Well, there's a question.
We met each other in the kitchen, on a shamanic retreat in 2009. Davina can remember every word of that conversation. Nizami takes her word for it.
Our paths go back a bit further—something we saw in each other, especially the resonance with the traditions of Peru. You could say we embody a shamanic exchange between mountains and jungle. Mostly, we meet in the middle!
We have run shamanic courses, workshops and retreats since 2014, including Return to the Forest, Wisdom of the Forest, Kambo World, Pilgrimage to Peru and Natural Wisdom Leaders. We also ran Sipapu, an ecolodge in 47 hectares of Peruvian rainforest from 2017—22.
We need deep roots to reach high.
Sometimes we have to reach higher in order to stay still. As the fabric of the world dissolves around us, the need for authentic being, community and leadership gets louder.
Spiritual seeking often looks upwards to the realm of spirit. After all, this is where inspiration comes from. But when you think about it, inspiration is a reminder of what we are: spirits in the material world. It might elude us from time to time but we're down here for a reason.
The shamanic path leads to the underworld. There we find demons we must reclaim as our own and return with their elixirs. That's the classic shamanic exchange between mountains and jungle. It's why we're here.
We're designed to live in community with others. But what does this mean and why is it so difficult? What do we want from a community? What does community want from us? What even is community?
We believe in building meaningful and supportive relationships through shared experiences. Many of our students forge lifelong friendships. When we share deeply with each other we learn to trust life again.
Community is a big part of our vision. It's not all living in tents and planting vegetable. We see diverse ways of living, working, healing and creating, linked by shared purpose to support the global shift in consciousness.
Hay House author of Feng Shui Made Easy and The Dream Whisperer, feng shui maestra, shamanic seer and mentor, Davina has inspired miracles of positive transformation in people’s lives for more than 25 years. A popular workshop leader and speaker, she offers her Wisdom that Works consultations to thousands of clients all over the world.
Her love of adventure has seen her leading retreats among the Q'ero communities of the high mountains of Peru for the last 30 years. She recently returned to the UK after two years caretaking 47 hectares of rainforest in the Peruvian Amazon.
A sought-after mentor and guide, Davina is known for her compassionate straight talking and masterful good spirits. A gifted seer, she embodies the wisdom of the mountains in her shamanic practice and teaching.
Find out more about at Davina at her website.
Born in Forest Gate, London, selvatic connections were there at the outset. Nizami has travelled extensively in Latin America and Asia, where he has trained in various disciplines, from Andean and Amazonian shamanism to yoga, qi gong, meditation and transformational group work.
With degrees in computing, AI and psychology, he worked in digital design for many years before the forest called him back to his roots.
A qualified permaculture designer, he once managed a haunted resort in Bali and directed a 47 hectare lodge in the Amazon.
Writer, musician, creative, shamanic practitioner and teacher, he is passionate about helping people make the most of these times of collective transformation.
Find out more about Nizami at his website.
Masks made by Natural Wisdom Leaders participants 2017.
A three-day immersion in the solar and lunar wisdom of the forest, guided by powerful grandmother and grandfather teacher energies. Clean diet, yoga, breathwork, qi gong, meditation and guided shamanic walks in the woods of East Sussex. A safe space to gain deep insight into our lives and let go of old thoughts and feelings holding us back. And a living hub of soul community.
Weekly Kambo circles in Ashdown Forest. Davina and Nizami are master practitioners. They took the first ever UK kambo training course, with the International Association of Kambo Practitioners in the Brazilian Amazon—a magical and grounding preparation for years of safe and ethical Kambo practice.
Two weeks of shamanic teaching, personal healing and guidance, against the breathtaking backdrop of the Andes. A sacred journey to meet the apus, the great mountain spirits, involving lots of adventure, sights, insights, healing, fun and shamanic shopping. With Maestro Puma Quispe and team.
A thirteen month residential training in self-mastery, combining traditional shamanic teachings and initiations from the Andes and Amazon with yoga, qi gong, meditation, breathwork and transformational group work, in East Sussex, UK. Participants undertook the deep work of meeting shadows, healing trauma and wounding, advancing their spiritual practice, discovering creative talents, and bonding as part of a soul collective.
NWL graduates interested in NWIV should go here.
Probably our most challenging shamanic mission to date, we raised funds from our community to buy an ecolodge in 47 hectares of rainforest in Tambopata, Peru. Sipapu immediately became part of the Pilgrimage to Peru, offering an authentic deep immersion in the powerful energies of the primal forest. Everyone who visited Sipapu had a life-changing experience, whether adapting to the jungle environment, with its endless and sometimes steep learning curves, or working with the grandmother energies of the forest.
We held our last retreat at Sipapu February to March 2020. Then the pandemic changed everything, including our plans to stay resident in Peru and take the project step by step towards its full manifestation, a temple to nature run by an off-grid intentional community.
Did you know we're mutating?
It's a strange word to apply to human beings. We tend to think of mutants, warped by nuclear fallout, or cyborgs with metal limbs—and indeed those are potential futures.
Take a modern city like London, New York or Singapore, with its steel towers and darkened glass and it's tempting to think science fiction futures are already fact.
Take social media and the attention economy, now powered by artificial intelligence, and we may wonder where exactly humans are in that future.
Technology is a catalyst. As we turn it increasingly on ourselves, we must make a choice. Are we our profile, our data, a resource to be mined? Or are we something deeper, something integral to the cosmos?
Much has been written about these times, from the archaic revival inspired by indigenous peoples, to modern retellings of myth and prophecy, of a fall from grace that foreshadows a rise to redemption.
We live in a time of divergence—of left from right, east from west, us from them. Yet polarisation reveals convergence. Left and right, east and west, self and other are two sides of the same coin. As the ancient Maya used to say, I am another you.
In the end we must reckon with ourselves, with those polarities that seek harmony. As we balance our inner equations, we find a double helix connecting left and right, up and down, spirit and matter.
We become instruments of evolution, tuned to the unfathomable power of the heart. That's our kind of mutation.
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