Shannon M.D. Smith

Project Manager

Shannon is a ritualist, dancer, writer, facilitator, traveler, administrator and life long student. Former posts have included serving as the Administrative Coordinator for the Dairy Center for the Arts in Boulder, CO and as Registrar, Program Coordinator and Senior Manager at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine (PCOM) in New York for five years. At PCOM, she served on the Student Advisement Committee (SAC), Curriculum Advisement Committee (CAC), as an administrative liaison with the Student Council for community initiatives, as well as, an advisor to all AOS, MSAc and MSTOM program students.

She holds a BFA from SUNY Purchase and has taught contemporary dance technique and contemplative movement including authentic movement and contact improvisation. Her work has evolved to include cultural and spiritual studies from around the world whose energetic and archetypal maps have informed perspectives on trauma and the sacred body. Shannon has found a calling working for the water. She has been a contributor to Passionate Waters, participated in Global Water Dances since 2013 and most recently founded Women of the Water, an organization dedicated to supporting the international efforts of those rising up to work for the water giving special attention to women finding their voices in leadership. Since 2018, Shannon has been engaged in field research at sacred sites in Ireland and throughout Europe exploring the emerging study into Re-Indigenization through restoration of ancestral wisdom and the Celtic mythos.

In 2021, Shannon completed a two year women’s ministerial program dedicated to developing our relationship with land and sacred sites under Trish Cameron, is a registered celebrant of the Temple of Éiriú – Celtic Tradition and is presently a candidate for solemniser.  She also completed the inaugural Embodied Social Justice program – weaving mindfulness, embodiment and social justice – under the direction of Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Dr. Sará King and Dr. Rae Johnson. These concurrent tracks of study contribute to the ‘both / and’ work of embodied decolonization, re-rooting in authentic ancestral wisdom and Recentering – the process by which we decentralize the culture of domination and build a new culture of relationships and reciprocity for generations to come.

Shannon has been a registered celebrant with the City of New York since 2008 and has been on the team of the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary since September of 2016.