Dr. Dole has a firm scientific foundation, having earned degrees in mathematics and biophysics from UC Berkeley. While there, he developed a deep interest in the “deeper” questions, such as “Why are we here? Who am I? Is there meaning to life?”. Consequently, he joined a meditation teacher, Eknath Easwaran, and was a founding member of his spiritual community, Ramagiri Ashram (the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation), based on the intense practice of meditation and the study of all the world’s religions’ mystical traditions – while living and practicing within, but working outside the ashram as a scientist, software engineer, and entrepreneur. After several decades he also became interested in the healing arts, and graduated from the Lomi School of Somatics, then massage school, and finally left the ashram and the high-tech world and worked as a master bodyworker and massage therapist for over 10 years. In this period, he developed a passion for searching out the “healing miracles”, and eventually found shamanism – healing of the spiritual basis of disease. He studied with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies and completed most of their programs, including the advanced 3-Year training. Then he studied with indigenous shamans and healers in various traditions, including Tuva (Siberia), Tibet, Hawaii, Africa, the Celtic lands, and Norse traditions. Along with his wife Anne Hatfield, he has been teaching shamanic healing and seeing clients for healing, though recently he is taking an extended sabbatical. (Throughout all this, he has nurtured a deep love and appreciation of nature – many summers as a guide, a student of Tom Brown Jr and Jon Young, and still hiking the hills of Sonoma County whenever he has time…).
Stuart Dole
Trustee