
Sacred Counsel
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a Holistic Support System for inspired living
& Responsible Allyship With Plant Medicine.
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Our Team
Meet the Sacred Counsel core team - a cohort of long-time friends, professional colleagues, and soul family. Our unified intention is to bring together our diversity of skills, backgrounds and areas of expertise to provide an integrated network of support that is truly unique - and yet, very simple.
You may book hourly sessions with the team member of your choice directly on this page. For more comprehensive offerings, we invite you to explore our Coaching Programs.

Co-Founder, Integration Guide
Alexa Ellis, MA, LMHC
With a highly personalized and heart-centered approach, Alexa will empower you with the tools and practices essential for continued growth and self-discovery. Through both talk therapy and experiential based mindfulness, Alexa utilizes modalities of Depth Psychology, Internal Family Systems, Relational/ Cultural, and Yin Yoga Therapy with techniques of nervous system entrainment, neuroscience-psychoeducation, and the appropriate implementation of mythology, ritual, and ancestral connection.
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Alexa holds Masters in Holistic Counseling & Eco-Expressive Arts & a Bachelor degree in Humanistic Psychology from Brown University). For over 10 years, Alexa has been on the path of ritual healing, grief processing, and plant medicine.
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Areas of Expertise
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Psychedelic Preparation & Integration
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Creativity & Expressive Arts
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Grief companion
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Ceremony facilitator

Co-Founder, Integrative Health Practitioner
Luke DeStefano, IHP2
Luke is a ceremony facilitator and retreat director with over 10 years experience in creating safe spaces for group and individual healing. WIth a diverse background in the healing arts, he brings a grounded understanding of holistic wellness.
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Beyond his work in ceremony, Luke serves as an Integrative Health Practitioner, Kambo facilitator, massage therapist, breath-worker, QiGong & meditation guide. As an initiate of the Dharma Mountain lineage of Mahayana Buddhism, he leads with compassion with the conviction that all sentient beings have the capacity to find true liberation. His passion for the sacred healing arts have led him to immersive studies in Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Nepal, Costa Rica, Mexico, Guatemala, and the United States.
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Areas of Expertise:
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Ceremony & Retreat Facilitation
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Diet & Nutrition
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Functional Medicine Lab Testing
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Breathwork, Meditation & QiGong
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Integration Guide
Moses Draper
Moses is an inner work facilitator focused on the embodied wisdom in each individual and moment. He brings a wealth of experience in body-based psychotherapy, plant medicine work, awareness practices, nature connection & expressive arts. Through these, he offers a holistic approach to gentle, client-centered healing & transformation that can be integrated into daily life
Moses has been influenced by many teachers and mentors, including Sam Turton, a trauma-informed psychotherapist, Keith Wilson, Cacao Ceremonialist, Bill Pfeiffer, author & teacher & Mark Morey, naturalist & speaker.
Areas of Expertise:
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Trauma integration
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Community Leadership
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Business & Entrepreneurship
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Cacao Facilitation Training
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Rites of Passage/Life Stage Transitions
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Off-grid Living
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Natural Parenting
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Integration Guide
Malerie Schwartz, LMHC
Malerie Schwartz is a licensed psychotherapist specializing in somatic, trauma informed healing. With 10+ years of experience, training and her own relationship with various spirit medicines she has cultivated an approach of embodiment and non judgement to help clear a path for your unfolding.
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She offers integration coaching sessions that utilize a unique blend of Hakomi and Internal Family Systems therapy (IFS). These are two mindfulness based modalities that have been proven to gently and intuitively integrate peak experiences and help to heal traumas by befriending the parts that are inside of us. Through this assisted self study we are able to cultivate self love, build relationships with our inner children, rewire core beliefs, and dissolve blocks to our systems natural healing process.
Malerie also specializes in EMDR therapy which helps to process traumatic memories using bilateral stimulation.
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Areas of expertise:
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Trauma
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Internal Family Systems (IFS)
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EMDR
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Voice Activation

Fitness Guide
DeMel Tarver
DeMel Tarver is a renowned personal trainer, coach, and athlete with a specialized methodology (Fitness Flowsate) for achieving peak physical performance. Born into a legacy of professional athletes, training became a way for DeMel to fully experience life and stay ready for the opportunities inside of its challenges.
Inspired by Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders, and Bruce Lee, who are considered by many to be known as the greatest athletes of all time, DeMel began to realize the intersection of how all movement disciplines harmonize together.
His mission is to help clients achieve their highest potential, to experience what their mind~bodies are truly capable of. With DeMel's professional guidance, you will learn to train smarter, go harder, to become more effective, resilient, confident and healthy to meet and exceed your life and fitness goals.
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Areas of expertise:
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Physical Fitness
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Body Transformation
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Self Confidence
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Routine Building

Heart / Mind Coherence
Kate Manuell
Kate Manuell is a Somatic Practitioner + Resonance Embodiment Therapist. From her experience teaching Yoga for 8 years and working clinically treating TBI's to CPTSD in a Neurofeedback clinic, Kate delights in blending multiple modalities to create authentic transformation in her clients lives.
Blending Clinical Somatics + Biofeedback training with the emotional human experience, Kate creates a container of holistic bottom-up healing, resourcing and processing. Integration happens in play. Focusing on the states of the nervous system, we work together to facilitate subtle tectonic shifts in the body/mind/spirit.
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Areas of expertise:
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Brain Wave Analysis
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Heart / Mind Coherence
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Neurofeedback
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Medical & Safety
Monica Jain, MD
Monica is a family medicine physician and works as an integrative and holistic primary care doctor. She completed a two-year herbal apprenticeship and practices yoga, Ayurveda, meditation, and Theta healing.
Plant medicines have been a gift along her personal healing journey, and she is passionate about fostering a safe environment rooted in Western principles for working with psychedelic medicine.
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Areas of expertise:
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Risk Assessment for Psychedelic Use
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Holistic Support for Pharmaceutical Tapering