Guest Bios
LARRY CAMMARATA, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist residing in Asheville, North Carolina, where he maintains a private practice specializing in mindfulness-oriented psychotherapy and education. He has been designated as an “Author-Expert” by IDEA for his writing, teaching, and practice in the field of mind-body health and wellness. Along with several leaders in the field of mindfulness-oriented psychology, Larry co-authored a book entitled, “A Year of Living Mindfully: 52 Quotes & Weekly Mindfulness Practices”. He is an instructor of the Chinese martial and healing arts of Tai Chi Chuan and Qigong, and has authored a DVD entitled, “Qigong for Health and Vitality: The Eight Pieces of Brocade”. In addition to various presentations at national and international conferences and retreats, Larry has presented his work on mindful movement at Investigating and Integrating Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society, an annual international scientific conference hosted by the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, a global leader in mind-body medicine. Along with his wife Linda Cammarata, RN, Larry co-leads mindfulness-oriented wellness retreats around the world. He can be contacted via his website at Mind-BodyWellness.org. And for more information about mindfulness-oriented wellness retreats around the world with Larry and Linda, please visit Mindfulness Travels. (Photo courtesy of Emily Nichols.)
LAURA BEE FERGUSON: A beekeeper, educator and activist, Laura Bee brings a unique perspective to the study of the honeybee. Laura combines cutting edge natural beekeeping methodology and practices with a cross-cultural and spiritual context in her beekeeping. She has developed educational programs for kids, teenagers and adults. Laura served on the Jefferson County WA Beekeepers Board, providing mentorship and workshops for dozens of beekeepers. Laura has a BA in Anthropology and Religious Studies and is a life-long student of many forms of Spirituality. As an artist and poet, she has an ability to connect the scientific to the Sacred and is spiritually influenced by her work in the many apiaries she serves. Laura founded the College of the Melissae: Center for Sacred Beekeeping on January 1, 2012 and serves as its current Director. Laura is passionately devoted to the College goals, her students and Apis mellifera.
Laura also hosts a weekly radio show: Honey Culture Radio (Thursdays, 1-2 pm PST, kskq.org / live-streaming) and regularly contributes to various blogs, workshops and conferences. She is beginning far-reaching ethnographic beekeeping travel in January, 2014. Laura is also currently contributing to the development of the International Natural Beekeeping Federation and Bee Haven both in the US and abroad. Laura has Leadership Training (High Ropes Challenge Course, Volunteer & Trainer, WA, 6 years), Disaster Relief (Hurricane Katrina, MS), formal art study and counselor training. Laura will be speaking at the Organic Beekeeping Conference in Arizona, February 2014. You can contact Laura at: laurafergusonabc@gmail.com and at (360) 531-3017. And please also enjoy: collegeofthemelissae.com. (Photo courtesy of Krista Holland.)
JACQUELINE FREEMAN has been caring for bees since 2004. As a biodynamic farmer she is gifted in perceiving Nature intelligences, particularly honeybees, and has learned information not previously known about bees. She has spent many years working alongside them with an open and prayerful heart, hoping to learn how they can best be cared for. In 2010 the bees began to communicate to her about how they fulfilled broader roles in the hive, the matrix of their thought and imagination, and their intent to assist humans in their spiritual evolution.
Jacqueline teaches bee classes at her biodynamic farm and honeybee sanctuary in Washington state. The documentary Queen of the Sun showed her caring work as a gentle swarm rescuer. Her bee articles appear in national magazines and in the book, Queen of the Sun. She’s been a featured speaker at national conferences for organic and treatment-free beekeepers, permaculture, organic agricultural and regional events. In 2013, the Dominican Republic hired her to work with rural beekeepers to help them create healthy bees through respectful and treatment-free beekeeping. Jacqueline’s website, Spirit Bee, has beautiful photos, movies, audio-files and note-cards, created with Robin Wise. Sign up there for the bee newsletter to read her bee communications and see videos of her working with her bees through the year. Her book, The Song of Increase: Returning to our Sacred Partnership with Honeybees, is now available. (Photo courtesy of Robin Wise.)
HORST KORNBERGER is a creativity consultant, interdisciplinary artist, poet, writer, lecturer and researcher into the field of imagination and creativity. Born in Austria in 1959, he began his career as a visual artist. He studied Speech and Drama in England, Goethean Studies in the United States and Waldorf Education in Australia. Horst is a Director of Creativity Consultants Worldwide and The Writing Connection and teaches at Rudolf Steiner College in Perth, Australia. He is the author of Global Hive: Bee Crisis and Compassionate Ecology, The Writer’s Passage and The Power of Stories. He lectures internationally on themes of creativity, education, ecology and the use of the imagination as a healing and community building tool.
