Teacher Training

Becoming a Spiritual Facilitator Level I:
The Essentials

An Eighteen-Month Professional Training and Initiation

A note from Julie

Dear beloved 3Y Graduates,

Launching the first cohort of the teacher training in 2024 was the natural next step for me as a teacher and for us as a community. The inaugural cohort of TAs has been nimble, dedicated, and gracious. We’ve navigated our – respective! – growth edges with mutual respect, goodwill, and compassion towards ourselves and one another. I feel immensely privileged to be playing a role in supporting the current TAs in becoming the teachers they are called to be.

The second cohort is currently underway for 2025-2026, and feels less like clearing a path than following an established one. However, there are always unexpected twists, and turns – especially when a program is still nascent. So while I know this cohort will benefit from the template that has been formed, it will still be a process of inner, outer, and secret discovery.

We now have a map, but every cohort charts its own course. If you feel called to help shape the course of this cohort with me, I wholeheartedly invite you to join me. I so look forward to following the start of this cohort’s evolutionary trajectory with you!

With love,

Overview

Being a spiritual teacher is a great privilege and a great responsibility. There is a fine balance between maintaining a sense of ground for yourself and your students while opening to expansive spiritual experiences, which can feel inherently groundless. This subtle dance requires the ability to track multiple dimensions simultaneously; determine the direction of the circle in a heartbeat; titrate the depth and intensity of the proceedings according to what the circle needs and can tolerate; and work in intimate partnership with your helping spirits, perhaps to an unprecedented degree.

To help you cultivate these myriad skills, this teacher training program is simultracked with Becoming a Spiritual Healing Practitioner Level I: The Essentials. This intentional design is aimed to provide you with two concurrent learning pathways: the opportunity to support, hold space for, track, and bear witness to a cohort of practitioners-in-training in real time, while simultaneously enabling you to follow a dedicated teacher training curriculum within an intimate cohort of trusted colleagues. 

The interweaving of these pathways generates a learning trajectory rooted in your embodied experience, which will help prepare you for the sacred path you have been called to: to carry the mantle of the teacher.  
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The learning arc within the teacher training cohort

Here are the required components within the teacher-training cohort:

  • The training will begin with a two-day virtual gathering.
  • Your participation in at least one  Partnering with Compassionate Spirits: Activating Your Medicine Council workshop in the formal role of Teaching Assistant. In fact, you are encouraged to attend as many introductory  workshops as you’re able to, although only one is required. Please note that you’re responsible for your travel expenses as well as your lodging if you choose to attend one of the residential retreats. Those costs are not included in the program tuition.  
  • Eighteen monthly virtual practice days (VPDs). These will take place on Saturday or Sunday from 9am – 5pm Pacific Time. 
  • Every other week evening Zoom gatherings from 5pm – 7:30pm Pacific Time. 
  • Monthly self-guided pod meetings.
  • A private, dedicated online forum in Circle.
  • Three individual teaching practicums. 
  • Zoom facilitation training and self-led Zoom facilitation within the cohort on a rotating schedule to give you the chance to hone your skills.
  • The training will culminate with a three-day virtual introductory workshop that the cohort will co-lead, followed by a graduation ritual. 

The learning arc within the practitioner training cohort

Here are the required components within the spirtual healer cohort:

  • Two six-night residential retreats at Hollyhock on Cortes Island, B.C., Canada, which will take place at the beginning and conclusion of the Becoming a Spiritual Healer training. Please note that you’re responsible for your travel  and lodging related expenses at Hollyhock. Those costs are not included in the program tuition. 
  • Six monthly Becoming a Spiritual Healer VPDs on Sundays from 9am – 5pm Pacific Time. This will be on a rotating schedule.
  • One monthly Becoming a Spiritual Healer Wednesday evening Zoom gathering from 5pm – 7:30pm Pacific Time. This will be on a rotating schedule.
  • Two Becoming a Spiritual Healer pod meetings.
  • Providing support in the Becoming a Spiritual Healer discussion forum in Circle. This will be on a rotating schedule.
  • Zoom facilitation during the Becoming a Spiritual Healer Wednesday evening Zoom gatherings from 5pm – 7:30pm Pacific Time. This will be on a rotating schedule to give you the chance to hone your Zoom facilitation skills. 

laying the groundwork for crafting your own unique offerings

When crafting an original offering, it’s helpful to follow a proven sequence of steps that are both intuitive and practical. By exploring the following topics throughout the training, you will learn a foundational template for cocreating bespoke offerings in partnership with your helping spirits that you can build upon following the training:

  • Ethics
  • Curriculum development
  • Casting a circle
  • Magnetizing students 
  • Balanced pricing
  • Choosing a venue
  • Crafting forms (such as releases of liability, etc.)  
  • Circle agreements
  • Space tending
  • Boundaries and accountability
  • Creating, maintaining, and reestablishing safety
  • Circle dynamics and tending 
  • Voluntary participant withdrawals
  • Ascertaining when you need to ask a participant to step out of a circle
  • How to support participants who are struggling
  • Building confidence as a facilitator
  • Maintaining your seat as a facilitator
  • Participant projections
  • Partnering with your helping spirits while wearing the mantle of the teacher
  • Cultivating your medicine as a facilitator

Leadership and facilitation within the teacher training cohort

You will have the opportunity to practice teaching your colleagues in the following ways:

 

  • Presenting during teacher training Zoom gatherings, VPDs, and pod meetings
  • Taking a leadership role when it comes to specific aspects of the teacher training program infrastructure, such as circle agreements, ethics, the online platform, resources, helping resolve interpersonal dynamics, etc.  
  • Crafting the content for your individual teaching practicums

mentorship within the practitioner training cohort

You will have the opportunity to step into leadership roles within the practitioner training in the following ways:

  • Providing mentorship during the residential retreats at Hollyhock, including guiding the pods in tending to various aspects of the container
  • Offering mentorship during VPDs and Zoom gatherings
  • Supporting the pods in between the gatherings

our shared aspiration

By successfully completing the training, the goal is for you to be qualified to facilitate skills- and process-based circles, workshops, and trainings for participants on the following topics:

  • Establishing and collaborating with a Medicine Council
  • Gate Keepers
  • Body Protectors
  • Spirit Gates
  • Merging
  • Transfiguration
  • Cord Cutting
  • Divination
  • Altar creation and tending
  • Healing journeys
  • Dismemberment and Rememberment
  • Guided journeys
  • Standing-in journeys
  • Power animal retrieval
  • Introductory journeying
  • Mediumship
  • Ritual creation and execution, both inside and outside of journey space

Residential retreat schedule

The two residential retreats at Hollyhock on Cortes Island, B.C., Canada will follow this approximate schedule:

Arrival Day

Check-in: 2pm–5pm
Dinner: 6:30pm
Opening Session: 8pm–9:30pm

Full Session Days

Breakfast: 8am 
Morning Session: 9:30am–12:30pm
Lunch: 12:30pm
Afternoon Session: 3pm–6:30pm
Dinner: 6:30pm
Evening Session: 8pm–9:30pm

Departure Day

Breakfast: 8am 
Closing Session: 10am–12pm
Lunch: 12:30pm

Please be advised that you must vacate your room prior to joining the morning session on the departure day.

Prerequisite for the Teacher Training

Currently, graduates of the first three cohorts of the Art and Practice of Shamanic Healing: A Three-Year Professional Training and Initiation are invited to apply to this training. Moving forward, this training will be the natural next step for those who have completed Becoming a Spiritual Healing Practitioner Level I and II. 

Application and registration process

This training is open to graduates of the three cohorts of of The Art and Practice of Shamanic Healing: A Three-Year Professional Training and Initiation that took place from 2012–2015; 2017–2019; and 2019–2022. Moving forward, this training will be the natural next step for those who have completed Becoming a Spiritual Healing Practitioner Level I and II. 

Step One: Complete the application.  

Step Two: Applicants who are being considered for the training will be invited to schedule a dialogue with Julie via Zoom.

Step Three: Successful applicants will be welcomed into the training and provided with a full training schedule.

Step Four: Contact Hollyhock directly to reserve your choice of room for the first retreat. 

Step Five: You will be invited to join Circle, our online portal, and choose your tuition payment plan upon registration.

Step Six: The training will begin with a two-day virtual gathering.

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Program Tuition

Here are the three payment plan options and corresponding tuition tiers:

Payment in Full

$4,495.00 USD + applicable taxes

Your $4,495 tuition balance will be processed upon registration, plus applicable taxes.

Two Quarterly Payments

$2,445.00 USD + applicable taxes

Your first tuition payment of $2,445 will be processed upon registration followed by a final payment of $2,445 three months later. Applicable taxes will be added to each transaction.

Monthly Payments

$271.66 USD + applicable taxes

Your first tuition payment of $271.66 will be processed upon registration, followed by 17 monthly payments of $271.66. Applicable taxes will be added to each transaction.

FAQs:

Yes, a limited number of tuition scholarships are available. If you would like to apply for a tuition scholarship, please click here to complete the application form.

No. If you withdraw from the training and you would like to join a future cohort, you will be asked to begin the application process anew.

No. Once the training begins, the circle will be closed.

Once the training begins, the cohort is fixed for the duration. Therefore, if anyone leaves the program, their place can’t be filled by another qualified participant. Given that, partial tuition refunds will only be issued when someone is faced with a personal medical emergency or a death in one’s immediate family. In those unforeseeable instances, a partial refund will be calculated and issued based on the date of withdrawal. 

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