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THE CURRICULUM
HOW THE TRAINING UNFOLDS
THE SACRED HEALING SCHOOL OF ANCESTRAL MEDICINE
A real apprenticeship in the craft of holding sacred space, walked week by week over roughly a year, with real supervised ceremonies, personal mentorship, and a lineage that holds you for life.
WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT
Most facilitator trainings are studied online, teach facilitation as information, and hand out a certificate at the end. This is something else.
Here you actually apprentice. You receive the medicine, you serve beside Danny, and you lead your own ceremonies under a mentor's eye before you ever go out on your own. What follows is the whole path, laid out honestly, so you can see exactly what you would be walking into.
BEYOND ANY OTHER PROGRAM
EIGHT PROMISES, NOT EIGHT FEATURES
Having looked closely at how the leading programs are built, here is what sets this school apart. These are not selling points. They are commitments.
01
A REAL APPRENTICESHIP
Almost no other program can let a student serve real medicine to real people. Here you do. You receive, you co-serve beside Danny, and you lead under a mentor's eye, before you ever go out on your own.
04
THE SAFE AND ETHICAL SCHOOL
This field has a real shadow. We are openly, rigorously honest about consent, boundaries, power, and accountability, with living structures, not a single ethics lecture. In a world with trust problems, we are the trustworthy.
07
VOCATION, NOT JUST KNOWLEDGE
We teach you how to actually live this: build your own container, carry yourself as a public servant of medicine, and stand on your own. The Sacred Ministry Set-Up is part of this arc.
02
INTEGRATION MASTERY
Most programs teach the ceremony and skimp the part that decides whether a life actually changes. We make integration a signature strength: the long arc, the hard cases, and telling spiritual emergence from emergency.
05
TRUE LINEAGE AND RECIPROCITY
Real elders and tradition-keepers, genuine transmission, and a practice of giving back to the source communities. Authenticity that cannot be faked.
08
HELD FOR LIFE
Others sell a certificate and end the relationship. You join a living lineage with lifelong supervision, a place to keep serving, and a circle that holds you for good.
03
THE FACILITATOR AS INSTRUMENT
Because the circle is only six to eight, you are mentored personally and do real work on your own nervous system, shadow, and presence. In the founding circle you apprentice directly under Danny himself.
06
THE LIVING TOOLKIT
You graduate with the actual operating system of a safe practice: screening and consent frameworks, integration protocols, music and ceremony templates, and emergency plans. You do not start from scratch.
And two commitments that hold all of it: the credential is earned by demonstrated skill, not by attendance.
And admission is by calling, not by who can pay.
THE WEEKLY RHYTHM
THE SAME FOUR PARTS, EVERY WEEK
Every week moves through the same shape, roughly four hours, so the rhythm becomes familiar and livable.
01
GUIDED STUDY
About 90 minutes, on your own time. A recorded teaching, reading, or listening, released at the start of the week.
04
REFLECTION
About 20 minutes. A short written or recorded integration, kept in your living portfolio.
02
THE WEDNESDAY CIRCLE
Two hours, live, 5:00 to 7:00 PM Pacific, always recorded. The heartbeat of the school: teaching, discussion, demonstration, and live practice together.
03
PRACTICE OR EMBODIMENT
About 30 to 45 minutes. A hands-on exercise that puts the week's teaching into the body.
Personal mentorship. From week one you are mentored one to one, with regular personal check-ins all the way through. In the founding circle, that mentor is Danny himself. As the school grows, graduates who reach the Servant of the Medicine tier become mentors for the cohorts that follow.
The living toolkit. Each module hands you real, usable tools, forms, scripts, protocols, and templates, that you keep and carry into your own practice.
Integration weeks. Every third or fourth week is an integration week: rest, a peer pod, and time for the learning to land. Integration is where the craft takes root, so it is built into the calendar, not squeezed around it.
