Facilitator Team 

Meet our Earth Path Facilitation Team

lena eastes, Founding Director, Program Director and Lead Facilitator

Who I am Bio:

Through her contagious joy and energy, Lena motivates and inspires people to take action to bring peace, beauty and justice on Earth. 

She is gifted at finding creative solutions to problems, from the details to the cultural re-weaving. She guides and leads by listening to her intuitive wisdom and encouraging others to drop into their inner knowings. Her authentic curiosity and question asking invites others to find truth. 

Lena offers empathetic listening in a way that deeply meets the needs of others to be heard and understood. She is blessed with a generosity of Spirit, positivity, and open heartedness that welcomes all she meets and loves. 

Lena is continually located as an uplifter and protector of childhood, human and Earth rights, and ceremony. 

She is a thresHOLDER. She holds Rites of Passage ceremonies for Birth and Becoming a Mother, Marriage and Self Marriage, and she has artfully tended the threshold from Girlhood into Womanhood for the past 12 years through Earth Path’s 5 day Rites of Passage Ceremony for young women. 

Lena is a carrier of fierce grace, singer for the Earth, blesser of waters, creative artist of cultural renewal and seed planter. She flies with hummingbird medicine and walks with the power of the wild cats. 

You may find her playing her flute to the rising sun, arranging flowers for a celebration, hiding in a bush during a Deer and Coyote game with kids, singing under a waterfall in the middle of winter, or helping to create dignified jobs for women living in communities vulnerable to extreme poverty and human trafficking. 

Her love and communication with the plant world is a wonder and she’s a devoted student, teacher, mentor, mother, daughter and friend. 

What I’ve done/Am Doing Bio:

Deeply committed to the Earth Path, Lena is passionate about celebrating this life on amazing planet earth. Lena was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. Lena graduated from University of North Carolina at Asheville with a degree in Cross Cultural Sustainability. She has her Permaculture Design Certificate, and graduated from the Regenerative Design and Nature Awareness Program at the Regenerative Design Institute.

She is the founder and director of Earth Path Education est. 2008, where we help grow a culture of listening to the earth as our wisest mentor through facilitating deep Nature Connection with children and adults and guiding girls through their Rites of Passage into womanhood. The programming she has designed and implemented for girls and young women is very unique in that the empowerment and connection begins when a girls is 8 and supports them for the next decade until they are 18 and taking a leadership role in the organization. Lena leads a transformative earth skills and ceremonial arts immersion for adult women called Women Rewilding. Lena enjoys playing with her daughter Naia Grace and tending Earth and Home with her beloved husband Sam. They blossom alongside their flower farm called Blossoming Hearts and can be found singing to the plants, making bouquets, planting more fruit trees and falling ever so madly in love with the great mystery of the natural world. Lena’s has a passion for travel, indigenous rights, traditional ecological knowledge and cultural and ecological health and regeneration. In November 2020 she will co-guide the Guatemala Eco-Adventure & Service Trip with Jeremy Shewe through Inchanted Journeys.

She co-founded of School of the Traveler, a backpacking and cultural guide organization in Copper Canyon, Northern Mexico. Lena is a proficient Spanish speaker. She has guided university students on trips to the mountains, rivers and caves of North Carolina and beyond, through the highly respected UNC Asheville Outdoors Program. She empowered youth working with Free the Children– the largest youth-led organization in the world– as the Regional Network coordinator for the Southeast.  

In 2013-14, Lena directed a Nature Awareness Program through the Riekes Center on Human Enhancement and guided Silicon Valley youth into the redwoods and into greater nature connection. Lena loves mentoring, singing, lightning bugs, growing food, foraging, running, dancing, ancestral crafts, deep breaths, bringing people together and waterfalls. Lena has taught music at the Children's Earth School and Spanish, Music, handcraft and Nature Connection at The Learning Village in 2015-2017. She initiated in 2010 and annually organizes Soil Sisters, the young women's program for the Southeast Women's Herbal Conference and the Moon Maidens young women’s program at the Spirit Weavers Gathering since 2016.

