hi there, i’m jordan —

i’m a chef, storyteller, and grief tender.

i keep the kitchen’s hearth burning strong—nourishing the bodies and beings doing deep healing work.

i weave together mythic threads and storied tapestries of meaning-breaking and meaning-making arcs and journeys meant to be shared in a circle around a fire.

and with reverence and sacred responsibility, i tend to the grief stuck in the bodies of our beings, lineages, and cultures in the hopes that it can be metabolized and composted into the rebirth of a better world.

i’m also a ritualist, writer, facilitator, consultant and coach.

but above all that, through all that, for all that—my work and life revolves around community. 

i strive to seed, steward, and tend community in all that i do and be.

that is what my dreams, longings, and griefs guide me towards—healing our bodies, beings, relationships, cultures, systems, and lineages back into an interwoven connections of community; back into interdependent, reciprocal, regenerative ways of living and being as a village together. 

in that journey—i find myself being a humble student and devotee to the ever-evolving emergence of life and presence.

i live for it, surrender to it, and trust it with my soul and body. this moment in time is asking us to navigate complexity, dance with nuanced uncertainty, and hold trauma-infused relational dynamics and paradoxical multiplicity in ways never before asked of us.

that emergent, unknown, embodied path is the one i choose to walk.

earth and nature is my greatest teacher, and community ritual is my deepest medicine—stewarding the cocreative emergence of ceremonial spaces that cultivate and nurture relational, embodied healing from cultures and systems of separation, competition, and domination back into those of partnership, kinship, and lovership with ourselves, each other, and nature around us. 

my soul’s work and purpose is at this intersection of grief tending, nature-based ritual, and culture change work.

through communal grief releases, in ceremonies that reconnect us somatically and spiritually with the living land and life around us, we can take the first steps towards healing and liberating our collective, cultural body.

lastly, i feel called to share that through all my work, i strive to honor the ancestral lineages that have shaped me. first and foremost, my own—primarily jewish on one side and northern european on the other, and then also, the cultural and wisdom-keeping lineages that have taught me tools and technologies for how to bring my gifts into the world—my elders Thérèse Charvet, Tere Carranza, Laurence Cole, and those of their teachers, Sobonfu and Malidoma Somé, Martín Prechtel, Francis Weller, Joanna Macy, and many more…

“community is not a goal to be achieved, but a gift to be received
(from how we show up, tend to, and care for the relationships around us).”
— parker j. palmer (and jordan lyon)

reculturing myself back to living
in reciprocal, regenerative, right relationship

born and raised on unceded coast salish / puyallup tribal land (often called tacoma, wa)

currently living on unceded suquamish land (often called bainbridge island) in the intentional community called sacred groves

feeling is healing.
healing is integrating.
integrating is belonging.

writing

creatively writing and expressing myself through poetry, articles, and newsletters — sharing experiences, perspectives, and learnings around my healing journey, embodied community living, and authentic belonging:

  • community musings — poems, articles, and thought pieces on community, belonging, and nature shared on Medium

  • seeding community newsletter — your guide to rooting deeper, growing truer, and blossoming wider in our pnw community (instagram)

  • the hummingbird brings — poetry on self-transformation, evolution, and growth from my travels

  • son of mama gaia — healing, re-wilding, and liberating a lost son's relationship with mama gaia

  • conscious belonging — a rough draft of book about embracing our feelings, needs, desires and dreams as the path to belonging for all

cheffing

create culinary treats and nourishing meals for community — sharing my passions and love for food as medicine with those around me:

  • retreat chef — menu design, prep, and cook meals for small to medium sized retreats

  • prep chef — prep and cook dishes for the hot bar and deli (pcc community markets)

  • personal chef — cook weekly farm-fresh, vegan meals for a family

  • community chef — cook large-scale communal meals for community rituals, gatherings, and events

  • hummingbird treats — create homemade, delicious vegan treats for pop-ups and festivals: granola, overnight oats, vegan yogurts, nut butters, jams & jellies, bliss balls, and much much more

facilitating

trained, experienced, and practiced in different facilitation frameworks and schools — hosting and facilitating gatherings, meetings, and retreats:

  • grief tending — first honoring my teachers Thérèse Charvet, Tere Carranza, Laurence Cole, Francis Weller, Joanna Macy, Malidoma Somé, Sobonfu Somé, Martin Prechtel, and many more, i humbly hold ritual grief tending spaces throughout the salisn sea region. most consistently, i hold a monthly men’s grief lodge at the land i call home, sacred groves. click here to learn more.

  • trainings and workshops — co-creating a shared, aligned vision and values, story and identity, and processes and structures; coaching individuals towards putting their gifts and creative energies towards work they find to be meaningful, impactful, and regenerative; building leaders’ and organizers’ capacity to cultivate and nurture relationships of trust, belonging, and authenticity

  • rituals and retreats — collaborating with others to bring to life containers that gather community to heal and grow together. i seed space to be emergently cocreated through embodied presence and mutual care.

  • contact beyond contact — trained to facilitate cbc workshops: holding space for a dance and healing practice that supports individuals to integrate, transform and heal in body, mind, heart and spirit.

(student of Strozzi’s Somatic Embodied Leadership, Liberating Structures, Art of Hosting, Open Space Technology, Microsolidarity, Warm Data Lab, Ways of Council, Contact Beyond Contact)

community gardening

being and practicing what embodied, interdependent community can be — collaborating, co-designing, and cocreating with kindred spirits to bring to life rituals, offerings, and structures that work to bring to life a regenerative, interdependent world of belonging for all:

  • seeding community newsletter — your guide to rooting deeper, growing truer, and blossoming wider in our pnw community (instagram)

  • emergent me — a 12-week relational journey to reconnect, realign, and recenter our lives towards our authenticity, purpose, and love

  • our mycelial selfs — interviews on healing to live in integrity, authenticity, & sovereignty as we open up to be in community & right relationship with ourselves, each other, & nature (instagram)

  • the love berry experiment — designing and implementing an experimental intra-community currencies that nurture healing our relationships with giving and receiving, abundance and scarcity, and encourage relational flows of resources, energy, and care towards livelihood needs and loving appreciation (personal write-up)

  • sanctuary playground — your imagination is invited. Your open heart, your open will—are summoned to explore, play, and co-create connection in three directions: deeper inside, wider with others, and further beyond ourselves

interested in connecting?