Bekki Shining Bearheart, LMT and Crow Swimsaway, PhD founded the Church and incorporated it with the State of Ohio on December 17, 1990. They have served as its primary clergy and have been responsible for training and ordaining others to serve the ministry of the Church. Bekki continues to serve in these capacities, and has ordained additional ministers to continue the church’s mission.

Bekki and Crow were led to the path of shamanic healing by Spirit and both have spent many years seeking understanding through personal practice and on rare occasions training with outstanding teachers. Their eclectic shamanic practices draw on the commonalities of shamanism throughout the world, informed by the ancestors and other helping spirits, and the teachings they have received from the spirits they have been privileged to work with.

Bekki continues the work of the Church since Crow’s death in 2018. She offers the major traditional methods of shamanic healing, and teaches students at all levels from introductory to advanced practitioner.

Shamanic journey work is an excellent tool for self-empowerment and self-healing. It is transformative on its own and an effective compliment to other healing methods. The shamanic path is a profound entryway into Spirit, and is the foundation of the church’s work.

Rev. Bekki

Bekki’s earliest memories of her awareness of Spirit being rooted in Nature began at age 2. In her early teens she developed a strong bent toward mysticism. At 14 she was beginning to study metaphysics and teaching herself astrology. By 1973 she was doing chart-reading for others, and in 1980 she began to teach astrology. In 2004 she began to study Vedic (Hindu) astrology, finding it broadened and deepened her perspective.

During her freshman year of college (1972) she was given her first tarot deck by a friend and still reads and uses the cards for self-understanding and guidance. Currently she is immersed in painting and writing a guidebook for a shamanic healing tarot.

She first became interested in massage and body-centered therapies in college. Trading massage strengthened friendships and helped de-stress; involvement in an encounter group devoted to bioenergetics, a body-centered psychotherapy, helped weather the vicissitudes of relationships, school, and life. She trained as a massage therapist in 1998, and took a course in Structural Therapy (a Rolfing system) at the Chicago Center for Psychophysical Healing in 2000-2001. She currently maintains her massage license in Ohio.

In 1994 Bekki began to work with medicinal herbs to manage her health and currently maintains extensive herb gardens at her home in Ithaca as well as at Dragon Waters, her previous home in Ohio.

In spring of 1980 she met Crow Swimsaway and they were married in September of that year. They shared their interest in metaphysics, the occult, earth spirituality, and religions and shamanism daily and through the founding of the Church of Earth Healing. Shamanic healing and practice, the ancient world-wide tradition of spirit healing, is the basis of the work of the Church. They dissolved their marriage in 2014, but continued their work of teaching and healing and their ministry both together and separately till Crow’s death in 2018. Bekki continues the work of the Church today, teaching, ministering, and maintaining a shamanic healing practice.

Bekki’s ceremonial orientation is spirit-led, through shamanic guidance by her helping spirits and a deep connection with god/desses of several pantheons. You can find more information on all of her services on this web site. Other clergy are also available to work with you.

Associate Clergy

In 2005 Bekki and Crow initiated their first formal ministerial training. Requirements for entering this training are completion of the Shamanic Healing Apprenticeship or the former Two-Week Intensive Healing Training and certification as a shamanic healer, and permission of the instructors.

Graduates of the Church of Earth Healing ministerial training can be registered as legal ministers in the state of Ohio, and may be registered in their home state. They are considered Associate Ministers of the Church and are qualified to officiate at weddings and other rites of passage, and to engage in pastoral counseling. Bekki has trained three new ministers in January of 2022- watch this page for updates.

Aria Walker

Aria Walker began studying with Bekki and Crow in 1991, attended regular drumming circles, and completed the Certified Shamanic Practitioner program a few years later. In 2005, she became the only reverend ordained by Bekki and Crow together through the Church of Earth Healing.

Aria continues to offer ceremony, meditation, shamanic practice, energy work, and other healing, both in-person and long-distance.

