The Salt Eaters Circle

a healing-based leadership program for those who carry the weight of the work

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“Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?... Just so’s you’re sure, sweetheart, and ready to be healed, ’cause wholeness is no trifling matter.”

— Toni Cade Bambara, The Salt Eaters

Inspired by Bambara’s novel, this Salt Eaters Circle evokes a sacred invitation into collective healing, accountability, and the truth of transformation.

We carry forward her question — into our movements, our leadership, and our lives, together.

🖤 Who This Circle Is For

The Salt Eaters Circle is a 7 month healing-based leadership development program only for Black women, femmes, and non-binary people.

This is a protected and intentional community healing space created by and for Black people who are leading for transformation and collective liberation - while navigating systemic oppression in their lives and communities.

This is for you if you’re a Black woman, femme, and/or non-binary person who is also:

  • A leader and/or organizer working in movements, nonprofits, philanthropy, education, healing, and cultural transformation

  • Often seen as “the strong ones” or the “go-to” for others who are struggling

  • Visionary evolving to meet this moment and no longer willing to do it alone

  • Committed to healing, authenticity, and liberation —and ready to deepen that in community

This is not leadership as usual.

It’s a return to wholeness.

🌈 To be a Salt Eater is to be someone who...

  • Carries the weight of wellness — the responsibility, power, and consequence of being whole in a fragmented world

  • Chooses to metabolize the pain, grief, and labor of movement work in service of collective freedom

  • Is willing to go beyond survival and live in full presence with spirit, body, and memory

  • Is not afraid to engage with bitterness, ancestral memory, and truth as portals to healing

This is more than a program — it’s a path, a remembering.

  • A place to reclaim wellness as our birthright —
    not a reward for suffering

  • A space to lovingly release what is no longer ours to carry

  • A circle where grief, joy, rage, and rest are honored as medicine

  • A space to tend to our nervous systems, dreams, and bodies

  • A return to the quiet, personal places often forgotten in liberation work

  • A space to practice being witnessed, resourced, and real

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💫 What the Circle Becomes

🕊️ What You’ll Walk Away With

  • Increased internal clarity and capacity to lead through crisis

  • Stronger connection to purpose and collective responsibility

  • New tools and practices for aligned, embodied leadership

  • A circle of peers who hold care, truth, and transformation as sacred

  • 12 twice a month virtual sessions for 7 months
    2-hour long deep, facilitated gatherings exploring healing, leadership, rest, and transformation in community

    • Wednesday, 4 - 6 pm PT / 7 - 9 pm ET via Zoom

    • October 8th and 22nd, November and 19th, December 3rd and 17th, January 7th and 21st, February 4th and 18th, March 4th and 18th, April 1st and 15th

  • 2 one-on-one coaching sessions
    Opening and closing sessions to root your intentions and reflect on your journey

  • A practical needs exchange
    A mutual aid and barter network to share resources, skills, and care within the circle

  • Private online space in Mighty Networks
    A dedicated online community platform for connection, reflection, and resource-sharing between sessions

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🎁 What You’ll Receive

🌟 Meet Your Facilitator

Erika Totten (she/they) is a Co-Founder of the WildSeed Wellness Cooperative and the Minister of Pleasure, Joy and Embodied Liberation at the WildSeed Society.

Erika is a dynamic facilitator, pleasure activist, healer, spiritual life coach, and community builder from Washington, D.C. committed to the movement for Black liberation and the evolution of our collective consciousness. She is the founder and director of Unchained Visioning, a core member of Harriet's Apothecary Healer's Collective, and co-creator of Black Lives Matter: DC where she focuses on centering healing and visioning within activism.

From South Africa to Charlottesville, Erika creates and facilitates transformative healing spaces for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color of all identities to process racial stress and trauma, and to experience embodied liberation & collective Joy, in the midst of dismantling systems of oppression.

She is also a devoted wife and mother of two who organizes to build chosen families of health, restoration and radical love.

