Sacred Passage Guides

Howard “Bud” Wilson

Bud Wilson is a qualified Wilderness Guide. Bud completed a 49-day Awareness Intensive training with a 28-day solo in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Colorado. Following this training, Bud completed a rigorous 108-day Awareness Training and pilgrimage, studying and meditating in Sacred Sites throughout Asia and Indonesia. This included a 40-day solo vision quest in the mountains of Arizona.

He graduated from Harvard with an interdisciplinary degree in Social Relations. Bud pursued additional studies at the Graduate School of Education in innovative learning systems. He spent several years studying Ontological Design (the essence of being) with Dr. Fernando Flores combined with frequent participation in seminars at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. He applied much of this experience as assistant to the Director of The Global Youth Summit in Rio de Janeiro during the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.

For more than a decade, Bud was director of conferences & National Sales Director for Snowmass Village, Colorado, he coordinated and led personal growth seminars, continuing education programs, and international conferences. From 1999 to 2001 Bud Wilson served as Founding Executive Director of Earth Walk, Nature Centered Life Learning. As Director of Marketing and Development and a member of the top management team for John Denver's Windstar Foundation, Bud co-designed "State of our Planet", a multi-media presentation based on the World Game concepts of R. Buckminster Fuller. Consistent with Bud's commitment to raise awareness, he developed an environmental education program (Eco Action) and managed a Federal Grant from the EPA for Rotary International's Preserve Planet Earth Campaign. He also provided professional services to Outward Bound's addiction recovery program. Bud is a listed member of the 2001 edition of the International Who's Who in Public Service & a Wilderness First Responder.

Sarah Sher

Sarah Sher did her first Sacred Passage in 1994 in the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona and has been immersed into the mysteries and teachings of Mother Earth ever since. You can usually find Sarah in one of Sacred Passage’s base camps throughout the year.

As a means of documenting and disseminating the essence of the Sacred Passage trainings, Sarah and John P. Milton created The Way of Nature Productions. Their first project is on Qi Qong — a DVD box set with an accompanying book. Sounds True is releasing this 3 DVD package the summer of 2005.

Sarah received her BFA in Film at the School of Visual Arts, NY and continued her education at the American Film Institute. She started her career as a Script Coordinator for Warner Bros. Television in 1990 on “Head of the Class” and remained in the writing department for the next 6 years. Since then, she has written two features, two pilots and four documentaries before starting her own production company in 2000.

Bill Smith

Bill Smith is John P. Milton’s senior Tai Chi student. He’s been studying the art of Tai Chi Chuan for over 18 years and has been a full-time professional instructor for 12 years. His teaching venues have included Sacred Passage programs, a renowned health club, the University of Florida and various acupuncture colleges. He frequently organizes and hosts Tai Chi seminars, lectures and public demonstrations. Bill has completed Sacred Passages in Colorado, Arizona and Baja. He is a member of the 4-year Sacred Passage Advanced Awareness Training. He works to bring the insights of his Sacred Passage experiences into his teaching by emphasizing Tai Chi as a way to deepen the student’s connection with the Earth.

Bill has received initiations and instruction in Tantra, Dzogchen, Taoist Yoga and Shamanic practices from John P. Milton, as well as other spiritual teachers. Bill is a traditional Usui Reiki Master and has studied energetic healing arts for most of his life. Bill’s clear communication and unique teaching style adds to his strength as a Sacred Passage guide.

Nikole Kadel

When she was 11 years old, Nikole Kadel won The President’s Environmental Youth Award for an environmental advocacy project she completed with her 6 th grade class. That early experience inspired Nikole to recognize that she had the ability and passion to make a difference for the planet she had come to love and appreciate so dearly. Since that time, Nikole’s focus has not deviated from her goal to give back to the Earth. Her high school classmates voted her ”Most likely to save the rainforest.” While in college, she won the prestigious Morris K. Udall scholarship for Environmental Policy Excellence. She completed an undergraduate honors research project about Florida’s Native American views of the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Project and graduated with highest honors and a B.A. in Environmental Science and Policy. She continued her higher education and earned a M.S. in Interdisciplinary Ecology with an emphasis in Environmental Education.

Nikole’s academic pursuits complete only part of the overall picture of her dedication to helping the Earth and her process of self-discovery. Her extensive Sacred Passage experiences have helped Nikole by balancing what she’s learned in the academic environment with lessons taught directly through Nature. Some of her best lessons have come by simply sitting against a tree and letting the tree show her what she needed to learn. Nikole believes that the Sacred Passage process is the ultimate level of “environmental education” because it emphasizes Nature as teacher and, as a result, the human students experience a deeply transformative connection with all of Nature.

Nikole is a member of the 4-year Sacred Passage Advanced Awareness Training. She is also a traditional Usui Reiki Master and has practiced the art of Tai Chi Chuan since 1999. In addition, she’s studied Dream Yoga and life-force retrieval with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche.

