About Your Hosts, Ayal & Hawk Hurst
Ayal Hurst
Ayal Hurst
Ayal Hurst
- Ayal is an accredited Reiki Master, Spiritual Counselor, Intuitive Healer, and Shamanic Practitioner. For over forty years she has offered personal healing sessions, seminars, and workshops in order to share the knowledge and healing methods she has studied and integrated.
- Ayal has studied and integrated a wide variety of healing modalities, including Polarity Therapy, Life Dance, Reiki, Hypnotherapy, Massage, Meditation, Energetic Healing, Healing Touch, Flower Essence & Aura-soma Therapy, Jungian Archetypal Therapy, Continuum, Shamanism, & Soul Retrieval.
- Ayal has studied with Hank Wesselman, Sun Bear, Sandra Ingerman, Swami Kriyananda, Yogi Bhajan, Drunvalo, Gregg Braden, & Brooke Medicine Eagle, employing what she has learned from each to create her own, unique method of healing. She trusts the journey each soul is here to make and holds a deeply healing space in order for each person to discover their own answers, find their own path, and discover the power of their own Heart.
- Ayal is the author of Clearing the Way, an online question and answer site in which she responds to personal questions from people worldwide, regarding what underlying causes may be creating illness, distress, or disharmony in their lives.
- A multi-media artist, Ayal loves to create mythical and magical paintings and images, using a mixture of collage and acrylic, a technique she is happy to share with others. Some of her paintings can be seen at Homestead Retreat.
Hawk Hurst
Ayal Hurst
Ayal Hurst
- For three decades, Hawk has offered a wide range of cultural arts performances and artist-in-residency programs focused on ancient living skills, storytelling, and the environment.
- Hawk has served as a lead naturalist and folk artist at the Green River Preserve - a natural science summer camp, located near Tuxedo, NC. He has taught at a variety of other programs including the Earthskills Rendezvous, Firefly Gathering, Piedmont Earthskills, and more.
- Hawk has authored two children's books, The Story of the First Flute and The Way of the Forest, as well as having recording nine storytelling and musical CD's, two with the award-winning band, Sapien.
- Hawk’s educational background includes a Masters of Science degree in Environmental Education from Lesley College and the Audubon Expedition Institute, as well as undergraduate degrees in Psychology and Political Science from the University of Oklahoma.
- Hawk's greatest joys include sharing time with his wife and his grandchildren, handcrafting flutes and drums, tending the organic gardens and honey bees, and rambling in the wild places he is fortunate to occasionally find himself.
- In the mid '90's, Hawk and Ayal co-founded Silver Water Retreat, a 220 acre Outdoor Educational Center located near Boone, North Carolina. There they offered a variety of healing, environmental, and educational programs, including E.A.R.T.H. Summer Camp.