STUDENT OF NATURE
photo by Robin Clark
Elizabeth Bast serves as a writer, certified yoga teacher, performance artist, Bwiti initiate & traditionally trained ceremonial facilitator, speaker/educator, & holistic coach specializing in sacred plant medicine support, spirit-led addiction recovery, & visionary life design. She is a lifelong devotee of plant medicine, ceremony, and prayer, having been raised within a long family line of plant healers and an inter-tribal community with traditional ceremony. Her greater intentions are to help facilitate 100% natural bliss, synergy between culture and nature, and conversations between the old & new ways of knowing. She studied at New College of San Francisco with an emphasis on Art and Social Change. Bast completed the transformational coach training program with Being True to You.
Bast is the author of HEART MEDICINE: A True Love Story, an intimate memoir about a healing experience with the African sacred medicine, iboga.
Bast is a recipient of a "Women of the Psychedelic Renaissance" grant from the psychedelic feminist organization Cosmic Sister and a member of Cosmic Sister's Expert Advisory Circle.
In 1993, Bast began a passionate practice of hatha yoga. In 2004, she completed the Interdisciplinary Hatha Yoga Teacher Training at the Nosara Yoga Institute. In 2010, she completed the Anusara Yoga Teacher Training through Katchie Ananda. She continues to study teachings of the Sri-Vidya sakta tantra tradition through Janice Craig.
Since 2007, she has lived and co-created with artist Chor Boogie. Together, they have produced numerous collaborations of visual and performance art at galleries, museums, and special events.
After their healing experience with iboga, Bast and Chor Boogie were inspired to give back. In December 2014, the couple traveled to Gabon, Africa, where they began their iboga provider training and experienced a traditional Bwiti initiation, Rite of Passage, and wedding. They are educators and activists for iboga, sacred medicine sustainability, the Bwiti tradition, drug policy reform, and holistic addiction treatment. They serve as iboga providers with the SOULCENTRO team.
Bast is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area & Costa Rica.
MY STORY
I was brought to the medicine on my knees... The love of my life experienced an opiate relapse, and I was desperate to help him... I discovered that statistics for addiction recovery in mainstream treatment models are abysmal. Then, I felt a spiritually guided call to the iboga medicine... and I learned that though we cannot "save anyone," we can create opportunities for people to save themselves. As I learned more about the medicine, it called to me for my own growth and recovery—being a survivor of abuse, PTSD, & eating disorders... Our first journey with iboga was one of the most beautiful, arduous, and miraculous events I have ever experienced. It was radically healing. |
I also realized that medicine work is NOT a magic bullet...
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EMOTIONAL ALCHEMY:
A 6 STEP PRACTICE FOR TRANSMUTING CHALLENGING EMOTIONS
EMOTIONAL ALCHEMY:
A 6 STEP PRACTICE FOR TRANSMUTING CHALLENGING EMOTIONS