Monthly

Community Fires, Men's Fires
and Women's Fires at the BDC
With Dan Sprinkles and Annie Eagan

Flickering firelight, the smell of smoke, the sound of laughter, songs and stories...People have been sitting around the fire for hundreds of thousands of years. The fire provides protection, warmth and a place for us to connect with one another and share our common human experience. At the heart of the Blue Deer Center is the fire - the fire of our hearts, the fire of transformation, and the fire burning at the core of all ancestral traditions.

Community sacred fires are offered monthly on the grounds of the Blue Deer Center. Dan Sprinkles and Annie Eagan, our resident shamans, are both initiated Fire Keepers of the Sacred Fire Community. They host community fires, usually on the 3rd Friday of the month, and all are welcome. Potluck suppers often precede the fire when we share good food and good company with new friends and old. Dan and Annie also host men's and women's fires frequently.

By Appointment

The Blue Deer Center is pleased to offer the healing help of two resident healers (shamans).

Dan Sprinkles and Annie Eagan have both completed 6-year apprenticeships and are initiated Markames, or shamans, in the ancient, ancestral tradition of the Huichols of the Mexican Sierras. Additionally, they were initiated eight years ago in the Nahua shamanic tradition as Weather Workers. Through these two lineages they are able to offer deep shamanic healing for those in need. Dan has also been a life coach for many years and offers a unique program designed to enter a more appropriate relationship with the mind. It is called, "The Enemies of Learning." For the last eleven years, Annie has been providing healing help to humans and animals with Plant Spirit Medicine. Through their Weather Working lineage and training, they are both able to offer healing sweat lodges called Temazcals, in the ancestral Nahua tradition.

Rescheduled to July 2010

click here to download
the Living With Totem flyer in color

or in black & white

Living with Totem: Sacred Partnership with the World
with Eliot Cowan

Whether you know it or not, you have animal spirit helpers. Some have been helping you since before you were born. Others are nearby, politely waiting to be asked for their help.

Patience, gentleness, fierceness, stamina, self respect ... whatever is needed to help you fulfill your work and relationships, there is an animal who embodies it and is willing to share it with you.

All peoples have found it helpful to have good relationship with animal helpers, or totems. They are every bit as useful now as ever in the past.

When you don’t know your helpers you can easily feel that you are facing life on your own. Living with totem, you don’t feel alone, for life has given you allies. You don’t feel like a victim; you have been given what you need to learn and grow in your circumstances.

Living with totem, you find yourself in sacred partnership with the natural world. The way opens to live in gratitude.

With this course you will discover which animals are totems for you. You will be able to receive their help and be in good relationship with them for the rest of your life.

Here is A Totem Story by Eliot Cowan.

April 30 - May 2, 2010

August 13 - 15, 2010

October 22 - 24, 2010

click here to download
the Cooking with Coral flyer in color

or in black & white

Cooking with Coral

As a culture we’ve lost our connection to food. What it is, how it’s grown, where it comes from, and how to prepare it. Food is a sacred and essential part of life. Join me in an intimate discussion and hands-on cooking class to reconnect with the spirit of food. Learn to bring ingredients together to make a meal that will nourish body and soul.

Testimonial: “When I eat Coral's food I feel nourished and healed on a very deep level. Her food tastes divine and as I eat it waves of bliss flow through my body and spirit. I have had this experience over and over again and each time I have asked myself "what is her secret ingredient?" I know that Coral pours her heart and her love into every morsel she prepares. When you sit down at Coral's table, be ready to receive a gift…” —India Hoeschen-Stein

Registration is separate for each weekend. The series may be taken in whole or in part

Part 1 - Coral’s Table
How to source nutrient-rich foods and use them to create simple healthy meals.
We will have fun in the kitchen discussing, preparing and sharing our meals together.
April 30th to May 2nd. Arrive Friday at 6:30pm and leave Sunday at Noon.

Part 2 - Market to Table
Making meals from the Farmers Market.
We will shop together at the local farmers market, choosing the freshest most vibrant food to plan and prepare our meals.
August 13th to 15th. Arrive Friday at 6:30pm and leave Sunday at Noon.

Part 3 - Preserving the Harvest
A workshop in food preservation: canning, pickling, jams and jellies,
freezing and drying.
We will take something fresh and grown close by and store it in a way that you can use in the future, to help you eat locally year round. We will prepare: Real pickled (lacto-fermented) carrots, beans and cucumbers. Pear jam and apple preserves. Frozen green beans and squash. Dried vegetable chips and minced onion. (Menu may change according to availability of ingredients)
October 22nd to 24th. Arrive Friday at 6:30pm and leave Sunday at Noon.

