketing could feel good. You didn’t have to choose between marketing that worked (but felt awful) or marketing that felt good (but got you no clients). Since 2001, he has been touring his around Canada, the United States, Europe, and online, bringing refreshing and unorthodox ideas to conscious entrepreneurs and green businesses that help them grow their organizations and businesses (without selling their souls). Instead of charging outrageous amounts, he started doing most of his events on a pay what you can basis. He is the author of sixteen books and workbooks on marketing. Tad currently lives in Edmonton, Alberta (traditionally known, in the local indigenous language of the Cree, as Amiskwaciy (Beaver Hill) and later Amiskwaciwaskihegan (Beaver Hill House) and his ancestors come primarily from Scotland with some from the Ukraine as well. He is now dedicated to spending the rest of his days preserving and fostering a more deeply respectful, beautiful and human culture.