Elder Kaia Svien

Elder Kaia Svien is a ceremonialist, a meditation instructor, a mentor, spiritual guide, cultural healer, and community activist. Her strengths include assisting people in developing lovingkindness and compassion towards themselves and others. She is especially interested in working with people who have a passion for community service. Her own passion lies in manifesting the essence of the Divine Feminine in daily practice and as guide for our passage through the environmental changes ahead. She brings unique skills as a creative thinker and idea generator, risk-taker, gentle trickster, and compassionate affirmer of people's current essence and potential for growth.

Elder Kaia began her studies of European-American Ancient Wisdom with Selena Fox in Mt Horeb, WI, in the 1980s and has continued them with Starhawk, Antiga, Spiderwimmin, colleagues at the Powderhorn/Phillips Cultural Wellness Center, and other regional and national teachers. She has also studied hypnosis, guided imagery, Reiki, and Mindell's Process Therapy. In the mindfulness realm, she has trained with Jon Kabat-Zinn, Thich Nhat Hanh as well as many regional teachers, and has followed the teachings of Pema Chodron and Jack Kornfield. Currently she is pursuing studies with Joanna Macy of the Great Turning. She also co-designed and facilitates A Year of Living Mindfully, a course combining mindfulness meditation and seasonal wisdom, as well as advanced mindfulness courses on working with difficult emotions and peacemaking.

Elder Kaia's original profession is as an educator for thirty-four years as a Learning Disabilities Specialist for adolescents and adults, and she has worked in a range of settings including the University of Minnesota, the LDA Reading and Math Clinic, private practice, two women's prisons, and various hospitals and corporate settings. Her most thrilling work as an educator has been supporting those who learn differently, focusing on finding their gifts and strengths rather than on their failings in the traditional learning system. She co-founded and co-directed a non-profit clinic for people with learning disabilities as well as HECLD (Higher Education Consortium on Learning Disabilities, a model now used in several states), designed study skills seminars and assessment tools for college and secondary students who learn differently, and taught on various topics related to whole-brain learning, self-esteem building, and study skills. Kaia has published papers in two academic journals, and co-founded and co-edited the Consortium for Whole Brain Learning, an international newsletter.

As a cultural teacher, Elder Kaia co-designed and lead the first public ritual at the Take Back the Night March in Minneapolis in 1980, and since then has participated in national and local peace marches, with some arrests, sometimes as media spokesperson. She also designed and implemented the Iraq Photo Project, a community response of photos and messages to the people of Iraq on the torture of Iraqis by US military.

As a ritualist, Elder Kaia has developed and facilitated cultural wisdom classes, and facilitated many ceremonies for individuals and groups seeking multi-dimensional ways to mark life's transitions, honor Earth and find life-meaning. She has been honored for her ability to create sacred space though the making the altars and has written a series for a metro newspapers on creating ritual. In 1999 she published her first novel, To Follow the Moon, a story drawn from the Wisdom Ways of European Americans. Elder Kaia has been invited and embraced the role of elder in her community.

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