Betty (Elizabeth) Lopez Towey
Workshops, Facilitator Training

It was at Silver Bay on Lake George that Betty was first introduced to the labyrinth, an ancient walking meditation tool found in cultures around the world. This profound experience led to a deepening interest which soon became a passion. She was trained as a labyrinth facilitator by Lauren Artress in 2001 and has helped to build the outdoor labyrinth at Silver Bay Conference Center on Lake George, has painted canvas labyrinths with various communities and has carried her own painted canvas labyrinth into New York City Schools, Colleges, Medical Schools, Churches and Synagogues.  She has continued her study of the labyrinth with Lauren Artress at Chartres Cathedral, the site of the original eleven circuit labyrinth and is now an Advanced Labyrinth Facilitator and member of the Veriditas Faculty.

Betty got started in education through an interest in finding the best school for her children in New York City.  After her active engagement in their school, the then founder/director and Mac Arther Award winner Debra  Meier asked Betty to join the staff.   Betty's passion for supporting children and their families and working with staff led to her becoming a teacher, winning the 1995 Bank Street College, "Teacher of the Year Award".  After 20 years of teaching and out of the classroom support roles, Betty was inspired to pursue an administrative position through her own experience on the labyrinth, which led to her starting a New York City Public School. 

As the principal and founder, an important part of building this new progressive public school was to support adults and children in mind, body and spirit by incorporating the labyrinth in its development.  Educators, Administrators and School Support Teams who attended  these labyrinth walks came to know how valuable and effective the labyrinth is for our own personal and spiritual growth and as an effective ongoing practice within schools. Frequent Labyrinth walks can  assist our schools in creating  wonderfully deep and solid learning communities, that assist us in all of the many ways of supporting and working with children, parents and staff.  It is an exciting time to consider how to inspire, support and grow schools that work in the important area of spiritual growth, as part of teaching and nourishing the whole child. Betty looks forward to offering Qualifying Workshops as she leads educators and members of varied communities into a deeper experience of  being with one another through the use of the labyrinth. 

As a life long seeker, Betty is also an active  member of the diverse and inclusive Spiritual Life Team at Silver Bay Conference Center on Lake George in New York. She is a trained Spiritual Advisor and Reiki Master and is responsible for the Labyrinth programs, which are offered to conferences and retreats, including large and small groups of ministers, educators, business organizations and those seeking respite here at Silver Bay.

As a Veriditas Faculty member, Betty also designs and offers Qualifying Workshops and Labyrinth Facilitator Training.

www.wisdomjourney.net
Elizabeth@wisdomjourney.net
LLC Wisdom Journey

Reverend Dr. Kay Mutert, Master Teacher Emeritus (Alabama)

kay@veriditas.org 

The Reverend Dr. Kay Mutert was one of the first Master Teachers with Veriditas. She has been offering labyrinth workshops in awakening new creative energy, community building, and spiritual formation. Her Master Teacher responsibilities included training new facilitators and renewal training for those trained in past years.

She works with organizations to establish labyrinth communities, to translating hopes into an ongoing vision. In her workshops and training she holds the space for participants to discover and develop their own gifts and skills. Kay has been a member of the Veriditas Council, Southeastern USA regional representative, and event musician.

When she left her local church ministry Kay created "DaySpring - a source of creative expression and renewal of spirit", as a conduit to work with an increasingly larger circle of community. Through her labyrinth work, she uses her experience as musician, minister, teacher and spiritual accompanist with groups and individuals from diverse arenas of life, inviting them to discover the possibilities of the labyrinth to experience a reconnection with the sacredness of life, to find language for their setting.

As a pastor, Kay served congregations in the United Methodist Church and the British Methodist Church, a local ecumenical partnership in England, and an interim ministry with the Presbyterian Church USA. Before that she worked as a music educator/church musician in Florida and Alabama. She is a conductor, composer and pianist, incorporating her music into her events. Her work has included compositions and concerts for those affected by cancer and AIDS, connected with her own journey.

Kay believes the ancient archetype of the labyrinth serves as a strong source of presence for today's world, in meditation, reconciliation, peace-making, for young and old, for cross-cultures, creativity and healing, for community and personal use.

Kay holds a BS from Mississippi State University, MA from University of South Florida, EdD from University of Alabama and Mdiv from Candler School of Theology, Emory University. Her published works include a set of her musical compositions - Songs for the Journey, a piano CD, The Joy of Two. Her book Seasons of Change is a memoir of her Jubilee (50th) year's transition into pastoral ministry while living in the Midlands of England. She is a contributor of a labyrinth chapter to the recently published book Sacred Habits: the Rise of the Creative Clergy.

