Jeffrey Allen, M.A.

Jeffrey supports people in making deeper connections with soul, spirit, community and purpose. A Vermont psychologist, he has led dream workshops, wilderness-based programs and rites of passage throughout the United States. He is a founding member of the Burlington Taiko Group and is practiced in the art of trance drumming. A co-founder of Men Alive, a Vermont men's community, he has an ongoing commitment to the healthy, embodied masculine. As an Animas guide, he delights in evoking the mystery. He brings a wild, playful spirit and a keen intuition to all programs he guides. He is a devoted father, husband, beekeeper, drummer and tracker of wild things.

Nate Bacon's passion as a guide is firmly rooted in the fecund soil of our carnal reciprocity with the more-than-human world-and our inherence within that world. His work explores the intertwined and braided rivers of perception, language, and worldview with a commitment to the re-wilding of human culture. He is dedicated not only to undermining the psycho-cultural structures of our modern ways of being in the world, but also to re-membering how to feed and truly be fed by this wild and holy world that we call nature. A wildlife tracker, cultural ecologist, and writer with an M.A. in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness from the California Institute of Integral Studies, Nate brings fierce compassion and a deep love for the mysterious yearnings of soul to his guiding.

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.

Gene is an educator and wilderness guide with more than twenty years experience leading groups in nature-based pathways to self-discovery, wholeness, and community. He is committed to facilitating meaningful encounters with the more-than-human world, and supporting individuals and groups to bring forth the unique gifts of their true nature. With an M.A. in Environment & Community, Gene has taught ecology and ecopsychology at Naropa University, and mentors graduate students in ecopsychology at Prescott College. He has been a college academic administrator and has served in a variety of roles in environmental and educational organizations. Gene is a long-time student of the Diamond Approach to Inner Realization, and has trained with Animas Valley Institute since 2004. He nurtures his own sense of wonder by exploring the Boulder foothills with his young daughter, and courts the muse through music and poetry.

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.

Bill Plotkin, Ph.D., is a depth psychologist, wilderness guide, and agent of cultural transformation. As founder of western Colorado’s Animas Valley Institute in 1981, he has guided thousands of women and men through nature-based initiatory passages, including a contemporary, Western adaptation of the pan-cultural vision quest. Previously, he has been a research psychologist (studying non-ordinary states of consciousness), professor of psychology, psychotherapist, rock musician, and whitewater river guide. In 1979, on a solo winter ascent of an Adirondack peak, Bill experienced a “call to adventure,” leading him to abandon academia in search of his true calling. Bill is the author of Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche (an experiential guidebook) and Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World (a nature-based stage model of human development through the entire lifespan). His doctorate is in psychology from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Jade Sherer is a wilderness guide, teacher, cemetery sexton, body-worker and artist. She has led vision quests and other wilderness journeys in California, Oregon, Hawaii, Mexico and the American Southwest. She supports human transformation through respectful interaction and deep communion with nature, seeing soulful maturation as an essential step in making meaningful and lasting change in the world. Exploring the wild for more than 32 years, Jade is fascinated with the way nature serves as a mirror, especially for the wild feminine. Her work is rooted in deep love and respect for Earth and Her creatures, and in the innate understanding that sacred reciprocity with all Beings is an essential step towards our collective and individual re-evolution. As a way of echoing Earth, she is apprenticing herself to death now in uncommon ways, including the creation and growing of a Conservation Burial Ground in Washington state.