Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryn Dorsey.
Hi Ryn, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I am Baltimore born and bred, and I love my city so much. The people, the arts, the music, the culture, 34 years and it’s still real! I grew up in Northeast Baltimore in a little neighborhood called Mayfield just south of Hamilton. I dropped out of high school at 17 and floated around as a broke visual artist and musician. At 23, my father walked into his attic where I resided and looked me straight in the eye and said, “What are you gonna do to make money?” I had not so subtly just stopped going to work at his store, Soundscape, a few months prior, and I really just wanted him to leave my room, “I’ve been thinking about going to culinary school or business school.” I squawked hoping he would leave. He left. The next day he trudged up the giant staircase once again, thrust a packet inside a white envelop into my arms and said, “You’re gonna go to culinary school in the fall unless you can give me one good reason not to.” I couldn’t. So he left, I bawled my eyes out in fear, and then I wiped my tears and went online to figure out how to get my GED. I went on to get my AA from Baltimore International College and then my ICF Master of Italian Regional Cuisine diploma from the Italian Culinary Institute in Calabria, Italy. While in Italy, I got my first taste of farm to table food, agriturismos, food and land conservation and preservation, and cultural travel. I had found my passion and I couldn’t get enough of it.
By the time I was 26, I was already holding the title Executive Chef. I thought I was on top of the world, partying all the time, being wild and carefree. I had everything I thought I ever wanted but I didn’t feel fulfilled. After suddenly losing my dear cousin Andy to suicide, I began to think about what I really wanted out of life and how I wanted to show up to the world. Working crazy long hours, partying, beating up my body… this wasn’t why I became a chef. I became a chef to create sacred holy moments between loved ones and new friends. In July of 2014, with the help and encouragement of my cousin Paul, I decided to start my own company—Chef Ryn’s True Food—making jams and marmalades and it was immediately well-received. But every time I would try to pull away from the restaurant industry to focus on my company, I would get sucked back in. The last time that happened was just after my partner, Jay, had tragically passed away. I had been working a job I absolutely hated and plotting my escape when the Universe took the wheel. I was fired in favor of someone younger and less expensive than myself. In that pivotal moment, I vowed to myself I would never work for money-grubbing people ever again. I would never allow my concepts and ideas to be used without retaining ownership, I would never again let men in power walk all over me. I was done with the ugly, conniving, money-obsessed side of cuisine. This was not my soul’s purpose.
I immediately started to work my micro urban farm, Agriturismo. That’s when my best friend of 20 years and I decided to take a soul trip as we had always wanted to do together. We decided on Peru and our first stop would be the landlocked jungle city of Iquitos on the Amazon. There were no roads to Iquitos, only rivers and planes. This is where we met and communed with a shaman named Roman Castillo Perez. I knew what my future looked like abstractly, I knew I was starting a farm and following my visions, but I KNEW that I had power that I needed to unlock! I knew I wasn’t living at my full capacity. I asked the Shaman, “How do I unlock my power?” He said, “Give me your hands,” and I held my hands up, he turned my palms to the sky and started to smack them and say, “you have so much power, so much energy coming from here,” “what you need to do is connect here and here,” as he touched my heart and my third eye. “When you do this, you will unlock your power.” He was so confident, and I was so determined to find out how to do that, and just when I was about to ask a question he said, “And right now, I see you as a crystal ball, and I know this means that part of your power is the ability to control crystals. They will be a big part of your journey.”
Immediately that resonated with me, I was utterly obsessed with crystals as a child and recently had gotten back into them again. As I looked back, I saw all of these micro hints the universe had been giving me since Jay died that had been leading me here. I realized that my life’s purpose was not just to feed the body. That what I had really been in love with all these years was the perfect moments that we curate around tables and nourishment. I had really been in love with feeding souls, feeding not just the body—but the spirit and mind as well. The next month spent in Peru, I fed every part of myself in preparation for what I knew was a great transformation happening inside me. I laughed and loved and cried and howled at the milky way.
When we returned home in late July of 2017, I knew I was going to do farming but I still needed a kitchen. I still wanted to cook a few days a week and help create contacts for my future produce. “I want a part-time chef job.” I told myself (and the universe)! I wanted a real chef job where I was in charge but it only took up half of my day and left me with the will to live. I wanted normal working hours and weekends off. “Yeah right” I thought, “This doesn’t exist in my industry.” Literally as I was searching Craigslist, I got a text message. It was a guy who I had worked a few shifts with before going to Peru; he was moving to Florida and he wanted to know if I wanted his part-time chef job. I started that September at the Hamilton Street Club, a women’s only members only social club and was happily still there pre-covid, with plans to return when they reopen this fall.
