Gratitude

This work grows from a lineage of teachers whose generosity has saturated how I show up for you.

Sean MacDonald

Former Global Chief Innovation Officer, McCann Worldgroup

It’s my life’s blessing to have had an 8-year collaboration with Sean. He showed me how integrity can exist in the highest echelons of business, that spiritual practice can be lived out in the board room and our innate creative expression is the most important thread to follow.

LeeAnn Mallorie, MAPP, MSC

I thank LeeAnn for infusing somatics into professional development. Her year-long mastermind program and signature retreats have unlocked lifelong explorations and special friendships. She tends the magic that happens when the feminine in leadership gets re-membered and activated.

CEO, Guts & Grace

I am grateful to Báyò for bringing the medicine of the trickster to our hardening and burning world. Putting his concept of “post-activism” into practice has changed the way I relate to my response-ability. Since participating in the We Will Dance With Mountains course, I have been woven into offerings by his nonprofit The Emergence Network and Vunja Artist-in-Residence Krista Dragomer.

Public Intellectual, Author, Philosopher

Báyò Akómoláfé, Ph.D.

Integral Coach education since 1986

New Ventures West

I am proud to be certified by this rigorous year-long program with a transdisciplinary methodology. I am floored by how Sahar Azarabadi, Cynthia Luna and Nida Backaitis coach. I recommend my fellow cohort mates:

  • Carrie Gladstone of Lead Humans works with senior leaders through an innovative, cross-company forum model

  • Julie Bauch for trauma-informed work

  • Terence Thang of Wondasobi on transitions, immigrant / multicultural experiences, generational expectations; LGBTQ+ affirming

  • Dennis Xiao for emergent soul mentorship

  • Tex Dworkin at the intersection of mission-driven startups, marketing, facilitation and coaching

Photo by T. Prutisto

Q. M. Zhang (Kim Chang)

Writer, Editor, Founder of MemoryWorks

My writing teacher Kim and her methodology MemoryWorks have cracked me open. She taught me how to reclaim our personal histories and collective memories through acts of imagination and the tools of hybrid form.

Butoh Dancer and Teacher

Hiroko Tamano

I am humbled by Hiroko sensei whose transmission of Ankoku Butoh (“dance of darkness”) is not only in the studio but in setting our feet on the soil, the folding of cloth and everyday living. Developed in the aftermath of WWII, the form explores an aesthetic that metabolizes taboo, absurdity, tradition, nature and the non-dual which is more relevant now than ever.

Yoga

As a yoga practitioner of two dozen years, I want to call out two teachers I practice with regularly now. Disha Gupta offers outdoor and in-studio classes in Berkeley, California. Claudia Bartsch teaches online and in-person in San Francisco, California.

Qigong & Acupuncture

Through the caring tutelage of Drs. Eliza Meeker and Leonard Shen of California Qigong, as well as classical Chinese cosmology teacher and acupuncturist Dr. Anne Shelton Crute of Ritual Health, I found embodied ways to reconnect with my body, my roots, the seasons and the more-than-human.