THE JOURNEY
THREE PHASES, ONE PATH
You begin with a shared foundation, choose the medicine you are called to serve, and, for those called to carry the lineage, go on to mastery.
PHASE ONE · ABOUT 4 TO 5 MONTHS
FOUNDATIONS
Earns: Ceremonial Steward
The shared core everyone completes first, medicine-agnostic, the craft of the container itself. Roughly eighteen live weeks, closing with an in-person intensive at the Sacred Desert Sanctuary.
PHASE TWO · ABOUT 6 TO 8 MONTHS
YOUR SPECIALTY TRACK
Earns: Sacred Healing Facilitator
You choose the medicine you are called to serve and walk the living progression: receive, co-facilitate, facilitate. Real ceremonies, real people, real feedback, paced to the sanctuary's calendar.
PHASE THREE · OPTIONAL, 12 TO 24 MONTH
MASTERY
Earns: Servant of the Medicine
For those called to serve independently and carry the lineage. A second specialty, ongoing mentorship hours, and a real teaching contribution to the next cohort. Where a graduate becomes a mentor.
PHASE ONE, IN FULL
FOUNDATIONS, WEEK BY WEEK
Eight modules, taught across roughly eighteen live weeks, then gathered into the body at the in-person intensive. This is the shared craft that lives beneath every medicine.
01
Lineage, Cosmology, and the Sacred Frame
Week 1 · Arriving: The Circle, the Covenant, and Your Mentor
The school's vision and covenant, and what "servant of the medicine" means. The cohort forms, you meet your mentor, and we set the container for the year together. You write your "why," the stirring that brought you here.
Week 2 · Whose Shoulders We Stand On
The Indigenous and ancestral roots of each medicine, and honoring a lineage versus appropriating it. A live teaching from a guest elder or tradition-keeper, and our responsibility to give back to the source. This is transmission, not a lecture.
Week 3 · What a Sacred Container Truly Is
The ceremonial worldview: set, setting, intention, reverence, and what separates ceremony from consumption. Danny teaches the frame the sanctuary already runs on. Toolkit · Container Blueprint
02
The Facilitator as Instrument
Week 4 · Why the Servant Must Be Well
Fill your cup first. Why the facilitator's own ongoing practice is not optional. Your relationship to the medicine, to service, and to your own unhealed places. Your mentor helps you set a personal practice for the year.
Week 5 · Shadow, Ego, and the Healer Archetype
Shadow work, countertransference and projection, and the seduction and shadow of the "healer" role. Where power quietly corrupts, and humility as a practice. A shadow inventory with your mentor.
Week 6 · The Regulated Body
Your own nervous system as the instrument: regulation, co-regulation, and the felt sense. You can only hold others as steadily as you can hold yourself. A somatic practice you will use before every ceremony you ever hold.
Week 7 · Integration Week
Rest, peer pod, mentor check-in. No new material.
03
Holding Space
Week 8 · Presence and Non-Directive Support
Presence as the primary tool, the art of not fixing, and following rather than leading. Live practice: staying present while another person is activated, and knowing when to speak and when to stay silent.
Week 9 · Working with the Terrain: Fear, Grief, Catharsis, Bliss
Meeting the full range of what arises, on trauma-informed foundations. How to be with terror, with rage, with rapture, without flinching or steering. Demonstration and live coaching.
Week 10 · Music, Voice, Touch, and Silence
The tools of the container: music and the emotional arc, the voice, consented touch, and silence. Building a ceremonial soundscape, and the ethics and mechanics of touch. Toolkit · Music Framework + Consent-for-Touch Protocol
Week 11 · Integration Week
Rest, peer pod, mentor check-in.
