W&E
A Little Bit About Who Is Presenting....
This fall 2015, W&E will offer a unique experience from some of the best speakers around sharing their expertise on the subject of psychedelics. The reemergence of this cutting-edge psychedelic research after a 40 year hiatus makes it a ripe climate for talks on this seemingly taboo subject. W&E is comprised of a diverse group from various backgrounds that promote a balanced perspective of the use of psychoactive compounds that originate in indigenous parts of the world. There are conferences being held worldwide like Australia, UK, South Africa, and in the Americas. W&E is filling the need to increase the balance of the feminine and of entheogens starting with in the Midwestern region of the US. Meet a some of Women & Entheogens 2015 Conference speakers:
Shonagh Home
Shonagh is an author, shamanic practitioner, teacher and public speaker. Her offerings focus on the cultivation of our intrinsic abilities - intuition, creativity and multi-dimensional awareness. Her work with those in need is deeply probing and revelatory, breaking the spell and activating in the seeker an entirely new place of reference. In addition, Shonagh is a beekeeper and apitherapist, administering bee venom therapy for a variety of illnesses such as MS and arthritis. She is an activist and a voice for the plight of the honeybees, offering a powerful solution in the form of Biodynamic farming and gardening, as put forth by Rudolf Steiner. She is author of the books, ‘Ix Chel Wisdom: 7 Teachings from the Mayan Sacred Feminine,’ ‘Love and Spirit Medicine,’ and the upcoming, ‘Honeybee Wisdom: A Modern Melissae Speaks.’ Learn more at www.shonaghhome.com
Abena Opare
Abena Opare is a homeschooling mother of nine (one son in the spirit world) and has been married for twenty-six years this coming September, 2015. Abena has been involved in and a member of various Pan-African-organizations for the past twenty years. She has worked and taught in independent schools, home school groups, organized/supervised summer youth nature/agricultural camps, cultural afterschool programs, a youth political drama organization, and developed/organized male and female puberty rites of passage programs, with her husband in Atlanta, Georgia.
After a series of dreams and spiritual experiences, she was compelled to travel to Gabon (summer of 2014). There she was initiated in Bwiti Iboga Rites of Passage ceremonies. She feels that it is a part of her mission to be an advocate for legalization and utilization of traditional African plant medicines for the healing of the inter-generational effects of enslavement and institutionalized racism experienced by African Americans. She wishes also to be an advocate for the use of traditional medicines in ethical, traditional and sustainable practices, without exploitation and subsequent mistreatment of the indigenous people and environments where the medicines are harvested. Abena wishes to share her personal testimony about her journey with Iboga and connecting with her ancestors.
Onyx Ashanti
Since being introduced on the world stage by way of a fortuitous TED talk he gave in 2011 entitled “This is Beatjazz”, Mississippi native, Onyx Ashanti, has been evolving at a pace that surprises even him. Musician, Programmer, 3d print-designer, writer, performer, inventor...a self described child of the internet, and disciple of the open source philosophy, Onyx has spent the last few years creating a multidimensional expression concept called beatjazz.
Beatjazz is “beats” and “jazz”, or more specifically. Beats are electronically derived rhythm and jazz as improvisational sonic investigation create an improvisational sonic construct for investigating rhythm, harmony and melody interactively. This is expressed as sound and performance but also as projected visualization, light color sequencing, robotic parameter feedback and CAD design-multiple dimensions of a singular expression. A hyper expression.
The next “evolution” of beatjazz will be the integration of brainwave information into its matrix of existing signals. It has already begun moving toward its “neuro” phase but Onyx wants to release the open source plans to the existing iteration, online, before jumping into this stage with both feet. The future as a programmable variable within a sonic fractal matrix. This is beatjazz.
Annie Oak
Annie Oak is the founder of the Women’s Visionary Congress (WVC), a nonprofit organization that supports the right to self-knowledge, cognitive liberty and new modes of healing that link us to female wisdom keepers and users of plant medicines. Since 2007, the WVC has hosted events in the US and Canada that present the work of women researchers, healers, activists and artists who examine heightened states of consciousness.
