Rooted Roundtable

Michelle Cassandra Johnson is an author, activist, spiritual teacher, racial equity consultant and educator, and intuitive and shamanic healer. She approaches her life and work from a place of knowing we are, can, and must heal individually and collectively. Michelle facilitates workshops and immersions, leads retreats and transformative experiences nationwide, and offers an array of healing services for individuals and groups. For over 25 years as a racial equity educator, she has worked with large corporations, non-profits, and community groups. Michelle is a six-time published author, and in May 2025, her sixth book, The Wisdom of the Hive, co-written with her best friend, Amy Burtaine, and published by Sounds True, was released. Her upcoming book, You Are Protected, published by St. Martin’s Essentials, comes out in September 2026.

Michelle was a TEDx speaker at Wake Forest University in 2019 and has been interviewed on several podcasts in which she explores the premise and foundation of Skill in Action, along with embodied approaches to racial equity work, creating ritual in justice spaces, our divine connection with nature and Spirit, and how we as a culture can heal. 

Michelle leads courageously from the heart with compassion and a commitment to address the heartbreak dominant culture causes for many because of the harm it creates. She inspires change that allows people to stand in their humanity and wholeness in a world that fragments most of us. She lives in North Carolina with her husband, sweet dog, Jasper, and her honeybees. 

Visit Michelle's website.

Amy Burtaine is an author, facilitator, teaching-artist and coach who is committed to collective liberation.  She is a racial equity trainer with over 20 years of experience leading training, workshops and facilitated dialogues on equity, inclusion and social justice.  She works with trainers, organizers and community and institutional leaders across the U.S. to educate, activate, and promote organizational change. She has also worked nationally and internationally as a community-based theater educator specializing in theater for social change, and is a facilitator of the work of the Theatre of the Oppressed.  She believes that the arts can help us envision a world that is socially just, equitable, and free of oppression, where everyone can find and use their voice and where all voices are heard equally.  Her greatest passion is working with teams, groups and communities to use the tools of play to find connection, collaboration and healing. She is also a reverent student of the bees and is constantly learning from the wisdom of the hive.

Visit Amy's website.