Blue Deer Center: Our Faculty

Our Faculty

Karen Aberle
For over 20 years, Karen Aberle has been helping people in organizations create partnerships of trust, effectiveness, and satisfaction. Her initiation in the Huichol tradition has provided richness and depth to her understanding of human relationships. She brings people to the center of divine flow and gives them tools to navigate the challenges of communication. In this country and abroad, Karen's work is known as a powerful intervention delivered with humor and gratitude to life.

Sherry Boatright
Sherry Boatright is a licensed psychotherapist as well as a healer and weatherworker in the Nahua tradition. She is manager of the Sacred Fire Community Lifeway's Program and co-facilitates the Lifeways Women's Program. As an initiated Firekeeper of the Sacred Fire Community, she shares the fire with her community in Carrollton, Georgia. She is available for healing and counseling sessions and may be reached at 770-854-5551.

Colin Campbell

Colin Campbell and Niall Campbell
Colin Campbell and Niall Campbell are traditional doctors and Sangomas from Botswana, South Africa. Initially trained as traditional doctors, Niall and Colin are skilled herbalists, diviners, and general medical practitioners. In their Sangoma training, they also work as spirit mediums, allowing the spirits to work through them for the help and healing of others. Both highly gifted in their healing practices, they also train traditional doctors and Sangomas in their school in Botswana. They each maintain a thriving private practice in Capetown, South Africa.

Niall Campbell

"We absolutely loved facilitating our program at Blue Deer Center. The facilities with their blend of modern comfortable accommodation and close proximity to natural environment were perfectly suited to our semi-wilderness based training program style. The food and nurturing from the staff and assistants was both delicious and impeccable. This is unquestionably one of the best facilities we have ever had host one of our training programs. We loved it and we highly recommend it to anyone looking for a beautiful and magnificently run venue for spiritual or lineage-based training programs and workshops."

Eliot Cowan
Eliot Cowan is the author of Plant Spirit Medicine, and a shaman in the Huichol tradition. He is also the founder of the Blue Deer Seminary and the Blue Deer Center. As a provider at the Blue Deer Center, Eliot Cowan offers Plant Spirit Medicine practitioner courses, continuing education for PSM practitioners, healing camps based on traditional Huichol healing, and animal totem courses. For more information about Eliot’s work, see Eliot Cowan.

Annie Eagan
Annie Eagan is an initiated Marakame (shaman) in the ancestral tradition of the Huichol Indians of the Mexican Sierras. She is also a Granicera (Weather Shaman) and healer in the Nahua Indian tradition of the highlands of central Mexico. She has been practicing Plant Spirit Medicine with humans and animals for more than twelve years. Annie is a shaman-in-residence and ceremonial leader at the Blue Deer Center. As an initiated Fire Keeper for the Sacred Fire Community, she hosts community fires and women’s fires at the BDC. Annie lives at the Blue Deer Center with her husband, Dan Sprinkles, her animals and the sacred river that sings through the land.

Salvador Espinosa
Salvador Espinosa is a music therapist with 10 years of experience in transpersonal group therapy processes, including studies of the Eneagram, Fisher Hoffman Process (more than 40), Meditation, Music therapy, Tai Chi Chuan, 5 Element Theory, Taoism, and Buddhism. Salvador has given workshops in Mexico D.F., Jalapa Veracruz, Grupo Hummana, Chihuahua Fatima HIV foundation, Guadalajara, Hotel Mision del Sol, Cuernavaca and Tepoztlan Morelos.

Tasnim Hermila Fernandez
Murshida Rev. Tasnim Hermila Fernandez has followed the Sufi path since her initiation in 1971, is an international speaker and teacher of Sufism a Siraja (senior minister and teacher) in the Universal Worship, a Murshida in the Sufi Order International, and an acclaimed leader and teacher of the Dances of Universal Peace. She is the spiritual director of the Church of All in Burbank.

Tasnim gives personal guidance to her Sufi students, trains and certifies Dance Leaders, trains and ordains Universal Worship ministers. She travels nationally and internationally, presenting seminars, workshops, and retreats and is a frequent presenter at interfaith conferences and festivals.

This is a golden opportunity to drink from the deep well of love and wisdom of an acclaimed spiritual teacher.