  • Reflections on Erika’s Approach

    The tools Erika gave me still guide how I move about the world and my relationships with myself and others. A full year later, I am still able to identify when something is not in alignment with who I am, and am able to move through life's ups and downs, acknowledging them as such.

    Friends and family have all noticed a shift, and they're right: I am more loving, affirming, vulnerable, and aware. I went from shutting away my feelings to fully feeling them- and then being able to move on. From pushing down grief and self-harming to using that grief as a tool for reflections.

    I am so very grateful for Erika's work and the impact it has had on my life.

    - Denae J.

  • Reflections on Erika’s Approach

    My work with Erika was life-changing, life-altering and took me to a place I'd never imagined I'd reach. Her coaching style and REAL talk woke me up in the most loving and "aye, really?" kind of way.

    She really encourages liberation and the push for self-love and self-care. Because of her guidance, her vision, and her work, I am a liberated woman breaking through EVERYTHING.

    - Tirza B.

  • Reflections on Erika’s Approach

    This is a space your soul needs that you didn't know it needed.

    Erika provides the right amount of encouragement, inspiration and teaching that allows you to integrate all that is experienced in the circle.

    Her capacity to hold a sacred space, allows you to let go of any stress or worry you may have been carrying.

    Beyond just the spiritual benefits, you also learn very practical tools you can use outside circle time to support your growth and healing.

    It really really has been a gift to my heart and soul to be a part of this space.

    - Makeda P.C.

  • Reflections on Erika’s Approach

    Erika's healing-centered framework was innovative, refreshing and very real in helping us recognize the lies, the truths and the power we each hold.

    We were able to understand the consequences and direct impacts embedded into us by our lived experiences with systems of oppression and white supremacy in our work environments.

    These sessions delivered practical coping mechanisms to improve our behavioral patterns including the strength of vulnerability, joy and being in community with others.

    She was authentic and masterful in creating a meaningful and safe space for everyone. This was the most helpful component to the program.

    - Lizbeth G.

  • Reflections on Erika’s Approach

    As a result of the group and individual work, I am taking time to reflect on what I need to do for myself in terms of setting boundaries, seeking my own liberation through healing and collaborative with others for our mutual liberation.

    I have taken a deeper look at myself with more grace and compassion for surviving and coping with white supremacy culture, facing my own complicity in upholding it, and learning new and more healthy ways of being in the world.

    I am hoping to continue seeking out opportunities for individual coaching like Erika has provided so I can continue my journey to personal healing and transformation to be restored to wholeness.

    So I can be a more authentic leaders that build affirming and life-honoring systems that equitable, just and loving.

    - Icela P.

  • Reflections on Erika’s Approach

    The opportunity to have Erika as a coach was probably one of the highlights of this program - both in the group sessions and in the 1-on-1 that I had with her.

    It was an opportunity that allowed me to better understand certain behaviors that were affecting me both personally and professionally. It has been an experience that allowed me to reflect and go deeper into my own assumptions.

    This experience has helped me better understand how valuable I am and what I bring and contribute to the table. It has been an opportunity to have more courage and to bring up difficult but necessary conversations.

    It has been an opportunity to rethink how I see myself in the future and what are the possible steps to get there

    - Lourdes O

  • Reflections on Erika’s Approach

    I have done executive coaching and group coaching before, but it was nothing like this.

    Erika made me feel seen. She moved at the pace of our group and our conversations, modeled and reinforced physical healing practices, and my 1:1 hour with her was transformative.

    I have been telling people in my circles "Healing does not need to take long. That is a lie!"

    Erika truly helped me liberate my own thinking and being, and I am so grateful. I'm also excited that I have this group of Sistas to lean on for the foreseeable future.

    - Jenny W.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • The live virtual sessions will be on Wednesday’s, 4 - 6 pm PT / 7- 9 pm ET and two times per month.