She offers ally and ancestor sessions, depossession, soul retrieval, and psychopomp focus as led by her allies.

Aria’s work has been guided by a lifelong relationship with Spirit and the natural world. She graduated with honors from the Boulder School of Massage, Colorado, and completed her Master’s Degree in Acupuncture, East Asian medicine, and Chinese herbs at Academy for Five Element Acupuncture, Florida.

Through the years, Aria studied with many additional teachers including Ohio herbalist Cindy Parker, Sandra Ingerman through the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, a circle in Southern California for five years, various martial arts including Tai Chi and Qi Gong, R.J. Stewart workshops, and ceremonial work in indigenous lands across the United States and Mexico. Aria taught full-time as a massage instructor, and various workshops including Usui and Karuna Reiki.

In 2017, Aria sold her acupuncture practice and left from Portland by motorcycle on sabbatical into Mexico. She walked the Camino de Santiago de Compostela from Switzerland across France and on to Muxia and Finisterre, Spain. While traveling, Aria worked with colleagues around the world including Dr. Daniel Foor’s ancestral healing class in Australia, healing exchanges through Acupuncturists Without Borders in Israel/Palestine and Mexico, classes with Sarah Gress and Maria Cristina in Germany, and yoga teacher training at Body-Mind-Life in Sydney. After two years on the road, Aria bought a small house on the sea in Baja Sur.

When she is not out in nature, Aria can be reached through her website TouchofaHealer.com or via WhatsApp +1-503-374-5242.

Sidonia Nightsky

Sidonia met Bekki and Crow in 2001, at the Blackwater, VA Gathering of the Tribes festival, when she became interested in their shamanic training. A few years later, she completed their Certified Shamanic Practitioner training, a two-week intensive program.   

Already a licensed polytheist minister registered in Ohio, she continued training with Bekki Shining Bearheart and in 2022 became an associate minister of the Church of Earth Healing.

My ministry and beliefs as I see them are polytheist/animistic– ancestral religion of the whole of humanity.  My shamanic practice is not a religion, it is how I work with the deities and allies. Besides being a strong shamanic healer, I feel called to “Spirit” to work, serve, teach, and mentor.

– Sidonia Nightsky

The ministerial training is another step towards being of spiritual service to her community—reaching out to more like minds and to people seeking spiritual security or answering a call of spirit. 

Over Sidonia’s lifetime, after seeing the effects of abuse to children and women, violence (not limited to women), human trafficking, and other human abusive acts, she resolved to offer victims resources and a chance to feel safe in the world, improving their health and wellbeing. She now provides non-denominational consultation, shamanic care, and empowerment.  

Sidonia offers ceremony (marriages, baptisms, and other rites of passage), meditation, forest bathing, and foraging for sustainability (in the Hocking Hills, Southern Ohio, and neighboring areas).  She is available for spiritual counseling, reiki, divination, de-possession, soul retrieval, and psychopomp practices. Sidonia is led by her gods and allies.

She is the founder of the Shamanic Wise Woman blog, and the Facebook group Shamanic Wise Women.

(c) Sidonia Nightsky

Sidonia is also known for the portable shamanic altars and icons she paints.  Part of the proceeds goes to Ohio Domestic Violence Network.

The benefits that people enjoy of my ministry are honoring— spirit in your own personal way, human rights, learning respect and responsibility for the earth, and equality. 

The Ohio COEH ministry and outreach programs offerings are many, from volunteer work to holding coffee/tea meet ups.  Women’s socials, clothing swaps, book reading, public ritual or gatherings, COEH offers brochures for services, our classes, and several other possibilities are open for making our community grow.  

For a list of services, classes, and resources, or to donate to survivors of domestic violence, contact gmaspider@gmail.com.

babsi

babsi began her shamanic studies with Bekki and Crow in 2012. Always deeply connected to Nature and with a strong desire to strengthen her relationship to Spirit, babsi immediately felt at home with the shamanic approach.

