OUR TEACHERS

Below is a list of some of our teachers that influence who we are, how we show up, and what we offer. This is a living document and will change as we do!

Bill Plotkin - Bill Plotkin, Ph.D., is a depth psychologist, wilderness guide, and agent of cultural evolution. As founder of western Colorado’s Animas Valley Institute in 1981, he has guided thousands of seekers through nature-based initiatory passages, including a contemporary, Western adaptation of the pan-cultural vision fast. Previously, he has been a research psychologist (studying non-ordinary states of consciousness), professor of psychology, psychotherapist, rock musician, and whitewater river guide.

Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen - Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen (OTR/L, RSMT, RSME) is a movement artist, researcher, educator and therapist and the developer of the Body-Mind Centering® approach to movement and consciousness. An innovator and leader, her work has influenced the fields of bodywork, movement, dance, yoga, body psychotherapy, childhood education and many other body-mind disciplines.  In 1973, she founded The School for Body-Mind Centering®.

Donna Simmons - Donna has had a lifelong involvement in Waldorf education. This began when she was 4 and was sent to the Rudolf Steiner School in New York City. Fourteen years later she graduated and attended Sarah Lawrence College where she studied history, creative writing, political science and child psychology. She did independent research comparing the work of Piaget and Rudolf Steiner.

Francis Weller - Francis Weller, MFT, is a psychotherapist, writer and soul activist. He is a master of synthesizing diverse streams of thought from psychology, anthropology, mythology, alchemy, indigenous cultures and poetic traditions. He founded and directs WisdomBridge, an organization that offers educational programs that seek to integrate the wisdom from indigenous cultures with the insights and knowledge gathered from western poetic, psychological and spiritual traditions. 

Gene Tagaban (Cherokee, Tlingit, Filipino) - Gene Tagaban, “One Crazy Raven” is an influential storyteller, trainer, speaker, mentor and performer. Gene is of the Takdeintaan clan, the Raven, Freshwater Sockeye clan from Hoonah, AK. He is the Child of the Wooshkeetaan clan, the Eagle, Shark clan from Juneau, AK. He is Cherokee, Tlingit and Filipino. 

Gilbert Walking Bull (Lakota) - Born in the distant hills of South Dakota, Gilbert was the grandson of Moves Camp, a Lakota Sacred Man, and the great grandson of Sitting Bull. On his mother's side he was from the band of Crazy Horse and Black Elk. Selected from a young age to help carry on the spiritual teachings of his people, Gilbert was raised largely by his grandparent's generation, and educated in the traditional healing ceremonies, language, songs and culture of the Lakota. Gilbert's vision was to share the gifts given to him with people from all walks of life, to help mankind understand a better way of life. In 2000 he founded Tatanka Mani Camp along with his wife Diane Marie, and Marilynn Bradley.

Heather Carrie - Heather Carrie serves as a health policy professional committed to improving health and well-being for all. With a lifelong dedication to social justice and fostering collaboration, she supports health equity initiatives through community engagement, multi-sectoral partnerships, and policy advocacy. As Executive Director of Food as Global Medicine, she aims to grow a collaborative community movement that remedies our most urgent health and environmental challenges impacting the well-being of all on our planet. As a researcher, she focuses on public health issues and global affairs. As a trained mediator, she works to resolve conflict, ignite cooperation, and rebuild relationships with a focus on healing among the healers. Heather is also the Founder of the Heartstone Center (on Vashon) where she served as Executive Director for 13 years overseeing all business duties for a community-based education program teaching holistic and sustainable living skills.

Heidi Bohan - Heidi Bohan is a life-long lover of plants. She has spent the last 18 years educating others in ethnobotany and traditional skills. Her many credentials include: author of “The People of Cascadia“, adjunct Professor in the Herbal Sciences program at Bastyr University, mentor in the Gatherer to Gardener Apprenticeship program and much more. 

Ingwe (Norman J. Powell) - Born M. Norman Powell in 1914 of British ancestry, Ingwe spent his childhood running barefoot through the plains of Kenya with the young warriors of the neighboring Akamba tribe. Adopted into their tribe, Ingwe was raised and initiated as a warrior of the Akamba tribe. Through their teachings he learned how to live close to the Earth. During his life Ingwe became very involved in the Scouting movement and shared the wisdom and magic of the wilderness with thousands of youth both in Africa and the United States. In 1984, Ingwe joined Jon Young to share the lessons of his Akamba people of holding and seeking positive Visions for the children of the future. Ingwe passed away in November of 2005, and will always be remembered as the Grandfather of the deep nature connection movement.

