Jade Journeys Contributors
Skye Stephenson, PhD, founded Jade Journeys to make available to interested people in the United States and Canada the opportunity to meet some of the amazing individuals and groups from Latin America and the Caribbean who are working at the intersection between the realm of sacred wisdom and contemporary knowledge. She herself has been blessed to know many such people over more than a quarter century that she has been developing and leading educational programs in the region and writing about the area’s cultural practices and spiritual traditions.
Skye’s area of expertise is the transformational potential of the cross-cultural experience. She is the author of Understanding Spanish-Speaking South Americans: Bridging Hemispheres (Intercultural Press, 2002,) and has researched and written several articles on intercultural learning and growth. Skye is currently Dean of the First Year Experience at Landmark College, the premiere college for students with learning disabilities in the United States. She is also Chair of the US Donors Board for the Intercultural University Amawtay Wasi of Ecuador and serves on the Living Routes Board of Directors.
On a more personal note, Skye has undertaken Ifa initiations in both Cuba and Brazil - and is involved with crystal therapy healing. She is completing her crystal resonance certification. She writes a monthly healing column for a newspaper in her home state of New Hampshire.
Naisha Ahsian " is a shaman, teacher, healer and the author of The Crystal Ally Cards: The Crystal Path to Self -Knowledge and co-author of The Book of Stones. She is the developer of the Crystal Resonance Therapy and Primus Activation Healing techniques and Director of the Crystalis Institute for Personal & Planetary Transformation in America.
Gina Nanetti. Gina is a gifted healer and counselor who has led groups to sacred sites in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru for fifteen years. Gina is Bolivian and was born with psychic abilities. She has learned from numerous shamans, the most important being an indigenous Bolivian woman. Gina is also trained as a transpersonal psychotherapist. She currently resides in Santiago, Chile, where she has an active practice in personal and group counseling. Her tours have been featured in leading travel magazines and the press throughout South America, and Jade Journeys is honored that she has agreed to lead her first tour for English-speaking North Americans with us.
Imani Tafari-Ama, PhD. Imani is an educator, activist, performer and author of the recently published Blood, Bullets and Bodies: Sexual Politics Below Jamaica's Poverty Line, which is a study of the crisis of inner-city violence in Jamaica. She has a doctorate in Development Studies from the Institute of Social Studies , The Hague, Netherlands. Imani has been engaged in multi-media community development work for many years in the greater Kingston area as well as around the Caribbean region and in international contexts. She herself comes from the farming community of Albion in Manchester and draws much of her inspiration from her rural childhood roots close to the earth. As a young adult, she became a Rastafari and since then has been an active and engaged member of the Livity of Rastafari; writing and discussing the Rastafari faith from the perspective of a “womanist”, as many feminist women of color prefer to be called.
Sven Doehner, Ph.D. Sven is Founder and Director of the Institute of Depth Psychology in Mexico City and holds a PhD in clinical psychology as well as an MFA. He has worked with James Hillman, Robert Bosnak and trained at the C.G. Jung Institute – Boston. He defines himself as an alchemical depth psychotherapist, and has developed groundbreaking techniques using sound and sensorial processes to produce transformative shifts. Sven has conducted workshops and guided dream groups in South and Central America, the United States and Europe.
Patricia Elizabeth Torres Villanueva Ph.D. Patricia is President of the Huei Tlahtolli Interdisciplinary Anthropological Research Institute, Guadalajara. She is an anthropologist and psychoanalyst who has conducted research about traditional ceremonial dances and their neuro-physical effects for twenty-five years. Patricia is also deeply interested in the possibilities of using dance and ritual as a form of therapy and life enhancement in contemporary society. She has learned healing rituals and dances from communities in Oceania, Asia and the Americas, and she has led sacred danse workshops in the Americas and Europe.