Meet Hope Najjar - a born and raised Californian with Chicana and Lebanese roots with incredible energy and clear vision. Hope is opening Night Hawk Art and Healing Collective in our tiny town of Laytonville, part of the Eel River watershed in rural inland Mendocino County of far northern California. The Night Hawk Collective has goals as lofty as its name sake, and hopes to serve as a community hub, empowering the community through sharing traditional methods of healing and promoting self-care.
This community is on a precipice after over 5 years of historic drought and water crises, concurrent with historic fires (including the Mendocino Complex, the largest fire in California history), ecological fracturing, threatened extinction of our local salmon and collapse of local fisheries, and severe and sudden economic decline due to the third economic boom and bust cycle in the region's history of extractive industries (in the past few decades we've experienced the collapse of the logging, fisheries, and cannabis production industries). Amidst all this, Hope is part of a generation of young folk here working hard to cultivate a community resilient enough to survive the current and future changes we face.
So listen with herbalist Selena Rowan of Nine Sisters Botanicals, and join the movement for sustainable, enthusiastic, loving, creative culture and community as we traverse through the unknown and unpredictable experience that is our current time.
For photos of Hope’s shop, go to www.kvadelnieksphotography.com
All photos by K. Vadelnieks ©
www.kvadelnieksphotography.com