Meet the Roskind-Dearing Dream Team.
Robert Roskind
Robert Roskind is the author of twelve books that carry a message of unconditional love, several written with Hopi, Havasupai, Mayan, and Rasta Elders. These books include: Rasta Heart: A Journey into One Love, The Beauty Path: A Native American Journey into One Love, The Gathering of the Healers, A Guide for an Awakening Planet, Memoirs of an Ex-hippie, In the Spirit of Marriage: Creating and Sustaining Loving Unions and In the Spirit of Business: A Guide to Creating Harmony in your Worklife. He is also the producer of the record-breaking 1984 PBS series, The Do It Yourself Show, based on his work founding and operating The Owner Builder Center in Berkeley, a non-profit institute that taught people how to design, build and remodel their own passive solar homes.
Since 2002, he has organized and hosted over 200 “One Love Events” in Jamaica, on Native American reservations, prisons, colleges and at public venues in the U.S. All are non-commercial, involve no sponsorship funding and are free to the public. They are non-denominational, apolitical and bring forward a message of universal, unconditional love for all.
His largest event was on February 6, 2005, Bob Marley’s 60th Birthday Celebration, in Kingston, Jamaica with a live audience of tens of thousands and a TV and radio audience of almost two million. It included presentations by the Jamaican head of state, Governor General Sir Howard Cooke, the Minister of Education, the Minister of Tourism, Bob’s daughter, Stephanie Marley, many conscious civic leaders and talk show hosts and twenty well-known recording reggae artists (Bob’s 60th link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79U97SopMuI). Ten years later, on February 6, 2015, along with his 29-year-old daughter, Alicia, he hosted Bob Marley’s 70th Birthday Celebration in Northern California (Bob’s 70th link: www.AGlobalCallToLove.org)
These events have often led to a community-wide healing. His 7 events on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona assisted the Hopis in keeping their 900-year-old covenant and preserving their ancient ways. His events on the Havasupai Reservation on the floor of the Grand Canyon led to the tribe electing a pro-environmental tribal council committed to protecting the Grand Canyon from uranium mining. In Jamaica, the 54 concerts brought a much-needed message of love to a country in turmoil.
Presently he operates the Oasis in the heart of Carrboro in Carrmill Mall. During the daytime hours, The Oasis operates as a traditional coffee/cafe/tea/kava lounge. At night, The Oasis transforms into an environment of entertainment, connections and inspiration.
Alicia Roskind Dearing
Alicia graduated UNC Wilmington in 2009 with a 4.0 in Accountancy. Rather than go into accounting, she accepted a two-year commitment with Teach For America in Jacksonville, Fl and taught 1st grade in a low-income school in intercity Jacksonville. After after completing her two-year commitment, she went to Yoga Teacher Training in Nosara, Costa Rica and then moved to Charlotte, NC. Kind of by accident, she became business partners with James Langteaux who was opening a breathwork studio in Plaza Midwood. She helped him add yoga classes and massage. Shortly after opening, they realized the building was not zoned properly for business and went their separate ways.
In 2012 at the age of 25 she ventured on her own as a sole proprietor and leased a 3,000 sq foot building in the trendy neighborhood of Plaza Midwood in Charlotte, NC and renovated it literally from the ground up. Not one inch of that building was not changed or repainted, including the front facade. With every detail attended to, edible, regenerative food farm in the front and back, she orchestrated the entire renovation and design of the business, Okra: Tea, Coffee, Yoga and Massage, now known as just Okra Charlotte. It operated 12 hours a day with a full tea and coffee lounge, 2 yoga studies with up to 8 classes a day, 3 massage rooms with 8 massage therapists. Okra Yoga won Best of Yoga Studio within the first year of opening in multiple Charlotte publications and pretty much every subsequent year after that and continues to this day to win awards. Okra Charlotte is still thriving.
