Biographies of Speakers for the 2011 Women's Visionary Congress
Amber Field
Transmitting the love frequency through eclectic global sounds and beats,
Amber Field is a singer,
multi-instrumentalist, sound healer, and visionary
who studied classical Indian music at Viswa Bharati University. She specializes
in world fusion music, has lived in Peru, India, Korea, Borneo, Nepal, and Liberia,
and plays didgeridoo, djembe, Arabic tambourine, esraj, cajon, harmonica, and sings.
Amber was featured in San Francisco Magazine's Best of the Bay for yoga music.
Amber teaches music, does sound healing, and performs and holds workshops on freeing
the voice and creativity all over the world.
Copperwoman
As well as being a performer -- and perhaps even more important --
Copperwoman is a gatherer of voices to sing.
Her message is strong and
comes through Divine Inspiration. Her songs offers a gift -- one of
unity, love and the uplifting vibration of spirit.
She has been gathering people to sing for decades. Copperwoman spins her
musical spell around campfires and singing gatherings that she calls
CircleSong.
With her music, she is a keeper of Sacred Space and the
cohesive thread that can bind a ritual together. She will include your
voice with hers if you choose, or fill the air with magical melodies
that offer healing energy.
Copperwoman is a breast cancer survivor and offers inspiration through
the songs she wrote during her healing journey. Her last CD, Gratitude
is a compilation of these songs. She has 6 recordings all together,
two of which are original children's songs.
Valerie Corral
Valerie Corral is the co-founder of the
Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM),
a pioneering medical marijuana collective and cooperative. Valerie was a
key-player in the crafting and passage of Proposition 215 (also known as
the Compassionate Use Act of 1996), which allowed patients with a doctors
recommendation to use marijuana medicinally. WAMM became the first medical
marijuana collective to be granted non-profit status in the United States.
Amy Emerson
Amy Emerson earned her BS in genetics and cell biology from Washington State
University. She has worked in clinical development and research for the
last 15 years in the fields of immunology, oncology and most recently in
vaccine development. Amy has worked with
MAPS
as a volunteer since 2003
facilitating the development of their
MDMA clinical program. She is
currently working as the Clinical Program Manager and is involved with
creating the structure needed to support the growing needs of the clinical
operations group and MAPS' clinical research studies.
Fire & Earth Erowid
Fire Erowid and Earth Erowid co-founded the
Erowid Center, an
IRS-approved 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization that
collects, reviews, and publishes data about psychoactive plants,
drugs, technologies, and practices. Their primary project is the
Erowid.org
website, established in 1995 as an independent public
library of information about psychoactives. The site hosts more than
58,000 public documents and images and receives around 80,000 unique
visitors each day. Earth and Fire have spoken at conferences
sponsored by groups as diverse as the National Institute on Drug
Abuse, the North American Association of Clinical Toxicologists, the
Mycological Society of San Francisco, and the Multidisciplinary
Association for Psychedelic Studies.
Dorothy Fadiman
Dorothy Fadiman is a visionary activist filmmaker, whose inner voice
guides her as she takes on a range of gritty subjects. Dorothy's
inspiration to make films began with an LSD experience when she was filled
with light, and an inner presence asked her to "tell the world" about
the Light of Spirit. Her first film, RADIANCE: The Experience of Light,
is a kaleidoscopic journey through ways this Light links us with each
other and with the Divine. She has produced more than twenty films,
each of which carries a connection to illumination. Her documentaries
include the struggle for abortion rights, breaking the silence surrounding
HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia, election theft in the USA, and living with spinal
cord injury. Dorothy has written
PRODUCING with PASSION:
Making Films that Change the World and she founded a
non-profit documentary film production company,
DorothyFadiman.com.
Carolyn (Mountain Girl) Garcia
Carolyn Garcia first encountered the world of psychedelics while
working in the organic chemistry department at Stanford University.
She later joined a group of psychedelic pioneers called
The Merry
Pranksters and climbed on board the
Great Bus "Further" where she lived
until 1967.
Carolyn and her family settled in San Francisco with
her future husband, Jerry Garcia, of the Grateful Dead. In 1976,
Carolyn published her classic book on organic marijuana cultivation,
The Primo Plant, which is still in print. In 1987, she joined the
Rex
Foundation founded by members of the Grateful Dead. Garcia is also a member of
the
Threshold Foundation and sits on the board of the
Furthur
Foundation.
