Embodied Soul Immersion Retreat Facilitators

SAMI BASS -
I began working in healing modalities with the body and meditation in 2009, teaching release-technique at the NW Classical Ballet. This technique encouraged listening to the body and its somatic impulses to learn how to move through experience; movement as liberation over discipline. From there I began to learn about injury recovery and the relationship between trauma and stored somatic experience, studying with the Harkness Center for Dance Injuries, the Equinox Academy, The Brookbush Institute for Human Movement Science, and Yoga Vida’s Abuse Trauma Informed Training.  I worked as a trauma informed movement specialist in NYC for over a decade, using my abilities to channel and intuit the body’s needs with clients ranging from professional dancers, MLB + NFL players, celebrities, and more. Gaining a vast understanding of movement, mechanics, and injuries I knew there was more to be learned about the connection between the spirit, the emotional body, and how the physical body functioned. I  began studying under Mayan Quechua and Shipibo-Conibo elders and healers who taught me the body through a spiritual lens, and honed my craft as a channel and medicine holder. I have held space as a medicine facilitator and ancestral channel for nearly a decade which has included such experiences as a combined movement-healing + ancestral medicines and channeling retreat for the Divine Dark Feminine in the Berkshires, focusing on female-identifying populations with cPTSD, as well as working 1:1 with medicine clients. I have trained with EntheoNation’s Plant Spirit School, graduating in psychedelic integration in March of '23, as well as Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing International’s Trauma for BIPOC practitioners. I’ve held channeling ceremonies to help business-owners and filmmakers with their endeavors as well as working with Sacred Matriarch and Ecko Aleck, creating healing containers that return humans to their ancestral and earth-based roots with a focus on environmental impact and community safety and inclusion. I have also offered my trauma-informed consulting on dozens of movie sets, including recently pairing with The Red Sands Project on their documentary, We Ride for Her, shedding light on human-trafficking, and joining the board of directors for Hire Survivors Hollywood to curate less harmful working environments for survivors in Hollywood.

 
COURTNEY LOVING -
Courtney has been living, working and playing in the Wood River Valley for almost 10 years.  After studying and working in Georgia at a United Way Agency for 5 years, Courtney moved to Idaho and started her private practice as a trauma focused psychotherapist.  She quickly found a home working as a mental health partner with Higher Ground’s Veteran programs and in 2020 created the Ketchum Counseling Collective with a group of like-minded therapists and doctors.  Her training in Georgia specialized in trauma and working with couples using Dr. Sue Johnson’s Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy. In Idaho she became certified in the Trauma Resiliency and Community Resiliency  models as well as a certified Havening Practitioner. In the past few years Courtney’s interests in working with trauma and Veterans, led her to pursue a certificate from the California Institute of Integrative Studies’ in psychedelic assisted therapy.  Since graduating in 2022 Courtney continues to expand into this growing global community, attending multiple conferences across the country and joining the local Consciousness Medicine Collective.  Last April Courtney partnered with the Ketchum Community Library leading a conversation based on Michael Pollan’s Netflix series How to Change Your Mind. It is Courtney’s passion to build and support building beloved community in the Wood River Valley through honest conversation and reflection around trauma and psychedelics.  As entheogens become legal and expand into our therapeutic work, she plans to be a part of this movement and partner and embrace these ancient and wise ways of healing.

 
NAOMI MCDOUGALL JONES -
Naomi is a storyteller, changemaker, energy healer, and certified death doula. In all of her work, she seeks to support individuals and our society in healing forward from the most damaging features of our past and weave a bridge to a more beautiful future using the power of story and the richness of the intergenerational life-death cycle. Naomi has written, acted in, and produced two award-winning feature films. The first, Imagine I’m Beautiful (2014), collected 12 awards on the film festival circuit before receiving a theatrical and digital distribution deal and is now available on AmazonPrime. Her second feature, Bite Me (2019), was released via a paradigm-shifting 3 month, 51 screening, 40 city Joyful Vampire Tour of America that took the country by storm, and is now available on iTunes, GooglePlay, and Amazon. She is currently at work on her next two feature films: Hammond Castle, an adult fairytale for which she received the honor of being the first artist in residence at the final home of Ernest Hemingway in Sun Valley, Idaho, and The Control Room, a thriller co-written with Christian Coulson. Naomi is an advocate and thought leader for bringing gender parity to cinema. Her writing on this has appeared in The Atlantic, Ms. Magazine, and Salon.com, and she gave a virally sensational TEDTalk, What it’s Like to Be a Woman in Hollywood, which has now been viewed over 1 million times and can be seen on TED.com. Naomi’s first book, The Wrong Kind of Women: Inside Our Revolution to Dismantle the Gods of Hollywood, debuted as a #1 Amazon bestseller and received an electric critical response, with The Christian Science Monitor calling it, “...an outpouring of passion that will change the ways in which movies are seen,” and is now available wherever books are sold. She is currently at work on her second book, Vivisection of a White Woman (by the Ghost of Ernest Hemingway and a Whole Host of Ancestors). She is the Founder of The 51 Fund, a private equity fund dedicated to financing films by women. Their films Cusp and Shayda both premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won a Special Jury Prize and the Audience Award respectively. Shayda is now Australia's official submission for a 2024 Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. Her latest venture, reGEN media, is the first and only Indigenous-owned and female-led regenerative media studio. More at www.naomimcdougalljones.com.

 
JULES RACHLIN -
Jules is a psychotherapist with 15 years of experience in Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness. Jules has lived, studied, and worked in Montana, Colorado and now Idaho. She has a graduate degree in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology from Naropa University (Boulder, CO) and has completed  Level 1 and Level 2 training in Internal Family Systems, with areas of focus in neuroscience and Somatic IFS. She has completed advanced training and certifications in EMDR, Gestalt therapy and Wilderness Therapy. She draws perpetual inspiration from the wisdom of nature, and feels passionate about the intersection of IFS + Nature + Psychedelics. Jules is in awe of human transformation. It moves her to see people shift from stuckness to the full expression of who they are. While exploring your inner landscapes you’ll be met by her curious and compassionate presence, her grounded and catalyzing perspective, and her unwavering support. She would be honored to walk this path with you.