From Deana: "It has been my great honor to offer and teach the "Holistic Shamanic Practitioner Program" for our local and expanded communities for over a decade. I had no idea when I began offering this program how many amazing, dedicated and heart-centered practitioners I would meet and have the honor to support.

It truly brings me the greatest joy and gratitude to have helped serve in this way, and to be able to give back to many important causes, including my own indigenous teachers and their communities, through sacred reciprocity, due to the trust these amazing souls have had in me. Thank you all for allowing me to honor my own soul's purpose as a humble teacher of great heroes.

And as times have continued to change, and my own learning both as a practitioner and teacher has shifted and deepened, this new program, "Embody the Sacred Wheel" is what Spirit has been nudging and guiding me to offer to support those in the trenches of helping and healing in these times of challenge, turmoil and emerging hope for a better future.

I will continue to offer practices that are rooted and grounded in tradition with love and respect, sacred reciprocity and practicality for the needs of these times, eclectic and diverse clients and students, the amazing souls who have arrived to escort in this Age of Aquarius, for the greater good of humanity, all living beings and the Earth herself."



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.