Dr. Geo Athena Trevarthen (formerly Geo Cameron) is an hereditary shaman-priestess. She has dedicated her life to helping people experience the Sacred and co-create a more harmonious world with Deity, as symbolised by the flaming hand design on this site. Geo teaches with insight and humour, revealing deeper layers of meaning in the ancient Celtic myths, chants and shamanic practices that unveil Spirit's presence with and within us. She offers a unique blend of wisdom drawn from Spirit, from her family traditions, and from her deep understanding of Celtic (and other) ancient languages and cultures, shamanism, anthropology, theology and transpersonal psychology. Widely acknowledged in both academic and spiritual circles as a world authority on Celtic shamanism, Geo offers inspirational guidance on applying ancient, and often hidden, teachings effectively to your life. Click here for testimonials about Geo's work. She has spoken and taught at institutions ranging from and Findhorn to Edinburgh University and Trinity College, Dublin, where she was the first Pagan Celtic scholar ever invited to address their Theological Society. She was the primary teacher of Celtic shamanism and spirituality at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, the world's largest holistic centre, for ten summers. In September 2002, she was a Hermitage resident, acting as Omega's 'spiritual caretaker' to ground the campus with a contemplative focus and work with Omega's staff. She has been interviewed in various media, including BBC Radio and television, CNBC, the Edinburgh Evening News and in Hillary S. Webb's book, Traveling Between the Worlds: Conversation with Contemporary Shamans. In March of 2006 she was prominently featured in the BBC Scotland program, "Among the Believers." She worked with journalist and presenter Andrew Slorance, helping him cultivate a personal experience of the Sacred through ritual and meditative practice. She writes widely on spiritual topics from both experiential and academic perspectives, including the entry on "Celtic Christianity," in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, and articles in Pagan Dawn, SPIN and Cosmos, the Journal of the Traditional Cosmology Society. Click here for more details of Geo's qualifications and professional experience. Geo works with people by phone, internet and in person as an anama chara or 'soul-friend,' in an individualised process comparable to spiritual mentoring or holistic life-coaching. She leads retreats, directs an Edinburgh-based choir focussed on work in ancient sacred languages, like Old Irish and Sumerian, and conducts religious services. She performs weddings and rites of passage as a legally approved celebrant in Scotland under the auspices of the Pagan Federation Scotland and as an ordained minister in the Circle of the Sacred Earth. According to the mythopoetic histories and genealogies, her ancestors include some of the High Kings of Tara. Her nearer ancestry includes members of clans Lamont and Cameron. (Trevarthen is her husband's family name. It originates in Cornwall, and can be translated as 'of the House of the Bear' or 'of the House of Arthur.') She began learning Celtic traditions from her mother (also named Athena, after the Greek Goddess of wisdom) and her grandmother. She then went on to further study of shamanism, other ancient spiritual traditions (including Sumerian and Egyptian), European magick, alchemy, Celtic and Scottish Studies and early Christian mysticism and theology. She received an MSc Magna cum Laude (with Distinction) for her work on spiritual crisis in Old Irish literature (read in the original Old Irish), and a PhD for her ground-breaking work on Celtic shamanism. Both degrees are from the University of Edinburgh. Her PhD was the first, to our knowledge, to academically demonstrate a full spectrum of shamanic practices in Celtic cultures. Of course, authors such as John and Caitlin Matthews and R.J. Stewart have written about it for some time, and Celtic scholars such as Melia, Carey, Nagy and others have demonstrated facets of shamanic practice in Celtic cultures. Click here for more details of Geo's qualifications and professional experience. An interest in science began with her father's work. He was a Hungarian Jewish organic geochemist and cosmologist, involved with NASA's search for extra-terrestrial life in the 60's and 70's. His interest in the origins of the universe led him to develop a theory of 'dimensional evolution' that Geo found echoed ancient Irish and Kabbalistic ideas of Deity emanating into matter. Geo's interest in the interface between science and spirituality led to her becoming a member of the Scientific and Medical Network, UK. She's also a member of the Traditional Cosmology Society, Edinburgh, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Geo has expanded on the matrix of her family tradition as all shamans do — through personal spiritual experience. Visionary techniques go hand in hand with traditional teachings in all shamanic cultures, because knowing what was practised thousands of years ago doesn't tell us what works now. She was told by Deity to "return to the trunk of the tree," to trace Celtic tradition back to its most ancient foundation and simultaneously take it forward with all the knowledge available to us today. Click here for the Winter Solstice 2003 newsletter which discusses hereditary traditions in general, and gives more details of Geo's family tradition in particular. Geo teaches that experiencing the Sacred isn't difficult, because God, the Mother, Father and Creator / Divine Child is already manifest in all Being, including each of us. We are never alone and co-create our lives with Deity, as symbolised by the flaming hand design. This symbol is a good example of how Geo combines tradition with inspiration. An ancestral spirit told Geo to use the flaming hand many years ago to symbolise the teachings she was to transmit. The hand is part of the Lamont family crest and she later found that similar 'radiant hand' images exist in Irish tradition representing the hand of the Goddess/Saint Brigit, and in Indian tradition representing the hand of Lord Shiva. Geo is an artist in various media. She sees art as part of the co-creative work of manifesting Spirit in the world. She did most of the illustrations and graphics on this site, and creates ritual objects, jewellery, prayer beads and encennach (traditional winged Druidic headdresses). A gift for portraiture comes from her father's mother, Erzsébet (Erzsi) Gaiduschek, the last court photographer to the Hapsburgs. She's used film and television to convey spiritual messages, including an episode titled Sacred Ground for Star Trek: Voyager. She lives in the Borders of Scotland with her husband, David, an archaeologist, and her daughter Téa Nyree, (two years old at the time of writing, 3 months in the picture above) a vocalist and percussionist. Click here to read testimonials about Geo's work. Click here for information on individual work with Geo. Click here for the Winter Solstice 2003 newsletter which discusses hereditary traditions in general, and gives much fuller details of Geo's family tradition in particular. Click here for more details of Geo's qualifications and professional experience To find out about personalised spiritual / archaeological tours and retreats with Geo and David, click here. For weddings, rites of passage and individual work by phone, internet, and in person, click here. For artwork and portraiture, click here. For publications, click here. For events and classes, click here. Click here for Geo Trevarthen's (formerly Cameron) thesis, "Spiritual Crisis in Early Irish Literature and Later Folk-Life" To be placed on Geo Trevarthen's (formerly Cameron) mailing list, click here.

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