Martina Hoffmann
Martina Hoffmann
works as a painter and sculptress.
Her paintings offer the viewer a detailed glimpse into her inner
landscapes - imagery that has been inspired by expanded states of
consciousness: the realms of the imagination, meditation, shamanic
journeys and the dream state.
"The visionary artist makes visible the more subtle and intuitive
states of our existence and creates maps and symbols reflecting
consciousness. My work is an attempt to show spirit as the universal
force which unifies us beyond the confines of cultural and religious
differences. By accepting the interdependency of all life and our
universal interconnectedness we have a chance to heal and transform
the planet's general state of woundedness. In using art as a tool
for transformation, we have the opportunity to create a reality as
beautiful, healthy and strong as our imagination permits."
Martina has exhibited her work and spoken on behalf of visionary
art and culture internationally. Together with her husband the
AmericanFantastic Realist, Robert Venosa, she teaches visionary
painting workshops.
Dorka Keehn
Dorka Keehn is an award winning conceptual artist and social
entrepreneur. As the Chief Muse of
KEEHN ON ART, she works in diverse
mediums including radio, film, and sculpture. Her recent projects
include ECO AMAZONS: 20 Women Who Are Transforming the World, the first
illustrated book on American women environmentalists and
Language
of the Birds, the first solar powered public sculpture, voted one
of the best public artworks in the U.S. by Americans for the Arts. A
leader in the women's movement, she is a founder of
EMERGE AMERICA,
the premier training program for Democratic women who plan to run for
political office, and a founding board member of
IGNITE, which provides
political and civic education for high school and college women. Dorka
is currently a Commissioner on the
San Francisco Arts Commission; and
from 1999 to 2010, she served on the SF Commission on the Status of
Women and chaired the Justice & Courage Domestic Violence project.
Annie King
Annie King is a Licensed Massage Therapist with over 25 years of
experience. Annie's primary focus has been the treatment of chronic
pain and stress and she specializes in Cranio/Sacral Therapy. CST is a
therapeutic modality that directly addresses trauma to the sympathetic
nervous system and is profoundly effective in alleviating the symptoms
that characterize adrenal stress and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Annie began working with Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans
in 2007 and is now on the board of the Upledger Institute's Association
of Integrated Wellness. This nonprofit organization is bringing trauma
relief to our returning veterans.
Jessica Lucas
Jessica Lucas began interpreting at the age of sixteen. She has
participated with national indigenous confederations to help preserve
and protect the land as well as the knowledge of different cultures
from companies, researchers or governments that forget to be grateful.
She has also worked with literary translations, as well as medicinal
ceremonies and conferences in North and South America. Curious about
the impermanence of reality, she is a student of linguistics and
ethnobotany, among others.
Raised in Argentina until her move to the U.S. for school, she has
spent much time over the past three years in the lower Amazon working
with indigenous and mestizo groups living in rural areas. She is also
currently responsible for teaching a wilderness survival course in the
Utah great basin desert, where she has the opportunity to learn from
the people and the land.
Mariavittoria Mangini
Mariavittoria Mangini, PhD, FNP, has been a family nurse midwife for twenty
five years. She has written extensively on the impact of psychedelic
experiences in shaping the lives of her contemporaries, and has worked
closely with many of the most distinguished investigators in this
field. Her current project is the development of a "death midwifery"
practice providing services to dying persons and their families.
Jean Millay, Ph.D.
Jean Millay taught parapsychology for eight years, served as president
of the Parapsychology Research Group, and was an editor/contributor to
Silver Threads: Twenty-five Years of Parapsychology Research. Her recent
book, Multidimensional Mind: Remote Viewing in Hyperspace, focuses on
her 30 years of research into psi phenomena, hypnosis, trance states,
channeling, shamanism, and the EEG effects of entrainment with lights,
sound, and chemistry. She and Dr. Tim Scully created the Brain-wave
Biofeedback Light Sculpture -- the impetus for her research on the effects
of brainwave synchronization. Her movie, The Psychedelic Experience,
won a film festival prize in 1965.
Eleonora Molnar
Eleonora Molnar is a PhD student in the Philosophy of Education
Program at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.
Her main research interests are the therapeutic
potential of psilocybin and drug policy. She has worked in the field of
sustainability for 14 years and currently does health promotion work.
Eleonora has two young children, is a arts appreciator, and a nature
enthusiast.