Carla Brennan

Carla Brennan has completed the Sacred Passage 49-day Intermediate Awareness Training as well as two 28-day solo Passages. A transpersonal psychotherapist and workshop leader, Carla focuses on ecopsychology, the study of the interface between the human psyche and the natural world. She has also directed a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program for nine years, teaching meditation, relaxation and breathing techniques, yoga, and qigong. Carla has studied intensively at the Insight Meditation Society, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and Cambridge Zen Center and with numerous meditation teachers including Jon Kabat-Zinn, Lama Surya Das and Jack Kornfield. She is also a graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander, Wyoming.

Carla is included in Not Mixing Up Buddhism: Essays on Women and Buddhist Practice and Turning the Wheel: American Women Creating the New Buddhism. An award-winning artist, her nature artwork can be found in the books Nature Drawing: A Tool for Learning and Keeping a Field Sketch Journal.

Active in the outdoors since childhood, Carla is a frequent hiker, camper, backpacker, kayaker and cross-country skier. She also enjoys identifying wildlife, animal tracks, wildflowers, and constellations. For the past year, Carla has taken off from her usual routines to focus on spiritual retreats and time in the wilderness.

Chris Willet

As long as I can remember, I’ve had a deep connection with the natural world. I have always enjoyed spending time in nature, whether it’s playing in the ocean, gliding down a snowy slope on skis, backpacking through an exotic place in Hawaii, or just sitting mindfully under a giant redwood tree. Nature has always been a source of renewal. Some of the practices I’ve been involved with are Zazen, Hatha Yoga, T’ai Chi (Yang and Wu forms), Rebirthing, Enlightenment Intensives, Tensengrity, Tantra, Clearing, Vision Quests and numerous other meditation techniques.

I met John P. Milton and did my first Sacred Passage in 1989. This had a profound effect on my consciousness, and my view of the natural world. Since then I have been studying with John and have attended many of his programs. I recently completed a year long international training with John that concluded with a 46-day Passage and leading a Sacred Passage group.

I am currently studying primitive skills and indigenous ways. I am also deeply concerned about the state of the planet. This has led me to be involved with organizations like Earth First and the Rainforest Action Network. I believe one way to reverse our destruction of the earth is to have people connect with Gaia directly. This can be achieved by spending time in a sacred way.

Roger Wharton

Roger Wharton has been introducing people to the out-of-doors since his teens. He has staffed and directed several children's summer camps, and as an undergraduate biology major planned and developed a small outdoor education park for the community of Westerville, Ohio. He taught in a residential outdoor education school, has developed land laboratories, and has done graduate work in outdoor/environmental education.

The world of nature has always been a place of great spiritual inspiration and opening for Roger, who also holds two advanced degrees in spirituality, and has been assisting people on their spiritual paths for over twenty-five years. Roger has known and studied with John P. Milton for over thirteen years, completing his Guide Training, as well as several 10-day Passages, and a 28-day Passage. He has guided individuals and groups in such diverse areas as Wisconsin, Michigan, the Adirondack Mountains, British Columbia, Alaska, and California.

Although Christianity has been a primary metaphor for Roger's spiritual exploration, he is familiar with many other spiritual traditions, and holds a special interest in Native American spirituality. He is currently working on establishing a Christian understanding of the twelve principles. Roger is open to all spiritual paths and enjoys listening, learning, and sharing stories of spiritual exploration. He holds a doctorate in Sacred Ecology and the Christian Nature Wisdom Tradition, and is currently a campus chaplain at San Jose State University.

Amy "Uma" Thompson

From an early age, Amy found the deepest levels of peace, well being, and communion within nature. Nature has always been the truest and deepest place of worship, the inner and outer cathedral, merging in oneness. Amy completed her first passage the late summer of 1999 in Crestone Colorado. During this initial passage, which served as a rite of passage into womanhood, Amy received a profound and life altering vision which is still being unwoven in her life to this day. Additionally, Amy was deeply called to an intimate relationship with the stones as well as the "stone people", which continues to spiral in ever wondrous lessons from the heart of Gaia.

In the spring of 2001, Amy traveled to Bali and Nepal, participating in some of the year-long Advanced Awareness Training intensive with John Milton. This training was a deep immersion in T'ai Chi, as well as advanced teachings and practices from Taoist cultivation, Zen Meditation, Tibetan Buddhism, Indian Tantra, and Dzogchen practice. This training also included a solo at 18,000 ft in the Annapurna Range Mountains in Nepal. This Training and solo was by far the most alchemical and deeply transformational experience of her life thus far. The Advanced Awareness Training concluded with a 21-day solo back in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Crestone, Colorado. In the summer of 2002, Amy assisted John’s midsummer Sacred Passage in Crestone Colorado.

Amy holds a B.A. in Women's Mysteries, Holistic Health, and Ecology from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. Amy's thesis for her degree was a deep immersion into the mysteries of the moon cycle and the menstrual cycle, and how this relates to the cycles of the Earth. Amy has a deep passion for understanding the connections between the mysteries of the earth and the mysteries of our bodies and the cycles of life and death.

Amy is also a practicing licensed Massage Therapist, Ayurvedic Postpartum Doula, Reiki Master, and Yoga teacher. She has been studying yoga intensively since 1992. Recently, Amy studied Aqua Alma (soul water), a practice of underwater body therapy, which helps to connect Beings to their soul and source.