Meet The Dark Room Retreats Stewards
Keen Being - Visionary Steward/Founder
Nick Jankel - Strategic Advisor Steward
Nick Jankel - Strategic Advisor Steward
Keen brings over thirty years of experience in spiritual practice and mentorship. His journey includes multiple dark retreats, vision quests, extended water fasts, and indigenous faciliator training with the Shipibo-Conibo in Peru.
Keen’s deep exploration of the shadow and the transformative power of darkness has shaped his approach to guiding others on their paths.
With a background as a certified yoga instructor, meditation guide, energy healer, poet, and dark retreat pioneer, he assists others in their journey toward self-realization, embodied awareness, and inner peace.
Nick Jankel - Strategic Advisor Steward
Nick Jankel - Strategic Advisor Steward
Nick Jankel - Strategic Advisor Steward
Nick Jankel is a contemporary wisdom teacher and conscious leadership expert, a top 50 global keynote speaker on transformation and leadership, and the co-founder of SOL and FutureWise. In his work with individuals and organizations, he integrates brain, behavioral, contemplative, consciousness, and complexity science with insights from the great wisdom traditions and trauma-informed transformative practices.
Through his global network TV shows, 6x books including the bestsellers Switch On (Watkins) and Spiritual Atheist, talks, and in-person workshops—run from Los Angeles to London and San Francisco to Shanghai—he has touched the lives of over 5 million people.
He has led and DJ-ed ecstatic dance and movement meditation experience from Burning Man to Festival, has coached celebrities on TV, and developed innovative transformative experiences for the BBC that involved stars like Adele.
He has appeared on stage Aspen Ideas Festival, Conscious Life Expo, Talks@Google, Mind Body Spirit Festival, A Science of Consciousness, Science & Non-Duality, Alternatives, has been featured in the Sunday Times, OM Times, and Yoga Journal, and as a guest on over 100 podcasts and radio shows, including the legendary Coast-To-Coast and Hay House Radio.
Alison McAulay - Somatic Steward
Nick Jankel - Strategic Advisor Steward
Alison McAulay - Somatic Steward
Alison McAulay is a registered biodynamic craniosacral therapist and trauma-informed integrative healer, combining BCST, EMDR, Kundalini yoga, breathwork, and other modalities.
As a co-developer of Bio-Transformation® (BTT), she integrates brain and behavior science with contemplative practices for lasting change.
Alison is also the co-founder of Switch On Leadership, offering transformational programs for companies like Intel and Unilever. With experience as a somatic therapist in the CA State Prison system and a lecturer at USF, she is passionate about fostering embodied, relational, and spiritual intelligence. A former US team gymnast and professional dancer, she overcame chronic pain through craniosacral therapy and now helps clients ranging from athletes to executives.
Tiffany Baker- Darkness Speaks Podcast Co-Host Steward
Tiffany Baker- Darkness Speaks Podcast Co-Host Steward
Tiffany Baker- Darkness Speaks Podcast Co-Host Steward
Tiffany Baker is a death doula, grief tender, ceremonialist, auditory creatrix, and transition fairy.
Her work is to support others to experience the fullness of their lives through embracing the portals of change and death.
A fearless wayfinder, Tiffany encourages all around her to "Name the Thing" - to have the kinds of conversations that lead to rewarding breakthroughs and greater connection both within themselves and with loved ones. Her business, Hallowed Harvest End of Life Doulas, supports individuals and their families at end of life to have a consciously embodied experience of the final days and beyond..
Stephanine Fulgencio - Somatic Steward
Tiffany Baker- Darkness Speaks Podcast Co-Host Steward
Tiffany Baker- Darkness Speaks Podcast Co-Host Steward
Over nearly 20 years as a therapist, Stephanie Fulgencio has developed a holistic and integrative approach that considers the whole person—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Somatic therapy, which she emphasizes, is based on the belief that experiences, emotions, and traumas are stored in both the mind and body, using the body as part of the healing process.
Her somatic method incorporates elements of Internal Family Systems, Brainspotting, and Somatic Experiencing to uncover insights rarely accessible to the conscious mind. Alongside therapeutic modalities, she integrates holistic practices like meditation, breathwork, and EFT Tapping to support healing and integration.
Kat Vandagrift - Administrative Steward
Kat Vandagrift - Administrative Steward
Kat Vandagrift - Administrative Steward
Kat Vandagrift is dedicated to encouraging a return to nature while advocating for spiritual and holistic practices. An educator with over 20 years of experience, Kat was inspired by her own 5 year journey of healing from a debilitating physical disease through diet, spiritual practices, and self-love.
She passionately promotes the use of lifestyle, living water, somatic movement, sacred ceremonies, and dark retreats as transformational tools. Kat integrates ceremony into her work to create meaningful and sacred experiences, fostering deep healing and transformation.
Harrison Sokoloff - Harmony Steward
Kat Vandagrift - Administrative Steward
Kat Vandagrift - Administrative Steward
Harrison received his 200 RYS certificate through Yogasoul Bhakti Center in 2024, but his journey in yoga started years before that. Since 2017 Harrison has been embedded in a deep meditation practice, of which led him to explore those teachings on a deeper level through a couple Darkness retreats in 2023.
In his time in the Dark, one of the messages Harrison received was “you trust your limited mind more than your limitless Heart, trust your Heart.” Shortly after receiving that message, Harrison left his career in the music industry, where he worked as an A&R and publisher, to fully step into the path of the unknown. What has unfolded is him teaching yoga and leading a meditation and mindfulness group in Nashville, TN called Lotus Sangha.