May 7-12, 2010

click here to download the
Healing Camp flyer in color

or in black & white

Healing Camp: 5-Days of Traditional Huichol Shamanic Healing

This May we are delighted to offer our 13th Healing Camp with Eliot Cowan at the Blue Deer Center. With the sound of the stream echoing throughout the property and soothing all that it passes, the ancestral blessings of the land, the plant spirits, and the indescribable peace and beauty of the surrounding area, the Blue Deer Center is a perfect venue for healing camp. Offered for the past ten years in various locations around the United States, Eliot Cowan’s healing camps have brought traditional Huichol healing sessions to people from all walks of life.

After he had re-discovered Plant Spirit Medicine and been practicing it for several years, Eliot found himself in a waiting room reading an article about the Huichol Indians. Feeling as if an electrical charge had passed through his body, Eliot immediately knew he had to go and find out about these people. After several years building relationship with Huichol shamans he was introduced to the late Guadalupe Gonzalez, who became his teacher. At that point, Eliot embarked upon a rigorous 12-year apprenticeship learning the healing traditions of the Huichols.

As he brought this healing back to his people, Eliot found its benefits could best be supported by a "healing camp" where the stress patterns of daily life are temporarily left behind. The camp creates a special sacred space which offers the opportunity to reconnect with ourselves, with others and with the natural world.

Healing camp is five days of traditional Huichol healing sessions with Eliot Cowan. Participation is limited to 15 people. The healing work is enhanced by activities that promote peace, joy, and connection with nature.

May 25-28, 2010

click here to download the Plant Spirit
Medicine advanced class flyer in color

or in black & white

Plant Spirit Medicine Advanced Class  
with Eliot Cowan

You are warmly invited to attend the 2010 Advanced Class for Plant Spirit Medicine graduates and practitioners. Whether you are an old-timer or a newcomer, if you feel you are advanced, intermediate, or a beginner, this 3-day course is designed to inspire you in your work. It is an immersion into the timelessness of the world, where no two seasons are the same, yet the wheel of the seasons turns as it always has. Those who return to this class again and again discover new resonance with something old.

The next Advanced Class will be held at the Blue Deer Center, where the plant spirits are special guardians of ancient wisdom. It is scheduled right before the Plant Spirit Medicine Conference, so you can stay for both events. The class is taught in a collegial format, where you can bring your questions and discuss the topics you are grappling with.

The Advanced Class includes but is not limited to work with:

• Pulse Diagnosis
• Assessment of CF
• Client Management
• Treatment Planning
• Dream Journey work
• Plant Studies
• Individual Questions
• Furthering our Effectiveness with PSM

Everyone who wants to take the Advanced Class must take an entrance pulse exam with Alison Gayek or Eliot Cowan before the class begins. If you have passed the pulse exam during your PSM class or for a previous Advanced Class, you do not have to take the pulse exam again. You may take the pulse exam anytime between now and May 26, 2010. If it is not possible for you to see Alison or Eliot for a pulse exam, please contact Trish Bielsky. You can also contact Trish to set up a time to take the pulse exam with Alison or Eliot. The purpose of the pulse exam is to help you read pulses more accurately. You do not have to pass the pulse exam to take the class, you just need to take it to assess your pulse taking skills. If you do not pass the pulse exam, you will have to complete some pulse homework before the class begins.

The class is limited to 25 people. Registration is on a first come, first serve basis.

May 28 - 31, 2010

click here to download the Plant Spirit
Medicine Conference flyer in color

or in black & white

6th Annual Plant Spirit Medicine Conference:  
Tending Heart Medicine in the World Garden.

Explore the rich and varied offerings of Plant Spirit Medicine in the World Garden through teachings, storytelling, dancing and laughter.  Build your unique identity as a healer and discover ways to empower yourself, individually and in community, as we work together to bring this beautiful, mysterious medicine to the world.

Acupuncturists – This conference has been approved for 15 PDA’s by the NCCAOM. Provider #ACHB 690-001

Keynote Speaker:
Eda Zavala Lopez, Traditional Peruvian Plant Spirit Healer, will share her knowledge of the healing plants of the Amazon jungle.

Speakers:
Eliot Cowan, Tsaurirrikame (senior shaman) in the Huichol tradition, will lead us on a journey to the Spirits that hold and bless the Blue Deer Center.

Bob and Lee Nitsch, of the Wolf Clan Teaching Lodge of the Seneca Indian Historical Society, will share about traditional Seneca Iroquois plant knowledge.  

Karen Aberle, Marakame (shaman) in the Huichol tradition, will lead us on a journey of self-discovery, to discern and strengthen the unique gifts each of us has to offer this world through our practices.

Together we will share our discoveries, strengthen ourselves and one another, and build the community of Plant Spirit Healers.

Contact Santha Cooke or Carla Leftwich for more information. Click here for conference schedule.

June 2–7, 2010

click here to download the
African Immersion Intensive flyer in color

or in black & white.