Three years later in 2015, she brought in a business partner, Hal Smith, previous interim CEO of Bass Pro Shop. They partnered to open Gumbo: The Store now known as Gumbo Goods. Gumbo Goods sells lifestyle apparel for yoga, running, and general health and wellbeing. He was mainly a financial backer and did some product consultation. Again, she orchestrated the full renovation and design of the entire 1,200 sq foot retail space, business and website. Gumbo Goods has also won multiple awards across various popular Charlotte publications and is still thriving today.
As you can see, vision, design, and creation are Alicia’s bread and butter, so after 4 years of owning, operating and managing two independent businesses, she was ready to move on with the managing part. She sold the majority share to Hal Smith making her a silent partner. For the next 2 years she traveled the world from Australia to Europe to South East Asia to the Bahamas and then back to the US until in 2018 she found Paradise Valley, Montana. She moved out to Emigrant, Montana by her self, bought a 20 acre ranch, a 5,000 sq foot cold war bunker and a 1,100 sq foot trailer that feels more like a home. She fully renovated the trailer making it into a mid-century modern cozy home with a million-dollar view.
In the summer of 2020, James Dearing, Alicia’s now husband, met serendipitously at a Phish show and after being separated for 5 months due to COVID lockdowns, moved out to Montana with her. It was truly love at first sight. Both of them have been quarter life retired for a few years just enjoying Montana, travelling, and helping my dad out in his business. In 2022 Robert had a few health issues arise, and James and Alicia had the space to jump head first into Oasis. Robert is now in great health and we all run the business together. Alicia does the buying, James handles the finances, and Robert is our front of house guru. Although on any given day you may find any of us at the counter ready to give you some good vibes and offer high quality botanicals.
As much as Alicia and James love their freedom and space, they both love to create and are ready to contribute to projects and businesses again in a way that flows and feels inspiring and meaningful to them. They still live part-time in Paradise Valley, Montana.
Meet the Roskind-Dearing Dream Team.
James Dearing
James grew up in Roanoke, VA, and played sports and rode motorcycles his whole life. He went to Virginia Tech and graduated pre-med with honors in 2000.
He was accepted to Emory Medical School in Atlanta, GA but decided not to attend. He worked for his family business for a few years in high end painting and wallpapering then moved to Sarasota, FL and sold pharmaceuticals for Merck and Novartis for 5 years. This eventually led him to NYC where he worked for American Express for almost 10 years as manager of business development for merchant acquisition, business card and corporate card. He was the #1 salesperson in the country for half of his tenure and received numerous awards and accolades. He was responsible for bringing in up to $60M in booked charged volume annually along with various other metrics for business and corporate cards.
In 2015, he was diagnosed with genetic kidney disease, that unfortunately took the life of both his father and brother just a few years prior. In an attempt to save his own life, he received a kidney transplant along with an allogeneic stem cell transplant so that he may possibly live immunosuppressant free. This was a cutting edge clinical trial, the first of its kind in the US, where they replaced his immune system with his kidney donors to trick his body into thinking the kidney was his own. It worked and he is now completely cured of kidney failure. In 2016, he was diagnosed with pre-papillary thyroid carcinoma which developed from the high doses of chemo and radiation during the trial from wiping out his immune system so he could receive his new immune system. He had thyroid cancer surgery in 2016 and is now cancer free. In 2017 he developed AVN (avascular necrosis) in both hips, also a side effect of medications from the trial, and had to have them both replaced. He now has full mobility and range in both hips. He truly is the bionic man.
After his health issues he sold everything he owned and moved to Jackson, WY for a year to snowboard. He then travelled around the world and has lived in a few other places before moving back to NYC and created a real estate app called Distrix. Some health issues returned so he sold his shares in the company and started traveling again.
He ended up in Charleston, SC in 2019 and in February of 2020, he coincidentally bought the other half of Alicis’s Phish Mexico package on Cash or Trade and quickly realized we had many mutual friends. They spent the whole week falling in love in Mexico.
He moved to Montana with Alicia in August 2020 and now helps run Oasis Botanical Lounge in Carrboro, NC and lives the rest of the year on a mountain top in Emigrant, Montana.
That’s James in a nutshell!