Celtic Medicine Woman – Shamanic Teacher – Bone Collector
Hi, I'm Dakota.
Dakota Earth Cloud Walker
I’m not a guru. I’m not standing ahead of you on this path, waiting for you to catch up. I’m walking right beside you — probably cussing a little, picking up bones along the way, and pointing out the magic you might have missed if you were moving too fast.
Pull up a chair. I’ve got a lot to tell you.
My Story
There Was Never a Box Large Enough.
I was not your average kid. And I never pretended to be.
At nineteen, I walked out of organized religion and never looked back. Not in anger, I had to walk once I recognized myself, my true self. There was something older calling me. Something that lived in the dirt under my fingernails, in the creak of old trees, in the way certain bones felt warm in my hand even though they’d been lying cold on the forest floor. I followed that call into a shamanic, druidic life, and I’ve been walking that path ever since.
That was 1992. I haven’t stopped teaching, guiding, and walking beside people since.
“If you can’t see the magic, you just aren’t paying attention.”
– Dakota Earth Cloud Walker
Blood Memory
This Work Is in My Bones. Literally.
My family roots run through Ireland and Scotland, traced as far back as the records allow. Fergus Mór is the one the medieval genealogists set at the root of the Scots kings. Whether that line is history or politics, it’s been claimed for a thousand years, and I hold it the way you hold anything handed down, without pretending to know more than I do.
Something in me settles when I stand on that ground.
The training is easier to name. Trance Dance with Ernesto Ortiz. Shamanic Breathwork with Linda Star Wolf. Holographic Health with Dr. Ted Baroody. The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. I’ve walked hundreds through the Living Wheel, taught at one of the largest massage therapy schools in the country and built their professional development curriculum, and I sit in the top 100 teachers on Insight Timer out of more than 10,000.
It started earlier than any of that. I was 5, in the woods behind the house, and nobody was explaining anything to me. I’ve been going back ever since.
A Few things you should probably know about me
The Odd, the True, and the Occasionally Absurd.
01
My first funeral as a certified celebrant was for the Mayor of Todd, North Carolina. He was a pig. I officiated with full ceremony and zero irony.
02
My 6th grade science project was my rock collection. I got an A. Some things are just meant to be.
03
Every winter night, I whistle three times for the wild deer. They know the sound. They wait just beyond the tree line, patient and still, until I’ve filled the bowls.
04
I’m an avid kayaker and spent years as an ocean and river kayak guide. I pursued it specifically to overcome my fear of water. It worked.
05
I nearly became a competitive rock climber. The only reason I didn’t was I wasn’t willing to give up teaching. Some doors you close on purpose.
06
I get my best journey ideas doing yard work. I carry a small notebook in my pocket at all times. The muse does not care what you’re wearing.
07
I have a Bone Hut in my backyard. It sits on the threshold of the woods. It is where I make sacred tools, journey, and keep the bones and things that find me. Every good witch needs a hut.
08
I’ve been writing stories and song lyrics since I was eight. My first story was about Bigfoot. It was three pages long. It was full of gore. I got an A on that, too (from my mom).
09
If I could do anything in the world, I’d do exactly what I do now — only I’d offer it freely to everyone. But alas, I must pay my bills.
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10
I once raised a deer from two days old. She followed me on every walk through the woods. She slept in a dog bed next to my desk and snored while I worked. I named her Buddha.
11
In many of my early recordings, you can hear my dog snoring in the background. The sacred does not require silence. Apparently, it just requires a comfortable dog.
12
I have a passion for making rattles. There is something about bringing sound into the world with your own hands that feels like the oldest kind of magic.
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The Bone Collector
Bones Have Always Found Me
There’s something about a bone that stops me every time. It’s what’s left of something that was once alive and moving through the world. It’s something that had a story, a length of days, a way of being. When I pick one up in the woods, I’m holding that whole life in my hand. That feels powerful to me. It always has.