Alison Gayek
Alison Gayek has been teaching Plant Spirit Medicine with Eliot Cowan since 2002. She began studying with Eliot Cowan in 1997 and graduated from the PSM course in 1999. Since then, Alison has maintained a strong effective PSM practice. As a teacher, Alison teaches the PSM Practitioner Training Course, graduate clinicals and skills courses, and also works to teach, mentor, and support new graduates as they start their own practices. In addition, she is a qualified clinical supervisor and provides clinical supervision for students and graduates. Alison has continued her healing work through various pilgrimages with Eliot Cowan and David Wiley. She is a Granicera — a Weather Shaman — in the Nahua tradition indigenous to Central Mexico.

Deanna Jenné
Deanna Jenné is an initiated marakame (shaman) in the Huichol tradition and weather worker in the Nahua tradition, both rooted in Mexico. Deanna co-facilitates the Sacred Fire Community's Lifeways Program for Women and the Initiation Into Womanhood Program. As initiated Fire Keepers, she and her husband, Gary are growing and maintaining a Fire Community in Grand Junction, Colorado. Deanna is available for healing sessions and consultation. Please contact her at 970-241-7256.

John Lockley
John Lockley is a Shaman in the Xhosa lineage of South Africa – the tribe that gave us Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. John is based in South Africa, though his work takes him around Europe and the U.K. Shamans receive their guidance through dreams and trance from ancestors in the spirit world. South African Shamans are known as Sangomas, meaning seers, dreamers or prophets – they are the traditional healers of Africa.

John served a 10-year apprenticeship with Mum Gwevu, a well-known Sangoma medicine woman, in the impoverished, post apartheid townships of the Eastern Cape. He is initiated in three traditions: African Shamanism, Yoga and Zen Buddhism, and also holds an honours degree in Clinical Psychology.

His initiated name Ucingolwendaba, means messenger or connector between people and cultures, reflecting the blend of cultures and teachings that he represents and honouring his African, English and Irish ancestral lineages.

Eda Zavala Lopez
Eda Zavala is descended from a lineage of healers in the tradition of the Wari people, and is dedicated to the continuation of this tradition as well as to the preservation of the Amazon rainforest.

Besides maintaining her practise of ancestral medicine, she is co-founder of the traditional Healing Center Hampichicuy. She has worked with many indigenous communities to preserve the pristine forest, and help protect their sacred lands. With her community, Mushukllacta de Chipaota in the Northeast of Peru, she is currently collaborating with the Rainforest Action Network to develop a project to preserve the Cordillera Azul National Park and sacred mountains, preserving the plant medicines native species and the ancient knowledge.

Coral Rich
Coral Rich has been the Chef at the Blue Deer Center since December of 2006. She is self-taught and has relied deeply on her connection to food, good recipes and her own intuition. She is a Holistic Health Counselor and graduated from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in 2001. She is also available for private consultations and can be reached at coralhere@yahoo.com.

Bob & Lee Nitsch
Bob Nitsch is President of the Wolf Clan Teaching Lodge of the Seneca Indian Historical Society, lineage holder, teacher, motivational speaker, musician, composer, writer and editor. Bob was raised in the Seneca Tradition by his mother Twylah Hurd Nitsch, in the family home on the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation in Western New York State and follows in the footsteps of his ancestors.

Lee Nitsch is Program Coordinator at the Wolf Clan Teaching Lodge of the Seneca Indian Historical Society, a herbalist, councilor, social worker, writer, artist, editor and designer. Lee is a teacher and motivational speaker with over 30 years experience in facilitating spiritual growth and healing.

Bob and Lee travel internationally sharing with everyone the beauty, the wisdom and the magnificence of the Seneca tradition. In accordance with the educational charter of the Wolfclan Teaching Lodge, it is their mandate to perpetuate the teachings for the next seven generations, fulfilling the Dream of Grandmother Twyla Hurd Nitsch.

Lei'ohu Ryder
Lei'ohu Ryder is a Native of Hawaii, a keeper of the ancient wisdom and protocols, a gifted teacher, singer, songwriter and a powerful advocate for the indigenous peoples of the planet as well as a powerful role model to our next generation. She weaves the wisdom of the Pacific in channeling the voices of the wind, rain, sea and sky.

As kahu/priestess of Kukuipuka Heiau, an ancient temple of healing on the island of Maui, the wisdom of the breath of aloha and the spirit of ohana/family is shared through prayer, protocols, chants, music and activities that connect the heart with the universe.

