MEET THE FOUNDERS

Hi, I’m JARED ANDERSON

I believe the learning I received from the Earth and from the few people who helped me practice this, is our birthright. Not only does this relationship help us heal, but in turn, puts us in a useful state to help her heal.  Our relationship to the Earth is our relationship to the Great Mother and, just like our relationship to our flesh and blood mother, it is first in the order of things.  Meaning, she is the place where we can feel and begin to heal our wounded sense of belonging in this life, this world.  No matter what happens in our circumstantial lives, the Earth is always embracing us and our capacity to feel that embrace and let it land, matters greatly.  

my early years

I grew up in suburban St. Louis, Missouri.  My family was loving and chaotic and I was raised in a catholic upper middle class lifestyle. Then when I was sixteen both my parents died when their plane to Paris exploded suddenly off the Long Island Coast. It was so utterly shocking. It split my life in two; before and after.  Ripping my childhood and my sheltered view of the world apart in an instant and sending me into a life and a world, which felt dire, terrifying and without shelter. I reeled inwardly and sought to find ground, reprieve but ended up in a perpetual state of tense survival.

MY CAREER PATH

I have studied with Thomas Hubl and his growing community since 2014 and completed the 2.5 year Timeless Wisdom Training in 2020 - the practices that I’ve learned from all my work with this community continue to support my own healing and deepening and my skillful capacity to support others in their

I am certified in the Level 2 Narm Therapist Training - a powerful trauma healing psychotherapy modality.  In my private sessions - I utilize this modality most exclusively. I trained with Lindagail Campbell and NLP Pacific for two years.

YOU SHOULD KNOW

Since I was 20 I’ve been going out on the land and fasting - in semblances and echoes of the old pan-cultural rite of passage commonly called the vision quest.  I’ve been guiding folks too - young and old - out on these experiences since 2015.  I have training from The School of Lost Borders and from the school of hard knocks by bringing people out. 

I currently live with my two great loves - my wife and my son - in the forested foothills of the Cascade Mountains outside of Bend, Oregon.  

my approach

Throughout my twenties I sought ways to heal and found myself in solitude on the land.  Being connected to people, in an open hearted way, was too much for me.  The land slowly brought me to an embrace.  That’s what the Earth taught me first, that I belonged and not just in thought, but in visceral experience.  

After losing my parents, I believed that the world was hostile and ready to wipe me away at the blink of an eye.  In a conscious, slow learning by sitting with and slowing down with and on the Earth - I discovered that healing through belonging is not just possible, but is wanting to happen.

Hi, I’m Noël Amherd

I facilitate Victim-Offender dialogues (VOD) pro bono bringing together people harmed by violence with the person responsible. Most of my dialogues have been situations of murder. From this work, and at the request of the men-in-blue in San Quentin, I became the volunteer chaplain for Ifá/Orisa worship for 8 years for the men in general population as well as condemned row (death row) who want to worship in this indigenous African heritage.

My Approach

I have always felt first to be an artist, a thinker to blur or reposition boundaries. I grew up painting and drawing, also a musician, a violinist, having done master-classes as a child with Yehudi Mehuhin then later blessed to study music with Dr. Yusef Lateef.

I've been a life-long falconer, collaborating with hawks and falcons as hunting partners, and still hunt with my 13 yr.old female Harris hawk.

My Publications

my early years

A defining moment in my life was the drowning of my father days after my 17th birthday followed by a series of further deaths; death providing a landscape that Jared and I have walked together upon and still do significantly.

I'm also an initiated babaláwo (some say Ifá priest) in a lineage from Ijebu Remo, Nigeria since 1995. I draw significantly from my training and practice to design rituals and ceremonies for healing. I am currently exploring and writing of the renewed relevance of the òrìsà of disease, Sònpònná and global pandemics.

MY CAREER PATH

I lived in the UK with my family for 3 years while I completed my PhD at the Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham. I've taught in multiple colleges until starting my own business as a Restorative Justice consultant, practitioner and trainer for district attorney and other governmental departments, schools, and grass-roots communities and organizations.

I published my book, Reciting Ifá: Difference, Identity and Heterogeneity, with Africa World Press in 2010 and continue to publish as an independent researcher.

YOU SHOULD KNOW

I've lived the majority of my life in Oakland in the San Francisco Bay Area with its cosmopolitanism, but also in Birmingham, UK, and Ijebu Remo, Nigeria. I move through the world seen as 'white' and my wife and children as 'black.' This is to say that I have a very serious and critical perception of race and violences in this country that informs my commitments and stances. With our children now adults, I and my wife now live in the beauty of the high-elevation desert of New Mexico.