Laura Gunion
Laura believes that humans have tremendous potential, much of it hidden from our strategic and logical inquiries. As a mentor, guide, coach, and naturalist, it is both her privilege and responsibility to accompany others as they summon the courage to participate in these times from their true nature. She sees and notices thresholds, inviting people to consider the importance and beauty of things falling away and dying before something else comes into life. This is important, not only for ourselves, but also to create conditions that will benefit future generations. She insists on bringing the soulful and sacred into daily living. Her curiosity, acute listening, and precise questioning call people towards living boldly and courageously. Laura was profoundly shaped by relationships formed over 20 years at Wilderness Awareness School as a full-time instructor/mentor. Laura attended her first Animas program in 2006 where she was fascinated and perplexed by what she was experiencing, stoking the flames of curiosity that still burn brightly. She lives in the woods above Duvall, WA where she shares land with Bewick’s Wren, black bear, honey bees, raven, her husband, their cat, amazing neighbors, and many other wild ones.
Events with Laura Gunion
Into the Dark Womb - An Animas Quest for Women - April, 2025April 9 - 20, 2025
Women, do you hear a great love call singing within your bones? A call from the earth, the cosmos and the ancestors, asking you to fully inhabit your true place within the earth community and protect the web of life? We invite you to join us in Washington for a contemporary Western enactment of the ancient, pan-cultural vision fast ceremony and wilderness rite. This is a unique ceremonial gathering designed specifically and intentionally for women-identified humans seeking greater connection, depth, and clarity about life purpose and meaning. This Quest is intended to serve as a portal through which women might…
Sweet Darkness - October, 2025October 7 - 12, 2025
The application deadline for this program is July 1st. Please submit your application and our guides will be in touch with you after that date. SWEET DARKNESS: The Initiatory Gifts of the Shadow, Projections, Subpersonalities, and the Sacred Wound is Animas Valley Institute’s most intense six-day immersion. Accordingly, we require that people have participated in previous Animas programs before applying to Sweet Darkness. During Sweet Darkness, we will do some Core Wound work but first we will gather our four facets of wholeness — internal resources that support us in traveling effectively into uncharted territory. Then we will experientially enter the realm of our greatest vulnerabilities and core sensitivities. Through…