The Sacred Trust

Simon Buxton is Founder/Director of The Sacred Trust and has worked and trained within shamanic traditions for over three decades. For fifteen years he served as a member of the teaching faculty of The Foundation For Shamanic Studies, and also undertook a formal thirteen year apprenticeship, as detailed within his book The Shamanic Way of the Bee which was the recipient of the Canizares Book Award for non-fiction. He is the co-author of Darkness Visible, and his next two books are in preparation.

Simon is an elected Fellow of The Royal Anthropological Institute, the world’s longest-established scholarly association dedicated to the furtherance of anthropology and he is a life member of the Oxford University Anthropological Society. His work has been profiled within several books including Travelling Between the Worlds and Soul Companions, and he has contributed a chapter to the anthology Shamanism in the New Millennium  as well as being featured in the documentary film Vanishing of the Bees. In 2007, as part of the ongoing development of The Sacred Trust, Simon Buxton and his partner Naomi Lewis opened the only residential teaching centre in the UK dedicated to the study of shamanism. It is here that they live with their son and conduct their writing, research and teaching work.

Naomi Lewis originally trained as a photographer at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and The University of Brighton. She then moved off the forest trails of her photographs onto the shaman’s map. Here she found a language that articulated her perception of the sacred as she had experienced it since her earliest years, specifically within The Path of Pollen and its vibrant gynocentric ways. She is known for her love of the dark depths and her understanding of these locations as holy places to be mined and explored for their hidden and oft misunderstood veins of gold. Her engagement with this hidden architecture has the capacity to bring a room into total focus and allow students to access ever more of the invisible realms that they come to explore. In her dance of the artist-empath she creates compassionate bridges for everyone present to traverse, weaving the unguarded self with heart as a clear pathway to profound communion with the spirits.

Deborah worked as an award-winning magazine writer for nearly a decade before relocating to the French alps to become an avid snowboarder and climber, skills that she developed and then added to her existing passions for yoga, the trapeze, boxing, mountain biking and other physically demanding disciplines and practices. For the last twenty years she has been engaging in shamanic work, formally with Nicholas Hurn within the lineage of Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow) and more recently as an initiate of The Path of Pollen. Together with India Rose Waters she teaches the advanced training Arte Triptych Melissae. Deborah also assists Naomi Lewis in facilitating The Serpent Fool courses and Pythoness trainings. The marriage of physically demanding activities and shamanism well describe her adventurous nature as a teacher and bring to the classroom an exacting attention to detail and laser focus. Her facilitation is illuminated by a levity of spirit that engenders ease and her commitment to the work of the sacred is fathomless.

Richard Wolfströme is an award-winning graphic designer, elected Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts, university lecturer, shamanic healer & teacher. His interest in shamanism came from a considerable period covering many years participating in and leading men’s groups, with the intention to practice and support men in creating authentic, emotionally-mature communities with integrity, to help heal some of our deeper life wounds. This work led him onto the shamans path where he trained extensively in classical and core shamanism and has worked along side Simon Buxton and other Sacred Trust faculty for the last decade. He co-facilitates The Sacred Trust Three Year Professional Practitioner Training with Marta Niccolai, as well as assisting Simon Buxton on the Two Week Training in Classical Shamanism and other Sacred Trust courses and seminars.

Dr Marta Niccolai was born and raised in Tuscany, central Italy, and moved to London in 1988. She is senior teaching fellow at University College London (UCL) where she teaches at the Faculty of Arts & Humanities. Having undertaken her professional shamanic training with The Sacred Trust, she assisted Simon Buxton for over a decade before being invited  to co-facilitate The Sacred Trust’s Three Year Professional Shamanic Practitioner Training. Since 2016 she has been teaching workshops for The Foundation for Shamanic Studies in the UK as well as pursuing her own research into shamanism, bridging academic rigor with transformational praxes. Marta carries and expresses a great passion for shamanism, with a particular interest in the power of ritual as a means to encourage, implement and consolidate healing change in our lives. Her current interdisciplinary research examines the work of Teatro di Nascosto (Hidden Theatre), an International Theatre company based in Italy that creates events in territories of war and occupied territories.