Joanna Macy - Joanna Macy, Ph.D, Author and Teacher, is a scholar of Buddhism, Systems Thinking, and Deep Ecology. A respected voice in the movements for peace, justice, and ecology, she interweaves her scholarship with learning from six decades of activism. 

Jon Young - Jon Young is an international leader in the field of deep nature connection mentoring. His “Cultural Mentoring” approach to developing deep nature connection, holistic human awareness, and peacemaking skills has inspired over 300 local deep nature connection organizations and initiatives in the U.S., Europe, and throughout the world. Inspired by his childhood mentoring with tracker and author Tom Brown Jr. , Jon is the founder of the 8 Shields Institute and Wilderness Awareness School. He has also authored a variety of books .

Jake Swamp (Mohawk) - Tekaronianeken Jake Swamp was one of the world's foremost authorities on Peace and Cross-Cultural Understanding. Mohawk Nation sub-chief and representative on the Grand Council of the Iroquois Confederacy for over 30 years, Jake Swamp was the founder of the international Tree of Peace Society, taught extensively throughout the world, and met with heads of state and addressed the United Nations. We at Twin Eagles Wilderness School consider the Peacemaker Principles and Thanksgiving Address traditions he has shared with us as fundamental to our teaching philosophy, the way we operate as an organization, and the health of our community and families. Jake passed away in October of 2010. His love and teachings continue to live on in our hearts and in our relationships.

Juliet Blankespoor - Juliet has been sharing her passion for plants for over twenty-five years through teaching herbal medicine and botany. She started the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine in 2007 after attending extensive herbal programs at the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine, the California School of Herbal Studies and the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine. She is currently writing her first book – The Healing Garden: Cultivating & Handcrafting Herbal Remedies. 

Kiva Rose Hardin - Kiva Rose Hardin is a folk herbalist, botanical perfumer, musician, and storyteller. Kiva has been practicing herbalism for almost two decades, and studying botanical perfumery for nearly a dozen years now. She celebrates common and abundant plant medicines and bioregional aromatics in her work and writing. 

Lucinda Herring - As an Anthroposophical Waldorf Kindergarten teacher, Lucinda helped children, families and communities “Live a Spiritual Year,” celebrating festivals together through the seasons. She is a student of both Western and Eastern spiritual traditions (Anthroposophy, Dzog Chen and Tibetan Buddhism, Celtic Faery Faith/Ceile De and Incarnational Spirituality). Lucinda takes joy in helping others develop authentic spiritual practices and ceremony – in life and in death – ones that express individual and collective creativity, sacredness, connection and wholeness.

Mark Morey - Mark Morey is a creative artist, visionary educator, cultural engineer, and consultant who designs regenerative holistic communities with timeless principles. For the last 30 years he has been a national leader in the movement to reconnect humanity to the natural world. He has done this though several organizations that he has founded as well as international events in the Art of Mentoring. Mark's passion for environmental healing and consciousness has gained him wide recognition as a leader in earth centered learning. 

Marshall Rosenberg - Dr. Marshall B. Rosenberg was the founder and director of educational services for The Center for Nonviolent Communication. Nonviolent Communication training evolved from his quest to find a way of rapidly disseminating much needed peacemaking skills. The Center for Nonviolent Communication emerged out of work he was doing with civil rights activists in the early 1960's. During this period he also mediated between rioting students and college administrators and worked to peacefully desegregate public schools in long-segregated regions.

Martín Prechtel - A leading thinker, writer and teacher in the search for the Indigenous soul in all people, Martín Prechtel is a dedicated student of eloquence, history, language and an ongoing fresh approach. In his native New Mexico Martín teaches at his international school Bolad’s Kitchen: a hands on historical and spiritual immersion into language, music, ritual, farming, cooking, smithing, natural colors, architecture, animal raising, clothing, tools, story, grief and humor to help people from many lands, cultures and backgrounds to remember and retain the majesty of their diverse origins while cultivating the flowering of integral culture in the present to grow a time of hope beyond our own.

