Simon Buxton is Founder/Director of The Sacred Trust and the UK Faculty for The Foundation For Shamanic Studies, the foremost core-shamanic training organisation in the world, directed by Dr Michael Harner. Simon has worked and trained within shamanic traditions for over twenty years, including a thirteen year apprenticeship to a European Bee Master, as detailed within his book The Shamanic Way of the Bee, which was the recipient of the 2005 Canizares Book Award for non-fiction. He is also the co-author of Darkness Visible, and his third book, The Serpent Flight of the Honey-Bee is in preparation. Simon is a Fellow of The Royal Anthropological Institute, the world’s longest-established scholarly association dedicated to the furtherance of anthropology and his work has been profiled within several books including Travelling Between the Worlds and Soul Companions. In 2007, together with Naomi Lewis, Simon opened The Sacred Trust Centre in Dorset, England where he conducts his writing, research and teaching work.

Naomi Lewis is the Educational Director of The Sacred Trust and founder of The School of Animal Spirit Medicine. She is a shamanic teacher, healer and ceremonialist, and within each of these roles is committed to the enduring journey of discovering the art form of the present moment and unearthing its accompanying truth. Naomi trained as a photographer at Central St. Martins College of Art, a discipline that led her directly onto the shamans path through her interaction with sacred and mythological landscapes. Her work is heart-centred, and the weaving of the unguarded self with power stands at the forefront of her work, creating a dynamic learning space for students.. Together with Simon Buxton she co-facilitates shamanic darkness workshops and courses in shamanic polarity, and with Kate Shela she leads seminars for women in practices from The Path of Pollen.

Kate Shela is a shamanic teacher and shamanic practitioner known for her enormous passion, a vulnerable sense of the intimate and the ability to create community and tribe. She is a senior instructor within the Moving Center School founded by Gabrielle Roth with whom she has been closely associated for seventeen years. She is also an initiate of the Path of Pollen shamanic tradition and one of a small handful of individuals authorised to teach seminars and trainings for women on behalf of the Path of Pollen. In that capacity she co-teaches The Way of the Melissae seminar and the year-long training Arte Triptych Melissae within The Sacred Trust programme. Kate possesses a bold improvisational style and a passionate sense of humour that enables magic to ooze into the everyday moments. This is her ninth year as a member of The Sacred Trust faculty.

Prof. Stuart Harrop has been described as a ‘walker between the worlds’ of shamanism and academia. His professional background includes heading up the Anthropology Department at the University of Canterbury, advising the United Nations on issues concerning conservation and the preservation of human heritage, and playing a vital role in the development of conservation regulation. His fieldwork focuses on the role and practices of indigenous and rural communities in the conservation of bio diversity and has worked with communities living in biodiversity-rich areas in Meso and South America, Africa and the Far East. Stuart co-facilitates a unique two-week physical darkness retreat - The Journey to the Midnight Sun - bringing with him a wealth of experience in darkness work, which he sees as the optimum vehicle to enable us to access inner silence and to perceive our true relationship with the Earth and the wider cosmos.

Allison Brown is an initiate of the Path of Pollen shamanic tradition and a tutor on the Pollen Method professional practitioner training. Shortly after receiving a degree in zoology from King’s College London, she commenced her osteopathic training, eventually specialising in in cranial work, and since 1990 has been working in both private practice and Harley Street clinics. Fifteen years ago she commenced her shamanic work, originally in New Zealand with the native Maori peoples and then within the Path of Pollen, in which she now holds a teaching role. Allison possesses an unusual gift of seership and a rare sensitivity regarding the poetics of energy work and carries the ability to unite the most potent healing modalities from the ancient past with the deepest needs of the contemporary heart and soul.