IMMERSION LEADERS:

Vanessa Jude is the co-owner & creative director of Emerge, a NYS licensed acupuncturist, bio-enenergetic medicine practitioner, bodyworker, and yoga teacher trainer for over fifteen years. From Long Island martial arts dojos to ashrams in India, Vanessa has explored the world for evidence-based healing, educational training, and magical happenstance along the way. As a practitioner, Vanessa has worked with thousands of patients, providing holistic solutions for pain relief, injury recovery, combating dis-EASE, and balancing emotions. She specializes in somato-emotional integration, utilizing physical touch and kinesthetic coaching techniques to unwind trauma from the fascia to literally free the body, mind & soul. She empowers everyone she works with to take a proactive role in healing, and helps them re-discover a sense of sovereignty in their healthcare. As a teacher, Vanessa has trained 100s of students in yoga, integrative bodywork modalities, and energy medicine. She is known for her unique methodology that effectively supports students to discover their personal medicine, express their authentic voice powerfully, and step into a leadership role in their lives. And, as a business owner for over a decade, Vanessa is passionate about empowering other entrepreneurs to actualize their potential in a purpose-driven, profitable, and powerful way.

Equal parts soul-filled scientist, inspired educator, wilderness rites of passage guide & plant lover, Karen has been restoring landscapes and facilitating transformative experiences in nature for humans for over close to 30 years. Her work as a restoration ecologist & nature therapist has flowed from the fjords of the North Atlantic, across the reefs of the Caribbean sea, through the Peruvian Amazon and up to Costa Rica's cloud forested mountaintops.Founder of the Center for Sacred Ecology and steward of the 40-acre Samanea Nature Sanctuary in Monteverde, Karen's attention is drawn to the sacred spaces where mind, heart, spirit & nature intersect within the habitat of the human form.She has been working and studying within the Peruvian mestizo vegetalista tradition for 8 years, and serves as Don Carlos' ceremony assistant & integration specialist. Karen is also the coordinator for master plant diet immersions at Don Carlos' center in the Peruvian Amazon. She has lived in Costa Rica for 20 years and is mother to a teenage boy.