Aixa Acosta "Amankay"

Growing Goddess and Moon Mystics FAcilitator

Born in Neiva Huila, Colombia on December 23, 1975. From a young age, Aixa’s interests have revolved around the research, recovery, understanding, and sharing of the ancient wisdom and medicines of the South and North American indigenous communities. This work and research has taken her from the heart of the Amazonian rain forests, to the peaks of the Andes, to the plains of South Dakota – in order to directly understand the use of natural medicines and ancient healing methods.

She is a devoted Sun dancer, Moon dancer and Medicine Woman, who works to awaken the consciousness and the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Condor Eagle, bringing the understanding of all Native American traditions to blend in harmony and respect.

Aixa is an Energetic Healer, Certified Massage Therapist, Herbalist, Birth and
Postpartum Doula, Placenta Specialist, and Doula Trainer, who has dedicated the last
20 years of her studies to the ancient traditions related to healing womanhood.
As an ordained Minister of the Native American Church and the Universalist Church
and Founder of the Inti Runa - People of the Sun American Church, Aixa performs
traditional native social blessings such as weddings, blessing ways, Moon planting,
coming of age, naming ceremonies, sweat lodges, Traditional Medicine Ceremonies
and others.

Aixa was a board member of the Inti Wayna Foundation (Children of the Sun)
www.childrenofthesunfoundation.org in Peru, Colombia and the United States and of
the Greenway Foundation in Massachusetts, USA. These institutions support and
encourage young people from the Amazon to study and learn from their elders and
medicine teachers. The foundation's aim to restore dignity to the communities who
have inhabited the South American continent for thousands of years.

She is co- founder of the Fundación Inti Wasi- Casa del Sol (Inti Wasi-House of the Sun
Foundation) in Colombia. The mission of this foundation is to promote the local Native
communities economic, social and spiritual development through the recovery of their
traditional ways. The Fundación Inti Wasi leads and organizes several national and
international annual gatherings in Colombia, Central America, USA, Canada and
Europe, such as Vision Quests and Condor Eagle Gatherings. At the moment she is establishing the Inti Runa NAC in South Florida

Alinahh Ever: Growing Goddess

Alinahh Ever is thrilled to be a part of Earth Path Education and support young people through it's programs. She brings a background of training & teaching about wild edibles and uses of plants, trees, & fungi in our Southern Appalachian region. She has a practice of walking and sitting and singing with Pacha mama on a daily basis. She is a long-time ceremonialist, founder of several ritual communities in the Bay Area. Alinahh has training in mindfulness with children, anti-oppression education (particularly anti-racism), and mediation. She has been a long time activist and promotor of racial, social, sexual and gender justice. As a child of Nazi Holocaust survivors, she brings her sensitivity to oppression & genocide into a deep passion to heal our relationships inside and out. Also as a queer and agender person, Alinahh brings support and awareness to those young people who are outside of the mainstream and/or who are questioning their identities. Alinahh is the founder of The Faerie Kin, a troupe of magical stiltwalkers & ground fae who spread joy through song, dance & stories, and raise awareness about ecological issues. She is founder of Singing Alive Appalachia which supports large and small gatherings of communal singing. As a longtime communal songleader, Alinahh loves to facilitate singing, offering songs that uplift our spirits and connect us deeply with the Earth. Alinahh is also a visual artist and craftsperson, enjoying a range of arts including weaving, natural dyeing, basketry, earth mandalas, wood carving, and painting. She is past founder and director of Children's Global Pleace Project in Asheville which taught Nonviolent Communication (NVC), Heartmath, and conflict resolution to schoolchildren. She has a Master's in Education from San Francisco State University.

Sangoma Oludoye

Growing Goddess and Moon Mystics Facilitator

Sangoma Oludoye is a Sacred Activist and spiritual midwife. She is a traditional Yoruba priest of the ancestors and Obatala. As founder of the Kindred of Sangoma, she is an Elder to the Earthskills Rendevous community and many other tribes in the Southeast. Sangoma is the mother of three daughters, the grandmother of 12 and the great grandmother of one. A Multicultural artist and the facilitator of programs that push the envelope of cultural regeneration, rites of passage and ancestral trauma.

