A Wild Home for the Wandering Soul
Artist Interview with business owner Dakota Rhoad
“I just wanna drive. That’s what people say…And I’m like, do you though? Because that’s actually not that fun…just driving?…But I get it. I get what they’re saying. I wanted to just drive.” —Dakota Rhoad
I met Dakota Rhoad at the Unitarian Universalist Church off of Oltorf and Interstate 35 in Austin. One Sunday morning, Dakota walked barefoot down the center aisle of the sanctuary, took the mic in front of a group of instrumentalists (about to become a band) and asked to be held by the congregation in love as the group worked their way through their first musical offering together.
I can’t recall the song they played, but I do remember how, with an Emmy Lou tenderness, Dakota’s youthful voice seeped the space with its old-soul aura. The offering was so genuine, so heart-felt, that the sanctuary hummed with collective affection.
She had asked to be held by the congregation, but she held all of us in Spirit.
Here beats a vital, creative heart.
I asked Dakota if she would chat with me for a while about her creative and spiritual life—what I got was the conversational equivalent of an adventure. Our interview trekked through a coconut farm in Indonesia, a water rafting expedition in Oregon, long weeks spent in tents or on the road working for hire, and culminated in a quest for creative homecoming—as she described the impetus behind her small business, The Wander Center. There, she hand-crafts fantastical party decor for the young at heart, while simultaneously protecting the vitality of the planet that supports us all.
Dakota’s vision for her small business stems from her environmentalist roots.
“My Mom was the ‘Can Fairy’ when we were little. She started the first recycling program in Conroe, Texas…When my oldest brother was in elementary, she looked out one day and she saw that the kids were like— playing in the dirt. They didn’t have a playground—they were just playing in the dirt. Then she connected the two.”
Her mother started a program for elementary school students to collect cans and bring them to the school every Friday. Classes would compete for end-of-term pizza parties and the money earned from recycling would go to support the school.
The Wander Center aims to reduce waste both by recycling unused party supplies (Austinites can learn how to donate your gently used items here) and offering whimsical, handmade or thrifted rental items for backyard parties.
Dakota’s self-forged entrepreneurial path incorporates skills she acquired over many years of working for small businesses with the passion she felt as a student of Wildlife Biology. Like her student cohort she nurtured dreams of being “like Jane Goodall,” but breaking into the field proved near in possible after she received her degree in 2016. With scant funding in the environmental space, positions are few and highly competitive.
“I’ve always wanted to be the wild one.”
As she faced a gamut of applications and rejections, Dakota’s wanderlust was growing.
“I wanted to just drive, right? And then I had this boyfriend that traveled for real…and he left for six months right after we started dating and I was so jealous…It was the worst six months of my entire life. Not because I missed him—I did miss him—but I was just like, out of my skin jealous that he was doing it…and he didn’t have anything that I didn’t have. He had a lot less actually… but he was just doing it, and I didn’t know how.”
The relationship didn’t make it, but it did galvanize her to chart her own adventure. She spent six months overseas supporting herself through work-away programs for two weeks at time; sometimes as a manual laborer, sometimes as a teacher of English, she took on volunteer positions in exchange for housing and often food. She came home right as the quarantine hit, but felt called to continue her travels. She used a website to connect with seasonal jobs around the U.S., working for a rafting company in Oregon, a snowmobile company in Colorado. She lived in a tent at a site with other laborers, worked on a farm in North Carolina.
I am thinking this all sounds pretty romantic when Dakota says:
“There’s things you can’t do when you’re on the road. And I have these creative things that I wanted to build that I couldn’t do…I had to come back.”
She decided to take the wild, creative energy that spurred her out onto the road and use it to put down some roots in Austin. But the transition hasn’t been easy.
The Dog and the Wolf
“I’ve wanted to get this tattoo for a long time,” Dakota says. “It’s a nature woman…her hair is messy…she’s dirty…and she’s next to a wolf. And then in front of her, smaller, is a modern woman with a dog on a leash. And I live right in the middle of those two women.”
Sometimes Dakota feels stuck in that place between.
“I’m always asking how in this modern world do you connect with [the wild one] and be her…And it’s really hard here…I’m like this dog on a leash.”
Dakota’s tone is heavy, but her description of this image sends me into a heady spiral — I tell her how, in the tarot, the Moon card often depicts a dog and a wolf flanking two sides of a river. This river strikes me as a site of transformation, leading as it does past the animals, between two monolithic towers, and into a rolling landscape beyond. It’s almost as if, to evolve, one has to account for both the wolf and the dog within.
But in a world of tight leashes—how do we connect to the wild within?
“I made this list one time...: what makes me feel wild? Because right now I don’t…being barefoot, sitting in the sun, and having my windows open. Singing, creating, and building, all connects me to that [wild] woman in a modern way…that’s the balance. It’s like: ok, I’m here in this world and I’m also connecting with her.”
I’m struck by the thought that this might be the ultimate work of the creator—to take what is wild and bond it to structure, to material, whether that takes the shape of a business, an artwork, a song, or a travel plan. Our creations combine unbound spirit with domesticated form.
Yet, pet owners know, in some ways the dog will always remain a wolf. We can celebrate that.
Celebrate with Creative Magic
With the Wander Center, Dakota continues this dance between wild and mundane—helping clients to transform their everyday spaces into sites of magic and wonder. Her decorations ignite joy for party guests of all ages, helping them to tap into their sense of play and fun—their wild!—in a way that is sustainable, responsible—tamed of its ravenous consumerism.
Ultimately, Dakota would like to grow the scope of her offerings into the education space, taking inspiration from her mother. Her Earth EdVentures would create meaningful, hands-on, environmental experiences for children, allowing them to bask in the glow of nature’s magic and put their efforts into conservation at the same time. As young participants compete for real-time incentives, Earth EdVentures helps to ensure that creatures of all kinds have their chance to howl at the Moon for many generations to come.
In the meantime, Dakota is tracking her creative life on Instagram (you can follow her @thewandercenter) finding ways to incorporate wild acts of creativity into her daily life, as well as sharing news from the Wander Center. She’s also singing in the church band. “We have practice tonight…practice is so fun,” she tells me.
Strong agree. Let’s practice.
How do you HOWL?
Try this simple three-card spread to tap into your own creative wild-side. Let me know how it goes in the comments below!
CARD 1— what wants to grow wild in my creative life?
CARD 2—how can I make space for this wild growth?
CARD 3—where do I set down creative roots?
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Love getting to know the wildly free and amazing Dakota - thank you both! And what a cool 3-card spread. Can't wait to do that. PRACTICE❤️✨