Coulter Stone
My life has been shaped by a diverse path that allows me both a deep, broad, and holistic understanding of how humans develop, grow, and heal.
My first endeavor into the human psyche is through music. Since I was a small child I have been fascinated by indigenous rhythms, the ways beats move the body, and more recently how the drum can affect the soul & spirit. I have been a percussionist for over 25 years. I play instruments such as the hand pan, frame drum, djembe, rattles, singing bowls, ukulele, and I also sing. My music is informed by my Celtic roots and is a staple of every ceremony I guide.
As I grew my interest turned to how life developed. I hold a B.S. in Biology from University of Redlands as well as a M.A. in Science Education. I have taught in both outdoor and classroom settings and love understanding concepts and conveying that understanding to others. This breadth and depth of the human experience as we grow has helped informed my spirituality as well as the way I teach and guide to other. When it comes to the harder, more complex nuances of medicine work - I want you to feel as knowledgeable and resourced as possible.
Once in my adult life, I found the next step in understanding the human experience —how humans fall apart and what to do about. My training started with the body. I am Wilderness EMT, and have worked as a Field Medic and Assistant Health Director for Open Sky Wilderness Therapy. These days, I also currently teach wilderness emergency medicine. These experiences allows me to be able to hold a safer physical container for all of my clients. I have a greater understanding of medications and diagnoses, and I am able to respond to any emergency (though I never have had to). Due to my time in Wilderness Therapy, I found the next phase of my training: helping humans who have emotional, mental, and spiritual challenges.
During my 5 years at Open Sky Wilderness Therapy, I received extensive training in nonviolent communication and de-escalation strategies, trauma-informed techniques, mindfulness, and somatic principles. These days, I am also pursuing a M.A. from Naropa University in Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal Counseling. By understanding the western approach to the mind-body-emotion connection, I am able to help people from western culture process their experiences in a way that makes sense to them.
Lastly, but most profoundly comes my spiritual training. I apprenticed in cross-cultural and Celtic shamanism for two years with my teacher, Twobirds Cunningham, in Scotland. Her lineage is a blend of Celtic, South African Bushman, Toltec, and Lakota spirituality. I also have 15 years of sitting with various plant medicines, totaling hundreds of experiences in various traditions. From my time with my teacher, my drum, and the medicine, I have a deep understanding of the spiritual realms one can encounter. I am also versed in a multitude of various emotional and spiritual practices such as meditation, prayer, chakra balancing, energetic healing, sound healing, soul retrieval, and more.
From the weaving of my experiences comes a robust container and skill set that allows me to work with clients holistically - attending to their mind, body, emotions, soul, and spirit.
For additional information on my ethos and ethics, check out the following:
Co-Guides
Shelby Sly
Shelby is a ceremonialist, facilitator and song carrier, as well as an herbalist and longtime student on the unbeaten path of life. She has spent the better part of the last 7 years living and apprenticing to the plants and their teachings in the jungle of Costa Rica, guided by her teachers NetaYa and Vismay. She is a certified Hatha and Vinyasa yoga instructor, The Work that Reconnects Facilitator, Wilderness Therapy guide and Somatic Plant Medicine Integration practitioner with a passion for holding space for individual's own wisdom to arise from their depths. She is driven by her mission of providing trauma-informed care to foster holistic, embodied healing for individuals, in service to the web of life.
Through her own winding path, it became clear that intentional preparation and integration is just as important as the ceremony itself. More specifically, how the careful re-patterning of trauma imprints and the embodiment of resources from altered states are essential components of meaningful and lasting change. For the last 4 years, she has studied with Trauma and Somatics, Atira Tan, and The Embody Lab to grow in her own capacity to provide body-based integration of psychedelic journeys, and has further grown her capacity to hold space for the embodied wisdom of the individual to arise from their depths. She holds one-on-one plant medicine preparation and integration sessions, from the knowing that these essential pieces provide the foundation allowing the plants to do their best work with us. Through somatic awareness and processing, deep imagery, parts work, and pattern tracking, Somatic Preparation sessions can lay a foundation of resources to draw upon during the journey, as well as help to clarify intentions and begin the work of self-healing prior to ceremony. Utilizing the same tools to reflect on the journey, Somatic Integration can assist in anchoring resources experienced in ceremony into our bodies, bridging the altered state experience to our daily lives. Integration can bring an experience from a mere potent memory to a deeply embodied trans-formation. Shelby sees this work of personal healing as an offering to the healing of our world, co-creating a culture better able to live in service to the web of life.
Deer Ryder
Deer Ryder is a wilderness and human development guide, writer, dreamworker, poet and storyteller. He resides in the American Southwest where he works supporting others to heal and deepen their soul’s path in relationship to the holy wild.
Deer's primary training is as a Soul Initiation Guide with the Animas Valley Institute, an international nature-based mystery school based in the southwest specializing in the Nature Based Map of the Psyche and Soulcraft (dreamwork, shadow work, cross-species communion, ceremony, ritual arts, trance states and more); specifically focusing on guiding their 10-day wilderness fast.
Deer spent two years as a senior field guide with Open Sky Wilderness Therapy and is certified in nature-based practices and eco-psychology from EcoDharma in Spain, and has been a dedicated meditation practitioner and occasional facilitator for 10 years, primarily in the Vipassana/Insight traditions. He has participated in many silent retreats all over the world, with contemporary and traditional teachers, with special emphasis on blending practice and service to the earth. In this vein, he honors his former teachers: Sangha Seva’s Nathan Glyde and Zohar Lavie and friend-mentor, Mai-Linh Leminhbach: teacher and co-founder of the Himalayan Dharmalaya Institute for Compassionate Living and Windhorse Village.
Deer lived in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range in Colombia, working with and spending significant time with the Kogui people in support of the Amazon Conservation Team’s efforts to help the Mamas reclaim stolen territory, make offerings, and cultural preservation. Deer does not offer or teach anything he learned directly from the Kogui, but was irrevocably transformed and imbued by their teachings and way of life. He supports them in their fight to curtail global ecological disaster.
Lastly, Deer has been training in ancestral lineage work with Solea Anana and is a certified Wilderness First Responder with field experience. He received his Permaculture Design Certification from LA Permaculture Academy and applied its teachings while living and working in gardens, farms, alternative communities, eco-centric and permaculture-based projects around the world, including ancestral land practices research at Navdanya Earth University in northern India. He has his BA in Literature and Creative writing from UCLA and is a student of worldwide mythology, storytelling, and traditional cultures. He is currently writing and seeking representation for a novel trilogy. He has traveled to 27 countries and lived in 9 before calling the southwest home. Read more about him and his offerings on his website.