Taya

I am a ceremonialist, psychedelic educator and soul guide. My holistic approach is rooted in the wisdom of the earth and the brilliance of the body. I’m here to help people recover a felt sense of connection with the forces of transformation alive in nature, and access their innate capacity for authentic presence, wild courage, radical healing, and ecstatic embodiment.

I began working with plant teachers thirty years ago, and they continue to illuminate my life. I have been a practitioner in the Santo Daime—a spiritual lineage from the Amazon—since 1999, and I completed Oregon’s first psilocybin facilitator training in 2023. I’m midway through a PhD in Psychology, advancing skills and scholarship at the confluence of emergent therapeutic modalities, deep ecological practice, and mythic and animate tradition.

My work is guided by nonhierarchical, inclusive, and trauma-informed perspectives. I welcome all who seek a deep connection with their soul and an evolving expression of their innermost truth, who do not feel at home in the dominant paradigm, and who are called to a spiritual path outside conventional religious structures.

I am a first-generation Turtle Islander, descended from Norwegians and Ashkenazi Jews. I live on Coast Salish land with my family. I experience white, CIS-gender, able-bodied, middle-class privilege, and I am committed to directing this towards dismantling internalized and externalized patterns of oppression. Great love for the earth guides all I do. My mission is to contribute in all the ways I can to the renewal of a culture of loving kindness, reciprocity and reverence, that honours and cares for all beings.

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

  • PhD student in East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (currently enrolled)

  • MA in East-West Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies (May 2025)

  • Inner Trek’s Psilocybin Facilitator Certification program (March 2023)

  • 8 Limbs Yoga Centers Teacher Training (2015)

  • Vancouver Film School Digital Design Program (2005)

  • Esalen Institute Massage Certification Program (2001)

  • Ida Rolf Institute, Rolfing Trainings 1 & 2 (2001)

  • Naropa University, BA in Ecopsychology and Creative Arts Therapies (1999)