Grounded Connections in Nature
Radical Hope in the Woods
Radical Hope in the Woods is a restorative, community-centered experience designed to reconnect the Black community to the land, to one another, and to the wisdom within. This event series invites participants to slow down, breathe deeply, and remember that healing is both personal and collective.
Developed and led by Ashley Cullen-Williams, Brushwood Center Senior Program Director, the event series premiered in the spring of 2026. The experience was woven like a quilt of memory. It featured virtual healing circles, folklore storytelling, and mindful walks that echoed the footsteps of the enslaved ancestors who moved through dense forests under moonlight, guided by stars, spirit, and unshakable will to be free.
“Through the honoring of slave narratives, freedom songs, and oral traditions passed hand to hand and voice to voice, the project bridged past and present- blending ancestral knowledge with contemporary practices of mindfulness and creative expression,” Ashley explains.
Participants gathered both online and beneath open skies to not only remember, but to feel: to sit with the land, honoring ancestral resilience, tending to generational wounds and reclaiming the outdoors as sacred ground for rest, remembrance, and radical hope.
“I wanted to bring more Black people outdoors- not just to visit, but to remember,” Ashley shared. “To rebuild our relationship with nature as something that has always been ours. Historically, the woods have held stories of fear- of being hunted, of running, of surviving. But those same woods also held strategy, protection, and possibility. At Brushwood, I was invited- pushed even- to step outside, to slow down, to regulate, to listen deeply. And in that listening, I was reminded that this connection belongs to me. It has always belonged to us.”
Radical Hope in the Woods is supported by Healing Illinois. Healing Illinois is a racial healing initiative of the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) and the Field Foundation of Illinois.
