Jonathan Merritt is a mara’akame, a traditional shamanic healer in the lineage of the Huichol people of Mexico’s Western Sierra Madre. Jonathan has been walking this healing path for twenty-four years. After a six-year apprenticeship under the guidance don Eliot Cowan, he was initiated in a traditional ritual by the great Huichol healer, don Jose de la Cruz Sandoval. He belongs to El Grupo Tatewari, a circle of Western Mara’akate who work together under the leadership and teaching of don David Wiley to deepen our path and perspective, to bring healing and wise counsel to our people.
Healing in the Huichol tradition addresses the spiritual roots of illness and works to restore balance in our lives. As a Western mara’akame, Jonathan provides healing and wise counsel for physical maladies as well as spiritual illnesses, such as isolation, disconnection and dislocation, depression, spiritual emptiness, lack of meaning and purpose, that don’t commonly exist among the Huichols.
Jonathan is also an initiated Fire Keeper under the auspices of Sacred Fire (www.sacredfire.org). Married with three children, he keeps a Community Sacred Fire in Portland, Oregon.