MARGARET HILTON

Growing Goddess and Moon Mystics Facilitator

Margaret grew up on her family's land in South Carolina, picking blueberries and collecting pecans. She has had the privilege of traveling around the world- studying, teaching, and learning about the beauty of this life.

She is nestled in Appalachia, where she is honored to be an advocate for teens to have creative outlets to support their mental health and soul paths. Her private psychotherapy practice serves teens and adults through nature-based, expressive arts, and body- centered modalities. She is a dancer and movement facilitator. She spent a decade training as a 5Rhythms student, as well as being a part of different performance groups, such as The Fractal Society- a circus company based in Boulder, Colorado. She is a Moon Dancer in Costa Rica, a ceremony she holds close.

Receiving her Master's Degree from Naropa University, she believes in the merging of Eastern and Western philosophies, the power of emotional attunement, and the full spectrum of the human experience. Margaret was a counselor for teenage girls (as well as a mentor to counselors) for seven summers in the pine trees of Camp Augusta, a community steeped in the philosophies of Non-Violent Communication.

She is a student of herbalism, gardening, and guitar. She loves to sing, tend fire, and weave the threads of Joy and Grief. Supporting young women on the path of embodiment, nature connection, and creative expression is a calling that Margaret is devoted to continuing to nurture.

Sky Bowling

Growing Goddess and Moon Mystics Facilitator

Sky has been involved with Earth Path Education since 2014 when she was participating in Growing Goddess camp herself. Sky transitioned through her time as a Moon Mystic and is now a facilitator for Earth Path Education, feeling that the prayer behind these programs and what they have to offer resonate deeply with what young folks need in their times growing up. The rites of passage work that Sky went through was deeply meaningful and moving, and motivates her to give supporting energy passionately back to the coming generations.

Though Sky feels at home in Appalachia, she spends her time more in the sunshine during the school year. Sky is a rising third year student at New College of Florida, a small liberal arts honors college in Sarasota, Florida, where she is currently pursuing a degree in Math and Art. Sky loves spending her free time appreciating beauty and spending time outside doing art, which she hopes to weave more into her Math studies as she continues on in her college career. Sky has also started working this year in a Montessori after school program where she spends time watching littler ones and facilitating group activities for young students.

Sky loves spending time outside of school and work in her home with her two housemates, working on the yard or going for canoe rides or just watching the wildlife go by around us. Sky deeply appreciates being connected to the nature around us and finding new ways to explore and experience the world

Maayan ChelseA : Growing Goddess

Chelsea Monarda Bloom is a mother, Earth steward, Flower worshipper and belly feeder. She has spent the last decade of her life dedicated to feeding the people in nourishing ways. She lives in community at SunSong Mountain where she tends a big garden, sings to the Flowers and hugs the Grandmother Trees. She values peaceful communication, rites of passage and initiation, song sharing and spiritual reciprocity. She is a mentor and organizer for the Work is Love Apprenticeship program at SunSong Mountain, a program that teaches adults to grow food, live in deep connection with the Earth and be in community. Her heart carries the prayer for all humans to be fed and in love and she aims to walk in beauty carrying that prayer.

Chelsea is SO grateful to be the sacred chef for Growing Goddess this summer. Her intention is to bring nourishing food that connects the young woman to their bodies, to the Earth and to each other. May we all gather in sacred union around the fire, with bellies and hearts filled, knowing our deep worth. May we love our bodies and fill them with goodness. May we learn to share generously as the Earth shares with us. 

Fields Utz

Sacred Chef and Facilitator Growing Goddess and Moon Mystics

Fields began her journey with Earth Path in 2011 as a Growing Goddess where she was introduced to formal rites of passage. Earth Path has been an integral part of her growth as a goddess, student, dancer, explorer, and mentor. Summer of 2020 she will be holding space in the kitchen and guiding our goddess to recognize the power of their own stories both at the table and outside. Outside of camp she can be found making fairy houses, experimenting with dairy free substitutions in the kitchen, picking away at the banjo, laughing with her sisters, and learning new card games.