After completing the fundamentals and ancestor workshops, she proceeded to take every weekend workshop taught by Bekki and Crow, some of them more than once. Whenever she was in town, babsi also attended the shamanic drumming circle in Athens, Ohio.

When Crow offered his first yearlong apprenticeship training, she jumped at the opportunity to deepen her shamanic skills.  babsi continues to pursue her shamanic studies and completed training to become a minister for the Church of Earth Healing in January 2022.

babsi is available for the following services:

  • Counseling/shamanic healing/ecotherapy
  • Ceremonies (life stage celebrations, such as coming-of-age, weddings, etc.), rituals (seasonal), women’s circle, shamanic study group (reading circle), teaching engagements

Contact: texts only @ (734) 447-8909 – no other use, please.

Betti Rooted Lionheart

My purpose for being embodied on the Planet at this time is to love the Earth. I love the Earth by helping others heal and re-connect to themselves, to the Earth, to Spirit, to Beauty, to Purpose, to Truth and to Each Other. I have dedicated my life to knowing and sharing the Oneness of All Life. I help others become who they are meant to be, and in supporting this work in others, I am helping them to also love and heal the Earth, to know and embody the Oneness.

I felt deeply connected to and deeply grieved for our Earth from the age of seven. Without a Spiritual foundation or mentors, I spent most of my life in despair and depression, desperately seeking some way to help save the Earth from the harm the human species is doing to Her.

My journey led me to a BA in Environmental Studies (2000, Florida State University) with an emphasis on global hunger. I trained as an organic farmer at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (2002-2003, UC Santa Cruz) where I met the father of my two children. I earned an MA in Geography (2005, Clark University) with an emphasis in global food systems studies.

The dream of creating a farm-based intentional community where we could become adequately self-sufficient to survive collapse of the modern human systems upon which we rely and which are destroying life on our planet led my family to leave Northern California to settle in Trumansburg, New York in 2010.

By 2015 we had failed at farming, at intentional community, and at establishing any degree of self-sufficiency. These were the worst, most difficult years of my life. I hit bottom. And I am grateful. Because I chose to place both feet firmly onto a path of healing.

I met Bekki in December of 2015 and in January 2016 the amazing, life changing world of the Shamanic Journey and connection to Spirit opened up to me. I have been healing, growing, transforming, and manifesting ever since. I became a facilitator of the Work That Reconnects in 2016 (www.braidingtruth.org), a Shamanic Healer in 2019, and becoming a Minister of the Church of Earth Healing in January of 2022 was the next deeper step along my path to manifesting my higher purpose for being on the planet at this critical time of planetary upheaval.

Through MoonWise EarthWalks Healing (www.moonwiseearthwalks.org) I seek to help transform the Earth one heart at a time by offering my Shamanic healing and ministerial work to individuals.

In co-creation with other amazing healers, I am manifesting Braided Root Waters Healing Sanctuary on the land that I have loved and stewarded since 2010. We plan to offer:

  • Weekly Shamanic Drumming and Fire Circle
  • Quarter and cross-quarter fire rituals
  • Moon cycle rituals (fire, music, dance at night)
  • Shamanic Workshops:
    • Learning to Shamanic Journey
    • Connecting with Core Allies (self-knowledge, path, purpose work)
    • Earth Keeper Apprenticeship (about deep connection to self, Mother Earth, Grandmother Moon, Grandfather Sun, Father Sky and doing/bringing ritual work meaningfully into one’s life)
  • Experiential Immersion Workshops (weekend to weeklong workshops that combine guided shamanic journeying, healing, ritual and ceremony, deep listening, decolonization, despair and grief work)
  • Rites of Passage (especially puberty rites, dying and death rites)
  • Turtle Healing Lodge healing ceremonies (primal shamanic multi-practitioner group healing)