Mentors & Facilitators

Mentors

Larry Buell
Larry Buell is an environmental educator who specializes in "Sense of Place" interpretations of the natural and cultural environments and creating Earth-based living and learning communities. Larry received his master's in Outdoor Education from Penn State and his doctorate from the University of Massachusetts. He is founder and former director of the Outdoor Leadership Program and the Earth Education Human Ecology curriculum at Greenfield Community College where he is Professor Emeritus of Human Ecology. In 1992 he founded the Earthlands intentional community and environmental center. Larry is the visionary behind University of the Wild and continues to take an active role in its development. Larry is the author of numerous books and articles, including, The Outdoor Leadership Competency Manual; The 24-Hour Experience: An Outdoor Adventure Program; a text book on Human Ecology: Roots of our Worldview and Foundations for a Sustainable Future; and Return to the Meadow:Poetry, Prose, and Images of Place. Larry is dedicated to working with others to creat a sustainable community within his beloved North Quabbin Bioregion in North Central Massachusetts.

Bill Pfeiffer
Bill Pfeiffer is the founder and director of Sacred Earth Network (SEN). SEN has been implementing leading edge visions for almost 20 years. Bill has made Russia a "second home" having traveled there 34 times in the last 15 years--giving him a rare cross-cultural perspective. He has 20 years of experience in re-evaluation counseling and Vipassana meditation, and has undergone extensive training with Siberian shamans as well as with Joanna Macy and John Perkins. He has also spent much time in the US Southwest learning about Native medicine ways and the crucial importance of the petroglyphs and pictographs. Bill brings to all his work a dynamic mixture of open heartedness, sensitivity, and a fierce determination for a peaceful, sustainable future.
www.sacredearthnetwork.org

Vivienne Simon
Vivienne is a life-time activist, working in the interface between personal and social change. She has worked in international environmental and human rights for over 30 years, in areas such as rainforest protection, famine relief, peace organizing, anti-nuclear campaigning, political consulting and developing the field of eco-psychology. An attorney and certified coach, she has held positions with organizations as diverse as Greenpeace, Harvard University and Cultural Survival.
http://www.vivsimon.com/

Cathy Pedevillano
Cathy is a shamanic healer and teacher who leads workshops and trainings in shamanism. She has traveled to the Southwest many times where she has led vision quests, healing journeys, indigenous people’s exchanges and works with native elders. Cathy is a skilled and compassionate facilitator who brings her love of the Earth and passion for healing and transformation into her work. She is also an environmental activist/educator and wildlife biologist. Cathy is committed to serving humanity and the planet through the revival of ancient shamanic practices and an Earth-honoring world view.
www.heartofshamanism.com

Wild Earth Intensive Consultants

Mark Morey
Mark is a creative artist, a visionary educator, a cultural engineer and consultant who designs regenerative holistic communities with timeless native principles. He has facilitated 10 years of wilderness survival and spiritual passages for teens and adults since 1997. Mark has founded three transformational organizations in the last 12 years, including Deep Wilds (.com), Vermont Wilderness School (.org) and the Institute for Natural Learning (.com).

Miriam Dror
M.A., LCMHC, Certified International Core Energetic Therapist. Miriam has practiced for over thirty-five years in both the U.S. and England. Her work is an integration of Human development, deep body psychotherapies, as well as teachings that come from Indigenous Peoples. Miriam has sought, through the positions she has held as well as the many trainings and workshops she has developed and facilitated, to promote an understanding of child rearing and models of education that support human development to its fullest potential in balance with the principles of nature. Her healing practices reflect a trust in the innate capacity of each of us to embrace our own healing journeys and to find purpose in our lives. She calls her work Human Development by Nature’s Design.

Jim Beard
Jim is a speaker on topics such as traditional living and natural spirit teachings. His topics address many concerns to do with wellness and balance in life. He is a student of native teachings from Ojibwe Elders, Algonquin language based people. His exposure to the wilderness has taught him the basics of survival skills and the techniques that he applies to them are based on teachings given by Native American Indians that have befriended him.

For Bill Pfeiffer and Cathy Pedevillano, see above.

Workshop Facilitators

Tommy Priester
Tommy, a compelling teacher and a practicing herbalist since 1998, combines, western herbalism with Native American tradition and ritual. He has completed studies with renowned master herbalists Gail Ulrich, Margi Flint, Matthew Wood, William LeSassier, Phillis Light, Donald Yance, David Delta, and Stephen Harod Buhner. Tommy is currently on the faculty of The Boston School of Herbal Studies. In 1984, a Seminole introduced Tommy to traditional Native American ways. During the last 20 years Tommy has had the privilege of learning from Abanaki, Cherokee, Ojibwa, Lakota, and Cree elders. His primary teacher was Albert Tait, a Cree elder of The Norway House Cree Reservation in Manitoba, Canada. Tommy has also studied core shamanism with John Ford and Michael Harner, Dana Robins and Tibetan shamanism with Larry Peters.
www.bearmedicineherbs.com

Jono Neiger
Jono has a diverse background in ecology, conservation, restoration, land stewardship, permaculture, and landscape design. He works to help individuals, communities and organizations create ecological, productive, and beautiful environments. A conservation biologist and ecologist since 1990 and permaculture teacher and designer since 1996, Jono was the Land Steward and Permaculture Apprenticeship Program Director at the Lost Valley Educational Center, Oregon for 5 yrs. He is faculty at the Conway School of Landscape Design in Conway, MA and operates Regenerative Design, a permaculture design and planning firm in Leverett, Massachusetts.

Tim Keating
Tim co-founded Rainforest Relief in 1989, and since then, the group has become a force preventing rainforest logging to feed demand for tropical timber imports. In the last ten years Rainforest Relief has emerged as the nation’s lead organization on this issue. Tim has directly educated thousands about the connection between consumption and rainforest destruction through Rainforest Relief lectures. He has been a student of wild food for over 30 yeas, since he was 13 years old. He has been leading foraging walks in city parks and wild areas for many years.
www.rainforestrelief.org

Jim Farnham
An initiated pourer of the Sweat Lodge - bio to come.