India Rose Waters was born into a family of musicians and artists which gave her an unusual childhood full of travel and adventure. On the road for the best part of her formative years, she was exposed to an astonishing array of remarkable peoples, landscapes and cultures which had the effect of awakening her indigenous soul. She was tutored as a young adult in both classical and core shamanism and has learnt at the feet of indigenous shamans from Sri Lanka, Burma, Mexico, Siberia and Bhutan. Since 2012 she has undertaken seminal work as a shamanic practitioner within the National Health Service (NHS) and carries an MA in Psychotherapy and Counselling, working as a shamanic healer and therapist in private practice. India embodies and transmits a solar soul-radiance which illuminates the work she teaches with her colleague from The Path of Pollen, Naomi Lewis.

Allison Brown is an initiate of the Path of Pollen shamanic tradition. Shortly after receiving a degree in zoology from King’s College London, she commenced her osteopathic training, eventually specialising in cranial work, and for the last eighteen years has worked in private practice in a variety of clinics in Harley Street, North London and Hertfordshire. Twenty years ago she commenced her shamanic work, originally in New Zealand with the native Maori peoples and then within the Path of Pollen, in which she now holds a teaching role. Allison possesses an unusual gift of seership and a rare sensitivity regarding the poetics of energy work and carries the ability to unite the most potent healing modalities from the ancient past with the deepest needs of the contemporary heart and soul. Together with Simon Buxton she facilitates the Darkness Visible courses offered by The Sacred Trust and has been actively involved in shamanic darkness work since 1993.

Kate Shela is a dynamic shapeshifter and healer known for her enormous passion, a vulnerable sense of the intimate and the ability to create community and ‘tribe’. She is a senior instructor within the Moving Center School founded by the late Gabrielle Roth, with whom she was closely associated for over two decades and who described Kate as “one of the few true catalysts in the world of dance”. She is also an initiate of the Path of Pollen shamanic tradition and is one of a small handful of individuals authorised to teach advanced seminars, trainings & retreats for women on behalf of the Path of Pollen, all which take place within The Sacred Trust curriculum. Kate possesses a bold improvisational style and a passionate sense of humour that enables magic to ooze into everyday moments. This is her eighteenth year as a member of The Sacred Trust faculty.

Narelle Bouthillier is a shamanic practitioner, writer, and independent scholar. She is an initiate of the Path of Pollen and holds a particular office within it pertaining to the dissemination and transmission of knowledge through scripts. Narelle’s work has evolved into a private Path of Pollen course, Scriptorium, in which shamanic and pollen practitioners journey along the spirit roads of knowledge and gather their learnings to be made into scripts and ikons of gnosis. She also serves as a senior supervisor on the Sacred Trust’s Three-Year Practitioner Training and assists on various Path of Pollen courses. Narelle earned her Masters in the study of comparative religion, health, and healing at Harvard Divinity School. She is known for her warmth of heart, strong shamanic healing work, spiritual mentoring and depth of knowledge.

Betsy Bergstrom is a full-time shamanic teacher and practitioner, considered by many to be the foremost workshop leader specialising in despossesion methods teaching in the world today.

She holds the rare ability to open portals between worlds, archetypes and dimensions for the explicit purpose of gathering knowledge, changing possibilities and attuning to a higher awareness. As a recognised seer and oracle, she brings inspiration and knowledge to her students through constellating mythic landscapes with important stories to tell. For the last decade her gifts have focused on the compassionate release of possessing spirits to create healing for the possessed, the possessor and the world itself.

As well as extensive training with both indigenous shamans and in classical shamanism, Betsy is a lineage holder and dharma protector in the Tibetan Shije tradition of Chod in the lineage of Machik Lapdron and Padampa Sangye dedicated to sharing Dakini Wisdom.

Betsy Bergstrom is a brilliant teacher and healer.
She is clear, grounded, authentic, and teaches from a place of integrity.
Betsy is a true shaman, and I highly recommend her work.
SANDRA INGERMAN