Annie Oak
Annie Oak is the founder of the
Women's Visionary Congress (WVC) and the Women's Entheogen Fund. She is a journalist
and businesswoman who creates gatherings that celebrate the work of visionary
women. Annie is
a board member of the Women's Visionary Council, the nonprofit that
organizes the WVC. A wilderness explorer and student of yoga, she is
writing a manual for providing psychedelic care services at festivals
and events.
Linnae Ponté
Linnae Ponté is a staff member at MAPS, the
Multidisciplinary Association for
Psychedelic Studies.
Linnae earned her BA in Biological Psychology from New College of Florida in May 2010 where she defended her thesis, which investigated the impact of sleep disturbance in the pathogenesis of depression in a sample of 360 students. During her undergraduate years, Linnae assisted data collection and analysis of various projects at University of South Florida's Cardiovascular Psychophysiology Laboratory, MOTE Marine Mammal Aquarium Psychophysical Laboratory, East-West College of Natural Medicine, and the West Mamprusi Civic Union in Ghana, West Africa. Linnae served as New College's Counseling & Wellness Center Student Representative and plans to return to graduate school to pursue a PhD in Clinical or Counseling Psychology.
Lily Ross
Lily Ross began composing poetry in 2007 while on a two-month backpacking
trip in California. She found her voice as she reclaimed her connection
to the Earth and learned to relish in the silence of nature. Her work
aims to explore words in the body and embodied connections to words, to
explore the paradoxical tensions between motion and stillness, sound and
silence, and to speak the wisdom constantly developing from her rich
relationship to the world.
Lily has performed at various events around the United States, from
New York to Hawaii. She has performed with artists such as Andrew Jones
and Phaedra Ana in their digital art/dance performance Phaedroid, and
Hang player Yogi Hendlin, among others. She has also published numerous
articles with MAPS (the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic
Studies) and worked with author and editor David Jay Brown.
In the last five years Lily has attended many Vipassana mediation
retreats, South American healing rituals, and other intense, self
reflective and creative retreats, all of which continue to inform her
work in poetry, scholarship and music. Currently Lily is a student at the
Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge Massachusetts, focusing on
ethnography and arts of ministry, exploring the notion of Entheogenic
ministry rooted in indigenous traditions.
Miss S
Miss S. has a Master's of Science in Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal
Medicine and currently operates a private practice as a licensed
acupuncturist, massage therapist and board certified herbalist. She has
also worked as a volunteer sitter for the MAPS sanctuary at the Burning
Man Festival. Sanctuary is a project in which those in need of emergency
psychedelic services are offered a caring, safe place to experience their
difficult journeys. Miss S. will present a talk on Bodywork and
Psychoactives - A Discussion of Recent Case Studies. In this discussion,
she will discuss case studies in which different types of bodywork
such as acupuncture, acupressure, and massage were provided to patients
while they were under the influence of psychoactive substances including
ketamine, 5-MeO-DMT, LSD, cannabis, cyclobenzaprine and hydrocodone.
Nick Sand
Nick Sand was born and grew up in Brooklyn NY. His father was a key
player in the Manhattan Project, which helped produce the first atomic
bomb. This had a profound affect on Nick, who was shocked by the ensuing
devastation in Japan. Nick is consumed by a deep and abiding wonder about
our planet and the cosmos, which propels him in a life long pursuit for
self realization. He attended Brooklyn College and received degrees in
Anthropology and Sociology. Following his initiation into the mushroom
cult by Maria Sabinas in the Mazatec Sierras of Mexico, he began to follow
Albert Hofmann's syntheses of LSD and Psilocybin, devoting his life to
turning on the world with his psychedelic experiences and creations. He
lived in India with Osho during his 22 years life as a fugitive and
self imposed exile. He is one of the originators of Orange Sunshine LSD
under the tutelage of Augustus Owsley Stanley and Tim Scully. He has
produced many different psychedelic drugs for popular and professional
use. Although Nick was lucky enough to partner with many wonderful women,
his apogee was with Usha who is his perfect spiritual match.
Stephanie Schmitz
Stephanie is an archivist at Purdue University Libraries in West
Lafayette, Indiana and manages archival materials for the
Psychoactive
Substances Research Collection.
