Get to Know Mary Ann Copson
Director of The Earth Path School, Herbalist, , Intuitive, Healer, Educator
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Hi, I’m Mary Ann Copson, intuitive, teacher, healer, shaman, mystic, herbalist and Director and Founder of The Evenstar Earth Path School of Nature Centered Healing and Spiritual Practices. In this Mystery School, I teach a multi-dimensional, multi-sensory approach to Herbal Medicine, the Web of Healing, and Personal and Spiritual Transcendence in my unique trainings - The Magic and Meaning of Herbs, The Community Shamanic Herbalist and Transformational Archetype trainings.
Naturally questions about my training and experience - and all that - come up for people that want to take the Earth Path Mystery School trainings. So I thought for those of you who are interested about what I have done in the past I would outline a bit of that for you here.
If you like, you can read more about my philosophy here.
In 1986, I started my herbal training and my introduction to Goddess work with Susun Weed and trained with her for three years as her first live-out apprentice. When I completed my training with Susun, she asked me to take up the evolution and development of her Six Steps of Healing Model. Throughout my entire healing practices I have used this model as a basic guideline and have evolved in into my own Web of Healing.
At the same time I was training with Susun, I began my own private practice as a traditional lay midwife doing home births in my then home state of New Jersey and continued that for about 10 years. For some years before opening my midwifery practice, I was a Lactation Consultant, La Leche Leader, Labor Support Doula, and I also taught Childbirth Education classes for many years.
In 1987 I started my own herbal company Evenstar Herbs and began doing Wellness and Herbal programs and teaching herbal classes including a Family Practitioner Series training people to use herbs for their own and their family’s well-being.
Also in 1987, I began a 12 year apprenticeship with a Cherokee mystic. Unlike a Western apprenticeship this was a traditional apprenticeship. The purpose of the apprenticeship was to clear away all blocks to my conscious experience of myself as a multi-dimensional being. It was during the intensity of this apprenticeship that I recognized the balance required to blend Direct Revelation and Self Initiation with Focused Mastery Direction.
Around the same time, I was also trained by Twylah Nitsch the Clan Grandmother of the Wolf Clan Teaching Lodge. She taught me how to do the Seneca Wolf Clan Teaching Lodge Medicine Wheel Earth Energy Charts. She initiated me into the Wolf Clan Teaching Lodge. When I completed my training with Grandmother Twylah she asked me to develop the relationship between the Seneca Medicine Wheel and the herbs. I later became a StoneKeeper of the Wolf Clan Lodge.
After I relocated to Virginia, I opened the Evenstar School of Botanical Wisdom as a professional herbalism training. But I soon broke with my teacher and knew I needed to stop teaching and change the focus of my work. I also knew it was time for me to withdraw and close down the Medicine Wheel garden (which my teacher and I had opened a few years previously)- letting it go fallow.
After my teacher and I broke with each other in 1999 I spent the next 9 years consolidating my own energetic dynamics.
Although the form and structure has changed over time, I have continuously maintained a private practice doing Wellness programs. Over the years I have done more than 10,000 Wellness and Herbal programs.
In my current private practice, I am a Board Certified Holistic Health Practitioner certified through the American Association of Drugless Practitioners. In addition to my herbal work, I work as a Certified Licensed Nutritionist focusing on Functional Health Nutritional Medicine and Functional Health Testing. Although I do some in-person consultations, I work mostly with clients nationally and internationally by phone and email.
I am also a Level II Verified Biochemical Profile Clinician with the Robertson Research Institute and specialize in herbal, nutritional, lifestyle, and personal development programs for Mood and Energy imbalances such as depression and anxiety.
In addition, I have a private practice as a Personal Life Coach having gone through CoachU’s three year life coaching program.
Here is a list of other past trainings, certifications and degrees:
MA in Psychology and Counseling (focusing on Positive Psychology) with a concentration in Organizational Development, Goddard College
MA in Human Development with a concentration in Early Childhood Education, Psychology and Development, University of Chicago
BA in Psychology, Bucknell University
Professional Certification Program in Nutritional Science - Certified Licensed Nutritionist
Robertson Research Institute Level II Verified Biochemical Profile Clinician
Coach U Training Program - Professional Life Coach
Board Certified Holistic Health Practitioner
Munay-Ki 9 Rites of the Earthkeeper Initiations
Practitioner and Educator - Educational Kinesiology movement education for learning disabilities and cognitive restructuring
Certified Reflexologist
Practitioner and Educator Touch for Health - kinesiology testing for muscle reconditioning
Certified Practitioner Ritual Training counselor
Certified Shamanic Counselor
Certified Energy Dynamics Counselor
Certified Practitioner Matrimatics Birth Professional
Certified Practitioner Matrimatics Herbalism
Certified Practitioner and Teacher Sandlin Technique Bodywork
Byronomics Energy Management and Diagnosis
Labor Support Doula
Husband Coached Childbirth Bradly Method Certified Childbirth Educator
International Childbirth Education Association (ICEA) Certified Childbirth Educator
Pregnancy and Postpartum Fitness Certified Childbirth Educator
Informed Homebirth Certified Childbirth Educator
LaLeche Leader and District Advisor
International Board Certified Lactation Consultant
Now as Evenstar and I both stand at the gateway of our transformation into True Adulthood and initiation into Elderhood we have given birth through Direct Revelation to The Earth Path School of Nature Centered Healing and Spiritual Practice.
In this stage of my life I am pursuing my Elderhood wave of personal and spiritual transcendence.
I am a Guardian Priestess and Bandrui initiate of the Apple Branch, a magic initiatory tradition based on the Old Dianic Tradition and Faerie Faith Tradition with special connections to ancient female Druidism known as Bandrui.
Through Spiritual Adoption I am taking the journey of a Medicine Woman of the Nemenhah Band, magnifying my Ministerial Callings in the Principles, Ordinances, Ceremonies and Ministerial Functions of the Sacred Sahaptan Healing Way.
As a member of the Sisterhood of Avalon I am a Priestess of the Avalon Tradition and a student of the Avalonian Thealogical Seminary where I am pursuing ordination as a Pastoral Counselor in the Avalonian Method of Wisdom Transmission.
I am also currently pursuing my Ph.D. in Eco-psychology through Project Nature Connect from Akamai University, and a Doctorate of Ministry in World Shamanism at Ocean Seminary.
Over the years various psychics, sensitives, teachers, astrologers, and more have given me a multitude of labels including- intuitive, medium, healer, star-being, Medicine Woman, and more. Brain wave studies have shown that my brain waves naturally operate in theta during my waking stages. Apparently this gives me easy access to my unconscious and my multi-dimensional nature.
I have lived my life always aware of multiple dimensions occurring simultaneously and have come to recognize that it is our natural state as human beings.
I live in Virginia with my husband of 43 years, our five grown children living nearby with their spouses and partners, 9 grandchildren, and all of our dog, cats, chickens, birds, and a plethora of plants, trees, and grasses.
Hope that helps give you some sense of my background and who I am. I look forward to working with you.
