For Erika Rose Santoro, “Every day is a reset.”

The multidimensional artist, warrior and teacher of transformation and healing began to notice her unusual connection to the spiritual plane as a toddler. As she grew up, she started to understand her intuition and visions, realizing she could harness that comprehension to help others “embody the unique divine blueprint of their souls.”

Santoro spent 20 years as a creative business partner and trusted advisor to Grammy Award-winning performer Alicia Keys, weighing in on everything from creative concepts to business development. She also co-founded philanthropic organizations like Keep a Child Alive and We Are Here Movement.

Now, harnessing tools including reiki, clairvoyance, Kundalini yoga and sound healing, she offers her mystical knowledge to help individuals evolve and prosper. Most recently, she launched Rooted and Wild, a homestead apothecary, farm and cultural arts playground “for experiential transformation” in the Hudson Valley—her dream come true. “We gather to remember our wholeness and interconnectedness,” she explains, “and, from that reverence, heal, create and galvanize change in our world.”

Here, she shares her own journey and explains why she dies to herself every day:

Live The Process: Did you have a particular moment or experience that awakened you to spirituality?

Erika Rose Santoro: I had a past life memory when I was 2 and a half and, thankfully, my parents were curious and didn’t shut me down. At 4, I experienced what I now know to be clairaudience/clairvoyance/claircognizance and clairsentience—when you can hear, see, know and feel messages from the unseen realms. My father was raised strict Roman Catholic and my mother was Jewish; and I was being raised Jewish, so there was no framework for this. So, my mom took me to astrologers and psychics to help me make sense of it. They would tell me that I was a healer and a psychic, though I had no idea what that meant! But it led me on a lifelong journey of deep seeking and, by the grace of God, I received a copy of Dr. Brian Weiss’ book, Many Lives, Many Masters, when I turned 9 years old. It was the first real book I read and it was so confirming and affirming for all that I had experienced and felt thus far!

LTP: Can you describe the work you do—from energy healing to creative coaching? How has that evolved from when you first started working with Alicia Keys to now, more than 20 years later?

ERS: I am super passionate about supporting folks on their journeys of embodying the unique divine blueprint of their souls. I get so lit about the brilliance each one of us is coded with, and my biggest prayer is that each of us stands so fully in our “Creative Sovereign Power,” free from illusion, oppressive social constructs and the trauma of our incarnational and ancestral wounds. Because I basically think that will save the world! So, I’m a guide, mentor and teacher on that journey. Through my own healing journey and lifelong study, I’ve innovated a methodology that supports folks in their journey to remembering the fullness of who they are, so they can shine unapologetically in their gift and thrive, impact, create and prosper.

I believe that my work with Alicia primed me for this, as I was fortunate enough to support, witness and co-create with her on her epic journey of becoming in such a multi-faceted way—from her creativity to her business to her philanthropic endeavors to her own mind-body-spirit well-being. 

LTP: Rooted and Wild seems like a truly unique and extraordinary place. What exactly goes on there, both today and in non-Covid times?

ERS: Thank You! Rooted and Wild is my own personal legacy dream coming true. It’s an “Oasis for the Emerging Paradigm,” a place to reconnect with self, the Earth, creativity and community. Our mission is to catalyze the liberation and unity of all beings by regenerating soil, soul and spirit. We gather to remember our wholeness and interconnectedness, and, from that reverence, heal, create and galvanize change in our world. We learn to steward the land together to create sovereignty and resilience; and we steward each other through holistic healing, so that we can come together without recapitulating outdated ways born from harm and instead, from a place of joy and play, create emergent works of art that endeavor to solve the most pressing issues of our time. We are dream-weaving the world we want to see into being.   

LTP: For January, at Live The Process, we’re focused on the idea of “the reset”—clearing the decks on every level in order to summon renewed energy. What does it mean to you to "reset"?

ERS: I’m kind of obsessed with the reset. Every day is a reset for me. I’ve been on a Priestess path for eight years and, on that path, I vowed to die to myself each day, which means I get to rebirth to myself each day as well. We are all constantly evolving, and growing and realizing ourselves and clearing the decks on every level creates the space for the authentic essence of us to return over and over again. Obsessed! 

LTP: What does happiness look like to you? 

ERS: It’s a state of joy, bliss, peace, knowing, trusting that all is in divine perfection. It’s enjoying the journey in all of its undulations. It’s my children’s laughter, smell, hugs and imagination. It’s dancing and singing at the top of my lungs. It’s the awe and wonder of Mama Earth, constantly mind-blown! It’s the magic I see and feel everywhere in this multi-verse of being. It’s allowing pleasure to take root through deep self/spirit honoring, a daily devotional practice. It’s knowing and not knowing, and laughing and surfing and crying my way through it. 

LTP: What does it mean to you to “Live The Process” and how can we all do that more each day?

ERS: Recently, it dawned on me that I’m on the journey of my dreams coming true. And it was a revelation. Like the destination doesn’t matter and I don’t know what it will look like anyway and, once I’m there, I’ll likely want to create the next thing. So, it’s really the journey that’s the good stuff. That’s what we’re here doing—living the processes. And if I can surrender to that process and, better yet, remember that the process is the dream and the fun and the stuff that makes this life so rich, then I can experience more presence and stop worrying about the past or the future. Just be present. In this moment. It’s a practice, a daily practice, of deep gratitude, humility and awakening to the beauty of it all, in all of its imperfect perfection.