Kerry Hart, BA

I was six, visiting the Blue Ridge mountains when I had my first encounter with a spirit of nature revealing itself to me, passing a piece of its knowing to my mind, clear, like a rainbow. The secret that nature was able and willing to communicate with me directly washed over me and tinted my youth with joy, despite painful hardships in my family system. I was blessed to know there were unseen allies with me, and as I came to know in time, with each of us, despite wide ignorance of this. Though modern culture provided no context for these connections, I knew them to be real as the knowledge they imparted had a simplicity and a gravity that was different from the urgent chaotic machinations of my own imagination.

After my studies at Bennington College, I was fortunate to meet and sit in circle with some wonderful Shamanic practitioners in my hometown of Montclair, NJ. I grew in deep ways from the practice of regular journeys to my teachers, in the company of these elder practitioners in my community. The support and depth of the spirits’ care and wisdom, stayed with me as I made my way to California where I continued my personal practice in solitude under the canopy of old growth redwoods, and in the serenity of the desert.

This path has been my home, my pilgrimage, my solitude, my community. It has informed my work as an artist, musician, performer and entrepreneur. It has called me to grow in ways I did not know possible. It has taught me about trust, love and letting go. It is the great engine of my joy and my resilience.

My call to the core shamanic work of Michael Harner and the Foundation came in 2015 when a crisis in my extended family had my helpers suggest, in their infinite wisdom, that it was time again to be in circle. It was through my training with the Foundation that I was given language for things I had long experienced in my own journeywork. The programs offered vital tools and reliable methods I could utilize to return to my helpers, efficiently and powerfully, with lasting potency. Through my training with the Foundation I came to understand the maturity, discipline and commitment that is required to sustain deep partnership with my compassionate teachers in non-ordinary reality. Empowered by my studies with the Foundation, I opened my core shamanic healing practice, GuidedLA, in 2016. I completed the 15th West Coast Three Year Program with Amanda Foulger in 2019 and the Two-Week Shamanic Healing Intensive with Robbie Staufer in 2023.

I am honored to join my esteemed colleagues as a faculty member of the Foundation to share the beautiful curriculum, developed with such devotion and intention, to welcome students all over the world to this work and to the boundless love and wisdom of their helping spirits.