Kedar S. Brown M.Ed.,CHT
Kedar is a ceremonialist, healer, intuitive and teacher of psychological and spiritual awareness with over thirty-two years of professional experience. Over this time he has developed an effective and unique approach to emotional and spiritual healing by braiding together his depth of clinical knowledge of experiential psychotherapies with more nature based, indigenous wisdom teachings and healing methods from around the world. Kedar is the founder and director of Rites of Passage Council, an organization offering nature based treatment and professional training programs. Kedar is a member of an International Wilderness Guides Council and known for his ability to blend many creative and expressive forms of depth psychology and psychotherapy with more ancient methods of healing through vision quest ceremonies, sweat lodge ceremonies, rites of passage experiences and personalized ceremonies and rituals in his work with individuals, couples, groups and communities.
In 1994 Kedar apprenticed with Steven Foster and Meredith Little at School of Lost Boarders in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the form and process of the vision quest ceremony and eco-psychology. He apprenticed with Malidoma Some, PhD, initiated elder and shaman of the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso, West Africa leaning indigenous methods of healing emotional trauma and relationship challenges through various forms of ritual processes and intuitive divination readings. Kedar has also had the honor and privilege to learn many valuable insights into healing from his apprenticeship with Cherokee elder and medicine person, Will Rockingbear.
Kedar has been a Licensed Professional Counselor, Clinical Addictions Specialist, Nationally Certified Counselor, and Certified Hakomi, Body-Centered Psychotherapist. Kedar’s healing retreats and training programs are offered both nationally and internationally. His previous work has taken him across the US, and into Ireland, West Africa, England, Australia, Scotland, Hawaii and Spain. www.KedarBrown.com
Lynn Bowers
Lynn offers the depth and support of thirty-one years of personal recovery as well as twenty-five years experience as owner and manager of a residential construction company. As a community builder and gatherer of tribe, Lynn excels in creating home and sacred space.
Her inquisitive nature and reservoir of ideas serve to infuse both individuals and organizations with inspiration and vision. Whether in business or providing personal guidance, Lynn offers a great degree of down-to-earth leadership and follow-through in assisting others to reach their goals.
Lynn completed her own wilderness rites of passage in 2004 and has served as a Rites of Passage Council Guide since 2012. From age twelve Lynn grew up on the campus of Warren Wilson College where she later received her degree. She always been deeply at home in nature and brings a keen intuitive connection to the intelligence of the natural world, empathic awareness, and heart-full presence to all those she guides.
Tayria Ward Ph.D.
Tayria has worked intensively with her own and other peoples’ dreams for more than 40 years, and for nearly 20 years has been an avid student of indigenous ways of knowing and being. In 2004, she established Bridging Worlds, a center for working with individuals and groups to bridge the waking mind with the dreaming mind, the domesticated self with the indigenous self, culture with nature, the visible with the invisible, the conscious with the unconscious.
Presently she has a private practice specializing in dream analysis in Asheville, North Carolina, where she works with clients in person, by Skype and by telephone. She also offers dream groups, workshops and lectures.
She has a Ph.D. in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Previously she was a minister in an interfaith organization for 20 years, a professor at undergraduate and graduate levels, and owner of a retreat center in the remote mountains of Western North Carolina where she conducted retreats, vision quests and sweat lodges. For more information on Tayria’s work please visit: www.tayriaward.com
Kallie Brown, MA, LCMHC
Kallie is a rites of passage guide and licensed psychotherapist. It is through her own dark night of the soul that Kallie found herself being called to this work and her medicine as a wounded healer. She has been immersed in ceremonial and rites of passage work since 2016, completing the Rites of Passage Council Guide Training in 2018. Kallie offers a soulful blend of clinical knowledge, intuition, and nature-based wisdom to her work with others.
Before her work as a RoPC guide and therapist, Kallie worked as a wilderness guide with teens in the backcountry of the Appalachian Mountains. Returning to school she completed her master’s in clinical mental health counseling with a focus in expressive arts and eco therapy. For over a decade, Kallie has devoted her energies to supporting and guiding others. Kallie has studied with Animas Valley Institute, Hakomi Psychotherapy Institute, and Foundation for Shamanic Studies. Her work is rooted in women’s empowerment, midwifing each individual she meets with loving compassion and presence.
Kallie lives near Asheville, NC and works as a therapist in private practice. Working with groups, individuals, and couples, she specializes in guiding others in connecting mind, body, and Spirit and healing old stories that no longer serve. In her time outside of work Kallie finds solace and joy by taking walks in the woods, connecting with her community, and finding spaces to dance!
To connect with Kallie you can email her at Kallie@RitesofPassageCouncil.org or, visit her website at www.KallieBrown.com
“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate but that we are powerful beyond measure.” -Marianne Williamson, Return to Love.
Daniel “Two Trees” Barber, MS
Daniel “Two Trees” Barber, MS
Daniel Two Trees has always been consumed with how to leverage his limited life energies and abilities to make the most powerful, healing impact in the world. He was drawn early on to integrate the powerful social justice teachings of his childhood church with the confounding, mystical questions raised in its scriptures.
He spent over 20 years focused on trying to mend the world through social work, quantitative research design and statistics, video production, and political activism. He has worked with many smart, large-hearted and wise people as they’ve applied themselves to our collective challenges.
20 years ago, he shifted his focus toward personal healing, musical expression, leading ritual and drum circles, doing improvisational theatre and most critically, honoring his own healing process. A profound part of that process has been spent in ceremonial circles with the Rites of Passage Council community in one capacity or other since 2002, including initiating a spinoff men’s group in 2004 that met weekly for about 8 years. He has served as a Rites of Passage Council Guide since 2013 and on the board of Rites of Passage Council for the past several years.
In 2014, Daniel formalized his vocation into I Am Sound, LLC, where he works with individuals and groups using a unique and innovative process that integrates mindful presence practice with his own musical improvisation modality. This practice helps people engage their authenticity, liberate their unique offerings, and claim their naturally powerful place in the world.
After many answers followed by better questions, Daniel Two Trees continues to discover his own way of leveraging and nurturing healing on Earth. For more about this work go to danielbarber.com. www.danielbarber.com