Annie is also the creator of the Full Circle Tea House, a mobile tea service that offers a place for rest, hydration and integration at events large and small. She is the co-editor of the Manual of Psychedelic Support, a guide to setting up and running compassionate care services for people who have challenging drug experiences at music festivals and other gatherings. Trained as a science journalist, Annie works with a group of researchers who analyze large-scale human rights violations in conflict zones around the world.
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Moudou Baqui
Justin Petty, M. Ed. (Ser Moudou Awa Balla Baqui) aka Baba Moudou Baqui (Moo-doo Bah-key) is a lifelong citizen of Highland Park. He has been a student in the origins of human consciousness since an early age.
Moudou is a third generation metaphysican. His introduction to the esoteric came from his father, former Grand Master of a local chapter of an international mystical order (following in the footsteps of his grandfather, who began his studies in the early 1900's).
Moudou's early studies came from “borrowed” rare mystical texts from his father's library. At his father's urging, he continued his studies of ancient knowledge without the formality of known institutions. He has further continued his studies of shamanism, metaphysics and etheogenics via travel on several continents and tutelage under different intellectual traditions.
With knowledge of ethnobotany and the martial sciences, he is an activist, Certified Level II Reiki healer, martial artist,urban shaman, behavioral specialist and educator.
Sophia L. Buggs
Ayana Iyi
Wife, mother and grandmother, born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. She has made it her life's purpose to help create unity, power and purpose in the lives of women from all demographics.
Being the founder of "Sistahs of the Sacred Blak" Ayana with the dedication of sistahs in this group, have given many successful events such as women's conferences and retreats for the "soul" purpose of empowering women.
As a "seer" and spiritual consultant , Ayana uses these gifts to own and operate a spiritual candle store in Jackson, Mississippi " Midtown Magick" . This venue has become a safe place for folk to come and tap into their "innate" spirituality. Entheogens have been a part of Ayana's spiritual growth for the past 14 years and have helped her to understand and except her gifts. By keeping one foot on the "other side" and one foot here...high reverence for the ancestors through ritual and channeling has become a necessary part of her life.
Onani Meg Carver
Raised by a mother who was a nun before marriage and a father who is part Native American, Onani has naturally been attracted to healers, mysticism and living in secluded, austere environments with spiritual masters.
She served a 20-year apprenticeship, living in the wilderness for months at a time with Grandmother Keewaydinoquay, learning the medicinal uses of plants, songs, stories and ceremonies of her Ojibway heritage. Onani has also lived and studied with yoga and meditation master, Yogi Amrit Desai throughout the past 30 years. She is a student of many other profound teachers in the fields of medicine, business and consciousness.
Onani is a professor of Indigenous Healing and is working on a doctorate of Theology and subtle energy healing through Holos University. She recently returned from 5 months in Ecuador learning from various shamans, taitas and healers about the ceremonial uses of entheogens, such as Ayahuasca, San Pedro and Honguitos.
Onani has a multi-racial family of 6 beautiful, grown kids. She has a private practice providing personal mentoring, executive coaching and conflict resolution, Onani Mentoring, Sacred, Sexual Science of Joy. www.onanimentoring.com
Kai Wingo
A mushroom expert, Kai's passion is highlighting the value of mushroom cultivation in the revitalizing of community. She is a mother, mycologist and lecturer on a quest to inspire reverence for earth's exploratory treasures and in the utilization of their technology and curative abilities. Kai feels that if women especially, learn to embrace fungi as our allies, they will heal, empower and transform.
A teacher by trade for over 20 years, her aim was to bridge cultural gaps for students often with international artist, going as far as Senegal to study African Drum and Dance. The former years of her career were at the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools writing culturally relevant curriculum for inner-city youth. After the office was laid off and encouraged to reapply, she instead initiated a gourmet mushroom enterprise from home. This year 2015, will be her second year running a peer taught youth agricultural program on her own urban farm.