Horst is starting a blog on creativity, imagination and compassionate ecology in January 2014: horstkornberger.blogspot.com.au. And please also enjoy: horstkornberger.com, creativityconsultantsworldwide.com, and thewritingconnection.com.au
(Photo courtesy of Nandi Chinna.)
MEKARE is a Sacred Dancer, Artist, Storyteller, Shamanic Bodywork Therapist, and Visionary Creatrix who is passionate about embodiment, evolution, sacred dance, and healing. She has traveled extensively, studying with indigenous healers and dancing ecstatically around the world, including performing for His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the Mandala Dance of the 21 Praises of Tara.
Mekare is an initiate on the Path of Pollen, an ancient shamanic tradition of the Honey Bee and the Hive. The potent energy of the sacred Bee flows through all of Mekare’s work … in dance, in healing, in love. A practitioner of Tibetan Buddhist Tantra, Mekare is a senior teacher and transmitter of the sacred dance/sadhana practice of The Mandala Dance of the 21 Praises of Tara, which is recognized by all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism as a direct lineage practice. She is also a transmitter of the powerful energies of the Five Wisdom Dakinis and is an adept in masked dance performance and ritual. She leads classes, workshops and retreats internationally, offering many rich experiences of dance, ceremony, and transformational practices, as well as individual healing sessions/temple bodywork.
Mekare is the creatrix of Wild Honey Ritual Theater and Dance Prayerformance. Created as a medium for her ritual prayerformance offerings, Wild Honey is a dynamic sacred container for the magical cross-pollination and nectar gathering that occurs when bringing together artists and innovators from many fields of experience. It is Mekare’s vision to gather and create this wild honey of extraordinary nourishment all around the globe. You can contact Mekare at: DevadasiM@aol.com and (US) (336) 971-1427.
GLENIS REDMOND is a native of Greenville, South Carolina. She is the Poet-in-Residence at The State Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ and The Peace Center for the Performing Arts in Greenville SC. Her MFA in Poetry is from Warren Wilson College. She is a Cave Canem Fellow and a North Carolina Literary Fellowship Recipient from the North Carolina Arts Council and a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist. Her latest book of poetry is titled Under the Sun.
Glenis participated on the task force that created the first Writer-in-Residence at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock, NC. She is a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist and is listed in their National Touring Directory. Glenis is also a full-time road poet, performing and teaching poetry across the country.
Glenis loves poetry in all shapes and forms: page and stage. Find Glenis’ poems featured in journals and anthologies across the nation: Tidal Basin Review, NCLR, EMRYS, Meridians, The Asheville Poetry Review, Tongues of the Ocean and Obsidian II. Glenis believes poetry is the mouth that speaks, when all other mouths are silent. Enjoy her TEDxGreenville 2012 talk, Poetry as Healer and you can also find out more about her and contact her at: glenisredmond.com. (Photo courtesy of Tanya Breen.)
TRACEY SCHMIDT moved to Japan at the age of 19 to live in a Buddhist monastery. Her experiences there awakened a passion for combining spirituality and the arts. The fruit of that interest is her first book of poetry, I Have Fallen in Love with the World (2011, Logosophia Books) as well as her multi-media touring exhibit: The Awakening of Turtle Island: Portraits of Native Americans. This exhibit, which opened for the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996, toured eighteen museums in the southeast, including the Cherokee Museum of the American Indian.
Inspired by the great American poets Maya Angelou and Robert Bly, Tracey performs her poetry by memory and with music. Her first poetry/music CD, Returning Home, features the poetry of Rumi, Hafiz, Yeats, and her own work. Asheville-based, world-class musicians accompany her. Tracey teaches creativity, poetry and photography at such facilities as Julia Cameron’s (author, The Artists Way) Taos Creativity Camp in Taos, NM; the NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching; Warren Wilson College’s Environmental Leadership Retreat in the Georgian Bay, Canada; John C. Campbell Folk School; and in her home town of Asheville, NC. For Tracey’s teaching schedule or to purchase her book or CD, please visit: TraceySchmidt. Please also enjoy: Daniel Ladinsky & Tracey Schmidt. (Photo courtesy of Tracey Schmidt.)
