38th Annual Native American
Elders Gathering
July 29th – 31st, 2022
Presenters
Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo, is the Founder and Spiritual Director of Sunray Meditation Society. She is the 27th generation lineage holder of the ancestral Ywahoo lineage in the Tsalagi / Cherokee tradition. She is unique as a teacher, carrying three intact streams of ancient spiritual wisdom. Venerable Dhyani is the Chief of the Green Mountain Band of the Ani Yun Wi Wa. She is the author of Voices of Our Ancestors, Learning Cherokee ways: The Ywahoo Path, and 108 Quotations: A Treasury of Mystical Wisdom. She has also contributed to many books over the years and has written various curriculums that have been utilized for peacemaking around the world.
Venerable Lama Konchok Sonam is the Spiritual Director of the Drikung Meditation Center (DMC) in Danvers, MA. Born in Lhasa, Tibet, Lama Sonam is expert in both the theoretical and practical aspects of training the mind through meditation and Vajrayana methods for awakening our Buddha Nature.
Grandfather Michael Bastine is a member of the Algonquin Nation, and he is a healer, elder, and former student of famous Tuscarora medicine man Wallace “Mad Bear” Anderson and Tuscarora healer Ted Williams. He lives in South Wales, New York. He is the co-author of the book, Iroquois and Supernatural: Talking Animals and Medicine People.
Tehoronio Joey David is a member of the Mohawk nation (Wolf Clan). He works at the Tekanikonrahwa:kon Wholistic Health and Wellness Program in Akwesasne, NY. He utilizes the Onkwehonwehnéha Ohkakowenta, or “original person wheel” to help clients and community members connect with their hearts and develop spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically.
Grandfather Doug Harris was a tribal historic preservationist for the Narragansett Nation. For the past 16 years, he was tribally-certified to seek and preserve indigenous ceremonial and sacred stone landscapes for the Narragansett Indian Preservation Office. After retiring from this role, he continues as Tribal Historic Preservation Consultant and Ceremonial Stone Landscape Preservationist, authorized by the National Park Service, in continuing to lecture and identify ceremonial stone structures in the northeast USA for earmarking as historic ceremonial landmarks.
Rudy Schild, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of FREE: Foundation for Research into Extraterrestrial Encounters. He is a Professor Emeritus research astrophysicist at the Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, following an extensive career studying dark matter, black holes, and the fluid mechanical origins of cosmic structure. He has become deeply interested in the formulation of a coherent understanding of the nature of space-time in the Universe. As an editor-in-chief of the Journal of Cosmology, he is seeking to broaden the scope of scientific inquiry to include the nature of consciousness and the Universe. He is a co-author of the book, Beyond UFOs: The Science of Consciousness & Contact with Non-Human Intelligence.
Tatjana Cady is of the Abenaki Turtle Clan, and also has Abenaki, Mohawk, Huron, French and German ancestors in her lineage.
Earlier in her life, she was adopted as first daughter by Grandmother Nanatasis in traditional Abenaki family ceremony. She spent 17 years with her learning and participating in ceremony and the sharing of Abenaki Women’s Sacred Wisdom Teachings & Practices and Medicine Wheel Teachings. She has been actively continuing with these ceremonies and sharing of teachings for the past 26 years. She is a member of communities locally and in Europe, where she shares teachings and holds ceremony as called for.
Lei’ohu Ryder and Maydeen Ku’uipo ʻĪao are visionaries, ceremonialists, musicians and kahu/caretakers of a sacred temple on Maui. They celebrate life by embracing the spirit of aloha within the one ocean of our collective hearts.
Lawrence Happy Laughing is a member of the Turtle Clan from Akwesasne. His Turtle name is Aronwantankie and also Wakasehronni, which is his nick name ‘Happy”. He comes from the Rotinonsonni, People of the Longhouse and was always inspired by his Onkwehonwe people in his community who still carry their cultural ways, ceremonies, language and sacred knowledge which connects them to Mother Earth. He has worked in the North American Indian Travelling College, different schools, drug and alcohol programs, and community projects with the Longhouse Clan Mothers and Clan Chiefs. In the school in California, he teaches young people through song and tradition about building community through expressing great gratitude and great love for our Earth Mother, rather than teaching them about survival which only promotes fear and can make them afraid of our Mother the Earth.
Larry McDermott is an Algonquin Elder of the Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation, and he and his wife Nancy live in a 170 year-old log home on 500 acres of biologically-diverse Algonquin land along the Mississippi River. Elder Larry is the Executive Director of Plenty Canada, Lanark,Ontario, an Indigenous charity working to share Indigenous knowledge with western science. He is a member of numerous organizations, including the International Indigenous Forum for Biodiversity, the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership (CRP), Ontario Biodiversity Council, the Ontario Professional Foresters Association, the Healing Place partnership, the Indigenous Circle of the Canadian Biosphere Association, and is a co-chair of the Lanark County Safety and Well-Being Plan. He was a Commissioner for the Ontario Human Rights Commission and served on Ontario ‘s Species at Risk Public Advisory Committee. Elder Larry was a humble student of the late Algonquin Elder, Grandfather William Commanda.
Bear Fox is a songwriter and singer of the Mohawk nation. On her website she greets visitors in her native language by saying: “Shekon Sewakwekon, Kenkiohkoktha ionkia’ts wakathahionni, Akwesasne nikiteron”, (hello everyone, my name is Kenkiohkoktha, this name means I am standing at the back of a crowd of people, or at the end of a long line. I was named after my Grandmother. I live in Akwesasne.) www.bearfoxmusic.com
At the age of 29, she realized that she had a gift for songwriting. She first began writing songs in Mohawk for the Traditional Women’s singing group called, ‘Kontiwennenhawi’, (Carriers of the Words). In 2001, she began writing songs in English as well, and her first song was entitled, ‘Broken.’ She now shares her music widely in many forms and to many people.
David Ebony Allen Lamichhane-Barkley aka THREE ARROWS
Thunder Mountain initiate, Fire Keeper of Green Mountain Band of Aniyunwiwa & Aniyunwiwa of Massachusetts Blue Hills.
Horticulturalist interned at Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.
Black Indian Inn founder.
Reverend Chonyi Richard Allen, Healing & Ministry, Psycho- Spiritual Integration Guide, Co- Creator of sacred spaces, Traveler of many worlds.
Reverend Katherine Amtul Hannan, Lithuanian/Irish lineage, Mother, Grandmother, Great-Grandmother, Artist, Psychotherapist and Seeker, began study with Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo in October 1978. She was ordained with Louise Diamond in 1985, at the hand of Venerable Dhyani.
Rev. Amtul focalized Star Child Gathering with amazing teams of people, in Vermont 1988-1998 and in Germany 1992-2019.
Reverend Meli (aka Mary Kitchens), through her father, is part of the Western Cherokee diaspora that journeyed to California during the dust bowl of the 1930’s. She is the drumkeeper for Unole, a drum group that has been nominated for a Native American Music Award. She is a Sunray minister in the Ywahoo tradition.
Sandra Sheridan, Physical Therapist specializes in manual therapy and therapeutic exercise. A long time student of Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo, she is the NGO representative of Sunray Meditation Society at the United Nations and has been for the past 25 years. Her focus has been on Indigenous Peoples rights and utilizing the Sunray Peacekeeping Principles within the UN system and internationally in support of Indigenous Peoples.
…and more to follow