Michael Meade - Michael Meade, D.H.L., is a renowned storyteller, author, and scholar of mythology, anthropology, and psychology. He combines hypnotic storytelling, street-savvy perceptiveness, and spellbinding interpretations of ancient myths with a deep knowledge of cross-cultural rituals. He has an unusual ability to distill and synthesize these disciplines, tapping into ancestral sources of wisdom and connecting them to the stories we are living today.

Nunutsi Otterson (Cherokee) - Nunutsi Otterson is of the Red Star Fire contingency of the Cherokees of California, specifically out of Marysville, California. Nunutsi was raised to know many of the Cherokee and local Medicine Plants common to the West Coast regions, and holds Herbalist Certification through Rosemary Gladstar’s School and a Bachelor’s Degree in Botany. She has worked with young children for decades as a certified Waldorf Teacher and as a homeschooling mother. She is also a traditional Elder and Vision Quest leader. In addition to helping create the Ihiya Biological Reserve in Washington, she serves on VWP’s Equity Council and as part of Elder support for our program.

Paul Raphael (Odawa) - Paul Raphael has worked with his traditional indigenous ways to bring healing to many through the Sacred Fire, Peacemaking, and the Art of Mentoring. Paul knows tracking from the wild beings of the land to the inside of the human soul. He has been mentoring people for the past thirty years in deep nature connection, healing from grief, and discovering their personal gifts. He has worked as a Peacemaker for the Grand Traverse Band of Odawa and Chippewa Indians Tribal Courts. There he was instrumental in helping establish Peacemaking and a Nature Based Drug Court, to help repeated alcohol and drug offenders. Paul brings his humor and his knowledge of Native teachings passed onto him by his Elders.

Robin Wall Kimmerer (Potowatomi) - Dr. Kimmerer is a mother, plant ecologist, writer and SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York. She serves as the founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. Her research interests include the role of traditional ecological knowledge in ecological restoration and the ecology of mosses. As a writer and a scientist, her interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. 

Roger Fernandes (Lower Elwha Band of the S’Klallam) - Roger Fernandes is a Native American artist, storyteller, and educator whose work focuses on the culture and arts of the Coast Salish tribes of western Washington. He is a member of the Lower Elwha S’Klallam Tribe and has a B.A. in Native American Studies from The Evergreen State College and an M.A. in Whole Systems Design from Antioch University. He has worked in a variety of arenas including Native education, social work, arts, and culture. As an artist he practices and teaches Coast Salish design and as a storyteller he shares storytelling as a foundational human process for teaching and healing. He currently teaches courses on storytelling and art at the University of Washington, Northwest Indian College, and other learning institutions.

Rosalee de la Forêt - Rosalee has over 10 years of training as an herbalist, from ethnobotany and wildcrafting to clinical herbalism. She is a graduate of the four-year clinical program at the East West School of Herbology, spent three years apprenticing at EarthWalk Northwest, did extensive Clinical Training with the International Integrative Educational Institute and have been mentored by some of the most outstanding herbalists of our time, including Michael Tierra, Karta Purkh Singh Khalsa and jim mcdonald. She is a contributing herbalist for LearningHerbs.com and HerbMentor.com. 

Rudolf Steiner - Rudolf Steiner was an Austrian philosopher and teacher who developed a way of thinking that he applied to different aspects of what it means to be human. Over a period of 40 years, he formulated and taught a path of inner development or spiritual research he called, "anthroposophy." From what he learned, he gave practical indications for nearly every field of human endeavor. Waldorf education has its roots in his spiritual-scientific research and philosophy, which views the human being as a threefold being of spirit, soul, and body whose capacities unfold in three developmental stages on the path to adulthood: early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence.

Winona LaDuke (Ojibwe) - Winona LaDuke is an internationally renowned activist working on issues of sustainable development renewable energy and food systems. She lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, and is a two time vice presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the Green Party. As Program Director of Honor the Earth, she works nationally and internationally on the issues of climate change, renewable energy, and environmental justice with Indigenous communities. She is also the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, one of the largest reservation based non profit organizations in the country, and a leader in the issues of culturally based sustainable development strategies, renewable energy and food systems.