The Sacred Trust Faculty 2011

Simon Buxton

Simon Buxton is Founder/Director of The Sacred Trust and the UK Faculty for The Foundation For Shamanic Studies, the foremost core-shamanic training organisation in the world, directed by Dr Michael Harner. Simon has worked and trained within shamanic traditions for twenty-five years, including a thirteen year apprenticeship to a European Bee Master, as detailed within his book The Shamanic Way of the Bee, which was the recipient of the 2005 Canizares Book Award for non-fiction. He is also the co-author of Darkness Visible, and his third book, The Serpent Flight of the Honeybee is in preparation.

Simon is a Fellow of The Royal Anthropological Institute, the world’s longest-established scholarly association dedicated to the furtherance of anthropology and his work has been profiled within several books including Travelling Between the Worlds and Soul Companions as well as being featured in the documentary film Vanishing of the Bees. In 2007, together with Naomi Lewis, Simon opened The Sacred Trust Centre in Dorset, England where he conducts his writing, research and teaching work.

Naomi Lewis

Naomi Lewis is the Educational Director of The Sacred Trust and founder of The School of Animal Spirit Medicine. She is a shamanic teacher, healer and ceremonialist, and within each of these roles is committed to the enduring journey of discovering the art form of the present moment and unearthing its accompanying truth. Naomi trained as a photographer at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art & Design, a discipline that led her directly onto the shamans path through her interaction with sacred and mythological landscapes.

Her work is heart-centred, and the weaving of the unguarded self with power stands at the forefront of her work, creating a dynamic learning space for students. Together with Simon Buxton she co-facilitates shamanic darkness workshops and courses in shamanic polarity, and with Kate Shela she leads seminars for women in practices from The Path of Pollen.

Kate Shela

Kate Shela is a shamanic teacher and shamanic practitioner known for her enormous passion, a vulnerable sense of the intimate and the ability to create community and tribe. She is a senior instructor within the Moving Center School founded by Gabrielle Roth with whom she has been closely associated for the last twenty years.

She is also an initiate of the Path of Pollen shamanic tradition and one of a small handful of individuals authorised to teach seminars and trainings for women on behalf of the Path of Pollen.In that capacity she co-teaches The Way of the Melissae seminar, the year-long training Arte Triptych Melissae, the new workshop The Trembling Veil & The Roar of the Roses as well as the ten day retreat Melissae Lyceum Lectorum, all which take place within The Sacred Trust curriculum of courses and trainings.

Kate possesses a bold improvisational style and a passionate sense of humour that enables magic to ooze into the everyday moments. This is her tenth year as a member of The Sacred Trust faculty.

Betsy Bergstrom

Betsy Bergstrom is a full-time shamanic teacher and practitioner, considered by many to be the foremost workshop leader specialising in despossesion methods teaching in the world today.

She holds the rare ability to open portals between worlds, archetypes and dimensions for the explicit purpose of gathering knowledge, changing possibilities and attuning to a higher awareness. As a recognised seer and oracle, she brings inspiration and knowledge to her students through constellating mythic landscapes with important stories to tell. For the last decade her gifts have focused on the compassionate release of possessing spirits to create healing for the possessed, the possessor and the world itself.

As well as extensive training with both indigenous shamans and in classical shamanism, Betsy is a lineage holder and dharma protector in the Tibetan Shije tradition of Chod in the lineage of Machik Lapdron and Padampa Sangye dedicated to sharing Dakini Wisdom.

Betsy Bergstrom is a brilliant teacher and healer.
She is clear, grounded, authentic, and teaches from a place of integrity.
Betsy is a true shaman, and I highly recommend her work.

Sandra Ingerman

Paula Shaw

Paula Shaw is a legendary and formidable teacher from the Esalen Institute of Big Sur, California where for over twenty years she has run her course THE MAX, which is considered to be an essential rite of passage for members of the Esalen community. Now a recognised elder and a master teacher within the realms of self-expression, well-being and creativity this year represents the first opportunity to work with Paula in the UK.

Originally a protégé of the celebrated actress, teacher, writer and film director Uta Hagen, Paula Shaw became a professional actress and then an acting teacher at California Institute of the Arts and at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute of Los Angeles, also having held the position of moderator at The Actors Studio in Los Angeles.

We warmly welcome Paula Shaw to the UK where she will be leading THE MAX which has been rightly described as being “like an epiphany...”

Allison Brown

Allison Brown is an initiate of the Path of Pollen shamanic tradition and a tutor on the Pollen Method professional practitioner training. Shortly after receiving a degree in zoology from King’s College London, she commenced her osteopathic training, eventually specialising in in cranial work, and since 1990 has been working in both private practice and Harley Street clinics. Fifteen years ago she commenced her shamanic work, originally in New Zealand with the native Maori peoples and then within the Path of Pollen, in which she now holds a teaching role.

Allison possesses an unusual gift of seership and a rare sensitivity regarding the poetics of energy work and carries the ability to unite the most potent healing modalities from the ancient past with the deepest needs of the contemporary heart and soul.