Inspiration & Teachers

The Transcendentalists like Thoreau are my Unitarian Universalist spiritual ancestors. Thoreau and the Language of Trees by Richard Higgins and Robert D. Richardson is a great book. 

To Speak for the Trees: My Life's Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest by Diana Beresford-Kroeger. It seems like she speaks to me in a language I'd forgotten I had. 

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer was a game changer for me that led me deeper and deeper into the wild. 

John Philip Newell is the one who opened my eyes and heart to Celtic Christianity which lives beyond Rome, original sin and a denouncement of nature. I've been in numerous in-person workshops with him and love him to pieces.  

John O'Donohue. All of his work is balm for the soul. Pure and simple.

My indigenous way of knowing and nature-based practices are honed through a mentored training in Druidry. I'm currently in the "third grade."

These practices are deepened by scholar and shamanic practitioner, Sharon Paice MacLeod and her book, Celtic Myth and Religion.  

Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred by Victoria Loorz was music to my ears and inspired me to start Wild Church Denver.

Plants That Speak, Souls That Sing: Transform Your Life with the Spirit of Plants by Fay Johnstone. Her work supports many aspects of my path - nature-based, energetic, Celtic, and core shamanic practices. 
​
Peter Levine and Staci Haines help me develop somatic awareness and practices.

My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem and his work on Somatic Abolitionism has changed my life. I completed his course Foundations of Somatic Abolitionism for  White Bodies. I don't teach his material but continue to practice it. Racism lives in our histories and bodies and can't be deconstructed in our minds or conversations. We have to identify it in our lineage and move it out of our bodies. 

Tema Okun and all with whom she collaborates on White Supremacy Culture push me to dismantle the white supremacy that lives in me. 

My supervisor is Rev. Daniel Prechtel, a spiritual director and author of Soul Journeys: Christian Spirituality and Shamanism as Pathways for Wholeness and Understanding 
by Daniel L. Prechtel, John R. Mabry and Katrina Leathers.

I receive training and mentoring from Laurie Rainey Schmidt. She has over 30 years experience as a shamanic practitioner with advanced training through the Foundation for Shamanic Studies with  Michael Harner. She has also done advanced studies with Tom Cowan, Betsy Bergstrom and is authorized to teach by Sandra Ingerman.

Kelly Arora is my friend and colleague. Her book Talks with Spirit provides a clear description of how to get started in a shamanic journeying and healing practice. 

Wounded into Wisdom: Healing Intergenerational Jewish Trauma by Rabbi Tirzah Firestone. I've attended Tirzah's ancestral healing workshop in person and am grateful for her healing presence in my life. 

Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing​​ by Daniel Foor. This book was my companion on one ancestral pilgrimage. Since then, my processes have shifted, but I'm grateful for Daniel's good work on this important subject. 

Annie Browning and Ann Marie Early are some of my ongoing teachers. Their book is ​Energetic Awakening: Living a Guided Life, and their practice is Common Awakening.

At Walden Pond

---