"The Blue Deer Center is a community that welcomes authentic wisdom around the fire of the heart, where many traditions, experiences and voices share the unity in diverse ways. The land speaks, embraces and inspires through the wind, animals, nature, spirits and ancestors. The river offers the sweetness of song, ceremony and healing. I have come to know the land as my home away from the island of Maui. A place that nurtures me with great warmth from the staff, the lodgings and the delicious food. I am grateful to Grandfather Fire, the Algonquin Peace Keeper and the many ancestral guardian spirits on the land that embraces me with aloha/love, maluhia/peace and lokahi/oneness."

Prema Sheerin
Prema Sheerin is a professional life coach and offers workshops in the USA, Australia and New Zealand on various aspects of life transition and intention. Prema is currently doing a 12-year shamanic apprenticeship in the Huichol tradition of Mexico. Her background includes 25 years of studying and teaching hatha yoga and meditation as well as being the Wellness Director for a retreat site for 10 years. Prema lives in Santa Barbara with her husband Scott Sheerin.

Malidoma Somé
Before his birth, in 1956, the elders of Malidoma’s village knew that his purpose in coming into this world was to carry the message of indigenous technology and spirituality to the western world, a place where modernity was growing increasingly hungry for a reconnection to ancient wisdom. Little did he know, as a young child, stolen from his family and village, that the years he would spend under the harsh tutelage of the religious order would prepare the way for the eventual challenge of integrating old and new, the sacred and the mundane. For more than twenty years, Malidoma Somé has shared the wisdom of his ancestors and tribal elders, awakening a deep knowing in the hearts and bones of those who have recognized in his name, his books, his voice, the spirit world inviting the renewal of a deep and abiding relationship with all beings on earth.

Malidoma is the author of several books, including Ritual: Power, Healing and Community, Of Water and The Spirit, and The Healing Wisdom of Africa. He is currently working on two new books, one about the Ancestors (and our relationship with them), and another, a sequel to his highly esteemed autobiography, on the topic of Gatekeepers.

Dr. Somé is also an initiated elder in his village in Dano, Burkina Faso, W. Africa. He travels throughout the world bringing a message of hope, healing and reconciliation through the powerful tools of ritual and community building.

Dan Sprinkles
Dan Sprinkles is an initiated Marakame (shaman) in the ancestral tradition of the Huichol Indians of the Mexican Sierras. He is also a Granicero (Weather Shaman) and healer in the Nahua Indian tradition of the highlands of central Mexico. Through these two lineages he is 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.” Dan is a shaman-in-residence and ceremonial leader at the Blue Deer Center. As an initiated Fire Keeper for the Sacred Fire Community, he hosts community fires and men’s fires at the BDC. Dan lives at the Blue Deer Center with his wife, Annie Eagan.

Cynthia Walker
Cynthia Walker was born in Hawai’i and dedicated to the Goddess Pele at six months. In 1996 she moved to New Mexico to begin work on the Gatherings of the Elders of the North and South in fulfilment of the prophesies of the Eagle and the Condor. In 1998, she was initiated as a priestess in the Mayan Tradition by Don Alejandro Cirilio Oxlaj. At the sacred lake of Atitlán, Guatemala, she was given her Mayan name: Julaju Keme.

2001 brought the co- founding, with Leon Secatero, of Friends of the Indigenous Elders, a non-profit organization. Under the auspices of Friends, she produced a video documentary, “The Sodizin Ceremony, The Reunion of Mother Earth with Her Children.” Her book, Freeing the Light Within, The RADIANCE Practice Workbook, is about to go to its first printing. Cynthia is available for Mayan Horoscopes and Divinations 505-867-8087. Workshops: Mayan Calendar & The RADIANCE Practice.

David Wiley
David Wiley, is a Marakame (Shaman) in the Huichol Indian tradition ofthe northwestern Sierra Madre of Mexico and a Granicero, or Tiempero (Weather Shaman), and healer in the Nahuatl Indian tradition of the highlands of central Mexico. Born and raised in the U.S., he lives in Tepoztlán, Mexico and serves there as a village healer, counselor and ceremonial leader. David is also recognized as being a spiritual conduit for the elemental deity of fire known by the Huichols as Tatewarí or Grandfather Fire (along with many other names in various other cultures). David serves on the Board of Directors of the Blue Deer Center, is an advisor to and Elder in the Sacred Fire Community and is the Chairman and Founder of the Sacred Fire Foundation. For more information please visit his website at www.keepsthefire.org.