04
Screening and Safety
Week 12 · Reading Readiness and Contraindication
How the medicines move through the body and mind, and physical, psychological, and medication-related contraindications, taught as safety and screening, never as medical treatment or diagnosis. The screening conversation, red and yellow flags, and the courage to say "not yet. "Toolkit · Screening and Intake Framework
Week 13 · Consent, Scope, and When to Refer
Genuine informed consent, scope of practice, and the truth that a server of ceremony is not a doctor or therapist. The edges of the role, and building a real referral network .Toolkit · Informed Consent + Scope-of-Practice Statement
05
Preparation and the Ceremonial Arc
Week 14 · The Preparation Call and Intention
The one-on-one preparation call, intention and expectation setting, and the dieta and its purpose. Live practice of a preparation call, with feedback .Toolkit · Preparation Call Guide + Dieta Handout
Week 15 · Opening, Holding, and Closing the Container
The ritual grammar of ceremony: building, holding, and closing with care. The full ceremonial arc, start to finish, as Danny holds it. You sketch and rehearse the arc of a ceremony you would hold.
06
Integration Mastery · our signature strength
Week 16 · Where Healing Lands
Why integration is where the medicine becomes real, and turning insight into lived change. Holding an integration conversation, and serving integration as skillfully as ceremony .Toolkit · Integration Session Framework + Worksheets
Week 17 · The Long Arc, the Hard Cases, and Spiritual Emergence
Integration over months, not days. Difficult and extended integration, and telling spiritual emergence from spiritual emergency and what each one needs. Recognizing when someone needs a therapist, not a facilitator, and how to make that handoff with love.
07
Ethics, Power, and the Safety of the Field
Week 18 · The Ethics of Holding Power, and the Shadow of This Work
The power differential, sexual ethics and clear boundaries, and money, dependency, and dual relationships. An honest look at the real harms that have happened in this field, so we never repeat them. The Sacred Healing Code of Ethics, line by line, and how our accountability and peer-review structure will hold you, for life. Toolkit · Code of Ethics + Accountability Agreement
08
Emergency and Crisis Response
Week 19 · Keeping People Safe
Medical versus psychological emergencies, de-escalation, and when and how to activate outside help. Emergency drills, step by step, until the response is automatic. CPR and Basic Life Support certification is required and arranged around this week.Toolkit · Emergency Protocol + Escalation Plan
THE FOUNDATIONS INTENSIVE
Four to five days, in person at the Sacred Desert Sanctuary. Everything comes together in the body. You practice holding space, ceremony mechanics, and emergency drills in the real setting; sit your own guided journey and are held through your own integration; and are evaluated in person, hands on, by Danny and the teaching team.
MILESTONE: CEREMONIAL STEWARD, CONFERRED BY DEMONSTRATED COMPETENCY.
PHASE TWO THE SACRED PROGRESSION
RECEIVE, CO-FACILITATE, FACILITATE
You choose the medicine you are called to serve, and walk it through a living progression, in order. This is the part almost no other school can offer: real ceremonies, real people, real feedback. Your mentor and Wednesday circles continue throughout, now as supervision and case consultation.
I
Receive the Medicine
You journey with your chosen medicine yourself, at the sanctuary, and are held through your own integration. This is the ground of everything.
II
Co-facilitate
You serve alongside Danny across real ceremonies. First observing, then holding pieces of the container under direct supervision, with structured feedback after each one.
III
Facilitate Under Supervision
When you are ready, and only when you are ready, you lead ceremonies of your own with Danny present and evaluating, followed by a formal review. "Not yet" is a complete and loving answer.
Milestone: Sacred Healing Facilitator, in your chosen medicine. You have genuinely served, not simulated.
OUR STANDARD
A FLOOR, NOT A FINISH LINE
The numbers above are minimums, not targets, and never a maximum. Think of how a pilot earns their wings. The law sets a floor of forty flight hours, but almost no one is truly ready at forty. Most need sixty or seventy before they can land the plane at night, in a crosswind, when something goes wrong.
No honest instructor signs off a pilot who cannot land safely, no matter what the logbook says. We hold that same standard. You advance when you can hold the container safely and well, and not a moment before. The most intense medicines carry higher minimums, and we will never put someone in the seat of a ceremony who is not truly ready to hold it.
