A Foundational Program in Contemporary Shamanism, and Cross-Cultural Energy Medicine Connected to the Cycles and Seasons of Nature, the Medicine Wheel and European/Celtic Wheel of the Year

You know that you have a calling, and a Divine purpose.

You're a Reiki practitioner, bodyworker, nurse, yoga teacher, or holistic health practitioner with a strong spiritual connection and a connection to nature— you know this work is real, and you feel a deeper spiritual calling to be of service. You're already sensitive to energy — you feel things others don't, you sense presences, you pick up on what your clients are carrying energetically.

You feel a pull or a calling to return to the Earth and be of service to her, to the ways your ancestors performed healing work and honored the seasons, and felt a connection to their local land and like-minded community.

But you may not always know what you're sensing, who is with you, or how to work with these spiritual connections safely and skillfully especially in your healing work. You're not sure how to reliably identify your spirit guides, angels, ancestors and allies, or how to work with them on a deep and effective level to support healing for yourself and others.

You are sensing complex energies attached to your clients — and not sure how to safely clear them — without absorbing them yourself or feeling drained for a few days after an intense session.

You may even feel a calling toward Shamanism — but you want to approach it the right way, honoring your own ancestry, spiritual traditions and the land where you live. With integrity, with respect, and with proper guidance rather than cobbling something together on your own. You feel a deep connection to nature and the earth, and you're drawn to power animals, plant spirits, and the spirits of the land around you.

This program is where that calling leads.

Ready to apply? Click the Apply Now button or contact Deana

What This Program Includes:

12 monthly sessions via Zoom one evening per month, quarterly in person retreat days, additional recorded teachings each month and a library of resource materials. You'll learn and grow alongside a small, community of like-minded practitioners in a safe, judgment-free environment. You will also work with your fellow practitioners offline to support each other in learning and growing in community. There will also be opportunities for Q&A, and a Facebook group for sharing experiences as we go through the program.

Wheel of the Year, Spirit Relationships, & Earth Connection

• Creating your own personal Medicine Wheel rooted in the land where you live and your own spiritual practices
• And aligning your work with the cycles and seasons of Nature, working with the Celtic Wheel of the Year and Medicine Wheel as guides for your personal practice
• Developing working relationships with your spirit guides, angels, ancestors and the spirits of the land, and how to work with them effectively to support your practice
• Power animal and plant spirit allies including ancestral Nature allies to strengthen and ground your work in your lineage(s)
• Cross-cultural practices and correspondences for supporting health, business, relationship and finances aligned with the seasons
• Deepening your connection to Pachamama/Mother Earth and the cycles of Nature
• Ancestral healing, lineage clearing work and our connection to the Stars

Core Shamanic Skills

• Shamanic journeying for guidance, healing and empowerment
• Working with the three worlds, seven sacred directions and four elements, earth, water, air and fire
• Sacred ceremonies including fire ceremonies, making offerings including the Andean Despacho, drumming, and seasonal rituals
• How to honor your personal religious beliefs and spiritual practices as a Shamanic practitioner
• Shamanic extraction — deeper energy clearing techniques done safely and with precision, and so you can understand what different entities are and how to address energetic intrusions and what that thing is attached to your client

Energy Healing & Client Work

• Energy clearing, grounding and protection for safe spiritual practice and everyday well being, so you are no longer carrying clients' or loved ones' burdens and can go to the grocery store without getting exhausted
• Sacred tools — drums, rattles, bells, feathers, crystals, stones — used effectively and appropriately
• Working with sacred altars including a personal medicine bundle (Mesa) or medicine bag as a healing and empowerment tool

Ethics, Integrity & Integration

• Sacred reciprocity — the importance of giving back to source traditions and communities, and most importantly to our spirit helpers and the land where we live and work
• The importance and inclusion of social and environmental justice, sacred activism in Shamanic work especially in these times of great need and inequality
• Building a cohesive practice that honors your own ancestral traditions and spiritual practices without cultural misappropriation
• Personal ethics, boundaries and the Holistic Shamanic Practitioner's Code of Ethics

Resources Provided

• Full reading list, sacred tools guide, library of videos, medicine songs and worksheets throughout the program.

Walking this path with empowerment and respect

This is not a program to train one to become a "Shaman." The path of the Shaman is a lifelong calling — a title of honor bestowed by the community for practitioners of a very specific type of healing work rooted in particular Siberian cultures.

The word Shaman comes from the Evenki/Tungus people of Siberia. Today the terms "shaman" and "shamanism" are used broadly to describe many forms of animistic and spiritual healing. One way to avoid cultural appropriation is to leave traditional titles where they rightfully belong — with their cultures of origin. In this course we honor that distinction.

Contemporary Shamanism is a practice that can benefit anyone and be developed with dedication, humility, and respect. The animistic path of healing spans a lifetime, and in many ways we are all beginners.

Learning with permission and respect

The teachings of many ancestral and indigenous traditions are animistic and mystical — not necessarily Shamanic. Not all traditions are open to sharing with outsiders. Various indigenous elders, particularly from the Andes have generously offered their teachings to the wider world because they believe, given this time of great change, that humanity needs to restore its sacred relationship with Pachamama, our ancestors, and each other.