Sharry Nyberg:  is Co-Founder of Glide into Grace Retreats. She is passionate about sharing the labyrinth with others, training with the Reverend Dr. Lauren Artress in San Francisco in 2002 and becoming a Veriditas certified Advanced Labyrinth Facilitator in 2019.  She is a trained SoulCollage® Facilitator and a creator of art. She retired after serving the United Church of Christ for over 21 years and continues to lead retreats, workshops and creative opportunities, as a spiritual companion on the journey, holding sacred space for others to experience and engage in rituals and practices noticing moments of sacred-nicity.

Bio’s to come
Christine Wiles, Vermont
MaryAnn Wamhoff, Virginia
Heidi Schweizer, Virginia

Carmel Stabley, Pennsylvania

Karen Knight, Michigan

Connie Beall, California

Rob Hodges, California

Rob Hodges is a cellist, singer, and composer who enjoys collaborating with artists of all stripes.  He earned his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from UC Santa Barbara in 2009 after having spent many years teaching in higher education as well as conducting fieldwork research on funerary ritual and songs of grief in North Sumatra, Indonesia.  Rob’s ongoing musical interests and explorations involve mind – body – spirit connections to music in relation to healing, ritual, and collaborative improvisation.  Rob is a labyrinth designer and builder as well as an Advanced Labyrinth Walk Facilitator, having trained with Lauren Artress through Veriditas in 2017 and in 2022.  He operates a small landscape design and installation business focusing on native and pollinator-friendly plant propagation. It was through one of his early landscape projects that Rob came to know the labyrinth intimately, after having installed one on a client’s property for her daily walking / praying meditation practice.  He takes profound pleasure in connecting with others through musical offerings during labyrinth walks, whether online or in person, and he continues to grow in his understanding of the labyrinth as an organ of healing, processing, and profound spiritual and emotional significance.  In recent years he has joined with a few others to provide soundbath meditations following labyrinth walks on the quarterly solstice and equinox celebrations.  Rob and his wife (and collaborative partner) poet, Catherine Abbey Hodges, live and work at The Croft, their home in the southern Sierra Nevada foothills, near Springville, California.

Tina Christensen, (Tasmania)

tinachristensen@me.com

Tina is a writer and poet who has spent the last 3 years cultivating a poetic life in Tasmania’s magnificent Huon Valley. She lives in sync with nature’s cycles and is endlessly fascinated by sacred geometry. 

Her love of labyrinths began in San Francisco in the Spring of 2010. It was a sliding door moment in her personal meditative practise and in her work with clients as an art therapist. Although she didn’t know it, another apprenticeship was about to begin. She came home to Melbourne and built a sanctuary in the city, centred around a full size walking labyrinth, to cultivate conversations of stillness, creativity and nature.

Tina became the founding Chair of the Australian Labyrinth Network  2016-2018. She went on to sit on the international Veriditas Council 2018-present. The Council seeks to support labyrinth facilitators in their work. 

At her sanctuary labyrinthlane.com, over seven years Tina introduced the labyrinth conversation to thousands of people. Currently she is visioning in a labyrinth pilgrimage experience in Tasmania at Pippin Hill with her partner and labyrinth designer, Mark Healy.  A first of its kind worldwide, it’ll be home to her labyrinth teaching.

As a guide for others exploring their relationship with the labyrinth, Tina offers the deep listening of a therapist,  the spontaneity of a SoulCollage®facilitator and a poetic lightness with the labyrinth work.  Always there is a place at her table for Nature and stillness to arrive and now a place for you too.

Heather Middleton (New South Wales)

heather.middleton26@gmail.com

While studying a Meditation Facilitators’ course, Heather Middleton had a taste of the labyrinth, and after that was compelled to keep exploring.  She joined in the first Veriditas Summer School in Petaluma and became part of the Centennial Park labyrinth in Sydney just as it was dedicated in 2014. She has an ongoing passion for exploring the relationship between the labyrinth and its temporal dimensions, as well as the labyrinth’s many dimensions for personal and social transformation.

After working as a university teacher in social research and social theory, Heather developed an area of expertise in experiential learning.  Away from the teaching front line, she has worked in a Centre which trained academics in how to teach, and most recently had a specialist role evaluating learning and teaching interventions at the University of Sydney.  She has researched in both learning and teaching and health-related areas. Her PhD sought to shed light on recovered memories and the relationship between memory and time. 

Since her teens, Heather has sought to pursue a spiritual path both within formal institutions and outside of them, and developed an interest in the Jungian approach and psychotherapy. This led her to study a Diploma of Energetic Healing and the Meditation Facilitation Course which led her to the labyrinth. 

Heather was Foundation member of Australian Labyrinth Network Council in 2017 and as of 2022 is current Chair.  When not involved in labyrinth work she is a presenter on 2MBS Fine Music Sydney, and is building a home and some sacred space in an Eco Village on the Central Coast of NSW.

Heather’s perspective on teaching has allowed her to reflect, “Qualifying Workshops are a taste of the transformative power of the labyrinth, and the Facilitator Training provides the scaffolding to help to contain the experience.”