Re-Storying
As the land, river, and spirits of Roots to Sky Sanctuary began calling our community of color in to stay, we needed a container to hold our process of learning and unlearning, how to ask permission properly to enter into relationship with this Place. We conceived “Re-Storying the Potomac” as our foundational project, to serve as the initiator of this ongoing “Re-Storying” process, which we are taught must take place everywhere a relationship with territory is sought by people for whom those ties had been severed.
The foundational story of our “Re-Storying the Potomac” project is the history of the Fairfax Stone. For 250 years, this British colonial territorial boundary marker at the source of the Potomac River has presided as the dominant cultural destination in the region. RTS’s 125 acres of land is situated in the heart of ancestral Shawnee and Massawomeck Indigenous lands and is just a few thousand yards downriver from the start of the Potomac River—the site known as the Fairfax Stone. The project brought voice to the cultural paradigm shift and changing relationship with these monuments and convened a living, breathing exhibit to tell the stories and experiences of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people who were living on this land pre-colonization and post-colonization.
From 2022 - 2023 with project support and funding provided by the Mellon Foundation, we launched this inaugural project which deepened the “gallery experience” from a passive exhibition to an active interdisciplinary site that played host to curated workshops, educational seminars, short documentary vignettes, art installations, and multimedia historical motifs. Through the process of storytelling within multi-media creative platforms and strengthening the bonds of community and connection to the natural environment, individuals of urban and diverse backgrounds received an opportunity to orient themselves and their lineages within Appalachia and its stories, and together weave a new cultural chapter with it. This corner of the Upper Potomac emerged as a vibrant multicultural educational experience that places into the center of public dialogue how the birth of the Potomac River did not begin with Lord Fairfax.
The inaugural project, which wrapped up at the end of 2023, was the seed that inspired Roots to Sky’s culture as a community and led to branching Re-Storying projects and events. Roots to Sky Sanctuary has convened stewards from other aligned Indigenous and non-indigenous land communities from all over the country to engage in cultural exchange, peacemaking and healing. The concept of Re-Storying remains at the core of what Roots to Sky seeks to host and develop for our own community and others seeking the renewal central to the desire to reconnect with land and our blood memory of harmony there.
Understanding the Potomac River
Roots to Sky Sanctuary lies at the headwaters of the Potomac River (the southern border of the property), which flows all the way to Washington, DC, before it empties into the Chesapeake Bay.
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Over at the Sanctuary the leaves 🍁 have been turning and falling to the ground. Here is a view of the Heart House from the front of the pond. The Heart House can sleep up to twenty-two people in beds. This is the space where we host many guests and groups for our dynamic fellowship programming. If you are looking for a venue to host an upcoming event, retreat, or training we can send you more information. Hit us with a DM!
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On indigenous people’s day we remembers Falling in love and being again in right relationship with the air, water, fire, earth, and ether. In eternal gratitude to the land beneath our feet.
The Earth we steward at Roots to Sky is at the mouth of Patawomeck and the Seneca Rocks is the traditional unceded land of the Shawandasse Tula people. The name means Southwind Earth in the Algonquin language.
Our circle gets tighter as we make new relatives and weave in our old ones here at Roots to Sky Sanctuary. Listening to Mother Earth as she whispers.
#indigenousland #fourdirections #medicinewheel #heartspace #landjustice #landback #peacemaking #listening #connections
#Reflecting back on some of the wonderful course collaborations with @jhaferd from Spring 2022. Thanks to the students at City College @spitzerschool_ccny, the incredible team @rootstoskysanctuary, for the ongoing work of “Restorying the Potomac”, which began a year ago with the Sp ‘22 studio.
During the three day site visit, undergraduate design students worked to bring undervalued stories of this land to life.
Stay tuned for more photos, and updates from the output of the RTP Fellows!
#Repost @jhaferd
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RESTORYING THE POTOMAC, PART 1
Faculty : JEROME HAFERD @jhaferd
Restoring the Potomac is a land-based research, restorying, exhibition and ‘re-monumenting’ project being undertaken in collaboration with the Roots to Sky Collective in the Appalachian Mountains. The project seeks to generate new forms of living archive, activism and interpretive practice connecting and transecting the modern day and pre-colonial Potomac River watershed. The first in a multi-year endeavor, Spring ‘22 advanced studio engaged the Land as a protagonist for design : to produce spatial scholarship and propose architectural interventions of memorialization, cultivation, and stewardship beginning at two critical sites : The Fairfax Stone and the Roots to Sky Sanctuary. This work challenges prevailing modes of architecture, and inspire us to think at the scale of the stone, monument, regional, and planetary.
Jerome Haferd is a licensed architect and educator based in Harlem, NY. He is co-founder of the award-winning design and research practice BRANDT : HAFERD. His writing on archaeology, Blackness, and speculation has recently been published in Log and Project journals. Jerome is assistant professor at CCNY, and conducts course collaborations with Yale, Columbia and elsewhere. He is also a core initiator of Dark Matter U. Jerome received his M. Arch at Yale and his B.S. from Ohio State. He has worked in the offices of OMA/Rem Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi Architects. BRANDT : HAFERD are 2020 AIA New Practices New York recipients. Haferd was winner of the 2020 Studio Prize (CCNY).
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#Architecture #AdvancedStudio #CCNY #appalachia
#fairfaxstonemonument #potomacriver
In July 2023, Antonio Carassco one of our esteemed Humanities in Place Fellows led a ceremonious weekend for our community. We had nearly 70 people come to sit around the fire, share stories, make music, and heal with the land. These few shots were part of our opening circle ⭕️ in front of the Sanctuary pond.
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#humanities #landstewards #RootsToSky #buildingsanctuary #mellonfoundationfellows #humanitiesinplace #community #growtogether #appalachia #westvirginia #mountainscape #circleup #tendingthefire @xocoyotlantonio
We are ending out an incredible summer of Roots to Sky programming! We couldn’t be more thrilled by the events and retreats, rooted in healing, humanities, regenerative farming, and the arts that we were able to host at the land 🥁
As we prepare for the fall we will be sharing some flashbacks and special moments from 2023. This photo was taken during the opening ceremony and drum invocation for Beauty in the Backyard a creative arts healing retreat that brought over 350 people to the Sanctuary.
We have incredible fellowship programming still coming up in the last few months of the year. Check the link in our bio to learn more about the upcoming events!
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📸 @zoophoriaphotography
Hello! Welcome to the instagram account for the Roots To Sky Sanctuary Family!
We are excited to share our mission and work with you all via this platform.
More soon…!
-RTSS
© 2026 Roots to Sky Sanctuary
Nestled between Thomas, West Virginia
and Oakland, Maryland
Nestled between Thomas, West Virginia
and Oakland, Maryland