READINESS, NOT A NUMBER, IS ALWAYS THE FINAL WORD.
THE VOCATION AND LIVELIHOOD ARC
HOW TO ACTUALLY LIVE THIS
This is what nearly every other program leaves out entirely. Woven through the last stretch of Phase Two, running alongside your final ceremonies, is a set of teachings on standing on your own with integrity.
Building your own container. Setting up your space, your circle, and your rhythm.
Ethical livelihood. Pricing with integrity, holding money cleanly, and avoiding the traps of dependency and guru dynamics.
Finding and screening your own people. Carrying the screening and consent practices into your own work.
Operations and care. The real logistics of holding ceremony safely and responsibly.
The Sacred Ministry Set-Up. Hands-on support to prepare your own California religious filing and obtain your federal EIN, so you are set up properly from day one.
Going public with integrity. How to speak about this work honestly and safely.
Please note: We are not attorneys, and this is not legal advice. The Ministry Set-Up is administrative and educational support to help you prepare your own filing. A religious filing establishes an entity and the EIN is issued federally; it does not by itself grant legal permission to serve any particular medicine. For legal questions specific to your situation, work with a qualified attorney.
BEYOND GRADUATION
THE LIVING LINEAGE, FOR LIFE
Graduation is a beginning, not an ending. Every graduate is held, for good.
Lifelong supervision and case consultation. A place to bring the hard cases, always.
Keep serving at the sanctuary. Continue to co-serve real ceremonies to stay sharp and connected while you build your own path.
The accountability and peer-review circle. A living structure that keeps every one of us honest and safe, so the lineage stays trustworthy.
Continuing education and refreshers. The learning never closes.
Reciprocity. An ongoing practice of giving back to the source communities the medicines come from.
Community. A vetted circle of facilitators who carry this work with reverence, together.
THE HOURS, COUNTED HONESTLY
ABOUT 300 TO 350 HOURS
A serious path, counted hour for hour. The live Wednesday circle is the through-line of the whole journey: it meets across both Foundations and your specialty track, roughly 40 to 45 meeting weeks over the year, which is where its 80 to 90 hours come from. It does not end when Foundations does.
ELEMENT
APPROX. HOURS
Live Wednesday circles both phases, ~40 to 45 weeks
80 to 90
Guided self-studyy
55 to 65
One-to-one mentorship
15 to 25
Peer pods and integration circles
25
In-person intensives and ceremony
80 to 100
Supervised practicum
40 to 50
Total
about 300 to 350
That places this training above what state-regulated facilitator programs require, and beyond the most respected non-regulated trainings, because ours includes real supervised serving, a named mentor, and a lifelong lineage that the others do not.
HOW THIS WORKS
EARNED BY SKILL. ADMITTED BY CALLING.
HOW YOU ARE ASSESSED
Progress is demonstrated, not just attended.
Skill. Direct supervised evaluation of your co-facilitation and your own ceremonies.
Knowledge. Module reflections and a written integration of the curriculum, depth over rote.
The living portfolio. Documented journeys, practicum hours, integration work, and feedback, a record you carry forward.
A credential can be withheld or paused. "Not yet" is a complete and loving answer.
ADMISSION, BY CALLING
Intimate cohorts of six to eight, admitted by calling and readiness, not by who can pay.
Prior ceremony experience is required.
A written application tells us your story and your why.
An interview is a real conversation, both ways.
References speak to your character and readiness.
Selectivity is not exclusion for its own sake. It is how a school becomes a lineage the community trusts.
DATES
WE INITIATE ON THE AUTUMN EQUINOX
September 22, 2026
The day light and dark stand in balance. Foundations opens online, with the first in-person intensive at the sanctuary in the season that follows. Founding seats are limited, and enrollment closes when they are filled.