Listen to a recent podcast
with Colin Campbell

African Immersion Intensive
with Colin Campbell

"One of the more remarkable achievements of the twentieth century is our ability to tell the story of our universe from empirical observation and with amazing insight into the sequence of transformations that has brought into being the earth, the living world, and the human community. There seems however to be little realization of just what this story means in terms of the larger interpretation of the human venture." - Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth

At the dawning of the twenty-first century, we are faced with the same fundamental questions we have been grappling with as a human species since time immemorial: Who are we, really? Why are we here? What is the purpose and meaning of our existence and what is our ultimate destiny?

These questions form the skeleton of our 'universe story' - the story by which we give context and meaning to life, the story that brings all things together. It is the story we ultimately choose to live by, for in the end whatever answers we discover or come up with as individuals - or as a culture - become the content of the formative story around which our future takes its shape and form.

Such core questions take on even greater significance during this time of global crisis. We have reached a point at which our own future and potentially that of the whole planet as we have known it, hangs in the balance. Only an enduring sense of who we really are and what our life is truly about can provide the ability to make the kind of changes that must take place in order for our planet to survive. It is the intention of the African Immersion 5-Day Intensive to provide a powerful container for the exploration of our individual and collective sense of self, purpose, and place in a living universe.

Seeking Out Our Ancestors

Indigenous elders from all over the world tell us we are in crisis in the modern world because we have forgotten the ancestors and abandoned the old way of connecting with and finding our ultimate place in all of creation. This disconnection forces us to live from a place of fear with the sense of being deeply lost and confused. In our desperate attempts to alleviate this condition, humans have become 'free radicals', consuming and destroying the very sources of our own existence.

Among traditional cultures of southern Africa, great importance is placed in the people and times that have gone before; these are generally referred to as 'the Ancestors' and 'ancestral times', respectively. The Ancestors are the lineages that stretch back from where we stand now, to the very beginnings of time. In these traditional contexts, the Ancestors are the vein that feeds into our present lives from the rest of the universe and, ultimately, from the creative source of all existence. From this point of view, we live in a universe that is as alive as we ourselves are alive, an intimate and dynamic part of who and what we are. The Ancestors are not dead and gone - they live all around us in the multiplicity of the greater universe as well as within us in the stories and traditions of our cultures.

Immersed in the traditional cultures of southern Africa while growing up in rural Botswana, sangoma practitioner Colin Campbell brings a profound understanding of ancestral traditions to The African Immersion Intensive. This intensive is a facilitated time during which participants have the opportunity to explore these important questions with the help of experiential processes and ritual practices drawn principally from the indigenous world of southern Africa. It will be a time of revisiting the personal story we hold about ourselves and about the universe in which we live, through powerfully engaging processes, indigenously-based methodologies, and interactions with our ancestral lineages, both individually and as a group.

June 9-13, 2010

click here to download
the Ukalai flyer in color

or in black & white.

‘Ukalai’ Women’s Retreat

Ukalai: (Uh-kay-la-ee) ~ A word in the Huichol language that means ‘a woman who has reached a level of maturity and has taken on the responsibilities of spirit, community, and family.’ It indicates that she has found her role and place within herself, the community and in the world and therefore is a support for herself and others.

In the indigenous world and the life of our ancestors, the feminine was initiated, taught, and guided to interact with each other, the masculine, the community, and with the spirits. Knowing who they were, women found a home within themselves and created harmonious relationships with others.

In our culture these roles, references, guides and knowledge have been lost or greatly diminished. Women are driven and directed by social, economic, and materialistic demands of modernity, which place consumerism, change for change’s sake, and mind over the power of heart at the center of daily life. Lost are the community of learning and healing and the wisdom of a council of elders.

The stress of modern life demands more of us. In addition to our roles as partners, mothers, and keepers of home and hearth, many of us are required to also perform successfully in the workplace. We have found ourselves alienated from the place of harmony and balance that is our birthright.

Taking the time for ourselves to reconnect to the essential being of the feminine, to discover the navigation of our heart, to improve relationship dynamics with the masculine, and to clear, refresh and renew our direction in life is the purpose of the Ukalai Retreat.

June 26, 2010

Fireball – A Celebration of Warmth & Connection

We are excited to announce that Tatewari will be honoring the Center with his presence at this year's Fireball! Great food, music, a silent auction, raffle items, a drum circle and ceremony with the land and river will fill your afternoon and early evening. As the Sun settles behind the mountains, come join us around the fire for a night of humor and teachings with Tatewari. Make plans to attend this year’s Fireball at the Blue Deer Center, Saturday, June 26, 2010. If you would like to help plan and organize this event, please contact Peter Brown at peterbrown@bluedeer.org.

If you have any items that you wish to donate to the Silent Auction – please contact Marsha Tuttle: marshatuttle1@gmail.com

BLUE DEER CENTER IS A 501(c)3 NOT-FOR-PROFIT ORGANIZATION
© COPYRIGHT 2009 - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - BLUE DEER CENTER
For comments or corrections to this web site, please contact our webmaster