Youth Garden Mentors

  • Alyssa Anaya

    Sacred Sex Education

    Tantric Energy Practice

    Alyssa is a seasoned Tantra teacher and spiritual care provider with over 20 years of experience in guiding individuals and groups on transformative journeys. Her training spans extensive study in Tantra, embodiment practices, and spiritual counseling, drawing from wisdom traditions and mentorships with renowned teachers, including mentors Evalena Rosa and Joanna Macy.

    Alyssa guides young people on a journey of embodiment, self-acceptance, and sacred connection. Creating a safe and supportive space to explore body awareness, self-love, and sacred sexuality education, she uses Tantric breathwork, meditation, and interactive exercises to help teens connect deeply with themselves and each other, cultivating confidence, authenticity, and inner harmony.

    https://reverenceoftheheart.com/about/

  • Rae Rodriguez Demakas

    Breast Health and the Lymphatic System

    Ayurvedic Self Care Ritual

    Rae is a mother, bodyworker, herbalist, and artist currently residing in Forestville. She specializes in Ayurvedic treatments/pancha karma, lymphatic drainage, infant massage, and prenatal/postpartum support.

    https://www.raemelinabodywork.com/instagram.com/raemelina

  • Shams

    Sacred Body: Breath, Movement, Being

    Wild Soul: Nature Connection & Brotherhood

    Conscious Relations: The Art of Connection

    Shams is a mentor, healer, and educator with over 20 years of experience in somatic healing arts, transformational coaching, and movement therapy. As a certified massage therapist, yoga instructor, and father, he creates supportive spaces where young men can explore healthy masculinity and authentic self-expression. Drawing from his extensive experience in bodywork and conscious movement practices, Shams guides teens toward a deeper understanding of self-respect, consent, and healthy relationships through embodiment practices that connect mind, body, and subtle energetics. His experience in outdoor education has given him unique insights into helping young people connect with themselves and their environment in meaningful ways. Shams focuses on building trust, fostering brotherhood, and helping young men develop confidence in their journey toward conscious masculinity.

    www.bodyecologymassage.com

  • Isabella DeCredico

    The Foundation of Skin Health

    Customized Natural Skin Care

    Isabella began her journey into herbalism with her hands in the soil. Since then, she has had a diverse background working in herbalism from medicinal gardens & farms, integrative health clinics, managing herbal laboratories, herbal skincare product manufacturing, medicine making & production, product formulation, distillation, regulatory compliance, consulting, and education. Currently she is teaching medicine making for the California School of Herbal Studies as well as other online programs and pop-up workshops. She is a product developer & consultant for herbal businesses and is co-owner of Earth Allies. For her, herbalism supports us in connecting back to our lineage, to the earth, and to our creative expression. Her desire is to help inspire and guide others to the simple and daily ways of connecting with plants and ourselves. 

  • Matt Strum

    Sacred Sex Education

    Introduction to Tarot

    Matt is a sex-educator, somatic therapist, and men's work facilitator. He is the author of two books on masculinity.

    https://mattsturm.com/about/

  • Tamu Mosely

    Tending the Inner Waters with Flower Esssences

    Tamu Mosley is an initiated Sacred Woman, a wholistic wellness facilitator, a teacher and a mama of 3 (currently 2 adults and 1 teen). Tamu has intentionally nurtured a plant centered lifestyle for the past 27 years that has deeply informed her journey as a kitchen alchemist, a home herbalist & herbal maker and a budding flower essence practitioner.

    IG: @wholistic_shine

    www.wholisticsshine.com

  • Kendra Faye

    Sound as Medicine

    Kendra is a harpist, singer, and multi-instrumentalist, who finds much joy from seeing the transformative power of music. Music has taken her around the globe. To environments as varied as the Amazonian jungle and the hospital wards; it has taken her from teens struggling to overcome addiction to sharing the joy of new born baby; and finally, it has taken her to the bedside to help ease the fear of an illness or offering music to comfort the biggest of life’s transitions in her work with hospice. For Kendra, sharing the power of music has been both ecstatic and humbling; being both performer and witness; being both minstrel and student; learning from the Universal language of song that crosses borders and blends appreciation with wonder. The ways we sing, play and praise in devotion awakens the heart to experience more fully the healing, the pleasure, the celebration, and utilize the lessons from pain or sadness. She is grateful that her lifelong love of music reminds her of the power and beauty that we all are and how sound can help remind us of our inner beauty. Song speaks our stories. There is something sacred about deep listening and expression of song that our soul thirsts for. It soothes us, comforts us, and inspires us as we dance with life’s mystery.

  • Taya Mohler

    Womb Care

    Fertility Awareness

    Womb Steaming

    Taya is a Certified Professional Midwife, Licensed Midwife and Clinical Herbalist who has been working as a women’s health care provider, advocate and educator locally and globally since 2009. With a deep love for women’s/peoples health she blends practical skill and spirited passion with the hopes of only serving with authentic and compassionate care.

    https://www.communitymidwiferybirth.com

  • Stacey Lippincott

    The Medicine Wheel

    Tending the Fire

    Stacy is a mother, lover, gardener, adventurer, teacher, and life long learner. She holds an Ecology degree from UCSB, spent may years running a Surf and Kayak Camp and other nature based camps including Coyote Camp and Camp Bohemia. Before becoming a mother she traveled extensively for many months at a time backpacking, going on pilgrimage, sailing, learning from locals, and meeting fellow travelers. She spent many years attending Ancestral Arts Gatherings and learning friction fire making, hide tanning, primitive pottery, basket weaving and natural dying techniques. Stacy spent may years at The Ojai Foundation where she was passed on The Medicine Wheel Teachings from Lola Rae Long who was taught by Hyemeyohsts Storm. She is currently preparing to walk the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage trail in Japan.

  • Samuel Bernier

    Sexuality and Addiction

    Samuel is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and a Certified Hakomi Practitioner. He guides people from stuckness and disconnection back into the strong center of who they are. For the past ten years he has been working with men as a coach and men's group facilitator. His work is founded on intensive training and study with David Deida, Jon Eisman, The Mankind Project, and Thomas Hübl, as well as with the systems of Hakomi and RCS.

    https://www.sambernier.com

  • Vanessa

    Sacred Sex Education and Tantric Energy

    Vanessa is a mother, therapist, educator, wilderness guide, and tantric sacred sexuality and women’s empowerment coach. She loves cultivating a deep connection to teens and empowering them on their sacred and community supported journey through adolescence to adulthood. She brings her passion, heart and experience with over 25 years experience working with teenagers as a rites of passage wilderness guide, camp founder and director, outdoor educator, founder and therapist at the Center for Nature Based Therapy, and therapist, supervisor, and educator in nine schools in Sonoma County. Her current calling is in learning tantric healing practices to help women heal, embody, empower and celebrate their relationship to their sexuality through a connection to the sacred.

    naturebasedtherapy.com

The Land that holds us.

Our primary teacher, mentor and wisdom keeper is the soil beneath us. Sophia’s Garden and Healing Art’s Center, stewarded by earth tender Monique Camp, is a portal into another realm. On this Demeter certified Biodynamic rose-geranium farm, the earth and the elemental beings work inter-dependently to create a field of growth and healing possibility. Our classroom is this sacred soil and our indoor space is a beautiful geodesic womb dome. There is a rustic working farm kitchen that allows for medicine making and nourishment, as well as an outdoor 33 foot dreaming circle for movement, music and ceremony.