The people
behind the practice.

Stacia completed her Somatic Practitioner program in 1999, going on in 2000 to work at Healing Visions, an early Ibogaine clinic in St. Kitts, BVI, under the leadership of Dr. Deborah Mash. She certified as a Holotropic Breathwork facilitator in 2005 and joined the Grof Transpersonal Training staff in 2006.

She worked closely with Stanislav Grof for over 13 years, bringing Holotropic Breathwork to large public groups and a variety of academic and professional settings, including California Institute of Integral Studies, Tel Aviv University, the MAPS Psychedelic Science 2013 and 2017 conferences, Sophia University, Kripalu and the Fetzer Institute.

Stacia’s longstanding interest in the wisdom of the body and deep trust in the intrinsic healing orientation of the psyche inform her work with others.

Rumor has it she even has her very own pair of ruby slippers.

As a private practitioner of Acupuncture and Asian Medicine in Oakland, California, Alli primarily works with complicated cases that call for a deep and diverse toolbox. After twenty years of invested study in Western herbology, she broadened her practice to incorporate Eastern herbal prescriptions.

Alli’s practice works as a bridge between conventional medicine and ancient forms of earth based medicine. Her extensive training in functional and integrative medicine allows her to weave together modern lab analysis and classical Chinese medicine.

Practical applications of Five Element theory, wood, fire, earth, metal and water, inform Alli’s approach to chronic emotional and physical pain. This tradition offers an archetypal understanding of the body as a microcosm of nature’s macrocosm.

The rhythms of birth, death, regeneration and renewal are central to her work. Through the image of water becoming still after a torrent, Alli expresses her intention to support a renewed relationship with the body and its changing states.

Marcela Beltrán del Río is a facilitator of holistic retreats, bringing wellbeing and spirituality into lived experience. She accompanies personal development processes with attention to the body, mind and the meaning people find in their own lives.

She is a certified instructor in Oxygen Advantage, the BREATHWAVE 1:1 connected conscious breathing technique, and Solar Magnetism through the Pneuma Institute, where she also studies Transpersonal Psychology. She is a meditation and visualization guide, a Vipassana meditation practitioner, and has completed the advanced presence practice program at The School of Awakening by Eckhart Tolle.

Marcela combines tools and practices that invite a return to the essential, reconnection with oneself and a fuller inhabiting of the human experience.

Her work intertwines meditation, visualization, conscious breathing, frequencies and sound, energy practices, and reconnection with the wisdom of the body. Her intention is to hold these explorations with care and depth. Her mission is to remind us that wellbeing is not a goal, but a way of being alive with authenticity, love and sovereignty.

Born and raised in the vibrant landscapes of Mexico, Sophia, affectionately known as Sofie, is a bodyworker with over two decades of dedicated exploration into the connections between the body, energy and the subtleties of trauma. Her work resides at the intersection of somatics and the mysteries of nonordinary states of consciousness.

Deeply influenced by her cultural heritage and ancestral wisdom, Sofie explores how experiences of joy, grief and trauma may be felt and carried in the body, sometimes before they can be put into words. Through years of study and practice, she has cultivated an attentive sensitivity to how emotions, patterns and energies are experienced in physical form. Her practice makes room for exploration, release and integration, without prescribing what another person’s experience should be.

Her work sits alongside breathwork, plant medicine and somatic inquiry, supporting people as they explore heightened awareness and their inner experience. With a deeply intuitive style, she seeks to offer a nurturing space for reconnecting with embodied wisdom. Her giggle, infectious smile and genuine warmth are equally part of the presence she brings.

Jenna is a bicoastal photographer and director whose work is rooted in an enduring belief that life is worth documenting, not only its milestones, but the quieter, less composed moments that often tell us more.

Known for intimate portraiture and a candid, documentary approach, Jenna has an unusual ability to be present without becoming part of the moment she is photographing. She works with sensitivity and restraint, allowing people to remain inside their own experience rather than asking them to perform for the camera. This quality is particularly important at FADEN, where privacy, trust, and emotional safety are paramount.

Jenna approaches photography as a form of witnessing, attentive, respectful, and deeply human. Her images preserve what might otherwise disappear: the gestures, expressions, relationships, and small moments of beauty that become part of the memory of a life. At FADEN, she brings that same care to documenting our time together, always with respect for each woman’s boundaries and experience.

The photographs throughout this website are Jenna’s work, except where otherwise credited. Her eye for intimacy, beauty and the unexpected gives FADEN’s shared story its visual life.

Melissa has always lived life around the table. Raised in an Italian family, food was connection, tradition and joy, until gut issues in her twenties led her to reconsider what healthy meant for her own body and sparked a deeper inquiry into how food works on an individual level.

After moving to San Francisco, she immersed herself in the farm to table world, cooking for friends, launching a catering business, opening her Italian wine bar, Ottimista, and eventually becoming an Advanced Sommelier and founding her natural wine company, Rock Juice.

Alongside building businesses, traveling and raising two children, she continued studying nutrition, herbalism and the science behind it. This led her to the Integrative & Functional Nutrition Academy, where she became a board certified Functional Nutritionist, integrating food, science and tradition.

Today, Melissa works with women through a personalized, sustainable approach to nutrition, exploring underlying concerns and longer term wellbeing. Her approach avoids extremes and allows space for pleasure, including wine. Her philosophy is simple: food is meant to nourish, connect and bring people together. Her work focuses on helping others build a lasting, easeful relationship with it.

At FADEN, Melissa understands how food participates in the larger architecture of experience. She translates nourishment into something both functional and felt, creating meals with care for the moments after deep work and the integration that follows. Her presence at the table is an extension of the work itself.

Shawndra is a key creative and strategic partner at Les Lumières, with experience working alongside companies such as A16 and Restoration Hardware. Her work focuses on concept development and building teams with the tools needed for operational success. She partners with businesses to architect dynamic experiences around food, wine and hospitality that engage people and connect them to the vision of a place.

At FADEN, Shawndra understands the depth of the work and the care it asks of us. She knows that nourishment is not separate from that experience: thoughtfully chosen ingredients and nutrients, a warming meal and something beautiful at the table are part of how we care for the women doing it. She brings an attentive understanding of what might feel nourishing before a practice, after deep inner exploration and in the quieter moments between. Her food holds both intention and pleasure, with a generosity that makes room to settle, savor and be in good company.

With two decades of experience in plant medicine and over ten years specializing in microdosing, Sara has guided hundreds of clients in developing intentional microdosing practices. She approaches earth medicines as part of an exploration of patterns, presence, connection to self and the larger meaning people find in their lives.

Within the FADEN approach described on the original team page, Sara offers post retreat microdosing support as a bridge between the work of a gathering and the ongoing integration that follows. She works with clients to explore a practice aligned with their personal journey, making room to notice difficulties, process insights and consider how to carry their experience into everyday life.

Her approach blends intuition, compassionate guidance and practical tools. She aims to create a supportive space for exploration, helping people navigate their post retreat experience with intention and trust in their own understanding.

Sara is a certified Western Herbalist, trained in Hakomi Somatic Coaching, and a certified Microdosing Coach through The Microdosing Institute.