Meet Rachel Bennett
The therapist, creatrix, and mythic thinker behind Rising Rooted
Hi, I’m Rachel.
I’m a therapist by training, but more than that, I’m a curious human who has always been trying to understand what it means to be alive — in a body, in a family, in a culture, on this planet at this time.
I live, work, and play on unceded Anishinabek territory (also known as Madawaska Valley, Ontario). I feel deeply grateful to be in relationship with this land — its rivers, forests, seasons, and long winters, and for the humans who have cared for it since the land knew humans. I grew up further south on Haudenosaunee land near Lake Erie, and both landscapes have shaped me. Living rurally keeps me close to cycles that feel older than the noise of modern life.
I am a white settler of mixed European descent — mainly British, Celtic, and German — with an Onondaga ancestor in my lineage. I am cisgender and heterosexual. I am able-bodied. I am neurodivergent. I live in remote-rural Canada. I grew up Catholic and began deconstructing that tradition in adolescence, slowly finding my own spiritual voice through eco-spirituality and returning to the land-based belief systems woven through my ancestry.
I am weird and a little witchy.
I grew up as an only child between two very different households in a high-conflict blended family. I often felt like an outsider looking in — studying the emotional weather, trying to make sense of what makes people hurt and what makes them heal. Now I’m raising my own blended family and doing my imperfect best to interrupt generational patterns rather than repeat them.
That early “outsider” lens never left me. It evolved into a deeply optimistic and caring scientific quest — exploring wellness, nervous systems, attachment, meaning, and soul within the context of modern life. I spend most of my free time reading, thinking, walking in the woods, or exploring the world with my toddler and our dog.
The Evolution of Rising Rooted
Rising Rooted began as a private psychotherapy practice.
I love individual therapy. I believe deeply in its power. But over time, I also began to see its limits.
So much of the mental health crisis we face is not just individual — it is cultural. It is relational. It is systemic. It is born from disconnection: from land, from rhythm, from community, from meaning.
Individual therapy can help us heal inside those conditions. But we must also work to change the conditions themselves, and that is a collective project.
Rising Rooted has grown in response to that realization. It has become a living ecosystem — psychotherapy, creative self-development spaces, group programs, mythic exploration, and community offerings — all rooted in my desire to build spaces where people can connect more deeply with themselves and with each other.
Rising Rooted is my ever-evolving way of applying my talents and passions in service of something larger than myself.
It is my song to the world — imperfect, evolving, and grounded in the belief that healing is not about fixing broken people, but about remembering how to live well together.
My Institutional Stamps of Approval…