Scotty Karas: FAcilitator for FAmily CAmp

Scotty has a joy and passion for connecting people to the natural world. He facilitates groups of children and adults to learn edible and medicinal plants of the region, primitive skills, yoga, permaculture and natural crafts. He believes that a deep connection to nature is crucial for individual growth and development and naturally bring about a deep empathy and care for all of life. Thus he dedicates himself to the Earth Path.

After completing his degree in engineering at Penn State University, Scotty began studying deep nature connection, permaculture, herbalism, yoga, wild foods, and primitive skills. This has been his path of learning and service for 12 years now. Scotty studied Permaculture in 2009 at Sirus Community through Living Routes. He has been working with various nature connection programs as a nature connection mentor and educator over the last 6 years. Before that we worked as a field instructor for SUWS of the Carolinas, backpacking and teaching primitive and emotional skills to teenagers. He learned many plant medicine allies from studying herbalism at the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine in 2011. Scotty has gone through stages 1 and 2 of the Kamana Naturalist self study program and is constantly learning and growing through teachers, field guides, and mother nature herself.

Scotty has lived in community for the last decade. Recently, he went into a land project with friends and spends many hours with the gardens and orchards there, tending the landscape for future generations. Scotty currently runs an apprenticeship program at the community helping others to live closely to the land and grow food. Community living is a high value and Scotty likes to share the communal energy in group campouts singing around the fire, going on adventures and cooking and eating together.

Sanni Paakkonen

Women of Earth Facilitator

Sanni Paakkonen: Grounded visionary, forest walker, emissary of a new paradigm leadership. Devoted to experience pure potential of a human being, Sanni holds loving and centered space to discover our True Nature. Sanni naturally inspires people to see their own brilliance and step into their power as a creators of their own life on Earth. Born and raised in Finland, Nordic forests and tales brought her to a deep connection with nature and led her into a well-rounded study on empowered living & self-discovery over the last 13 years in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Sanni shares her service through yoga trainings (E-RYT500), True Nature Embodiment programs, intuitive dance practices, meditation, frequency work, ceremonial arts & core- shamanic practices, and intentional journeys to sacred sanctuaries of nature. Her offerings are known to be transformative, deep, playful and empowering. Sanni walks the Earth with grace and calm confidence, dances with the creative force of the feminine and pours her contagious love into every relationship that comes on her way. 

Sanni has experienced her pilgrimage to sacred sites on Earth to be a powerful catalyst for deeper communication with the inner gatekeepers and mystery school of Nature. She holds space for the journeys that unlock the open intelligence within bringing eco-mythology and true wisdom of yoga alive in one’s daily life. By learning to listen to the song of the winds and stay rooted in storm one can reveal the underlying power of timeless Nature and claim one’s space as a sovereign creator being. Life becomes a living prayer and every day a meaningful ceremony.

mariannE MItchell
Growing Goddess and Moon mystics facilitator

Marianne has a joy for working with girls and supporting a magical connection with the Earth. She is a Ceremonialist, Mystic, Seer, Energy Medicine Healer, Breathwork Facilitator, Modern Wisdom Practitioner and Modern Day Priestess. She is also a Certified Reiki Master and Teacher, Certified Cranial-sacral Therapist, Certified Kundalini Yoga Teacher and has studied Medicinal Aromatherapy and Polarity Healing amongst other modalities. Marianne works with individuals and groups, teaches a number of tele-classes around the Wheel of The Year, Ritual & Ceremony, Intuition, Whole Being Wellness and Healing. She is also a Lineage Repair Practitioner of Ancestral Medicine.

Currently in private practice for over 13 years, Marianne weaves together an immense toolkit of modalities to support individuals and groups at the level of mind, body and spirit to hold each one in Remembering more fully Who They Are. Marianne offers private sessions, distance sessions, Shamanic Energy Groups, Seasonal Attunement Cleanses, Mentorships and online classes. She facilitates Land Ceremonies and Blessings as well as Rites of Passage for various stages of life for individuals, families and communally.