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JEFF SCHMITT, OUnI, PhD (Firewalker) is a Folk Healer, Tabaquero, Ceremonialist, Musician & Scientist; he is a walker-between-worlds. Jeff has also practiced and taught Chinese martial arts for most of his life. He is a 32-year veteran scientist, entrepreneur with over 100 publications and patents to his name. As a social entrepreneur he has helped start five companies, one of which went public in 2002. Jeff is a dedicated practitioner and student of the folk healing traditions of Peru and North America. Jeff enthusiastically works with clients using sacred healing and counseling methods; one of his greatest joys is bringing people together in sacred community to facilitate personal and planetary healing. Jeff also works with a cadre of other spiritually-oriented scientists to help promote the eco-spiritual imperative – raising awareness about the sacred nature of our living planet and how one cannot separate earth stewardship from spiritual pursuit.
Jeff has enjoyed a decades-long relationship with the sacred healing plant, tobacco. For many years, Jeff studied the neuroprotective properties of compounds found in tobacco and helped start a company to fight diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s based on this research. Over the years his relationship has shifted to working with tobacco as a teacher and catalyst for sacred healing. After a concentrated apprenticeship with Curandero and Cultural Anthropologist Jason Blaesing, Jeff was given the title Tabaquero or one who heals with tobacco. He can be contacted at: hummingbird.jeff@gmail.com; firewalker.be
(Photo courtesy of Daniel Judson, Digital Media Foundry.)
FILIZ TELEK: Wild at heart, free in Spirit, curious in mind, I am a nomadic artist, a process host, a community organizer, an occasional poet/writer/film maker whose purpose is to serve the evolution of human consciousness and awaken a sense of possibility and the sacred in human heart & spirit. As a community organizer, I have been involved in pioneering projects internationally and in Turkey by organizing events, workshops and dialogue & learning spaces to raise awareness about wholesome & sustainable living and empower communities for inspired action for more than a decade. As a photographer, I am called to cross the thin veil between the visible and invisible worlds, distilling the magic and sacred in presence. My photography – especially of the people in their most vulnerable and authentic expressions – is a reflection of my love for the world. I see and show beauty. Because amidst the ongoing chaos of our times, committing acts of beauty is necessary to keep sane. I create simple and beautiful visual narratives with “the resonance of the Sacred” to open hearts and to inspire/empower people to connect with our longing for the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. While I continue the witnessing and storytelling, I also feel called to create space & time for love, truth and healing in the world through ceremony, circles and different gatherings. I am committed to serving the reemergence of gift consciousness and the rise of the feminine energy in our world.
While I continue the witnessing and storytelling, I also feel called to create space & time for love, truth and healing in the world through ceremony, circles and different gatherings. I am committed to serving the reemergence of gift consciousness and the rise of the feminine energy in our world. Please enjoy filiztelek.com and womenaremedicine.com. And you contact me at: filizatbaraka@gmail.com. (Photo courtesy of Joshua Sage.)
KAYLYNN SULLIVAN TWOTREES has spent a life at the crossroads where species, cultures, beliefs and the unknown intersect, collide and evolve in both dissonance and resonance. As an artist/educator/activist she has worked with individuals, communities, and organizations in the US, Europe and New Zealand. She is past recipient of the Lila Wallace International Artist Award and has held positions as Academic Challenge Scholar in Interdisciplinary Studies at Miami University and Scholar in Residence in the schools of Business and Fine Arts at Miami University and at Cleveland Institute of Art. She was the founder of Earthtime, an off-the-grid nonprofit in Arizona that focused on indigenous cultural exchange and support for sustainable practices in the surrounding communities. Currently she is a member of the National Park System Advisory Board Relevancy Committee; faculty for the Center for Whole Communities in Vermont and Lecturer at the University of Vermont in the Rubenstein School of Natural Resources.
Over the course of the past 35 years, TwoTrees has continued to develop and evolve Seven Directions Practice® with the input and guidance of many indigenous elders. Practice for Living, Living Practice and Earthtime Practice are both expressions of this foundation, which focuses on helping humans re-orient to our indigenous mind, and regenerate our essential relationship with the Earth’s wisdom. Currently she is facilitating Earthtime Practice, a series of seasonal retreats on the cross quarter days at Shelburne Farms, Vermont. The retreats are focused on creating sacred space for reciprocal communication with nature and the unseen world.
Her work as an artist and environmental conceptualist includes an ongoing series of handmade books and installations to honor the honeybee as guardians and messengers of the intersection between people and the Earth. Kaylynn has been working with beekeepers around the country to illuminate the evolving identity of land and community shaped at that intersection especially in the face of climate change. Kaylynn’s writing, blog and portfolio can be viewed at: ktwotrees.com and she can be contacted at: tt@ktwotrees.com (Photo courtesy of Carolyn Hartness.)