I wander. I find things. A bone here, a feather there, a stone that hums in a particular way. My animals make me laugh more than anything; they’re the most honest creatures I know. My nightstand holds a Kachina doll carved by my mentor George Pooley, a Hopi Medicine Man no longer in human form, a piece of obsidian, an iron tiger’s eye, my leather-bound traveler’s journal that goes everywhere with me, and my Mom’s Beethoven kitchen timer that randomly goes off on its own. When it does, I know she’s near.
I cuss. I eat Oreo cookies. I am challenged to speak the Celtic words with ease, and I would set my entire office outside in the yard if I could. I feel most alive at night in Maine with the trees creaking in the inky black, the owl hooting, the stars so thick they feel close enough to touch. Last night, a fox and a coyote talked to each other for two hours outside my window.
I am not the guide who has it all figured out. I’m the one who’s been walking long enough to know the good places to stop and listen.
What I believe
I'm Not Here to Lead You. I'm Here to Walk Beside You.
I have never wanted a follower. I’ve never wanted someone sitting at my feet looking up. That’s not a relationship — that’s a performance, and I don’t have any interest in performing.
What I want is the conversation around the fire. The one where we’re both surprised by what surfaces. Where you say something that makes me see something differently, and I hand you something back that you’ll be turning over in your pocket for weeks.
My only job — the one I wake up to every day — is to help you remember who you are. Not who you’ve been told to be. Not who would make everyone else more comfortable. The real one. The one that knows things your mind hasn’t caught up to yet.
That work doesn’t require a guru. It requires a companion. Someone who’s been in the dark enough times to know how to move through it. Someone who genuinely loves the liminal — the in-between, the threshold, the place where everything is possible because nothing is certain yet.
That’s where I live. That’s where I’ll meet you.
Training & Experience
A Few Things Worth Knowing
Trance Dance Facilitator
Under Ernesto Ortiz
Trained in the somatic and ceremonial practice of trance dance as a vehicle for spiritual transformation.
Shamanic Breathwork Facilitator
Under Linda Star Wolf
Certified in the powerful breath-based healing modality that moves energy and opens inner landscapes.
Holographic Health Practitioner
Under Dr. Theodore Baroody
Trained in the holographic understanding of the body as a map of the whole – mind, spirit, earth.
Order of Bards, Ovates, & Druids
OBOD Training
Deep study of Druidry, Celtic Cosmology, and ritual – a tradition that runs in my blood as much as my training.
Top 100 Meditation Teacher
Insight Timer – out of 10,000+ teachers
165+ immersive guided journeys reaching seekers worldwide, built from the ground up since 1992.
Teaching Since 1992
33+ years of consistent practice
Led hundreds through the Living Wheel, taught professional development in massage therapy and spiritual businesses, and guided thousands through ceremony, breathwork, and soul alchemy.
Voices From the Circle
What People Say.
“Absolutely loved this course. I’ve been studying shamanism for a little while now, but this course brought everythign together and cleared up unanswered questions. Thank you, Dakota, for sharing your wisdom.”
Sarah L
Insight Timer, Tools for Your Shamanic Journey 10-Day Course
“So freeing. It’s like the truth has opened to me and given me permission to feel it. Many thanks, Dakota.”
Tracy
Insight Timer
“Thank you does not seem to suffice for this incredibly empowering session. I have been meditating for numberous years, yet these were the most powerful 30 minutes I have had the opportunity to experience. What a gift you are to the world!!!”
Satelle
Insight Timer, Rise of the Phoenix Journey
“Unbelievably amazing. I feel purged and cleansed of so many past toxins. I can’t wait to do this again. Thank you so much Dakota for your beauty and wisdom. You give so freely of yourself and bring us through incredible journeys. This so far was one of the best. Aho Mitakuye Oyasin, Aho.”
Gail
Insight Timer, The Inipi
Ready?
Let's Walk This Path Together
I’m not hard to find. I’m usually in the woods, or near them. Come as you are. Bring your questions, your bones, your half-formed longings, and some Oreo’s. We’ll figure out the rest together.