This collecting initiative, which
came about in 2006 with the generosity of the Betsy Gordon Foundation,
seeks to document the history of psychedelic research with primary
source materials such as manuscripts, research notes, correspondence,
photographs, and other materials of enduring value. She has been at
Purdue for three years, and very much enjoys the opportunity to learn
about and work with the amazing materials that form the building
blocks of the collection. Prior to coming to Purdue, she worked as a
government contractor for one of the Environmental Protection Agency
libraries in Washington, D.C.
Jane Straight
Jane Straight is a
passionate, eclectic plant woman and youth advocate. Jane had the good
fortune of learning the art of plant identification and collecting
in the field while traveling in Central and South America in the mid
'80's, later riding the wild wave of ethnobotanical distribution
as she cultivated and shipped rare botanicals globally. She loves
facilitating intimate relations between plants and people with an
emphasis on "bringing people to their knees" in awe as they explore
sacred species. Jane is also a highly skilled herbalist with a lovely
line of exotic products, teaches medicine making, and currently resides
on the Northern California coast.
Justine Willis Toms
Justine Willis Toms, Ph.D (hon), is
Co-founder and Managing Producer of
New Dimensions
Radio/Media, a nonprofit, public benefit, tax-exempt educational
organization. She has hosted many radio series including "In Her
Company: Deep Dialogues with Women of Wisdom," and produced many
award-winning radio series including "Deep Ecology for the 21st
Century," and "Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature." She
also serves as host of "New Dimensions," which is distributed worldwide.
She serves as Editor-In-Chief of the New Dimensions E-Newsletter.
Besides her radio work she leads workshops on, "Living Life On Purpose."
She is co-author with Michael Toms of True Work: Doing What You Love and
Loving What You Do and author of Small Pleasures: Finding Grace in a
Chaotic World. She is a founding convener of the Millionth Circle
Initiative and has been actively involved in circle work since 1980,
including being a founding member of a mixed circle of men and women who
have been meeting regularly since 1980. This circle has been witness to
all the life cycles, including birth and death and everything
in-between. She also participates in other circles, including several
women's circles. She was bestowed an honorary doctorate from the
Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, an accredited graduate school in
Palo Alto, CA.
Keeper Trout
Keeper Trout is an ethnobotanical scholar and author. His research
interests concerning cacti have centered largely on the study of
Trichocereus and conservation work concerning Lophophora. Formerly a
citizen of Texas, Trout has lived in northern California for the past
9 years where his cultivation interests have appropriately shifted from
cacti to fungi. Learning to better propagate shiitakes is kt's current
raison d'etre.
Usha
Usha has studied with many spiritual masters. She recognized Osho as
her beloved teacher and spent ten years in India, living in Goa and
Poona mainly. During these years, she experimented with many visionary
substances. She partnered with Chris Gray (author of Acid Diaries),
settling in London, where they had a son. Usha has traveled widely
witnessing almost every international freak scene in the 1960s, 70s and
80s, enjoying her experimentation. In 1996 she was arrested with Nick
Sand in his Canadian LSD Laboratory where she served as a lab tech. She
was exonerated of all charges. She spent the next 4.5 years raising her
son in England, supporting Nick while she awaited their reunion. In 2000
she returned to the U.S. to live with and help Nick adjust to normal life
after prison. Today they continue to celebrate their love for one another.
Clare S. Wilkins
Clare S. Wilkins is a former intravenous heroin user & methadone patient who,
in 2005, shed her chemical dependencies with Ibogaine. In 2006, Miss
Wilkins purchased the Ibogaine Association in Tijuana Mexico, and went
on to create Pangea Biomedics. She has facilitated over 400 Ibogaine
treatments & worked together with MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association
for Psychedelic Studies, to study the long term effects of Ibogaine on
patients undergoing detox therapy. Currently she is collaborating with
Dr. Raul Morales to develop a clinical trial for opiate detoxification
with Ibogaine at the University of Guadalajara in Jalisco, Mexico. As a
member of INPUD & INWUD, international drug user rights organizations, she
is devoted to reducing stigma & harm, promoting the health & defending
the rights of people who use drugs. Clare is committed to providing
loving, compassionate care for extremely physically challenged patients &
passionately believes in every human's basic right to medicine.
Nina Wise
Nina Wise is known for her provocative and original performance works. Her
pieces have garnered seven Bay Area Critics' Circle Awards, and she
has received, among other prestigious honors, three National Endowment
for the Arts fellowships. Her written pieces have appeared in numerous
magazines and anthologies.
