Bill Ball, M.Div, M.S.W.

Bill has been associated with AVI for 20 years, when he enacted his first Animas Quest. He has since trained with AVI through the Soulcraft Apprenticeship and Initiation Program and served 5 years on the Board of Directors. Bill has also been a practitioner of Vipassana meditation for almost 20 years and is a leader of a vibrant and growing Buddhist community in Durango, CO, where he grew up and currently lives. In the early '80's Bill obtained a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and a Master degree in Social Work from Rutgers University. Bill's guiding incorporates a diverse blend of practices, cross-pollinating Soulcraft skills with a focus on radical acceptance of experience in the moment and a deep awareness of our interconnectedness with a co-arising world.

Annie is committed to breaking open our wild hearts and lovingly tending the raw, shimmering vulnerability that arises in the wake of those openings. In her Salt Lake community, she educates, facilitates, and supports people in their spiritual awakening through her 20-year practice in BodySoulWork, wilderness pilgrimages, and ceremonial leadership. Annie weaves sacred containers for young girls as they enter the tender life transition of puberty, ushering them into Maidenhood with ritual, women's mysteries, artistic expression, and encounters in nature.

Early in life Marci Graham experienced the joy of movement and began her quest to express through movement her deepest feelings...from praises to sorrow. This exploration includes sacred dance, aerobics, several styles of yoga, somatics, and now Continuum. Marci feels that in the practice and study of Continuum she has come home to her core truth. The Continuum process of inquiry into the body has profoundly affected her path to full aliveness. She has been a continuous and avid student since 2000, studying with the originators of the work and others. Marci has taught Continuum inspired movement in California, Hawaii, Oregon and Nevada.

Marci taught yoga in Iowa from 1994 to 2000, owning her own studio years. She trained in Massage and Cell Release therapy, and has been a Stephen Minister. In 2000 Marci left her life-long home in Iowa and moved to California to affiliate herself with the Human Awareness Institute and to complete its work. Marci is now an intern and presenter for the Human Awareness Institute (HAI), focusing on love, intimacy and sexuality, and has presented HAI in California, Nevada and on the open waters of the Caribbean.

Marci Graham, BFA, is also an artist who captures in clay, paint and word expressions of her interior landscape.

Jim Marsden is a passionate explorer of the inner and outer wilderness and partners with people and the natural world to reveal the sometimes subtle pathways that illuminate, appreciate, and nurture the life of the soul. In his "other" work over the past 15 years, Jim has held a variety of business management positions in a Fortune 100 high-tech company and now focuses his professional efforts on personal and organizational transformation.

Delisa Myles comes from an extensive dance background as a performer, choreographer and teacher. She has taught at Prescott College since 1994 where she has been central in creating the dance program, with courses such as Choreography in the Community and Nature and Dance. Her recent choreography, Mothership: Dances of the Fluid Feminine, was a collaboration of dance, spoken word and photography involving seven women between the ages of 25-83. This project was a vehicle to investigate and express the mysteries, fears and gifts of the aging processes of women. She has found that dance/movement is a direct connection with the fertile material of the soul. Delisa's movement teachings integrate writing, play, partner interactions, touch, and inspirations from the natural world. She has taught and performed throughout the southwest U.S., Mexico, Germany and the U.K.

Bill Plotkin, Ph.D., founder and president of Animas Valley Institute, holds a doctorate in psychology from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Since 1980, he has guided thousands of people through initiatory passages in nature. An ecotherapist, depth psychologist, and wilderness guide, he combines his love of nature with his love of people into the crafting of unique soulcraft programs. He is the author of Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche, and the forthcoming Directions for Life: The Eight Stages of Human Development When Nature and Soul Guide Us. Bill likes to think of himself as a psychologist gone wild.

Peter is a clinical psychologist in private practice for 25 years in Nashville, Tennessee. He trained with AVI and the School of Lost Borders as a vision quest guide and has been an AVI lead guide for five years. He is working on a model for the challenge each of us faces in joining our 8masculine and feminine aspects within the four cardinal directions of our human nature. He is dedicated to guiding people to the edge of the deepest inner and outer mysteries and holding sacred space while they plunge into those depths. He brings heart presence and a playful spirit to his work.