    • October 8th

    • October 22nd

    • November 5th

    • November 19th

    • December 3rd

    • December 17th,

    • January 7th,

    • January 21st

    • February 4th

    • February 18th,

    • March 4th

    • March 18th

    • April 1st

    • April 15th

  • Given the highly participatory nature of the healing-centered leadership development program, you are strongly encouraged to attend as many live sessions as possible.

    However, if you cannot, you may get a recording - depending on the session.

    For the first few sessions, Erika will be teaching you key tools you’ll use throughout the program (and life!). Those will be recorded and shared.

    However given the private nature of the participant sharing, Erika will not be recording that unless she has explicit consent from the participant.

    So while there will be some recording of the first few sessions where Erika’s teaching, most of the sessions will be unrecorded.

  • The investment for this 7-month transformational healing journey is one-time payment of $2,500 or seven monthly payments of $357.

    This investment honors the time, energy, spirit, and deep care poured into this sacred container. It supports the labor of facilitation, coaching, mutual aid coordination, and community tending.

    We encourage participants to seek funding through professional development funds or employer sponsorship.

  • If you need an invoice in order to have your organization cover the registration fee, please complete this form »

    This will provide us the information needed to create an invoice for you to submit to your employer.

  • Since part of the purpose of the WildSeed Wellness Coop is to earn money to fund the WildSeed Society, we do not offer scholarships for the Salt Eaters Circle.

    However, we do offer a free Emotional Emancipation Circle, led by Erika through the WildSeed Society for Black folks seeking healing and community support.

    Please know that your registration fees help subsidize the more radical work of the WildSeed Society of supporting frontline organizers in crisis — work that is often outside of typical funders’ grantmaking priorities.

    By participating, you are supporting not just your own healing, but the long-term sustainability of liberatory movement work.

  • If you’d like to make it financially possible for someone else to attend, please send Sandra an email at skim@wildseedsociety.com.

    We will follow up with you to make this possible!

  • If you’re a Black person, please check out Emotional Emancipation Circles, led by Erika at the WildSeed Society It’s for Black folks to process racial stress and learn essential tools for emotional wellness and liberation. 

    If you’re non-Black person who wants healing support, please out our other community offerings at the WildSeed Society.

  • The WildSeed Wellness Coop was founded, in part, to earn money to fund the WildSeed Society’s more radical and free programs, like supporting frontline organizers in crisis due to their movement work.

    Such work, while acknowledged as being deeply necessary by funders, is often outside of typical funders’ grantmaking priorities. That makes it difficult to raise money for. That’s why the WildSeed Wellness Coop’s earned income goes to subsidize the WildSeed Society’s programs.

    So by participating, you are supporting not just your own healing, but the long-term sustainability of liberatory movement work.

  • Please feel free to email Sandra at skim@wildseedsociety.com. Thank you!

The investment for this 7-month transformational healing journey is one-time payment of $2,500* or seven monthly payments of $357.

This investment honors the time, energy, spirit, and deep care poured into this sacred container. It supports the labor of facilitation, coaching, mutual aid coordination, and community tending.

We encourage participants to seek funding through professional development funds or employer sponsorship.

*Please note that your registration fees help subsidize the more radical work of the WildSeed Society — work that is often outside of typical funders’ grantmaking priorities. By participating, you are supporting not just your own healing, but the long-term sustainability of liberatory movement work.

Because part of the purpose of the WildSeed Wellness Coop is to earn money to fund the WildSeed Society, we do not offer scholarships for the Salt Eaters Circle. However, we do offer a free Emotional Emancipation Circle led by Erika through the WildSeed Society for Black folks seeking healing and community support.

🕯️ Your Investment

💞 Are You Ready To Be Well — Together?

If you’re a “yes” or even a “maybe”, please sign up below!

You’ll be notified when registration is open and receive emails
from Erika about the Salt Eaters Circle and her other offerings.

In community, no one eats the salt alone…

Come as you are

Lay it down

Let yourself be held