In 2009 I founded the Sacred Yew Institute in honor of the yew tree and of the Yew Mysteries. The Sacred Yew Institute is committed to the direct teaching of the healing, perceptual and shamanic practices of the Yew Mysteries as well as to the teaching of contemporary healing modalities such as Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy.

Biodynamic Craniosacral Foundation Training

Michael began the study of Craniosacral Therapy with Donald Howitt D.O. in Edinburgh and has been in practice for 20 years. He has attended workshops with the embryologist Jaap Van der Wal as well as with the late Dr Alan Pelowski, founder of the South African Institute of Cranial Studies.

Biodynamic-craniosacral-therapy

Michael's understanding of, and commitment to the biodynamic model of craniosacral therapy continues to be inspired by his work with the Yew Mysteries. He is currently teaching a two - year Biodynamic Craniosacral Foundation Training in Northampton, Western MA.

In Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, the forces that hold the potential to heal us throughout life are regarded as the same forces that create us in the archetypal image of an embryo. Students are taught to synchronize with these profound forces through the training of their perception and through the development of a deeply instinctual ability to ‘listen’ with their hands to the priorities of Health that are being expressed at any given moment within and around the client’s body. Come and join a growing community of biodynamic practitioners who are ready to make profound changes to the way we understand and support healing, health and a sense of wholeness!

The training consists of ten levels spread over a two and a half year period. Level One is an introductory class, lasting three days. Each subsequent level consists of four days, over a long weekend. Classes run from 9:30 to 5:30pm each day.

  • Level One: Biodynamics, Primary 
Respiration & The Cranial Concept
  • Level Two: Tissues, Tides & Metabolic Fields
  • Level Three: The Heart
  • Level Four: The Biodynamic Midline
  • Level Five: Stillness as Presence
  • Level Six: Visceral Biodynamics 1
  • Level Seven: The Fluid Body
  • Level Eight: Visceral Biodynamics 2
  • Level Nine: Biodynamic Ignition
  • Level Ten: Review & Graduation

2017 Registration Details & Cost:

Level One: $450 (cost of 3 day class) + $600 (non – refundable) training deposit. The $600 deposit counts as full payment made in advance for Level Ten.

Total Cost at Level One = $ 1050.00 (includes payment for Level Ten)

A $150 deposit must be paid two weeks in advance of Level One class to secure a place. Balance of $900.00 must be paid on first day of class unless a payment plan has been agreed.

Levels Two - Nine: $600 per level payable at beginning of each level.

Level Ten: prepaid at Level One.

Total cost of training: $5,850

Payment Plans available

Students receive a 350 - page manual given in sections for each level

An additional 150 hours of biodynamic table session time must be completed and documented, along with approximately 62 hours of homework assignments and independent study time.

Upon completion of all requirements, students will receive signed and numbered certification through the Sacred Yew Institute.

 

The next two-year Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy Training
will begin late 2017 or early 2018. Dates to be announced.  
Please click here to be added to our mailing list.

The Yew Mysteries Training

The Yew Mysteries Training begins with an introductory one - day workshop called Yew Mysteries One - Yewshamanism

Introductory workshops are currently being offered in Abergavenny Wales, and in  Ormiston, Scotland  as well as in Seattle WA, USA. Upon completion of Yew Mysteries One students are eligible to participate in Yew Mysteries Two through Five at any training location.

 

Session One: Introduction to the Yew Mysteries - Origin, Meaning & Practice.

Session Two: The Disenchantment of Perception - this involves learning a set of perceptual skills to reignite our capacity for the original or ‘embryonic’ sensing that is necessary in order to approach the yew and yew 'beings' in a receptive state.

Session Three: Yew Seership - we visit local yews and begin to recognize the ‘gestures’ of the yew as they are reflected in ourselves through an awareness of the 'gestures' of our blood and our heart. We learn how to approach the yew trees and to ‘touch’ them perceptually. Eya, an early word for yew means, ‘ to be touched by eternity.’  We learn how to safely move with our perception within the consciousness altering 'space' and landscape of the yew.

After completion of Yew Mysteries One, students can log in to this website
where they will gain access to video, downloads and  further details about the training.

Essence of the Five Trees. The student of the Yew Mysteries is led to an experience of the ‘coming into being’ of their physical body through the workings of the four elements and elemental beings in the natural world. Yewshamanic skills here involve the capacity to be able to enter directly into the healing nature of these elemental forces and beings. The student of the Yew Mysteries is then led to a first experience of another 'body' that lives outside of these elemental forces and beings. This body is more peripheral and can be experienced as a breathing skin-like sheath or as a membrane comprised of fine tendrils of light surrounding the body. This is regarded as a powerful healing intelligence within the Yew Mysteries work. For me the experience of the presence of this sheath-like body was awakened within the inner chamber of the yew itself. The shape of this body was identical to the inner space of the yew. Yewshamanic skills at this level involve an ability to sense and expand into this body - to literally begin to live inside of it! This is known as the Underworld (Annwn) of the Yew Mysteries.

The Shining Ones. During this stage the student of the Yew Mysteries learns to work with the forces and beings behind the workings of the elemental world in Nature. This involves a deepening perception of the activities of the Underworld (Annwn) of the Yew Mysteries and with that, the recognition of an etheric ancestor being.  This ancestor being is not linked to the human hereditary stream. Its consciousness is of the Shining Ones, sometimes referred to as the Sidhe. It is known that the Tuatha de Dannan of Ireland were deeply linked to the ancient yew trees. The father, brother and sons of Danu, the yew goddess, all possess names derived from the yew such as Eogabal, 'crotch or fork in a yew tree' (suggestive of the yew as a womb) and Fer hI, 'Man of Yew' (the origin of the word Fairy perhaps!) Yewshamanic skills at this level involve developing the ability to align with the spiritual intelligence of this Sidhe ancestor as it relates to the original otherworldly gesture and healing force of the heart. We learn to experience this ancestor being as a key function of our wholeness. This is known as the Embodiment of the Yew Mysteries.

Chambers of the Eternal. At this stage of the Yew Mysteries the student is led to use their senses differently through working with specific ‘chambers’ in the body - what I refer to as the Chambers of the Eternal - including the heart and the third ventricle within the head. These chambers function as doorways into a level of ‘sensing’ that is not coupled to the activity of the physical senses. The student then gains the capacity for an ‘original sensing’ that is brought together with a subtle use of the hands as a healing practice. Within the Yew Mysteries this is known as working with the Original Light.

The Dragon Body. The Dragon Body is the original ‘body’ of a human being. It is not physical in the way that we read the physical world around us. Our senses deepen and become less and less bound to the physical body and its patterned responses as we get reconnected over a period of time to an experience of the original body in Spirit - The Dragon Body. At this level the student begins to have a different experience of the function of the Heart as a spiritual organ. This stage represents what I refer to as the Holy Path of the Dragon - a path that takes us into the livingness of what we call Death. This knowledge was preserved within the Yew Mysteries and involves a body of direct teachings from the Shining Ones. Within the Yew Mysteries this is known as the Shining Land of Death.