Kai lives in OH, where she owns and operates Cleveland's first and only mushroom farm since its inaugural year in 2013. With topics like survival, off the grid living, cob building and gourmet mushroom cultivation, she has made lectures and hands-on workshops available in historically underserved neighborhoods since 2009. You can find Kai and her grass roots effort, Kultured Mushrooms, on Facebook.
Ifetayo Harvey
Ifetayo is from Charleston, South Carolina. In 2013, Ifetayo spoke at the International Drug Policy Reform Conference and on NPR in 2014 on her experience growing up with a parent in prison. Ifetayo's work has been featured in the Huffington Post, on Alternet.com, and the Atlantic. Ifetayo is passionate about education, drug policy reform, sexual health & reproductive justice, and music. Ifetayo has 11 years of musical literacy experience playing brass instruments and 7 years of customer service experience. In her free time, Ifetayo enjoys spending time with her loved ones, listening to music, food, yoga, photography and the beach.
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Bett Williams
Bett Williams is a journalist and author of the novel "Girl Walking Backwards" and is currently working on a book about psilocybin mushrooms called "The Wild Kindness." She lives south of Santa Fe New Mexico on a beautiful spot of land where she hosts retreats for poets, artists and mystics.
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Stephanie Schmitz
Stephanie Schmitz, the France A. Córdova Archivist, appears in the vault of the Virginia Kelly Karnes Archives and Special Collections Research Center at Purdue University where materials in the Psychoactive Substances Research Collection are stored. I manage the Psychoactive Substances Research Collection, which aims to document the history of the therapeutic use and application of psychedelic drugs, as well as the Susan Bulkeley Butler Women’s Archives, which seeks to document the history of women at Purdue and in the state of Indiana. My responsibilities include identifying appropriate collections for inclusion into these collecting areas; working closely with donors and their families in transferring these materials to the Archives; ensuring that these materials are preserved and made widely accessible; and assisting others in utilizing these materials for teaching and research
Sophia is the owner and operator of both Healling Flower and Lady Buggs Farm. She is reclaiming the sacred roots of farming through sustainable living in Youngstown, Ohio. Her mission is to Restore, Revamp and Revitalize her community while creating a loving urban homestead with her daughter, Passion. She has been sharing her wellness and farming information through gardening and cooking classes.
Sophia holds a Masters of Education with a concentration in Curriculum and Instruction from American InterContinental University, a Bachelors of Science in Criminal Justice from Bethune Cookman University and a year of OJT Specialty Crop Apprenticeship through Goodness Grows.
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Bro Omari Miles-El
LaToya Kent
LaToya Kent has spent 20 years consciouslyas a yogi. She became a certified 3HO Kundalini teacher in 2004. After studying under the Bihar school of yoga through Atma Center for 18 years she received her teacher certification in 2015.LaToya adopted the name Laxshmi, the GoddessOf wealth and abundance, and those closeto her benefit from this title.
She desires to teach the importance of breathand awareness in the physical body as a toolfor divinity and elevation on the planet.
Bro Omari Miles-El is a Native Detroiter and the founder of Third Eye Open, A Historical and Metaphysical research Organization. He is also the founder of R.Y.D.E. (Rolemodels for Youth Development and Enlightment), a youth oriented motivational consulting firm. Bro Omari Miles-El has studied and traveled under the tutor ledge of the renowned Egyptologist Dr.Benjamin Yahconnan, a well known around the country Professor, studying Kemetic Antiquity and Egyptology as a member of the Craft Amen-Ra a Masonic order founded by Dr.Benjamin.
Bro Omari Miles-El has spent the last 20 years studying and traveling throughout America and the Diaspora to uncover hidden truths about the contribution of people of Color have given to Humanity as a whole.
Bro Omari Miles-El has several Lectures, Sacredness of the Black Woman, Secret Science of the Bible, Black America B.C. to A.D.-Land of the Moors, Ancient Pyramids in America, Psychological Destruction of the Black Civilization, Moors and Free Masonry, and Know Thyself.
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This list of speakers is subject to change. Thank you for your visit.