The evolution from Chef Ryn’s True Food to Chef Ryn’s (Mind Body Spirit Wellness) happened organically and slowly over the past seven years. As my personal wellness grew, my business grew. I had already added my jewelry and art to my market tables and was having a great time pushing the boundaries of self. I started to fervently study crystal healing and I couldn’t get enough. I wanted to experience every type of healing, and the more I experienced, the more they became a part of me, the more I wanted to share these healing practices with others. I expanded first into crystal healing and herbalism, then added reiki and aromatherapy, and most recently sound healing. In July 2019, after years of chronic pain, I started to make CBD products because “a recipe is a recipe,” right? The same summer, I partnered with Amanda Autry in her Empowered Retreats, and together with our partner Lilly St. Denis we started to feed minds, bodies, and souls! Since then, my product line has expanded to include not only jams, marmalades, art, and jewelry, but also CBD and apothecary products, herbal tinctures, homegrown herbal smudges, crystals, altar wares, and more.
Pre-pandemic, I had been planning on opening a studio and store in Hampden, so when COVID hit, I knew I still had to expand somehow. We did the pandemic pivot. I found a house with my friend astrologer/tarot reader, Morgan Coleman, that had a perfect back room with a separate entrance. We moved in and built a beautiful little studio and shop where we take clients and live stream our weekly Wellness Wednesday shows. Each show is themed with a different wellness topic that we chat about while unboxing and showing off new products. A typical healing session with me is a combination of reiki, crystal healing, channeling, guided meditation, and sound healing. I do many things, but they are all really one thing at the core: WELLNESS. I consult with clients on healthy lifestyle changes, personal practices, and wellness routines to help them heal their trauma and live the best life they can live. I specialize in empathy control, trauma healing, and heart expansion. I am so grateful for all of the amazing empowered people and entrepreneurs in my life and can’t wait to see what comes next!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
My road has had many bumps and turns, but I know each one of them has taken me to exactly where I need to be. I have lost many important people in my life, loss seemed to follow me. I had to start to ask questions of myself, “what does this all mean?” Why would one person lose her mentor, dear friend, cousin, and partner within five years? I realized that these losses, these lessons, were not only mine, they were mine to share with others like me. I realized that if sharing my stories helped just one person not to feel alone than my pain had been worth something. I learned so much about myself in those moments of great pain. Mostly I learned that when you think you are breaking, you are really just breaking open. Breaking points are yourself proving to you that you a thousand times stronger than you think. When you get to your breaking point and don’t break, you show yourself what you are really made of, that your possibilities are endless, that you can do anything!
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Hippocrates said that a well person is a person who is well of mind, body, and spirit. In today’s society, we are lucky if we find one out of these three. Chef Ryn’s goal is to get you well in ALL THREE of these areas! With a wide array of products for your mind, body, and spirit, Chef Ryn is dedicated helping people find their inner joy, outer peace, and compassionate love for the people, planet, and action that binds all living things. Sustainable, local, and mindful life is the only way our society will progress into the future. Chef Ryn Dorsey aims to help you feel good while making the best decisions to help you lead a life with purpose and fulfillment!
Chef Ryn’s Homestead specializes in group or one-on-one healing using a combination of modalities including crystal healing, usui/holy fire reiki, herbalism, aromatherapy, guided meditation, and sound therapy. With focus on sacral trauma healing, current and past life exploration, heart opening, and unlocking your intuitive powers, Chef Ryn’s Woodberry home studio is a safe and sacred place for all those in need. Chef Ryn’s makes homegrown and locally sourced conserves, tinctures, herbal remedies, smudge bundles, and a wide variety of handmade CBD and apothecary products designed to stimulate your energy–mind, body, and spirit. Chef Ryn’s carries assorted altar wares, tarot and oracle cards, and healing crystals in order to facilitate each of your ritual and healing needs.
What does success mean to you?
To me, success is defined by living your truest purpose and your highest good. Success does not come from money or things, success comes from having a deep self-love inside. When we love ourselves fully, we believe in ourselves fully, and we give ourselves the permission to follow our dreams. Success comes when you have a deep satisfaction in the knowledge that you are living your soul’s mission. Success is persevering past all the “you can’t”s and “you don’t”s and being your authentic self unapologetically. Do the work. You’ll be rewarded.
True success is inviting abundance and prosperity into your life in every way. When you live your truth, you call in positivity. Prosperity flourishes and abundance abounds when you believe that you deserve those things. Success takes a lot of hard work, perseverance, and dedication–spiritually, emotionally, physically–but it all falls into place when you are on the path you are meant to be on. As Paulo Coehlo said, “And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
Pricing:
- Crystals range from $2-$200+
- Half Hour Healing $50
- Hour Long Healing $90/hr
- CBD products from $15-$60
- Herbal Remedies from $5 to $100
Contact Info:
- Email: homesteadhampden@gmail.com
- Website: www.chefryns.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chefryns/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChefRynsTrueFood/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/chefryns
Image Credits
Alison Ege Ryn Dorsey Lilly St. Denis