They call Westerners who carry and share their teachings in their own communities Chakruna — bridge people.

Many North American traditions, given what they have endured at the hands of colonialism and white supremacy, have not extended this invitation, however there are exceptions, along with elders from other traditions across the globe including our own ancestral traditions. In this course we honor those boundaries completely. We only work with teachings given with explicit permission, and we actively engage questions of ethics, personal responsibility, and cultural respect as part of the curriculum.

The deeper invitation of this program is not to accumulate techniques — it is to develop your own unique medicine, rooted in your personal spirit relationships, your ancestry, the cycles and seasons, and the land where you live.

In many ways, we are all beginners on this path.

Student Feedback

“Deana taught us so much about the Shamanic and Andean traditions, as well as working with angels, archangels, nature spirits, etc. She is a wealth of information and freely shares it with us.” SS, Brewster, NY

“I loved that the information given was true to itself and that it was clear when Western practices were influencing Eastern and traditional/Shamanic practices.” AS, Somers, NY

“I most enjoyed the comfortable, accepting atmosphere of the classes where everyone was included and encouraged to participate and share their experiences without judgement.” BS, Carmel, NY

Program Requirements

This program is open to Reiki practitioners, bodyworkers, nurses, yoga teachers, counselors, spiritual seekers and holistic health practitioners with some familiarity with energy healing practices. A genuine commitment to the program is essential — space is limited to 15 students and we receive more interest than we can accommodate each year.

To apply, prospective students should:

• Contact Deana directly to express interest
• Complete a brief interview to ensure mutual fit
• Submit a one-page letter of interest
• Payment of the registration fee confirms your spot

All students must sign and agree to the Embody The Sacred® Code of Ethics to participate and receive certification.

About Certification

Attendance at all sessions (in person or on Zoom) is required for certification. If a class is missed arrangements can be made to make up the material via recordings and email or Zoom discussion.

Homework includes reading, journaling and practice sessions between classes.

What You'll Need

Students will need basic sacred tools including a drum, rattle, medicine bag, energy cleansing (smudging) tools, offerings, and stones or crystals as directed. There will also be recommended books and reading materials that you may want to add to your toolkit. Resources and cost-effective options will be shared during class. Bring a journal, water bottle, bagged lunch and comfortable clothing to each session.

Investment

Tuition: $2800— plus Registration deposit: $497 (all payments non-refundable)
Pay in full by December 20, 2026 and save $297

All tuition payments are non-refundable.

First class: January 11, 2027, followed by the 2nd Monday evening of each month through December 2027. We will also have 4 retreat days in New Milford, CT scheduled in March, June, September and December. Also available on Zoom.

A portion of every tuition payment is donated to local indigenous groups and related tribes, Amazon preservation, American Forests, World Central Kitchen, and Loaves and Fishes.

Don Umberto Soncco Quispe, Q'ero Elder, Kuraq Akuyaq, and Deana

About Your Teacher

Deana Paqua, MA, LMT is a Teacher and Practitioner of Cross-Cultural Energy Medicine and Contemporary Shamanism, a Reiki Master Teacher, Licensed Massage Therapist, and Certified Tarot Reader. She also serves as an Adjunct Professor at Western Connecticut State University, teaching courses in Mind/Body Healing, Cross-Cultural Healing, and Mindfulness/Movement/Meditation Practice.

Deana brings over 28 years of practice and 20 years of teaching to this program, with 23 years of dedicated study with contemporary and indigenous teachers. She holds a Master's Degree in Integrative Health and Healing and multiple certifications in clinical, energetic and spiritually based healing.

She has trained with and received initiations from an extraordinary range of teachers including Don Alverto Taxo, Yachak and Don Jose and Don Esteban Tomayo, elders of Ecuador; Q'ero elders Don Umberto Soncco Quispe, Don Mariano Quispe Flores, Don Francisco Chura Flores, Don Claudio, Don Sebastian, and Dona Juanita; Don Martin Pinedo of Cuzco; Northern Peruvian healers Isabel and Yolinda; Lewis Mehl Madrona of the Cherokee tribe; Painted Muddy Turtle of the Mohegan tribe of Connecticut; and Lama Lobsang Palden of Tibet. She has also studied under Gail Gorelick a contemporary of Sandra Ingerman, in Core Shamanism for over a decade.

As the granddaughter of immigrants, Deana comes from diverse lineages of Southern Italian, Celtic Irish, Arab and North African ancestry. Her maternal lineage includes Daunian Seers from the province of Foggia in Southern Italy and a tradition of bards and storytellers from her Celtic heritage, as well as ancient earth keepers and ancient Goddess traditions from her maternal ancestry. She honors her own ancestral traditions as a living foundation of her spiritual and healing practice.

Her own path has included recovery from cancer at 21, an OCD and anxiety disorder in her twenties, a near-fatal car accident at 30, and losses of various kinds throughout her life including a difficult divorce, several major surgeries, her Father passing from Alzheimer's, and the passing of several beloved pets. Through a spiritually grounded path of self-healing, she transformed these experiences into the foundation of her teaching. as the humble teacher of great heroes — and considers supporting others to do the same among her greatest gifts.

Read more on Deana here: About page.